by Craig Thomas
He studied the window and then broke the small pane nearest the catch.
Pushed it open, then eased it up on the sash, holding his breath.
Waited-exhaled loudly. There could be a dozen devices, a dozen ways to set off one device… Gant climbed slowly over the windowsill and stepped into the room.
He listened to the undisturbed, unalarming silence, then crossed to the door.
Another six inches open and the wire would have parted from its contact and… yes, the tiny box was a transmitter. He looked up, towards the beamed ceiling, low and near his head. Taped to one of the beams was a short tube. Six steps into the room from the door, perhaps a five-second fuse, or even ten to account for any intruder's caution, then the detonation.
He stood for a moment studying the dull metal of the tube, the colourless tape, the grain and knots of the beam to which the device was attached. Strickland might have assumed that no one local, no one innocent, would push open his door but it didn't matter anyway. The message would have remained the same even if French security or anyone else had read the item in a newspaper. Don't come after me, stay out of my back yard.
He looked around the room. The sunlight through the two sets of shutters he had opened revealed an orderliness, a contentment. An old dresser, better than the one in the house in Iowa he had waited years to escape from, was vivid with heavily decorated plates, china cups.
There were paintings on the whitewashed walls that bulged pregnantly with the history of the old building. Sofas covered with bold, stylish cloth, a deeply polished dining table.
He moved warily through to the kitchen… found an animal's bowl, empty of food, the crocks washed and slotted into a plastic drainer, little dust. A neatly folded newspaper in the trash can, no wiring on the rear door. NoIR boxes, no wires that disappeared beneath rugs.
Strickland had left just the one clear message. Where was the animal?
He looked through the window towards the barn, then returned to the big room, out of which a staircase creaked to the first floor. He climbed the worn treads carefully, pausing at each one.
A narrow corridor, two bedrooms, neat in the gloom of shutters, a bathroom.
There was nothing in the bathroom cabinet or the shower cubicle.
He returned downstairs, checked his watch, listened to the continuing silence.
Then he began his search, turning out each of the kitchen drawers, opening all the cupboards. A packet of sugar, coffee the icebox was empty. No calendar, no notepad. He searched the big, gnarled dresser, polished almost to dullness, removing each of the drawers, emptying the cupboards. Strickland evaded him like a wraith, like smoke. Either there had never been anything personal that wasn't on a laptop or it had been methodically cleared from the house before Strickland had left. Check the garbage
A sideboard yielded nothing. He heard the ticking of an old, thick-wasted, big hipped clock that stood against one wall. It became louder and louder, mocking him. Time going, time wasted. Clock—?
He opened the door in its belly and checked the weights. The pendulum flashed dull brass, the lead weights were near the floor. The key, shaped like a pump handle, was inside the door on a string, but there was nothing else. Had Strickland come back here after Oslo?
He opened a small desk using a kitchen knife to break the toy-like lock. It was empty. He opened each drawer and replaced it, his frustration a hot anger. He thrust the last drawer back violently, meeting a small resistance. He pushed again, and something crackled, like stiff card being folded by the thrust of the drawer. He yanked it out and bent to look into the shadowy space. Carefully, he withdrew the small obstruction… a creased snapshot. He smoothed it on the inlaid leather of the desk.
Strickland stared out at him, a severe, hardly permitted smile on his face, his eyes narrowed against the sun. It was some years old, by his appearance. He was the age he had been when the Company still employed him. He was standing with one foot raised on a fence no, it was the railing of some kind of jetty. There were mountains, still snow-tipped, in the distance, and the water of a river or lake rather than the ocean blearily behind the figure.
It was the only tangible indication that Strickland had ever been in the house. Gant put the snapshot in the pocket of his windcheater. The clock ticked, the only other sign of recent habitation.
He looked around the room again. He had been there for almost a half-hour. He listened to the silence that stretched away into the distance, interrupted only by the noises of birds, the occasional lowing of cows. There was nothing else downstairs, except maybe a garbage can in the yard. He'd better check upstairs first.
