Brother Kemal (21 page)

‘Think about it.’

He did, and we walked on side by side in silence.

Just before the entrance to the Frankfurter Hof, he said, ‘You know what I don’t understand? The girl, the decoy – how does a strictly religious group come by a super-Lolita like that?’

‘Well, they probably hired her.’

‘You mean she was a whore?’

I nodded.

‘A whore! Damn it all … I write about that milieu but, to be honest, I just hate …’

‘Careful,’ I interrupted him. ‘No need to insult my wife.’

‘What? How do you …’

We reached the steps up to the entrance. Two uniformed pageboys inspected us, horrified: two men with filthy trousers, stinking of vomit, one with cheeks torn and bleeding, the other with a swollen nose.

‘Good evening,’ I said. ‘We’re expected. Maier Verlag, Emanuel Thys.’

I spent the following week waiting. For the police, for Hakim’s people, for anyone who put two and two together and thought: if Abakay found himself in jail because of a false statement made by Kayankaya, then presumably he wanted revenge, and presumably Kayankaya would defend himself – so let’s ask him where he was on Thursday evening. But obviously no one wanted to put two and two together. The police were glad that arresting Abakay did not, in retrospect, seem such an unfounded notion – the newspapers and the local TV soon agreed that he had died in the course of a drug deal. And Hakim was rid of a troublesome accomplice and blackmailer – family or not.

In the end, I suppose too many people profited by Abakay’s death for there to be any serious investigations. And where the police were concerned, that also seemed to close the Rönnthaler case for the time being. By now, at police headquarters, they were probably laying the blame on Abakay after all. If only for a better rate of cases solved.

On Saturday several newspapers printed the press release from Maier Verlag, along with comments and leading articles:
Malik Rashid, author of the novel
Journey to the End of Days,
has been released unharmed after his five-day abduction by a group calling itself the Ten Plagues. The group justified its actions by charging that Rashid’s novel insulted people of the Muslim faith. The Ten Plagues wanted to send out a signal. The author’s abduction ended, without bloodshed, on Thursday evening
.

One comment pointed out:
However, there is food for thought in the name of the group. Is it just a coincidental prank, or was there a clever mind behind it? Are we dealing with a Muslim combat group whose members read the works of Dr. Breitel? That would explain why the abduction went comparatively smoothly: it involved intellectual young men, devout Muslims, probably students, who wanted to distinguish themselves from the image of the primitive bin Laden disciples who murder indiscriminately. Are we facing a cross between guerrilla warfare for fun and serious discourse?

And so on. The Ten Plagues were initially featured in the news sections of the papers, then the comments, and almost all the papers published interviews with Rashid.

On Monday Slibulsky dropped in and brought me the money from Valerie de Chavannes.

‘Wow, what a lady!’

‘Hmm-hmm.’

‘I’m to tell you that she very much wants to see you.’

‘Is her husband back?’

‘No idea. Kind of a big black man?’

‘Big, I don’t know.’

‘He passed me in the hall, but we weren’t introduced.’

‘Thanks, Slibulsky.’

‘Tell me’, he said, looking at me curiously, ‘is there something going on between you two?’

‘Am I crazy?’

‘I should think she could drive a man crazy.’

On Tuesday Octavian called.

‘You’ve probably heard or read that your friend Abakay was shot shortly after his release from custody.’

‘Saw it on
Hessen Nightly
.’

‘Ah – I didn’t know it was on
Hessen Nightly
…’

‘Would you have wanted to see it too?’

He sighed. ‘Listen: there was very probably a fight between Abakay and his killer before the fatal shots were fired. There was vomit all over the dead man, and it wasn’t Abakay’s.’

‘Oh? How interesting.’

‘Well, my colleagues are more or less agreed that Abakay got what was coming to him on account of quarrels of some kind on the drugs scene, and there’s a lot to suggest that they’re right. But out of pure curiosity I asked for a list of the components of the vomit.’

‘Oh yes?’ I began to sweat slightly.

‘And then I called the wine bar and asked what was the dish of the day last Thursday. It was goat ragout with white beans.’

I said nothing. There wasn’t anything to say.

‘Well, I just wanted to advise you not to attract any attention in the city for a while. Best if my colleagues forget you exist.’

