Flashback

Chapter Fourteen

Berlin

Cory stumbled against some bins. It hurt to breathe. He pawed at the lids. Locked. He had spent the day asleep beneath a disused bandstand not far from the TV tower. Automated systems in his immortal blood were weaving new tissue, conjuring life, but it would not be enough.

‘Move it, Georgia,’ he growled, using the nickname given to him by his old Gunnery Sergeant. The rain drummed his shoulders. ‘Elbows and assholes.’

Another step. The Ghost felt old beyond his eighty-eight years. The very clockwork at the centre of his cells had unwound. He was far beyond the help of contemporary medicine.

He followed a green line visible to him alone. One hand kept him steady against the closed shopfronts. His feet sucked at the standing water. Some passersby slowed with horror. Others saw nothing. For them, he had taken on the invisibility of a man to look through. There was a litter bin on the corner. Cory found half a kebab in it and took two bites.

The green line went on. The ground swayed and the Ghost recalled a young fisherman, Gomez, who had taken him out on a moonless Christmas Eve in 1949. The jewelled string of Montevideo had lain behind them. As Gomez and Cory dealt the nets, they stopped in wonder at the glowing green channel that crossed the ocean ahead of them. It was clear to Cory that this was phosphorescent algae churned up by the screws of the US Navy frigate that had cut through the bay an hour before, but Gomez was spooked by the colour. The sea’s dead are marching, he said, crossing himself. He would not listen to the reassurances of Cory. They gathered the nets and went home. Cory left South America before the next winter.

One hundred metres on, the Ghost took a right turn. This, he knew, was the last turn he could take on this night. His muscles burned with the acids of prolonged labour. His eyelids trembled. He walked down an alley and fell against a painted wooden door. A sign read, Jesus hört dir zu. It flickered in his eye: his bodily repairs were taking priority over the translation. Then the meaning broke through: Speak and Jesus will listen.

Help me, he thought.

He heard a telephone ringing far away.

Then there was a voice his head: Church of St Mary, Father David Hildegaard speaking.

Cory already knew much about Father Hildegaard. He did not how he knew; but this man could heal him.

I am at your door, thought Cory. I need a Samaritan.

My friend, Hildegaard replied, it is late.

Cory knew that Father Hildegaard had run a prison-visiting society in Copenhagen, under whose auspices he had raped young men.

Father, please.

He heard footsteps on the tiled floor beyond the door, the click of a light, and the clatters of locks being undone. The door swung inwards. The young priest wore a dark cassock, which soon gathered sequins of rain. A cordless phone was pressed to his ear.

Cory said, ‘Listen,’ and reached out.

Father Hildegaard’s breath blew white and a line of blood ran from his nose. He stood as though immobilised with pain. Cory sighed. He felt his health return like youth and purpose.

Inspector Duczyński turned from his balcony and thought of the people he knew well—a civil servant, an artist, a singer, the young man in the apartment above who was, for his own reasons, in love with him—and wished them fairer fortunes. He looked at his empty hand and decided that it needed a drink. Perhaps Florian, his would-be amore in the apartment above, would care to join him. Duczyński’s grin was sickly. His sling was tight and his fingers had pins and needles.

He stepped through his balcony door and shut it. The rain sound muted. Instead of a drink, he returned from the kitchen with a probiotic yogurt and a pill box. He sat in the dark. The rain drew his thoughts once more. He raised his yogurt.

‘Cheers.’

Then he took the phone. It felt light and cheap next to his left ear. It was unusual for him to use the landline, but his mobile phone had disappeared during the day. Perhaps someone at the hospital had stolen it. In the morning, he would report it missing.

‘Who is it?’ asked his mother.

‘It’s Karel.’

‘Who?’

He sighed. ‘Mama, I was shot today. In the shoulder. I’ll be fine, but I lost a suspect. I’m suspended and it’s probably the end of my career.’

He told her everything. In the gaps between his words, he pictured an aeroplane carrying Jem, his only lead, back to England. Her face was pressed against a window. Duczyński’s Polish was slow, while his mother’s had flourished with age. When he cut the call, he noticed an unread answerphone message from a withheld number. He hit ‘play’.

‘Inspector, this is Danny Shaw. How’s the shoulder? I think we can help each other. My sister has done this before—run off, I mean—and I need to find her. I know where she’s going. What I really don’t need is to be arrested. If this sounds like something you can work with, call me back. You know the number, don’t you?’

Duczyński smiled. He punched the number of his mobile into the telephone. After one ring, an English man answered.

‘Hello, Inspector. It’s Danny Shaw.’

‘Good evening. I would like to have my phone back.’

‘Of course you would.’

‘I wish to thank you for saving my life.’

‘You’re welcome. I should apologise for giving you the slip.’

After the call, Duczyński went to a cardboard box and took out the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms. He read:

Duczyński opened the pill box. Inside was the white marble of unknown substance that the emergency doctor had cut from his shoulder. He watched it roll. It looked like no bullet he had ever seen. Then he placed it in the pocket of his long, black coat, laid the coat around his shoulders like a cloak, and left his apartment.

Several hours later, as the red digits of the cooker clock approached midnight, the apartment door opened. Danny struck the light switch and marched Duczyński to the bedroom as he had conducted him from the club: steadily and without pause. Duczyński fell back upon his bed. Danny adjusted the sling to make sure his arm was comfortable.

‘How’s the injury?’

‘I can’t help you with your sister, Mr Shaw.’

‘Yes, you said.’

‘It breaks too may regulations. Technically, I should arrest you.’ A pause. Then, sleepily: ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m opening the bloody window. Your bedroom stinks. It’s the bachelor life for you, isn’t it?’

‘No. It’s too cold.’

‘Really.’

Danny patted Karel’s chest. The man was already snoring.

In the kitchenette, Danny rinsed the dust from an apple and walked into the living room, where he had half a mind to catch up on the investigation into the air-crash in Bavaria. But Duczyński had no television. The apartment was undecorated and almost empty. It looked like the inspector had moved in the previous week.

He moved to the balcony and ate the fruit as he considered the problem of Jem. A few minutes later, he found a pen and paper. He wrote on the reverse of a receipt:

He put the receipt on the telephone and opened the apartment door. He stopped on the threshold. The hallway was black and empty. Finding a hotel at this time of night would not be fun.

‘Fuck it.’

He closed the door and stole one of the pillows from Karel’s bed. On the rug in the living room, parallel to the coffee table, he stretched out. The pillow was feathered and double the English size, but he made himself comfortable enough. His back ached like it used to in the days when he sculled. The bachelor life alright.