The Kill Artist

by Daniel Silva

  She crossed Mason’s Yard, entered Duke Street, and found a little café where she could wait. She ordered coffee and settled in the window with her Times. Fifteen minutes later, at precisely nine-twenty, she spotted a stylishly clothed gray-haired man rushing along Duke Street as though he were running late for his own funeral. He ducked through the passageway and disappeared into Mason’s Yard. Isherwood, she thought. Had to be.

  She pushed her newspaper into her handbag and slipped out of the café after him. She followed him across Mason’s Yard toward the gallery. As he was unlocking the door she called out, “Mr. Isherwood, is that you? I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Isherwood turned around. His mouth fell open slightly as she approached.

  “I’m Dominique Bonard. I believe you were expecting me this morning.”

  Isherwood cleared his throat several times rapidly and seemed to have trouble remembering which key opened the office. “Yes, well, delighted, really,” he stammered. “Awfully sorry, bloody tube, you know.”

  “Let me take your briefcase. Maybe that will help.”

  “Yes, well, you’re French,” he said, as if he thought this might be a revelation to her. “I have fluent Italian, but I’m afraid my French is rather atrocious.”

  “I’m sure we’ll get along just fine in English.”

  “Yes, quite.”

  Finally, he managed to unlock the door. He held it open rather too gallantly and gestured for her to lead the way up the stairs. On the landing, Isherwood paused in front of the travel agency and studied the girl in one of the posters. He turned and glanced at Jacqueline, then stared at the girl in the photograph once more. “You know, Dominique, she could be your twin sister.”

  Jacqueline smiled and said, “Don’t be silly.”

  Isherwood opened the gallery and showed Jacqueline to her desk.

  “There’s a man called Oliver Dimbleby coming later this morning. He looks rather like an English sausage in a Savile Row suit. Buzz him up when he arrives. Until then, let me show you round the rest of the gallery.”

  He handed her a pair of keys on a blue elastic band. “These are for you. Whenever one of us leaves the gallery, the doors are to be armed. The disarm code is five-seven-six-four-nine-seven-three-two-six. Get that?”

  Jacqueline nodded. Isherwood looked at her incredulously, and she repeated the sequence of numbers briskly and without error. Isherwood was clearly impressed.

  They entered a small lift, barely large enough to accommodate two passengers. Isherwood inserted his key into the security lock, turned it, and pressed the button marked B. The lift groaned and shuddered, then traveled slowly down the shaft, coming to rest with a gentle bump. The doors opened, and they entered a cool, dark room.

  “This is the tomb,” he said, switching on the lights. It was a cramped cellar filled with canvases, some framed, some unframed and resting in slots built into the walls. “This is my stockroom. Hundreds of works, many of them valuable, many more that have little or no worth on the open market and are therefore accumulating dust in this room.”

  He led her back into the lift, and this time they rode up. The doors opened onto a large, high-ceilinged room. Gray morning light trickled through a circular glass dome in the roof. Jacqueline cautiously walked forward a few paces. Isherwood threw a switch, illuminating the room.

  It was as if she had stepped into a museum. The walls were cream-colored and pristine, the hardwood floor burnished to a high gloss. In the center of the floor was a low bench covered in soft velvet the color of claret. On the walls were towering canvases lit by focused halogen lamps mounted in the ceiling. Rain pattered softly on the domed skylight. Jacqueline sat down on the bench. There was a Venus by Luini and a Nativity by del Vaga; a Baptism of Christ by Bordone and a stunning landscape by Claude.

  “It’s breathtaking,” she said. “I feel like I’m in the Louvre. You must come up here often.”

  “When I need to think. Feel free to come up anytime you like. Bring your lunch.”

  “I will. Thank you for showing it to me.”

  “If you’re going to work here, I suppose you should know your way round the place.”

  They took the lift to the main level. Jacqueline sat at her new desk, pulled open the drawers, rummaged through the paper clips and pens, experimented with the copy machine.

  Isherwood said, “You do know how to use those things, don’t you?”

  “I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it.”

