“Go to any WHO assembly—what do you see?” she asked rhetorically, handing him a bunch of pamphlets. “Lobbyists. PR people from the big pharmas. Dozens of them. From one big pharma, maybe three or four. ‘Come to lunch. Come to our weekend get-together. Have you read this wonderful paper by Professor So-and-So?’ And the Third World is not sophisticated. They have no money, they are not experienced. With diplomatic language and manoeuvring, the lobbyists can get behind them easy.”
She had stopped speaking and was frowning at him. Justin was holding up his open notebook for her to read. He was holding it close to his face so that she could see his expression while she read his message; and his expression, he hoped, was quelling and reassuring at the same time. In support of it he had extended the forefinger of his free left hand by way of warning.
I AM TESSA QUAYLE’S HUSBAND AND I DO NOT TRUST THESE WALLS. CAN YOU MEET ME THIS EVENING AT FIVE-THIRTY IN FRONT OF THE OLD FORT?
She read the message, she looked past his raised finger at his eyes and kept looking at them while he filled the silence with the first thing that came into his head.
“So are you saying that what we need is some kind of independent world body that has the power to override these companies?” he demanded, with unintentional aggression. “Cut down their influence?”
“Yes,” she replied, perfectly calmly. “I think that would be an excellent idea.”
He walked past the woman in the rollneck and gave her the kind of cheery wave he thought appropriate to a journalist. “All done,” he assured her. “Just off. Thank you for your cooperation”—so there’s no need to telephone the police and tell them you have an impostor on the premises.
He tiptoed through the classroom and tried once more to woo a smile from the harassed teacher. “For the last time,” he promised her, but the only people who smiled were the kids.
In the street the two old men in raincoats and black hats were still waiting for the funeral. At the kerbside two stern young women sat in an Audi saloon, studying a map. He returned to his hotel and on a whim enquired at the desk whether he had mail. No mail. Reaching his room, he tore the offending page from his notebook, then the page beneath it because the imprint had come through. He burned them in the handbasin and put on the extractor to get rid of the smoke. He lay on his bed wondering what spies did to kill time. He dozed and was woken by his phone. He lifted the receiver and remembered to say, “Atkinson.” It was the housekeeper, “checking,” she said. Excuse her, please. Checking what, for God’s sake? But spies don’t ask those questions aloud. They don’t make themselves conspicuous. Spies lie on white beds in grey towns and wait.
Bielefeld’s old fort stood on a high green mound overlooking cloud-laden hills. Car parks, picnic benches and municipal gardens were laid out among the ivy-covered ramparts. In warmer months it was a favoured spot for the townspeople to perambulate down tree-lined avenues, admire the regiments of flowers and eat beery lunches in the Huntsman’s Restaurant. But in the grey months the place had the air of a deserted playground in the clouds, which was how it looked to Justin this evening as he paid off his taxi and, early by twenty minutes, made what he hoped was a casual reconnaissance of his chosen rendezvous. The empty car parks, sculpted into the battlements, were pitted with rainwater. From sodden lawns, rusted signs warned him to control his dog. On a bench beneath the battlements, two veterans in scarves and overcoats sat bolt upright, observing him. Were they the same two old men who had worn black Homburg hats this morning while they waited for the funeral? Why do they stare at me like this? Am I Jewish? Am I a Pole? How long before your Germany becomes just another boring European country?
One road only led to the fort and he strolled along it, keeping at the crown in order to avoid the trenches of fallen leaves. When she arrives I’ll wait till she parks before I speak to her, he decided. Cars too have ears. But Birgit’s car had no ears because it was a bicycle. At first sight she resembled some kind of ghostly horsewoman, urging her reluctant steed over the brow of the hill while her plastic cape filled behind her. Her fluorescent harness resembled a Crusader’s cross. Slowly the apparition became flesh, and she was neither a winged seraph nor a breathless messenger from the battle, but a young mother in a cape riding a bicycle. And from the cape protruded not one head but two, the second belonging to her jolly blond son, strapped into a child’s pillion-seat behind her—and measuring, to Justin’s inexpert eye, about eighteen months on the Richter scale.
