The Last Compromise (24 page)

She
came straight to the point. ‘Your government requested a statement from
Lieutenant Lawrence, US Army, for an ongoing criminal investigation. I am
pleased to tell you that we have received such statement.’

She
took a folded letter from her drawer and placed it on the desk in front of her,
without opening it. She folded her hands, rested them on the letter, and said, ‘Lieutenant
James F. Lawrence was staying at the hotel in question for the duration of his
three-day visit to Luxembourg city. The purpose of his visit were consultations
regarding the stationing of reconnaissance aircraft in the Luxembourg region
within the context of NATO’s rapid response capacity in Europe. When checking
out of the hotel, he saw two unknown men struggle. He intervened to end the
struggle. Moments later he heard an explosion, and sought to protect both men.
Afterwards one of the men left the hotel, while the other went to check the
restroom area from which the sound of the explosion had come. Lieutenant
Lawrence followed, saw a dead body with a severed head on the floor, and asked
the receptionist to call the police. Afterwards he helped another man in the
hotel lobby who had apparently suffered a heart attack, and finally he left for
the airport in a taxi, and returned on his scheduled flight to the United
States.’

The
woman handed Becker the letter. Becker unfolded it. It bore an American eagle in
its letterhead. Below it he saw a printed text. It contained exactly what the
woman had just told him, word for word. There hadn’t been a single deviation
from the manuscript.

Becker
folded the letter again. ‘Is there anything else that you might tell me?’, he
asked. ‘Anything that isn’t also written in here. A description of the man who
left, for example.’

The
woman smiled, but her eyes stayed as serious as they had been all along. ‘Sir,
I believe that the US administration has been exceptionally forthcoming in this
matter. The State Department, the Pentagon and the Justice Department have swiftly
coordinated to provide you with a full written statement within a single day.
There are countries which have to wait for a whole year, and then they receive
a statement that is much less substantial. I am not talking of European
countries, of course.’

The
young man in the blue tie came in and called her outside.

She
nodded to him and said to Becker, ‘Please do not hesitate do go through the
usual channels in case you require any additional information. Good day to you,
sir.’ She extended her hand as she got up from her chair, shook Becker’s, and left.

Becker
turned around in his chair. The young man was still standing at the door. ‘Sir,
this way please,’ he said.

The first thing Becker
did when returning to his office in the building next to the airport was to ask
whether there had been any messages from anyone, in particular from the
Commission. The answer was as he’d expected. He sat down at his desk and picked
up the receiver of his phone. He assumed that his chief-prosecuting ex-cousin-in-law
had already made an official request, but he wanted to keep trying himself as
well, just in case. He redialled Hans Tamberg’s numbers. No-one answered. Then
he pressed the button down and let the Commission put him through to Willem Tienhoven,
the boss with the rude health.

‘Director
Tienhoven’s office,’ the female voice said. It was the secretary again, the
same as before, even though something seemed to have changed slightly in her
voice.

‘Inspector
Didier Becker, Luxembourg police,’ he said. ‘Is your boss still in a meeting, or
is he running a marathon?’

The
woman hesitated. ‘Er, no, Inspector Becker,’ she said. ‘Mister Tienhoven will
not be available.’

‘Why
not?’

‘He
is out of the office. For at least a few weeks. I’m sorry, there is nothing I
can do.’

‘Where
did he go?’, Becker asked, but the secretary had already hung up.

At
least he had something from the American, namely some kind of statement that
had been checked and approved by at least three different ministries before
being cleared for transmission. And he had at least one sign of life from Tamberg’s
boss, in the sense that he’d been given an approximate timeframe within which
he wouldn’t receive any answers. Now he was missing only Hans Tamberg himself,
and the man he’d had a fight with, plus the mysterious outsider in Tamberg’s
group.

‘Excuse
me, Inspector Didier Becker?’

Becker
turned around. A young Luxembourger with gelled hair and a black suit stood in
his doorway. His tie was silky orange, crowned by an extravagantly thick knot.

‘Please,
come in,’ Becker said and pointed to his visitor’s chair.

The
man nodded his thanks and said down. ‘I’m Josy Losch,’ he said. ‘I work across
the street from the hotel. You’re still looking for witnesses, no?’

Becker
nodded.

The
man nodded in return. ‘I was there when it happened.’

Becker
took out his e-cigarette and inhaled. He decided not to ask his visitor why
he’d come forward only now. As he exhaled he pocketed the device and said, ‘Thank
you for coming. What do you do at your work?’

