The Woman from Bratislava (41 page)

‘So it all comes down to money?’ Teddy asked.

‘Most things in this world do, Signor Teddy,’ Don Alberto replied.

Almost as if to himself Teddy murmured:

‘Maybe, but Irma has never cared about money. So she would never have been driven by that.’

‘Who is Irma, Signor Teddy?’

‘My other sister.’

‘If she is as you say then she is too good for this world,’ Don Alberto declared.

‘So that is why some of your competitors, shall we say, are looking for Mira?’ Toftlund interjected.

‘Yes, Signor Toftlund. They are searching for her because they think that if they find her she will be able to point to a spot on the map and tell them that that is where the treasure is buried. All the lovely money which she took with her when things began to get too hot for her and the only thing to do was to secure some sort of life insurance.’

‘So how come they haven’t been able to find her, if you say that you have, Don Alberto?’

The Albanian smiled, donning his theatrical mask again:

‘This is my territory. I am like an old tomcat, I do not allow other tomcats to go pissing all over the ground where I take my evening strolls.’

His face turned cold and his lips narrowed again:

‘Mira Majola is in a refugee camp in a disused tobacco factory in Shkodra. She is under my protection, but has agreed to speak to you gentlemen. To speak to her brother and the man from Danish intelligence. But, dear friends – may I call you that, now that we have poured out our hearts to one another? My dear friends, this good sister is under my protection, so in conclusion let us drink to her continued good health.’

The audience was at an end. Per and Teddy groped their way home in the light of the few street lamps still burning. There was hardly a soul around by this time, only on the main street did they see a couple of policemen on the beat and a handful of other pedestrians. The main street was more brightly lit too. They had walked in silence until they stepped into the glow of its street lamps, where Toftlund felt safer than on the dark promenade.

‘It makes sense,’ he said.

‘What does?’

‘The mafia, or whatever the hell we’re supposed to call them, thought that your sister had given you information concerning the whereabouts of the fortune she stole. They thought it was in those documents that went missing with your suitcase.’

‘But there was no money in that envelope. Far less a fortune.’

‘That’s not how money is hidden these days. It’s salted away in secret bank accounts in the Cayman Islands or some such place. You have to have a number and a code word. Once you have those you can move the money elsewhere. That’s what she gave you. As security. Concealed among the documents concerning your father. Old, inconsequential documents from the war. As her tools she has had a computer and the Internet. The money is
deposited
in several different accounts, most likely in different banks. Among the papers she gave you she has concealed numbers, codes and the aliases under which the accounts were opened. Trust me.’

‘Smart. If you steal from a thief, to whom is the thief supposed to report the theft?’ Teddy said.

They walked on in silence for a while. They could still smell the sea and, as usual, out on the horizon the thunder began to roll. Soon the heavy raindrops would be pelting down. Those crazy dogs were barking in the distance, but near at hand they also heard a growl and a couple of yellow eyes flashed in the dark before disappearing again when Toftlund stamped his foot on the cracked cement.  

‘What a dump,’ Per groaned, shuddering.  

‘Interesting man,’ Teddy said, quite unperturbed. He seemed very relaxed, as if all his fears had vanished after their recent
interview
. As if he had come to the conclusion that he had landed in a surreal world in which every new piece of information seemed to cancel out or contradict the last, and if you had no choice but to be a participant in an absurd modern tragedy then you might as well accept your fate and not let it get you down. Perhaps he
perceived
something which Toftlund could not see? Perhaps he was just relieved to have got that meeting out of the way. Or perhaps it was simply that for the first time in days he had had a couple of glasses of excellent red wine.  

‘Well, obviously he was interesting,’ Toftlund retorted irritably. ‘But were you thinking of anything in particular?’  

‘The whole scenario, his choice of words, even his name. None of it was accidental.’  

‘How do you mean – his name?’  

‘Don Alberto, not Signor Alberto. The Italians don’t use the word
Don
. Only
Signor
, but the Sicilians say
Don
. Don’t you see? He was telling you who his friends are. Talk to my sister by all means, Toftlund, but if I were you I wouldn’t hurt a hair on her head.’  

Teddy began to chuckle, as if he could not keep it in any longer, although as far as Per could see they did not have much to laugh about.  

‘So you think this is funny, do you?’ he snapped, and felt the lassitude that always followed an adrenalin rush starting to wash over him.

