Philip Kerr - Field Grey

First published in Great Britain in2010 by

Quercus

21 Bloomsbury Square

London WC1A 2NS

Copyright 2010 by Philip Kerr

The moral right of Philip Kerr to be

identified as the author of this workhas been

asserted in accordance with theCopyright,

Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of thispublication

may be reproduced or transmitted in anyform

or by any means, electronic ormechanical,

including photocopy, recording, or any

information storage and retrievalsystem,

without permission in writing from thepublisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this book isavailable

from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 84916 412 2 (HB)

ISBN 978 1 84916 413 9 (TPB)

This book is a work of fiction. Names,characters,

businesses, organizations, places andevents are

either the product of the author'simagination

or are used fictitiously.

For Allan Scott

'I don't like Ike.'

Graham Greene, The Quiet American

Table ofContents

'ThatEnglishman with Ernestina,' she said, looking down at the luxuriously appointedpublic room. 'He reminds me of you, Seor Hausner.'

DnaMarina knew me as well as anyone in Cuba, possibly better, since ouracquaintance was founded on something stronger than mere friendship: DnaMarina owned the best and largest brothel in Havana.

TheEnglishman was tall and round-shouldered with pale blue eyes and a lugubriousexpression. He wore a blue linen short-sleeved shirt, grey cotton trousers, andwell-polished black shoes. I had an idea I'd seen him before, in the FloriditaBar or perhaps the lobby of the National Hotel, but I was hardly looking athim. I was paying more attention to the new and near-naked chica who wassitting on the Englishman's lap and helping herself to puffs from the cigarettein his mouth while he amused himself by weighing her enormous breasts in hishands, like someone judging the ripeness of two grapefruit.

'Inwhat way?' I asked and quickly glanced at myself in the big mirror that hung onthe wall, wondering if there really was some point of similarity between usother than our appreciation of Ernestina's breasts and the huge dark nipplesthat adorned them like mountainous limpets.

Theface that stared back at me was heavier than the Englishman's with a littlemore hair on top, but similarly fiftyish and cross-hatched with living. PerhapsDna Marina thought it was more than just living that was dry-etched on our twofaces - the chiaroscuro of conscience and complicity perhaps, as if neither ofus had done what ought to have been done or, worse, as if each of us lived withsome guilty secret.

'Youhave the same eyes,' said Dna Marina.

'Oh,you mean they're blue,' I said, knowing that this probably wasn't what shemeant at all.

'No,it's not that. It's just that you and Seor Greene look at people in a certainway. As if you're trying to look inside them. Like a spiritualist. Or perhapslike a policeman. You both have very searching eyes that seem to look straightthrough a person. It's really most intimidating.'

Itwas hard to imagine Dna Marina being intimidated by anything or anyone. Shewas always as relaxed as an iguana on a sun-warmed rock.

'SeorGreene, eh?' I wasn't in the least bit surprised that Dna Marina had used hisname. The Casa Marina was not the kind of place where you felt obliged to use afalse one. You needed a reference just to get through the front door. 'Perhapshe is a policeman. With feet as big as his I wouldn't be at all surprised.'

'He'sa writer.'

'Whatkind of a writer?'

'Novels.Westerns, I think. He told me he writes under the name of Buck Dexter.'

'Neverheard of him. Does he live in Cuba?'

'No,he lives in London. But he always visits us when he's in Havana.'

'Atraveller, eh?'

'Yes.Apparently he's on his way to Haiti this time.' She smiled. 'You don't see thelikeness, now?'

'No,not really,' I said firmly and was pleased when she seemed to change thesubject.

'Howwas it with Omara today?'

Inodded. 'Good.'

'Youlike her, yes?'

'Verymuch.'

'She'sfrom Santiago,' said Dna Marina as if this explained everything. 'All of mybest girls come from Santiago. They're the most African-looking girls in Cuba.Men seem to like that.'

'Iknow I do.'

'Ithink it has something to do with the fact that unlike white women, black womenhave a pelvis that's almost as big as a man's. An anthropoid pelvis. And beforeyou ask me how I know that it's because I used to be a nurse.'

Iwasn't surprised to learn this. Dna Marina put a premium on sexual health andhygiene and the staff at her house on Malecon included two nurses who weretrained to deal with everything from a dose of jelly to a massive heart-attack.I'd heard it said that you had a better chance of surviving cardiac arrest atCasa Marina than you did at the University of Havana Medical School.

'Santiago'sa real melting-pot,' she continued. 'Jamaicans, Haitians, Dominicans, Bahamians- it's Cuba's most Caribbean city. And its most rebellious, of course. All ofour revolutions start in Santiago. I think it's because all of the people wholive there are related to each other, in one way or another.'

Shetwisted a cigarette into a little amber holder and lit it with a handsomesilver Tallboy.

'Forexample, did you know that Omara is related to the man who looks after yourboat in Santiago?'

I wasbeginning to see that there was some purpose behind Dna Marina's conversation,because it was not just Mister Greene who was going to Haiti, it was me, too,only my trip was supposed to be a secret.

'No,I didn't.' I glanced at my watch, but before I could make my excuses and leaveDna Marina had ushered me into her private drawing room and was offering me adrink. And thinking that perhaps it was best that I listen to what she had tosay, in view of her mentioning my boat, I replied that I'd take an aniejo.

Shefetched a bottle-aged rum and poured me a large one.

'MisterGreene is also very fond of our Havana rum,' she said.

'Ithink you'd better come to the point now,' I said. 'Don't you?'

Andso she did.

Whichis how it was that I came to have a girl in the passenger seat of my Chevy as,about a week later, I drove south-west along Cuba's central highway toSantiago, at the opposite end of the island. The irony of this experience didnot escape me; in seeking to escape from being blackmailed by a secretpoliceman I had managed to put myself in a position where a brothel madam whowas much too clever to threaten me openly, felt able to ask a favour that Ihardly wanted to grant: to take a chica from another Havana casa with me on my'fishing trip' to Haiti. It was almost certain that Dna Marina knew LieutenantQuevedo and knew he would have held a very dim view of my taking any kind of aboat trip; but I rather doubted she knew he had threatened to have me deportedback to Germany, where I was wanted for murder, unless I agreed to spy on MeyerLansky, the underworld boss who was my employer. Either way I had little choicebut to accede to her request, although I could have felt a lot happier about mypassenger. Melba Marrero was being sought by the police in connection with themurder of a police captain from the Ninth Precinct, and there were friends ofDna Marina who wanted Melba off the island of Cuba as quickly as possible.

MelbaMarrero was in her early twenties, although she hardly liked anyone to knowthat. I suppose she wanted people to take her seriously, and it's possible thatthis is why she had shot Captain Balart. But it's more likely that she had shothim because she was connected with Castro's communist rebels. She wascoffee-coloured with a fine gamine face, a belligerent chin and astormy-weather look in her dark eyes. Her hair was cut after the Italianfashion - short, layered locks with a few wispy curls combed forward across herface. She wore a plain white blouse, a pair of tight fawn trousers, a tanleather belt and matching gloves. She looked like she was going riding on ahorse that was probably looking forward to it.