The Woman from Bratislava (40 page)

That evening when he got back to his hotel room Per checked his gun before going to fetch Teddy, who was shooting crap with three drivers who were moving on the next day. Toftlund admired Teddy’s knack of being able to talk to just about anybody. There was no doubt that most of the drivers found this charming little man both easygoing and entertaining. Not at all snobbish, even if he was a university lecturer and all that – this was the general opinion of the taciturn long-distance lorry drivers with eyes which had seen way too much in recent weeks.

‘Coming, Teddy?’ Toftlund asked.

They walked along the lane in silence, coming out onto Dürres’s main street, with the harbour at one end and the mosque at the other. Toftlund had done a bit of reconnaissance, so he was
familiar
with the area around the little restaurant. Teddy, who had the most amazing fund of knowledge tucked away behind that high brow of his, had also filled him in on the town’s history. Dürres was an ancient city, now the second largest in Albania, with a
population
of eighty-five thousand. It lay in a bay on the Adriatic coast and everywhere one looked one saw signs of Italian influence, from Roman ruins to the present prevailing military presence. In April 1939, Mussolini’s troops had been the last in a long
succession
of armies to invade Dürres, known to the Italians as Durazzo. They had met with fierce opposition. Toftlund and Teddy walked past the memorial to those first martyrs in the national war of liberation. Albania was a country which honoured its dead.
Possibly
because there had been so many of them. And in 1991 the tide had gone the other way. Thousands of desperate people who had lost all they had in the world attempted to escape across the sea to Italy and the promised land of the EU in just about anything that
would float. There had been nothing for it but to send them back and, now, make sure they stayed where they were.

Darkness fell. The air was surprisingly mild, with a hint of rain in it by the time they reached the promenade. There were still people around, but soon they would all retreat indoors and leave the night to the gangsters. Two Italian infantrymen were eating hamburgers and drinking Löwenbräu beer at an open-air restaurant, their storm rifles propped up against the new wooden table. The aroma of barbecued meat drifted up from the open grill. Two French legionnaires walked past with their automatics slung across their chests and waved to their Italian allies.

Toftlund and Teddy walked along the waterside. They saw a ferry leave the harbour and head out to sea. Only every second street lamp was lit, but there were still people to be seen behind the windows of the restaurants. The place where they had arranged to meet lay a little further along the promenade, set back slightly from the road. It was a new Italian restaurant built out of massive logs, as if the owner had wanted it to look like a settler’s cabin from the pioneering days of the Old West. The neon had been switched off, but Toftlund could see a faint light burning behind the
polka-dot
curtains. He turned away from the beach, drew his pistol, cocked it and did not refasten the flap on his shoulder holster. He left his leather jacket hanging open.

‘I don’t like this,’ Teddy muttered.

‘You don’t have to. Just stay close to me and you’ll be fine.’

‘Why didn’t you get your old army pal to help you? I’m not much bloody good as a bodyguard.’

‘They’ve got their problems. We’ve got ours.’

‘You’ve got yours, you mean. I’m only along for the ride. Just remember that.’

‘Look upon it as an experience,’ Toflund said, more
nonchalantly
than he felt. He could sense the adrenalin pumping through his veins, which was good, as long as it didn’t get out of hand. His awareness was heightened and he had the impression that he
could hear, see and smell more clearly: the roar of a car in the distance, the incessant barking, yapping mutts up in the town, a pair of heels tapping briskly over the crooked paving stones, the whiff of rotting seaweed and oil from the sea, which lay calm as a millpond in the darkness that had fallen so suddenly, enfolding them in a soft cloak, the air balmy still, though Per knew the temperature would drop fast now.

Toftlund opened the door. Teddy was right behind him. At first they could not see anyone inside, neither staff nor diners. The place was in semi-darkness, lit only by table lamps. They stood for a moment, then Toftlund caught sight of a man sitting at a table at the very back of the restaurant. It looked as though he had just eaten. In front of him was a plate with the last of some fettucine on it. Next to it a bowl of parmesan and a glass half full of red wine. They recognised the pockmarked face and the long, grey
ponytail
hanging down the back of the leather jacket with the hippie fringing. It was the man from the airport. At a table in the corner sat two blank-faced young men in blue jeans and black leather jackets, each with his cup of espresso.

