Bite (10 page)

‘There's an A, an N, a V or is it a W? Hey, keep still down there will you. How can I read if you keep wiggling your ass around.'

‘I'm sorry, the skin is very…sensitive.' She licked Max's neck.

‘That's enough.' Max pulled his hand out and eased her away. ‘Whatever your kink is Lisbeth, I'm not into it. If you're going to tell me, then do it. But quit fooling with me.'

‘Every time I take a shower, every time I undress he is there, like a rape that never ends.' If anything her smile broadened, a brittle mask stretched over the pain. ‘It makes me embrace him and hate him, just as all women simultaneously embrace and hate their own bodies. He made himself a part of me.'

‘Why did he hurt you?'

‘He was angry about something I did.'

‘I guess.' Max looked at her. ‘So why didn't Janus protect you from this?'

‘Janus is very strong, but he has his limits. The man who cut me has no limits, no human feelings and the strength of the very Devil himself.'

‘Holy shit,' Max muttered.

‘No-one ever could have protected me, except maybe my Johnny. And Johnny's long gone. Thirteen years next Friday.' Lisbeth raised her glass. ‘Here's to you Johnny.'

Max lifted the beer bottle to his lips. The bitterness washed over his tongue, fizzing in his throat, but all he tasted was cold fear. What had to be done still had to be done, but now it was tougher, and it made him feel even more alone. He looked at Lisbeth.

She was studying him too, and then she put her hand on his arm, tight. He could feel the perspiration on her hands. ‘I can help you, Max. But if you report me, and the police link me to this man, I'm dead. You understand? He'll find me and what you felt down here would be nothing to what he would do to me. So you must promise on your life, your soul, never to reveal my role in this.'

‘Lisbeth, I don't give promises lightly, but I always keep them. If you help me find Erica, I promise I'll go to hell and back for you. But I need his name, where he hangs out, some idea how to find him.'

‘You can't do it alone. He will kill you without a second thought and you will be just another dead tourist floating in a canal. Find some proof he's holding Erica, then go to the cops with that.'

‘Okay. I might have some help anyway.' Max thought of Loebe's offer. A man with a gun was going to be very useful. ‘So what is that name?'

Lisbeth leaned forward and whispered in his ear. ‘His name is Anvil.'

‘Just that?'

‘Yes.'

‘And how can I reach him?'

Lisbeth put her finger to her lips. ‘Later I'll show you.' A jostling ahead signalled Gradgrind Spine's arrival in the bar. Max was introduced to singer Jay, guitarist Nico and drummer PJ. They bellowed in each other's ears over the wall of noise and sank a few beers while Max and Lisbeth stared at each other. Lisbeth yelled something to Nico and was given a felt tip pen in return. She reached out for Max's hand and scrawled on his palm. Then she folded his hand into a fist and waved a goodbye to him. She looked to one side, pointed urgently, and stepped back. Janus was carving his way across the room. He was scowling at Max.

Nico leaned close to Max and shouted in his ear. ‘I think you should leave now.'

Max shook his head. His back was near the wall and the only way out was past Janus. He squared up as the big man arrived.

‘You, outside.' Janus's physique was almost bursting with power, like a gun when the trigger is nine-tenths squeezed.

‘I think I want to finish my beer.'

Max only half raised the bottle to his mouth. No point in tempting a man to knock your teeth in.

‘You don't take a hint, do you?' Janus signalled to someone across the room, and suddenly the music died. In the hush, all eyes were on him.

‘Leave him alone, Janus,' Lisbeth said. ‘I invited him.'

‘Paid my money,' Max raised his fist to show the inky star. ‘Reckon I can stay till the end.'

Janus pulled Lisbeth away, and the rest of the band stepped back. Lisbeth tottered in her precarious heels until Nico steadied her. She looked almost excited, her eyes glittering.

‘For you, the end just arrived,' Janus whispered.

Five years after leaving the Coast Guard service, Max's self defence mechanism still slid smoothly into place: breathing was shallow and quick, muscles relaxed for rapid movement. He was braced, right foot back, right hand low grasping the beer bottle by its neck, left hand raised defensively like half a prayer.

Maybe that was all the chance he had. Max had never seen a big man move so fast. The fist exploded like an H-bomb of pain against his ear, and momentarily lifted him from the ground. Gasping, Max rode with the blow, and ducked the next left-hander which came over the top. Dust showered him as Janus's giant fist imbedded itself deep into the plasterboard wall.