There was a pause. It cost me an effort, but I said, ‘Thanks, Octavian.’

When we had hung up, I went into the kitchen and drank a schnapps. On Friday I went to see Edgar Hasselbaink.

It was just after seven in the evening when I rang the bell at the garden gate. Warm yellow light shone from the windows of the de Chavannes villa and a faint aroma of fried onions wafted through the front garden.

It was a few minutes before the housekeeper, wearing a white apron, opened the front door, took a brief look at me, and then pressed a button that made the garden gate swing open.

‘Good evening,’ I wished her once I was inside.

‘Good evening,’ she replied without a trace of friendliness. ‘Who shall I say it is?’

I smiled at her. ‘Nice to see you again. Kayankaya is the name. I was first here two and a half weeks ago and since then there’s been one question I can’t get out of my head.’

‘I’m busy cooking supper.’

‘As I said, just one question. I’m sure you can remember the day of my visit. It was the Wednesday when Marieke came home.’

She raised her eyebrows disparagingly. ‘How often do you think she comes home?’

‘You mean how often does she go missing?’

‘The supper, Herr …’

‘Kayankaya. This won’t take long. That morning two and a half weeks ago – why were you so surprised that I was still here when you saw me leaving?’

She stopped, frowned, looked reluctant to reply. ‘Why would I be surprised?’

‘Because you had heard the front door open and close once already. And you thought there was no one in the house but me and Frau de Chavannes …’

‘Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember either that morning or you yourself, even if that may seem unlikely to you …’ A slightly malicious smile hovered briefly on her lips. ‘So many people go in and out of this house.’

‘You mean it’s not like the old days, when the de Chavannes parents kept a calm, decent household.’

‘I don’t mean anything.’

‘Fine,’ I concluded. ‘Then would you please tell Herr Hasselbaink that I’d like to see him?’

At the same moment the living room door opened and Valerie de Chavannes came out into the hall. She stopped in surprise, and you couldn’t describe it any other way: her face was radiant with delight. She cast a quick glance back into the living room, where the TV was on, closed the door and came towards us.

‘Herr Kayankaya!’ she said, just loud enough to be heard only in the hall. She was wearing a lightweight, red summer dress that flowed down her firm body, which showed distinctly through the flimsy material. She was barefoot. Without taking her eyes off me she said, ‘That’s all right, Aneta, I’ll look after Herr Kayankaya myself.’

The housekeeper looked briefly from Valerie de Chavannes to me and back again. ‘Supper’s nearly ready,’ she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Valerie de Chavannes came close to me, looked into my eyes and said in a low voice, almost a whisper, ‘Hello.’

‘Hello, Frau de Chavannes. I’m really here to see your …’

She laid her fingertips on my mouth and said a quiet, ‘Shh,’ as if soothing a child. Then she took my arm and led me into the front garden.

‘Are we going for a walk?’ I asked.

She didn’t reply, just laughed briefly and quietly. Was she drunk? But she didn’t smell of alcohol. Other drugs?

In the shadow of a bush, she took my head in both hands, looked deeply into my eyes again and drew my mouth close to her full, dark lips. It was a fervent, moist kiss, as soft as it was determined; I felt the light play of the tip of her tongue, and I had to pull myself together not to attack her.

When she ended the kiss, her hands slid down my hips and she said, sighing, ‘I knew it. I knew that very first time that you would help me.’

She said that very formally. I’d once read that upper-class French people, even when they’re married, quite often address each other formally. When I read that I thought it crazy. Kissing, in bed, after making love? Now I realised that the idea appealed to me.

‘I’m so grateful to you.’ She let her hands slip a little further down. ‘You’re wonderful. I … if I can ever do anything for you …’

Anything –
good heavens.

‘Forgive me, Frau de Chavannes, this is all delightful, but what are you talking about? I brought your daughter home quite a while ago.’

She looked at me, wide-eyed. ‘About Abakay, of course.’ Her voice was unsteady. ‘You did it for me, didn’t you?’

It took me a moment to let that remark, with all its implications, sink into my mind, and then I suddenly had to laugh. I listened to myself: a dry, incredulous, harsh laugh. In fact I was afraid. What a twist that would have been: to think that I might be convicted after all of Abakay’s murder in this roundabout way!

