Page 44 of The Nameless Ones
‘It’s the one I’ve settled on, so I guess it is. Can I get you a coffee, or a tea?’
‘Coffee will be fine, thank you.’
He ordered a coffee from the bar and returned to his seat. Lackner was examining the main story on the front page of the newspaper, something to do with the Middle East. Angel had barely glanced at it.
‘Are you a regular Guardian reader?’ said Lackner.
‘I just bought it to impress you. It doesn’t have enough funny pages for me.’
She regarded him thoughtfully.
‘I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.’
‘I suppose it has Doonesbury,’ continued Angel, ‘which kind of counts. I once owned an Uncle Duke T-shirt with “Death Before Unconsciousness” written on the front, but it was only amusing when I was younger. As I grow older, and death assumes an objective reality, unconsciousness doesn’t seem like such a bad option.’
Lackner’s coffee arrived. She added sugar and milk, heavy on both.
‘So,’ she said, ‘those documents.’
‘Yes.’
‘Where did you get them?’
‘From a third party.’
‘I thought as much. You don’t strike me as someone with a direct line to an oil company. Do you or your source have more papers like them?’
‘Possibly.’
‘And what do you want in return for them, money? If so, that’s not how our firm operates.’
Angel delved into the messenger bag at his feet and displayed a thick manila folder held together with rubber bands before putting it away again.
‘Whatever I have is in that folder,’ he said. ‘I can’t claim to understand all of it. As you’ve already surmised, it’s not my area of expertise. Still, the fact that you’re sitting here based on the first taste means it’s probably gourmet stuff. You can have it, in return for a few minutes of your time. Oh, and you’ll be required to look at some photographs. You may find them disturbing. It depends on how strong your stomach is.’
‘What exactly is this about?’ said Lackner.
Angel produced a thin envelope, marked Do Not Bend.
‘Photos first, then we can progress to details.’
‘What if I don’t want to look at any photographs?’
Angel considered the question before retrieving the folder from his bag and placing it on the table.
‘Then you can walk away with this, and do with it as you please. You’ll never see me again.’
He waited. Lackner didn’t reach for the folder.
‘Show me the pictures,’ she said.
She was seated against a wall, which meant she was in no danger of sharing the contents of the prints, but Angel suggested it might still be preferable for her not to set them on the table. He watched as she progressed through the images. The first four were enlarged passport photos of De Jaager, Anouk, Paulus, and Liesl, the dead of Amsterdam. The remaining photographs came from the crime scene at the safe house. Angel had excluded none. If Lackner was to be convinced, she had to see everything. He did not speak as she went through them. He did not even watch her, but took in the bar and its occupants, and wondered if the Doonesbury slogan could be repurposed as ‘Death Before Obliviousness’. Most people, he thought, would choose obliviousness.
Pia Lackner was putting the photographs back in the envelope, but not before first returning to the images of De Jaager and the others as they had been in life.
‘Who were they?’ she said.
Angel gave her their names.