Smoke and Whispers

by Mick Herron

  ‘He wasn’t faking that. He was scared stiff.’

  ‘So? Alan Talmadge specializes in pushing middle-aged women into ditches. Second-generation gangsters are out of his league.’

  Jack shook his head. ‘You don’t think he’s Talmadge any more than I do.’

  ‘You pretended to be who he thought you were,’ Sarah told him. ‘What makes you think he was doing any different?’

  ‘Sarah –’

  ‘There are ways of doing things, Jack. Okay, maybe I don’t think he’s Talmadge. But that means we’ve just terrorized an innocent man.’

  ‘Everybody’s guilty of something,’ Jack said.

  He dropped the cigarette half-smoked, and ground it underfoot.

  Sarah simmered. Everything that had just happened had happened on her word. She’d shared her suspicions with Jack, and this was what came of it: Barry naked in the open air, scared for his life. Convinced the next thing coming his way was a sharp knife or a blunt object.

  If he had been Talmadge, would she have cared? She didn’t know. She didn’t know. If he’d killed women then surely he deserved everything he got. But Sarah didn’t want to be part of the punishment.

  Jack said, ‘Long and short of it, you were frightened of him. Now you’re not. That’s a result. Shall we head for the car?’

  She said, ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘What was me?’

  ‘In Gerard’s room. This morning.’

  Jack said, ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Because when I asked Barry if it had been him, he shook his head. And you didn’t tell him to answer properly.’

  He smiled. ‘That’s pretty sharp.’

  ‘And I’m right, too. Aren’t I?’

  He said, ‘When your phone went off, I nearly crapped myself.’

  ‘How do you think I felt?’

  ‘At least you had the advantage of being in the bathroom.’

  ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘I could ask you the same.’

  ‘But I asked first.’

  He said, ‘You think someone like Inchon turns up every day? Threatening to chuck money around, asking if you want any?’

  ‘And that’s a reason to break into his room?’

  ‘Hell, yes.’ He smiled again. She distrusted that smile.

  Jack relied on it too much. ‘So, okay, it’s possible that I picked up a few bad habits. A few family traits.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I wasn’t there to steal.’

  ‘I didn’t imagine you were. You wanted to know what he was really after, didn’t you?’

  ‘We’d just had a meeting, him and Brian Harper and I. We were going to have lunch. But Brian had another appointment first, so Gerard said he’d mooch around town till we were all free. I knew his room would be empty. Or thought it would.’

  ‘So what did you find?’

  He laughed. ‘I was interrupted. Remember?’

  ‘How did Gerard get in touch in the first place?’

  ‘He just did. He phoned. Said I might have heard his name – which I had, of course – and asked if I wanted to come to a gathering he was planning.’

  ‘Because he was looking for investment opportunities.’

  ‘So he said.’ Jack shook his head. ‘It’s like he was playing a part. You know, I’m a big investor. This is what I do.’

  ‘It was strange,’ she said.

  ‘It was bloody weird. He can sit at home, open his post, and get twenty-seven begging letters a day, all pointing out rich investment potential. He doesn’t have to go anywhere. And certainly doesn’t have to throw a party when he gets there.’

  ‘You were top of his list,’ she said. ‘Why would that be?’

  ‘What list?’

  ‘Trust me, there was a list. And you were at the top.’

  He said, ‘There’s no list of businessmen in this city which would have me up there. Unless you were starting at G. So God only knows where it came from.’

  God and Sarah. She said, ‘Ever hear of a firm called Roleseekers?’

  ‘Local?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Sound like headhunters. I’ve never used them.’

  She was starting to prefer answers that addressed the question. ‘So you’ve never heard of them.’

  He said, ‘No, Sarah, I’ve never heard of them.’ He produced his cigarettes again. For a supposedly once-in-a-blue-moon smoker, he was having a heavy night. ‘Are we through yet? Because there are better places to have a conversation.’

  ‘Oh, I think we’re through,’ she said.

