TWENTY-NINE
It was dark by the time we reached Antwerp. The city was a formless presence beyond the lights of the autoroute. I was tired and depressed. I couldn’t help feeling I’d deserted Rachel, even though, according to van Briel, she’d been relieved to hear they were going to let me go. She was counting on me to retrieve the situation, of course. I knew that. I only hoped I could.
Our destination, though I was unaware of it, was Zurenborg, the turn-of-the-century residential district famous for its architectural riches, where Isaac Meridor had chosen to live when he was up-and-coming, where he’d continued to live when he’d very much arrived, and where his widow and grandson were still to be found. I realized we were in the area when I glimpsed a road sign reading COGELS-OSYLEI and remembered Eldritch saying the Meridor residence, Zonnestralen, was in the Avenue Cogels-Osy.
‘We’re near Zonnestralen,’ I said, breaking a silence that had glumly ruled since van Briel had given up interrogating me about the events of the previous night.
‘Yes, Mr Swan, we are. In fact, here it is.’
He pulled over to the side of the street and I recognized the house at once from Eldritch’s description: tall, high-windowed and balconied, with serpentine wrought ironwork and Art Nouveau styling. There were few lights showing and an air of neglect hung around it. Good times were just a memory lodged in the masonry.
‘I live a couple of streets away,’ said van Briel. ‘My place looks very different, but that’s Zurenborg. All kinds of houses. All kinds of people. I love it. I guess Mevrouw Meridor and her grandson must too.’
‘Do you know them?’
‘Never heard of them till my boss called me in this morning. Hey, maybe he chose me just because I live round here. Anyway, it’s lucky for you. You won’t have far to go when you visit.’
He was right, of course. I’d have to go and see Mrs Meridor and her grandson, Rachel’s brother, Joey. I’d have to go and explain to them what had happened to Rachel – and why I was free, but she wasn’t.
‘Leave it till tomorrow, hey? I would if I was you. Now might not be good.’
‘Do they know Rachel’s been arrested?’
‘Ja. They know. Leysen let her speak to them on the phone. I spoke to them also. Well, to her brother, anyhow.’
‘How did he sound?’
‘Vague. Like he wasn’t taking it in. Maybe by tomorrow … he’ll be easier to talk to.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
We drove almost literally round the corner to Velodroomstraat. Van Briel lived in a modestly proportioned but starkly uncompromising Art Deco town house wedged between grand if grubby Art Nouveau residences. He stowed the Porsche in the garage that occupied most of the ground floor and took me up to the living quarters, where starkness also prevailed, with black leather furniture and white marble tiling.
‘This thing turns into a bed,’ he said, pointing to a large couch. ‘Sorry, but that’s it.’
‘Well, thanks for taking me in, anyway.’
‘No problem. I’ll put rent on the bill. My girlfriend will be round later. Do you like Indonesian food?’
‘Never tried it.’
‘You’ll like hers, I guarantee. Now, do you want a beer? Or something stronger?’
‘Me too.’
Vodkas, with lots of ice but very little tonic, were van Briel’s prescription for the occasion. He lit a cigarette and I gladly accepted his offer of one. I must have looked a mess, both physically and psychologically, as I slumped on his couch, vodka in one hand, cigarette in the other. But if he was regretting volunteering to put me up, he didn’t say so.
‘After another one of these,’ he said, taking a deep swallow, ‘a shower and a bowl of Lasiyah’s babi pangang, you’ll feel better, Mr Swan.’
‘Please. Call me Stephen.’
‘OK, Stephen. I’m Bart.’
‘How do Rachel and I stand in law, Bart? You may as well spell out how bad it is.’
‘Well, it is bad. But it could be worse. They don’t have a motive for Miss Banner – Rachel – to kill Ardal Quilligan. Could be that’s why they let you go. To see what you do. Lead them to your uncle, maybe, for starters. Do you know where’s he gone?’
‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘Then you don’t have many options. That means I don’t have many either. I’ll go back to Brugge tomorrow. I’ll visit Rachel. Make sure she’s OK. I’ll try to persuade Bequaert to let Rachel out, same conditions as you. But he won’t and even if he did she could still be charged. So could you. You say Sir Miles Linley’s behind it. But tell me, I need to know: can you prove that?’
‘No.’
‘Can your uncle?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘What about Simon Cardale?’
‘He can’t help us. Even if he wants to.’
‘Is there anyone else who can?’
‘Your firm’s anonymous client, maybe.’
‘OK. I’ll talk to my boss about that. But client confidentiality is … hard to break.’
‘Yeah? Well, something’s got to break. That’s for sure.’
‘My job is to stop that being you or Rachel,’ van Briel said, grabbing the vodka bottle and topping up my glass. ‘And, lucky for you, I’m good at my job.’
Lasiyah’s babi pangang failed to work the promised miracle. My dejection didn’t lift. If anything, it deepened, as the reality of the situation seeped into my mind. Rachel was alone and frightened in a prison cell in Bruges, while I sat in Antwerp, washing down sweet-and-sour pork with Trappist beer. The contrast tasted bitter.
