Krysalis: Krysalis (27 page)
“Yiss. Plin tick-ay you muss’ buy at airpore.”
“Do you take plastic? American Express?”
When he shook his head, Anna gazed at him in terror. She had no local currency. Panic came flooding back.
She could not get off the island.
Seeing the look on her face, the Greek smiled. “You haff poun’? Ingliss poun’?”
“Yes!” She burrowed in her purse. “Here, take them! Is it enough?”
He counted the notes, pursed his lips, and sold her a ferry voucher with enough reluctance to suggest that he was doing her a favor, instead of awarding himself a three hundred percent markup. Anna almost ran out into the square, now alive with many voices. Where to go?
The concrete pier was merely an extension of the road, which itself shaded into being the square. At the end nearest the sea was a wedge-shaped hump, used for loading and unloading vehicles when the ferry docked. Several other passengers were already sitting on it, ready to embark as soon as the boat arrived. Now the motorbikes she had seen earlier zoomed back and the Zorbas began preparing them for embarkation,
good!
People, machines, there was a three-wheel cart stacked high with cardboard boxes, the more cover the merrier …
Anna looked at her watch. A quarter of an hour still to go. Ah, the boutique! She would stay in the shop until the ferry had actually tied up, wait until they were ready to lift the gangplank, then make a dash for it. She swiveled and saw the ship’s bow, its white paintwork flecked with rust, clear the cape.
Wonderful!
As she reached the boutique’s doorway, however, she heard a car and out of the corner of her eye caught sight of a red flash. Gerhard was here! She began to pick her way along the center table, nervously turning over key rings and shells. After a moment she became aware of someone watching her.
Anna jerked her head up. The owner of the shop, a
woman in her mid-thirties, wore large round spectacles, lending her an owly look. She continued to stare at Anna in dignified silence, occasionally moving her head as if to give her great round lenses a better shot at their target.
A car door slammed. Anna jumped. The lenses shifted slightly, taking note. By maneuvering herself through the narrow gap between the Greek woman and the far end of the table, Anna was able to look through the window without seeming to. What she saw made her legs tremble. The ferry was reversing up to the pier. But between her and salvation Gerhard stood with arms folded across the car’s roof while he surveyed the crowd.
Anna heard the woman stir and thought, Christ, she knows Gerhard.
The woman eased past her, obviously intending to go outside.
“Excuse me …”
Anna had spoken in such a servile whisper that the boutique’s owner did not hear. “Excuse me!” This time her voice was a shout. The shopkeeper turned back, the glasses magnifying her eyes as they widened in surprise until the owlish effect was almost comical.
“Excuse me, this smock, do you call it a smock only I’ve never seen one before …?”
Anna held the garment up between her and the window, lest Gerhard chose to turn around. She could not stop grinning like a manic guide in pursuit of a tip. The owner hesitated, then reluctantly came back.
A movement on the other side of the window tore at Anna’s gaze. Gerhard stood upright before striding off to the left, in the direction of the biggest taverna. She dropped the smock and rushed for the exit, stepping on
the shopkeeper’s foot. She didn’t stop until she was safely behind the concrete hump. There she squatted down, trying to locate Gerhard through the forest of legs that sprouted above her head. No sign of him.
The ferry’s back plate banged open. The forest swayed as if in a gale. Anna rose to the crouch, ready to run. There was a delay while two cars reversed out of the hold. She fretted that such a patently
simple
maneuver could be made to take so long by stupid men; then she was thrusting her way to the front of the crowd.
The inside of the hold stank alarmingly of diesel oil and car exhaust fumes. People aimed for the left-hand side, where a metal ladder led upward to the light. She set foot on the bottom step. The strap of her handbag caught in the rail. She tugged it. Behind her, passengers were starting to become impatient. She gave her bag a final wrench and clutched it to her chest.
The stairs were almost vertical; the only way to negotiate them safely was to keep staring straight ahead, which is why when she bumped into someone coming down all she could see was first his two-tone brogues with little holes in them, white and brown, then his cream flannels, and inconsequently she thought, How funny, cricket, nobody wears shoes like that these days, why is he wearing cricket flannels over them …? Then her eyes were hard up against his shirt, more creamy flannel, how hot, he should give way … one hand held a new hardback book,
Women in a River Landscape,
Böll … then his other hand was closing over her wrist, brown, like the shoes, thin fingers with bony knuckles …
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
The sibilant whisper came from somewhere over her
head. She looked up and found its source in a fat-lipped mouth. Her eyes ranged over a pointed Adam’s apple, a mustache of brown and black hairs matching those that splayed out from each wide nostril, and, crowning all, a faded Panama hat, its black band besmirched with what looked like talcum powder.
She could feel nothing around her, there was no longer a world, a context. She knew only the frenzy of despair.
“Anna!” Gerhard, it must be. But it was not Gerhard’s voice. “How wonderful to see you! What a coincidence, ya?”
She shook her head, wanting to deny him with words, but her tongue was caught up in the general revolt.
“We’ll go, have a beer.” Now he was pushing Anna down the stairs, the Böll pressed against her chest, using her body as a ram to batter the disconsolate passengers below. The newcomer, she perceived, was extremely tall, well over six feet, and thin enough to raise doubts whether his torso could possibly hold all his vital organs. He dominated the ship’s hold and Anna, forced to look into his eyes across her handbag, understood that this power derived not from the clothes, with their overtones of merchant marine uniform, but from the depths of his pale gray eyes.
“No,” she managed to get out, “I have to go! I have a plane to catch. I don’t know you.”
When the stranger continued to force her back down the stairway, Anna saw that the time for observing conventions was past. She opened her mouth to shout “Rape!” meaning it to be heard in Athens. But even as she was drawing breath, another hand tapped her on
the shoulder and a familiar voice said, “Anna, my dear, where do you think you’re going?”
