A Different War

by Craig Thomas

  … He brought his arms together again as the man lunged back at him, striking with one forearm, then with the flat of his hand to the throat in what seemed a palsied effort. Coughing, he punched twice at the midriff, once to the head, then struck again with his flattened hand, then with a thrust of his knee, slipping on underwater stones. He hit the man again and again, beating him to his knees then into a prone lump, face down in the inches of clear water… No coughing. He staggered, leaning back against the bank… A shadow amid the dappling of the poplars, twenty yards along the ditch. He struggled for the revolver, still in his waistband, drawing it out exaggeratedly, like a drunk. The shadow glanced aside behind a narrow tree hole.

  Gant struggled to run, one hand massaging his throat, the other holding the gun as if he wished only to drop it. He turned wildly and fired behind him, the weight of the rucksack across his shoulders unbalancing him. Then he staggered on before launching himself at the low bank of the ditch and scrambling out. Oaks next… oaks. Then another field, then trees… Shots. He dropped.

  On one knee he watched a man in a check shirt and denims hurry from beneath the poplars into the afternoon sunlight. He fired twice, holding the revolver stiff armed his left hand clasping his right wrist. The target was clipped backwards, to lie prone, as quickly and non-humanly as on a practice range. Gant got to his feet and ran brokenly down the field towards the oaks, blundering into their shadow, hurrying through patches of sunlight and shade, out into the long, sloping field above which a skylark poured a song that rippled outwards to encompass the whole field. The song seemed to fill his ears.

  More trees… He dragged himself to a halt, gripping the trunk of an oak, staring wildly back up the field towards the other clump of trees.

  There was a figure kneeling beside an invisible something, and another man hovering at the edge of the oaks, uncertain now that he was exposed. He had, perhaps, two or three minutes. The noise of traffic, the hoot of a horn and the acceleration of an engine, urged him to move.

  The ground rose in a hump, as if there was a mass grave beneath, then dropped towards the abbey church's squat, frowning tower. He realised he was walking over buried fortifications. He emerged from the trees at the end of the village street. Hot, shadowy normality. The yellow limestone wall of the church flung its afternoon shadow over him. Two men, unsurprised by his sudden appearance, were talking beside a Citroen pickup. One of them wore a beret, the other a black soutane — parishioner and priest. There was a smell of sun-warmed vegetables from the back of the truck. Its engine remained idling; the only noise of which he was aware. He glanced behind him. There was still no sign of his pursuers, the killing had slowed them, as if they were the next terrified cattle to enter an abattoir. He controlled his stride, walking with the casual dislocation and curiosity of a tourist.

  The priest and the pickup's driver remained engaged in their own rapid conversation, aware of him, anticipating that they would have to struggle with English or German or some other language in order to set him on his course.

  He half-raised his hand in polite enquiry, apologising for interrupting them. The young priest seemed less reluctant to acknowledge his existence… his face altering its expression as surprise seeped into it. Gant had climbed into the cab of the pickup. The gears clashed, harsh as the owner's cry of protest. He let off the brake and accelerated the Citroen, skidding as he over steered then righting the truck, its engine small-sounding as a sewing machine, the protests of its owner fading behind him, like his diminishing figure in the rearview mirror. The priest stood with his hands on black hips, bemused. Then there was a third figure beside the two, then a fourth-He wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his windcheater. His hands were clammy on the steering wheel. Relief made him weak. He struggled the map from his breast pocket. He needed side roads, they knew what vehicle to look for Already champagne flutes together with the odd crumpled napkin or bone-china plate carelessly decorated the tops of the illuminated glass cases which displayed engravings. A little of modernity in the first-floor room of the Musee des Beaux Arts which austerely celebrated Bruegel.

  Marian was standing in admiration before the painting known as Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. White, thrashing legs sticking out of the green water as a peasant ploughed unconcernedly at a stubborn headland's soil, a shepherd rested on his crook, and a third man fished, ignoring the tragedy. A ship sailed unaware towards a white port. She felt as if she had foolishly snatched a moment in which to reassert her bluestocking credentials amid a noisy, headlong party; and her vanity was making her parade her intellect and taste.

