The Pearlkillers Read online

Page 24


  ‘There’s a good view over the lake from that point near the tree,’ he said.

  ‘And some place to sit down?’

  ‘Yes, quite near.’

  They reached the tree and stopped. Anders gestured towards the lake in the distance and the woods beyond. Sten propped himself against his stick.

  ‘Do you want me to carry the book?’ Anders said.

  Sten withdrew his arm from the shoulders trap. He handed the heavy leather bag to Anders and turned back to the lake. ‘To tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘my eyesight isn’t all it used to be, but they can’t do anything for it. There’s a kind of skin that’s growing over them. Horrible; I don’t like to think about it. Still, I can see how beautiful it is here. We could have spent those years here, couldn’t we?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Anders said. He meant no. Vienna had made them equals. At home, Sten would always have been a servant.

  ‘Do you remember,’ Sten said, ‘when I was so sick that time, and the doctor wouldn’t look at me unless he got his money first?’

  ‘None of them would.’

  ‘But we really had nothing. And you got so mad, you called him –’

  ‘Yes, I remember. That was terrible.’

  ‘And he spun around and headed for the door without saying a word. And then I told you to shut up, and said …. At first I thought I’d complain that he wouldn’t treat me because I was Hungarian; then I wondered whether it would be better to say it was because I was Jewish or homosexual. You can never tell what’s going to touch people on the raw. You’ve got to have a natural feeling for it.’

  ‘You always were good at guessing.’

  ‘Yes. And I thought I was so clever that time. He turned around again and said, “That’s not true,” and I just sighed. Oh, I should have been an actor, Anders. I really thought I was dying, but I was enjoying it. I made myself sound completely beaten and victimized; and thank God, you didn’t say anything.’

  ‘I’d said enough.’

  ‘So then he came over and put his bag on the chair and said, “Well, just this once.” And afterwards, you told me I’d have to be dead to stop lying. Remember? That’s what I always loved about Vienna: everybody there had mixed parentage and double allegiances. It made them so much fun, and so nasty to each other. It kept you on your toes. It stopped me from getting bored. Too bad it’s the one place I can’t go back to now. Do you remember working the crowds at the opera?’

  ‘Così fan tutte.’

  ‘That’s the one. I was trying to think of it the other day. And telling the future?’

  ‘Of course: I see a dark stranger, a letter, a knife, a long journey.’

  ‘Remember the banker’s wife?’

  ‘And her husband, the banker.’

  ‘And that little girl from Poland and the two cousins from Jamaica? What a life, eh? And I used to wear a sapphire on my watch-chain.’

  ‘I remember,’ Anders said. He looked over his shoulder, away from the lake, towards the house.

  ‘We had good times,’ Sten said. ‘Why are we standing here so long?’

  ‘I like to see the light go.’

  ‘And remember the joke we used to have about Dr Death? You said he was the best doctor in town because he was the one that cured all ills.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. He’s still the best.’

  ‘You were the only friend I ever had,’ Sten said, ‘who –’

  ‘Look,’ Anders told him. He took Sten by the shoulders and slowly turned him around. Coming towards them from the boathouse he could see Erika and her friend, Phillip Harding. Erika was almost running, as if she had some good news to tell him. She had obviously misjudged the timing. Phillip was striding beside her at a fast pace.

  ‘What are you looking at, Anders?’

  ‘At the house, how it catches the sun at this hour.’

  ‘I can’t see it too clearly,’ Sten said, ‘but I know what it must look like. Gold in the windows, like the palaces in Vienna. I’ll always remember that. Who are those people?’

  ‘My niece,’ Anders told him. ‘And a friend of hers.’

  Erika stopped. She pointed ahead, up at the sky. Phillip too came to a halt. He appeared to look where she had pointed. He had a pistol in his hand. He steadied it with the other hand, then shifted sideways into the classic duelling position Anders himself had been taught. He raised the pistol, brought it down again and took aim.

  Anders saw that he stood in the line of fire. He could have stepped to the left but he didn’t move. He held Sten to him in a firm embrace that parodied the intimacy of friendship or love. They were attached side by side, like a portrait of parent and child or a representation of a married couple on the front of a tomb; or as the two of them had been posed, years before, by the photographer in Budapest.

  ‘What are they doing?’ Sten asked.

  Phillip fired. Sten went down on the ground in a heap, his walking stick out at an angle. The bullet had caught him smack in the centre of the forehead. He’d slipped through Anders’ hands like a bag of old clothes.

  What an eye the boy had, Anders thought: like an eagle; he might have been spoiled and a dilettante, but as a marksman he’d be hard to beat.

  Erika began to run towards him. Phillip walked behind her.

  Anders knelt over Sten. He thought of him as he used to look in the days of his youth and health when they had huddled together in the cold: dirty, bug-bitten and starving. Tears gushed over his cheeks.

  ‘Is he dead?’ Erika said at his side. ‘God, Anders, why didn’t you stand away? I was sure you’d get hit by mistake.’

  Phillip joined her. His shadow flared out behind him as he too knelt down. ‘A frightful accident,’ he said briskly. ‘I’ll go get the cart and see that everything’s taken care of. Go back to the house with your uncle, Erika.’ He stood up, turned, and marched away towards the stables.

  Erika looked down at the body. She said, ‘You’ll be glad of it later. He was trying to kill you.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Anders rubbed his sleeve across his face.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

  ‘We can’t leave him.’

  ‘Phillip wants us to. Come on. We shouldn’t be seen here.’ She caught at his arm and began to pull him up.

  ‘All right,’ he told her, ‘all right. Just let me close his eyes.’

  They walked to the house without talking. He had the leather bag over his shoulder. As they reached the terrace, Phillip and two of the stableboys ran down the slope of lawn that led to the boathouse. Erika put out her hand and pushed Anders towards the door to his study. He looked back once, to see the sun starting its descent into the line of trees beyond the lake.

  Copyright

  This ebook edition first published in 2013

  by Faber and Faber Ltd

  Bloomsbury House

  74–77 Great Russell Street

  London WC1B 3DA

  All rights reserved

  © Rachel Ingalls, 1986

  The right of Rachel Ingalls to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

  ISBN 978–0–571–29858–7

 

 

 
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