Young
Mister Losch evidently hadn’t expected to chat about his work, but that was the
point. Becker wanted the conversation to build up before the witness would
deliver the line he’d prepared in advance. Sometimes the pre-formulated line
didn’t entirely match the story that came before. Starting that story at the
beginning allowed Becker to notice if the witness had to reformulate his core
statement on the spot.

‘It’s
a consultancy, Mullenbach & Roth,’ the man said. ‘A business consultancy.’

‘What
kind of businesses do you consult?’

Losch
looked like he wasn’t sure whether Becker was pulling his leg by not coming to
the point. But he chose seriousness and answered, ‘Medium-sized enterprises,
mostly. We specialise in downsizing and cost optimising to help firms that go
through difficult times.’

‘A
lot of business, in times like these?’

‘More
than before in any case,’ Losch said. He had accepted that this was now the
topic of their conversation. ‘There are big consultancies that had specialised
in mergers and acquisitions, they boomed when companies were swallowing each
other indiscriminately. Many of those went broke during the crisis, together
with their clients. But those consultancies that did liquidation advice were
suddenly in a much better position. Now it’s balanced out again.’

Becker
nodded. None of this was interesting, but now he could lead over to what had
happened in the hotel.

Becker
asked, ‘And you meet with your clients in the hotel across the street?’

‘Sometimes,’
Losch said. ‘But usually we just go there to have coffee and discuss among
colleagues.’

Becker
remembered what the receptionist had said about consultants going to the hotel pretending
to be on a business trip. He couldn’t resist. ‘Why?’

Losch
smiled faintly. ‘They put us into one big open office,’ he said. ‘Open, and
bright, to encourage communication and the flow of ideas. In fact they turned
it into a factory floor, squeezing in lots of cubicles to save money.’ He
shrugged. ‘It’s our clients’ money, too, so I can’t object in principle. But if
you want quiet, you better go someplace else.’

‘And
what did you see there yesterday?’, Becker asked.

‘It
was me and two colleagues,’ Losch replied. ‘There was a group of four men in
the armchairs on the other side of the lobby. First it was just one, then the
three others came in. They sat down and talked.’

‘What
did they talk about?’

‘No
idea,’ Losch replied, ‘But they looked a bit tense. They weren’t just chatting.
Then one of them got sick.’

Becker
reached into his pocket and unfolded Zayek’s portrait that the man’s boss
Theodorakis had printed out for him. ‘Was it this one?’

Losch
frowned. ‘I think so, yes.’

‘And
then?’

‘He
ran to the toilet. Then one of the others followed him there.’

‘Which
one?’

‘The
one who had been there first.’

Becker
raised his eyebrows. Not Tamberg, then.

Losch
continued, ‘And then the second guy followed the first guy.’

‘Young
or old?’

‘Young.’

So
it wasn’t just Hans Tamberg, there’d been somebody else, the outsider,
following Zayek first. This hotel must have had a very crowded toilet that day.

Becker
asked, ‘Then what?’

‘We
heard the explosion, and we went to have a look but we were told to leave, like
the others.’

‘What
others?’

‘Us,
two women, they also work in our building, everybody.’

Becker
nodded. This all made sense, but what about the man who had fought with Tamberg
at the reception?

Becker
asked, ‘Anybody else?’

Losch
shook his head. ‘I don’t know, it was a bit confused. I don’t want to say
anything wrong just because I can’t remember.’

‘Do
you remember some fight, some commotion at the reception, before the explosion?’

Again
Losch shook his head. ‘The whole thing was a big commotion.’

Becker
nodded and took out the other picture Theodorakis had printed out. The security
camera still from the entrance of the Commission building.

Becker
asked, ‘Who is who on this picture?’

Losch
took a look and pointed at Hans Tamberg. ‘That’s the younger one who got up and
followed the other two. And that’s the older man who came in with him. He had
some sort of heart attack after the explosion.’

Becker
pocketed the picture and took out his notebook.

His
computer made a sound. He moved his mouse and glanced at the revived screen. It
was a message from the IT unit.
Didier, We’ve been to Luxecur about the
security camera footage, looks like Clara Weber is telling the truth. We went
inside the system, did the usual checks and some of the unusual checks that we
are allowed to do, and two more checks that we are not allowed to do. They have
been hacked, it’s all gone, and no trace of who did it. Powerful stuff, this
was a big company or a government or a small group with access to the resources
of a big company or a government. Sorry, there is nothing else I can tell you.

Becker
looked back up to his young visitor, business consultant Josy Losch.

‘Okay,’
Becker said. ‘Thank you, Mister Losch. Now let’s go through it once again, so I
can write it all down. What was the name of your consultancy again?’

