Werner pretended to laugh. “Oh dear! Has your client not told you that when his ship landed in Gothenburg he escaped captivity in order to smuggle himself to Germany? Then in Copenhagen escaped again? After escaping from Turkey and before that Russia?”
“What my client has told me is a matter for my client and myself, not to be divulged to third parties without his consent, Herr Werner.”
Ursula had put on her most inscrutable expression. Herr Dinkelmann beside her was drawing his stubby fingers reflectively back and forth across his lips while he watched Annabel with a paternal smile.
“Frau Richter,” Werner resumed, in a tone to suggest his patience was running short, “we are looking
urgently
for a
violent Islamist fugitive.
He is a desperate man, suspected of terrorist connections. It is our task to protect the public from him. And to protect
you also,
Frau Richter. You are a single, defenseless woman. Also very attractive, if I may say so. We therefore ask you, and Frau Meyer here, to assist us in doing our duty. Where is this man to be found, please? And second question, maybe first:
When did you last see him
? But only if you wish to answer, naturally. Maybe you don’t mind that you are protecting a terrorist and enabling a public outrage to occur?”
Intending to seek Ursula’s opinion on the propriety of this question, Annabel turned to address her, but the delay was already too much for Herr Werner to bear.
“No need to ask your director, Frau Richter! Let me come out with it, and then you can decide what is the correct response in the interests of your client. Nobody is forcing you. We have witnesses to that.
What did you do with Issa Karpov after you left the house of Mrs. Leyla Oktay at four o’clock on Saturday morning?
”
So they knew.
They knew some, but not all.
They knew the outside but not the inside. Or so she must believe. If they knew the inside, Issa would be on the flight to Petersburg by now, like Magomed, waving his manacled fists at her from the cabin window.
“Frau Richter. I ask you again, please. What did you do with Issa Karpov when you left the Oktays’ house?”
“I escorted him.”
“On foot?”
“On foot.”
“At four in the morning? You do this with all your clients? Walk the streets with them at dawn? Is this normal practice for an attractive young woman lawyer? If I am asking you to breach client confidentiality again, I withdraw the question completely. You will hold up our investigations but never mind. We shall get him even if it’s too late.”
“Our discussion had run into the small hours, which is not unusual with clients of Oriental or Asiatic origin,” Annabel continued, after due reflection. “There was tension in the Oktays’ household. Mr. Karpov did not wish to trespass further on their hospitality. He is a man of considerable sensitivity. His irregular status was becoming an anxiety to them, and he was aware of this. They are also about to leave for Turkey on vacation.”
She was still addressing her replies to Ursula, not Werner. She was phrasing them in short sentences, clearing each one with Ursula before she moved to the next. Ursula, sphinxlike, was squinting into the middle air with half-closed eyes while the relaxed Herr Dinkelmann seated beside her preserved his fond smile.
“Describe your route exactly, please, Frau Richter! Also methods of transportation. I have to warn you, you are potentially in a dangerous situation here, not only from Issa Karpov. We are not policemen but we have responsibilities. Go on, please.”
“We went on foot to the Eppendorfer Baum, then took the underground.”
“Where to? Please give the entire story, not piece by piece.”
“My client was fraught and the train distressed him. After four stations we took a taxi.”
“You took a taxi. Always one thing at a time. Why must you put out your facts like gold coins, Frau Richter? You took a taxi where to?”
“At first, we had no destination.”
“You are joking! You gave the driver an address: a crossroads less than a kilometer from the American consulate! How can you say you had
no destination
when you gave a destination to the driver?”
“Very easily, Herr Werner. If you could enter for a moment into the mentality of many of our clients, you would understand that such things happen every day.” She was brilliant. Not a word out of place. Not a foot fault. She had never been this good at the family forum’s games of legal lying. “Mr. Karpov had a destination in mind, but for his own reasons he didn’t wish to share it with me. Those crossroads lead in several directions. They also suited my own purpose very well, since I happen to live quite close to them.”
