Dead Men

by Leather, Stephen

  ‘The garden’s a mess, too.’

  ‘You should have seen it ten years ago,’ said Elaine. ‘Madge kept it lovely. She used to win prizes for her roses. Then she got Alzheimer’s and her husband spent all his time taking care of her so it just went downhill.’

  ‘Are they still alive?’

  ‘She died three years ago and he’s in a home. Who did you buy it from?’

  ‘My solicitor handled everything,’ said Shepherd. The kettle boiled and he poured water into a cafetière and put it, with a jug of milk and a bowl of sugar, on the table next to a large glass ashtray.

  ‘You smoke?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Shepherd. He picked up a packet of Marlboro and a disposable lighter and sat down opposite. ‘But I can wait.’

  Elaine smiled. ‘I smoke, too,’ she said, ‘and that’s my brand.’

  ‘Thank God for that, I’m dying for a cigarette,’ said Shepherd. He offered her the packet, took one for himself and lit both.

  Elaine laughed. ‘It feels almost illegal these days, doesn’t it?’

  ‘You ever tried to give up?’

  ‘A few times. You?’

  ‘My grandfather smoked his whole life and died in his sleep at eighty-seven,’ he said. ‘Cigarettes and coffee are my staples while I’m working. I don’t think I could get through the day without them.’

  ‘What is it you do?’

  ‘Website design. I specialise in purchasing systems, encouraging people to buy on-line. Boring.’ He pushed down the plunger of the cafetière and poured the coffee. ‘You said you were scared of flying. Were you serious?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ she said. ‘I know it’s totally irrational, I know that flying is pretty much the safest way of travelling, but there’s something about being in a metal tube thirty thousand feet above the ground that just seems so … unnatural.’

  ‘I do have trouble with the concept of metal being lighter than air, but they seem to work,’ said Shepherd. ‘Have you ever flown?’

  ‘Never,’ said Elaine.

  ‘That must make holidays difficult.’

  ‘Ireland’s a beautiful country,’ she said, ‘and there’s the ferry to the UK. You came over from Liverpool, right? On the Norfolkline?’

  Shepherd nodded.

  ‘I do business in Liverpool and Manchester and I use the Norfolkline every few months. I get the overnight ferry, then do a day’s work and take the night ferry back. If I need to get to London I go to Dublin and get Stena Line or Irish Ferries to Holyhead and drive from there. It’s less than twelve hours door to door and I get to use my own car. If I want to go to France I take the ferry to the UK, and Eurotunnel gets me to the Continent. I took the QE2 to the States a few years ago. Really, it’s no biggie. And I tell myself I’m doing my bit for global warming by not flying.’

  ‘Have you tried hypnosis or tablets?’

  ‘Everything,’ said Elaine. She held up her cigarette. ‘I think there’s more chance of me giving up smoking than getting me on a plane.’ She sipped her coffee. ‘Do you know many people here in Belfast?’

  ‘There’s a couple of guys who work from an office in the city, sales, mainly, but with email and the phone, there’s no need for us to meet in person. Most of the office staff are in London and I’m lucky if I see them once in three months.’

  ‘That sounds a bit sad,’ said Elaine.

  ‘It’s the way of the world,’ said Shepherd. ‘My work is mainly computer-based and it doesn’t really matter where that computer is.’

  ‘So why did you move here?’ she asked, tapping her cigarette into the ashtray.

  ‘We’ve quite a big customer base in the city and they like to see a human being from time to time. I was flying in about once a week and we decided it made more sense for me to set up here, for a while at least.’

  ‘No family?’ She opened her notebook and clicked a black Parker ballpoint pen. ‘I’ll make a few notes.’

  ‘Just little old me.’

  ‘Are you employed by a company?’

  ‘I work mainly for one firm, but I’m effectively freelance,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘So you’re self-employed?’

  Shepherd nodded.

  ‘And how much would you earn in a year?’

  ‘It varies, depending on the contracts we get. Between sixty and eighty thousand, I guess.’

  Elaine swung her briefcase on to the table and clicked open the locks. ‘This isn’t a sales pitch,’ she said, ‘but I’ve a few brochures you should read, about pensions and the like.’ She handed him some printed leaflets. ‘What about investments?’ she said.

