Long Time Coming (30 page)

‘I suppose that’s possible.’

Marie-Louise shrugged. ‘It makes them happy to believe it.’

‘What could have been hidden in the chimney?’

Another, heavier shrug. ‘Anything. Nothing. I—’ Three loud thumps interrupted her. She looked up. ‘Madame wants me. Perhaps she has spilt her coffee. Or seen another ghost. I will have to go.’

‘I must go too.’ I tore a corner off the front page of the newspaper that was lying on the kitchen table and scribbled down van Briel’s address and phone number. ‘Let me know if anything happens.’

‘If I hear from Eldritch, you mean?’

‘Anything. You can rely on me for help, Marie-Louise. OK?’

Her smile briefly reappeared. ‘Thank you, Stephen.’ As she slipped the piece of paper into her housecoat pocket, another three thumps echoed through the floor. She rolled her eyes and stood up. So did I.

‘How long will Joey spend at the Zoo?’

‘Hours. Perhaps all day.’

‘With the snakes?’

She nodded. ‘Always with the snakes.’

The tram to Centraal station was handy for the Zoo as well. The entrance was off the square in front of the grime-encrusted palace that was the station building. I grabbed a map after paying to go into the zoo and threaded my way through the school groups and wandering tourists to the reptile house.

It was dark, as all good reptiles prefer, and thinly populated with visitors, as doubtless they also prefer, happy to be outshone by bigger and more active creatures. The man who’d drawn up a camp chair in front of the python’s glazed patch of simulated jungle looked young and American enough to be Joey Banner. He was dressed in faded denims, T-shirt and baseball boots, with a yellow bandana holding his greasy, shoulder-length hair out of his eyes. He seemed to be trying to outdo the python in an immobility contest. I had to tap him several times on the shoulder to get his attention.

He turned his narrow, melancholy face to look at me. The dim lighting gave him a sallow, wraithlike appearance. ‘Yuh?’ His voice was low and husky.

‘Joey Banner?’

‘So they tell me, man.’

‘I’m Stephen Swan.’

He stood up slowly, revealing in the process that he was six inches taller than me. ‘Stephen Swan,’ he repeated.

‘That’s right. My lawyer, Bart van Briel, spoke to you yesterday. I’m the chap the police arrested along with Rachel.’

‘But you got out.’

‘They let me out.’

‘Get out. Let out. According to my dictionary, they’re the same thing.’

‘Can we talk?’

‘This is talking, man. Only kind I know.’

‘Outside, I mean.’

‘You don’t like snakes?’

‘I neither like them nor dislike them.’

He smiled. ‘Good answer. That’s just how they feel about you.’

‘Can we?’ I pointed to the exit.

‘OK.’ He carefully folded his chair and ambled out with it, blinking as we emerged into the daylight like a miner finishing a shift. ‘Same old same old out here, right?’

‘If you say so.’

‘You want to grab a snack?’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘Hamburgers this way.’

We descended a ramp and headed past the zebra enclosure. It was obvious Joey had no need of maps to find his way around. He pulled a notepad out of his jacket pocket and began studying it as we walked. I glimpsed sketches of snakes surrounded by jottings in the minuscule hand I’d already seen on one of his postcards to Rachel. He asked me nothing: how she was; how we’d got ourselves into so much trouble; how I’d known where to find him. I decided to fill him in on that point at least.

‘Marie-Louise said you’d be here.’

‘Guessed she must have.’

‘I wanted to explain to you … what happened in Ostend.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Don’t you want to know? Your sister might be facing a murder charge.’

‘So your lawyer said. Good, is he?’

‘He seems to be.’

‘He’ll be more help to her than I could be. And Mom hits town tomorrow, so between her and him … she’ll have all the attention she needs.’

We reached the snack bar. Joey ordered himself a burger and a Coke. I followed suit. He didn’t wait for me to pay and had plonked himself down at one of the tables out front, in the lee of a sorry-looking tree, by the time I caught up with him.

We had the area to ourselves. It was no weather for alfresco snacking. Joey didn’t acknowledge my arrival. His attention was fixed on his burger, which he was munching methodically between slurps of Coke.

‘Why do snakes appeal to you, Joey?’ I heard myself ask.

‘They won’t bite you if you leave them alone.’

‘Unlike humans?’

‘You said it, man.’

‘And why did you move to Antwerp?’

‘Belgium isn’t the US of A.’