Max grappled with the huge arms and fired his right knee high into Janus's groin. The big man growled, but the left hand didn't waver. He seized Max by the throat, the stub of thumb over the windpipe while the right fist swung back like a demolition ball. Max grabbed the stub and ripped it back just in time to extricate his neck. He swore he felt the wind from the punch, just over his head.

Something in the crowd got Max's attention. A thin guy with an orange beak of gelled hair had called Janus's name. Flat in his outstretched hand was a snub-nosed revolver, offered butt first, ready for the taking.

Arm a survival instinct with combat training, fuel it with adrenaline and all human hesitation is evicted. Max drove from his legs, firing himself like a missile aiming his skull at the delicate underside of Janus's nose. Instead he got the jaw full on. Janus's teeth crashed together and his craggy head folded back with a growl of pain. For a second the full length of Janus's neck was exposed like a soft fruit, goading a merciless response. Max felt himself break the bottle on the wall, his arm taking the jagged glass neck in a wide fast sweep.

In his mind flashed the wretched face of Samuel Ng, four Coast Guard bullets in him already, the blood pouring from his mouth, and Samuel saying help me, help me. No I can't help you, you lost the plot, Samuel. That's the point. You throw yourself in the coldest, deepest part of human nightmare and then you realise you can't swim. No-one can swim there, Samuel. No-one.

Max was bellowing when the bottle struck, and he could feel the rip of muscle and skin, and hands clutch at him, felt the hot blood on his hands. Only when he opened his eyes did he realise they had been closed, and when he saw what he'd done he squeezed them shut again and wished himself blind for ever.

We are all terrified. We really have to get out in a hurry in case of KPLA reprisals. Sister Margaret and Georg spent all day on their backs, spattered in oil underneath the Land Rover, but managed to patch up the broken sump. Still the clutch is a problem. Only Georg believes it is better to stay here than break down in the bush. Amy made the mistake of asking Sister Margaret how much luggage she and Annette would need.

‘But we're not going,' Sister Margaret said quietly.

‘Are you crazy? You will be a major, major target if the KPLA return.'

‘Amy, look at these people.' She indicated the gaggle of women and children gathered around the Land Rover. ‘Where can they go? What about the blind and the sick? Our place is with them.'

‘Listen, honey. If you are determined to be a martyr go ahead. Just remember that Africa managed just fine before the Catholic church, and will do so again after…'

‘For Christ's sake, Amy,' Georg interrupted. ‘I'm trying to listen.' He had his head pressed to a shortwave radio. ‘The government is announcing a major defeat of the KPLA. That's bound to provoke the KPLA to strike back, to prove them wrong.'

Tomas has just come back from photographing the bodies at the pond. He was pale, but excited, and now he wants to write my witness account for a story to go with the photos. He is itching to get back to Kisangani with his scoop. I just can't see it like he does. All I can see is that boy's face, sinking into the mud beneath an army boot.

(Erica's Diary 1992)

Alone at her microscope, abandoned by her colleagues, Saskia Sivali awaited the arrival of Professor van Diemen. Her heart jumped when the lift doors creaked apart and three sets of double doors on the long corridor boom-boomed like an approaching drum. Then she heard the rapid, angry squeal of moulded soles on linoleum before the diminutive professor burst into the laboratory.

‘It had better be good, Ms Sivali.' The professor tore off his jacket and threw on a tattered white coat. Sweat stains had darkened the armpits of his blue shirt, and his face was reddened to beetroot. ‘I'm missing Jürgen Friederikson's paper on adhesion enzymes to be here.'

‘We have a very sick patient with something very strange in his blood. Perhaps a new strain of malaria.'

‘New? For God's sake woman, there hasn't been a new
Plasmodium
species in a hundred years.' Van Diemen emitted an exasperated sigh. ‘Okay, which microscope?'

She pointed to the Olympus. Van Diemen pulled a chair over to it. ‘If you weren't sure, you could have got Veldhuis or Hazelhof to check for you, ‘ he said, raising the seat so he could reach the eyepieces comfortably.

‘I did. They agree with me,' Saskia said quietly. ‘That's why I paged you.'

For a few moments Van Diemen just harrumphed, and twiddled with the focus knob. When he finally looked up his features had softened. ‘This is fairly spectacular. Did you check for dual infection?'

‘Some, yes. He is negative for yellow fever, dengue fever and viral encephalitis.'

‘Retinal haemorrhage?'

‘Yes, and plenty of it.'

He stared out of the window deep in thought before returning his gaze to the Olympus. ‘Hmm. Yes. This is almost like reptilian or even avian parasitic infection. But humans cannot get animal malaria.' His tone had softened considerably. ‘Have you sent a sample for PCR?'

‘Should be ready in thirty minutes.'

Polymerase chain reaction testing would be the proof, looking for the unique genetic signature that each known parasite possessed. A positive would tell you what the infection was, but a negative would only tell you what it wasn't.

In the meantime Saskia and Van Diemen combed through the hospital's blood slide library, checking dozens of samples of animal and human malaria against the Erskine blood sample. Finally Van Diemen had to agree. Nothing matched.

While Van Diemen scrubbed his hands at the sink he cross-examined Saskia about the patient and the progress of symptoms. He listened carefully until Saskia mentioned that fever began only a day ago. Van Diemen snorted his disagreement. ‘Unlikely. What you are telling me is that this infection developed at three to four times the speed of falciparum malaria. He's seven per cent infected now, right?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then in three or four days he wouldn't have a single red blood cell to call his own. No, the degree of infection and the presence of gametocytes indicate not less than two weeks.'

A technician leaned through the door and tossed a clipboard on a desk. ‘PCR results,' he said.

Van Diemen grabbed it and scanned down the page. ‘Negative, negative, negative, all the way down. My God.' He passed the clipboard to Saskia. ‘Well, that's the proof. For the last hundred years mankind only had to deal with four kinds of malaria. Now we seem to have found number five.'

Two battered trucks full of government troops roared into Zizunga this morning before heading on north east. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Among them are some of the village men conscripted last year, and there were many happy scenes of reunion, and swarms of delighted children. The troops seemed well-fed, well-equipped and in high spirits. A moth-eaten hyena head had been mounted on the radiator of the lead truck with the letters KPLA daubed on its nose.

There were two surprises. Travelling with them was Dr Jarman Herrera, pale and gaunt. We had assumed he would be away for weeks, but he said he had heard news of the skirmish and felt he had to return to look after Sophie's precious monkeys. Georg is overjoyed because he has brought with him the Land Rover clutch part we need.

For me the second surprise was greater. Behind the second truck, talking to Jarman was a tall western soldier in filthy Zairean fatigues. He had his back to me, but I recognised the huge build and stripes of pale skin under the mud. He was the soldier who had saved my life, who had ambushed the KPLA, and cut off the ears of the dead. Somehow I felt he knew I was there. Perhaps I should have gone up and thanked him. Instead I felt very frightened, and walked away.

(Erica's Diary 1992)

Max was in a holding cell at police headquarters at Marnixstraat. Paced out heel to toe it was six and a half shoe lengths by nine. There were double doors: outer one wood, inner one steel. The windows were double too, an outer frosted layer, just enough to let through the pale light of early morning, and an inch thick inner layer of clear plate glass. Between the two was the unblinking eye of the observation camera, a permanent light, and a digital clock with a green display. The thin mattress and pillow were covered in aquamarine plastic, to match the shiny tiles on the wall. This was designer incarceration, modern and humane, with a floor spotless enough to eat your meals from. The warders called themselves carers, and told him the mattress was fire and piss proof. Then they had taken away his shoelaces, belt and St. Christopher chain in case he should harm himself.

Max sat staring in timeless regret, until the ache in his shoulders made him realise his fists were balled tight. A few deep breaths helped ease the tension. He thought again about Lisbeth's message, the delightful tickle as she scrawled on his left palm, and the promise she extracted from him not to read it for an hour. What she had written was a phone number and some advice: ‘A man whose hand sweats is not ready to face him and thus will not.'

The phone number had not been erased. Max had passed that test, he was ready. But it was an old, buried, dangerous Max Carver that was ready. The part of himself that he disliked and feared and had thought gone for good after his killing of Samuel Ng, after his discharge from the Coast Guards. When he had his back to the wall, it had come back. And every part of him had to live with the consequences.

The endless slow-motion replay of the night in Purple Haze came back again: Lisbeth trying to interpose herself; her face where Janus's neck should have been; the two parallel gashes opening from the lower part of her left cheek, across one hitherto-perfect cheek bone and up, one each side of her left eye; her shocked stare, the pouring blood, the screams.

After that Max remembered only lying on the floor where Janus knocked him, and those giant fists pounding him in retribution. Janus, trying to do his job of protecting Lisbeth. Failing again.

The next few hours had been a blur. Arrival of the cops, the visit to the hospital under guard, the pretty blonde doctor with the delicate suturing technique, the pain as she bandaged his ribs and finally the dentist, shaking his head at the bombed graveyard his mouth had become. The whole time he was thinking about Lisbeth, in some hospital room, everyone afraid to show her a mirror.