  Shepherd shrugged. ‘This house, I guess,’ he said. ‘Some cash in the bank.’ He stubbed out his cigarette.

  ‘Pension plan?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘ISAs?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what they are. Sorry.’

  ‘So you probably don’t have a PEP tucked away?’

  ‘No idea what a PEP is, either.’

  ‘Don’t worry, that’s why I’m here to help,’ she said. ‘Shares? Unit trusts?’

  ‘Nope. Nope.’

  ‘Insurance?’

  Shepherd held up his hands. ‘I’m hopeless, aren’t I?’

  ‘You’re like most people,’ she said. ‘You’re too busy earning your money to think about investing it.’ She handed him more leaflets. ‘I can suggest a range of tax-free investments that you should think about. The big one for you is your pension. Have a look at those and see if anything interests you.’

  ‘Elaine, retirement is years away,’ said Shepherd, ‘and I’ll probably die in harness anyway.’

  She took a final drag at her cigarette and put it out, then picked up her pen again. ‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ she said, scribbling in her notebook. ‘Sixty is the new forty, these days. You want to retire at – what? Fifty-five? Sixty? You could live to be eighty or ninety. How are you going to fund all the things you want to do after you’ve retired?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Shepherd. ‘I guess I’d always assumed the state pension would kick in.’

  Elaine shook her head. ‘It will probably be all but history by then. But if you start saving now, you’ll have a decent nest egg put by for when you do retire. And with the tax you get back from the Government, the sooner you start the better.’ She tapped the leaflets. ‘Read,digest,and we’ll discuss.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Shepherd. ‘I had a teacher like you once.’

  ‘You obviously need a little discipline,’ she said. She finished her coffee and put down the mug. ‘I’ve given you enough to think about.’ She peered at her watch, a stainless-steel Cartier. ‘Plus I’ve got to be in Londonderry this afternoon.’

  Shepherd stood up and showed her out. He wasn’t sure how he should say goodbye. A handshake seemed too formal but he didn’t feel he knew her well enough to kiss her cheek.

  She was on her way down the path when she turned back. ‘What do you do for fun, Jamie?’

  ‘Television, the Internet, the regular stuff.’

  ‘Do you play pool?’

  ‘I’ve been known to pick up a cue. Why?’

  ‘Tonight’s my pool night and there’s a bunch of us going to Laverys in Bradbury Place. Come along – I’ll introduce you to some people. We’re normally there from about eight.’

  ‘I might just do that,’ said Shepherd. ‘So long as you promise not to hustle me.’

  The sky overhead was clear of clouds but there was a chill in the air and Salih turned up the collar of his overcoat as he walked along Swain’s Lane towards Highgate Cemetery. A middle-aged woman in a fleece jacket and a bobble hat asked if he was there for the funeral. Salih nodded, and she pointed up the path that led through the Victorian burial ground. Salih thanked her. The cemetery was packed with tombs and monuments, most of them overgrown with brambles and ivy. Tree roots pushed their way between the stones and moss obscured the names and dates of the long-dead.

 
The path wound to the left and Salih followed it. There were stone angels with spreading wings, massive crosses, and tombs as big as garden sheds, built to stand for centuries, in an attempt to keep alive the memory of the dead. It was a waste of time, Salih knew. A generation or two at most, then virtually everyone who lived was forgotten. Testament to that, most of the graves were untended. Only rarely were people remembered and then it was for their deeds. The greater the deed, the longer the memory. It didn’t matter whether that deed was good or bad. The great dictators of the world were remembered just as vividly as the great peacemakers. But most people lived, died and were forgotten. That was the way the world worked, and Salih had no plans to fight it. He didn’t want to be remembered. He wanted to live his life, take his pleasures where he could, and prepare himself for whatever lay beyond.

  He saw Viktor Merkulov on a wooden bench fifty feet or so from a small crowd of mourners that had gathered round four sombre men in dark suits who were lowering a mahogany coffin into the ground. Merkulov had the physique of a weightlifter that had gone to seed. His square face was topped with thinning hair and a pig-like nose with large flared nostrils. His shoulders strained against his black Burberry trenchcoat. Salih slowed and checked that no one had followed him up the path, then went to sit beside Merkulov. ‘Who died?’ he asked.