Lasiyah herself was a tiny, almond-eyed girl with lustrous waist-length hair and a watchful expression. She didn’t speak more than a word or two of English and something in the way she looked at me implied she wasn’t happy at having my company foisted on her.
Van Briel filled the conversational void with a personalized history of Zurenborg. It had been a toss-up, apparently, whether he became a lawyer or an architect. He’d often regretted choosing the law. Over the years, he’d talked his way inside many of the houses in the area, Zonnestralen sadly not among them, and he gloried in their diversity. He recommended particular examples I should take a look at, as if supposing I was likely to spend my time studying local architecture. He confirmed Cogels-Osylei had originally been Avenue Cogels-Osy, just as Velodroomstraat had once been Rue du Vélodrome. The street names had all been altered from French to Dutch after the War. Not much else had been altered, though. He’d proudly played a part in defeating a scheme hatched a few years back to demolish the houses and chuck up modern hotels and apartment buildings in their place. The memory of this, evidently still raw, led him off into a sarcastic monologue about the probity or otherwise of local politicians.
I’d long since ceased to pay much attention when a telephone call interrupted him. Lasiyah answered and looked as if she was baffled by what the caller said. She relayed it to van Briel in Dutch. He started with surprise. ‘A man, asking for you,’ he explained.
‘But no one knows I’m here except the police.’
‘You want me to speak to him?’
‘No. It’s all right.’ I wondered, in the teeth of logic, if it could be Eldritch. I took the phone from Lasiyah. ‘Hello?’
‘Stephen Swan?’ The voice was low and confident, the accent English.
‘Yes. Who—’
‘I’ll meet you at Tramplein in ten minutes. Van Briel will tell you how to get there.’
‘Who is this?’
‘If you want to help Rachel Banner, be there. Alone.’
‘Hold on. I—’ Too late. The line was dead.
Van Briel advised me not to go. We didn’t know who was behind Ardal’s murder, but they were clearly ruthless. It was crazy to put myself at their mercy. If I insisted on going, he should accompany me. I sensed he relished the drama of the late-night summons, although Lasiyah looked far closer to terrified. None of it made any difference to me. ‘I’ve got to go, Bart. And on my own, as instructed. This could be Rachel’s best chance, maybe her only chance. I can’t let her down.’
Tramplein was the square at the northern end of Cogels-Osylei, where it converged with two other streets and met one of the railway lines that bounded the district. The tramlines serving the route between Berchem and Centraal stations passed beneath the railway tracks through one of the wide arches of a low viaduct. At ten o’clock on a cold, damp Monday night, the tram stop was deserted, the square empty. One of the strange rules of urban life – that you can be alone, though surrounded by thousands of people – was eerily applicable.
But I wasn’t quite alone. A figure detached itself from the deep shadow of one of the arches as I approached. His build and clothing told me he was the man I’d seen that morning in Ostend well before he’d moved far enough towards me for any lamplight to fall on his hard, lean features. He was smoking a cigarette, though both his hands were in his pockets. He removed one to take the cigarette from his mouth, then the other, which he held up, palm facing me, as if to reassure me he wasn’t armed, though I was painfully aware it didn’t actually prove that.
He nodded. ‘Mr Swan.’
‘Who are you?’ I asked, coming to a halt about six feet from him.
‘The name’s Tate. Let’s step back where we’re less conspicuous, shall we?’
‘Maybe I’m happier being conspicuous.’
‘If I wanted to kill you, Mr Swan, I wouldn’t phone beforehand. I’m here to talk and so, I assume, are you. Let’s step back.’
He retreated into the shadow of the archway. I hesitated for a moment, then followed.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘You want a cigarette?’ He held out the pack.
I did want one. But I was determined not to take it from him. I shook my head. ‘No. I’d rather have an explanation.’
‘Can’t help you there. Not a complete explanation, anyway.’
‘Who do you work for?’
‘Her Majesty the Queen, God bless her.’
‘The Secret Service.’
‘In simple terms, yes, though at the grey, deniable, off-balance-sheet end of the spectrum. The dirty end, if you know what I mean.’
‘You kill people to order.’
‘Only bad people, Mr Swan. Or good people doing bad things. The distinction’s a little blurry.’
‘Why Ardal Quilligan?’
‘We’ve been remiss. We took our eye off the ball. And the Irish let us down. Not for the first time. Or the last, no doubt. Don’t you sometimes wish Cromwell had finished the job? We’d have been spared three centuries of death and destruction if he had.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘No. Probably not. Just as well, really. Otherwise, you’d be more of a threat than an asset. I suppose your uncle kept you in the dark because he knew it was safer for you that way. Good old Eldritch. What a trooper, eh?’ He took a drag on his cigarette and tossed the butt away into the shadows.
He seemed intent on talking in riddles. But riddles were no use to me. ‘Why did you kill Quilligan?’