‘Did you have a bad time of it in Vietnam?’

‘Do you know what I hate?’ he countered. ‘What I really fucking hate?’

‘Tell me.’

‘People who won’t come straight out and ask what they want to know.’

‘All right. What did Ardal Quilligan say to you when he called at Zonnestralen on Sunday?’

‘The old Irishman? To me, zilch. It was Gran he wanted to talk to. But he was out of luck. Her tuner doesn’t work any more. She’s kinda between frequencies. Which isn’t a bad place to be, let me tell you. Out there, all you get is … occasional bursts of static. No words. No … voices in your ear.’

‘Rachel needs your help.’

‘No one needs my help.’

‘Didn’t Quilligan say anything to you?’

‘Hi and goodbye … was about it.’

‘You do realize he’s the man the police think Rachel murdered, don’t you?’

‘What’s the point?’

Joey’s detachment from worldly affairs had ceased to be pitiful and was verging now on the infuriating. ‘The point of what?’

‘Investigating one murder out of all those millions. It’s a murderous century, man. People live. People die. I can’t … get into it.’ He swallowed the last of his burger, screwed the paper bag into a ball and pitched it into a nearby bin. ‘Who’s to say they really die anyway? Gran still sees my grandfather. Hell, sometimes I think I see him myself. Him and … quite a few others who are supposed to be buried someplace … a long way from here.’

Where was he now, in his head? Vietnam? I supposed so. And I stood to gain nothing by following him there. ‘I think I’ll leave you to it, Joey,’ I said, getting up from my chair.

‘OK, man.’ He gazed at me with transparent indifference.

‘’Bye now.’

‘Do me a favour?’

‘Sorry?’ I was genuinely surprised by the question.

‘The lawyer. Van Briel. He visits Rache, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ask him to give her this.’ He pulled a postcard out of his pocket and handed it to me. The picture was a nightscape of Antwerp, with the cathedral centre stage. He’d already addressed the card to Rachel in London. He’d even put a stamp on it. The message, naturally, was eye-strainingly microscopic. ‘No sense mailing it now, I reckon. But I’d like her to get it.’

‘I’ll see what he can do.’

Joey raised his paper cup of Coke in salute. ‘Thanks, man.’

Antwerp March 29 1976 Dear Sis You’ve asked me more than one time why I like to compose these messages to you in one sentence and I wonder if you’ve guessed it’s because I have a mortal fear of full stops on account of all the rude interruptions I witnessed in Nam that pretty soon revealed themselves as sudden terminations and also because I neurotically suppose that if I don’t pause for breath you won’t either and that way we’ll get to talk the only way I feel I can which is right out and right on for a dare even when there’s nothing much to tell you which is pretty much all the time in my cotton-wooled exile of a life here and—

I gave up there and shoved the card back in my pocket. I reckoned I might spare Rachel this latest dose of her brother’s self-obsessed ramblings. Good news was what she needed to hear and it was what I longed to be able to deliver. Instead, I was sitting in a bar on Antwerp’s Grote Markt, gazing through the window at the Brabo fountain and the imperiously raised finger of the cathedral spire, persuading myself to order a coffee rather than another beer. I knew I was accomplishing nothing by lingering there, but I was unable for the moment to think of anything else I could do to extricate Rachel and me from the godawful mess Eldritch had landed us in.

*

I presented myself at Oudermans’ offices on the dot of four o’clock. Punctuality was about the only thing I had going for me. They were on the third floor of an anonymous block south of the main shopping centre. The whole operation occupied a different century from Twisk’s one-man band in London, with modern art, chrome-legged desks, golfball typewriters and fashion-plate secretaries.

Oudermans himself, it transpired, was awaiting my arrival. Any message from van Briel would reach me through him. I was kept waiting no more than a few minutes before being ushered into his spacious sanctum of neatly ordered papers and plush-carpeted quietude.

He was a small, spry, immaculately suited man in late middle age, thinning hair neatly trimmed, skin tanned, eyes sparkling behind gilt-framed spectacles. Discretion and precision seemed wound up in his every restrained gesture. To my surprise, his English was as sharp as his dress sense.

‘A pleasure to meet you, Mr Swan. The circumstances are of course regrettable. We are here to help you make the best of them. The past thirty-six hours can’t have been easy for you. May I offer you coffee? Or tea?’