  ‘A man,’ said Merkulov. He nodded at a thirty-something woman with shoulder-length dyed-blonde hair who was dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief. ‘That’s the widow. The teenager by her side is the son.’ A boy with a crew-cut and pimply skin, wearing an ill-fitting pinstriped suit, stood beside her. He was staring at the coffin, his jaw muscles straining as he forced himself not to cry.

  ‘Did you know him?’

  ‘He was just a man.’ Merkulov lit a small, dark cigar, cupping his hand against the wind until he got it to draw.

  ‘Why do you like funerals so much?’ asked Salih.

  ‘I don’t like funerals,’ said Merkulov. ‘I like burials. I like to see the coffins being lowered into the cold, damp earth. It makes me realise how lucky I am to be alive.’

  ‘It doesn’t worry you that one day it’ll be you?’

  Merkulov chuckled. ‘I’ll be cremated, my friend, and my ashes will be scattered over Manchester United’s pitch.’

  ‘You want footballers to run over you?’

  ‘Hallowed ground,’ said Merkulov. ‘And what about you? You’ll be in Heaven with forty-two virgins, will you?’

  ‘Inshallah,’ said Salih. ‘God willing. And it’s seventy-two virgins, not forty-two.’

  ‘You really believe in your religion, don’t you?’

  ‘Without religion, what is there? Without religion we’re animals.’

  ‘And you believe in God?’

  ‘I believe there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad was his messenger. What about you? You are a believer?’

  ‘After what I’ve seen? The things I’ve done? There is no God, my friend, but if there is I’ll be sent straight to Hell.’

  ‘Then what’s the point of life?’

  ‘Procreation,’ said Merkulov. ‘Children. They are the part of us that lives on.’

  ‘Our deeds live on, too,’ said Salih. ‘What we do will be remembered. For a while at least.’

  The widow scattered a handful of earth over the coffin, then leant against the boy, tears running down her cheeks. The priest bent to mumble words of comfort, and the boy put his arm round his mother.

  ‘For a while, maybe,’ said Merkulov. ‘But children bring the only sort of immortality that truly exists. That’s why you Muslims are allowed to have more than one wife and why your leaders keep telling you to have children.’

  Salih didn’t want to argue with the Russian, especially about religion. Merkulov was an infidel, an unbeliever, lower than the animals in the field. He was something to be used, in the same way that oxen were used to toil in the fields. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, Viktor Merkulov had worked for the KGB, the Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti. He had been a high-ranking officer with the Seventh Directorate, responsible for the surveillance of foreigners and Soviet citizens. When the KGB was transformed into the Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, the Foreign Intelligence Service, Merkulov transferred to the new organisation but soon realised that his surveillance and intelligence skills were much in demand for the country’s booming private sector, especially the criminal fraternity. He went freelance and was soon reaping the benefits, buying apartments in Moscow, Paris, London and New York and amassing a small fortune in Swiss bank accounts. Salih had used him several times in the past and trusted him.

  ‘So, how can I help you, my friend?’ asked Merkulov, settling back on the bench as he watched the mourners taking turns to sprinkle soil on to the coffin. He blew out a tight plume of bluish smoke.

  ‘I am looking for two people,’ said Salih. ‘An English woman and an American man. The woman is Charlotte Button. She is based in London but I can’t find her on any electoral roll and her phone number is not listed. In the past she worked for MI5, I’m told.’

  ‘A spy?’ said Merkulov. He smiled. ‘Not a name I recognise.’

  ‘A former spy,’ said Salih. ‘She is involved in law enforcement now, but I need to know where she is working.’

  ‘And the man?’

  ‘Richard Yokely. Former CIA, now something shady within Homeland Security.’

  ‘Now that is a name that rings a bell,’ said Merkulov. ‘He is a dangerous man. A very dangerous man.’

  ‘Whereas I am a pussycat, of course,’ said Salih.

  ‘You are what you are, old friend,’ said Merkulov, ‘and I am what I am. But Yokely is in a league of his own. If you are planning to take him on, I would suggest you are well prepared.’