‘Chief Inspector Toftlund, please sit down with your friend and have some wine,’ said the man from the airport. His English was clear and fluent with the hint of an American drawl.

They sat down, Toftlund making sure that he had Teddy on his right, between him and the two bodyguards. This could win him a vital few seconds should there be trouble. He hoped there would not be, his heart pounded at the thought of it, but he was banking on the fact that this was business and would be dealt with as such. No more and no less.

The man in the weird Red Indian jacket raised his hand, and for a brief moment all the rings on his fingers glittered in the light. From the gloom of the bar stepped a middle-aged woman in a white shirt and black skirt. Without meeting anyone’s eye she placed two glasses and a fresh bottle of red wine on the table and removed the plate. A beringed hand filled their glasses, then their
companion lifted his own and nodded. Per and Teddy returned the nod and drank. Teddy sighed blissfully and with a ‘Do you mind?’ turned the bottle around to read the label.

‘Ah, Barolo! Allow me to thank you for this excellent wine,’ Teddy said in English. ‘Over the past few days I’ve been forced to betray one of my fundamental principles. So, thank you.’

‘What principle has Albania led you to betray?’ came the reponse in that mid-Atlantic drawl.

‘That life’s too short to drink bad wine. That life’s too short to drop down a
cru
.’

The almost black eyes in the flat face stared at them. The phrase ‘time stood still’ flashed across Toftlund’s mind. Bullshit, of course, but that was how it felt. Time froze hard as a Siberian river, then all at once the mouth beneath those black eyes opened and uttered a hollow, almost feminine, cackle before their host turned to the two bodyguards as well, perhaps, as the waitress hovering somewhere in the dim regions of the bar, apparently to translate and explain Teddy’s remark in Albanian. The bodyguards laughed obligingly, though without much enthusiasm; the mouth in the pockmarked face closed, opened again and said:

‘Very good. I must remember that. I beg your pardon, I’m a
terrible
host. Would you like something to eat?’

‘No, thank you,’ Toftlund replied. ‘That’s very kind of you, but we’re rather pushed for time.’

‘Ah, yes, the curse of modern man, but I sympathise, Inspector Toftlund. I know what it’s like, believe me. Being a businessman in these times of war is, how shall I put it – something of a challenge. So let us drink instead to concluding our own little piece of
business
speedily and to everyone’s satisfaction.’

The Albanian raised his glass, Teddy and Per did the same, but Toftlund paused, with the glass to his lips, looked straight into those black eyes and said:

‘You know my name. May I have the honour of knowing yours?’

The thin, tight lips permitted themselves the ghost of a smile, before they said:

‘
Preferico usare un nome italiano. Chiamami Don Alberto
.’

Toftlund did not understand, but Teddy surprised him again by saying in English: ‘The gentleman would prefer to use an Italian name. He says to call him Don Alberto.’

‘I didn’t know you spoke Italian,’ Toftlund said in Danish, but Teddy continued in English:

‘I don’t speak much Italian, Don Alberto, but as a young man I did have an Italian girlfriend. A beautiful and talented Neapolitan.’

With a jingle of bracelets Don Alberto raised his slender, heavily ringed hands, smiled again and said:

‘You are a connoisseur of Italian wines. You are a connoisseur of Italian women, from whom you have learned the language in the only place where a language is worth learning, in bed, in
love-making
and in those joyous moments after the embrace, when two people are as close as they can ever be. Before the boredom sets in. May I have the honour of knowing your name?’

‘
Chiamami Teddy
.’

‘Teddy?’ Don Alberto repeated, rolling this strange name around his tongue. ‘It is an honour. To wine and love!’

They drank and Toftlund assumed that, with the ritual dance now over, he might safely open the negotiations, but again it was Teddy who took the lead, astonishing him with his perspicacity. Maybe he was simply worried that Toftlund would let the
testosterone
get the better of him and charge straight at it like a bull at a gate, rather than employ the acumen which Pedersen obviously felt that he possessed and Toftlund lacked.

