Interrogation room
Alex has been thinking.
"There was no DNA evidence against Metcalfe in '84."
"No. That didn't come in until '87."
"But you thought about it."
"Yes." He's lit up another cigarette. "But it didn't matter. There was still Karen."
"Hm." She doesn't want to interrupt the flow too much. "What did you do in Switzerland?"
"What did I do?" He snorts, humourless. "I did what everyone does. I went skiing."
15. Switzerland – St. Moritz. 1988
Oskar Brennen is sitting in a comfortable armchair near the fire, warming his toes with cognac and espresso, when another man arrives and nods to the opposite seat.
"Do you mind?"
"Of course not. Please."
Oskar, a tall heavy-muscled man with iron-grey at his temples now, is feeling pleasantly dozy amidst the lounging men's club ambience. And the stranger's height and breadth of shoulder instill a sense of big men's comradery, so he relaxes further into his chair, imbibing friendliness.
The tall stranger makes his order, watches the prompt waiter disappear towards the bar, and dips into his inside coat pocket, hand reemerging with a stylish silver tin. Oskar is appreciative – he is a connoisseur of style.
"Cigarette?"
"Why thank you."
They smoke in companionable silence until the gentleman's drink arrives, and the pleasantries may resume themselves.
"Well. This is a good way to unwind at the end of the day."
"It is." Oskar smiles, pleased to extend an inside joke. "And have they found skis large enough for you yet?"
The man grins in return.
"No, I made it easy for them. I brought my own."
They laugh together, and Oskar blows his smoke away to the floor.
"Probably a wise decision. I haven't seen you at the club before, Mr..?"
"Becker. Garin Becker." And Mr Becker extends his hand and they shake on it. "No, this isn't my usual spot, but it was recommended by a friend. I thought I'd try it for a change."
"Ah, then I hope you're enjoying the change."
"I am. On-piste generally isn't my forte, but the extra falls have been good. The powder is very smooth."
They discuss the relative merits of downhill versus cross-country for a while, until Oskar sees a friend.
"Ah, Frank – good to see you." He lifts a hand to Becker. "Mr Becker and I were just discussing the usual."
Introductions are made all round. And Garin Becker, aka Karol Yazek, aka Kurt Lehrman, aka Gellen Boromin, fugitive from justice, settles in for an evening of useful contact-making. By the end of the week he has a new set of acquaintances, and a new job. All it took was some heavy practise in the snow, some social research and a vast expenditure of money.
He's relieved about the job.
In Lausanne, he begins work as a legal researcher and he sees Brennen in the halls, and on occasion, socially. He gets down to his last dollar maintaining the pretence of a respectable address before his first paycheck goes in and he can transform the pretence into reality.
He has access to books, photocopiers, records, and most importantly, small talk between professionals. After six months, he begins making discrete inquiries. In the evenings, he compiles his notes and sorts through papers until late, and then sits near the window with a glass of Scotch and plans his next move. Sometimes he reads. This is both an indulgence and an education.
He's been worried. He wrote a short cryptic letter to his father, but there's been no reply, and he wonders if he should risk phoning again. He knows he'll do it anyway.
He enjoys the job, it's mentally stimulating and even challenging sometimes, and he knows he does good work. It rankles him that he can never perform as well as he could, but he doesn't want to draw too much attention to himself. The job, the lifestyle, the inquiries are enough.
He hides his file in a cavity under the glossy floor boards, and also begins stashing away some money.
There's dangers, of course, but his passport and papers are meticulous – he's figured it out now – and he's very careful. He smiles at women socially, and even takes a few out to dinner, but he never lets himself get too involved.
It's a knife-edge, but it's somehow a more satisfying life. He feels like he's making progress. But he's still thinking about the question of 'progress to where'.
Finally, one night, he realizes that progress involves actual movement. And that without even consciously realising it, the current of the river he's floating on is only flowing in one direction.
Back to the US. Inexorably.