  ‘That’s why I’ve come to you, Viktor. And that’s why I’ll pay you well. He is former CIA, then?’

  ‘He cut his teeth in South America,’ said Merkulov. ‘He was never active in Russia, but in recent years he has worked in Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Information retrieval, I think they call it these days. Torturer-in-chief, you might say. He has been flying the world with the rendition programme, taking terrorist suspects to places where torture is still permitted. He is a frequent visitor to the Ukraine, for instance.’

  ‘Where you have contacts, I am sure.’

  Merkulov smiled. ‘I have contacts everywhere, my friend. As do you. Yokely was with the Intelligence and Security Command, also known as the Tactical Concept Activity, a black ops group that was run from somewhere deep within the Pentagon. And he left them to join Grey Fox.’

  Salih raised his eyebrows. ‘Ah,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve heard of Grey Fox?’

  ‘A presidential assassination squad,’ said Salih. ‘Government-sanctioned killers.’

  ‘Off the top of my head I’m not sure if he’s still with Grey Fox, but it gives you an indication of the calibre of the man,’ said Merkulov.

  ‘I’ll need photographs, and I’ll pay whatever it takes to get an itinerary.’

  ‘I shall do what I can,’ said the Russian. ‘But with a man like Yokely, I shall have to tread carefully.’

  Salih smiled. ‘You and me both,’ he said. ‘Payment on your usual terms?’

  ‘One of the few things in life that does not change,’ said Merkulov.

  Salih took an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to the Russian. Merkulov slid it into his pocket without opening it. He did not check the contents. He knew that the ten-thousand-pound retainer would be in used notes, as usual.

  ‘Are you staying?’ asked Salih, as he stood up.

  ‘I like to hear the soil thudding on the coffin,’ said Merkulov. ‘It sounds like closure.’

  ‘I’m surprised you don’t dance on the grave after they’ve finished.’

  The Russian frowned. ‘Why would I do that?’ he asked, confused.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Salih, an
d walked away.

  Shepherd arrived at Laverys at a quarter past eight. He’d changed into faded jeans and a dark blue blazer over a white polo shirt. Laverys was a traditional Irish bar with a red and black frontage. There were stairs on the left that led up to the third-floor pool bar. A sign on the door warned that there was a dress code – no baseball caps or tracksuit bottoms. He pushed open the door and went in. A Chuck Berry song was blaring out from the speakers on the walls, and everything was painted black – the walls, floors and ceiling – and the bar to the left was staffed by young men in black shirts. He bought himself a Jameson’s and soda then leant against the bar to look about him.

  The third floor was a labyrinth of small rooms filled with pool tables. Most of the clientele were young men in sweatshirts and jeans who would probably have been more comfortable in baseball caps and tracksuit bottoms. He saw Elaine in a room facing the bar, leaning over a table and showing several inches of cleavage through a pale blue silk shirt. She played the shot, then straightened. When she spotted him, she waved him over.

  There were three tables in the room, and two fruit machines. Elaine was playing against a man in his late forties, tall with broad shoulders, a strong chin and bright blue eyes. Shepherd knew immediately that he was a police officer, and a senior one at that. He had a policeman’s watchful eyes, and a confident way of standing that suggested he could take pretty much anything that was thrown at him. Shepherd and he made eye contact and Shepherd went into grey-man mode, dropping his shoulders, glancing at the floor and tugging at the sleeve of his blazer.

  ‘Jamie, good to see you,’ said Elaine, air-kissing him on both cheeks. He caught a hint of her perfume. ‘This is an old friend, John.’

  ‘Less of the “old”, please, Elaine,’ said the man. He held out his hand. ‘John Maplethorpe.’

  ‘Jamie Pierce.’ Shepherd shook hands with Maplethorpe, firm but not too firmly, and averted his eyes. He didn’t want Maplethorpe to gain the impression that Jamie Pierce was an alpha male or in any way a threat to him.

  A couple in their early thirties were playing at the next table. Elaine introduced them as Kevin and Rosalyn Brimacombe. The man was also a policeman and he studied Shepherd carefully as they shook hands.