‘I want to thank you, Don Alberto, for your hospitality and, more importantly, for agreeing to help me find my sister.’

‘Your sister! Now that
is
a surprise. I thought it was merely a matter of assisting our brave allies against that son of a whore Milosevic, may his sons remain impotent for generations and his daughters barren. My pleasure would be as great as Allah
himself if I could help reunite a brother and sister.’

‘Do you think you can?’

Don Alberto took another swig of the velvety wine. It seemed to Toftlund that the atmosphere had improved. He could not have said why, there had been no physical change, but the tacit air of hostility in the room had abated.

‘Your sister …’

‘Half-sister actually.’

‘The same blood runs in your veins. That is all that counts. Your sister is a popular lady, there are many who are keen to woo her. The Serbian secret service, may the seed of those ungodly
barbarians
be forever dead, would like a word with her, but the dogs are too busy fighting our gallant allies, may Allah in his greatness watch over them, and Albania’s proud sons in the UCK. May Allah protect them and make them strong and lead them to a martyr’s death. Your sister is also hiding from godless Albanians who do not understand this heroic struggle in which we must all make sacrifices, and who are collaborating with infidels from Moscow.’

‘What do the Serbs want with her?’ Toftlund asked, hastily adding, ‘Don Alberto.’

‘Traitors must die. That is the law of life. She took some papers from a courier and meant to pass them to the enemy. Russian papers which reveal that they are manning the radar station at Pristina and that, as usual, the Russians speak with forked tongues. She was going to sell their agent inside NATO, may Allah defend and strengthen our gallant allies, for vile Mammon. To save her own skin.’

‘But she’s more Croat then anything else, isn’t she?’ Teddy put in.

‘She was a Yugoslavian, back when that word meant something, and in her heart she is still a Titoist, but that has nothing to do with this. We know Mira Majola. We did not know that she had a brother, or any family, in Denmark, but we were astonished to be presented with her name and her story by our Danish supporters
in our great struggle. Allah in his wisdom moves in
mysterious
ways, but it must have been he who sees all who brought us together. We have done some little bits of business with her, but things have changed. Men of no honour are trying to gain control of our world. Men with no knowledge of our history, no
understanding
of the bonds of loyalty between families and clans; men with no appreciation of good wine, beautiful women and
gentlemen’s
agreements. Not men of honour as we know them from across the sea.

He put his hands in the air again, as if to emphasise what an unreasonable and immoral place the world had become. Per shot a glance at Teddy. He was definitely not stupid, he knew what the Albanian who called himself Don Alberto was saying. The Russian mafia was also making inroads into this corner of the world, as it was all over Eastern and Central Europe. The old Italian Cosa Nostra was being squeezed by these new, brutal, moneyed
counterparts
from the disintegrated empire. Mira had sold the famly silver and used her contacts to scrape together enough to be able to leave the sinking ship before it was too late, taking with her the man who was hiding somewhere in the vast bureaucratic maze of NATO or the EU. Either in order to take him down with her or to start a new life with him in some country far from Europe.

Don Alberto poured more wine and lit a cigarette, having first held out the red-and-white pack to the two Danes. Toftlund shook his head, but Teddy’s face lit up, of course; he accepted the proffered cigarette, leaned into the lighter flame and added his contribution to the polluted atmosphere. Toftlund also noticed, however, that the two bodyguards had lit their own cancer sticks, which meant that their hands were now occupied. This eased the tension still further.

Don Alberto leaned across the table and began to speak softly. All the theatricality had gone from his speech and with his slightly affected American accent he sounded like any other businessman.

‘For the past five years your sister has been living mainly in
Budapest. From there she has organised one of the biggest deals every conceived in this post-communist world. It is known in Hungary as the big oil fraud. Many of us have done well out of it. That is another reason, Signor Teddy, why I am willing to help you. To everything there is a season and that particular deal has run its course, but hey, what the hell – even these days four hundred million dollars profit is a tidy sum, wouldn’t you say? And that profit has gone into good investments in new technology, into establishing a working relationship between so-called legal
concerns
and the more
entrepreneurial
, if I can put it like that.’