Teddy grinned and lit a cigarette before saying:

‘You bet I do. It’s such a typical post-communist three-ring circus, with no heroes or villains, only crooks and swindlers. It just goes to show that all that talk about a new world order was nothing but pie-in-the-sky. I’d say that’s pretty damn funny. And d’you know what, Toftlund?’

‘No, Teddy, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.’

‘Toftlund, old man – what you have here is a picture of the whole bloody set-up. You could call it
Teddy in Deep Shit in Albania,
but what the hell.’

‘Sometimes I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘And – d’you know what else?’

‘No, what else.’

‘I absolutely love Albania,’ Teddy exclaimed and stepped up the pace, shaking his head and chuckling so hard that Per was afraid he was cracking up.

THE CONVOY LEFT DÜRRES
at first light. It had rained and
thundered
all night and the puddles lay brimful and brown with silt in the soft morning light. The morning was dull, with low, heavy cloud and a gentle breeze blowing off the rolling Adriatic. There were six trucks and one four-wheel drive in the convoy. One of the articulated lorries had a trailer in tow and it, like all the other
vehicles
, was painted the UN’s signature white. Besides the UNHCR logo three of the trucks also bore the Danish flag; the other three were from the UK, as were their drivers. Toftlund and Teddy had been in luck. The chances of finding transport in Albania were almost as slim as the prospect of peace, but Torsten Poulsen
happened
to have a convoy travelling to Shkodra with blankets, tents and sanitary pads, and if they did not mind roughing it with the aid agency drivers and possibly having to spend the night in the back of a truck they were welcome to go with it. Most unusually for an officer at his level Poulsen himself would be leading the convoy, quite simply because he had been unable to find anyone else to do it when the UN officials suddenly gave him the word to load up and drive across the mountains to Shkodra, which lay just over a hundred kilometres north of Tirana. Various
guidebooks
had for years been warning tourists not to visit Shkodra – assuming, that is, that anyone would ever have felt the notion to seek out this bandit’s paradise. Now, though, like other povertystricken, run-down Albanian towns it was home to thousands of refugees. With road conditions as they were, Poulsen hoped to reach Shkodra within four to five hours, allow a couple of hours for unloading and be back in Dürres before nightfall. This was why he had opted to go himself and leave his Albanian assistant to
man the phones. It might be against the rules, but to Poulsen the refugees always came first.

The convoy inched out of Dürres hemmed in by the
early-morning
buses, big, begrimed Mercedes, the first horse-drawn carts, rusty Chinese bikes and the occasional old woman leading a cow or a sheep or a pig along the hard shoulder in hopes of finding the creature a bit of breakfast.

Toftlund travelled with Poulsen in the Toyota, while Teddy had climbed up into one of the big Volvos with one of his crap game pals who had announced that Teddy was more than welcome to smoke in his truck. Like a long snake the convoy headed over to Tirana, through the greenish-brown countryside with its
scattering
of little bunkers and oddly gutted or derelict buildings which might have been abandoned, bombed-out factories. It looked as though an invading army had swept across the country,
plundering
it and leaving only poverty in its wake. The road was pitted with holes and neither animals nor people seemed to know the
difference
between right and left. Manoeuvring the long, white convoy through the melee was a very slow business. Toftlund could hear the huge trucks behind the Toyota complaining every time they had to gear up or down, and when he turned his head and looked back he saw the lead truck heeling and weaving round the biggest, water-filled craters in the road like an oversize slalom skier. After only a few kilometres the white sides of the trucks were as grey as the low-lying clouds.

‘That’s Johnny right behind me,’ Poulsen said. ‘I’ve worked with him in Iran and in Bosnia. He’s the best. He just knows how to read the road and the other guys trust him, they keep their eyes on him and go wherever he goes. The trick is always to maintain the momentum’.

Other than that Per did not have much chance to talk to Poulsen. He hung on to the side-strap and swayed with the Toyota as it crept and crawled along the narrow, winding road which, once they turned north at Tirana, carried on straight through a series of
small, ramshackle villages, all of them milling with people, cows, horses, pigs, and sheep. Not to mention the children and teenagers who waved and cheered and made the V-sign when they sighted the white snake. Because Toftlund had very soon realised that Poulsen was the snake’s eyes, ears and compass. On the Toyota’s nose bobbed the long, powerful antenna which constituted the lifeline of the VHF radios in the trucks behind them, over which Poulsen’s steady voice relayed a running commentary on whatever obstacles lay beyond the next corner, house or hole in the road:

‘Man with goat on the right, people on the left, watch out for a child, stray cow at next right-turn, traffic coming towards us, four vehicles, the last is a red Mercedes. Johnny, you’ve got a clear road now, flock of sheep on the left, horse and cart on the right, very uneven road, slow down, almost to a halt, complete halt, moving again, police checkpoint ahead, children on both sides, stray cow on the hard shoulder, very uneven road again, are the Brits through the crossroads?’