  She turned and walked back the way she’d come, towards the faraway gate.

  ‘Sarah?’

  She kept walking.

  ‘Sarah? Don’t be silly. You’ve nowhere to go. It’s the middle of the night.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. But she didn’t turn back.

  Jack had called him Tank. He was by the gate, smoking.

  ‘Where did he go?’ Sarah asked.

  Tank pointed up the road. She started walking. But Barry was nowhere to be seen.

  That was probably just as well. Out from under Jack’s gaze, he might not be so tractable. Might, in fact, be pissed off.

  Besides, what was she going to say to him? Sorry? She’d already said that. It didn’t seem enough.

  Perhaps he’d go to the police. Any sane man would. He’d been kidnapped, assaulted – whatever Jack said, interrogating someone naked in a derelict shipyard had to count as assault.

  Sarah had lost all sense of time. When had Tank driven her here? After midnight? What did that make it now – one o’clock? Later?

  The air was still damp, and the streetlamps were haloed with mist.

  He wouldn’t go to the police, she decided. Because it wasn’t what any sane man would do. Or at least, not what any sane man who spent half his life pretending to be Australian would do.

  Besides, Jack had stripped him naked. How was that going to look?

  And you’re sure this was against your will, sir?

  She’d come to a halt, which was not a sensible thing to do on an unknown industrial estate at night. There was nobody around she could see, but that meant nothing. Jack and Tank weren’t far away – any moment now, that sharky car would ease past – and she didn’t want to be here then. She hurried to the next junction. There was a car not far up the road, engine running. People were piling out of it; piling into a lit building. Heading away from it, she walked faster.

  Tap tap said her heels to the pavement. Tap tap. So much louder at night.

  A sudden burst of sound made her jump. The wind, sending a dustbin lid surfing.

  Up ahead, traffic lights hung out their colours.

  That noise advancing on her was a car. She didn’t look round.

  It eased to match her walking pace. A voice called out.

  ‘I’m for the city centre, lady. Any use to you?’

  It was a taxi. Not in itself a guarantee of safe transport, but the driver’s round black face beamed at her like a grandfather’s.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘That would be good.’

  In her room at the Bolbec, she packed her bag. She’d had to ring a bell to get in, and the young man who opened the door wasn’t familiar. A last-minute sub for Barry, she presumed. She wasn’t about to get into a conversation about it.

  First thing she did was turn her phone on, making it buzz crossly. She had three voicemail messages, all from Russ. The first was puzzled and anxious; the second angry. The third anxious again. She rang him, reached voicemail, and left a loving, apologetic message, or hoped she did. It was always possible she’d left an incoherent, half-crazed one. She’d call again when it was light. With luck, she’d be nearly home by then.

  Lying on the floor was the Big Issue she’d made Gerard buy. Picking it up, she riffled its pages. Maybe the name would leap out at her: Madeleine Irving. 47. Missing. But who would think to announce to the world that Madeleine wasn’
t where she ought to be? Sarah’s impression had been that nobody much noticed her even when she was there. Which was exactly the target Alan Talmadge preferred, of course. And if it was indeed Madeleine, or someone like her, on that slab, then Zoë was somewhere else.

  Sarah knew that the odds of having identified a missing woman by chance were slim. But the possibility that Zoë wasn’t dead had taken root in her brain.

  The room phone rang.

  It would be Russ. But it wasn’t.

  ‘Sarah?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Just making sure you’re safe. You wandered off in a bad part of town.’

  ‘I’m fine. Packing.’

  ‘That was the other thing I wanted. For us not to part on bad terms.’

  She said, ‘You kidnapped him, Jack. We kidnapped him. And making him strip like that, putting him on that chair in the open air – that was torture. You’re aware of that, aren’t you?’

  ‘He’s not going to report it.’

  ‘I think you’re missing my point.’

  ‘No, I get your point. But you made a convincing case for him being a serial killer, Sarah. I think that entitled us to a little leeway.’