  There was, of course, a fourth man in the picture, almost hidden by bushes, at the end of the ploughed land. His head, white-haired and balding, stuck out from the undergrowth; he was dead, unexplainedly so.

  No one noticed him, either. She shivered, as if she had moved apart simply in order to be afraid. She rubbed her arms beneath the stuff of the scarlet jacket. That and her blouse ought to have been sufficiently warm the temperature at which one viewed priceless paintings in museums was stifling. Nevertheless, she felt very cold.

  As she had tried to nap in the suite at the Amigo, take her shower, makeup carefully in the bedroom mirror, their faces had continued to appear to her like a troop of ghosts in a dream.

  She, the soldier's daughter, could neither discipline nor defeat her fears. So, she continued to stare at the painting, the noise of the cocktail reception behind her solid as a wall, while the images of

  David, Campbell, the lout Fraser, Rogier, Laxton, others, continued their effort to take form within the canvas. Her attention could be distracted only by the waving, drowning legs and the sticking-out head of the dead man.

  Later, they would dine at the outrageously expensive La Maison du Cygne in the Grand' Place, but this preliminary was cultural Brussels almost as if designed solely to seduce her. Her colleagues, for the most part, glanced at the paintings as if they were passing through a room in a museum of anthropology amid the flotsam and potsherds of a lost civilization. To her, the room whispered Come and join us, we're civilised, too… but in the voice of the Commission.

  The feeble joke palled. The dead man was still there in the painting, Icarus had still fallen into the sea for flying too high, not knowing his place and showing good sense. Just like her. Campbell and Rogier, the Commissioner who had been Michael Lloyd's superior, seemed aware of her unsettled fears, and too aware of their complicity to be quite natural in their manner. It was as if they were waiting for David to arrive to pull their puppets' strings. Icarus the boastful, his hybris punished in one small corner of the canvas, was surrounded by indifference… Her demise would be just like his.

  She twitched visibly at the sound of a drawling voice beside her.

  "I take it I was reading your habitual Leveller preoccupations again in last week's Economist, Marian? Fittingly anonymous, of course." Peter Cope, nudging at junior ministerial office head butting at the door, some preferred to observe.

  Small, neat, expensively suited and coif fured; blameless, lifeless eyes. Someone had said of him that they had never known utter lack of ideas and beliefs could be engaging until they met Peter Cope.

  "Yes, Peter, you were," she drawled in riposte.

  "Mea culpa, I'm afraid again." Even Peter Cope had his uses. She rallied because of the banter. The article was one she had contributed to a continuing debate on the future of the British constitution, hers under the title Who is Represented? Even Peter Cope had heard of the seventeenth-century Levellers.

  "You're becoming in need of a new tune, Marian," Cope ridiculed.

  "No one's going to bring back the Civil War just to please you."

  She smiled faintly, mockingly.

  "And my father would certainly have been a King's man I know. But the party has to do something, Peter even the Barbours and the green wellies are deserting us in droves and at high speed in their off-road vehicles," she added.

  "Drop it, Marian," he snap
ped in exasperated dislike, dimly sensing he was punching well above his weight and the effort was wearying.

  "God, it's hot in here," he flung at the room and shuffled away.

  Her cold stare had been little more than a further attempt to ward off her fears, Peter its unfortunate recipient. She felt a sudden desire to hurry back into the knots and cabals of the reception. Commission civil servants moved as assiduously as the waiters, topping up bonhomie, confidence, complicity, as quickly and certainly as the champagne flutes were refilled. Rogier still remained conspiratorially close to Campbell, beneath the canvas of The Fall of the Rebel Angels, a painting more like Bosch than Bruegel, filled with the energy of tangled limbs, great flying wings and damnation. Butterflies, birds and weird fish represented the metamorphosed damned while God's team flew above them, blowing great trumpets; above Rogier and Campbell too, though they seemed supremely unaware of the fact. Or perhaps they still numbered themselves among the un fallen righteous angels?