‘Because he foolishly phoned his sister yesterday and warned her he was about to hand over to you and Miss Banner proof that their brother forged the Picassos. And once that was proved, a lot of grubby secrets would have come into the open. How could Ardal have afforded to wind up his practice and retire to Majorca? How could Isolde and her husband have funded their Hampshire squiredom? Valid questions, with venal answers. They took their cut from what Geoffrey Cardale made out of the swindle is the sum of it. Which means Sir Miles and Lady Linley could be dragged into a reopened Banner/Brownlow lawsuit. We can’t let that happen.’
‘What does it matter to you?’
‘Sir Miles gets triple-A protection. Not my decision. But it is my responsibility. Which, I admit, I should have paid more attention to. The break-ins were small beer. Precautionary, in essence. Trawling operations that yielded empty nets. Except the kitchen knife, of course. We like to have compromising material we can use if we need to. I just didn’t expect the need to arise so soon in this case. That it did is down to the fact that we were unaware Ardal Quilligan possessed the proof he promised you, or a guilty conscience to go with it, until his phone call to Isolde.’
‘Why does Linley merit such a high level of protection?’
‘Because there’s a danger that if he’s backed into a corner over his involvement in the Cardale fraud, he might blab to the press about exactly what he was up to in Dublin thirty-six years ago. Public knowledge of certain … details … of his work there would do considerable, possibly irreparable, harm to Anglo-Irish relations. Our war with the IRA won’t be won by allowing that to happen.’
‘What are the details?’ I knew he wouldn’t tell me, of course, but I couldn’t let the question go unasked. And his answer surprised me even so.
‘I don’t know. I’m neither trusted nor required to know. But your uncle knows. That’s our problem. And yours. You see, we believe Eldritch planned to use the proof you were going to get from Quilligan to blackmail Linley into putting on the record what really led to his arrest and imprisonment in Ireland. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the disastrous, havoc-wreaking truth. That’s what we have to prevent at all costs.’
‘No problem, then. You’ve killed Quilligan and by now you’ve presumably destroyed what he had with him.’
‘No. Actually, we haven’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because he didn’t have the proof. It wasn’t there, Mr Swan. We searched him and every inch of his car. Nothing. And I’ve just had a report from Palma de Mallorca. There was nothing in his apartment either. Not that we expected there to be. He left Majorca with it. That’s clear. What’s not clear is what happened to it next.’ Tate sighed in evident exasperation at the turn of events. ‘Our best guess is in point of fact your best chance.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘The proof is missing. So is your uncle.’
‘You think Eldritch has it?’
‘Who else? He left England a day before you. What did he do with that twenty-four-hour start? Meet Quilligan before he got to Ostend, maybe. It’s what we suspect. It’s what we greatly fear. We know he hasn’t gone back to England. There’s an all ports alert out on him. But where has he gone? That’s the question. He gave the police the slip in Ostend and he may be able to stay out of our reach. The oldest foxes are often the hardest to catch. We need help. Your help.’
‘To do what?’
‘Find him. And find the proof. Deliver that to us and we’ll persuade the Belgian authorities to drop any charges they bring against Miss Banner – or you.’
Was Tate right? Did Eldritch have the proof? I’d sensed he was playing a deeper game all along and maybe forcing Linley to exonerate him was it, although somehow I doubted it. Not that it made much difference. If he had the proof, we could at least bargain ourselves out of trouble with it, even if we couldn’t achieve what we’d been aiming for. Tate was certainly right on one point. This was our best chance.
‘He’s your uncle, Mr Swan. He trusts you. He’s served time in prison and he wouldn’t wish that experience on you, I’m sure. Nor would he refuse to do whatever he could to save you from it.’
‘Probably not.’
‘He’ll contact you sooner or later. He’s bound to. Or you’ll contact him. Don’t bother to deny you’re in a position to do so. It may well be true, but I’ve no way of verifying it, so your denial would be irrelevant. Just get the proof. And then we’ll call off the dogs.’
‘As simple as that?’
‘Sometimes things are simple.’
‘And what’s Eldritch supposed to do?’
‘Whatever he wants.’
‘Except clear his name.’
‘He’ll never get back those thirty-six years he spent in prison, Mr Swan. He should be grateful the Irish let him go. We made the mistake of supposing they never would. Don’t let him make the mistake of throwing his freedom away for the sake of his good name.’
‘What did the Irish think he’d done?’
‘I told you: I don’t know. And Eldritch obviously reckons you’re better off not knowing either. My advice is to leave it like that. Persuade him to hand over the proof. Then you and Miss Banner can get out from under. I can’t say fairer than that, now can I?’
A rumble had grown above us as he spoke, echoing around in the archway like rolls of thunder. A train was approaching. Tate didn’t try to shout above the noise. He lit another cigarette as the train passed overhead. It was slow and heavy, a growling, squealing succession of trucks. He’d had time to smoke most of the cigarette before it was gone.
Then he said quietly, ‘I take it you’ll give it a go.’