‘No, thanks.’ I’d drunk two cups of coffee before leaving the bar and was glad of it now.

‘I spoke to Meneer van Briel about twenty minutes ago. He apprised me of the current situation. You’ll want to know what it is. Well, the Prosecutor’s office still haven’t charged Miss Banner with anything, but they have ample evidence to justify detaining her for several more days at least. That seems to be their intention. There was a press conference this afternoon. Inspector Leysen referred to several different lines of inquiry, which is promising. It suggests Judge Bequaert isn’t convinced of Miss Banner’s guilt. Or yours.’

‘That’s good.’

‘To some degree, yes.’ Oudermans studied me intently. ‘Earlier, Meneer van Briel told me of your meeting last night with a man claiming to represent British Intelligence.’

‘Yes. His name was Tate.’

‘We will represent you and Miss Banner in this case, but I must emphasize we can have no dealings on your behalf; nor can we encourage you to have dealings, with such persons.’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to.’

‘Our position in Belgian law is … delicate.’

‘Has Bart – Mr van Briel – told the police a client of yours offered my uncle fifty thousand pounds to find the proof we were hoping to collect from Ardal Quilligan?’

‘No. He wouldn’t deny it if asked, of course, but they have no reason to ask him. And we are not required to volunteer such information.’

‘Does your client know what’s happened?’

‘Yes. I told him myself.’

‘Face to face?’

‘By telephone.’

‘Have you ever met him?’

Oudermans smiled, placidly but discouragingly. ‘Without his approval, I can’t answer such questions.’

‘What’s he going to do?’

‘I don’t know. He is … considering his situation.’

‘Great. What about my situation? And Rachel’s? Which he helped create.’

Oudermans took off his glasses, frowning at me thoughtfully as he did so. ‘I assure you, Mr Swan,’ he said eventually, ‘that I made him aware of the conflict of interest we may face if you and/or Miss Banner are charged.’

‘And?’

‘That is the situation he is considering.’

‘His identity could be crucial to this, Mr Oudermans.’

‘I understand. But his identity, as you call it, is not, strictly speaking, known to me. I know his name, of course. But I’ve wondered recently whether that’s his
real
name.’

‘I need to know who he is.’

‘Give him a little time, Mr Swan. He may agree to … reveal himself.’

‘I don’t know how much time I have. I could be arrested at any moment.’

‘That is regrettably true.’ Oudermans carefully replaced his glasses on his nose. ‘Meanwhile there is … another issue.’

‘What?’

‘Mr Quilligan’s sister, Lady Linley, arrived in Ostend today to claim her brother’s body. She met Inspecteur Leysen and spoke to Meneer van Briel. She wants to meet you, Mr Swan. The police won’t allow her to see Miss Banner, so she … demands to see you.’

‘I don’t mind meeting her.’ That was an understatement. It would give me a chance to gauge how much she knew of her husband’s activities. Had she really consented to her brother’s murder? If not, I might be able to drive a wedge between her and Sir Miles. ‘I’ve nothing to hide, Mr Oudermans.’

‘Good. I suggest we invite her here. It is important we … manage the encounter carefully. She may bring a lawyer of her own. I don’t know.’

‘Will she bring her husband?’

‘As I understand it, Sir Miles has not accompanied her to Belgium.’ No. Of course not. He couldn’t afford to take the slightest risk that the Belgian police might believe our allegations against him. Oudermans’ pursed half-smile let me see that he appreciated how his absence could be interpreted in just such a way. ‘It will be important to let Lady Linley say and ask exactly what she wants, Mr Swan. Cooperate with her. Sympathize if you can. Then we may … draw something out.’

‘I’ll be on my best behaviour.’

‘Good. That brings us to Mr Simon Cardale.’

‘You’ve heard from him?’

‘No. We’ve tried to contact him on both of the numbers you supplied, without success. He left yesterday on the six p.m. ferry from Ostend to Dover. That is all we know.’

My hunch was that Cardale had been so distraught at his uncle’s death he’d shut himself away with the phone off the hook. What he thought had really happened in Ostend I couldn’t imagine. But his
confidence must have been shattered. He was probably in fear of what Linley might do to him. Small wonder he’d gone to ground. ‘We can ask Lady Linley where he is,’ I suggested. ‘Her response could be … illuminating.’

Oudermans nodded. ‘Indeed. We must anticipate, of course, that she will in turn ask you where your uncle is.’