“But you didn’t take the taxi direct to your apartment! Why not? He could have walked from there, and you would have been safe and sound at home already. Or have we hit another insuperable obstacle in your story?”
“No, I most certainly did
not
take the taxi to my apartment.” Straight into Werner’s face.
“Why not?”
“Perhaps I didn’t
go
to my apartment.”
“Why not?”
“Perhaps I am disinclined to show my clients where I live. Perhaps I decided to go to the apartment of one of my many lovers, Herr Werner.” Of whom you would so dearly like to be one, she was thinking.
“But you dismissed the taxi.”
“Yes.”
“And you walked. We may not know where to.”
“Correct.”
“And Karpov walked with you, clearly! He would not leave a pretty woman like you alone in the street at half past four in the morning. He is a sensitive man. Not dangerous at all. You said so. Yes?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, he didn’t walk with me.”
“So he walked also, but in a different direction!”
“Correct. He set off north and vanished. I assume he entered a side road. I was more concerned that he should not follow me than in observing where he went.”
“And after that?”
“What do you mean,
after that
?”
“You haven’t seen him since? Had contact with him?”
“No.”
“Not even through intermediaries?”
“No.”
“But he gave you a phone number, naturally. Also an address. A desperate illegal immigrant does not obtain a talented young woman champion one day and dismiss her on the next, I assume.”
“He gave me no phone number or address, Herr Werner. In our work, that’s also quite normal. He has the phone number of the Sanctuary. I naturally hope we shall hear from him again, but we may not.” Once more seeking Ursula’s tacit confirmation, but receiving only the remotest nod. “That is the nature of our work here at the Sanctuary. Clients enter our lives and they disappear. They need time to talk to their companions in distress, to pray, to recover or go to ground. Perhaps Mr. Karpov has a wife and family who are already here. We are seldom admitted to the whole story. Perhaps he has friends, fellow Russians, fellow Chechens. Perhaps he has placed himself in the hands of a religious community. We don’t know. Sometimes they come back next day, sometimes in six months, sometimes never.”
Herr Werner was still considering how to launch his counterattack when his hitherto silent colleague decided to enter the conversation.
“So how about this other fellow who was at the Turks’ house on Friday night?” he inquired, in the convivial tone of a man who liked a good party. “Big, stately fellow, nice clothes. Old as me. Older even. Is he also a lawyer for Karpov?”
Annabel was remembering her law tutor at Tübingen, discoursing on the arts of cross-examination. Never underestimate a witness’s silence, he liked to say. There are eloquent silences, and guilty silences, and silences of genuine bewilderment and silences of creativity. The trick is to know what kind of silence you are hearing from your witness. But this silence was her own.
“Is this part of your coordination, Herr Dinkelmann?” she asked playfully, while desperately collecting her thoughts.
The clown’s smile again, the perfect curve. “Don’t flirt with me, Frau Richter. I’m too susceptible. Just tell me now: Who was this man? You brought him with you. He stayed in the house for hours on end. Then left on his own, poor fellow. Walked all over town, like he’d lost something. What was he looking for?” He appealed to Ursula. “Everybody
walks
in this story, Frau Meyer. It wears me out.” Then back to Annabel, at his leisure: “Come on. Just tell me who he is. A name. Any name. Make one up.”
But Annabel had put on her father’s face, the one that said never mention this subject again.
“My client has a potential benefactor here in Hamburg. As a man of position, he wishes to remain anonymous for the time being. I have agreed to respect his wish.”
“Let’s all respect it. Did he speak, or just sit and watch, this anonymous benefactor?”
“Speak to whom?”
“To your boy. Issa. To you.”
“He’s not my boy.”
“I’m asking you whether your client’s anonymous benefactor participated in your conversation. I’m not asking you the topic of that conversation. I’m asking: Did he take part? Or is he deaf and dumb?”
“He took part.”
“So it was a three-cornered conversation. You. The benefactor. Issa. You can tell me that. You’re not breaking any rules. You sat there, the three of you, and you chewed the fat together. You can tell me yes or no.”