Rotterdam

All
afternoon Hans had been sitting on a visitor’s chair in a corridor, slowly
reading a glossy magazine with celebrity news about people half of whom he
didn’t know, as visitors and policemen walked, strolled, hurried or ran past
him. Most of the pictures were of nicely dressed men and women whose bodies had
been neatly cut out from a photo and pasted onto a white background in the
magazine. Since the photos had been shot at a weird angle, somewhere from
above, the people looked oddly disproportionate, with large heads and short
legs.

It
was a relief to see Visser approach. Hans looked up to him as he came closer.

‘We
got something back from Bulgaria. There is a man called Boris Zayek from Sofia,’
Visser said. ‘His parents reported him missing five years ago. He was
thirty-four when he disappeared. They didn’t find anything. The case is open
but cold. Probably they’ll pronounce him dead soon. Is that what you were
looking for?’

‘Yes,
thank you.’

‘Your
room should be ready by now. Go downstairs, to section B-3, and tell them who
you are. You’ll get a sort of dinner there, too. Tomorrow morning you can
report to the guard at the rear exit to the parking lot. Someone will take you
to the airport. Good night, and good luck.’

They
shook hands. Hans’s opinion of Visser was neither completely positive nor
completely negative. He was efficiently and pragmatically helpful, that much
was clear. But the final conclusion would be something
on balance
. Yet
then everybody and everything was something
on balance
.

Luxembourg

The
man at the other end of the line apologised. ‘Chief prosecutor Majerus is in a
court session right now.’ It was the assistant who had taken notes in the car
that morning. ‘It’s running late, I don’t think he’ll even return to the
office. He’ll probably go straight home.’

Becker
tapped with his pen on the sheet of paper on the desk in front of him. The page
was covered in his handwritten notes, including Doctor Offerbrück’s fresh
conclusion about the DNA. Now another cloud of dots was being added to the
writing.

‘Okay,’
Becker said. ‘If you reach him, tell him to call me, please.’

‘Yes,
Inspector, I… wait, there he is, hold the line.’ The line went mute at the push
of a button. There wasn’t any music, it was just the absence of sound. Becker
was glad in particular about the absence of music. A few moments later Majerus
himself picked up the phone.

‘Hello
Didier, I’ve got to head back in five minutes, is it a quick question or a long
question?’

Becker
thought for a moment.

Majerus
continued, ‘That means it’s long, and I can imagine it would be, in a case like
this. You know what, come over to our house after dinner, we’ll talk there, all
right?’

What
an odd invitation, but Becker knew better than that. He was both enough of a
subordinate and enough of a relative to accept it without feeling somehow
offended.

Becker
asked, ‘Ten, eleven?’

‘Let’s
say eleven. I’ll open us some port wine.’

Becker
preferred chilled dry white wine.

‘Great,
see you later.’

***

Christine
half-embraced Becker to receive two pecks on her cheeks. ‘How are you, Didier?’,
she asked. ‘You must be very tired. And it is your special day, is it not?
Happy birthday.’

Becker
shrugged and looked past her into the dancehall-sized living room. He didn’t
mean to be rude, and it wasn’t like he actively disliked Majerus’s wife. To the
contrary, at some point he’d had something of a crush on her. But it had faded
quickly, mostly because all that time, both before and after Becker’s divorce,
she had treated him like a fellow attendant of a cocktail reception, just like
she was doing now. It had become fairly clear fairly early on that her husband
was aiming for the top level in his career, far above senior prosecutor. And it
seemed that she had made it her life’s mission to be the chief prosecutor’s
wife, maybe the justice minister’s wife at some point. She and Becker were
almost distant relatives, distant enough to not have grown up together and
resent each other, but close enough to feel a bond of solidarity that went
beyond mere acquaintance. But here the husband of your husband’s cousin comes
in, and what do you say? Oh, you must be very tired. Yes yes, the caviar
canapés, aren’t they delicious?

‘Didier,
come in,’ Majerus called from the living room. He held a bottle of port in one
hand and two glasses in the other.

Christine
let go of Becker and flashed her phenomenally white teeth. ‘I’m sure you have
work matters to discuss, Jacques has been waiting for you.’

She
led Becker into the living room and disappeared, floating away into one of the
other fifty or hundred rooms in this house. Becker didn’t wish Majerus any
evil, but in moments like that he wondered what would happen if the ruling class’s
nightmare did come true. The banks leaving the country, everybody trying to
sell their obscenely expensive houses all at once. Majerus was living in a villa
in one of the poshest areas outside Luxembourg city. The value of the plot
alone, even without the house, could feed a whole family for two decades in
most European countries.