In the Evil Day

65

… HAMBURG…

They sat in the Mercedes, parked at almost exactly the same place as the first time.

‘When?’ said Anselm.

‘Four forty-five,’ said Fat Otto. ‘A few minutes.’

Otto liked to speak English. He had once worked in England, in restaurants.

Under the ashen, dying sky, the lake was still, pewter, mist on the far shore. A lone swan came into view, imperious in its bearing.

The words came to Anselm from his father and he said, ‘And always I think of my friend who/amid the apparition of bombs/saw on the lyric lake/the single perfect swan.’

Fat Otto looked at him. ‘What?’

‘Edwin Rolfe. A poem.’

Fat Otto looked away, looked at his watch.

‘He almost missed this appointment,’ he said.

‘Who?’

‘Serrano. There was trouble about the hotel safe.’

Anselm’s mind had turned to Alex, the Italianate face, the full lower lip she sometimes bit when she was listening.

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Something about the keys.’

‘What’s that got to do with Serrano?’

Fat Otto’s mobile rang. He listened.

‘Ja. Ja, alles okay.

’ ‘Serrano’s getting on,’ he said.

‘What have the keys got to do with Serrano?’

‘His briefcase was in the safe. He couldn’t get it while they were arguing about the keys.’

‘Briefcase? The same one?’

‘No, he has another.’ Otto looked at his watch again. ‘Paul has to get close with this new gadget.’

Anselm’s mind had returned to Alex but something passed over his skin like a touch, like walking into a cobweb, cold.

Serrano’s briefcase in the safe. Trouble over the safe keys.

Bruynzeel dead.

There was something wrong here.

‘Ring Tilders,’ he said. ‘Tell him not to get on.’

Fat Otto opened his mouth.

‘Do it,’ said Anselm. ‘Now.’

Fat Otto closed his mouth, tapped a number into his mobile.

Anselm watched Otto’s face. Otto’s eyes flashed at him, away.

Anselm’s mouth was dry. Something very wrong.

‘It’s off,’ said Otto. ‘He’s switched it off. Interference, he’s scared of that.’

Anselm closed his eyes. He felt sweat on his forehead, his skin was prickling, the car felt intolerably hot.

‘Was ist los?’

Otto was looking at him. Anselm shook his head. ‘Eine Vorahnung. Nur einen Augenblick lang.

’ Otto shrugged. ‘I get them too,’ he said. ‘Before plane trips, I always get them.’ He turned his attention to the black box.

They sat and listened to crackling, to static. Anselm was rubbing his fingers, the premonition wouldn’t go away, he felt panic coming.

Sit up straight. Put your hands in your lap, palms up, open. Breathe deeply, breathe regularly.

‘From hearing-aid technology,’ said Fat Otto. ‘And the tuner you wear in your ear, like a hearing aid but tiny, invisible. Cordless. The mikes are in spectacles. Three mikes. You tune until you drop out everything you don’t want. To six or seven metres, phenomenal, the clarity. I heard this couple in Spitalerstrasse talking dirty, whispers, whispering dirty, she said to him…’ ‘This isn’t phenomenal clarity,’ said Anselm.

‘We had no time to test transmitting.’

They sat for a long time listening to crackling and hissing, Fat Otto fiddled, Anselm tried to still his mind, slow the turning of the planet.

Serrano’s briefcase in the safe. The keys to the safe. An argument about the keys to the safe.

Bruynzeel dead. Lourens dead. Falcontor. Credit Raceberg.

‘The transmitter,’ said Fat Otto. ‘Still, we’ll have it. Probably.’

The ferry came into view, sliding on glass, windows aglow, in the last moments of the day.

Anselm felt the panic recede. The beating in his chest was less insistent, his pulse rate was falling. He opened his mouth and his jaw muscles made a noise, relief from the clenching.

Kael’s dark-blue Mercedes was in the same spot fifty metres from the landing, the driver leaning against it, looking at a hand, his nails, bored.

Calm. Anselm felt it come, his mouth was moist again, the salivary glands working.

All that troubled the lake was the ferry’s wake, the chevron, corrugations expanding, dissipating.

The lyric lake.

Only the swan missing, alone and perfect. The swan had come along too early.

They would have to go somewhere to listen to Tilders’ tape, ensure that there was something to listen to, that this hadn’t been a complete fuck-up. Or they could listen in the car. This would have to be a separate bill, a private bill, this was not O’Malley work, O’Malley had his freezable assets, he had what he wanted. Not a bill, no, ask Tilders to name an amount for this evening’s work, pay him in cash. Tilders would be impassive. But there would be something in his eyes.

In the distance, another Mercedes, black, parked illegally, there was no parking there. A wife, a driver, picking up the weary financial analyst, not parking, just waiting.

The day was dwindling, the far shore dark now.

Fat Otto switched off the noise, the crackling, the sibilance.

‘We have to work on this,’ he said.

Anselm ran hands up and down his cheeks, heard the sawing of the beard. He would ask Fat Otto for a lift to Alex’s.

When they had heard the tape.

He thought about unbuttoning the shirt. She always wore shirts. Kissing the lower lip that she bit. Biting it for her.

He felt in his groin the possibility of an erection, perhaps more than a possibility. He moved his thighs apart, made room for possibility. The ferry was about to dock, a handful of people waiting.

‘An experiment,’ said Fat Otto. ‘Better next time.’

‘Yes,’ said Anselm.

Movement inside the ferry. Passengers getting up.

There was a sound, not loud.

The ferry lit up inside.

Light red as blood, dark streaks in it.

A hole appeared in the ferry roof, a huge scarlet spear through the roof.

The ferry lifted, not high, came down, settled on the water, listed, burning inside.

‘Um Gottes Willen,’ said Otto. ‘Um Gottes Willen.’

Anselm was out of the car and running for the landing when he looked for the black Mercedes.

It was gone.