In the Evil Day

55

…HAMBURG…

‘Lafarge rang,’ said Inskip. ‘They’ve added a name.’

Anselm took the file. He was feeling light-headed.

Jessica Thomas, born 1975, an address in Battersea, London. Inskip had filled in her electronic record.

‘It’s the woman on the motorbike,’ said Inskip. ‘The one who picked up Niemand. We could have been running her long ago.’

‘Orders,’ said Anselm. ‘We await orders.’

‘I thought initiative was what you liked?’

‘After the orders, that’s when I like it.’

‘Tilders left this for you five minutes ago.’

A sealed pouch. A tape.

‘May I know what Tilders does?’

‘Outdoor work. Heavy lifting.’

‘Thank you. Another veil lifted. Whatever he does, it gives him an air of sadness.’

‘He comes across a lot of saddening things. Also he’s tired. That can give you a sad air.’

Anselm went to Carla’s workstation. She swivelled her chair and rested her hands on her thighs. ‘We have had some luck,’ she said.

Behind her two monitors had lines of green code on their black screens.

‘Serrano’s bank. Very careless for people who deal in secrets.

Everything’s outdated. I find on their log that four years ago they transmitted a large amount of data to a bank in Andorra. Gonzalez Gardemann.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Back-up, I suppose. I can’t find any links but Gonzalez may be the same operation under another name.’

‘Even so, you’d normally send information like that by hand from one stand-alone system to another.’

Carla shrugged. ‘As I said, careless. Perhaps a salesperson convinced them the encryption was safe. Or someone inside the company wanted to compromise their data. There are other possibilities.’ There would be. Someone from the BND would know that. Deceit without end. Seamless deceit.

‘The point is,’ said Carla, ‘Gonzalez are equally stupid. Instead of moving the data to a stand-alone, they have left it where we can reach it. Their firewall is a joke, their encryption is hopeless. First generation. My Canadian cracked it like a walnut.’

She raised her arms above her head, entwined her fingers, stretched.

Anselm waited for her knuckles to crack. She was looking at him, she had a look about her lips. She knew he was waiting for the sound.

She smiled. Her fingers slid apart, her arms came down.

‘The numbers on the documents you gave me,’ she said.

The pages from the Hauptbahnhof, from Serrano’s case.

‘Yes?’

‘One set worked. It must be the bank’s code for Serrano.’

‘And?’

‘It’s one big file, hundreds of transactions. Some small, some big. I need to put the figures we have through them.’

‘How long?’

‘An hour perhaps. This has taken time. You may wish to tell the client.’

‘Yes. Your work is greatly valued. As always.’

She looked down, the glossy hair fell across her forehead like a dark comb sliding. ‘Thank you. And may I say thank you for the bonus?’

‘No, not me. It’s the client’s reward for your work.’

She turned her head to the monitors and she said, ‘Nun, wir sollten uns eine Flasche Champagner teilen.’

Anselm didn’t register for a moment that she’d spoken to him in German. She had never spoken to him in German since the introductions on her first day.

She hadn’t turned her body away from him, only her head.

She was asking him out. The words, the language of her body.

‘So bald wie moglich,’ he said.

Carla turned her head and looked into his eyes and nodded. No smile.

He went back to his office and opened Tilders’ pouch. An audiotape and a sticker with the logbook code DT/HH /361/02 and the words: Bruynzeel amp; Speelman Chemicals. It was Serrano at his hotel. A direct line.

Yes?

Serrano.

Yes?

This is worse than I thought. Our friend, have you got any anxiety there?

Me? Anxiety? What about?

Records he might have kept.

From me, nothing. Otherwise, how would I know?

Speaking in German, neither of them native speakers.

Would he keep his own records?

Well, he wasn’t mad then.

He wouldn’t?

I don’t know. He might have. He was semi-government. Governments like records.

I must ask you again. This film, does it mean anything?

A silence.

I could guess but I don’t want to.

What are we talking about?

Nothing.

You know what it could be?

What are you? The tax department? Forget it.

The Jews are putting pressure on us. They want our dealings with you too.

Silence. Then Serrano said:

Are you there?

They want what?

Records. Anything. Everything.

You have records?

No.

Well, just shut up. It’s all bluff. These things pass. Just keep your mouth shut.Trilling’s connections, there’s no problem.

You can talk to him?

I’ll see. Things in the past, no one wants to talk about the past.

This is in the present. Talk to him. About the Jews, I thought you were close to them?

Silence again, then the other man said:

Werner Kael gets close to his customers, does he? Who’s spoken to you?

He’s using the name Spence.

Yes, I know him. Kael would know him.

Kael says they want to rub us out and they want the assets.

Probably correct. If the Jews think something can damage them, they scorch the earth. But first they take the wheat. They must think you are hiding the wheat.

Nonsense. Talk to Trilling. I’ll ring later.

Ring tonight. Don’t worry so much. People are in deep here, it has to go away.

Serrano sighed.

We don’t want to be put away.

The other man laughed.

You personally can relax. They never put the accountants away. They should but they don’t.

Anselm rang O’Malley on the new number. In his view, he could see that the sun was out, the lake was strewn with glitter. A glass tourist boat caught the light.