The Virus (9 page)

Kaplan leaped to his feet, as though every moment counted. “Do you know your way around up there, Paula? Do you think we might go and take a look?”

She appeared to hesitate. “Well, I’ve got a lot of work to finish off here . . .” Then she paused, seeing how important it was for him. “All right, I’ll come, but I don’t hold out much hope.”

She had her car at the Clinic, and she took him with her. They parked in the forecourt of the Schloss and walked up to the entrance. There was a souvenir shop-
cum
-ticket-office in the gatehouse. Paula Schmidtt showed her university card to the guard.

“Are all those old records still stored in the basement?”

“Basement? What basement?” The old man laughed. “We have dungeons here, not basements.”

The cold hit them when they went below. The staircase led deep into the bowels of the castle. Mediaeval suits of armour, with slit-eyed visors, jumped out at them around corners. Ancient instruments of torture hung from the walls.

They came eventually to a large storage area filled with filing cabinets, boxes of various dimensions and piles of loose dossiers.

“Good God!” Paula sounded despondent. “I don’t see how we can find anything here.”

“Let’s give it a try anyway.”

It was Lowell Kaplan who found it. For half an hour they had poked through the junk. More than once, Paula had seemed to suggest that it would be a fruitless search and that they might as well give up. But the American was not easily deterred. The 1967 records were the only lead he had. If he couldn’t find them, he was really back at the beginning.

Paula Schmidtt was watching him as he opened the last drawer of the last filing cabinet. He pulled out a large, dog-eared, floppy-covered book.

“Paula, come over here.”

She was beside him in a moment, and took the book from him. “I think you’ve found something.”

The legend on the cover of the book had faded somewhat, but it was still clear enough to read. She read the German words first and then translated. “It says: ‘Marburg University Clinic — Records of animals imported for research purposes — 1960 to 1969’. Perhaps this is what we are looking for.”

She turned over the pages quickly until she came to the entries for February and March, 1967. Each entry recorded the arrival of a crate of monkeys for use in Professor Irma Matthofer’s cholera vaccine research program. The records showed the date and approximate location of the animals’ capture.

They looked at the sheet together.

“They seem to come from all different parts of Africa,” said Kaplan. “Zaire, Uganda, Tanzania, Chad, Upper Volta — it’s hard to know where to begin. I don’t see how we could pin anything down with this kind of variety to choose from.”

Kaplan studied the sheet. “Do you think I could take this book away?”

Paula Schmidtt looked doubtful. “Better not.” She laughed nervously. “I know it may sound funny seeing the state they’re in, but I’m meant to be responsible for these records, too. As Head of Records, I couldn’t let you or anyone else remove one of the books.”

Kaplan was about to protest that if he hadn’t found the book, no one would have known it was there anyway. But he thought better of it. He didn’t want to push his luck.

“Can I copy some of these entries down then? There may be something there which we don’t see at the moment.”

“Go ahead. I’ll read them out if you like. I’m sorry we don’t have a photocopy machine down here. There didn’t seem to be a need for one.”

Kaplan laughed. “It won’t take us long.”

He began to write as she read out the details.

“Feb 24, 1967. 20 forest guenons, caught central Congo basin, location approx. longitude . . .; latitude . . .; 15 talapoins, caught Senegal, location approx. longitude . . .; latitude . . .; 6 patas monkeys, caught savannah area of northern Uganda, location approx. longitude . . .; latitude . . .”

She had reached the seventh item on the list when her tone, which had begun to register boredom, changed.

“Hello! Here’s a consignment which has been delivered to Peter Ringelmann himself. Look, he’s signed in the margin.”

Kaplan looked. There, sure enough, was the name of the dead man. He read the details.

“March 10, 1967. 20 green monkeys, caught Kugumba region eastern Zaire, location approx. longitude . . .; latitude . . . For use of Professor Matthofer. Transit via Kinshasha and Brussels.”

Brussels! Kaplan felt suddenly excited. Diane Verusio had contracted the Marburg virus a few days after passing through Brussels airport. Fifteen years earlier, a shipment of monkeys destined to be used by a man who later died of Marburg fever had passed in transit through Brussels. Surely there was a connection there somewhere, however remote!

He looked at Paula. “What do you think? Do you think that was the bunch we’re looking for? Do you think Ringelmann was signing his own death warrant?”

