‘That ought to be enough,’ replied Carter.
‘I figured I’d be meeting with the buyer, but you don’t look like some big spender to me. My guess is you are working for a German, and this guy is smart enough to know I wouldn’t work with him if he came to me on his own. That’s why he sent you as a middleman. Am I right?’
Carter said nothing.
‘All right.’ Galton turned away and spat towards the miniature forest of lettuces. ‘Then at least guarantee me that your buyer is legit.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean can he pay? I don’t want to show up to a meeting and have you, or somebody else, whining in my face about how they’re running short on cash or trying to renegotiate the deal.’
‘He is not that kind of guy,’ said Carter, finally taking a seat beside Galton.
‘So you can vouch for him?’
‘I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’
‘Well, good’◦– Galton aimed a finger at Carter◦– ‘because if there are any problems, you’re the one I’m going to hold responsible.’
Their conversation paused as a woman passed by, pushing a pram whose wheels creaked with rust, and followed by two wide-eyed little boys in clunky boots which were too big for them. Seeing his uniform, the boys stopped and stared at the sergeant. The mother walked on a few paces, then turned and hissed at them. The boys snapped out of their trance, and ran to catch up with her.
The men went back to their discussion.
‘So what are you looking for, anyway?’ asked Galton.
‘The usual stuff,’ replied Carter. ‘Food. Candy. Medicine. Cigarettes. Soap.’
‘I got plenty of that, at least for now, but you need to understand that I don’t know how long I can keep the gravy train running. American bases are closing all over the zone we used to occupy, and this has given me an opportunity, but it’s not one that I’m going to be able to hold on to forever.’
‘How does it work?’ asked Carter.
‘The warehouses for the few bases that are remaining open are already filled to capacity. This means that literally hundreds of pallets of material are being shipped to storage areas which are being rented out wherever we can find them.’
‘Why not ship them back stateside?’ asked Carter.
The sergeant laughed. ‘They don’t want them! Some of the stuff only just got here. By the time it goes all the way back to America, it will either have expired or else whatever it is will have been replaced by newer equipment. In the last year alone, changes in the regulation of tunic patterns meant I had to destroy over a thousand perfectly good uniforms.’
‘Destroy them?’
‘Burned them! Those were my orders. So what I’m trying to tell you is that tonnes of material is basically getting blown to the winds while we get ourselves untangled from this country. It’s going to stay locked up in warehouses until people either forget about it altogether or else decide that they don’t want it anymore.’
A sudden, momentary spray of water from the hose rained down on them. They looked back at the old soldier, who smirked at them to show he had done it on purpose.
Galton swiped his hands across his sleeves to wipe away the droplets. He smiled back at the gardener, but his eyes stayed cold and hostile. ‘If this had been five years ago,’ he muttered through clenched teeth, ‘that would have been a flame thrower in his hands, and I bet he would have had the same shit grin on his face as he does now.’
Carter returned to business. ‘Tell me what you can deliver, and I’ll get the message across.’
‘All right.’ Galton sat forward and rubbed his face with his big, pink hands. ‘Let’s say two hundred packets of American cigarettes◦– Camels, Chesterfields, Lucky Strikes◦– whatever I can get my hands on. And five cases of canned fruit◦– it’ll probably be peaches and pears◦– and I can also get you twenty pounds of coffee. The real stuff. That comes in one-pound cans.’
‘And the cost?’ asked Carter.
‘The price is eight thousand marks. That’ll get you everything I mentioned and maybe a little bit more.’
‘It’ll need to happen soon.’
‘Let’s say the day after tomorrow at noon, on the corner of Bachemerstrasse and Stelzmannstrasse. That’s close to the Lindenburg hospital. There’ll be a blue delivery van with yellow writing on it. I’ll be sitting in the passenger seat. You’re going to get into the driver’s seat, hand me the money, and then I’m going to get out and walk away. You’re going to drive the van to wherever you need to go to unload it. Then you’re going to drive it back to the Lindenburg hospital and leave it in the parking lot reserved for delivery vehicles. You got all that?’
‘I’ll tell him what you said.’
‘I’ll wait for half an hour,’ said Galton. ‘If you don’t show, don’t come back to me later with a mouthful of excuses, because it won’t make any difference. It’ll be the last you’ll ever see of me.’
They walked out of the garden.
The old soldier had finished watering the lettuce patch. Now he was coiling up the hose, looping it over his shoulder so that he looked like a man being crushed by a python.
They were on the street now, about to go their separate ways. ‘I have to know,’ said Galton. ‘What are you doing here? In Germany, I mean. You aren’t a soldier. I can see that. But I’m guessing you might have been one, so why didn’t you go home?’
‘I have nothing to go home to,’ Carter told him.
For a moment, Galton’s expression changed and he looked lost, as if he suddenly couldn’t recall how he came to be here, standing in this place. ‘You and me both,’ he said.
After his meeting with Galton, Carter travelled out to Dasch’s compound in the Raderthal district. He took a bus as far as Höningerplatz, the end of the line, by which time it was just him and the driver. As he stepped out onto the cobbled square, Carter couldn’t even tell what Höningerplatz used to look like. Now it was nothing more than a large circle of smashed bricks and masonry, amongst which several enterprising people had constructed little shops selling brooms and buckets and shaving brushes. One stall was run by a man with no legs. He sat on the pavement at a table whose legs had also been removed, with his wares laid out in front of him◦– razor blades, combs and nail clippers.
From there, Carter walked south along a path called the Leichweg, with the wide expanse of a cemetery spreading off to his right; stone angels, some of them fingerless, others handless and others with their arms gone altogether, looked down from shrapnel-pocked pedestals upon the tilted gravestones.
Dasch’s compound stood at the intersection of Leichweg and Militärstrasse, a wide road that ran in an arc around the southern edge of the city. Carter arrived just as Dasch and Ritter were piling into the Tatra. Teresa stood off to one side, arms folded, studying Carter as he wiped the sweat from his face after the walk from Höningerplatz.
‘Come!’ shouted Dasch, beckoning to Carter. ‘We’re taking a little trip.’
‘Are you certain it’s a good idea,’ asked Teresa, ‘bringing him along?’
‘It’s a brilliant idea!’ Dasch told his daughter. ‘I know, because it’s mine. Now get in, Mr Carter’◦– he gestured at the cramped back seat of the car◦– ‘or we will be late for our appointment.’
With Ritter at the wheel, Dasch up in front and Carter wedged into the back, the Tatra skimmed along the main road that ran down the western bank of the Rhine, passing from the devastated suburbs of Cologne into the hilly countryside to the south. Ritter and Dasch were puffing away at cigars, filing the car with so much smoke that Carter finally wound down his window, sending a cloud of grey billowing out onto the road.