…HAMBURG…
‘I’ve got a Martin Powell on entry.’
Anselm looked up.
Inskip, languid in the doorway.
‘Yes?’
‘Heathrow. Four days ago. Central African Republic passport. Age 36, occupation sales representative. Flight from Johannesburg. Hand luggage only.’
He crossed the room and put a copy of the file note on the desk.
Anselm took the pad, got up and went to the filing cabinet, found the folder, the page. He wrote the key on the pad. ‘Run this,’ he said.
‘Immediately, Minister. In my pigeonhole today I found a cheque.’
‘Should keep you in black T-shirts for life. Or red.’
‘You noticed. It crossed my mind to spend some of it on a decent dinner. Hamburg haute cuisine. Might invite you.’
‘Very generous. Put most of it aside. When my anti-dining phase ends I’ll take you up.’
Anselm thought he saw something, hurt perhaps, in Inskip’s eyes.
‘Take me up, take me down, just as long as you take me.’
Inskip left.
Anselm found the Lafarge file. The number rang twice.
‘Lafarge International. How may I help you?’
‘Mr Carrick, please.’
‘Carrick.’ The clipped tone.
‘Weidermann and Kloster.’
‘Right, yes. Hello.’ Some anxiety in the voice.
‘Is this a good line?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘The person entered from Johannesburg at Heathrow four days ago. Central African Republic passport. Age thirty-six, occupation sales representative.’
‘Any background?’
‘Not yet.’
They said goodbye. Anselm went to Inskip’s station in the workroom.
‘In,’ said Inskip. ‘Amazing. How can we do this?’
‘They bought Israeli software.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning it’s got a rear entrance. Run Jackdaw.’
Shaking his head, Inskip clicked on an icon, a stylised bird with a D for Dohle superimposed on it. A box came up.
‘The name?’
‘The name,’ said Anselm.
Inskip typed in Martin Powell and clicked.
Three sets of letters and figures appeared.
Anselm said, ‘Select and click. And whatever you do, don’t print anything. Take notes. Go back to Jackdaw when you’re finished and erase.’
‘Sir.’
Anselm went across to Carla, stood behind her. She had code on two monitors. Her eyes were on the screens, her fingertips were stroking the keyboard, not pressing keys, thoughtful, just running down, making small clicking sounds. He looked at her hands for a while before he spoke.
‘Any luck?’
She swivelled slightly, put her head back, looked up at him. Her sleek hair touched his hip. ‘Herr Baader’s friends have not been very helpful. But now I think the bank’s encryption, it may be out of date. I have someone in Canada testing it. A secure person.’
‘Good.’ Without thinking, he touched her shoulder, pulled his hand away. She showed no sign of taking offence. He thought he saw the embryo of a smile on her lips.
At his desk, Anselm worked through the files, made notes for operators, dictated instructions for Beate. Alex was always at the edge of his thoughts. She came to mind too often, he thought about what she might be doing, what her day-to-day life was like. The apartment full of chairs. The ex-husband in America. Alex when she was waiting for him at the car, flushed face and neck: pink, sexual pink. She had prominent collarbones and a deep hollow between them.
The internal phone rang.
Inskip.
‘I’ve got something.’
Anselm went back to the blue room, to Inskip’s station. He sat on the chair next to him. Inskip pointed at his main monitor. A column of names, one highlighted.
‘Here’s a Martin Powell on a list. The date on it’s 1986.’
He scrolled down the column.
‘It’s alphabetical,’ he said.
‘I see that.’
‘Here’s the list that follows, dated a month later.’
The new column had names with figures beside them, amounts of money in rands, the South African currency. Inskip scrolled down it. R10,000 was the smallest sum. There was no Martin Powell.
‘List number two,’ said Inskip. ‘Some kind of payroll. Notice that this list is mostly alphabetical. Five names from list number one have gone and in their places are five new ones.’
‘Mostly alphabetical,’ said Anselm. It took him a second to grasp the meaning. ‘The new names are all in the alphabetical positions of the missing ones?’
‘You’re quick, Master. That’s right. My assumption is that whoever made up list number two changed names but didn’t bother to re-sort alphabetically. Just cut and pasted in the new names.’
‘Payments,’ said Anselm. ‘Could be the five used false names on list number one, assumed names, but were then paid in their real names.’
‘And Martin Powell is gone.’
Inskip selected a name. ‘And in his place is this man.’
The name was: NIEMAND, CONSTANTINE.
Anselm was staring at the screen. ‘What’s the year?’
‘1986.’
‘Go to the top and scroll.’
Anselm looked at the names. He knew what the lists meant. He didn’t know how he knew, but he knew. ‘These people are mercenaries,’ he said. ‘This is the gang assembled for a coup in the Seychelles.
Organised in England. The South African government backed it, then they betrayed it to the Seychelles government. Paid off the troops.’
Inskip turned his shaven head, blue in the light. He raised his eyebrows. ‘How do you know that?’
Anselm got up. ‘I know it because the world is too much with me.
As for you, this is bonus-quality work. But there isn’t a bonus.’
‘Your approval, I’m content to bask in that.’
‘While you’re warm, run the Niemand name.’
Anselm went to his office and rang the number in London.
‘Carrick.’
‘W and K.’
‘Hold on.’
Clicks.
‘Go ahead.’
‘We have something.’
Anselm told him.
‘Your operator’s very good,’ said Carrick. ‘We need that name checked. Soonest.’
Inskip, holding up a notepad. His eyes were bright.
‘Hold on a moment, please,’ said Anselm.
‘Got him,’ said Inskip softly. ‘Got Niemand.’
Anselm said to Carrick, ‘We have something on Niemand. I’m putting the operator on.’
Inskip came in, took the handset, cleared his throat. He looked at his notes. ‘A man and his wife and a security guard were murdered by black burglars in a house in Johannesburg four days ago,’ he said. ‘Another security man killed the attackers. His name is given as Con Niemand. His firm says he’s an ex-soldier.’
He listened. ‘No. This is from the Johannesburg Star. British. The name is Shawn.’
Anselm was looking at his desk, sightless. He didn’t register immediately.
‘S-H-A-W-N,’ said Inskip. ‘Brett and Elizabeth Shawn. Ages forty-seven and forty-one.’
Sitting in the Mercedes with Tilders, Kael and Serrano on the ferry, the voices from the crackly bug:
Well, that’s something. Shawn?
Shot by blacks. So it appears. The business is strange. Werner, the question is what do we do now?