  “Oh, good Lord,” he murmured.

  Oliver Dimbleby arrived promptly at eleven o’clock. Jacqueline inspected him through the security camera—he did look rather like a sausage in a Savile Row suit—and buzzed him up. When he caught sight of her, he pulled in his stomach and smiled affectionately. “So, you’re Julian’s new girl,” he said, shaking her hand. “I’m Oliver Dimbleby. Very pleased to meet you. Very pleased, indeed.”

  “Come, Oliver,” Isherwood called from the inner office. “Here, boy. Let go of her hand and get in here. We haven’t got all day.”

  Oliver reluctantly relinquished her hand and stepped into Isherwood’s office. “Tell me, Julie, my love. If I actually buy this place, does that angel in there convey?”

  “Oh, do shut up, Oliver.” Isherwood closed the door.

  Jacqueline went back to her office and tried to figure out how to use the fax machine.

  The telephone call arrived at the Kebab Factory at 4:00 P.M. Gabriel waited three minutes and twenty seconds for Yusef to come to the phone—he knew the precise amount of time it took because later he felt compelled to measure it with a stopwatch. During Yusef’s absence he was treated to the sounds of the kitchen help chattering in Lebanese Arabic and Mohammed, the afternoon manager, screaming at a busboy to clear table seventeen. When Yusef finally came to the phone, he seemed slightly out of breath. Their entire conversation lasted thirty-seven seconds. When it was done Gabriel rewound the tape and listened to it so many times Karp begged him to stop.

  “Trust me, Gabe, there’s nothing sinister going on. It’s two guys talking about getting a drink and maybe finding a girl and getting laid. You remember getting laid, don’t you?”

  But Gabriel was initiating the next phase of the operation—he was sending Jacqueline into hostile territory—and he wanted to be certain he wasn’t sending her into a trap. So he listened again:

  “We still on for tonight?”

  “Absolutely. Where?”

  “All Bar One, Leicester Square, nine o’clock.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  STOP. REWIND. PLAY.

  “We still on for tonight?”

  “Absolutely. Where?”

  “All Bar One, Leicester Square, nine o’clock.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  STOP. REWIND. PLAY.

  “All Bar One, Leicester Square, nine o’clock.”

  STOP. PLAY.

  “I’ll be there.”

  Gabriel picked up the telephone and punched in the number for Isherwood Fine Arts.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Leicester Square, London

  All Bar One stood on the southwest corner of Leicester Square. It had two floors and large windows, so that Gabriel, seated outside on a cold wooden bench, could see the action inside as though it were a play on a multilevel stage. Crowds of tourists and filmgoers streamed past him. The street performers were out too. On one side of the square a German sang Jimi Hendrix through a crackling microphone, accompanied by an amplified acoustic guitar. On the other a group of Peruvians played the music of the mountains to a disconsolate-looking gang of urban punks with purple hair. A few feet from the entrance of the bar a human statue stood frozen atop a pedestal, face painted the color of titanium, eyeing Gabriel malevolently.

  Yusef arrived five minutes later, accompanied by a trim, sandy-haired man. They negotiated the short line at the door by bribing the muscled ape who was standing guard. A moment later they appeared in the window on the second level. Yusef said hello to a
lanky blonde. Gabriel removed a mobile phone from his coat pocket, dialed a number, murmured a few words, then pressed the END button.

  Jacqueline, when she arrived five minutes later, wore the same clothes she had worn to Isherwood’s gallery that morning, but she had let down her long hair. She presented herself to the doorman and inquired about the wait. The doorman promptly stepped aside, much to the annoyance of the other patrons gathered outside. As Jacqueline disappeared into the bar, Gabriel heard someone mutter, “French bitch.”

  She went upstairs, bought herself a glass of wine, and sat down in the window a few feet from Yusef and his friend. Yusef was still talking to the blonde, but after a few moments Gabriel could see his eyes wandering to the tall, dark-haired girl seated to his right.

