“Yes, Günther?”
“The Brits want the same as we do,” he said. “Without us.”
On the phone, Ian Lantern couldn’t have been sweeter, Brue had to hand it to him. He was apologetic, he fully accepted that Tommy had a frightfully busy schedule and he wouldn’t dream of trespassing on it for the world except that London was breathing down his neck.
“I can’t say any more on the open line, unfortunately. I need a one-to-one with you by yesterday, Tommy. An hour should do it. Just tell me where and when.”
No fool, Brue was at first guarded. “Would this be on the same matter that we discussed at length over lunch, by any chance?” he suggested, not giving an inch.
“Related. Not totally, but near. The past rearing its ugly head again. But unthreatening. Nothing to anyone’s discredit. Actually to your advantage. One hour and you’re off the hook.”
Reassured, Brue glanced at his diary, although he didn’t need to. Wednesday was Mitzi’s opera night. She and Bernhard both had abonnements. For Brue it was cold cuts from the fridge or supper and a game of snooker at the Anglo-German: on Wednesdays he could take his pick.
“Would seven-fifteen at my house be any good to you?” He started to give the address but Lantern cut him short.
“Fab, Tommy. I’ll be on the dot.”
And he was. With a car and driver waiting outside. And flowers for Mitzi. And that damned smile he kept in place while he sipped sparkling water with ice and a slice of lemon.
“No, I’ll stand, if you don’t mind, thanks,” he said affably when Brue offered him a chair. “Three hours flat out on the autobahn, it’s nice to stretch the old legs.”
“You should try the train.”
“Yes, I should, shouldn’t I?”
So Brue remained standing too, with his hands behind his back, and what he hoped was the courteous but huffy air of a busy man who has been intruded upon in his own house, and is entitled to an explanation.
“We’re very tight on time, Tommy, like I said, so I’ll describe the predicament you’re in first, and after that perhaps we can take a look at the predicament we’re in. Are you comfortable with that?”
“Please yourself.”
“I do terror, by the way. I don’t think we mentioned that over lunch, did we?”
“I don’t think we did.”
“Oh, and don’t worry about Mitzi. If she and her boyfriend decide to chuck it in at the interval, my lads will be the first to tell us. Why don’t you sit yourself down and finish up that whisky you were drinking?”
“I’m fine as I am, thank you.”
Lantern was disappointed about this, but he went on anyway.
“Not a very nice feeling it was, I can tell you, Tommy, hearing from my German opposite number that, far from being ignorant of the whereabouts of one Issa Karpov, you’d sat up half a night with him in the company of witnesses. That left us looking a bit stupid. It’s not as if we didn’t ask you, is it?”
“You asked me to inform you in the event that he made a claim. He had not made a claim. He still hasn’t.”
Lantern took Brue’s point, as he would from an older man, but it was clear that he wasn’t wholly satisfied all the same. “There was a lot of information out there, frankly, that you possessed and we could have done with. It would have put us ahead of the game, instead of having to eat a very large helping of humble pie.”
“What game?”
Lantern’s smile became faintly regretful. “No comment, I’m afraid. It’s need-to-know in our business, Tommy.”
“It is in mine too.”
“We’ve conducted a small study on your motivation, actually, Tommy. Us and London. Your family background, the daughter by the first wife—Georgie, is it—daughter to Sue? Nobody could quite understand why you two split up, which is sad, I always think. A kind of death really, unnecessary divorce is, in my opinion. My parents never got over it, I know that. Neither did I, I suppose, in a way. Anyway, she’s pregnant, which is nice. Georgie is. You must be very chuffed.”
“What the hell are you drooling about? Mind your bloody business, can’t you?”
“It’s only us trying to sort out just why you were quite as obstructive as you were, Tommy, and what you were protecting. Or who. Was it just yourself? we asked ourselves. Or Brue Frères? Was it young Karpov: Did you take a shine to him one way or the other? I mean that was some lying, Tommy. You really had us fooled. Talk about grudging admiration.”