  They were, however, curiously diminished by the painting above their heads, and she found herself able to breathe more easily. Rogier, especially, as Campbell was distracted from his side by his tour-guide's duties, seemed deflated, even guilty.

  She watched Campbell dive into a small sc rum of her colleagues and Commission functionaries with the eagerness of a sportsman. Rogier's glass was refilled and he seemed self-consciously aware of his momentary isolation. She hurried towards him.

  Her features must have declared her sudden, invigorated determination, for the tall, slightly stooping, elegantly slim Frenchman flinched from her approach as if she was armed.

  "M'sieur Commissaire," she murmured.

  "Marian Pyott." She thrust out her hand. He was reluctant to take it; his eyes revealed his anxious knowledge of her.

  Nevertheless, he bowed formally.

  "Of course, of course one of our most formidable opponents," he rallied.

  "A pleasure to welcome you to Brussels on behalf of the Commission." His eyes seemed to seek support from the others in the room.

  Marian pounced with: "We have a mutual acquaintance, M'sieur Rogier that is, until recently. Michael Lloyd. We spoke of him over the telephone after his death—"

  "Yes, of course. So unfortunate tragic

  …"

  She felt her body heated with eagerness. She knew she must force the pace.

  "I had a word with someone at the Police Judiciaire—" Marian offered.

  Would Rogier recognise the lie at once? His eyes narrowed with calculation before adopting a purported concern.

  "On the advice of someone in London in security You see, knowing Michael as I did, I just couldn't believe the overdose theory."

  The police? I understood that they were satisfied with the cause of death, that it was not suspicious…?" Rogier murmured, stooping close to her face, his eyes darting once more over her shoulder, presumably towards Campbell.

  Marian sipped her warm champagne.

  "I think I managed to create a little doubt in that quarter."

  They will re-open the case?"

  "I hope so."

  She was fiercely satisfied with his anxiety, the evidence that he was at a loss.

  Rogier's features seemed burdened as well as furtive. He probably knew, and had diplomatically filed and forgotten, the cause of Lloyd's death. He remained silent, an actor who had dried on stage.

  "Marian-!" It was Campbell, interposing himself like a bodyguard between them, one hand lightly on her shoulder, the other on Rogier's forearm, steadying the man.

  "Not cornering the Commissioner, surely?"

  Angered at the bluff emptiness of the tone, she snapped: "We were talking of Michael Lloyd, nothing controversial!" Exhilarated at his evident rebuff, she added wildly: "It was absolutely nothing to do with my dangerous theories on the subject of Aero UK, Ben no need to worry!"

  She suppressed a shiver of tension. The charged atmosphere between them was like a cone of hot silence. At the edge of the painting, the frogs and fish gaped, tumbling from heaven. Then Campbell's features were lit with pleasure. His hand waved.

  "David!" he called like a threat. Rogier's relief was shiny on his high forehead.

  Marian turned.

  Winterborne had entered the room accompanied by Laxton and the President of the Commission, the three of them trailing a comet-tail of minor functionaries and assorted businessmen.

  She swallowed carefully. Winterborne's gaze focused on her. Rogier was whispering to Campbell, whose hand was making denying motions. The Commissioner was being assured she was bluffing. She moved away, smiling.

  Winterborne and the President received champagne as reverently as the Host while acolytes seemed magnetically drawn towards their group from every part of the room. The President at once engaged the Chairman of the Select Committee, his hand cupping an elbow, his ear still half-bent to the aide who had identified the man. Henry, the senior Opposition MP was openly amused as their chairman actually blushed at whatever compliments his dignity was being paid. He grinned at Marian.

  "We meet again," David murmured.

  "You didn't expect me to be here?" she asked.

  He raised his glass as if to toast her.

  "I knew you'd be here, my little blue-stocking. The art is too good for you to miss."

  True."

