need a recommendation from the hospital to be
able to apply for a travel permit.’
‘And now you’re afraid I’ll put a spoke in your
wheel?’
‘Your father is on the governing board.’
‘Yes, I could create problems for you.’ He
rubbed his chin. The intense stare had fixed itself
on to a point on her forehead.
‘Whatever happens, Christopher, you can’t stop
us. Uriah and I love each other. Do you
understand?’
‘Why should I do a favour for a soldier’s
whore?’
Helena’s mouth hung open. Even from someone
she despised, someone who was clearly acting in
passion, the word stung like a slap. But before she
managed to answer, Brockhard’s face had
crumpled as if he were the one to have been hit.
‘Forgive me, Helena. I . . . damn!’ He abruptly
turned his back on her. Helena wanted to get up
and leave, but she couldn’t find the words to
liberate herself. His voice was strained as he
added: ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Helena.’
‘Christopher . . .’
‘You don’t understand. I’m not saying this out of
arrogance, but I have qualities which in time I
know you would grow to appreciate. I may have
gone too far, but remember that I always acted with
your best interests at heart.’
She stared at his back. The doctor’s coat was a
size too big for his narrow, sloping shoulders. She
was reminded of the Christopher she had known as
a child. He’d had delicate black curls and a real
suit even though he was only twelve. One summer
she had even been in love with him. Hadn’t she?
He released a long, trembling breath. She took a
pace towards him, then changed her mind. Why
should she feel sympathy for this man? Yes, she
knew why. Because her own heart was
overflowing with happiness although she had done
little to come by it. Yet Christopher Brockhard,
who tried every day of his life to gain happiness,
would always be a lonely man.
‘Christopher, I have to go now.’
‘Yes, of course. You have to do what you have to
do, Helena.’
She stood up and walked to the door.
‘And I have to do what I have to do,’ he said.
30
Police HQ. 24 February 2000.
WRIGHT SWORE. HE HAD TRIED ALL THE KNOBS ON
THE overhead projector to focus the picture,
without any luck.
Someone coughed.
‘I think perhaps the picture itself is unclear,
Lieutenant. It’s not the projector, I mean.’
‘Well, at any rate, this is Andreas Hochner,’
Wright said, shielding his eyes with his hand so
that he could see those present. The room had no
windows, so when, as now, the lights were
switched off it was pitch black. According to what
Wright had been told, it was bug-proof too,
whatever that meant.
Besides himself, Andreas Wright, a lieutenant in
the Military Intelligence Service, there were only
three others present: Major Bård Ovesen from
Military Intelligence, Harry Hole, the new man
from POT, and Kurt Meirik, the head of POT. It
was Hole who had faxed him the name of the arms
dealer in Johannesburg. And had nagged him for
information every day since. There was no doubt
that a great number of people in POT seemed to
think that Military Intelligence was merely a
subsection of POT, but they obviously hadn’t read
the regulations, where it stated that they were
equally ranked organisations working in
partnership. But Wright had. So, in the end he had
explained to the new man that low priority cases
had to wait. Half an hour later Meirik had rung to
say that this case was top priority. Why couldn’t
they have said that at the outset?
The blurred black and white image on the screen
showed a man leaving a restaurant; it seemed to
have been taken from a car window. The man had
a broad, coarse face with dark eyes and a large,
ill-defined nose with a thick, black, droopy
moustache beneath.
‘Andreas Hochner, born in 1954 in Zimbabwe,
German parents,’ Wright read from the print-outs
he had brought with him. ‘Ex-mercenary in the
Congo and South Africa, probably involved with
arms smuggling since the mid-eighties. At nineteen
he was one of seven men accused of murdering a
black boy in Kinshasa, but was acquitted for lack
of evidence. Married and divorced twice. His
employer in Johannesburg is suspected of being
behind the smuggling of anti-air missiles to Syria
and the purchase of chemical weapons from Iraq.
Alleged to have supplied special rifles to Karadzic
during the Bosnian war and to have trained snipers
during the siege of Sarajevo. The last has not as yet
been confirmed.’
‘Please skip the details,’ Meirik said, glancing at