The Eyes of Lira Kazan (7 page)

This was the right thing to say to Sunleif. So they hadn't forgotten what an important man he was. Once this had been translated, he began to calm down. The judge quietly opened his drawerful of supplies, which always came in useful during interrogations: alcohol, mints and cigars for the more self-important. For the moment he just handed a tissue to the still sweating Sunleif.

“Please relax, we've got plenty of time. She was a good swimmer, I gather?”

“Yes, very good and she knew the bay well. Her dream was to live here, rather than up there, at home. But she sometimes went out too far and I told her so.”

“She can't have gone swimming this time, she was found in her evening dress.”

“I can't understand what can have happened.”

“When did you last speak to her?”

“Several days ago…”

“What did she say?”

“Just ordinary stuff, bits of news.”

“Nothing more?”

“What do you mean, nothing more?”

“Her plans for a divorce, for example.”

There was silence. Reactions were slowed down by the intermediary of the interpreter. Especially as the interpreter looked terrified by what he was having to translate.

“No! What's going on here? First they tell me she's dead, now that she wants a divorce!”

The clerk and judge could communicate over the intranet, and Félix sent a note:
The recording?

“According to our information, she left you a message…”

“A
message
?”

“Listen, Mr Stephensen, you're an important man here, you own a bank, and some of your clients are rich and powerful people. It's quite normal that when your wife is found dead we should ask a few questions.”

Note from Félix:
Who does the boat belong to?

“What have my clients got to do with all this? I warn you that I have informed my lawyer about your intrusion onto my boat.”

“That is perfectly normal. What has your relationship with your wife been like recently?”

“Twenty years of marriage, money, demands, journeys, private jets – I don't need to spell it out, it wasn't exactly Romeo and Juliet. But still, we'd built everything up together, we grew up together, we had children together – all
that counts, doesn't it? We were very close, we needed each other.”

“Did you have a prenuptial agreement? Had your wife asked for a settlement?”

“A settlement for what?” yelled Sunleif.

“Well, a divorce settlement…”

“There you go again with your fucking divorce!”

The interpreter just said “divorce”. He looked at Sunleif, terrified. He seemed to be both a loyal servant and a prisoner, a willing but enslaved workhorse. His mouth was still that of a child.

“Listen to this, Mr Stephensen,” said the judge.

He signalled to Félix, who started the recording.

 

 

Sunleif listened in disbelief, and then suddenly rose and said: “She's not dead?! Linda isn't dead?! I knew it, I was sure. She's somewhere here, and you're digging around in our life and our business? Linda! Linda! It's me, Sun!”

He got up and called her as if she was on the other side of the door. The frail interpreter had stopped translating. The judge and the clerk watched the banker striding up and down the room calling his wife; they hadn't for a moment foreseen this reaction. “Linda, Linda, where are you?” Then he banged his fist on the judge's desk, and leant over him pointing his finger:

“I demand to see my wife. And I demand my lawyer.”

A policeman who had come to the rescue gently and firmly forced him to sit down. The judge decided that this might be the moment to bring out the cigars.

“For your wife that's impossible, sir, she's dead, and believe me I'm truly sorry. I thought you had been to the morgue to identify her body.”

“Yes but it was her and not her. This is her actual voice.”

“Yes, she was seeing a psychoanalyst who recorded it and sent the recordings to us anonymously.”

“What do you mean, a shrink? I didn't know… I'm sure she would never have divorced me, you know what women are like, they snivel and moan but in the end they stay. Doesn't yours ever do that?”

The judge quietly closed his drawer. It was a bit soon for cigars. The Viking banker wanted a man-to-man talk. Normally the judge wasn't up for that, but this time he heard himself say:

“Well, yes… Mr Stephensen.”

A sly note from Félix:
Do I record this?

The judge continued.

“She often came to Nice, as you told us. This boat, how long have you had it?”

“The boat… well, we've had it since, well… it's not really ours, we just rent it.”

“Who from?”

“Some company, I can't remember the name. We must have the charter agreement somewhere.”

Note from Félix:
How did he find out the boat was for hire?

“How did you know the boat was for hire?”

“An ad in the
Herald Tribune
I think. It was Linda who saw it. She loved being there, and she wanted a big boat, so I said yes, you understand…”

“Look, Mr Stephensen, we can either carry on now or continue this conversation tomorrow. But you will have to tell me more about the boat and the ad in the
Herald Tribune
.”

“But I don't know what you're talking about, I don't deal with all that!”

“If you're the owner of the boat, why is it so important to conceal it?”

“Stop fucking me around!” (The interpreter preferred “Stop annoying me.”)

“When people put property in the name of a third party it's often a way of laundering money.”

“What the fuck have all these questions got to do with Linda's death? I've just lost my wife, twenty years of my life, the mother of my children, and now I'm being treated like a petty thief by a little provincial judge—”

“Calm down, Mr Stephensen.”

“No, I will not calm down! I will not be trampled on! I know people, you know. You're the one who's going to have to calm down. You're going to regret your slanderous questions.”

And, turning to his little frightened robot, Eyvin:

“Translate that properly! Tell him I know people way above his pay grade!”

“Exactly,” the judge said, picking up the logbook. “You do seem to have some prestigious connections. What is your relationship with?…”

And the judge then read out one by one the names of those people who had been on the boat the night of Linda's death.