  ‘I should have just called the police.’

  ‘At the time, you had pretty sound reasons for not doing that.’

  At the time, she’d had too much to drink.

  She said, ‘I was wrong about him. Whatever I said afterwards. He’s not the person I was afraid he was.’

  ‘Which means someone else is.’

  There was little point disputing that. Whoever Talmadge was, it was clear he was no one Sarah had encountered.

  She said, ‘I’m sure you were trying to do me a favour.’

  ‘I’m glad you get that.’

  ‘But don’t do me any more.’

  He said, ‘People aren’t always who you think they are.’

  She shook her head. It was the middle of the night. She didn’t need life-lessons from second-generation gangsters.

  ‘Goodbye, Jack.’

  ‘Goodbye, Sarah.’

  ‘And tell your friend Wright – tell him he’s a lousy lunch guest.’

  ‘I will. When he turns up.’

  Sarah said, ‘What do you mean, turns up?’

  ‘Well,’ Jack told her. ‘Before the evening went topsy-turvy, he was supposed to be meeting me for a drink. But he never showed.’

  ‘I assume you’d have been buying the drink.’

  ‘That’s the pattern.’

  ‘Sounds odd, certainly.’ It was nice, having a target for venom. ‘First time I laid eyes on him, he was freeloading. Can’t imagine he’d pass up the chance.’

  ‘How do you mean, freeloading?’

  ‘At Gerard’s do. You brought him along, right?’

  Jack said, ‘Well, sort of.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He came with me, that’s true enough. But Inchon asked me to bring him.’

  ‘Gerard did?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I’d got the impression he was there on your coat-tails.’

  ‘Aye, well. That’s not how it was.’

  Sarah shook her head. What kind of sense did that make? Though it didn’t have to. It had happened, that was all. Making sense wasn’t part of the deal.

  ‘Sarah?’

  She said, ‘Goodnight, Jack.’

  Cutting him off, she sat on the bed. Did what she’d just learned make any difference? It had to. She wasn’t sure how, but it had to.

  She cast her mind back to the paper she’d found in Gerard’s room: the Roleseekers list Zoë acquired for him. John M. Wright hadn’t appeared on it, and for that reason she’d dismissed him except as a means of discovering more about Jack. Because Jack had been top of the list. She remembered that for sure.

  But maybe Jack had only been there because his presence could guarantee Wright’s.

  So the difference was that everything had just turned upside down. Wright wasn’t peripheral to the events Gerard had orchestrated: he was the reason for them. And why was that? Because Gerard really believed Wright was on the brink of a major medical breakthrough?

  Sarah thought about Wright: stuck out on a trading estate near electrical superstores. She couldn’t see a breakthrough happening there. She could believe Wright was some kind of idiot genius – the idiot part took no faith – but not that he was about to come up with a cure for anything. Not in premises like that.

  Okay – that was shallow. Genius made its own rules. Or so it would have lesser mortals believe.

  And maybe the rubbish premises, the lack of assistance, the below-par computer, were all part of the point. Maybe Gerard had recognized that if he could put these elements right – which only took money – then Wright would flourish and asthma be vanquished.

  A victory which would bring, in its wake, a lot more money.

  All of which left open the question of how Gerard knew about Wright in the first place. And why he’d approached him with subterfuge. Maybe that had been to avoid alienating Jack Gannon, the only other backer Wright had. But if so, why involve Jack at all? Gerard wouldn’t care about alienating someone he never had to meet – he didn’t give a noticeable toss about alienating those he was in daily contact with. And Wright wasn’t burdened with scruple. If Gerard had waved a cheque book, he’d have come running. Would have forgotten Jack’s name before the ink was dry.

  No, Gerard could have waltzed in, set Wright up in a dream-factory, then headed back south and waited for good news. There was no need for any of it. No need to have involved Zoë.

  And if he hadn’t, she’d not have disappeared. Maybe died.

