Europe in Winter (The Fractured Europe Sequence)(23)

Seth shrugged. Rupert took a drink of his beer.

“It’s like that old cartoon, the one with the wolf and the bird.”

Rupert, who couldn’t be expected to know what he was talking about, just sat there watching him. Seth looked mystified.

“The wolf and the bird,” he said again. “The wolf’s always chasing the bird and the bird always gets away because the wolf comes up with these fantastically complicated plans that always go wrong and it blows itself up or falls off a cliff or –”

“Road runner,” Seth said. “Coyote and road runner.”

“Whatever. But there’s always a bit where the wolf – the coyote – chases the road runner and suddenly they run off a cliff. The road runner’s going so fast that its momentum carries it across, but the coyote keeps on running on thin air until it realises what it’s doing, and that’s when gravity takes over. It’s like that.”

“What’s like that?” asked Rupert.

“This.” Rudi made a gesture which was intended to encompass the entire world and all its madness but only succeeded in thumping a passing waitress on the hip. The waitress favoured him with the briefest of hard stares and a muttered kurwa under her breath, and was gone again between the tables. Rudi folded his hands in his lap and looked at his friends. “It’s like running upstairs and finding that someone’s forgotten to put the top step in.”

“You have,” Rupert suggested, “unfinished business.”

“Damn right,” said Seth.

“None of us has had closure,” Rupert continued, pronouncing the word as if he’d only learned it recently and was pleased to be able to use it in conversation.

“Damn right,” Seth said again and drained his glass. “Beer?”

Rudi and Rupert nodded and Seth twisted in his chair to begin the usually-extended process of catching a waitress’s attention. All of Bunkier’s waitresses were beautiful and very, very smart, and Rupert liked coming here because he was usually in love with one or other of them.

Rudi looked about him. The weather had turned chilly and the staff had rolled down the plastic sheeting that served as an outside wall for the bar, and turned on the catalytic heaters. He thought about closure. They were no closer to knowing who had killed Seth’s flatmate and his flatmate’s girlfriend and basically burned his life down to the ground than they were to understanding the presumed intelligence war which had taken over Rudi’s. Of the three of them, Rupert – he still insisted on going by his chosen nom de guerre, Rupert of Hentzau – was closest to gaining closure. At least he knew who had destroyed his home and killed everyone he knew, and why, even if the prospect of exacting some kind of justice remained out of reach in a misty distance.

Rudi said, “Good trip?”

“Very interesting,” Rupert said. “Azerbaijan. Baku. Extraordinary place.”

“Dangerous place.”

Rupert shrugged. “It’s okay if you’re careful.”

“I’ve never been.” Baku had declared itself an independent city-state a couple of years ago and was currently gorging itself on oil money. Once upon a time, Coureurs would have flocked there. Now it hardly registered.

“You should. It might take your mind off things for a while.”

Rudi pulled a sour face. “It’s my experience that no matter how long you take your mind off things, the things are always waiting for you when you come back.”

Rupert sat back and looked at him. “You were busy for years,” he said. “Running everywhere. Now there’s no need to run any more, but you still feel as if you have to.”

“I know.” Rudi bent over the table and drew a line through a splash of beer.

“You need a white whale.”

Rudi looked up. “A what?”

“A white whale. Like the captain in the book. Ahab.”

“Ahab was crazy.”

“Yes, but he was crazy with a purpose. A foolish and destructive purpose, but a purpose all the same.”

“I’m a chef.”

Rupert waved it away. “That’s a job, not a purpose.”

Rudi pictured himself walking out into the restaurant in the middle of service and announcing that it was a job, not a purpose. He said, “Any suggestions? Any particular white whales?”

Rupert spread his hands. “We should make more of an effort to find Mundt.”

“Efforts are being made,” Rudi said. “Believe me.” Herr Professor Mundt had discovered a form of topology which the rulers of the Community believed would allow him to open border crossings between them and Europe, which clearly posed something of a security problem for them. He had also, unfortunately, been missing for the best part of a decade now, having been squirreled away with enormous efficiency by a Coureur named Leo. It was impossible to ask Leo where Mundt was because someone had subsequently cut off his head and left it in a luggage locker at Berlin-Zoo Station.

One of the waitresses came over finally, and Seth gave their order. “I’m going off shift in a minute,” she told him. “You want to settle up now and another waitress will bring your beers?”

Seth, who wasn’t used to table service in pubs, looked over at Rudi, who nodded and took out his phone and waved it at the waitress’s credit terminal to pay their tab. He watched her head back towards the bar. He thought about white whales.