THIRTY

Van Briel had waited up for me. I told him frankly what had happened and noticed in his response a marginal loss of confidence. Tangling with MI5, or MI6, or whatever outfit Tate represented, wasn’t part of the assignment he’d taken on.

‘My legal tricks aren’t going to be much use to you in that world, Stephen.’

‘Leave me to worry about Tate, Bart,’ I said, surprising myself by how I was now the one sounding a reassuring note. ‘You concentrate on helping Rachel.’

‘OK. But what will you do? How will you find your uncle?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe he’ll find me.’

‘And if he doesn’t?’

It was a question I didn’t have an answer to. Tate had given me a card with a number on it that he said I should ring with news of Eldritch. His bet was that I stood a better chance of finding my uncle than he did. But I wasn’t sure about that. It all depended on what Eldritch was really aiming to accomplish: what and why.

After van Briel had stumbled off to bed, I made a few hopeful phone calls. There was a possibility, I supposed, that Eldritch had made it back to England. But, if so, he hadn’t returned to the Ritz. ‘No, sir. We haven’t seen your uncle since he checked out on Saturday.’ I considered asking my mother if she’d heard from him, but I didn’t want her to start worrying about me. It seemed best to leave her unaware of the fix I was in. I tried Cardale’s home number, conscious that I ought to apologize in some way for throwing his life into turmoil and helping to set in motion the events that had led to his uncle’s death. But all I got was the engaged tone, so consistently I began to suspect he’d taken the phone off the hook. Exasperation as much as desperation drove me to try another number, one I’d found scrawled on a piece of paper in my wallet.

‘You’ve reached the answerphone of Moira Henchy. Leave your name and number after the tone and I’ll be sure to call you back.’

‘Miss Henchy, this is Stephen Swan. We spoke a couple of weeks ago. You wanted information about my uncle, Eldritch Swan. If you’re still interested, there’s a great deal I can tell you. I’m in Antwerp. Please call me as soon as you can on …’

I put the phone down after recording van Briel’s number, switched off the light and lay back on the sofa-bed. I was drained and exhausted, but sleep felt a long way off. My thoughts raced on unavailingly in the silence and the darkness. I whispered words of comfort to someone who couldn’t hear them and stared into the void.

Morning came with the surprising realization that I had slept after all, for several hours at least. Van Briel was in the kitchen, clad in a black dressing-gown, quaffing orange juice by the half-gallon while his coffee brewed to kick-start strength. He couldn’t manage much more than grunts until the coffee was ready. Then he poured us a cup each and we sat down at the table.

‘I’ll go into the office, then to Brugge,’ he announced. ‘Any message for Rachel?’

‘Tell her I’m doing everything I can.’

‘Will do. This is the office address.’ He handed me an Oudermans card. ‘Call round there this afternoon. Let’s say four o’clock. I’ll leave a message for you about Rachel’s … situation. Also my boss might want to talk to you about our anonymous client. No promises, but I’ll ask. Now, there’s a spare set of keys.’ He pointed to where they hung on a hook by the door. ‘You won’t see much of Lasiyah. She’s shy and … she doesn’t know what to make of you.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Not your fault.’ He slurped some coffee. ‘While I’m gone …’

‘Yes?’

‘Watch your back, hey? You seem to be playing with some bad boys. I wouldn’t—’

The ringing of the telephone interrupted him. He raised his eyebrows quizzically at me, then stood up and padded across to answer it. I looked at the clock. It was 7.45. Therefore 6.45 in Ireland. It was surely too early for Moira Henchy to return my call.

‘Hallo? … Wat zegt u? … Hold on, please.’ Van Briel held the phone towards me. ‘For you, Stephen. Moira Henchy.’

He must have been able to read the surprise in my expression as I jumped up and took the phone from him. ‘Hello?’

‘Good morning, Stephen. I just got your message. So, you’re in Antwerp, are you?’

‘That’s right. I—’

‘I just dropped by my office to pick up a few things. I’m on my way to the airport.’

