In the Evil Day

63

…HAMBURG…

‘Falcontor. Forty million dollars in two years, 1983–1984. Six million dollars three times, one payment of seven million. All from a bank in the Antilles.’

O’Malley tapped the side of his nose with a long finger. The envelope with Carla’s report lay on the table unopened. ‘More,’ he said, ‘tell me much more.’

They were in the pub off Sierichstrasse, sitting in the corner. It was the post-lunch lull, only four or five other tables in use, young men in suits drinking the last of their wine. O’Malley was wearing a dark-grey suit and a blue shirt and a red tie dotted with tiny black castles.

‘It’s not simple,’ said Anselm. ‘Money in the Antilles bank goes into Falcontor. Money goes from there to the account of something called Raceberg Credit. Raceberg lends the money moved from Falcontor to five accounts. One is a Dr C.W. Lourens, one account in Johannesburg, one in Jersey.’

Anselm waited. O’Malley blinked, didn’t comment.

‘This is the Lourens of whom Serrano and Kael speak so warmly,’ said Anselm. ‘I presume that. Dangerous drug fiend. Now departed.’

O’Malley looked away, at the window, at the street beyond, at nothing. He had a half-smile, like someone hearing music he liked.

‘Presume away,’ he said.

‘Then there’s a South African company called Ashken Research, also a big receiver, Johannesburg bank account. And a Bruynzeel account in a Brussels bank. Plus a Swiss account, which could belong to anyone.’

Their drinks came, delivered by a dark woman, slim, swift, wearing a waistcoat over a white shirt. Beer from Dresden, pils. They drank.

‘Cowbarn?’ said O’Malley.

He forgot nothing.

Anselm shook his head in pity. ‘This is civilised beer, northern beer.’

‘These banks, they offer much resistance?’

‘Only the Swiss. Total resistance.’

‘Secretive bastards.’

O’Malley drank again, a good inch, and wiped his lips with a paper napkin. ‘A little mannered for me, this drop. But otherwise you’re cooking with gas.’

‘Not all good news. The Johannesburg accounts, no electronic records before 1992. Jersey and Brussels, scanned all paper accounts still active. So we have those Lourens and Bruynzeel transactions.’

‘Yes?’

‘Lourens. Twelve million through the Jersey account. Most of it spent on properties. Four in England, one in France.’

O’Malley held up his right hand. ‘In what name?’

‘In the name of Johanna Lourens.’

O’Malley closed his eyes and smiled, a look of bliss. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘He has two English accounts, that’s been shopping money. About a million, it’s in the report.’

‘The properties. Currently held?’

‘Unless she’s sold and parked the money somewhere else.’

‘What’s the detail?’

‘Enough for you to drive by and see what the doctor’s money bought.’

O’Malley put his head back and made a humming sound through his nose. He brought his chin down and said, ‘No doubt this little tavern would run to a decent bottle of champagne.’

‘Who paid Lourens this kind of money?’

‘Ours not to wonder,’ said O’Malley. ‘I feel the lovely chill of frozen assets coming on. And I taste Krug. Krugish, I feel Krugish. Join me?’

Anselm wasn’t sure how to go on. He looked out of the window, he could see a piece of sky, nicotine-tinted grey. Across the street, a silversmith’s display window glowed like a square-cut jewel. There was a burst of sound and the street was full of brightly coloured children tethered to young women: a nearby kindergarten had released the inmates into the custody of their mothers.

‘I’ll pass for the moment,’ said Anselm. ‘The film Serrano and Kael talk about, the one Lourens found…’

‘Pass? I say again, Krug.’

‘The man who’s got the film, he’s in England. People are trying to kill him.’

O’Malley tilted his head, his poet’s head, ran a hand over the poodle curls. ‘You learned this in your professional capacity, did you?’

He was saying: Do you tell other people about my business?

Anselm said, ‘Do you know what Eleven Seventy means?’

‘Eleven Seventy.’ Not a question, just a repetition.

‘Serrano said Lourens told him someone came to him with a film. Dynamite, he said. He said, tell them it’s Eleven Seventy, they’ll fucking understand. And then Serrano said, that was when he wanted us to go to the Americans.’

‘I thought you had memory problems?’ said O’Malley. He finished his beer, looked into the glass. ‘Sure about the Krug?’

‘A village in Angola. Wiped out. Does that have meaning?’

O’Malley looked up and sighed. ‘Boyo, villages get the chop all the time. Afghanistan, Burundi, Macedonia, Iraq, a man can’t keep track. They go, villages, that is the historical fate of villages. Across the centuries, they go more than they come.’

‘This particular one.’

‘No. It has no meaning.’

Anselm looked into the pale blue eyes and he thought, I don’t know what this answer means. I don’t know what he thinks about anything.

I’ve never seen beyond his eyes.

‘I’ve got to get back,’ Anselm said. ‘Instructions?’

O’Malley tapped the envelope. ‘When I’ve read it. Tell your crack team I’ll be sending around a little something of appreciation if this bears fruit.’

Anselm was getting up.

‘Sit for a moment.’

He sat.

‘I say this en passant,’ said O’Malley. He was inserting his car key into the envelope, concentrating.

‘Yes?’

‘Lourens is messy. Even after death.’

He didn’t look up, ran the key through the yellow paper, slowly.

‘These smart boys,’ said O’Malley. ‘They had a lot of money lying around doing nothing, this is pre-Mandela South Africa. So they lent some to Lourens. Well, not to him personally, to a company owned by his wife, it’s registered in the UK. Lourens is a chemist by training and he promised them big returns. Some story about a breakthrough drug delivery system. Well, they got bugger all, then the big white dream-time ended. These boys waited till the new mob, bribed to the earlobes, let them shift their ill-gotten out of the country and they were gone. They’re in Australia now, big in bio-tech, cutting edge in the fight against snoring, hot flushes, jock itch. Also manufacturing, they’re applying the old South African talents to a new labour force, chaining the Asian poor to the wheel.’

‘They sold you the debt.’

‘A fully documented debt. My point is, the Sud-Afs were scared of Lourens. One of the charmers said, this is after we’ve done the deal, bought the debt, he says, good luck and sooner you than me, pal, they call you pal this lot, he says Lourens is poison himself and he’s been in bed with even more dangerous people.’

O’Malley had the report out, looking at the first page. ‘That’s it,’ he said.

‘Thanks for the background.’

Without looking up, O’Malley said, ‘You aren’t a journalist anymore, John. That part of your life is over.’

Anselm walked down fume-acrid Sierichstrasse, thinking about what had been. Once his trade had been going to sad and violent places and telling their stories, telling stories of death and barbarism, selling the stories.

The occupation seemed to have chosen him and it was without glamour or reward. Still, there was a certain dirty-faced dignity and pride in being the person who went where other people didn’t want to go, asked questions they wouldn’t ask, saw things they would rather not see.

But that was gone forever. He didn’t need O’Malley to tell him what he wasn’t.

Kaskis once said of a famous New York Times reporter, ‘Covers wars from his hotel room. The dog’s gun-shy.’

Gun-shy, that’s what he was. He should leave Lourens and Niemand and films of Angolan villages alone.

As he walked down the howling street, he rubbed his useless fingers. My dead bits, he thought, the bits visibly and tangibly dead.