  Twenty minutes later, neither Gabriel nor the statue had moved, but Yusef had disengaged himself from the blonde and was sitting next to Jacqueline. She was feeding on him with her eyes, as though whatever he was saying was the most fascinating thing she had heard in years.

  Gabriel stared at the statue, and the statue stared back.

  At midnight they left the bar and walked across the square through a swirling wind. Jacqueline shivered and folded her arms beneath her breasts. Yusef put an arm around her waist and pulled her against him. She could feel the wine. She had found that judicious use of alcohol helped in situations like these. She had drunk just enough to lose any inhibitions about sleeping with a complete stranger—inhibitions that might betray her—but not enough to dull her senses or instincts of self-preservation.

  They climbed into a taxi on the Charing Cross Road.

  Jacqueline said, “Where do you live?” She knew the answer, but Dominique Bonard did not.

  “I have a flat in Bayswater. Sussex Gardens. Shall we go there?”

  She nodded. They rode up the Charing Cross Road, past darkened shops, then west along Oxford Street toward Marble Arch and the Park. Sometimes they would pass a lighted shop or slip beneath a street lamp and she would see his face for an instant, like a photograph flashed on a screen and then taken away. She studied him in profile. The hinge of his jaw was a perfect right angle, his nose long and slender with crisp lines along the bridge, his lips full. Long eyelashes, wide eyebrows. He had shaved carefully. He wore no cologne.

  Based on what Gabriel had told her, she had expected Yusef to be cocky and overly confident. But instead he displayed a pleasant, somewhat shy intelligence. She thought about the German chemical executive she had seduced in Cyprus. He was bald and had foul breath. Over dinner he had told her how much he hated Jews. Later, in bed, he had asked her to do things that made her feel sick.

  They headed up the Edgware Road and turned into Sussex Gardens. She wanted to look up and find the flat where Gabriel had established his listening post. She forced herself to look at Yusef instead. She traced her finger along his jaw. “You’re quite beautiful, you know.”

  He smiled. She thought: He’s used to compliments from women.

  The taxi arrived in front of his building. It was a charmless place, a flat-fronted postwar block house with an air of institutional decay. He helped her out of the taxi, paid off the driver, led her up a short flight of steps to the front entrance. He walked on the balls of his feet—like Gabriel, she thought—as if he were perpetually prepared to lunge or pounce. She wondered if Gabriel was watching them.

  He removed his keys, singled out one for the front door—Yale model, she noted—and inserted it into the chamber. He led her across a small lobby of checkered linoleum, then up a dimly lit flight of stairs. She wondered how he would make his move. Would he open a bottle of wine, play soft music, or light candles? Or would he be straightforward and businesslike? If they talked she might learn something about him that could be helpful to Gabriel. She decided she would try to stretch the seduction a little longer.

  At the door of his flat he used a second Yale to unlock the dead bolt, then an old-fashioned skeleton for the latch. Three locks, three separate keys. No problem.

  They entered the flat. The room was in darkness. Yusef closed the door. Then he kissed her for the first time.

  Jacqueline said, “I’ve wanted you to do that all night. You have beautiful lips.”

  “I’ve wanted to do other things all night.” He kissed her again. “Can I get you something to drink?”

  “A glass of wine would be nice if you have any.”

  “I think so. Let me check.”

  He switched on a light, a cheap standing lamp with the beam focused on the ceiling, and left his keys on a small table next to the door. Jacqueline placed her handbag beside them. Shamron’s training took over. She quickly surveyed the room. It was the flat of an intellectual revolutionary, a sparse, utilitarian base camp. Three cheap Oriental carpets covered the linoleum floor. The coffee table was a large, square piece of pressboard propped on four gray cinder blocks surrounded by a foursome of mismatched chairs. In the center of the table was an ashtray the size of a dinner plate containing several brands of cigarette butts. A few were smudged with lipstick, two different shades. Around the ashtray were a half-dozen small cups, stained, like Rorschach test patterns, with Turkish coffee grounds.

