The Man With No Face Page 24

  With his free hand he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, slung across the back of his chair, and took out a folded sheet of paper.

  ‘I have a copy of one of your drawings.’

  Without turning his head he was aware of Sally’s sudden anxiety. She had remained quiet since the meal, but now her presence beside him was very powerful. He stole a glance at her and saw the doubt in her eyes. He was not sure himself. A fine perspiration moistened his palms as he let go of Tania’s hand to unfold the paper and smooth it out on the table. The child looked at it and nodded slowly. Her face was blank.

  ‘Do you remember this?’ Nothing. He waited a long time before asking, ‘Do you know who it is?’ Again nothing.

  Sally put a hand on his arm. ‘Don’t,’ she said.

  But still he persisted. ‘Look at me, Tania. It’s important that I know.’ Her eyes seemed to look straight through him. ‘This is the man that killed your dad, isn’t it? And the other man.’

  In the hush that fell across the room he could hardly bring himself to breathe. The bedside clock ticked solemnly in the silence. Tania nodded suddenly and turned her head away.

  ‘All right, all right,’ Bannerman said, and he took her hand again, squeezing it tightly. It felt limp and small. ‘Just one more thing. Just one. Would you . . . would you know him if you saw him again?’

  He felt her hand tighten around his and saw fear in her eyes. And he misunderstood.

  ‘It’s okay, little one,’ he said. ‘He can’t harm you now.’

  But still her fingers pressed into his hand, nails digging into flesh, and she shook her head in savage frustration. How could she tell him? I have seen him, I have. She pulled her hand free and stabbed her finger several times at the drawing he had spread on the table. Then nodded. Two, three, four times and felt something like despair as she saw Bannerman’s confusion.

  It was Sally who realized. ‘Oh my God, she has! She has seen him again.’

  Bannerman glanced at her, and then back at the child, and he saw that it was true. He took Tania by the shoulders – ‘When? How?’ – before it dawned on him, and he felt a sense of horror pricking his skin. ‘At the hospital.’ Where else could she have seen him? ‘Is that why you ran away?’ Her lips parted as though she were about to speak.

  The telephone rang in the living room and startled them all. Not one of them moved, but all three hearts were pounding. The spell was broken.

  Bannerman stood up, infuriated by the interruption, and strode through to the living room.

  Sally smiled with false cheer and pushed her chair back noisily. She said to Tania, ‘How about coffee? I’ll go and make some. Do you want to help?’ Tania didn’t move. ‘That’s all right, I’ll get it.’ She bustled quickly off to the kitchen, and from the other room Tania could hear Bannerman’s voice in irritable conversation with someone on the phone.

  The glow of her day was fading now, like the sun setting behind the rooftops. She knew that Bannerman would take her back to the hospital now. She’d known it all day, but had buried the thought. Out of reach, out of sight, out of mind. Wasn’t that the key to survival? The ability to grasp happiness when it came without looking beyond it.

  Whatever the future held for her, nothing could erase the memory of today. Somehow she felt that this man who had come into her life would always be there for her. She’d seen it in his eyes, felt it in words he thought she hadn’t heard last night. Knew that each of them could fill an empty place in the other’s life. He would keep her safe from . . . she glanced at the drawing on the desk . . . from him.

  She wondered then why she had not drawn the face. She had no recollection of the interruption that prevented her from finishing it. Would Neil be pleased, she wondered, if she drew the face now? But she had a better idea. Something that would say more. She tore a strip of paper off the foot of one of her drawings and reached for the pencil. It was always difficult for her to come to terms with words on paper. She squeezed the pencil until her fingers went white and she began, with great difficulty, to sort out letters in the right order.

  It was strange how, when she drew, the pencil rested easily between her fingers and flew across the page with such fluidity. Now the letters formed themselves clumsily, and the effort of it drained her. When she had finished, it felt as though it had taken hours. Just three words.

