It was just before nine when Slibulsky opened the door to me in his dressing gown. Muttering that he was totally done in after last night and then a day of chasing around, he dragged himself back to the bedroom and got into bed. All around him were piles of open biscuit packets, chocolate bars and bags of jelly babies. There was basketball on TV. ‘The sweets are in the kitchen.’
I fetched the opened bag of sweets, sat down on the bed beside him and unwrapped one. Orchard Fruits from Germany, Blackcurrant Flavour, green wording on a black, red and gold background.
‘Looks like an ad for the German armed forces. Maybe you’d have felt embarrassed to go to the cash desk with them?’
Slibulsky gave me a glazed look, stuffed a biscuit in his mouth and said, munching, ‘If they’re good I don’t mind if it says Christian Democrats on them. And I’d certainly have noticed sweets that I’d feel embarrassed to take to the cash desk.’
‘Maybe they’re new?’
‘Look at the bag. Does it give the manufacturer’s name?’
I looked at both sides of the bag. It was clear plastic, nothing printed on it.
‘You think this kind of thing can be sold in Germany like planks of wood? It has to say what’s in it, where it comes from and all that.’
‘Hm.’
Of course I was glad that Slibulsky was trying to help me, even though he thought I’d better keep out of the whole business. And possibly there really was a chance that these sweets might help me to find out about the origin of the Army. Perhaps they were just the kind of clue that seems small and uninteresting at first but leads to results in the end. Although however much further the sweets might get me, just now running around town holding them under everyone’s nose in the hope that some time someone would say, ‘Sure, I know those!’ wasn’t the way I envisaged my plans to combat the Army of Reason over the next few days. I wanted to kick up a mighty fuss: blackmail Hottges, throw my money around in the station district, and later maybe get in touch with the Albanian. Yes, I wanted to know who it was I’d killed, but I wanted to know soon, so that I could soon forget about it again too.
I put a handful of the sweets in my jacket pocket and stood up.
‘I’ll show them around. Let’s be in touch by phone tomorrow.’
‘Any news of Tango Man?’
‘They’re still clearing away the rubble.’
‘Mmm,’ said Slibulsky. ‘Look after yourself.’
Out in the street I wondered for a moment whether to go back to the station district with the vague idea of finding something out today. But then my feet protested, and so did my still-glugging stomach, and I decided to call it a day. I went for a meal and then fell into a taxi.
Chapter 5
The building where I lived had a small open cubby hole at the end of the corridor on each storey where you could keep bicycles and sledges. When I was outside the door of my flat, taking the key out of my pocket, I heard a rustling in the cubby hole. I turned and looked at the dark, door-sized gap in the wall. I’d been imagining something of this nature ever since the afternoon. Outside my office, or in a quiet side street, or here. When nothing else happened I asked, ‘Romario?’
The rustling came again. Then a shoe with a platform sole emerged into the light, followed by a long, thin picture of misery. His clothes were crumpled and hung off him as if they’d been stuck to the wrong parts of his body, his hair, usually accurately sprayed into shape, was flying about in all directions, and the left-hand side of his head had pale crumbs all over it.
A feeble wave with his sound hand. ‘Hi. I was waiting for you.’
‘So I see. Forgotten how to use a phone?’
‘I’ve been trying all day! But either you weren’t in, or it was engaged…’ He passed his tongue over his lips, cast an anxious glance at the stairs, and hesitantly came towards me. ‘I’ll explain it all to you, but couldn’t we…?’
He indicated my door. I looked at him without enthusiasm. I didn’t want anything explained to me, I wanted to go to bed and watch sport on TV, like Slibulsky. I felt like asking Romario whether he couldn’t stay in the bicycle cubby hole until tomorrow morning. ‘What are those crumbs on your head?’
Surprised, he put his hand to his cheek and then looked at it. ‘Oh, those.’ He ran a hand through his hair and over his face. ‘I had some savoury breadsticks with me, so when I got tired in there I must have put my head on the packet.’ He attempted a smile. ‘I brushed them all off. Don’t worry, I won’t mess your flat up.’
‘You set my mind at rest.’
After I’d closed the door behind us and propelled Romario in the direction of the kitchen, I asked, ‘When did it dawn on you what a bloody stupid idea it was to set the Saudade on fire?’
‘But… but I didn’t set anything on fire!’
‘Oh, come on, Romario! First thing this morning the boss of the gang, or the coordinator or whatever he is, called those guys’ mobile and asked where they were. Which means he didn’t know they were dead, so he didn’t send anyone to get revenge for them and smash up your place. What’s more, you got out alive. Which you’d hardly have done if the Army of Reason had been involved.’
He shifted restlessly on the spot, making a big deal of holding his bandaged hand as if to say that his quota of rough treatment had been met one hundred per cent. And he kept glancing at the kitchen chairs, but didn’t quite like to sit down uninvited. ‘Maybe someone quite different torched the place. Someone from the offices upstairs, or the owner of the building to get the insurance. Or it was an accident, or…’
I dismissed all this. ‘Insurance, yes, but that was your idea. You were drunk, you realised you were never going to get your place clean after people had been bleeding all over it, and suddenly you had this brilliant idea for getting rid of the extortionists and cashing in yourself in one go. Perhaps you’d had something of the sort in your head for quite a while. I mean, the Saudade wasn’t exactly a goldmine.’
‘The Saudade was like my…’
‘Yes, yes, like your girlfriend. But rather an expensive girlfriend for some time. That doesn’t matter to me. Two things do, though: first, I hate fires and I hate arsonists, specially when they’re lighting their fires in the middle of town among blocks of flats and gas mains. Second, when we saw the Saudade blazing away ahead of us I though you were in it, and it was my fault. That would have been the third death down to me, and it was a horrible thought. Literally sickening. It was only when the caretaker here said some idiot had been trying to get into my flat with the wrong keys that it dawned on me you must have survived.’
Romario had bowed his head and was now trying to glance up at me with the expression of a frightened rabbit, but as he was a good twenty centimetres taller than me he looked more like an alarmed stag, with antlers of lacquered hair sticking out all whichways.
‘I didn’t know where to go. I was afraid to go to my flat, I’m in the phone book, and those murderers were probably waiting for me there. And then.’ He raised his head and looked at me as if to say: very well, this is the truth, here you are and I hope it makes you happy, but don’t forget what a great guy I must be to tell you even when it does me no credit. In fact what he said was, ‘And then the fire spread so fast that I had to leave my wallet in the Saudade. My ID, money, credit cards — all gone. I couldn’t even take a hotel room.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the bank?’
‘My branch is just round the corner from the Saudade, and I really didn’t want to show my face there.’
‘All right.’ I pointed to the chairs. ‘Sit down. Want a drink?’
‘Yes, please. Thanks.’ Slowly and ponderously as an old man, he lowered himself to one of the chairs, his bandaged hand still prominently displayed in what he assumed was the centre of my field of vision. ‘Would you have anything to eat too? I haven’t eaten a thing all day except those salty breadsticks.’