cheese on a slice of brown bread. "In the newspaper. He was killed last week, yes? I saw his picture afterwards, perhaps Saturday or Sunday. I cannot recall which." Vas and vich, he said. He bit into the bread and cheese and chewed slowly.
There was nothing in his lunch to drink, but he didn't seem to be f f affected by this, despite the heat, the salt of the meat, and the gummy mixture of cheese and bread in his mouth. Barbara longed even more strongly for a glass of water just watching him chew and swallow.
"Before the newspaper," she said.
"Have I seen him before then?" he clarified. Raff. "No. I have not. Why do you ask?"
"He had a bill of lading from Eastern Imports among his belongings. It was locked up in a safe deposit box."
The German stopped chewing for a moment.
"That is strange indeed," he said. "May I . . . ?"
And he took up the picture in his fingers. Nice fingers, they were, with buffed nails.
"Stowing papers away in a safe deposit box tends to indicate they've got some importance,"
Barbara said. "It doesn't make a lot of sense to lock them up for any other reason, wouldn't you say?"
"Indeed. Indeed. This is very true," the man replied. "But one would wish to keep a bill of lading among important papers if a purchase was recorded upon it. If this gentleman bought furniture that was not yet in our stock, he'd want to keep - "
"Nothing was written on the bill of lading.
Aside from the name and address of this establishment, the paper was blank."
The German shook his head in perfect perplexity.
He said, "Then I cannot say . . . This bill of lading was perhaps given to the gentleman by someone else? We import from the East and if he wished to make a purchase of furniture on some future date ..." He shrugged and made a small moue with his mouth, that quintessential European male gesture that signified two words: Who knows?
Barbara considered the possibilities. True, what this bloke was saying made partial sense.
But only as far as serving to explain the bill of lading's presence among Querashi's belongings.
Explaining its presence inside his safe deposit box was going to take another mental leap or two.
She said, "Yeah. You're probably right. Mind if I have a look round while I'm here? I've a mind to do a bit of redecorating."
The German nodded as he took another bite of bread and cheese. He reached into his desk and brought out a three-ring notebook, then a second, then a third. He flipped them open with one hand while the other rolled up another piece of ham.
Barbara saw that these were catalogues, and they contained everything from bedroom furniture to kitchenware to lamps. She said, "You don't keep goods in the warehouse, then?" And she thought, If you don't, then why bloody have one?
"We do indeed," he said. "Our wholesale shipments.
They are in the warehouse."
"Perfect," Barbara said. "Could I have a look?
I can't ever tell anything from a picture."
"Our stock is low," he said, and sounded uneasy for the first time. "If you could come back . . . perhaps Saturday week?"
"Just a look is all," Barbara said pleasantly. "I'd like to get an idea of size and materials before I make up my mind."
He didn't appear convinced, but he said, albeit reluctantly, "If you don't mind the dust and a toilet that's gone down. . ."
She assured him that she minded neither - what were dust and broken toilets when one was in search of the perfect three-piece suite? - and she followed him through the inner door.
She wasn't quite sure what she'd been expecting.
But what she found within the cavernous gut of the warehouse wasn't a sound set for making snuff films, on going videotaping of hardcore pornography, crates of explosives, or a factory for assembling Uzi sub-machine guns. What she found was a storehouse for furniture: three tiers of sofas, dining room tables, armchairs, lamps, and bedframes. As her companion had said, the stock was low. It was also covered in plastic that was coated with dust. But as to thinking the furniture was anything else: It was impossible to stretch the imagination that far.
And he'd told the truth about the toilet. The warehouse was rank with the scent of sewage, as if two hundred people had used the facilities without flushing. Barbara saw the offending source through a half-open door at the end of the building: