The Nameless Ones by John Connolly

Chapter XXXVIII

Pia Lackner, the estranged daughter of the lawyer Anton Frend, operated from an old brownstone near Blackfriars Bridge, within easy reach of the Inns of Court. Her firm shared the premises with three others, although Lackner’s was the only one specializing in environmental law and human rights. Angel felt more virtuous just by standing in its general vicinity.

He had decided against tackling Lackner on her home ground, opting instead for more neutral territory. He had selected the Black Friar, a nineteenth-century pub that occupied a wedge-shaped building on Queen Victoria Street. A phone call to Lackner’s office informing her that he might have information of interest was enough to draw her out, any concerns that she might have had about meeting a stranger being allayed by the choice of venue and an envelope that Angel had placed in the company mailbox earlier that morning.

The envelope contained a series of documents – provided by the enigmatic Harris – relating to the mining practices of multinational conglomerates in four African countries. A recent judgment by the Supreme Court in London had ruled that a mining company based in the United Kingdom could be held to account for the actions of one of its subsidiaries in Zambia, enabling the case to be held in England, where the claimants believed they had a better chance of achieving a measure of justice. The ruling opened the way for similar suits to proceed against a series of corporations. Lackner’s firm was representing litigants in West Africa who were taking an action against a big oil company for the pollution of their farmland. The firm’s resources were more limited than those of its larger rivals, so any help was likely to be gratefully received.

Angel was already seated at a corner table when Lackner arrived, a cup of coffee and a copy of the Guardian in front of him. Lackner was a small, heavyset woman with very bright blue eyes, and an expression set somewhere between bemused and skeptical, although Angel accepted that he might be the cause of both in this instance, with bemusement appearing to be winning out. Lackner had probably been anticipating an encounter with someone wearing a suit, or at the very least an individual who didn’t look as though he was more familiar with being the client of lawyers rather than their abetter.

‘Mr Angel?’ said Lackner.

He stood to shake her hand.

‘Just Angel.’

‘Is that your real name?’

‘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.

‘Why were they killed?’

‘Because they crossed a Serbian crime lord, or De Jaager did, and the others paid for it alongside him. A while back, a Serbian enforcer named Andrej Buha, sometimes known as Timmerman, was assassinated in Amsterdam. He enjoyed crucifying men and women, so he was no great loss. The deaths of these four people were revenge for the killing of Buha.’

‘What has this got to do with me?’ said Lackner.

But something in her tone told Angel that she already suspected the truth.

‘The man who ordered and supervised their torture and murder is Spiridon Vuksan. He’s one of your father’s clients.’

‘I don’t have anything to do with my father,’ said Lackner. ‘I have even divested myself of his name.’

‘I’m aware of that, just as I know that he sends you flowers on your birthday and a case of champagne at Christmas.’

‘You’re very well informed.’

‘I also know that you give away the flowers and champagne.’

Lackner gestured at the envelope and its photographs. ‘Wouldn’t you, under the circumstances?’

‘I don’t like champagne,’ said Angel, ‘and flowers make me sneeze. The point is that your father still cares about you.’

For the first time, Lackner looked worried.

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘No, not at all. We would like to use you, though – with your consent, obviously.’

‘Oh, obviously,’ she said, with enough sarcasm to turn honey sour. ‘I wouldn’t be used any other way. But I still don’t understand what you want from me. And who is “we”, by the way?’

‘My friends and me.’

Lackner glanced around the bar.

‘Are they nearby?’

‘No, they’re on the Continent.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Hunting down the men who did this, or trying to. We believe there are five of them, including Spiridon’s brother, Radovan. They’re in hiding. They thought they could kill these people before retreating to Serbia, where they’d be safe from retribution, legal or otherwise. They were wrong, but the situation remains fluid. We’d like to find them before the balance tilts in their favor.’

‘You specified retribution both legal or otherwise,’ said Lackner.

‘Yes,’ said Angel. ‘We would be the “otherwise”.’

‘Does otherwise include murder?’

‘I thought lawyers never asked a question to which they didn’t already know the answer.’

‘Perhaps I do know it.’

‘Then why ask?’

‘It would have been remiss not to,’ said Lackner. ‘And you want me to collude in this?’

‘Spiridon Vuksan has been slaughtering innocents since the last century, aided by his brother. He was at Vukovar, at Srebrenica, and a whole lot of other places I can’t spell or even find on a map, but I know what happened in them, and I know the part Spiridon and his men played in it. The law has largely failed their victims so far because it has its limits. We, on the other hand, do not.’

‘Jesus.’ There was neither bemusement nor skepticism on Lackner’s face now. She was a picture of misery. ‘And my father knows where these people are?’

‘We think so. Your father has been helping the Vuksans since the Balkan wars. Without him, they might never have survived. Who else would they turn to in their time of trouble?’

‘Do you want me to ask him where the Vuksans might be?’ said Lackner.

‘Would he tell you if you did?’

‘I doubt it. I may be his daughter, but he’s still a lawyer.’

‘Well, then,’ said Angel, ‘I think we may have to find another way.’