“I seem to recall that you weren’t exactly overgenerous with the truth yourselves.”
Lantern chose not to hear this. “However,” he continued blithely, “once we had taken a look at the somewhat dicky state of Brue Frères’s finances, and made a rough calculation of what old Karpov must have stashed away, we felt we understood you better: Ah, that’s what Tommy’s about! He’s hoping that old Karpov’s millions are going to see him very nicely into his old age. No wonder he doesn’t want anybody claiming them. Would you like to comment on that at all?”
“Why don’t we just assume you’re right?” Brue snapped. “Then get out of my house.”
Lantern’s young smile widened in sympathy. “Can’t do that, Tommy, I’m afraid. Nor can you, if you follow me. Plus there’s a young lady in the case, we hear.”
“Nonsense. I have no young lady. Utter drivel. Unless you’re referring to the boy’s lawyer”—desperately pretending to search his mind—“Frau Richter. Russian speaker. Representing his asylum application and so on.”
“Quite a dish too, judging from all we hear. If you like them small, which I do.”
“I hadn’t noticed. I’m afraid that at my age my eye for the ladies isn’t what it used to be.”
Pondering Brue’s need to make a disowning reference to his age at this moment, Lantern strolled to the sideboard and in the most relaxed manner poured himself more sparkling water.
“So that’s your predicament, Tommy, which I shall expand upon further in due course. But meantime, I’d like to acquaint you with my predicament, which frankly, thanks to you, is not much better than yours. May I?”
“May you what?”
“I just told you. Describe the depth of the crock of shit you’ve landed us in. Are you listening or not?”
“Of course I am.”
“Good. Because tomorrow morning at nine o’clock exactly, here in Hamburg, I shall be walking into an extremely delicate and highly secret meeting of which the subject will be none other than Issa Karpov, whom you pretended you had never set eyes on. Whereas you had.”
He had become somebody else: didactic, unstoppable and Napoleonic, his voice striking at unexpected words like notes on a badly tuned piano.
“And at that meeting, Tommy, where thanks to you I expect to have my back somewhat against the wall, I need—my office needs—all of us who are trying to do the right thing in this extremely delicate situation—London, the Germans, plus other friendly services I will not bother to mention at this juncture need—that you, Mr. Tommy Brue of Brue Frères Bank—being a good British patriot and an avowed enemy of terrorism—are not only prepared but keen to collaborate with me in any manner, shape or form, as dictated by this top secret operation, of which pro tem at least you will remain totally ignorant. My question therefore to you is: Am I right? Will you collaborate, or will you as before obstruct us in the war on terror?”
He allowed Brue no time to fire back. He had ceased to bark and was already commiserating.
“You see, quite apart from your goodwill, Tommy, which is what we’re appealing to here, look at what’s against you. You’re one small step from the Receiver, even without a charge of money laundering. Plus what the Germans might have to say about a British resident banker playing footsie with a known Islamic terrorist on the run, which doesn’t bear thinking about. You’re fucked. So why not come quietly and enjoy it? See what I mean? I’m not sure I’m getting through to you. Want me to talk about Annabel?”
“So it’s blackmail,” Bru
e suggested.
“Stick-and-carrot, Tommy. If we bring it off, the bank’s past sins forgotten, a more friendly opinion of you in the City and Brue Frères will live to fight another day. What could be fairer than that?”
“And the boy?”
“Who?”
“Issa.”
“Ah. Right. Your altruistic bit. Well, that will depend on how well you play your part, naturally. He’s German property of course. We can’t interfere with their sovereignty, basically they’ll have to decide. But nobody’s going to hang him out to dry after this, no way. Nobody around here does that.”
“And Frau Richter? What’s she supposed to have done?”
“Annabel. Oh, she’s in shit too, theoretically: consorting with him, spiriting him out of sight, getting her rocks off with him probably.”
“I asked you what will become of her.”