“They're my friends.”

“Do you do business with them?”

“For me business and friendship are the same thing.”

Note from Félix:
I've got you by the short and curlies
.

“Might one of them have had any reason to harm you or your wife?”

“They're my friends!”

“You wife said in these recordings that your business was going through a difficult patch.”

“She didn't understand anything! Just as I don't understand anything about these stupid pictures without paint that she sells for millions of dollars. Each to his own department…”

“What can you tell me about Sergei Louchsky?”

“He's a friend.”

“Mr Stephensen, friendships sometimes deteriorate. At least that's what your wife seemed to be saying.”

The judge made a signal and Félix turned the voice on for the second time:

 

 

Sunleif Stephensen was foaming with rage. If Linda had come to life there and then he would have hit her. Eyvin, beside him, would have given anything simply to disappear.

“Mr Stephensen, we'll stop there for today. However, I am obliged to ask you for your mobile phone so that we can check the messages on it.”

“You're joking!”

He got up, unfolding his huge frame, and leant towards the judge, both hands on the edge of the desk.

“Mr Stephensen, you'll get it back as soon as possible. And nothing that is not pertinent to your wife's death will be kept on the file. I'm doing my job, sir.”

“Well all right, do it then,” the ogre suddenly obeyed, throwing his mobile onto the table.

 

Two hours later, the commission of inquiry to be sent to the Cayman Islands had been authorized. The serial number of Stephensen's SIM card had been sent to the listening
services. The judge, in a filthy mood, pushed open the door to the prosecutor's office – he had been summoned to see him immediately. He was greeted by an over-effusive “my dear fellow” and sat down on an ochre government-issue sofa.

“What's going on with Mr Stephensen?” the prosecutor asked.

“Has he already been complaining?”

“Not just him! I've had the Senator and the President of the Chamber of Commerce on the telephone within the last hour. It appears that you impounded his logbook and his telephone. Isn't that a bit hard on a man who has just lost his wife?”

The judge explained about the recordings and the checks that would be necessary.

“I see. But the autopsy report is quite clear, is it not? Mrs Stephensen drowned.”

“Yes, that seems likely.”

“So you agree with me?”

“Let's say I don't disagree.”

“Good. That's all I wanted to hear. I don't know anything about Mr Stephensen's affairs, but the only thing we're interested in is his wife's death, nothing else. Are we agreed on that?”

“Of course.”

“Good. So give him back his telephone and sign the release for the body so that we can have a bit of peace and quiet. You know what these foreigners here are like. They seem to think that because they're helping our economy with their millions we should have to take orders from them. They don't understand that there are procedures that must be followed. Otherwise, all well?”

“Perfectly.”

“Your wife?”

“Fine.”

“Piano coming along all right?”

The prosecutor drummed his little fat fingers on the edge of the desk. The judge didn't remember ever having mentioned his piano lessons to him.

“It's coming along.”

“Good, well I think that's everything… Oh, I was just about to forget the good news! I've done what's necessary to get you the Legion of Honour. In normal circumstances, and I mean normal, it should come through in this Christmas's honours list.”

In front of Lira was a transparent building, made entirely of glass, with the thrilling words engraved in white on the sliding doors: Centre for Criminology. She went in. She had just walked through Oxford, hurrying past its domes and towers, unimpressed by the old stones – she had, after all, come from St Petersburg. She now studied the list of departments in the hallway: Security; Sentencing; Crime; Risk; Human Rights; Victims; Prisons; Sociology of Crime; Capital Punishment; Mafia and Organized Crime; Sex, Race and Justice; Strategy of War on Crime; Criminology – a long list that seemed to imply that they were still looking for answers to all these problems.

She asked for Nwankwo Ganbo at the reception desk.

“Third floor, room 352,” the receptionist said after looking down the list.

The lift doors opened at once as though eager to be used. The whole building was like a great idling machine lying slumped in the August heat. In the library a few students were writing their reports, but along the corridors the doors opened onto rooms full of empty chairs. One voice could be heard, a not very local-sounding monotone: “Corruption in Nigeria: a multinational company pays costs in bribery case.” Lira went towards the voice, and stopped at the entrance to a classroom. The door was ajar and she could see a tall thin black man wearing old-fashioned glasses and a severe expression. He was addressing two students, or rather he was reading the newspaper out loud. This must be Nwankwo Ganbo, of course, this man gritting his teeth as he read the
Financial Times
must be him…

“One of the world leaders in project management has agreed to pay 338 million dollars to settle the lawsuit by the
US Department of Justice pertaining to corrupt activities connected with Nigeria. According to financial sources in America, Tevip had been systematically bribing government officials in Nigeria over a period of ten years in order to obtain contracts worth over six billion dollars…”

…a man swept along by world events. He put down the paper and exploded with joy. “A French group in Nigeria pursued by the American justice system, that's good news! They'll prefer to pay up front, so as to cut short the inquiry, that means they'll plead guilty. I've never heard these people admitting to anything.” His students listened, open-mouthed. On his desk he had a cube with a photo of a child on each surface, his surely, their bright eyes shining against their black skin. Behind him, like a shadow, he had hung up a huge map of Africa, the land, the rivers, the towns, the deserts, the lakes and little coloured pins by the Gulf of Guinea, his own home.