Poulsen’s commentary was monotonous, but it was fascinating too, Toftlund found: this constant scanning for hazards and
hindrances
which, Per knew, called for the greatest possible degree of alertness, and it occurred to him that the real heroes in this war as in others, were the civilians in the trucks, forming as they did the only link to other civilians in distress. He very quickly came to sense and to share Poulsen’s relief when Johnny’s or one of the other drivers’ voices squawked over the VHF’s loudpeakers to let the leader know that everyone was now through a crossroads, or safely round a turn, or to confirm that the truck towing the trailer was still with them. Time moved as slowly as the convoy, but Toftlund was feeling confident and strangely optimistic. The journey was almost over. If they did not find the woman at Shkodra, there would be nothing more they could do. He tried to push away a thought that kept nagging at him: that when he looked around him at this morass of destitution, knowing that half a million displaced people were scattered across this mud-bound,
broken-down country, his own mission seemed absurd and
insignificant
. And then it was hard to take it seriously. The fact that some twenty or thirty years ago Danes with plenty and to spare should have toyed with the ideas of communism and revolution seemed suddenly so trivial. He ought, somehow, to be able to see Irma’s complicity in all this, but he found it difficult to
differentiate
between cause and effect. Was it the Serbian oppression that had sparked off this horrendous refugee disaster? Or was it the NATO bombings which had provoked this influx of humanity? And what were Irma and her mysterious string-puller or
controller
but tiny pawns in the game, who had not influenced the
situation
in the slightest. But it didn’t work that way of course. He had to find this woman. Then they could proceed with the case, only then it would be the prosecution’s pigeon. And if he didn’t find her then he could go home to Denmark, see his child being born and begin a new life, because the High Court would dismiss the case by releasing Irma. And he was forced to admit that it would be a huge relief, because he no longer knew what was right and fair. The weight and the feel of the gun in his shoulder holster was reassuring. The swift and accusing look which Poulsen had shot him as he got into the car and noticed the bulge in his jacket had not been lost on him, but the Beretta made him feel secure and confident.

He sat back as best he could in the comfortable seat and let Torsten’s stream of directions play over his ears like background music while he gazed out at the devastated Albanian landscape. Rocky cliffs reared up, green and grey, into the leaden spring sky. The houses were generally small and tumbledown, but
occasionally
– behind a hedge or a fence – he would be offered an unexpected glimpse of a large house with a new red-tiled roof, surveillance cameras and the inevitable satellite dish. He was amazed to note that many of the wretched little hovels also had brand-new satellite dishes fixed to their walls. On small hilltops he saw the ruins of what might have been medieval castles. They
drove past an old factory, a burnt-out shell overgrown with weeds. It seemed to stretch for ever around a bend in the river, looking as if everyone had simply gone home one day with no intention of ever going back. The rusting hulks of cars were strewn all over the place. Toftlund could not think how they ever came to be in Albania in the first place, far less how they had wound up as scrap on the heaps found in every gap in the hills or small field. Poulsen told him that most of the Mercedes they saw were stolen and had arrived there by some pretty shady routes. Tree cover was low on the plain spreading out on either side of the road and on the greenish-brown hills rising up on the horizon. They passed several mosques and, to Toftlund’s surprise, a number of
brand-new
, gilded churches which seemed oddly clean and virginal next to the buildings around them. They drove for some kilometres alongside a rusty railway line overlooking a valley in which smoke rose from little wooden cottages to hang almost motionless in the air. Some sort of market was in progress down there: lots of stalls, lots of grey people and lots of animals. Poulsen slowed down even more, indicated, pulled into the side and switched off the engine.

‘Pee break,’ he announced, extending his arms above and behind his head to relax the muscles in his shoulders and arms.

