Krysalis: Krysalis (20 page)

David flicked through several pages. “These markers, they’re from about May to … October?”

“Yes. Sometimes she juggled appointments to make those lunches; once she even asked another member of
chambers to do a summons for her so that she could keep the date. Look at July 31st.”

The summer of
1987,
two years ago now, but David remembered it easily. He and Anna quarreled, then somehow failed to make it up. Ostensibly the fracas concerned Juliet, what they ought to do about her. The child was unhappy at school. Anna had been all for moving her; David stubbornly resisted, saying that life in the real world was often unaccommodating and the sooner Juliet learned that the better. But there had been something else, something that could not be explained.

He flipped through pages until he came to the end of July. “Someone’s written a number … telephone?”

“The police seemed to think so.”

“You mentioned them earlier … did they say what they thought might have happened to Anna?”

“No. Neither of them brought it up.”

“Neither?”

“There were two. The older man just sat there, keeping mum. The other fellow asked all the questions but wasn’t about to supply any answers.”

Broadway’s gaze no longer quite met David’s. It was easy, even pleasurable, to imagine that scene: haughty Q.C. worked over by the the police. Broadway had a nice line in splutters.

“The talker, the young one in glasses, he was very interested in those entries. He took the diary away, we only got it back this afternoon, in fact.”

“What kind of glasses did he wear?”

“Does it matter?”

“I wondered if … no, too much of a coincidence.”

“Know him, do you? Tall, thin, sandy hair, very weak specs; I’m surprised he needed them at all, really. Those dreadful tinted things.”

“What color tint?”

“Pink.” Broadway sniffed. “Bloody little pansy.”

“Albert a pansy?”

“Albert?”

“Didn’t he introduce himself?”

“No.”

“Albert’s cagey.”

“He is that! They wanted to search Anna’s room. I told them to come back with a search warrant.” Broadway stared at David. “Do you mind telling me what’s going on?”

David decided he had no option. “Anna’s disappeared. It looks as though she took one of my files with her. It’s a file a lot of people would like to get their hands on. I’m sorry if I’m not more specific, but at least you lawyers understand what confidentiality’s all about.”

“Good God.” By now Broadway was almost whispering.

“No one knows where she’s gone, who she’s with, or anything. I can’t get any cooperation.”

“My dear chap.” Broadway’s voice sounded less than warm, but there was a change in it. “What an appalling thing.”

“Yes. And I … Duncan, you know what they say, about not realizing what you’ve got until you’ve lost it….” David laughed in an attempt to cover his discomfiture. “Well, it’s true.”

Broadway looked away, embarrassed.

“Is there anything,
anything
at all that might help me find her?” David’s voice was beseeching. “Perhaps you think I’m being pathetic, but when a man loves his wife …”

He couldn’t go on.

Broadway cleared his throat a couple of times, obviously wishing he could be somewhere else.

“Look, I’m sorry …” David made a great effort and recovered some of his composure. “Is there anyone in chambers she was close to, who might know where she is?”

“No. I’ve already asked.” Broadway grunted. “I suppose Robyn might just conceivably know something.”

“Who is Robyn?”

“An American lawyer.”

“He’s here? In England?”

“I shouldn’t think so for one minute. It’s a she, incidentally, not a he. A woman attorney from New York. She spent a year here, researching for some thesis she was doing, comparative law as I recall.”

“Oh yes, that rings a sort of bell. Anna mentioned her. But why do you think she might know something?”

“Because they were like two peas in a pod. Robyn shared her room, you see. After she went back to the States, Anna was always getting letters from her. She used to read out bits to us at chambers’ tea.”

David gawked at him. “What was that again—letters?”

“Yes.”

“Anna shared a room with this woman for one whole year, a friend, you say?”

“Yes. You find that astonishing?”

“It’s just that I … I hadn’t realized they were quite so close.”

“She never told you about Robyn?”

“She mentioned her a couple of times. But as a professional acquaintance, not …”

A thought struck David, and he thanked God for
Broadway’s punctilious refusal to let Albert search Anna’s room without a warrant.

“What does she look like … here, is this her?”

He pushed the photograph he had found in Anna’s desk across to Broadway, who nodded confirmation. He went on to say more about Robyn’s work in chambers, but David was no longer listening. His mind had leapt to the interview before the Krysalis vetting committee, with him airily confessing that Anna’s circle of friends did not overlap with his. The words had meant nothing to him at the time; now they were starting to assume a frightful reality.

“Did you tell Albert about Robyn?” he asked Broadway. “And these letters, did you mention them?”

“No. I wasn’t asked.”

“Do you know if the clerks said anything about them?”

“I know they didn’t.”

“How?”

“The police questioned me with the clerks at the same time and I jolly well saw them off the premises as soon as the interview ended.”

David felt that was good, without knowing why, but he had precious little else to comfort him. “I just don’t understand any of this. The writ, this woman lawyer … why should Anna have personal post sent here, and not the house?”

He stared at Broadway, as if the Q.C. might have an answer, but it was so obviously his own department. If the husband didn’t know …

What other things didn’t the husband know?

“I shall tell chambers that Anna’s ill.” Broadway pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling. “Hepatitis, say. Contaminated food. Been ordered to rest.”

“Thanks,” David mumbled.

Neither man spoke. David realized that he had come to the end of this road, and with the knowledge came a sense of shame. “Look, I’m … I’m sorry about barging in. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Forgotten. Ah …” Broadway again seemed to be having trouble with his throat. He coughed, blew his nose, all the while looking everywhere but at David. “I really don’t know how to say it, but … well, it’s annoying, Anna going off like this. Downright annoying. But … I can’t find words to tell you how much I hope you find her and that everything’s all right.”

“Thank you.”