“No, you didn’t. You asked what she’d done. I told you. What they’ll do with her is anyone’s guess. Dust her off and put her back on her feet, if they’ve got any sense. She’s frighteningly well connected, as I’m sure you know.”
“I didn’t.”
“Top lawyer family, old established, German foreign service, titles they don’t use. Estates in Freiburg. Slap her wrist and send her home, be my advice, the way this country operates.”
“So I’m to give you a blank check on my services, is that what you’re saying?”
“Well, it pretty much is, frankly, Tommy. You sign on the dotted line, we let bygones be bygones and move forward together proactively. And recognize we’re doing a great, worthwhile job. Not just for us. For all of them out there, as we say in the trade.”
And extraordinarily to Brue, there was indeed a document to be signed, and on examination it had many of the aspects of a blank check. It was contained in a thick brown envelope residing inside Lantern’s jacket, and it committed Brue to unspecific “work of national importance” and drew his attention to the many draconian clauses of the Official Secrets Act, and to the penalties awaiting him if he transgressed them. Mystified by himself, he peered first at Lantern, then round the sunroom in search of help. Not finding any, he signed.
Lantern had gone.
Transfixed with anger, too angry even to finish his scotch as Lantern had so thoughtfully suggested, Brue stood in his own hall, staring at the closed front door. His eye fell on the bouquet of flowers that lay, still in their tissue, on the hall table. He picked them up, sniffed them, put them back where they came from.
Gardenias. Mitzi’s favorite. Decent florist. No skinflint, our Ian, not when he’s lashing out his government’s money.
Why had he brought them? To show he knew? Knew what? That gardenias were Mitzi’s favorite? The way they knew that I ate fish at La Scala? And how to get Mario to open up for Monday lunch?
Or to show he didn’t know—that she had gone to the opera with her lover, which of course he did know; but then in the logic of his trade, what you know is what you pretend you don’t. So officially he didn’t.
And Annabel? Oh, she’s in shit too.
Brue was not of a mind to credit much of what Lantern had said, but he believed that bit. For four days and nights he had contemplated every which way of getting in touch with her discreetly: a hand-delivered note to Sanctuary North, via the Frères courier; a bland message to her office machine or cell phone.
But out of delicacy—Lantern’s word—or plain cowardice, however you parsed it, he’d held off. At all odd moments in the office, when his mind was supposed to be on high finance, he’d catch himself, chin in hand, gazing at his telephone, willing it to ring. It hadn’t.
And now, exactly as he had feared, she was in trouble. And no smooth talk from Lantern would persuade him that she was going to slide out of it unscathed. All he needed was the reason to call her and, in his anger, he had hit on it. Lantern can go hang himself. I’ve got a bank to run. And a scotch to finish. He drank it at a draft, and dialed her number on the house line.
“Frau Richter?”
“Yes?”
“This is Brue. Tommy Brue.”
“Hullo, Mr. Brue.”
“Have I caught you at a bad time?”
Judging by her flat tone, he must have done.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Only I thought I’d better call you for two reasons. If you’ve really got a minute. Have you?”
“Yes. Yes, I have. Of course.”
Is she drugged? Bound? Is she taking orders? Consulting someone before she answers?
“My first reason—I don’t want to go into details over the phone, obviously—there was a check issued recently. It doesn’t seem to have been paid in anywhere.”
“Things changed,” she said, after another interminable wait.
“Oh? How?”
“We decided on a different set of arrangements.”
We? You and who, actually? You and Issa? It hadn’t seemed that Issa was part of the decision-making process.
“But changed for the better, I trust,” he said, striking an optimistic note.
“Maybe. Maybe not. It’s whatever works, isn’t it?” The same blank tone, a voice from the abyss. “Do you want me to tear it up? Send it back?”
“No, no!”—too emphatic, take it down—“not if there’s a chance you might still have a use for it, of course not. I’d be perfectly happy for you to pay it in while all this is pending, so to speak. And if nothing comes of it, well, pay back whatever part of it you don’t use later.” He hesitated, unsure whether to risk the second reason. “And regarding the other banking question. Have things moved at all on that front?”