Fifteen minutes later, he knew that the snapshot was the only thing Strickland had overlooked, except some hair in the drain hole of the shower. He'd either had little there that was personal, or he'd been as thorough in removing all trace of himself as he was when bomb-making. Again, the sensation that the man was lost to him assailed Gant, maddening him as hornets would have done. He crashed a fist against the old plaster of the bedroom wall, hearing its thick hollowness, sensing the blow's force die away in the heavy stones of the house. He'd returned to this room, the larger of the two with the better view over the countryside, after checking the cramped rooms in the roof-space. Dust, dead insects, the rustle of swallows building or feeding young. Nothing else.
He leaned back against the wall, his face raised to the beamed ceiling.
The room smelt of old plaster and abandonment. The bed was neatly made, with the mocking suggestion that Strickland planned to return. He opened the window. Gradually, the scent of grass and flowers and the afternoon heat wafted towards him. Gant's breathing calmed. It was impossible now. Strickland was gone, period… Eventually, his hands pushed him away from the wall and his line of sight fell across the window. The land dropped away from the house towards the Dordogne valley where limestone outcrops were raised like a ragged dyke against the afternoon sky. The specks of cattle, the orderliness of walnut groves, golden houses… For a moment, the dark clothing made Gant believe he was seeing a scarecrow. A figure was walking towards the farmhouse, moving with a caution and slowness that was not entirely caused by the slope of the land. He crouched beside the window. The figure came on, unaware of him, almost bent double at moments, frequently pausing. Then one arm was waved and Gant saw a second figure rise above some sudden contour of the land. As he watched, the two figures began scurrying the last hundred yards or so towards the house. White faces, hands… He made out the shapes of weapons.
Gant hurried towards the door, across the corridor into the second bedroom.
Pressing against the wall, he peered round the window frame. Another figure was on one knee, weapon trained, two hundred yards away.
Three at least. They knew he was there. The house had been under surveillance and he'd failed to spot it. He'd walked right into the trap.
PART THREE
FAMILIAR MIDNIGHT
Rich rich the Emperor's desmesnes
And all the palaces, how resplendent
The imperial road emerging from the wood
The palace roofs all brandishing bright flags.
But our prime longing lay in the blue hills
And to keep the company of the white clouds…
Wang Wei, Poem of the Melon Garden
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Innocence and Experience Aubrey, Laxton and Pyott sat with their sherries near the great chimneypiece of coloured marbles in the Library of the Club. Three men of years, distinction and some renown who might have been taken by an observer to be comfortably at one with their surroundings. Intrinsic to the pageant of power, privilege and patronage in the high-ceilinged room; suitable additions to the lines of grand portraits or the murals of victories in foreign wars.
Yet to Aubrey's sharp, rather sour inner eye, they were simply three old men, two of whom were rendered ineffectual by lack of office and the third a political trimmer who had gone to the bad, dirtied his hands in a massive fraud.
A spy and a soldier pretending to the moral heights while their companion complacently walked the valley of the shadow of avarice… amusing, in another context. They were, perhaps, a frieze for the times.
"Your health, John," Aubrey proposed. Laxton smiled sleekly in response, with a glance at his watch suggestive of the preciousness of his own time.
Pyott sipped his sherry, frowning at the gesture.
"Kenneth," Laxton purred, looking around him, measuring the living against the portraits of the dead, against his own prestige. He seemed eager to exchange nods of familiarity, to give and receive deference.
"Very good of you to offer me lunch a light one, though, I think, in the circumstances." The smile appeared indelible, recently painted. As a politician, he had often seemed harassed on television or in the House. As a Commissioner, he was Olympian.
A present member of the Cabinet passed with a friendly nod. Laxton responded as eagerly as he might have done to a call-girl.
The trough is likely to be laden this evening, then, is it?" Pyott asked gruffly, as if the murals had suddenly reminded him of the sole relationship it was possible to have with Europe. Wellington on horseback, his army behind him, clashing with the French at Salamanca.