  Quickly, nervously, she folded the paper and slipped the note into the right-hand pocket of Bannerman’s jacket. Then she ran her hand over the softness of the brown cord and put her face close to it. It felt soft and smelled of Bannerman.

  III

  When he left Tania’s bedroom, Bannerman was depressed and irritable. He felt guilty about confronting the child with her drawing. She deserved better than that. And yet it had confirmed things now beyond doubt. There might even have been more to come. He snatched the phone.

  ‘Bannerman.’

  ‘It’s Platt. I’ve been waiting for your call.’

  Bannerman had an immediate picture of the fat little man sitting at his desk, sweating and dabbing his brow with that infernal red handkerchief, his hair falling in greasy ringlets about his thick neck. ‘Well?’ he said.

  Platt was taken aback. ‘Well, I thought you might have something for me. You just vanished for two whole days. I thought maybe . . .’

  ‘Then you thought wrong. I’ve got nothing new.’

  He could hear the dryness in Platt’s mouth as he spoke. ‘Well, maybe I have. Been doing some digging of my own.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I’ve come up with something quite interesting.’

  Bannerman sensed his tension. ‘Which is?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Platt said, ‘we should get together and, you know, compare notes. Don’t you think it’s time you came clean with me? I’m sure we can work out something to our mutual advantage.’

  Bannerman sat down. It was just possible that Platt had something. Although it was equally possible that he was simply trying it on.

  ‘Hello. Are you still there?’ Platt sounded anxious.

  Bannerman decided to call his bluff. ‘I don’t think there’s much point in our meeting, Platt. If you’ve got something to tell me, tell me now. Otherwise forget it. I’ve got more important things on my mind.’

  Platt said quickly, ‘Look, Bannerman, it’s time we laid this thing on the line.’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘No, no, wait.’

  Bannerman had the impression now that Platt was cupping his hand around the mouthpiece to make this confidential. His voice was very close and slightly hushed.

  ‘I’ve been looking at company records. It’s an absolute jungle, Bannerman. Took me ages to piece together how it all works. That’s Lapointe’s handiwork. The man’s a genius. He can put companies together and take them apart again like a kid with Lego. It all looks legit on the surface, but if you start from the basic premise that nothing is really what it seems, and start picking at all the loose threads, then the whole thing starts to unravel.’

  ‘Get on with it!’ Despite his tone, Bannerman was interested.

  ‘Okay, okay. The way Jansen got fat was by buying up the competition. He’d squeeze them financially, forcing them to borrow. Then when things got tough and loans got called in they would go into administration. Almost invariably they would then get snapped up by a holding company called La Trasque, which in turn sold them to Jansen. Turns out that La Trasque, and the finance companies that put up most of those loans, were all owned by a nominee company called Corniche S.A., which traded on behalf of unnamed clients. It wasn’t until about two years ago when Corniche shut up shop and reregistered in Liechtenstein that it became apparent who was really behind it.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘No one seemed to notice at the time, but it’s all there if you check back through the records.’

  ‘And?’
Bannerman could barely conceal his impatience.

  ‘It was Lapointe’s law firm. Not directly, but through another company he’d set up.’

  Bannerman sighed. ‘So where’s all this going?’

  ‘Well, don’t you see? It was actually Jansen who was lending cash to his competitors. They had no idea. He turned the screws then called in the loans. And when they couldn’t pay, bought them up for a song. He may have had to pay off their debts, but in reality he was just repaying himself. All indirectly, of course, through the cobweb of companies that Lapointe had spun for him.’

  Bannerman sighed. ‘Well, is that illegal?’

  Platt was confused. ‘I . . . I don’t know. But it’s a bloody good story.’

  Bannerman said dryly, ‘Maybe you should stick to writing up fires and press releases on the price of butter. How Jansen built his empire is of no fucking interest to me at all.’

  Platt was clearly stunned. ‘But I thought that’s what you wanted. Something on Jansen and Lapointe.’

