‘You killed my family.’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘I can play with words, but it is possible they would be still alive without me. You’re right to be angry. Please.’ He gestured to the armchairs and reluctantly she sat down, placing the gun back in her bag, taking the wine glass he offered her.
‘So why shouldn’t I kill you?’
‘Because it would be without purpose.’ He sipped at his wine. ‘I can understand why you wanted Novakovic dead—yes, Lucas told me about that, too: because he pulled the trigger. You wanted him dead because he was too professional; he didn’t change his mind when he saw your family. I can understand also why you must kill the person who ordered the contract; it’s only just. Me, I’m a middleman. My crime was to place together people who wanted to kill with people who could do it for them. I didn’t think badly of your family; I just didn’t think of them at all.’
‘I’m not sure how that’s meant to convince me.’
He smiled and said, ‘I make a better argument in German.’
‘You’re German? I thought you were Hungarian.’ She was annoyed with herself for asking; she didn’t want detail, but she was curious all the same.
‘No. I come from just outside Dresden, in the East. My wife was Hungarian.’
‘Lucas said she died when she was young.’
‘She didn’t die: she was killed. Summer 1977. In one summer three women were raped and strangled. She was the second. They never found the killer, but after the summer, no more attacks.’ He took a larger mouthful of wine. ‘And yes, I’m seeing why you want me dead because that summer I wanted everyone dead. I wanted to kill policemen for doing nothing. I wanted to kill people for being happy. And all because I could not have what I most wanted: the killer killed.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She sipped at her wine too. This was what she’d least wanted—to see him as human, carrying his own sadness.
‘But you still don’t see why you’re lucky. You will find your killer. You can make things right because you have Lucas and he will find them for you.’
She felt awkward hearing Lucas mentioned like that. He was the only person she could rely on and he’d helped her twice. But she was worried that he’d look upon her differently now that she’d lied to him and come here with a gun. For all she knew, though, this would lift her in his estimation, his skewed view of the world probably treating deceit as a virtue.
‘You’ve known Lucas a long time?’
He shrugged but said, ‘I guess as long as anybody. Almost long enough to be his friend.’
‘Tell me about him.’
He finished the wine in his glass and poured himself another. ‘What can I tell you about Lucas? First, don’t be tricked by his accent. He’s no Englishman. He’s a Rhodesian.’
‘A what?’
‘Rhodesian,’ he said, as if surprised by her ignorance. ‘Rhodesia. You know, today’s Zimbabwe. Before 1980 it was Rhodesia. That’s where he comes from. All I know about his time there is he doesn’t talk about it. Another thing: he says he doesn’t speak any other language—it’s a lie. He speaks a native African language, lots of . . .’ He made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘You know? Sometimes when he was drunk he would speak like that for fun. A little Afrikaans too. That’s where he went—South Africa, Namibia, Angola. He was very young when he left Rhodesia, before independence. I think he was only twenty-three when he came to Europe but he had a reputation already. I liked to work with him. He was good. Kill anyone. He would have killed your brother. He would have killed you.’
She couldn’t process all the information that was coming at her. Lucas had been a rough sketch to her, a caricature at most, a man defined by his social awkwardness, his tics, and now Brodsky was suggesting a real and complex life. Lucas had come from somewhere, had grown up, possessed memories.
For the first time since meeting him, she felt like she wanted to get to know him, to see him open up about that past. And that desire made her sad too, because she was locked on a course that would put distance between them, almost certainly sending Lucas back into the shadows.
Because in the past, Lucas might have been willing to kill anyone, but he’d changed. He hadn’t wanted to kill Novakovic; he didn’t want to kill Brodsky. She could see now how he was fighting clear of that past and how she could only pull him back into it. It was beyond her control, though: the choice had been made for her by others, including the man sitting opposite, and she wouldn’t rest until they’d all paid.
She had no doubt that Brodsky was good company, that he could tell her stories about Lucas. And he’d helped her with information. Perhaps he was a good person but so too had been the people whose deaths he’d arranged. She’d come here to kill him and she’d be guilty of betraying them if she didn’t go through with it.