‘Oh yes?’

‘For a flight to Brussels. I heard about Ardal Quilligan’s murder late last night. You know something about it, do you?’

‘You could say so, yes.’

‘I guess that’s why you’re in Belgium. So, what do you know about the people they have in custody? The Belgian police haven’t revealed their names yet.’

‘I’m one of them.’ I heard her gasp at the other end of the line. ‘Well, I was. They let me go yesterday. They’re still holding my girlfriend, Rachel Banner.’ It was strange to hear myself describe Rachel as that. But it was true, of course – a truth I was desperate to cling on to.

‘Does Quilligan’s murder have something to do with your uncle, Stephen?’

‘Oh yes. Everything, really.’

‘We should meet.’

‘I agree.’

‘The police are holding a press conference in Bruges this afternoon. I plan to attend. Could you meet me there?’

Pushing myself back under the noses of the police, not to mention encountering the media, sounded like a bad idea. And it sounded even worse to van Briel. When I said, ‘Me, come to Bruges?’ he flapped his hand frantically and mouthed, ‘No, no, no.’ ‘I can’t do that,’ I went on. He sighed with relief then and gave me a thumbs-up.

‘Why not?’

‘We should meet here, Moira. In Antwerp. It’ll be worth the journey, I promise.’

She thought for a moment, before agreeing. ‘All right. I was planning to stay overnight in Bruges. But we’ll make it Antwerp instead. I’m not sure when I’ll get in. Can I reach you on that number this evening – some time after six?’

‘Yes,’ I said decisively.

‘I’ll call you, then. You will be there, won’t you?’

‘Without fail.’

Van Briel didn’t ask me much about Moira Henchy. I had the impression he’d decided the less he knew about what steps I was taking to find Eldritch the better. He showered and dressed and was gone within the hour, his Porsche growling away along the street. Within another hour, I’d set off for Zonnestralen.

Watery sunlight revealed the faded delicacy of the building, albeit obscured by layers of dust and grime. I stood before the paired front doors of numbers 84 and 86, wondering if anything at all had changed since Eldritch’s time there. Soon enough, I noticed one thing that certainly had. A small brass plaque declared that someone called Wyckx now lived at 86. By implication, only 84 was still a Meridor preserve.

The bell was answered by a plump, round-faced woman of sixty or so, dressed in a floral housecoat. ‘Bonjour, monsieur,’ she said, refracted light from the sunburst panel in the door imparting a gleam to her dark eyes that contrasted with the weariness of her features.

‘Good morning. Is Joey Banner in? Or his grandmother, perhaps?’

She said nothing for a moment, but stared at me in growing amazement. ‘Mon Dieu,’ she murmured.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘You’re Stephen Swan.’

‘Yes. I am. How did you know?’

‘You look like your uncle when he was your age.’ She shook her head. ‘So like him.’

‘You knew Eldritch?’

‘Mais oui. I knew him.’

‘Can I come in?’

‘Oui, oui. Come in.’ She stepped back and I entered the light-filled hall. The door closed behind me just as a tram rattled by. The sound was instantly muffled, the present day shut out. I heard a clock ticking, saw heavy-framed family portraits hung between candelabra, smelt camphor and furniture polish, sensed all the years since Isaac Meridor had bought this house compressed into an unchanging moment. Zonnestralen was the end of its own rainbow.

‘I believe my lawyer, Bart van Briel, spoke to Joey yesterday.’

‘Yes. We have heard about Rachel.’ She went on staring at me, as if deeply moved by my resemblance to Eldritch.

‘Can I … see Joey?’

‘Ah, no. He is out. He goes to the Zoo every morning.’

‘The Zoo?’

She shrugged. ‘He likes to be with the snakes.’

Pottering off to the zoo after being told your sister was under arrest for murder didn’t strike me as even close to normal behaviour. The housekeeper must have seen how dismayed I was. But it wasn’t her fault, of course. ‘Is Mrs Meridor in?’

