The Devil's Breath (39 page)

Laura lay in the bed for a full five minutes, motionless. She was in a foreign country, a foreign hotel. A man had died here only days earlier. Terrible things were happening, unpredictable things, things she didn’t understand. The presence on the telephone could have been anywhere. America. London. Three blocks away. Downstairs even. She lay back, staring at the tiny strip of sky between the curtains, trying to sort her thoughts into some rational order, trying to steady her pulse, trying to keep control.

Finally, minutes later, she drew back the covers and slipped out of bed. She was wearing an old night-shirt, one of Ron’s. She padded across the room and tried the handle on the door. The door was double-locked. She eased the lock, frightened again, dreading the moment when she had to open the door and face the five steps along the empty corridor to Emery’s adjoining room. She turned the handle, opening the door. The corridor outside was empty. She slipped out, closing the door, realizing – too late – that she’d left the key inside. She swallowed hard, closing her eyes, then she knocked on Emery’s door, light taps at first, progressively more urgent. When the door finally opened, he looked terrible, hair everywhere, eyes barely open. Recognizing Laura, he beckoned her inside.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said at once. ‘It’s crazy, but I’m frightened.’

He led her to the unoccupied bed, telling her it didn’t matter, settling her down, pulling the blankets around her, returning to his own bed, asleep again within seconds.

Lying in the cold bed between the crisp new sheets, Laura heard the phone in the next room begin to ring again, on and on. Even with the blanket over her head, a full minute later, it was still ringing.

*

Telemann stepped out of the phone booth, stumbling a moment in the darkness, reaching out for the rail at the water’s edge. The rain had stopped now, and the wind had dropped, and the river was whispering by, only feet away. He could see the bulk of the Hotel Dreisen upstream, the tall picture windows on the ground floor, the bedrooms above, curtained against the night.

He stood by the rail for a moment, leaning against it, trying to ease the pain in his leg. Getting away from Wulf’s apartment, returning to street level, was already a blur, a jumble of decisions, taken and half-taken, the product of instinct and adrenalin and something close to panic. On the corner of Wulf’s patio he’d found a ledge. The ledge extended the full length of the building. A metre wide, it gave him access to the site next door, a scaffold of huge steel girders, floors already in place, cladding stacked in piles, every working space ensnared with cables and hydraulic feeds and small caches of thick steel bolts. On one of these, in the darkness, he’d tripped, falling heavily, one arm outstretched, narrowly avoiding a nine-storey plunge to the street below. At first, getting to his feet again, he hadn’t felt the pain. Only minutes later, climbing carefully down yet another girder, did he realize that his trousers were torn below the knee, his left leg gashed, an ugly open wound still pouring blood.

At street level, behind the cover of the hoardings that ringed the site, he’d done his best to bandage the wound, taking his jacket off and tearing the sleeve from his shirt. Wound tightly round his calf, the bandage had stemmed the blood-loss, but upright again, testing the leg with his body-weight, he’d known at once that walking any distance would be out of the question.
If he was to get to Bad Godesburg, if he was to start the long journey home, then he had to find transport.

At the railway station, he knew, there would be cabs. The station was 500 metres away. He managed it in less than ten minutes, pausing to recover at the end of each block, grateful that the traffic had thinned, glad that the rain was still falling, keeping people off the streets. The first cab in the rank was a newish Opel. He bent to the window. The driver was Turkish, a young man. He asked to be taken to Bad Godesburg. The young man peered at him, nodding towards the station, telling him that the train would be cheaper, quicker even, but Telemann had persevered, producing a thick roll of bank-notes, offering 500 Deutschmarks up front. Looking at them, the Turk had shrugged, reaching back to open the door, starting the engine.

The journey had taken a couple of hours, the autobahn choked with traffic. Telemann had sat in the back, sideways across the bench seat, his leg up, his attention divided between the driver and the road. The driver spoke good English, doing nothing to mask his curiosity, asking Telemann where he’d come from, what he did for a living, what he thought of the new Germany. Bad Godesburg, he said, was the worst place on earth, full of diplomats and old people. Nobody ever went there for a good time. Nothing ever happened. Listening, Telemann parried his questions as best he could, non-committal, gruff, the visiting businessman at the end of an exhausting week.