Laxton remained unperturbed.
"I heard your girl's not above accepting the Commissions hospitality, Giles," he murmured. Pyott's momentary scowl was as sharp as if Laxton's mention of Marian contained an open threat.
"Doubtless we shall all be treated to another seminar on the iniquities of Brussels, over the canapes."
"A hit, Giles," Aubrey soothed, smiling with a dazzling innocence.
"I suggest the sole, John, if you wish to preserve your appetite and I think a Corton Charlemagne to start. You can continue with the bottle while Giles, who so evidently feeds exclusively on red meat, will probably join me in sharing the claret." He leaned back in the deep, high-backed leather armchair, innocence becoming a look of limited intelligence and great complacency on his cherubic features.
Laxton sighed in anticipation.
"Do you know, Giles," Aubrey announced, "I found our old companion-in harness dear Gilbert, in rather liverish mood at the board meeting this morning."
"Liverish? That young wife of his hasn't upped and left, has she?"
Laxton's attention seemed satisfactorily drawn, as if Aubrey were opening a small leather moneybag which contained that most priceless of the metals of government, gossip. In this instance concerning a former Permanent Secretary at the Department of Trade and Industry.
"I think not. I merely enquired as to whether there had ever been any interest at the DTI, during his tenure, in Marian's suggestions of misplaced funds and dubious payments over this' — Laxton s features allowed a purplish suspicion to spread like a stain over his self-satisfaction 'urn, Millennium Regeneration Project, in the Midlands." The sherry at his lips seemed to tickle the back of Laxton's throat. Pyott glanced warningly at Aubrey, who persisted: "I just wanted to be clear whether there had been any form of internal enquiry into the rumours that were current in the House and the press—"
His eyes sharpened their glance the moment Laxton interrupted him.
"Surely that was just Private Eye — type nonsense, designed to embarrass?" he insisted, adding as he glanced at Pyott: "Just the sort of thing to get your daughter aerated!" His chuckle was thick with confidence.
"Exactly what Gilbert said, in much the same tone of voice — dismissive," Aubrey demurred. There you have it, you see. Anyone who so much as raises the subject is laughed at as a fool." He shook his head, as if reproving Pyott. The gesture deflected Laxton's suspicion.
"But surely the net was spread a little wider than Private Eye, John?"
A steward approached. Aubrey glanced at the lunch menu and the wine list on his lap, then closed the heavily leather bound volumes with a snap. Laxton stumbled his order to Aubrey.
'… and for General Pyott and myself, the smoked salmon to start, followed by the Beef Wellington. A Corton-Charlemagne and the '83 Chateau Palmer. Thank you, George." Aubrey rubbed his hands in anticipation.
"Splendid. Now, where were we—? Ah, yes. John's stout defence, echoing that of Gilbert, of the probity of the funding for the Millennium Regeneration Project—"
"What is your interest in this, Kenneth?" Laxton enquired, his eyes hooded, his sherry glass on the low table between them.
There curiosity?"
Aubrey shrugged expansively, smiling at a passing former Permanent
Secretary at the Foreign Office, a man affable by nature, seized with enmity in all his dealings with Aubrey and the intelligence services, until their mutual retirement. Apparently, a moral distaste for espionage and subterfuge — when not the private fiefdom of the diplomatic service had inspired his antagonism.
"Probably. You know how it is, the smell of the battle afar off, the old warhorse thing."
"You're wasting your time, Kenneth, you really are!" Laxton assured.
"As Gilbert affirmed."
"Seriously, Kenneth I am the Commissioner for Urban Development, after all. I would know!"
"Did you?" Pyott asked abruptly, exact in his timing. Laxton was disconcerted.
"DidlwhatT "Know."
There was nothing to know."
"When questions were asked? You did enquire?"
Laxton's features were blustery with suspicion.
The DTI felt that the press rumours ought to be confronted, and confounded. The then President of the Board of Trade—"
"Whose office is reputedly the largest in Whitehall!" Pyott barked.