*

‘I hope you haven’t mentioned this utterly crazy idea to any of your girlfriends, maybe at the tennis club?’

‘What …?’ Her radiant smile, so seductive and promising a moment ago, was gone, and she looked genuinely taken aback. She retreated a step. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you must be rather lonely to think up something so outlandish.’

‘What do you mean, outlandish? I read it in the paper, and after all that there’s been between us …’

‘All?’ It was hard to believe, but nothing suggested that she didn’t mean it seriously. ‘We flirted a little, that’s all, Frau de Chavannes.’

‘Flirted’, she repeated incredulously.

‘Yes, that’s what it’s called. I didn’t want either to marry you or to run off to South America with you.’

I looked from the bushes to the villa, and the fence between the garden and the road. ‘Is this your secret place for seeing special visitors?’ And when she didn’t answer: ‘Did you meet Abakay here? Arrange to look at photos back at his place?’

‘You …! Shut up!’

I nodded. ‘Okay. If you’ll promise me not to spread any romantic fairy tales about us. Abakay was shot in connection with his drug dealing. You can be glad about that if you like. And now I would like to speak to your husband.’

She looked irritated. ‘My husband?’ And then, suddenly sounding anxious, ‘What do you want to do that for?’

‘A friend of mine has a gallery and would like to meet him.’

‘So you came here specially for that?’

‘I happened to be in the neighbourhood.’

She stared at me. All of a sudden she looked very tired, thin and positively unhealthy. She had folded her arms and was standing in a slightly stooped position, all the tension drained out of her body.

‘You needn’t show me in, I can find the way myself. If you’d like to think for a little …’

She hesitated, and then said contemptuously, ‘Yes, I would like to reflect for a little.’

I raised my hand in farewell. ‘Good luck, Frau de Chavannes.’

She didn’t move. She was looking at the ground, as if she were inspecting her pretty bare feet in the grass. Those pretty feet and legs, in fact everything about her … it was a shame. I turned once more at the front door. Valerie de Chavannes was still standing in the shadow of the bushes. A passerby might have taken her for a statue.

In the hall, I heard the sound of a mixer in the kitchen, and the TV was on at high volume in the living room. I hammered on the living room door with my fist.

‘Yes?’

I went in and saw Edgar Hasselbaink lying on the grey cord sofa that was as big as my living room. He wore a lemon-yellow, close-fitting linen suit, bright blue sneakers, and his curly hair, which was about twenty centimetres long, stood out wildly in all directions. Under the suit jacket his chest was bare, and his dark, muscular, obviously very fit torso was on view. At first sight he looked like a mixture of a crazy professor, hipster and model for summer fashions.

I imagined Valerie de Chavannes beside him in her thin red dress, and wondered what they were playing at. Saint-Tropez in autumnal Frankfurt? Or did they dress up in the evening just to look sexy for each other? And then did they watch the news together? And eat supper afterwards?

‘Good evening, Herr Hasselbaink.’

‘Good evening. He turned his head to me, but otherwise stayed comfortably outstretched. He pressed the remote control in his right hand and muted the voice of the news presenter on the TV.’

I glanced briefly through the door into the hall. ’Where’s your daughter?

‘My daughter?’ He slowly sat up. ‘Probably up in her room. Why?’ He spoke with a slight Dutch accent.

‘My name is Kayankaya, and I am a private detective.’ I was watching his face closely. ‘We don’t know each other, but perhaps you have seen me before, or at any rate heard of me.’

Nothing gave away what he was thinking; he just looked irritated. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘May I have a private word with you somewhere we can’t be disturbed?’

He kept his eyes on me, looking thoughtful and increasingly anxious.

‘Yes, of course.’ He got up from the sofa and automatically did up one button of his jacket. A bare chest didn’t suit the situation. ‘In my studio.’

He walked past me and out into the hall. He was a good head taller than me, an impressive figure.

The studio was in the basement, and there were only two small skylights to let in natural light. Edgar Hasselbaink pressed the light switch, and four white, bright neon tubes came on.

‘I always thought that light was all-important for painting,’ I said.