And the sight of them both was so entirely pleasant to him, and so incongruous, and appealing, that for the first time since Tessa’s death he broke out in real, rich, unrestrained laughter.
“But at such short notice, how should I get a babysitter?” Birgit demanded, offended by his mirth.
“You shouldn’t, you shouldn’t! It doesn’t matter, it’s wonderful. What’s his name?”
“Carl. What’s yours?”
Carl sends his love . . . The elephant mobile you sent Carl drives him completely crazy . . . I hope very much your baby will be as beautiful as Carl.
He showed her his Quayle passport. She examined it, name, age, photograph, shooting frank looks at him between.
“You told her she was waghalsig,” he said, and watched her frown become a smile as she hauled off her cape and wound it up and gave him the bike to hold so that she could unbuckle Carl from his seat. And having released Carl and set him on the road, she unstrapped a saddlebag and turned her back to Justin so that he could load up the backpack she was wearing: Carl’s bottle, a packet of Knäckebrot, spare nappies and two ham and cheese baguettes wrapped in greaseproof paper.
“You have eaten today, Justin?”
“Not much,”
“So. We can eat. Then we shall not be so nervous. Carlchen, du machst das bitte nicht. We can walk. Carl will walk for ever.”
Nervous? Who’s nervous? Affecting to undertake a study of the menacing rain clouds, Justin swung himself slowly round on his heel, head in air. They were still there, two old sentries sitting to attention.
“I don’t know how much stuff actually went missing,” Justin complained, when he had told her the story of Tessa’s laptop. “I had the impression there was a lot more correspondence between the two of you that she hadn’t printed out.”
“You did not read about Emrich?”
“That she had emigrated to Canada. But she was still working for KVH.”
“You do not know what her position is now—her problem?”
“She quarrelled with Kovacs.”
“Kovacs is nothing. Emrich has quarrelled with KVH.”
“What on earth about?”
“Dypraxa. She believes she has identified certain very negative side-effects. KVH believes she has not.”
“What have they done about it?” asked Justin.
“So far they have only destroyed her reputation and her career.”
“That’s all.”
“That’s all.”
They walked without speaking for a while, with Carl stalking out ahead of them, diving for decaying horse chestnuts and having to be restrained before he put them in his mouth. Evening fog had formed a sea across the rolling hills, making islands of their rounded tops.
“When did this happen?”
“It is happening still. She has been dismissed by KVH and dismissed again by the Regents of Dawes University in Saskatchewan and the governing body of the Dawes University Hospital. She tried to publish an article in a medical journal concerning her conclusions regarding Dypraxa but her contract with KVH had a confidentiality clause, therefore they suited her and suited the magazine and no copies were allowed.”
“Sued. Not suited. Sued.”
“It’s the same.”
“And you told Tessa about this? She must have been thrilled.”
“Sure. I told her.”
“When?”
Birgit shrugged. “Maybe three weeks ago. Maybe two. Our correspondence has also disappeared.”
“You mea
n they crashed your computer?”
“It was stolen. In our burglary. I had not downloaded her letters and I had not printed them. So.”
So, Justin agreed silently. “Any idea who took it?”
“Nobody took it. With corporations it is always nobody. The big boss calls in the sub-boss, the sub-boss calls in his lieutenant, the lieutenant speaks to the chef of corporate security who speaks to the sub-chef who speaks to his friends who speak to their friends. And so it is done. Not by the boss or the sub-boss or the lieutenant or the sub-chef. Not by the corporation. Not by anybody at all, actually. But still it is done. There are no papers, no cheques, no contracts. Nobody knows anything. Nobody was there. But it is done.”
“What about the police?”
“Oh, our police are most industrious. If we have lost a computer, tell the insurance company and buy a new one, don’t come bothering the police. Did you meet Wanza?”
“Only in hospital. She was already very ill. Did Tessa write to you about Wanza?”
“That she was poisoned. That Lorbeer and Kovacs had come to visit her in the hospital and that Wanza’s baby survived, but Wanza did not. That the drug killed her. Maybe a combination killed her. Maybe she was too thin, not enough body fat to handle the drug. Maybe if they had given her less, she would have lived. Maybe KVH will fix the pharmacokinetics before they sell it in America.”