The awareness brings a dramatic feeling of relief. A lightening of mood – and a sort of gambler's euphoria. He feels almost at ease now with the risks he's about to take. He's betting on long odds, but he's done the math. The rewards could be huge…
He begins siphoning information from different sources – reports of ongoing investigations in Germany, names and dates and witness sitings, army transcripts, photos; basically anything he can get his hands on legitimately. Then starts the delicate work – using other peoples' names, other peoples' phone extensions, collecting a bunch of useless files to glean the one piece of paper with value, asking here, inquiring there…
He connects with people in Copenhagen who can help with papers. He thinks very hard about where he could be, where he wants to be, when he re-enters the US. His Copenhagen contacts tell him he's crazy. He just smiles into the phone. He's done the math.
It all takes about eighteen months to put together. But when he's finished he can finally start calling the big bluffs.
He phones his father and finds out why he never got a reply – heart attack. It distresses him to think that he's been one of the stressors, but he tries to sound upbeat. He wonders if he'll get to see his father again before he dies.
It lends the next few weeks a sense of urgency. And it gives him the balls to do something completely illegal – he raids a series of computer files, and then dons his best suit to play a lawyer collecting information from Interpol sources. It's not until he gets out of the offices and is walking away, hailing a cab, that he touches his shirt under the jacket and realizes he's drenched with sweat.
He reminds himself that he'll need to build up his nerve.
The papers arrive. He's about to try calling home again when he thinks a few things out hard one night over a slowly-warming Scotch glass. This is his last chance to try and put things right – he'll never be in such a position again. Once he enters the US and his new life begins, he'll be as camouflaged and anonymous as it's possible to be.
Which is why he spends a few days trailing around behind a female Interpol detective, before taking that quixotic step onto her train at – station.
He'd tried to be polite and brief, and thinks that he largely succeeded. It's just the look in her eyes that spooks him. That determination. The stubbornness. The steel. And he knows straight away that while meeting Lien might have been the honourable thing to do, it won't make one iota's worth of difference to his case. In fact, it was probably a mistake. She'll chew through the reports, duly investigate the leads he gave her, but the trail always comes back to him, and she'll discount any other tenuous connections because she's seen him now, she almost had him –
He knows it'll bug the hell out of her.
It was a mistake.
He remembers his papers and bank accounts and reassures himself that he's leaving soon.
Everything has started snowballing, and the urgency becomes real. One of the secretaries queries him about some extraneous paperwork. Within twenty-four hours he's tendered his resignation, on personal and health reasons. He begins making arrangements for his lease and belongings. Bank accounts he can do on the phone. He starts growing a beard again, then waits until the last possible moment to call his father.
It's the morning before his evening flight, and he takes his bag with him to the payphone near an alfresco dining place – different phones, different locations, as usual. But the voice that answers isn't his father's.
"Excuse me, sir, but Mr Boromin is unable to receive your call."
"I'm…I'm sorry to hear that. Is he unwell, or should I…"
"I'm sorry to inform you that Mr Boromin passed away late last night."
There's a loud ringing in his ears and he closes his eyes to quell the din. He finds himself leaning against the perspex partition on the side of the open booth. It takes him a minute to realise that the valet on the other end of the line, at the other end of the world, is still talking.
"…apologise for giving you such bad news. Are you a professional acquaintance, sir? Sir?"
He opens his eyes, but it's like white noise on the television – obscured, hard to see. It takes a few blinks to recover.
"I'm…I'm…"
The urge to puff out those two incriminating syllables is so strong that he has to bite down on his own tongue. Then the valet's voice sounds again, tentative.
"Sir…excuse me, sir, but am I speaking to Mr Leherman?"
He gasps out a breath, and nods before remembering he has to reply.
"Yes. Yes."
The man becomes succinct.
"Mr Leherman, I've been supplied with strict instructions regarding your business interests with Mr Boromin."
Gellen remembers suddenly that his father's valet is called Stefan, that he comes from Kiev, and has been with Nikolai for twelve years. He nods into the phone again.
"Yes?"
"Mr Leherman, you are to go to the – branch of the Swiss National Bank. The account number is zero, zero, six, one, seven, three –"
"Wait –"
He scrambles for a pen and writes the numbers and the short stream of instructions on his hand. There is a key and a public railway station involved. Finally, the valet's terse communication concludes.
"This is our final transaction, sir."