Keys jangled in the lock and the cell door swung open. Max recognised the big warder who had locked him up last night. With him was a smaller guy. Lean and stubbly, in ripped, paint-stained jeans, Ajax football shirt, and a sneer.

‘Get up, Carver.' The scruffy guy's arms were all tensed tendon and flexing tattoo.

Max stood. ‘You a cop? I thought you were coming to share my cell.'

Scruffy stepped so close that Max could see the broken blood vessels in his pale blue eyes and taste the stale onions on his breath. ‘I wouldn't share my last smear of shit with you,' he whispered. ‘I took her to the hospital. I saw what you did to her. Just give me the slightest excuse and I'll splinter every bone in your body and render you for glue.'

‘Nice to meet you too,' Max said, holding out his hand. ‘Carver's the name. And you are?'

‘Stokenbrand,' he snarled. ‘Detective sergeant.'

The uniformed cop led Max out of the cell and Stokenbrand walked close behind, stepping deliberately on Max's heels every time they waited for a door to be unlocked. Max's hands were handcuffed behind his back and he was taken outside to a van.

‘Go on Carver,' Stokenbrand hissed. ‘It's only fifty yards out of here, gate's open. Why don't you make a break for it?' He pushed him hard against the back of the van. ‘Go on. Hunting you down to the sewers would be a lot of fun.'

Max shrugged away as best he could.

‘If only Johnny were alive now to see what you did to his girl,' Stokenbrand said as he pushed Max into the back of the van where a uniformed cop was waiting.

‘Who?'

‘Johnny Gee. The boxer. Won an Olympic Gold in Seoul.'

‘Never followed boxing,' Max said.

‘Fifteen years ago I trained with him. He was fucking amazing. Beautiful fast fists, beautiful. He would have turned you into dog meat for what you did to Lisbeth.' Stokenbrand turned to the other cop and asked him something. The cop shrugged and stepped out of the van, closing the door behind him. Stokenbrand watched him go, through the inspection window. ‘Just you and me, Max. I got one minute to teach you about boxing, as a special favour to Lisbeth. No-one's going to notice a few extra bruises. Well, maybe you.'

Max braced himself for the assault, which was rapidly and professionally administered with boots as much as fists, to his kidneys, ribs and groin, careful to never draw blood. Breathing heavily, Stokenbrand hauled Max back onto the seat, knee hard between his thighs, and clipped the American's wrists to a restraint bar with a second set of handcuffs. The detective hawked deeply until he was chewing phlegm, and squeezed Max's nose, trying to force him to open his mouth to receive it.

Some things Max could take. Not this, whatever the consequences. He waited for his moment, snapped his neck back, then threw it forward hard. Max felt his forehead crack cartilage, and heard the yelp as Stokenbrand fell back to the other side of the van, setting it rocking. The detective sat down hard, hands clamped over his broken nose, a single ribbon of blood running down into his mouth.

‘Enough's enough, alright?' Max said.

Before Stokenbrand could respond the other cop returned with two colleagues, one a sergeant with a clipboard. The sergeant looked at Max, and then at Stokenbrand, who was sniffing and trying to cover his nose. The sergeant had a short, harsh conversation with Stokenbrand, punctuated with plenty of finger pointing. Then he turned to Max. ‘You okay? Anything you want to tell me about?'

‘No. Everything's just fine,' Max said. The sergeant shrugged and slammed the van door. Max was taken to the central district headquarters at Warmoesstraat, taken to a cold interview room and dumped on a metal chair at a metal table. Both were screwed to the ground. Stokenbrand ushered the other cop out, slammed the door and locked it. He released a last venomous sneer through the inspection glass, then disappeared.

Max got up and walked around for a while. He was dog tired, but he couldn't sleep. It seemed about two hours later when the door opened, and Stokenbrand came in with two plastic chairs and a plug of cotton wool up his nose. Behind him was a lean fortysomething woman in a zip jacket and leather trousers and a young man in a cheap-looking suit. They sat side by side opposite Max at the table while Stokenbrand stood to the side.

The woman spoke. ‘I'm Detective Inspector Voos. This is Mr de Haan who will look after your legal rights at the expense of the Dutch state until you find your own lawyer.'

She opened a file and began to read. ‘Maxim Carver your case is going to the prosecutor on a charge of aggravated assault.' She read out the formalities of the caution. ‘Do you have anything to say?'

‘Like I told 'em last night, it was an accident.'

Voos looked up over her fashionable thin frame spectacles. There was not a shred of sympathy in her grey eyes. ‘So the bottle accidentally broke itself against the wall, and your arm accidentally slashed it across her face?'