“She said that? Tessa did?”
“Sure. ‘Wanza was just another guinea pig. I loved her, they killed her. Tessa.’”
Justin was already protesting. For Heaven’s sake, Birgit, what about Emrich? If Emrich, as one of the discoverers of the drug, has declared it unsafe, then surely—
Birgit cut him short. “Emrich exaggerates. Ask Kovacs. Ask KVH. The contribution of Lara Emrich to the discovery of the Dypraxa molecule was completely minimal. Kovacs was the genius, Emrich was her laboratory assistant, Lorbeer was their Svengali. Naturally because Emrich was also the lover of Lorbeer, her importance has been made bigger than the reality.”
“Where’s Lorbeer now?”
“It is not known. Emrich doesn’t know, KVH doesn’t know— says it doesn’t—for the last five months he has been completely invisible. Maybe they killed him also.”
“Where’s Kovacs?”
“She is travelling. She is travelling so much that KVH can never tell us where she is or where she will be. Last week she was in Haiti, maybe, three weeks ago she was in Buenos Aires or Timbuktu. But where she will be tomorrow or next week is a mystery. Her home address is naturally confidential, her telephone also.”
Carl was hungry. One minute he was placidly trailing a piece of twig through a puddle, the next he was yelling blue murder for food. They sat on a bench while Birgit fed him from the bottle.
“If you were not here he would feed himself,” she said proudly. “He would walk along like a little drunkard with the bottle in his mouth. But now he has an uncle to watch him, so he requires your attention.” Something in what she said reminded her of Justin’s grief. “I am so sorry, Justin,” she murmured. “How can I say it?” But so swiftly and softly that for once it was not necessary for him to say “thank you” or “yes, it’s terrible” or “you’re very kind” or any other of the meaningless phrases he had learned to mouth when people felt obliged to say the unsayable.
They were walking again and Birgit was reliving the burglary.
“I arrived at the office in the morning—my colleague Roland is at a conference in Rio—it is otherwise a normal day. The doors are locked, I must unlock them as usual. At first I notice nothing. That is the point. What burglar locks doors behind him when he leaves? The police asked us this question also. But our doors were locked without question. The place is not tidy, but that is normal. In Hippo we clean our own rooms. We cannot afford to pay a cleaner and sometimes we are too busy or too lazy to clean for ourselves.”
Three women on push-bikes rode solemnly by, circled the car park and returned, passing them on their way down the hill. Justin remembered the three women cyclists of this morning.
“I go to check the telephone. We have an answering machine at Hippo. A normal hundred-mark affair, but a hundred marks nevertheless, and nobody has taken it. We have correspondents all over the world, so we must have an answering machine. The tape is missing. Oh shit, I think, who took the stupid tape? I go to the other office to look for a new tape. The computer is missing. Oh shit, I think, who is the idiot who has moved the computer and where did they put it? It’s a big computer on two storeys but to move it is not impossible, it has wheels. We have a new girl, a trainee lawyer, a great girl actually but new. ‘Beate, darling,’ I say, ‘where the hell is our computer?’ Then we start to look. Computer. Tapes. Disks. Papers. Files. Missing and the doors locked. They take nothing else of value. Not the money in the money box, not the coffee machine or the radio or the television or the empty tape recorder. They are not drug addicts. They are not professional thieves. And to the police they are not criminals. Why should criminals lock doors? Maybe you know why.”
“To tell us,” Justin replied after a long pause.
“Please? To tell us what? I don’t understand.”
“They locked the doors on Tessa too.”
“Explain, please. What doors?”
“Of the jeep. When they killed her. They locked the jeep doors so that the hyenas wouldn’t take away the bodies.”
“Why?”
“They were telling us to be afraid. That’s the message they put on Tessa’s laptop. To her or to me. ‘Be warned. Don’t go on with what you’re doing.’ They sent her a death threat too. I only found out about it a few days ago. She never told me.”
“Then she was brave,” said Birgit.
She remembered the baguettes. They sat on another bench and ate them while Carl munched a rusk and sang, and the two old sentries marched sightlessly past them down the hill.