  She turned her attention to the walls. There were posters of Bob Marley and Che Guevara, another of Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their gloved fists at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. There was a black, green, and red Palestinian flag and a print of a painting depicting a village girl being bathed by other women on the night before her wedding. She recognized the painting as one of Ibrahim Ghannan’s. Everywhere there were books, some stacked, some in piles, as if they were awaiting gasoline and a match—volumes of Middle East history, histories of the Middle East wars, biographies of Arafat, Sadat, Ben-Gurion, Rabin.

  “You read a great deal,” Jacqueline said.

  “It’s an addiction of mine.”

  “Where are you from, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Palestine.”

  He came into the room from the kitchen and handed her a glass of red wine. Then he held out his hand. “Come with me.”

  Gabriel stood in his window. Karp’s laser microphone picked up snatches of their conversation, but it was like listening to a vinyl record album that skipped. When they moved to the bedroom to make love, Gabriel said, “Shut it off.”

  “But, Gabe, it’s just getting to the good part.”

  “I said, shut it off.”

  Karp lowered the microphone and switched off the power. “I’m hungry. I’m going for a walk.”

  “Go.”

  “You all right, Gabe?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Go.”

  One hour later Yusef climbed out of bed, walked to the window, and opened the curtains. The yellow street lamp had turned his olive skin the color of old newsprint. Jacqueline lay on her stomach. She placed her chin atop her hands and looked at him, eyes following the line from his square shoulders to his lean, muscular waist. She wondered if Gabriel was looking at him too.

  Yusef was watching the street—looking into parked cars, scanning the building opposite. He turned his body slightly, and she could see a wide, flat scar on his back, running between his right shoulder blade and the center of his ridged spine. She had felt it when they were making love. It was hard and coarse, like sandpaper. Like the skin of a shark.

  He had been a gentle lover, meticulous in his attempts to give her pleasure. When he was inside her, she had closed her eyes and imagined it was Gabriel, and when she felt the scar between his shoulder blades she imagined it was Gabriel’s scar, a relic from one of his secret missions, and she wished that she could pass her hand over it and make it go away.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked.

  Yusef turned around and folded his arms across his chest.

  “Have you ever slept with an Arab before, Dominique?”

  She thought: And you’re changing the subject. She said, “You’re my fi
rst. I may have to do it again sometime.”

  “Not while you’re sleeping with me.”

  “Are we sleeping together now?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  “All right, we are now officially sleeping together.” She rolled onto her back, looked at the light from the street falling across her body, imagined it was Gabriel’s gaze. “Do you think we should get to know each other a little better, now that we’re officially sleeping together?”

  He smiled and said, “What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know what happened to your back.”

  He turned and looked out the window.

  She studied the digital alarm clock on the bedside table.

  “There are some things about my past that you might find unpleasant,” he said.

  “Bad things you’ve done?”

  “No, Dominique. Bad things that were done to me.”

  “How did you get that scar on your back?”

  He turned and looked at her. “I grew up in a refugee camp in Lebanon—the Shatila camp in south Beirut. Perhaps you’ve heard of Shatila, Dominique.”

  “Of course I’ve heard of Shatila.”

  “The PLO had offices in the Shatila camp, so when the Israelis invaded Lebanon in ‘eighty-two, they shelled the camp day and night. A missile fired by an Israeli fighter jet hit the building where our family lived. The building collapsed on top of me, and a chunk of concrete tore away the skin of my back.”

  “Why were you in Lebanon?”

  “Because that’s where my family ended up after they were driven from their ancestral homes in Palestine by the Jews.”

  Jacqueline looked at the ceiling.

  Yusef said, “Why do you look away from me when I tell you that?”

  “I met some Israelis once in a nightclub in Paris. They were debating this issue with a group of French students. They said that the Jews didn’t have to expel the Arabs from Palestine because the Arabs left on their own.”

  Yusef laughed and shook his head. “I’m afraid you have fallen for the great Zionist myth, Dominique. The myth that the Palestinians would voluntarily trade the land where they had lived for centuries for exile and refugee camps. The myth that the Arab governments told the Palestinians to leave.”