The Last Compromise (14 page)

‘One
moment please.’

Hans
listened to a violin concert that was sometimes interrupted by recorded voice
messages in different languages.

A
female voice said, ‘Cardiologie bonjour?’

‘Good
afternoon, I’m looking for my friend Willem Tienhoven, he had a heart attack
today, an ambulance came to pick him up from Gasperich.’

‘Mister
Tienhoven is no longer here.’

There
was a silence because the woman wasn’t continuing talking.

Hans
asked, ‘Where did he go?’

A
hesitation. Damn discretion.

Hans
said emotionally, ‘Oh God, did he die of his heart attack?’

‘No,
he checked himself out. Against our advice.’

Weird.
But at least he had an answer.

‘Did
he say where he wanted to go?’

‘I’m
sorry, if you are his friend I’m sure you can find him.’

‘Of
course, I know. Thank you Madam. Goodbye.’

He
hung up, and thought for a moment.

Then
he dialled Tienhoven’s office number. His boss couldn’t have been back in
Brussels already, but he could have left a message. Just as Hans had expected,
the secretary answered his call.

‘Hello
Gabriela, this is Hans.’

He
decided not to say anything more, and see what she would tell him on her own
initiative.

‘Hans,
I’m happy you call. Willem asked me to tell you he’s very sorry, in case you
called.’

‘Did
he say where he went, or why?’

‘No,
he just said that he had to leave Luxembourg, and that he hopes to be able to
talk to you tomorrow morning here in Brussels. Is there anything I can tell him
in case he calls again this evening?’

Hans
considered various options, but he quickly realised that he only had one
choice. He needed to talk to his boss, have a long and thorough conversation
with him, but he knew that without a mobile phone he himself wasn’t reachable,
and he didn’t want to stay at the hotel. He didn’t want to stick around in
Luxembourg at all, in fact. Not at this hotel, and not at the Commission
building across the street either. He had nothing to do there, and he didn’t
consider himself ready to answer any questions from Zayek’s head of unit, for
example. Above all, he didn’t consider himself ready to answer any further
questions from the local police. No, his only choice was to get back to
Brussels, figure out what had happened, and get his story straight before
talking to anyone else.

If
he could trust his boss in the first place that is, which was by no means a
certainty. It had been Tienhoven who had sent him ahead to meet with Hoffmann,
the man who had in the end physically assaulted him with his fists and suffocated
him into unconsciousness. It had been Tienhoven who had promptly agreed with
director-general Clarke to forget about commissioning a legal expertise, and to
immediately cooperate with the BND, dismissing or explaining away the doubts
that Hans had expressed. And now it was Tienhoven who had absconded for the
day, heart attack or not, leaving Hans stranded on the scene of what looked
very much like a crime. Since it had been Tienhoven’s car they had taken here,
and since the Belgian railways were on strike, Hans wasn’t even sure how he
would get home now.

‘No
it’s okay,’ he said to Gabriela. ‘If he calls, just tell him that I’ll try to
get home to Brussels now, and that I’d very much like to talk to him tomorrow.’

They
said goodbye and Hans hung up.

What
had Tienhoven gotten him into? Who was Zayek, who had killed him, why? Why did Hans
end up in the middle of it? How would he get out of it? How would he even get
out of this country, for starters? What other ways were there to get from
Luxembourg to Brussels? A short-distance flight seemed a bit out of proportion,
even if there maybe was a connection. Hitchhiking might have worked, except he
was a man who looked, quite accurately, like he’d just been hit in the face.
Perhaps there were bus connections from somewhere. Hans felt what little energy
he had recovered drain away again. All this had caused him so many problems, so
much mental strain, and so much physical pain. Any willpower he could muster
would be eaten up by questions that wouldn’t go away. Getting the questions in
a logical order, let alone answering even some of them, was more than he could
accomplish in his current state. He couldn’t do it, not now, not alone. But he
was alone, in a city, in a country where he knew no-one.

Except
one person, though.

Hans
picked up the phone and dialled the Commission’s central switchboard number in
Brussels.

‘Hello,
could you please put me through to Mister Takacs.’ He waited. ‘Viktor. Statistics
in Luxembourg.’ Waiting. ‘Thanks.’ Waiting. Beeps, then the sound of a receiver
being picked up.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello
Viktor, this is Hans.’

‘Where
are you?’

As
always Viktor got straight to the point. It felt reassuring.

‘I’m
here in Luxembourg.’ He told him the name of the hotel. ‘In Gasperich, across
the street from the Commission building.’

‘Yes,
I know the hotel. What happened?’

If
only Hans himself knew.

He
tried to concentrate and said, ‘I followed up on the statistics situation
inside atomic energy, their administrative support unit. Things got a little
complicated here. A little dangerous, too. Very dangerous, someone died. I need
to think, and I need to get back to Brussels. I was here with my boss,
Tienhoven, but he left and there are no trains today.’

‘Wait
right there, don’t move,’ Viktor said. ‘I’ll come and pick you up, and I’ll
drive you to Brussels. We can talk in the car.’

Hans
paused. This was very prompt.

He
answered, ‘No Viktor, please, I was just hoping you could maybe…’

Indeed,
maybe what exactly? Drive him to some bus depot in Luxembourg? Help him catch a
ride on a lorry?

Hans
reconsidered and asked, ‘Are you sure this is not too much trouble?’

The
answer was, ‘Fifteen, twenty minutes.’

Hans
exhaled. ‘Okay, thanks Viktor. I’ll wait in the lobby then.’

‘It’s
a red family car, a Volkswagen Shahran.’

Viktor
put the phone down.

Hans
hung up as well and went to the armchair he had sat in when they’d been
questioning Zayek. He wanted to get some distance between himself and the
policemen near the reception. He sat down and started thinking again.