Gellen understands that the man has completed his instructions, but will no longer be involved.
"Of course."
"I trust your future business ventures will be a success, sir."
"Thank you." Gellen appreciates the subtle good luck message.
"And, sir…my deepest apologies."
"Thank you," he whispers, then hangs up the phone. He walks over to the al fresco seating area and finds a chair, then aimlessly stirs an excellent latte until it goes cold.
Then he goes to the bank. Sitting at another café near the bank entrance, reading the letters his father sent him through intermediaries, he glances up through a haze - in time to see Sandrine Lien and two plain-clothes officers walk into Swiss National through the glass doors.
He leaves change on the table, gets a taxi to the specified railway station. Collects his package from the public deposit box area, and uses the phone to rearrange his flight details. He leaves from Bern, in two hours time.
Interrogation room
Alex watches Bobby's enormous hand rub over his face, scratch through his whiskers. His eyes are closed – when he opens them, it's to look at the tabletop, at the floor.
"I feel like I've been talking for a hundred years."
Alex nods, not willing to speak herself. She feels exhausted. She needs a drink. The excess of information is pressing on her brain, but there's still so many questions. She's very conscious of the time they've already spent in the room, and how much time they might have left – and she has a terrible fear that she'll walk outside the jail and all the myriad details and feelings that Bobby has bestowed on her will suddenly break up, lose their moorings and spin away like thin spidery threads. How relevant all this is to his case – and how insubstantial, compared to the gross weight of physical evidence.
She swallows and tries not to let anxiety hurry her along.
"You knew…you knew you were going to become a cop before you even left Europe."
Bobby nods. "Yes."
"That's a pretty nifty disguise."
He shrugs, acknowledging ten years of successful math.
"Sometimes the best place to hide…"
"…is right under people's noses."
Alex grins slowly, can't help herself. He meets her eyes and then they're both grinning like idiots - until the abrupt clang of the warning knock at the door makes Alex jump. Her face flattens. Not enough time.
"Where do I start?"
He knew, he must have known, by the time he started revealing so much of his history, that she had already committed herself. But his expression still wars with itself for a second before he takes a breath and entrusts her, wholly, with his life.
"Germany – the investigating officers, the witness, any other physical or photo evidence from the scene. All the information from the first murder – whatever hasn't been lost or destroyed."
Alex is thinking so fast it feels like there's some giant machine switched on in her head.
"Can I lift the body?"
Bobby raises his eyebrows at her determination.
"You can try. I was never in a position to get that close."
The door behind Alex opens and two guards step into the heightened tension. One of them lifts the shackles.
"Time's up, folks. Gotta get ready to go, if you don't mind."
Alex scrambles to her feet, with Bobby casting urgent glances back and forth from her to the guards.
"Goren – what else?"
"You have to find Metcalfe –" His face contorts as the bracelets snap on. "Contact the army – old boys' network stuff, records of past-served. And Duncan – that's Mitchell Henry – former private –"
The second guard collects Goren's presents, and they begin walking him to the door. Six feet. Four. Goren is talking over the guard's shoulder.
"Try the base CO – Armstrong, Lawrence J. –"
Alex is trying to keep step. She doesn't want to lose eye contact. She gasps with a memory.
"Bobby – your file!"
One of the guards turns to exclude her from the group.
"Excuse me, Officer, but we gotta get going…"
Goren is looking at her in a way that makes her hold her breath, and in the instant before he's taken out the door the lack of physical contact becomes unbearable. Alex shoulders forward to reach past the guard and grab Bobby around the neck. She's on tiptoes. For the briefest second, their cheeks are pressed close. She can feel his stubble, his breath on her ear, and then she hears the rumble of his whisper.
"Thank you for the Coetzee. It's my favourite."
The guard's hand on her arm is the only thing that makes her let go. She watches the door clang shut through blurry vision, wipes away the tears angrily with one hand as she goes back for her jacket – then thinks that maybe the tears are worth it. The one concrete thing she can offer in return, in the face of all that her partner has given away.
Then she thinks about what he said.
Author's note: Thanks for your on-going patience. Now I'm on holidays, I might have a chance to get more written… catch up soon.