Teddy climbed out of his truck and stretched his back, hands kneading the base of his spine. He ambled over to Toftlund, who veered off to the side, but Pedersen stuck with him. On a low hillside lay what looked like an old refinery which someone had abandoned and left to rot. Twisted, rust-covered iron struts
encircled
an old furnace, oil residue floated in waterholes and among the rubble the first weeds of the spring mingled with plants which had survived the winter. The place stank of oil, petrol, tar and piss.

‘Robert Jacobsen would have loved this,’ Teddy said.

‘Who?’

‘Danish sculptor – never mind.’

Totftlund and Teddy made their contribution to the stench, standing comfortably side by side.

‘Oh, Christ, my back,’ Teddy moaned, and then: ‘Aah … relief beyond belief.’

‘What is this place?’ Per asked.

‘Probably some Chinese development project. Hoxha fell out with the Chinese after 1978 when they revised their ideas about Mao’s cultural revolution. Almost from one day to the next the Chinese left the country. Whatever they were working on at the time stands in the same state as they left it, or a worse one. Massive factories, railway lines leading nowhere. Albania meant to
introduce
pure communism, you see. Until as late as 1990 all roads, all factories, all bridges, all schools and anything else you can think of were still dedicated to the memory of Joseph Stalin.’

‘Stalin! Even the Russians gave up on him.’

‘Papa Stalin. Hoxha came into power in 1944, during the war, and until his death in 1985 he stayed true to Stalin and his
principles
. The real thing. The other Soviet leaders might have
forsaken
the pure doctrine but not he. The poor Albanians had their own cultural revolution in the mid-sixties. Every bit as insane as the Chinese. Teachers, professors, intellectuals – out into the fields with them. A ban on all Western literature and newspapers. Religion abolished, forbidden, wiped out. Churches and mosques turned into cinemas or blown sky-high. God was declared dead. Executed, you might say. From 1967 until 1990 Albania was Europe’s only officially atheist country. Why the hell do you think the real dyed-in-the wool Danish left-wingers were so crazy about this place? It was the real thing, for God’s sake. Here they could salve their Protestant conscience. When all the apparatus of the market-economy spilled into this country in the early nineties the population was totally unprepared for it. It was like putting a virgin in bed with a porn star.’

Toftlund laughed:

‘Is this how you teach?’

Teddy’s eyes flashed:

‘No, I’m a very serious teacher.’

‘Well, you know a lot, that’s for sure, but I’ve seen quite a few churches around,’ Per said, zipping up.

‘Of course. This is primarily a Muslim country, but as you could see from Don Alberto, not everybody here takes the Koran’s words about alcohol and other things too seriously. Italy is not far away and the Catholic church is very active here, building churches and schools everywhere. The same goes for the Turks and the Saudis, only in their case they’re building mosques. To that you can add ranting American preachers with the Bible in one hand and a bundle of emergency aid in the other. In such chaos as this there are plenty of souls to be fought over and harvested, my friend. And that’s what is happening. Would you mind giving me a hand. This picture could be entitled:
Teddy with Bad Back Having
Difficulty
Descending Albanian Mountain with Old Chinese Factory.
’

Toftlund laughed again, took Teddy’s hand and supported him while he half walked, half slid down the slope to the road, where the white snake was parked. The drivers were drinking coffee from their thermoses and both Teddy and Per gratefully accepted a steaming plastic cup. A steady stream of cumbersome old Chinese bikes rolled past them. On their backs little crates from which came the sound of clucking hens. There were also lots of people on foot, poor peasant types with strong, furrowed faces. Some with a goat or a pig on a lead, taking it to market. The more
well-to-do
had little carts drawn by horses with froth-flecked muzzles and mud up to their knees. Behind them in the cart, besides the driver, there was often a woman, one or two kids and a pig or a couple of sheep. In another, a cow or an old woman holding a basket of spotted apples. In one small waggon with worn rubber tyres, besides the standing driver, there were two young women sitting on the box and a calf and two curly-horned goats in the back. Still more people were walking along the railway line, which did not look as if it had seen a train in a long, long time. This saved them having to run the gauntlet of the muddy puddles. They were all shabbily dressed, but most of them could still manage a smile, a
wave or a V-sign as they passed the convoy of white trucks sitting by the side of the road. None of this bore any resemblance to a Europe on the cusp of the millenium; it was more like a scene from some unknown Third World which Toftlund had never imagined could exist so close to the borders of the EU.