“Let
go
of me! Help!
Won’t someone help me?”
Gerhard was standing there, a policeman at his elbow, and for an absurd moment her heart soared while she pretended to herself that the officer had come to arrest him. But then Gerhard spoke some words of Greek, and the policeman translated as if for her benefit, “You are ill, your doctor says.”
“No I’m not! I’m fine. I have to get to Corfu,
let go!”
“Your doctor—”
“He’s not my doctor, he’s a killer, he’s got a gun, oh, won’t anyone help?”
At that the policeman’s face turned sour. He seized her by the wrists.
“David!” she sobbed.
“David!”
“You are a danger to yourself,” the policeman barked.
“And to others,” Kleist added with a commiserating smile.
21
Fox had identified the restaurant by reference to the transcript of David’s interview before the Krysalis vetting committee. Situated on the boundary between financial and legal Londons, it nevertheless managed to attract its share of media folk, and the conservatory-style décor had good associations for Albert. As he sat down, preparing to study the large, but not inconveniently large,
carte,
he wondered who you had to be to rate one of the three best tables, each spaced a generous distance from its fellows and located up some steps inside a semicircular recess overlooking a garden. The restaurant was well patronized, but that alcove stayed empty. One of the tables it contained was laid for two, and whichever couple sat there would be able to observe all the other lunchers while preserving their own privacy.
He settled down to the menu with feelings of unalloyed pleasure. He loved food and he was open-minded enough to believe that an intending hotelier could always learn something worthwhile from eating in a
competently run restaurant. This, he knew instinctively, was a dead end as far as the Lescombe case went. No skeins led out of such enjoyable ambience into the heart of darkness.
He ordered a smoked fish pâté to start with and went on to plainly grilled steak, that Becher’s Brook of a test for any restaurant. The man who came over carrying the wine list wore a red tie, which clashed with his gray suit. That, coupled with his polite yet unservile manner, persuaded Albert that he must be the owner.
“Do you by any chance have an ‘85 Barolo?”
“I’m afraid not. We do have some of the 1986.”
“Even despite the hail?”
“Ah! I’ll tell you what … it’s not on the list yet, because I’ve yet to try it myself, but out back I do have some other Piedmont. A Carema DOC. The last shipment was really rather exciting.”
“Luigi Ferrando?”
“Indeed, yes.” The man’s preoccupied expression had mellowed into one of enthusiasm.
“I’ll take a chance, then.”
Albert’s eyes kept straying to the alcove, where the table for two remained untaken. There was a “Reserved” plaque on the cloth, half hidden behind a vase of spring flowers, but even when one-thirty came and went, no one removed it. Some well-respected patron, who could be relied on to be late …
Who never came at all, in the event. By two-twenty-five he was the last remaining customer and, as he had hoped, the proprietor came around to pass the time with him.
“Did you enjoy your meal?”
“Excellent. You were spot on about the Carema.”
“This is your first visit?”
“Though I hope it won’t be my last. Have you been open long?”
“Thirteen years.”
“Ah. I’m obviously not as in touch with London as I like to imagine.”
“We changed our name awhile back. That often confuses people.”
Albert toyed with the idea of abandoning further inquiries, but then remembered that, contrary to Fox’s assertion, this lunch was not entirely free. “Would you care for a
digestif?”
The man glanced around to see what still needed doing. “You’re very kind. Perhaps a malt …?”
He served himself from the bar and came back, pulling a chair from one of the other tables to sit down opposite Albert. “My name’s Seppy Lamont. Not too many people around called Septimus these days.”
“Mother had a sense of humor, like mine?”
“Father, actually. What’s your millstone?”
“Albert.”
“Not so bad. At least Victoria loves you.”
Albert chuckled. “Army?”
“Guessed, did you? Scots Guards. Got damned bored, actually. Then my wife’s father died, left us a bit. She’s a fantastic cook, though I say it myself.” He treated Albert to a long, cool stare. “Which is your outfit?”
“Shows, does it?”
“Um-hm.”
“Paras.”
“Still?”
“No.” Albert took out his wallet and Seppy Lamont, misunderstanding, said, “I’ll get your bill.”
“In a minute. Have a look at this, first, would you?”
Seppy glanced at the plastic-protected card, matched
up its photograph with the man opposite and said, “Pull the other one, old chap. Special Branch you ain’t. Look, let’s go into the office. I’d like you to meet my wife.”
Albert rose and followed him through a door at the back of the bar to find himself inside an unaccommodating office,- it was long, but scarcely wider than a single bed, and if you wanted to get to the desk at the far end you had to squeeze around a filing cabinet.
Seated at the desk was a woman, in her mid-forties. She had her legs crossed, giving Albert a good view of fishnet nylons and patent-leather shoes, very French. But then she swiveled around from the accounts she’d been working on and he saw that above the waist she became something else, red lips the same lurid color as Seppy’s tie, masses of mascara, medium-length hair that was obviously dark by nature but had been dyed blond, unskillfully and a long time ago. Hungarian, perhaps. Something Eastern Bloc.
“This is Albert, darling. One of the firm. Albert, meet my wife, Racine.”
“Charmed to know you.” Racine uncoiled herself from the chair in which she’d been sitting. She held out a hand with the same studied slowness that characterized everything she did, including the way she spoke: her voice was soft and she chose her words only after deliberation.
“Thanks for a splendid meal. Do you do the cooking yourself?”
“I do. I have help, of course, but one must have a hand in everything. I cook. I shop. I lay the tables. I choose the flowers.”
He could not place the accent, but by now he was moving slowly west. Austria, maybe …