  ‘A bit of background is all I needed. You already got that for me. Look, Platt, I don’t know what the law is in this country, but I doubt very much if what you’ve described is illegal. Unethical, perhaps, but not illegal. You’ve been wasting your time, pal. I’ll call you.’ He hung up.

  Platt replaced the receiver with a trembling hand. His breath came in rapid bursts, his mind ablaze with anger and humiliation. His face had paled to the colour of yellowed ivory. He rose unsteadily, picked up his coat and hat and headed for the door.

  *

  Bannerman sat for a few minutes thinking about what Platt had told him. It might be of value, it might not. It was impossible to know yet. He reached for the notepad beside the telephone and scribbled down the names of the companies while they were still fresh in his mind. Platt said that Corniche S.A. had shut up shop and reregistered in Liechtenstein. Technically, then, it was a new company. Why, he wondered, would that have been necessary? And as if to lodge the thought firmly in his mind, he underlined the name in his notes.

  He stood up as Sally emerged from the kitchen with a tray full of steaming mugs of coffee. ‘No time for that,’ he said. ‘We need to take Tania back to the clinic.’ Immediately he saw her hurt and realized he’d been unnecessarily blunt. He backtracked, but too late now, and he knew it. ‘She’s tired, I’m tired. I need time to think.’

  Sally laid the tray on the table and looked at him wearily. His mood had changed again with the phone call, and she felt dismissed, bewildered, angered by his sudden indifference, annoyed at herself for caring. And then she needed to say the thing she’d been keeping bottled up since this morning. The whole day she had been careful to remain discreetly in the background, not to intrude on the relationship she saw flowering between Bannerman and Tania.

  ‘I got the job,’ she said. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow for Rome. This is my last night in Brussels.’

  Bannerman was startled. He had taken it for granted that she would still be around, at least in the short term. To discover that in a matter of hours she would be gone from his life, probably for ever, left him suddenly bereft. No chance to sort out his feelings for her. The very thing that he’d been putting off, in the belief there would always be time. Or because he was afraid to ask himself the question. Had he not learned by now how often love was gone before you even knew it was there? But how could he love her? He hardly knew her.

  She said, ‘Could we go somewhere tonight? I’d like to talk.’

  He nodded, barely trusting himself to speak. ‘All right,’ he said, and he turned away to the bedroom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I

  It was a cold, clear night. There was a splash of light above the entrance to the café, and across the cobbles taxi drivers sat picking their teeth in empty cabs waiting for fares.

  Bannerman crossed the square weighed down still by the memory of the child. The sense of betrayal in her face as he left her at the clinic had haunted him afterwards, all through a solitary meal in some anonymous restaurant. And now, his rendezvous with Sally on this dark Brussels night. A meeting, it seemed, that would be their last.

  She was waiting for him at the bottom end of the square, her face pale and sad when they met and then flushing quickly in the sudden warmth of the café as they stepped inside.

  The café was Eastern European, run by a small fat exile from communism. A four-piece Hungarian orchestra played by the light of candles that flickered dimly on the tables. A pianist who never smiled sat at a grand piano, and a tall thin creature wrestled with a double bass. The clarinettist sat on a high chair by the piano, and a gaunt middle-aged man stood out front by a microphone which hung by its lead from the rafters. He played haunting melodies on his violin. The music was soft and pleasant, and wrapped itself around them. Walking into this place was like stepping into the past.

  The wooden tables were rough-hewn, and the stools hard and uncompromising. The stone walls were whitewashed and a wooden staircase led to a gallery crowded with more tables. People leaned on the rail and gazed down on the orchestra, faces flickering in the candlelight, tiny mobile pinpoints of light shining in their eyes.

  Bannerman and Sally sat at a table by the big window that looked out on the Place du Grand Sablon, and although the café was busy they felt safe and anonymous in its darkness. A waiter with a black shirt and trousers and a white napkin over his arm came to take their order. Sally’s face brightened. ‘You must try their speciality,’ she said. And to the waiter, ‘Deux thés Slaves.’