  Perhaps she needed to reconsider John M. Wright. She’d written him off as Talmadge; couldn’t see any way he might fit. But maybe that was the point. Talmadge didn’t fit anywhere, which was why he was able to switch identities so easily.

  For maybe a minute, probably less, she gave this due consideration. Then tossed the idea away. John M. Wright, ladykiller? Whichever sense you allotted the word, that could never have happened.

  Which meant there was something Sarah was missing. Or something she’d never seen. Either seemed plausible.

  Jack’s call had interrupted her packing, which she should get on with. Last thing she wanted was to have Barry return before she’d left. If she had to place a bet, it would be that Barry wouldn’t come back here today, but she’d lost bets before. There wasn’t much to pack. She’d not been planning to stay this long.

  The tangerine soap lay on the dressing table, in its paper bag. Instead of trying to fit it into her overpacked washbag, she unzipped her holdall’s side pocket to slip it in there, and as she did so flashed back to the last time she’d done this – nothing to do with soap; something to do with a suitcase. Gerard’s suitcase. A hot flush of shame washed over her that she tried to hold at bay with rational justification. She’d been trying to find out what had happened to her friend. Searching Gerard’s room had been wrong, but she’d do it again. She might have found a clue.

  What she’d found had been a DVD of Buffy. And a collection of Internet clippings about orphanages.

  Gerard’s wife Paula had been orphanage-raised. Sarah had even been, once, to the orphanage where she’d been raised. That had been another false trail on a different quest; cause for a new flush of shame.

  Poor Paula, she thought. Poor Paula, with her poor baby.

  ‘He’s called Zachary,’ Gerard had said. ‘He has no arms. But then, he has no legs either.’

  There would be a reason for this. Jumbos don’t fall out of clear blue skies. When children are born missing parts, there’s a cause, and it’s usually discovered.

  She thought about Gerard drinking himself into oblivion. And then coming out of it, evidently, before leaving on a mission of some sort. Had he been as drunk as all that? He couldn’t have been. Nobody could have been as drunk as she’d thought him and survived a drive anywhere.

 
; And if he hadn’t been drunk, why had he told her about Zachary?

  She was still holding the soap. She tucked it into the holdall, and sat on the bed again.

  Gerard’s telling her about his son was one of the reasons she’d thought him so wasted. She couldn’t imagine him opening up like that without an alcoholic excuse. But maybe she was approaching this from the wrong direction. Maybe Gerard had needed Sarah to think he was drunk before he could open up. Protective colouring. That sounded male enough to be convincing.

  As to why he’d felt the need to open up in the first place . . .

  Again, this required male thinking. A woman wouldn’t have needed a reason to share; only the opportunity. Gerard, on the other hand, had a motive for everything he did. But even with that track record, he surely couldn’t have had a benefit in mind when he told her about Zachary. It must have been something else. Something he couldn’t be honest about, but needed to express.

  She thought: yeah, no, great. That narrows it down, Sarah.

  Except, of course, whatever the reason, it all boiled down to the same set of circumstances: Gerard being here, the people he’d met, the things he’d done.

  It made no difference. It was too late, in every possible sense. She was going to the station. The first possible train that would take her anywhere near home, she’d be on it. The next move she came up with, she’d manage from there.

  The Asian grocery was open; same cards taped to its windows; same Internet connections offered, at 75p an hour. Any city worth the name called itself 24/7, though it remained a hollow boast outside the hotspots. Here, only that same sweet shopkeeper was to be seen, sitting at one of his own monitors, reading an online newspaper in a foreign alphabet. He smiled as she came in.

  ‘You’re up early.’

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘Ah. I’ve not been to bed yet.’

  They could have spent a while, she imagined, trading tales of sleeplessness. ‘Do you have a connection available?’

  He laughed. ‘Pick a stool. Would you like some coffee?’

  She’d die for some, but remembered it came from an all-purpose vending machine. But before she could shake her head, he said: ‘There’s a cafetierè in the office. I’ll bring some out.’