“
Yes
then.” And a shrug to go with it.
“A free exchange. There were issues to discuss between you that you can’t reveal. But you discussed them in a free and unobstructed manner. Yes?”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to imply.”
“You don’t have to. Just answer this. Did you enjoy a full and uninhibited exchange between the three of you, an easy flow, with no obstructions?”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Yes. It is. Did you?”
“Yes.”
“So he speaks Russian, like you.”
“I didn’t say so.”
“No, you really didn’t. Somebody had to say it for you. I admire that. Your client is a fortunate boy.”
Herr Werner was making a last effort to recover his ascendancy.
“So
that
’s where your Issa Karpov went when you left him to himself at four-thirty in the morning!” he cried. “He went to this
anonymous benefactor
! Maybe the terrorist paymaster, even! You left him at the crossroads in a rich area of town, and as soon as you were safely out of the way, he went to the house of his benefactor. Do you think that is a reasonable hypothesis?”
“It is as reasonable or unreasonable as any other hypothesis, Herr Werner,” Annabel retorted.
And surprisingly it was the genial and passé Herr Dinkelmann, rather than his brash young superior, who decided that they had detained Frau Meyer and Frau Richter quite long enough.
“Annabel?”
They were alone, the two of them.
“Yes, Ursula.”
“Perhaps it would be better if you gave this afternoon’s meeting a miss. I suspect you may have important claims on your time. Do you have anything more you wish to tell me about our missing client?”
Annabel hadn’t anything more to tell her.
“Good. Ours is a world of half-measures. Perfect solutions are not within our gift, however much we may wish otherwise. I think we have had this conversation before.”
They had. About Magomed. We cannot expect an institution to deliver our personal utopias, Ursula had told her, when Annabel led a staff protest march on her office.
This was not panic. Annabel didn’t panic. Not in her own book. She was responding to a critical situation that was in danger of unraveling.
From the Sanctuary she cycled at top speed to a petrol station at the edge of town, keeping an eye on the twin mirrors mounted on her handlebars for signs that she was being followed. What the signs would be she had no idea.
At the cash desk, she bought a handful of loose change.
She dialed Hugo’s cell phone and got the answering service, which was what she had expected.
She dialed Information and got the number of the hospital where he worked.
Monday was a conference all day, he had told her. Call me on Monday evening. But Monday evening was now too late. The conference, she remembered, was about the restructuring of the hospital’s mental health wing. She spoke first to a hospital switchboard operator and, after some hard bargaining, to the assistant to the hospital’s administrator. She was Dr. Hugo Richter’s sister, she said, it was an urgent family matter, could he possibly be called to the phone for a brief conversation?
“This had better be good, Annabel.”
“My client’s blown up in my face, Hugo. He needs a clinic now. I mean really
now.
”
“What time is it?”
Hugo, the only doctor in the world who never has a watch.
“Ten-thirty. In the morning.”
“I’ll call you in the lunch break. Twelve-thirty. On your cell phone. Is it operative or have you still not charged it?”
She wanted to say, “No cell phone,” but said, “Thanks, Hugo, really thanks,” instead. “It’s working fine,” she added.
In the garage forecourt, two women were doing something to a battered yellow van. She dismissed them from her mind. Herr Werner’s vans would be spotless. Filling time, she rode to her favorite shopping mall: the freshly pickled herrings that he likes, plain dark organic chocolate, Emmental cheese for what she prayed would be their last evening in the apartment. And her favorite brand of still water, which was now his favorite too.
Hugo rang precisely at twelve-thirty as she knew he would, wristwatch or no. She was sitting on a park bench with her bike propped against a lamppost. He began aggressively, which she hoped was a good sign.
“Am I supposed to be the doctor who’s
referring
him to this place? Sign a chit for him without even knowing his name? Because that’s a nonstarter. Anyway, you don’t even
need
a false chit,” he went on, before she could reply. “They’ll have some in-house quack who’ll feel his pulse and diagnose a thousand euros a day. I’ve got two possibilities. Five-star rip-off joints, both.”