'-contacted me. I was able to assure him that he could, with the utmost confidence, refute the allegations of—"
"Fraud? Misappropriation of funds?" Aubrey interjected.
"You're certain? There are all sorts of rumours, you know, John. We'd just like to be certain."
"You? Why should you require reassurance?" There was a cunning in Laxton's expression. His wave in response to the mouthed greeting of a former Cabinet colleague was perfunctory, distracted. Contempt for their superannuation mingled with a desire to probe the depth of their suspicion. Tell me that, Kenneth.
Whatever can it be to do with you?"
Aubrey's past confronted Laxton, giving birth to the suspicion that he might be on some kind of temporary assignment. His questions might be being asked on behalf of…? It had been the tactic which had suggested itself to Aubrey, and towards which he had guided Giles.
Laxton could not know, with any degree of certainty, who in reality was the originator of the questions put to him by a former Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee did old spies, after all, ever really retire? Laxton's confusion amused.
"I'm not at liberty to divulge," whispered Aubrey, leaning forward in his chair.
"You know how these things work."
' What things, precisely?"
"Word to the wise… could you just check something for us, that kind of thing," Aubrey murmured. Indeed, the Club was exactly suited to the conversation. The chimneypiece dwarfed even tall men, suggesting conspiratorial groupings, activities.
"Nothing to worry about, John. Just an assurance sought."
"Assurance of what?"
That there is nothing to come out no detonations to be anticipated."
Laxton evidently regarded Aubrey as a potential ally, Giles as an intruder.
"It's why Giles is here, principally," Aubrey explained.
"We want to be able to assure Marian quieten her. Soothe." Again, he leaned forward. There are some rather alarming instances of work curtailed, of late payments or no payments at all… and your department at the Commission, we know, provided the funding, passed on the grants… mm?"
There's nothing in all this, Kenneth!" Laxton protested, his forehead heated and pink. The money has been disbursed by Brussels by my authority, I suppose and the project is—" '-not on track!" Pyott snapped.
"No, it's no good soothing me, Kenneth. My girl'
s not the only one to have heard rumours. You may think you can cover up—" Aubrey raised his hand in warning.
"Giles, please? he demanded with mock exasperation.
"I'm sorry, John. You were saying—?"
The project's own complexities account for any delays there may have been, Kenneth. David has assured me—" He appeared to have startled himself.
"You'll see. Go and look for yourself, why not?" His confidence returned like blood-flow released from a tourniquet.
Aubrey felt disappointment like a stone in his chest. After a moment's insight, Laxton was sufficiently confident to become dismissive. He really did have nothing to fear. The diverted river of funding had been restored to its proper course towards the Millennium Regeneration Project.
"Was there a proper DTI investigation?"
"So far as I am aware, there was. As there was at the Commission."
Giles, still in character, harrumphed loudly. Aubrey's smile was bland, retentive.
Laxton, their best, weakest target, could not be shaken. The recent past held no ghosts that would come back to haunt him. He felt safe.
It depended, then, on Gant and Marian.
The line of perspiration along his forehead was like an old branding mark, claiming ownership. His palms were clammy against the old, whitewashed plaster as he pressed back against the wall of the smaller bedroom. A man kneeling, rifle raised, drawing a bead on the house, the slight movements of the barrel caused by his telescopic sight's surveillance of each of the house's windows.
With a great effort he pushed himself away from the wall and across the polished floorboards. A bright rug was disturbed by his clumsy steps.
He crossed the narrow landing and crouched his way to the window of the main bedroom. Slowly, he raised his head at the edge of the window.
His heart was pounding, like panicked footsteps hurrying away from there.
The two men were no more than forty yards from the house and only a few yards apart. Gant smelt the must, age, wood of the house. The afternoon was heady in the empty, closed farmhouse. Both men were dressed in black, accustomed to this kind of encounter. Gant's hand scrabbled for the loops of the rucksack and dragged it across the floor to his side. The two men, seeming to have communicated some silent decision to each other, came on quickly towards the shadow thrown by the house.