"She quarreled with Kovacs."
"Kovacs is nothing. Emrich has quarreled with KVH."
"What on earth about?"
"Dypraxa. She believes she has identified certain very negative side effects. KVH believes she has not."
"What have they done about it?" asked Justin.
"So far they have only destroyed her reputation and her career."
"That's all."
"That's all."
They walked without speaking for a while, with Carl stalking out ahead of them, diving for decaying horse chestnuts and having to be restrained before he put them in his mouth. Evening fog had formed a sea across the rolling hills, making islands of their rounded tops.
"When did this happen?"
"It is happening still. She has been dismissed by KVH and dismissed again by the Regents of Dawes University in Saskatchewan and the governing body of the Dawes University Hospital. She tried to publish an article in a medical journal concerning her conclusions regarding Dypraxa but her contract with KVH had a confidentiality clause, therefore they suited her and suited the magazine and no copies were allowed."
"Sued. Not suited. Sued."
"It's the same."
"And you told Tessa about this? She must have been thrilled."
"Sure. I told her."
"When?"
Birgit shrugged. "Maybe three weeks ago. Maybe two. Our correspondence has also disappeared."
"You mean they crashed your computer?"
"It was stolen. In our burglary. I had not downloaded her letters and I had not printed them. So."
So, Justin agreed silently. "Any idea who took it?"
"Nobody took it. With corporations it is always nobody. The big boss calls in the sub-boss, the sub-boss calls in his lieutenant, the lieutenant speaks to the chef of corporate security who speaks to the sub-chef who speaks to his friends who speak to their friends. And so it is done. Not by the boss or the sub-boss or the lieutenant or the sub-chef. Not by the corporation. Not by anybody at all, actually. But still it is done. There are no papers, no checks, no contracts. Nobody knows anything. Nobody was there. But it is done."
"What about the police?"
"Oh, our police are most industrious. If we have lost a computer, tell the insurance company and buy a new one, don't come bothering the police. Did you meet Wanza?"
"Only in hospital. She was already very ill. Did Tessa write to you about Wanza?"
"That she was poisoned. That Lorbeer and Kovacs had come to visit her in the hospital and that Wanza's baby survived, but Wanza did not. That the drug killed her. Maybe a combination killed her. Maybe she was too thin, not enough body fat to handle the drug. Maybe if they had given her less, she would have lived. Maybe KVH will fix the pharmacokinetics before they sell it in America."
"She said that? Tessa did?"
"Sure. "Wanza was just another guinea pig. I loved her, they killed her. Tessa.""
Justin was already protesting. For heaven's sake, Birgit, what about Emrich? If Emrich, as one of the discoverers of the drug, has declared it unsafe, then surely- Birgit cut him short. "Emrich exaggerates. Ask Kovacs. Ask KVH. The contribution of Lara Emrich to the discovery of the Dypraxa molecule was completely minimal. Kovacs was the genius, Emrich was her laboratory assistant, Lorbeer was their Svengali. Naturally because Emrich was also the lover of Lorbeer, her importance has been made bigger than the reality."
"Where's Lorbeer now?"
"It is not known. Emrich doesn't know, KVH doesn't know — says it doesn't — for the last five months he has been completely invisible. Maybe they killed him also."
"Where's Kovacs?"
"She is traveling. She is traveling so much that KVH can never tell us where she is or where she will be. Last week she was in Haiti, maybe, three weeks ago she was in Buenos Aires or Timbuktu. But where she will be tomorrow or next week is a mystery. Her home address is naturally confidential, her telephone also."
Carl was hungry. One minute he was placidly trailing a piece of twig through a puddle, the next he was yelling blue murder for food. They sat on a bench while Birgit fed him from the bottle.
"If you were not here he would feed himself," she said proudly. "He would walk along like a little drunkard with the bottle in his mouth. But now he has an uncle to watch him, so he requires your attention." Something in what she said reminded her of Justin's grief. "I am so sorry, Justin," she murmured. "How can I say it?" But so swiftly and softly that for once it was not necessary for him to say "thank you" or "yes, it's terrible" or "you're very kind" or any other of the meaningless phrases he had learned to mouth when people felt obliged to say the unsayable.
* * *
They were walking again and Birgit was reliving the burglary.
"I arrived at the office in the morning — my colleague Roland is at a conference in Rio — it is otherwise a normal day. The doors are locked, I must unlock them as usual. At first I notice nothing. That is the point. What burglar locks doors behind him when he leaves? The police asked us this question also. But our doors were locked without question. The place is not tidy, but that is normal. In Hippo we clean our own rooms. We cannot afford to pay a cleaner and sometimes we are too busy or too lazy to clean for ourselves."
Three women on push-bikes rode solemnly by, circled the car park and returned, passing them on their way down the hill. Justin remembered the three women cyclists of this morning.
"I go to check the telephone. We have an answering machine at Hippo. A normal hundred-mark affair, but a hundred marks nevertheless, and nobody has taken it. We have correspondents all over the world, so we must have an answering machine. The tape is missing. Oh shit, I think, who took the stupid tape? I go to the other office to look for a new tape. The computer is missing. Oh shit, I think, who is the idiot who has moved the computer and where did they put it? It's a big computer on two stories but to move it is not impossible, it has wheels. We have a new girl, a trainee lawyer, a great girl actually but new. "Beate, darling," I say, "where the hell is our computer?"' Then we start to look. Computer. Tapes. Disks. Papers. Files. Missing and the doors locked. They take nothing else of value. Not the money in the money box, not the coffee machine or the radio or the television or the empty tape recorder. They are not drug addicts. They are not professional thieves. And to the police they are not criminals. Why should criminals lock doors? Maybe you know why."
"To tell us," Justin replied after a long pause.
"Please? To tell us what? I don't understand."
"They locked the doors on Tessa too."
"Explain, please. What doors?"
"Of the jeep. When they killed her. They locked the jeep doors so that the hyenas wouldn't take away the bodies."
"Why?"
"They were telling us to be afraid. That's the message they put on Tessa's laptop. To her or to me. "Be warned. Don't go on with what you're doing." They sent her a death threat too. I only found out about it a few days ago. She never told me."
"Then she was brave," said Birgit.
She remembered the baguettes. They sat on another bench and ate them while Carl munched a rusk and sang, and the two old sentries marched sightlessly past them down the hill.
"Was there a pattern to what they took? Or was it wholesale?"
"It was wholesale, but there was also a pattern. Roland says there was no pattern, but Roland is relaxed. He is always relaxed. He is like an athlete whose heart beats at half the normal speed so that he can run faster than anyone else. But only when he wishes. When it is useful to go fast he goes fast. When nothing can be done he stays in bed."
"What was the pattern?" he asked.
She has Tessa's frown, he noticed. It is the frown of professional discretion. As with Tessa, he made no effort to break through her silence.
"How did you translate waghalsig?" she demanded at length.