‘He handled people’s lives as if they were tools in a drawer,’ resumed Anselm, carelessly ‘He blunted them, one by one, and then threw them away Even now he’d pick up some chipped and broken file if he needed it to force open a window’
‘But he got results.’
‘Pardon?’
Anselm had arrived at the fault line between them. He played out the surprise, giving Sebastian room to show where he was standing and why.
‘What do you mean, results?’
‘He found out what he needed to know He opened windows. He got inside without having to kick down the front door. The alarm didn’t go off. The kids were left sleeping upstairs.’
‘But at what cost?’
‘I suppose that depends on who’s paying and what they got in return.’
Anselm’s bemusement was genuine. He waited for enlightenment, sipping his water.
‘We, too, need to apply some leverage, continued Sebastian, almost harshly ‘Maybe quite a lot. Maybe to the point of damaging the house… waking up not just the kids but the neighbours on all sides:
‘You mean I have to apply some leverage.’
‘If it fell to me.’ I’d pull with both hands But Roza didn’t ask for my help.’
‘Doesn’t that tell you something?’
‘Like what?’
‘That she wants things done differently. That she doesn’t want us to behave like them.’
Sebastian put down his glass, the water untasted. He became politely firm, repressing impatience like a teacher tasked with instructing a dim fee-paying pupil whose parents he couldn’t afford to upset. He raised his hands as if he were holding out the bleeding obvious.
‘Look.’ Roza has given us… you… a document designed to lead you to the door of an informer. She thinks a quiet chat is all that it’ll take… a few well chosen words out of everyone’s earshot. She wants the informer to take responsibility for what they’ve done… and it’s crazy What she doesn’t understand is this: the informer isn’t going to admit anything, even if we ask him nicely You know, Father, blunted tools aren’t what they once were. There’s no longer any point in handling them carefully.’
‘I don’t believe you mean that.’
‘In these circumstances, with this individual, I do.’
‘It isn’t what Roza wants.’
‘It’s what Roza needs.’ Sebastian appraised Anselm as if he, too.’ was eyeing up a tool for the job. ‘For some reason, she pities them. You don’t have to. She needs you to act differently She needs you to be merciless. Look — ’ the teacher emerged again, smiling woodenly, trying to wipe up the spilled impatience — we’re not trying to understand the human condition, or work out why someone ticks in the way that they do.’ we’re trying to bring Otto Brack to court. And to do that we need the informer to play ball — this time for us. Subject to our rules and timekeeping.’
‘And so we become like Frenzel.’ after all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we lose what sets us apart.’
‘No, we don’t. We become like them for the right reason. In the end, the world we’re fighting for is better than the one they kick-started in the torture chambers. It’s as simple as that. And if there’s a risk of getting dirty hands, well, frankly, there’s no other way. This is the nasty business of law enforcement.’
As opposed to the abstract pastures of monastic contemplation. Sebastian had the grace to keep that conclusion to himself, but Anselm now fully understood the irritation he’d detected on the telephone. And he wasn’t enjoying the elucidation, the substance of which was that the mumbling monk might be swayed to compassion by the calamity of human frailty; that the former barrister, softened by his prayers, would neglect to confront FELIKS, or whoever, with the degree of animosity required to secure his co-operation.
Sebastian hadn’t finished.
‘Whatever the pressures, these low-life agent runners and their collaborators played God with people’s lives for a benefit,’ he said.’ introducing an analogy that might reach Anselm. He’d seen the blank face, not sure if it was scruple or persisting incomprehension. ‘The runners got information. The collabos? They’ve had their passport, their reprieve, their promotion. Now they have to pay the people they robbed. We want our information.’ He sighed, still not convinced that Anselm was ready for the exam. ‘Do you really think that an appeal to conscience is enough? That remorse will come so cheaply, so easily? Don’t you realise, this informer, whoever it is… he’s already watched Roza grow old? He’s eaten at the same table and said nothing. He’s waiting for her to die.’ Sebastian sat back, dragging a hand through his hair. ‘When she’s gone, they’re free. You see, Father, whoever it is, and whatever goes through their clouded mind when they drift off to sleep, they’re not that different to Brack. He’s waiting too.’
Anselm had taken a mental and judicious step backwards — it was his way of managing rising anger. He considered himself an old hand when it came to handling a witness. He knew when to take the gloves off and experience had taught him that the occasion rarely, if ever arose, because there’s nothing quite so effective as kindness and courtesy And Anselm had never come across a case where, in the end, the deeper human question — the how and why of the ticking — hadn’t been a matter of decisive importance, all the more so when it wasn’t evident on the face of the papers.
But having stepped backwards, he’d gained a sudden perspective on something he hadn’t noticed, and it calmed his irritation:
Sebastian’s altogether personal engagement in the hunt for justice. All at once.’ Roza appeared less the victim and more the means of his way of getting to Brack. He examined the lawyer’s troubled features, seeing the strain in a subtly different light.
‘I’ll bear all that in mind, he said, magnanimously.
‘Thanks. I hope you don’t mind me being so direct.’
‘Not at all.’
‘Once we get the name from the file, you’ll have to lean on the informer.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Hard.’
‘Absolutely Right from the shoulder.’ He frowned, innocently mystified. ‘I appreciate that material considerations aren’t my forte, but aren’t you forgetting something? Frenzel wants more money Rather a lot, in fact.’
‘I’ve asked for a shoebox to be lodged in the hotel safe.’ Sebastian reached for his glass of water but thought better of it. ‘You’ll find ten grand inside. He’ll keep holding back what we want, raising the price along the way, dragging out the premiums. Let him have his day Give him what he wants. As we used to say, ours is the spring. Now, can I offer you something stronger than water? Zubrowka. Bison Grass. Roza drinks it every Sunday’
Anselm didn’t notice the approach of the beast, so to speak, until an hour or so later. It came from behind, its hooves in slippers, and whacked him on the back of the knees, just as he stood up to shake Sebastian’s hand. Smiling inanely, he shambled to the lift, prepared to catch his head just in case it rolled off his neck. Lying in the dark of his bedroom he pondered the one part of Sebastian’s argument that had roused no anger. Instead, it had disturbed him: the recognition that people who set out to clean up a mess always end up dirty It was, indeed, bleeding obvious. There was no escape, even for the kind and courteous. John had said something similar: in the search for the truth, sometimes you had put your hand in the sewer. Maybe Sebastian and the Prior were right after alclass="underline" Anselm hadn’t been trained for this, either at the Bar or at Larkwood. He wasn’t entering a courtroom or the confessional, he was crawling behind a skirting board… perhaps he’d have to learn some new tricks, even from a rat like Marek Fre The phone rang, jolting Anselm upright. He turned on the light, squinting and blinded.
‘Do you have the funds?’ came a woman’s trembling voice in heavily accented German.
‘Yes.’
‘Then present yourself at the following hotel…’
Anselm swung out of bed, abruptly sober, and jotted down the details using the pen and paper ready to hand.