‘Yes. She is in. She is always in. But …’ She lowered her voice. ‘Madame Meridor … is very old and … very confused.’

‘She knows about Rachel?’

‘We told her.’ The we implied her role in the household went well beyond that of a servant. ‘But she may have … forgotten.’

‘Can I see her?’

‘If you wish. This way, please.’

She led the way into a rear drawing-room. It was thickly curtained, stiflingly heated by a vast, hissing radiator and loaded with enough bric-à-brac to stock a market stall. There the lady of the house awaited me.

Isaac Meridor’s widow was dressed as if she was still in mourning, layered in black and propped up in a brocaded armchair, dozing over a newspaper while a cup of coffee went cold on a table beside her. She was white-haired and hollow-featured, her skin paper-thin and deathly pale, bangles bunched at her wrists, fat-stoned rings trapped on her fingers by swollen knuckles.

The presence of a stranger roused her sharply but shallowly from her reverie. She said something in Dutch that included the name Marie-Louise. The housekeeper replied in French. Mrs Meridor cast a rheumy, unfocused glance at me, then spoke in heavily accented English. ‘You are … Eldritch Swan’s son?’

‘Nephew,’ I corrected her, to no obvious effect.

‘You dare to come here? My husband … would not like this.’

‘I’m here about your granddaughter. Rachel.’

‘The girl? She keeps me awake with her crying. That is why I sleep in the day. That is why … I finish nothing.’ She suddenly noticed her coffee and pointed a shaky forefinger at it. ‘Koud, Marie-Louise. Koud .’ Then she looked back at me. ‘My husband has Jean-Jacques to look after him. I have only this …’ Words to describe Marie-Louise’s inadequacy failed her. ‘You cannot be here, meneer . It is … an insult.’ She directed a volley of Dutch at Marie-Louise, or perhaps the figmental Jean-Jacques. Only her meaning was clear. I was to be shown out. I was to leave. I was persona non grata on account of the dreaded name Swan. There were some things she never forgot.

Marie-Louise rolled her eyes at me as we left. Closing the drawing-room door behind us, she signalled for silence with a finger across her lips. She walked down the hall to the front door and opened it, then closed it again, heavily enough to rattle the letterbox. As far as Mrs Meridor was to know, I’d gone. But I hadn’t. And Marie-Louise clearly didn’t want me to.

She opened the narrow door beneath the staircase and beckoned me to follow her down to the basement. I trod softly on the stone steps. We came to a large kitchen, with an equally large scullery beyond, where a washing machine was working away. Marie-Louise moved to the range and set about making coffee. I whispered, ‘Yes,’ when she asked me if I wanted some.

At that she smiled, transformingly, pleasure bursting through drudgery. ‘She can’t hear us now, Stephen.’ My first name seemed to have come to her quite naturally. ‘And she hasn’t been down here for years and years.’

‘She doesn’t seem to have registered what’s happened to Rachel.’

‘Non. That is how she is. The past like crystal. The present … a fog. But Madame Banner, Rachel’s mother, will be here soon. She will know what to do. I called her last night.’

‘You? Not Joey?’

‘He and his grandmother, they are a little alike. They … live somewhere else … in their minds.’

‘Where does Joey live?’

‘Vietnam, I think. That is where he got to like snakes.’

‘Rachel didn’t do what the police say she did. You understand that, don’t you, Marie-Louise?’

‘Of course. She wouldn’t kill anyone. Certainly not poor Monsieur Quilligan.’

‘You speak as if you knew him.’

‘But I did. He has visited here several times. And he came again … on Sunday.’

‘Ardal Quilligan was here? On Sunday?’

‘Hush.’ She looked up, listening anxiously. ‘She will hear you if you shout.’

‘Sorry.’ The truth was I hadn’t realized I was shouting. ‘But what you said …’

‘Oui, Oui. It is strange, I know. And I will tell you about it. First I must take madame her hot coffee for her to let go cold like the one before. Then we will talk.’ She poured the coffee. ‘Then we must talk.’