Two
men had been after his phone. Both had physically attacked him, although one
had done it more violently than the other. Still, they were either rivals or
associates.

There
will be more BND people around the building? You won’t see them.

Whether
they worked with or against each other, chances that they had nothing to do
with each other at all were low. Hoffmann had gotten it in the end, that much Hans
could safely assume.

Then,
for another fifteen minutes, his thoughts went in an increasingly lazy circle.
If the first attacker had wanted his phone, why had he left? And if Hoffmann
had wanted the picture, why hadn’t he just accepted the image he’d been
offered? Why had he wanted the phone itself, in the same way the other attacker
had?

It
was a circle, not just because it didn’t lead anywhere. It was also a circle
because it moved around something. It was doing the rounds around the one big
question that was sitting in the middle, its object leaning against a toilet
cubicle.

He
needed to break out. He took out the box. The policemen weren’t watching
anyway. He wanted to check the serial number again, and to copy it on a piece
of paper. Just to be sure. With the same difficulty as before he managed to
open it. He got up, borrowed a pen with the hotel logo from the reception, and
copied the number on the back side of the first sheet of Viktor’s analysis of
the Netherlands. He kept the pen.

***

‘Inspector
Becker, Luxembourg police, criminal investigation. You are the boss of Boris
Zayek?’

Becker
had left the hotel. After talking to the receptionist, he had tried the mobile
phone number Hans Tamberg had given him, but his phone had been turned off.
Becker had then found and talked to the red-headed hotel manager. But the man had
still been cranky and useless as far as information was concerned. He’d been
preoccupied with finding a replacement for the woman he’d just moved to do
reception counter duty to replace the first receptionist. The only useful thing
he’d told him was the full name of the American officer. Becker had then proceeded
to the kitchen to talk to the waitress who had been on duty in the lobby at the
time of the event. In the end she’d merely told him that she had brought four
cups of coffee to the victim’s group, and that she didn’t remember anything
special about it. So now Becker had crossed the street to talk to the victim’s
colleagues in the Commission building. The security man at the reception had
told him where the office of Zayek’s boss was. Becker had started sweating, but
not much. The cold air outside had chilled his face and neck.

‘Stavros Theodorakis, oui, je suis le chef d’unité de Monsieur
Zayek,’ the man said.
They
shook hands as they stood at the door to Theodorakis’s office. Good news at
last, Becker thought. The Greek, at least those from the older generations,
often had French rather than English as their first foreign language. It made
life a lot easier for him. He switched languages.

‘Can
I please use your office to talk to you and your staff, Monsieur Theodorakis.’

‘Of
course, please. Is this about all the police across the street?’

Becker
moved his body forward and sat down heavily in his host’s chair. Clearly Theodorakis
hadn’t expected to be relegated to a visitor in his own office. ‘Let me just
log off,’ he said hastily, leaning over his desk to make the necessary mouse
clicks and lock the screen of his computer.

‘Please
don’t log off yet,’ Becker said. ‘Could you e-mail Monsieur Zayek’s closest
co-workers in this building and ask them not to leave so that I can talk to
them, too?’

Theodorakis
nodded and started typing while leaning over his desk. Meanwhile Becker took
out his e-cigarette and inhaled.

‘Please,
take a seat,’ Becker said when the man had clicked the send button. Theodorakis
took one of the four visitor’s chairs and sat down.

Becker
told him, ‘Your staff member, Boris Zayek, died in the hotel across the street.’

Theodorakis
covered his closed mouth with his hand.

‘This
is horrible,’ he said. ‘Why, I mean how?’

‘We
are working on both questions,’ Becker replied. ‘I was hoping you could tell me
a little about the victim, so that I get a complete picture.’

‘Excuse
me,’ a blonde woman of about forty stood in the open doorway. She spoke French
as well. ‘Can I please go first, Inspector,’ she said. It was more a statement
than a request. ‘Today I have to pick up the kids from school.’

Becker
looked at her. This was an attitude he didn’t see very often. He liked it.

She
added, ‘On Thursdays my husband brings the kids to school and I pick them up.’

Becker
turned to Theodorakis. ‘Is this okay, Monsieur Theodorakis?’

Theodorakis
nodded to him, then to the woman, got up and left the office that had once been
his.

Becker
pocketed his e-cigarette. ‘So,’ he asked when Theodorakis had closed the door
and the woman had sat down. ‘What is your name, Madame?’

‘My
name is Anneli Villefranche. Let me spell that for you.’

Becker
was halfway through the last name when his mobile phone rang. He answered the
call without looking at the woman.

‘Becker.’

‘Moïen
Inspector Becker, this is crime scene. Like we suspected based on the blood
spray pattern, it wasn’t a gunshot. We didn’t find any bullets or cartridges or
bullet holes. It was an explosion in or near the head, probably inside the
mouth, but not a shooting.’

Becker
continued listening.

‘And
we found the vomit of a second person on the toilet floor. It could be your
witness who saw the body, or someone else, we don’t know yet.’

There
was a pause.

‘Thanks,’
Becker replied. Hans Tamberg hadn’t mentioned throwing up on the floor. There
were a lot of things he hadn’t mentioned.

‘And
another thing, and more important. The security cameras in the lobby haven’t
recorded anything. Some technical failure.’

Was
this some kind of prank?

‘Anything
else?’

‘Yes,
has Felten called you yet about this Willem Tienhoven?’

‘No,
what about him?’

‘Felten
went to see him, but he was too late. Tienhoven did have a heart attack, but he
checked himself out of the hospital. Nobody knows where he is.’

Becker
started tapping with his pen next to Anneli’s half-finished last name. The name
ended in a growing cloud of ink dots. He kept listening.