“Was there a pattern to what they took? Or was it wholesale?”
“It was wholesale, but there was also a pattern. Roland says there was no pattern, but Roland is relaxed. He is always relaxed. He is like an athlete whose heart beats at half the normal speed so that he can run faster than anyone else. But only when he wishes. When it is useful to go fast he goes fast. When nothing can be done he stays in bed.”
“What was the pattern?” he asked.
She has Tessa’s frown, he noticed. It is the frown of professional discretion. As with Tessa, he made no effort to break through her silence.
“How did you translate waghalsig?” she demanded at length.
“Reckless, I think. Daredevilish, perhaps. Why?”
“Then I too was waghalsig,” said Birgit.
Carl wanted to be carried, which she said was unheard of. Justin could safely insist on shouldering the burden. There was business while she unbuckled her backpack and extended the straps for him and—only when she was satisfied with the fit—lifted Carl into it and exhorted him to be well behaved with his new uncle.
“I was worse than waghalsig. I was a full idiot.” She bit her lip, hating herself for what she had to tell. “We had a letter brought to us. Last week. Thursday. It came by courier from Nairobi. Not a letter, a document. Seventy pages. About Dypraxa. Its history and its aspects and its side-effects. Positive and negative, but mostly negative in view of the fatalities and side-effects. It was not signed. It was in all scientific respects objective, but in other respects a little bit crazy. Addressed to Hippo, not to anyone by name. Just Hippo. To the Lords and Ladies of Hippo.”
“In English?”
“English but not written by an Englishman, I think. Typed, so we do not know the handwriting. It contained many references to God. You are religious?”
“No.”
“But Lorbeer is religious.”
The drizzle had turned to occasional fat spots of rain. Birgit was sitting on a bench. They had come upon a scaffold of children’s swings fitted with crossbars across the seats to keep them safe. Carl nee
ded to be lifted into one and pushed. He was fighting sleep. A catlike softness had descended over him. His eyes were half closed and he was smiling while Justin pushed him with obsessive caution. A white Mercedes with Hamburg registration plates came slowly up the hill, passed them, made a circle in the flooded car park and came slowly back. One male driver, one male passenger beside him. Justin remembered the two women in the parked Audi this morning as he stepped into the street. The Mercedes drove back down the hill.
“Tessa said you speak all languages,” Birgit said.
“That doesn’t mean I have anything to say in them. Why were you waghalsig?”
“You will please call it stupid.”
“Why were you stupid?”
“I was stupid because when the courier delivered the document from Nairobi, I was excited and I telephoned to Lara Emrich in Saskatchewan and I told her, ‘Lara darling, listen, we have received a long, anonymous, very mystical, very crazy, very authentic history of Dypraxa, no address, no date, from somebody who I think is Markus Lorbeer. It tells about the fatalities of the drug combination and it will greatly help your case.’ I was so happy because the document is actually called after her name. It is titled ‘Doctor Lara Emrich is right.’ ‘It is crazy,’ I told her, ‘but it is fierce like a political statement. Also very polemical, very religious, and very destructive of Lorbeer.’ ‘Then it is by Lorbeer,’ she says. ‘Markus is whipping himself. It is normal.’”
“Have you met Emrich? Do you know her?”
“As I knew Tessa. By e-mail. So we are e-friends. In the paper it said Lorbeer was six years in Russia, two years under old Communism, four years under the new chaos. I tell this to Lara who knows it already. According to the paper, Lorbeer was the agent for certain Western pharmas, lobbying Russian health officials, selling them Western drugs, I tell her. According to the paper, in six years he had dealings with eight different health ministers. The paper provides a saying regarding this period and I am about to tell it to Lara when she interrupts me and tells me what the saying is, exactly as it stands in the document. ‘The Russian health ministers arrived in a Lada and left in a Mercedes.’ It is a favourite joke of Lorbeer’s, she tells me. This confirms for both of us that Lorbeer is the writer of the document. It is his masochistic confession. Also from Lara I learn that Lorbeer’s father was a German Lutheran, very Calvinistic, very strict which accounts for his son’s morbid religious conceptions and his desire to confess. Do you know medicine? Chemistry? A little biology perhaps?”