“Because … we had our little differences, but we were all immensely fond of her. Are immensely fond of her. She’s a wonderful woman, a fine lawyer. And if anything bad were to happen …”

He trailed off, staring at the blotter on top of his desk.

“Thank you,” David repeated quietly. “But … please don’t say any more.”

The two men shook hands. Then David was going down the corridor, passing through the clerks’ room, making his way into the deserted Temple. A busy road. Cars hooting, the squeal of brakes, another world, nothing to do with him. He found himself sitting beside the river, staring at the Embankment wall, while he struggled to refocus his picture of Anna. He sat there for a long time, so long that dusk came quietly down on London, obliging Albert to move one bench closer in order to keep his quarry in view.

CHAPTER
15

Jürgen Barzel joined the HVA’s Athens Watch just after eight o’clock on Tuesday evening. “Who?” he rasped. Erich Rehlinger pointed. “Over there. The one in white jeans and a green shirt, carrying a rucksack.”

Barzel did not follow his gaze immediately, but concentrated on Rehlinger instead. He was within inches of an ignominious end to his career, he was tired, he was famished, and here he was, forced to depend on people he didn’t know and had never worked with for his sole chance of salvation. Rehlinger seemed efficient, though. All Barzel could do was put his faith in him and beg for luck.

They were standing on the first level beneath Omonia Square, jostled by crowds heading for the railway station. Barzel reluctantly took his eyes off Rehlinger and followed the direction of his pointing finger. He could make out a Greek youth of about eighteen, loitering by a bank of phone booths some twenty meters
away. He seemed uncertain whether he really wanted to make a call.

This was his last, his only hope. Barzel gazed at the boy like a wolf eying food.

“What have you found out?” he murmured.

“Nothing much. He’s got a packet of money in his wallet. Station’s working on it now.”

“Name?”

“First name: Iannis. That’s all Heinrich managed to pick up.”

“Shit!”
Heinrich was another unknown quantity. “Where’s Heinrich got to?”

Rehlinger nodded. “Almost next to him.”

“Will he be able to overhear if friend Iannis makes a call?”

“Should be.”

“How’s his Greek?”

“Five-five.”

“Thank God!” That was the code for bilingual standard in speech and writing. The knowledge that a first-class interpreter had been placed at his disposal was the first bit of solid good news to come Barzel’s way in quite a while.

“Where did you pick him up?” he asked.

“A Telex-and-fax bureau down an alley off Zinonos Street.”

So, thought Barzel, Margaret did her stuff. That brought scant consolation, however. He lit a cigarette and rested his back against the wall in such a way that he could always keep tabs on this strangely hesitant lad called Iannis. This whole exercise was a very long shot. But his instincts weren’t usually wrong.

Relax, he told himself. Be calm. Think it through.
Again.

He had panicked HVA’s Athens Station into having them shadow all known MI6 and CIA legmen to see if any of them seemed unduly interested in public fax offices, and got on a plane. By the time he reached Athens, there was a response. Rehlinger’s target, an MI6 operative of minimal experience and careless methods, was tracking, none too subtly, a Greek boy who visited the same office every two hours, on the hour.

A movement caught Barzel’s eye. “He’s going to phone,” he said quietly, stubbing out his cigarette. “Move in. But keep it
clean.”

The boy at last seemed to have plucked up the courage to enter a vacant phone booth. He looked around several times, as if making sure that no one was watching. Suddenly Barzel stiffened. “What the—”

Iannis had produced a black bag from the rucksack he was carrying. He used it to cover his hand while he dialed, and Barzel swore under his breath.

“A pro,” Rehlinger murmured in his ear.

“Or an obedient amateur,” Barzel grated. “We’ve got him, Erich.” He wanted so much to believe his words!

“Looks like it.”

“Where are the boys?”

“In the square.”

Barzel squeezed his arm. “Upstairs, now, give them a go.”

Rehlinger slipped away, leaving Barzel on watch. Iannis pressed money into the slot, said something rapidly, put down the phone and walked off, shouldering his rucksack. He took the moving stairway up to street level, where he crossed quickly over to Stadiou and began thrusting his way through the crowds. Heinrich caught up with Barzel at the intersection.

“What did Iannis say?” Barzel snapped.

“He said, ‘I sent it, no reply yet.’”

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“Got him!
Come on, we mustn’t lose him now. You follow on foot; I’ll pick up the others.”

As Iannis came to Santaroza he bumped into a gang of students. There was a moment of confusion while the various parties sorted themselves out. The youth walked on, rubbing his arm; once or twice he looked behind him, as if something about the recent encounter troubled him. Suddenly he lurched against a shop front, clutching his stomach. He tried to cry out, but the words couldn’t force their way past the blockage that had materialized in his throat. By the time an ambulance screeched to a halt beside him and two men were helping him into it, he was nearly unconscious.

Barzel slammed the ambulance’s doors, ran around to the front, and climbed in beside the driver.

The journey to Piraeus took an hour and a half; Athens’ evening traffic was heavy and Barzel had an aversion to direct routes. At last the ambulance pulled up on a dingy and darkened quay beside a cabin cruiser. The vessel’s engines were already turning over. Iannis was swiftly carried aboard on a stretcher. Less than a minute after they’d arrived the boat had put to sea.

Barzel clattered down the companionway to the forward cabin, where Iannis was lying on a bunk. Leather straps held him fast around the chest and thighs. He was breathing quickly, his face looked clammy.

Barzel picked up the boy’s rucksack and rifled quickly through it. A few clothes, toothbrush, razor, and a battered, dog-eared paperback book with the picture
of a half-naked woman on the front. Barzel’s expression set into a faraway look, then he grimaced.

“Wake him,” he ordered.