  Campbell was with them, drawing David instantly aside with little pretence at subtlety, whispering urgently. Deliberately, she wandered away towards the napkin-littered glass cases which contained the engravings on loan to the musee from the Bibliotheque Royale. She peered down at The Festival of Fools, her neck tickling with the sense that Campbell was reporting her bluff. She shivered as she moved along the row of cases. Small landscapes, then The Poor Kitchen an dits companion, The Rich Kitchen.

  David appropriately rejoined her as she pretended to study The Battle between the Money Banks and the Strongboxes. It suddenly seemed as dramatic as the painting of the angels in combat.

  "Ah the perfect allegory for your taste, eh, Squirt?" His tone was warm and she hated the memories it at once evoked.

  "You know me, Davey," she responded as innocently as she could.

  "And look, a sleeping pedlar being robbed by monkeys — and there, Luxury, and here Justice and Prudence… I had no idea this trip would be so educational!"

  "Marian," he sighed, shaking his head. His eyes glanced towards Campbell.

  "Always stirring things up, Squirt. Twas ever thus…" His gaze hardened. He snatched at her arm and drew her to his side, huddling them away from seekers and purveyors of influence alike. Gales of laughter at a poor witticism, a mood of enjoyable sycophancy, and the mutual acknowledgement of elites.

  "Marian, please," he whispered. She stopped, turning to him.

  "What?" Her innocence was pronounced, provocative. His lips narrowed, his eyes flashed.

  "For God's sake," he warned without disguise.

  "Just stop whatever it is you think you're doing!"

  "What am I doing?" I He had pleaded with her like this as a boy, in his better moments. Begged her to desist, to accept, to agree… before he hurt or excluded her. His hand was gripping her arm painfully, like pincers. She drew away, rubbing her arm.

  "Will you stop?" he asked. There was the shadow of a plea in his voice.

  After a long moment, she shook her head.

  "I can't," she said softly, hoarsely. Ms computer, his computer, she heard in her head like the chanting of a mantra.

  "I can't, Davey-!" she blurted as if in pain, remembering his childhood cruelty.

  He nodded stiffly.

  "I didn't think you could. I had to ask." Voices were demanding his presence. As he turned from her, she sensed his well-being at once restored, his awareness of his power seep back. They were adults again. Campbell hovered, waiting to direct his master towards the most necessary handshakes and pleasantries. David's shoulders were set, his expression evidently threatening, by the mirror that was Campbell's face.

>   You fool, you bloody, bloody fool, she told herself. She was, indeed, very frightened. However, she gradually calmed herself by concentrating on her mantra… Ms computer, his computer, his computer

  … Tonight or tomorrow morning she must gain access to David's laptop. It would be in his suite. She had to get hold of it, there'd be proof abundant there… David, she tried to convince herself, was a superstitious creature, a character of habit and custom. He had to be he had to still be using those old passwords.

  Robbie was long dead and he couldn't possibly know that she knew them too.

  However stupid and far-fetched, she had to try.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In the Machine The morning sun haloed the Gothic turrets and spires, and the baroque roof statuary of the Grand' Place. From the windows of the suite's lounge, David Winterborne saw them as the back of a movie set. There was gold, pinked marble, stone, the flickering of birds.

  The murmur of traffic was fended off by secondary glazing.

  Seven-fifteen. Fraser sat on the sofa, an impatient, barely restrained machine.

  Winterborne had chosen to sit at the desk, in the leather swivel chair, toying with his fat black pen with his long fingers, his bathrobe closed primly over his knees.

  '… must have gone Stateside, on an early tourist flight. That's the best Roussillon's been able to do, trace him as far as Schipol. He's going home—"

  "After Strickland?" Winterborne asked quickly.

  Fraser shrugged.

  "Could be."

  The man's features were pinched with anticipation, and something like resentment.

  For Winterborne, Fraser's presence obscured the vista of the day's anticipated successes. The Skyliner flight, the publicity that would attend it, the assiduousness of EC officials Fraser had come to his suite with dirty moral hands, informing him of Gant's escape, and demanding that he commit himself irrevocably regarding Marian.