  Bannerman looked around. The clientèle was mostly middle-aged. There were one or two young couples holding hands below tables and watching the orchestra, or gazing at each other as though just discovering love for the first time and believing that somehow it was unique to them.

  ‘The place never closes,’ Sally said. ‘Open twenty-four hours a day. I used to come in for a drink sometimes after college, and occasionally when I’d been babysitting for Tania.’ She was talking for the sake of talking. ‘On Sundays the square is transformed into a marketplace for antique dealers. The stalls are set out all the way up to the church. You can see the antique shops across the other side there.’

  Bannerman smiled and reached for her hand. ‘You don’t have to talk,’ he said.

  She took a deep breath and tried to smile. This was difficult for her. She said, ‘I think, perhaps, I could have feelings for you, Neil. I barely know, but maybe it’s worth finding out?’ He felt her hand tighten around his. ‘It’s been too easy just to put it off, not to think about it. But now I’ve got to decide, haven’t I?’

  ‘I thought you already had. I thought you were going tomorrow.’

  The violinist had begun to wander among the tables and he stopped now at theirs to play for them. It seemed as though every eye in the café had turned in their direction. Bannerman looked at him and shook his head almost imperceptibly, but the maestro did not miss it. He was too experienced. He smiled and moved on to the next table. Sally’s smile was strained. ‘God, it’s embarrassing when that happens.’ She hesitated, then for the first time faced him with it. ‘Help me, Neil. Please. If I only knew how you felt. If . . . if you wanted me to, I’d stay.’

  There had been a time when she had vowed never to make that kind of commitment again. To any man. And she remembered the horror of that night before the wedding. I’m sorry, he’d said. Just that. I’m sorry. And she had shed tears of hurt and humiliation. Before gathering herself to break the news to all those who’d travelled for the ceremony. So many presents to be returned. The embarrassment of her friends who didn’t know what to say. The false comfort of relatives who told her they had never liked him anyway.

  But things had changed. She was thirty-two now. Ahead lay a lifetime of loneliness. And with Bannerman, somehow, it seemed different in a way that had caught her unawares. Yet, as she had just acknowledged, she hardly knew him
, and within her still lay the seeds of doubt and mistrust sown that night three years before.

  The thés Slaves arrived in glasses wrapped around with paper napkins, a mixture of tea and some kind of spirit that the waiter set alight at their table. The flames licked up over the rims of the glasses, soft and warm. Bannerman looked across the table at Sally’s downturned face. The flames softened it and he thought she looked almost beautiful. He felt a tremendous weight of responsibility. It would be too easy to say yes, that he wanted her to stay. But he knew she would make demands on him that he was not sure he could fulfil. And his was the kind of life into which relationships did not easily fit. There was a space inside him, big and empty, that badly needed to be filled. But in that way he was like Tania. So often it was those who needed love the most who were the most difficult to love. And what kind of life could he give her?

  ‘It’s not for me to say,’ he said, knowing that he didn’t want her to go. ‘You really don’t know anything about me. Nor I about you.’ He blew out the flames in their glasses. ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘You’ll feel better.’ And he thought what an empty thing it was to say.

  They lifted the scalding liquid to their lips and drank it in tiny sips. It was strong, and the spirit filled their mouths like burning breath, before slipping over to glow inside them. She stared into her glass.

  ‘Is that just a roundabout way of saying that you don’t want me to stay?’

  Bannerman said nothing. If that was what she wanted to think then perhaps it would be easier for her.

  Then suddenly she said, ‘I’d like to spend just one night with you, Neil. Something’ – she hesitated – ‘to remember you by.’

  So, she had decided. And he knew now that it was beyond recall. He was going to say he didn’t think it would be a good idea, but a voice interrupted before he could speak.