She shook her head. “It doesn’t mean anything. Look.” She pointed to several entries further down the page. “Ringelmann has signed for those, too.”

He saw that she was right.

“Oh.” There was no concealing his disappointment. “I thought we might have had something there.”

She shrugged, strangely offhand. “You may have something or again you may not. It’s impossible to tell.” When they had finished their work, they climbed up the stairs again, handed the keys back to the guard and went to the car.

“Can I drop you somewhere?”

“The Waldeckerhof, if it’s not out of your way. My car’s there.”

At the hotel, instead of embracing as they had when they first met, they shook hands rather formally.

“You’ve been very kind, Paula.”

“Don’t mention it. I hope you find what you’re looking for. By the way . . .” — she asked the question with studied casualness — “will we see you at home this evening, or are you on your way somewhere?”

Kaplan made up his mind. For the time being he had learned all he could in Marburg.

“I’m going to Brussels.”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “Brussels?”

Kaplan was more specific. “Brussels airport, to be precise.”

She nodded, dead-pan, and drove off, leaving him standing there. Kaplan felt puzzled. There was something about this handsome young woman which he did not fully understand.

5

Kaplan had a quick lunch at the hotel and was
en route
by half-past one. He decided to stick to the autobahn all the way to Brussels. In other circumstances, he would have been inclined to take in cities like Cologne and Aachen on his way; but today was different. He felt compelled by an increasing sense of urgency. Thank God the Germans had refused to introduce speed limits on their autobahns. He put his foot down hard on the accelerator pedal of the large black Mercedes which he had hired at Frankfurt, and moved into the fast lane.

After the Belgian frontier, he slowed down. The Belgians took a different view of speeding. But with the needle hovering around the 140 k.p.h. mark, it still took little more than an hour on the relatively empty E5 to reach the outskirts of Brussels.

He looked at his watch, and saw that it was already six o’clock in the evening. He hesitated. He could go on to the airport in the hope of finding a responsible Belgian official still at his desk, unlikely at that hour, or he could postpone the task until the following day and drive straight to the château.

It had been a long, gruelling day and he decided he had earned a break. At the next intersection, he cut across from the E5 to the E10 and swung south on the road to Namur. The Mercedes clipped a corner of the Forêt de Soignes as he turned down a country road signposted “CHATEAU D’HUART: 10 kilomètres. Privé.”

The guard on the gate was ready for him.

“Monsieur Kaplan?”

“Oui, merci.”

With an unctuous smile, the guard waved him through.

Kaplan drove over broad undulating land. The harvest was beginning to ripen. Two or three times, pheasants whirred away from under the wheels of his car. Count Philippe Vincennes was reputed to have one of the best private shoots in Belgium, some said in Europe. Kaplan passed through forests, where the trees stretched upwards to form a seemingly endless canopy. He forded two streams whose water sparkled white in the early evening sun. The Belgians certainly knew how to enjoy their wealth, he thought as he cruised — now at a much easier pace — towards his destination. A strange people,
les Belges
! An idiosyncratic nation, torn apart by linguistic rivalries, yet amid all the tension there remained these astonishing oases of wealth, privilege and power. Men like Philippe Vincennes might stay out of sight, protected by 6000 hectares of their own land and guarded night and day by a score of faithful retainers, but out of sight was by no means out of mind. The king would not dream of asking Monsieur X or Monsieur Y to form a new administration without first soliciting the advice of men like Vincennes. He might not always follow their counsel, but when he didn’t he usually regretted it

The château came into sight round a long bend; it was breathtaking in its magnificence. It had a long low front of soft grey-yellow stone. The shuttered windows gave out onto a cobbled courtyard on one side; on the other they took in the great sweep of the Forêt de Soignes. At either end, slender slate-roofed turrets had been built which added grace to the château’s evident solidity.

Kaplan pulled the car off the road at the entrance to a cart-track which ran off to the right, and for a few moments allowed his eye to absorb the scene. It was usual, he reflected, for tourists to Europe to enthuse about the famous châteaux of the Loire valley. Few people realized that, within 50 kilometres of Brussels, some of the finest château architecture in the whole of Europe was to be found. If these gems were little known, it was because they remained largely in private hands, hands of men like Philippe Vincennes who had been astute enough and rich enough to buy at a time when the original owners were begging to be relieved of their crushing burden.

