He was in the park because he was early for his appointment. He should have been sipping coffee with the Frauboss, as he thought of Wilhelmina, and glancing with her through the file, checking the client’s complaint and the level of the bank’s error. She had thought it would reflect well if she – the team leader in Sales Investment – was accompanied by a smartly presented young man from her office: it would demonstrate their commitment that the bank was taking the error seriously. His presence would underline the importance of this client’s account to the bank. He fancied, also, that it was an opportunity to drill him in the standard of care that the bank demanded of its employees. Earlier this morning Jago’s mobile had rung. Wilhelmina had had to cry off: the nanny was sick, the elder child had damaged an ankle so couldn’t go to school, and her husband was abroad on United Nations business, saving the planet with a climate-control programme. Jago was to keep the appointment. She had lectured him on to his manner and the apology he would offer on the bank’s behalf. He glanced at his watch. He had no need to hurry.
The fly hurried to escape. Its legs and wings flailed and, with each quick movement, the web seemed stronger. It thrashed. Jago had known cobwebs. His mother had dusted them away in the one-time family home; staff used poles topped with feathers to clear them from office ceilings. He had never before sat outside on an autumn morning and marvelled at one. He couldn’t see the spider. He thought of the energy it would have taken to build the web, and the elements it had secreted in its body to do so. The fly fought for its freedom. If Jago had waved a hand when the fly was first close to the web, it would have been safe. He was between Charlottenburg and Savignyplatz, among pleasant, well-restored streets. The park was manicured, with bins for dog mess, cigarette ends, plastic and newspapers. It was a good environment for a client, a place where old Berlin wealth had survived.
An elderly woman now sat opposite Jago. His attention had been on the fly and he hadn’t seen her arrive. Well preserved and well dressed, an expensive overcoat, a cashmere scarf and decent shoes – from two different pairs. There would be money there, an opportunity for a salesman from the bank. He had his business cards in his wallet and brochures in his briefcase . . . But the fly took his attention away from the woman who might need an investment portfolio. The fly struggled.
A girl came out of a pizzeria, to the right of the elderly woman. Jago Browne was twenty-six, single and unattached, though Hannelore and Magda, who worked alongside him, might have wished otherwise. Her dark hair was piled high and she wore a shapeless cardigan under a broad apron. Her skirt’s hem was level with the apron’s. She swept the pavement outside the pizzeria with a stiff brush, punishing the slabs. The forehead above the pretty face was cut with furrows. She was interesting, but . . . The fly was not long for this world.
He looked at his watch. Five more minutes. The apartment block where the client lived was at the far end of the square. The old lady opposite eyed him but didn’t encourage conversation. He thought she would be in her middle eighties. He had been in Berlin long enough, seven months, to know the principal dates and events. The fall of the Wall, the Kennedy speech, the defeat and the flooding of the destroyed streets by hungry men of the Red Army . . . She would have been, then, fifteen, probably in the first flush of beauty, hidden in cellars in the hope that an infantry platoon, an artillery team or a tank crew wouldn’t find her. She stared at and through him.
An open sports car pulled up outside the pizzeria, but the death of the fly consumed his attention. One last movement of the wings and legs, then a convulsion. Life extinguished or hope gone? Jago didn’t know. Now he saw the spider. Cunning little sod. It had stayed back, against the angle of the main trunk of the rosebush and a stump to which part of the web was hooked. He supposed it needed to hide in case a hungry sparrow or robin passed by. Now it came out and tracked fast over its web. A resourceful killing machine closed on its meal. Whatever sustenance there was on the body of a fly was likely to be more nourishing than a scrap of meat or cheese swept off the pavement in front of the pizzeria. He looked at the web more keenly and realised that what he had taken for fragments of old leaves were the husks of previous victims. He’d learned something. The spider might not be hungry. It was a killing machine and fed regardless of need. That was its nature. It reached the fly and seemed to try to cover it, belly on back. It was smaller than the fly, but had the intellect to plan the trap, the engineering skill to build the web and would eat when opportunity arose.
Jago pondered. He wondered what he might have done.
Jago glanced again at his watch, then unfastened the clasp on his case, checked that the papers were beneath his laptop and closed it. Time for a quick cigarette. He lit it, dragged the smoke into his throat and wheezed a little. The old woman leaned towards him and asked, in a gravelly voice, if he would, please, offer her a cigarette. He did so. Would he, please, light it for her? The flame lit her eyes, a cough convulsed her, and he won a wintry grin. She told him that her doctor forbade her to smoke, that her children thought the habit disgusting, that her grandchildren were nicotine-Nazis.
Jago Browne, on a bank’s sales team, reflected that the fly – by keeping him there – might have inched him towards a possible client . . . He mouthed, silently, the first sentence of what he would say to the client.
‘A thousand euro a month, is what it will be.’
He blustered an answer but his words were indistinct. It was the third time he had told the man the figure. The face had gone pale and glistened.