The Turk had the radio on, low in the background, and Telemann bent forward a little for each newscast, curious to know whether Wulf’s death had yet been reported. He’d never seen the effects of nerve gas, not first-hand, but the last month or so had given him all the information he needed, and he was quite certain that the liquid in the bottle of perfume had been Tabun. The symptoms matched, spasm for spasm, the way the man convulsed, the way his muscles had decoupled from his brain, and Telemann shivered, knowing how close he must have come to the same fate. So much for Inge, he thought grimly, remembering the touch of her lips as he’d left the Mercedes. Another betrayal. More bullshit.

By the time they’d got to Bad Godesburg, it was nearly midnight. Telemann had asked the Turk to drop him by the river, a street away from the Dreisen, and he’d added a big tip before the Opel bumped away across the cobble-stones. Alone, the rain gone, he’d limped along the river-bank to the hotel. A band was playing in one of the downstairs reception rooms. He could hear the tramp of feet and the sound of laughter and soon afterwards partygoers began to spill out of the hotel’s side-door, arm in arm, calling good night and good luck to the handsome young couple standing inside, nicely framed in the open doorway. Telemann had watched them for a full five minutes, a figure in the shadows, marvelling at their confidence, the way they looked at each other, their fingers loosely interlinked, the girl’s head on her new husband’s shoulder. A wedding, he thought bitterly, knowing that the next few hours would be far from easy, knowing that he had to give himself time, keep himself under control. The worst, after all, was over. He’d confronted the news. He knew what it meant. The rest was a mere formality.

He’d waited for two hours, sitting on a bench by the river, watching the occasional barge pushing upstream. Then, near two in the morning, he’d phoned, asking for her by name, asking for the room number, asking to be put through. She’d answered, really there, sleepy, curious, and he’d stood on one leg in the phone booth, feeling like some dumb adolescent, not knowing what to say, scribbling the room number on the palm of his hand, hearing her voice again, puzzled, anxious. Putting the phone down, he’d felt the sweat, cold on his face, knowing that all the clever rationalizations, all the games he’d played with himself, were quite hopeless, that he was as angry, and as hurt, and as confused as he’d ever been. There had to be a resolution, some kind of answer. Picking up the phone again, he’d dialled the hotel’s number. This time, he’d tell her who it was. This time, they’d start a conversation. But the phone hadn’t answered, and now, limping towards the hotel, he knew that they had to do it face to face, first time, no rehearsals.

The door at the side of the hotel was still unlocked, open – Telemann supposed – for the remains of the wedding party. He
stepped inside. To his left, a flight of stairs offered access to all five floors. Telemann knew the route. He’d used the stairs before, only days ago. He began to limp upwards, pausing at each corridor. Laura’s room was number 402.

On the fourth floor, Telemann paused again. The corridor ran the length of the hotel. He began to limp along it. Room 402 was at the end. He stopped outside, knocking on the door, waiting for an answer, knocking again, louder this time. Nothing happened. He frowned, peering at the number on the door, checking it against the smudged reminder on the palm of his hand. 402. No question about it. He knocked again, bending to the keyhole, hissing her name.

‘Laura,’ he said. ‘Laura.’

There was a movement in the corridor behind him, a door opening. He looked round. His wife was standing in the corridor. She was wearing his night-shirt. She looked frightened. He stood up. ‘Hi,’ he said woodenly. ‘It’s me.’

She nodded, stepping towards him, putting her arms around him, kissing him. She smelled of sleep, a delicious mustiness. She was crying, her hands to his face, her lips to his ear.

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Hi. Hi. Hi.’

Telemann blinked, losing his place in the script again. He pulled back a little, holding her off, not roughly, and she sensed the hostility in him, and the confusion.

‘What’s the matter? You hurt?’

‘No.’ Telemann frowned. ‘Yes.’

‘Where? What happened?’

He shook his head, letting her take him by the hand, lead him into the bedroom, number 404. She closed the door behind him and put on the light. Telemann gazed round. There were two beds. Emery was in the other, rubbing his eyes, hinging upright. Telemann stepped towards the bed, the rage flooding through him. Not her fault, he thought. Not Laura’s. His. Emery’s. Oblivious to the pain in his leg, he ripped the sheet off the bed. Emery was naked underneath, his long thin body, his pale skin.

Telemann stood beside the bed, shaking with rage. ‘Out, buddy.’

Emery gazed at him, not moving. ‘Where’ve you been?’

‘I said out.’

Emery hesitated for a moment, then glanced at Laura and shrugged. Naked by the bed, he reached for his robe. Telemann snatched it from him.

‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me why you did it?’

‘Did what?’

‘This. All this.’ Telemann gestured round the room, the two beds, Laura. ‘Tell me why you’ve been fucking my wife. Tell me why you did it.’

There was a long silence. Telemann could hear the interminable clatter of a goods train miles away across the river. Finally, Emery sat down on the bed. He was still looking at Telemann. ‘That what you think?’ he said. ‘Me and Laura?’

‘Yeah. Sure I do.’ Telemann paused, staring at the other bed, the blankets pulled back, the bottom sheet hollowed with the shape of Laura’s body. ‘Look after you, did she? Full repertoire? Party night?’

He turned round, looking for Laura, finding her behind him, her face white, without expression. ‘You disgust me,’ he said, ‘the pair of you. Ever think about the kids? Bree? Any of that ever occur to you? In between times?’

‘Ron …’ Laura stepped towards him, then changed her mind, sitting down on the other bed, staring at the carpet. Telemann studied them both for a moment, shaking his head, three weeks in the field, three lives changed utterly. ‘Hey, guys,’ he said softly. ‘I’m interrupting. I’m sorry.’

Emery was still looking at him. ‘You’re not,’ he said, ‘you’re interrupting nothing.’

‘Bullshit.’ Telemann paused, his finger pointing, his voice shaking with rage. ‘You know what I should be doing with you? Here? Now? I should be beating the shit out of you. And you know why I’m not? Because my wife’s here. Because she deserves better. Better than me. And better than fucking you.’

He paused for a moment longer, the finger still up, then he threw the robe at him. Emery let it fall to the floor. ‘You’ve got it wrong, buddy,’ he said quietly.

‘
Buddy?
’

‘Yeah, buddy.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know what evidence you’ve got. I don’t know what planet you’ve been on. But it’s all wrong. You hear me? Wrong.’

‘You’ve been seeing her,’ Telemann said woodenly. ‘I know you have.’

‘Sure. She’s a friend of mine.’

‘She wrote me a note. A letter. You gave it to me. At the airport. Said she couldn’t go on much longer.’ He paused. ‘Remember?’

‘Sure.’

‘So OK. So what kind of goodbye is that? Dear John. Get this. Fuck off. Yours ever … heh?’ He paused again. ‘You must have read it. You must have seen what was in it. God knows, you probably wrote the thing …’ He broke off and fumbled in his jacket pocket, producing a rumpled sheet of paper, much folded. ‘You wanna read it again? Refresh that memory of yours? Here …’ He threw the letter towards Emery. Emery let the letter fall to the floor.

Telemann’s finger was out again, pointing, his voice thickening with rage. ‘Plus my wife comes to New York,’ he said, ‘way back now. She comes to the hotel where I’m staying. She’s very pissed with me. We’re not on the beach. I can understand that. Sure. But there’s something else, too. She’s come to tell me something else. But you know what we did?’

‘Sure.’

‘You do? She told you?’

‘Yes.’

Telemann stared at him in pure disbelief. ‘She discusses that kind of thing? How it went? Who fucked who? Who came first?’ He paused. ‘She tell you all that stuff?’

‘She’s told me everything.’

‘I bet she has.’ Telemann stepped closer. ‘Every damn time I’ve phoned, you’ve been there. Every damn time. And you tell me now I’m wrong? Is that the way it goes? You think I’m some kind of schmuck?’

‘Sure I’ve been there.’ Emery nodded. ‘She’s been upset.’

‘Who?’

‘Laura.’

‘Why?’ Telemann bent towards Emery, very close now. ‘I want to know why.’

Emery looked at him for a long time, then glanced at Laura. Laura was still staring at the carpet, her hands hanging loose from her knees. She looked up long enough to nod. ‘Tell him,’ she said quietly.

‘You want me to?’

‘Sure.’

Emery shrugged. ‘OK.’

He got up and went to the closet. His bag was inside. He pulled the bag out and opened it, producing a long brown envelope. He returned to the bed, opening the envelope, extracting a slim file, five or six sheets of paper, stapled at one corner. Telemann peered at the file. It was neatly typed. His name was on the front page, underlined. He recognized the address of the clinic he’d visited up in Georgetown, the clinic with the million-dollar machine. He began to frown, watching Emery’s long fingers leafing through the report, lines of dense typescript, figures carefully tabulated, diagrams of the human body.