His eye ranged past the château towards the east. In the far distance, he could see the line of the motorway leading to Brussels. Nearer at hand, some workmen were engaged on tree-felling operations. As he sat there, taking it all in, a herd of cattle numbering two or three hundred head moved slowly across the frame from left to right. The magical, almost film-world quality of the place hadn’t changed.

It was five years, thought Kaplan, since he had visited Count and Countess Vincennes at home, and then by invitation of their eldest son, Louis, whom, like Franz Schmidtt, he had met at Graduate School in the States. Louis had encouraged him to visit the family whenever he happened to be in the vicinity.

Kaplan had telephoned before leaving Marburg, and had been agreeably surprised at the warmth with which his call was received. Covering the last few yards of the drive, he remembered the conversation. He was hoping, he told the Count, to see the whole family.

“Ah, but Louis is away,” the Count had apologized. “He is in Zaire on business.”

Kaplan’s attention had been altered by the reference to Zaire. Of course, the Vincennes family, with a finger in most pies, would certainly have dealings with the former Belgian Congo, but Kaplan was struck by the coincidence of one reference to Zaire as the provenance of a shipload of monkeys being so quickly followed by another.

In spite of Louis’ absence, the Count had pressed Kaplan to pay them a visit. “Hélèna and I are always glad to see our friends, particularly from the United States. You know, we are becoming quite recluses in our old age.”

“I can hardly believe that, Count,” Kaplan answered. The hospitality of the Vincennes was legendary.

“And what brings you to Brussels, Lowell?” the Count asked. “Pleasure, I hope?”

“Not entirely.” Kaplan was evasive. “I’m on the track of something.”

“What, some strange disease in Belgium?”

“Well, I have to make some enquiries. To do with the transit of wildlife through the airport.”

The Count had exclaimed: “Wildlife at Brussels airport! How extremely interesting!” And he had repeated his invitation in unexpectedly forceful terms.

Unable to shake off the feeling that he was really an actor on a movie-set, Kaplan swung round in a wide arc and berthed the Mercedes in front of the main door. The wheels scrunched on the gravel and there was a rich and satisfying clunk as he shut the car door behind him.

The Count himself came out to meet him. Philippe Vincennes was a well-preserved sixty-five. Immaculately dressed in a blue blazer and fawn slacks, deeply tanned, with brilliantly white teeth and a fine head of silver hair, he had that totally relaxed air which only great riches can provide.

“Lowell, how good to see you!” His command of English was perfect.

A couple of servants hurried forward, competing to carry Kaplan’s case inside.

“Perhaps you would like to see your room and then join me for a drink on the terrace? We will dine around eight. I have asked one or two friends whom I thought you might like to meet to join us.”

Kaplan raised a mental eyebrow. It seemed as though Count Philippe Vincennes had already arranged something for his benefit. He wondered what it was.

Forty minutes later, when he had washed and changed, Kaplan came out to find his host on the terrace. They looked out onto a magnificent avenue of trees.

“The longest beech drive in Europe,” the Count explained. “Planted shortly after the battle of Waterloo.” He surveyed his domain with a practised eye. “You see that forest in the middle-distance there? That’s where Blücher’s army was resting when the word came that the battle of Waterloo had already been engaged. If Blücher had not force-marched his men across country, Napoleon would have won and the course of history would have been changed. What was it that the Duke of Wellington said after the battle of Waterloo?”

“ ‘A damned close-run thing.’ ” Kaplan was prepared to show that he too had studied history.

A servant came out onto the terrace and refilled their tall-stemmed champagne glasses. When he had withdrawn, the Count addressed Kaplan smoothly: “You must be used to ‘close-run things’ in your work, Lowell, but surely not in connection with Brussels airport? I was interested in what you said on the telephone about the transit of wildlife.” The Count paused. When he spoke again, his rich-brown face gleamed with fervour. “I can assure you that there is absolutely no export of live animals through Belgium. I have spoken with my friend, Willy van Broyck, who is the Minister for Trade and in charge of such things, and he had given me his categorical assurance that there has been no such traffic for the past several years. He will be here tonight, and you may speak to him yourself.”