No reply.
“I mean, regarding our friend’s presumed entitlement.” He made a stab at humor. “That performing horse we talked about. Whether our friend proposes to take it over.”
“I can’t discuss this yet. I have to talk to him again.”
“Will you call me then?”
“Maybe when I’ve spoken to him some more.”
“And meantime, you’ll pay in that check?”
“Maybe.”
“And you’re all right yourself? No difficulties? Problems? Nothing I could help with, I mean?”
“I’m fine.”
“Good.”
Long silence of both their making. On his side, impotent anxiety; on hers, a seemingly profound indifference.
“So we’ll have a good talk soon?” he suggested, summoning the last of his eagerness.
They would or they wouldn’t. She had rung off. They’re listening, he thought. They’re in the room with her. They’re conducting her choirboy voice.
Her cell phone still in her hand, Annabel sat at the small white writing desk in her old apartment, peering out of the window into the dark street. Behind her, in the only armchair, sat Erna Frey, watchfully sipping her green tea.
“He wants to know whether Issa’s claiming,” Annabel said. “And what happened to his check.”
“And you stalled,” Erna Frey replied approvingly. “Very neatly too, I thought. Perhaps next time he calls, you’ll have better news for him.”
“Better for him? Better for you? Better who for?”
Putting her phone on the desk and her head in her hands, Annabel stared intently at it, as if it held the answers to the universe.
“For all of us, dear,” Erna Frey said, starting to her feet as the cell phone rang a second time. But she was too late. Like an addict, Annabel had already snatched it up and was saying her name.
It was Melik, wanting to say good-bye to her before he and his mother left for Turkey, but also needing to find out how Issa was, because he was feeling guilty.
“Listen, when we come back—you tell my brother—you tell our friend—any time. Okay? As soon as he gets himself tolerated, he’s welcome. He can have his own place back, eat the whole house down. Tell him he’s a great guy, okay? Melik says so. He could knock me cold in one round, okay? Not in the ring, maybe. But out there. Where he’s been. Know
what I’m saying?”
Yes, Melik, I know what you’re saying. And give my love to Leyla. And tell her to have a great wedding, a traditional one. And have a great one yourself, Melik. And long life to your sister and her husband-to-be. Much happiness to them. And come back safe and sound, Melik, be sure to look after your mother, she’s a brave, good woman and she loves you and she was a fine mother to your friend…
And more of the same, until Erna Frey gently prised the cell phone from Annabel’s rigid fingers and switched it off, while her other hand rested tenderly on her shoulder.
11
Neither her disproportionate response to Melik, nor her frigid response to Brue, was an isolated episode in Annabel’s new existence. With each day that passed her spirits lurched between shame, hatred for her handlers, luminous, irrational optimism and sustained periods of uncritical acceptance of her plight.
At the Sanctuary, despite the fact that Herr Werner, under Bachmann’s prompting, had made a duty call to Ursula informing her that the matter of Issa Karpov was no longer of active concern to the authorities, she had adopted a Carmelite silence.
Erna Frey was now her neighbor as well as guardian. Within a day of delivering Annabel to the harbor front by yellow van, she had taken up residence on the ground floor of a steel and concrete Apartotel not a hundred meters away. Bit by bit, the flat became Annabel’s third home. She stopped by before each visit to Issa, and returned afterwards. Sometimes, for comfort, she slept there too, in a children’s bedroom that never went quite dark because of the neon advertisements in the street.
Her twice-daily visits to Issa were no longer risky adventures, but rehearsed pieces of theater under Erna’s meticulous direction and—as the days passed—Bachmann’s also. In the curtained privacy of the little drawing room of the safe flat, singly or together, they briefed her before and after each ascent of the twisted wooden staircase. Old scenes were replayed and analyzed, new ones projected and refined, all with the same intent of persuading Issa to claim his inheritance and rescue himself from the horrors of expulsion.