Jean-Luc, who never bothered much with words, had truly appalling English and Andrea was doing her best to translate her feelings about the funeral into what little schoolgirl French she could remember. She, like the rest of us, couldn’t stop talking about the swans. They’d appeared after the memorial service in the wake of the Mustang, holding a perfect V formation, and the drunker Andrea got, the more graphic her arm movements became. She’d long ago given up on the French for ‘swan’ and instead kept circling poor Jean-Luc, dipping her head, arching her neck and flapping her arms around. It looked more like charades than seduction and when one of Jean-Luc’s mates stepped in and acted as translator, the expression on his face brought the house down.
‘lAh, les cygnes.’ Jean-Luc backed towards the windows. ‘Je comprends.’
I was at the other end of the room, doing circuits and bumps with a tray of hot-cross buns, watching Andrea through a forest of heads. At first I thought the pressure on my elbow was accidental, someone jostling for space. I glanced round. It was Steve Liddell. I’d never seen him in a suit before.
‘Steve,’ I said. ‘You made it.’
‘Yeah.’ He ducked his head. ‘I’m sorry. I got… lost.’
At first, unlike the rest of us, I thought he was stone-cold sober. Then, with a shock, I realised he was very drunk indeed. I’d invited him over for the service, of course, and I’d even put in a phone call a couple of days ago to check whether he’d be coming, but when I’d got no answer and he hadn’t turned up at the church, I’d assumed he must be away.
‘When did you get here?’
Steve was looking round, searching - I thought - for faces he recognised. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone looking so lost. Harald was over by the fireplace, deep in conversation with Ralph Pierson. Steve caught his eye but Harald barely acknowledged him.
I tried again.
‘Did you fly over?’
Steve turned back to me. When I repeated the question, he shook his head. Then said yes.
‘This morning,’ he added thickly.
‘Southampton?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you got the ferry over?’ ‘Yes. Red thing.’
‘So why didn’t you join us?’ I gestured around. ‘Couldn’t you find the church?’
He looked at me. He seemed to be brooding over the answer, sorting something out in his head. Finally, he beckoned me closer. ‘I came to say sorry,’ he mumbled.
‘What for?’
‘Adam.’ He nodded, ‘Adam.’
He laid his hand on my arm. He had big, broad, heavy hands, the nails rimmed with ingrained black. Jean-Luc was calling for more wine. Andrea was still pursuing him. It was the perfect time to leave the room. I took Steve’s hand and tugged him towards the door. He came willingly, bumping into me then apologising to someone about a spilled drink. Adam’s study was mercifully empty. I shut the door.
‘Why the apology?’ I turned to Steve. ‘I don’t understand.’
Steve sank into Adam’s revolving chair and buried his face in his hands. As a gesture of guilt, it seemed pretty unambiguous. I perched myself on the corner of the desk. Time for some home truths, I thought. Time for some answers.
‘What happened?’ I asked quietly.
Steve raised his head and tried to look at me. His eyes were glassy. ‘When?’ He sounded defensive.
‘Over in Jersey.’
‘You mean the aircraft? The Cessna?’
I shook my head very slowly. I didn’t mean that, and he knew I didn’t. The Cessna, in a way, was now immaterial, mere history. Much more important was my marriage, and what this man had done to it.
‘Not the aircraft, Steve,’ I said.
‘No?’
‘No. Tell me about Michelle. Tell me about your little girl Minette. Tell me what happened.’
Steve tipped back his head and closed his eyes, a gesture of infinite weariness. One leg reached for the carpet. The chair began to spin, very slowly. I stopped it.
‘You came to say sorry,’ I prompted. ‘Sorry means you must have done something wrong.’
Steve eyed me, watchful now, and I wondered whether the police had been on to him. After DC Perry’s visit I’d heard nothing more, but that didn’t mean that Steve was off the book.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ Steve said. ‘It wasn’t me.’
‘Then why the guilt?’
‘I liked him. I liked him a lot.’
‘Who?’
‘Adam. Your old man. Your husband. He was lovely, a lovely bloke.’ He shook his head hopelessly and then muttered something I didn’t catch.
‘What? What did you say?’
I leaned forward. I wanted to shake him, to prise the truth out of him, to reach down through the syrup of alcohol and retrieve whatever it was he’d come to tell me. Had Adam stolen his partner? Gone off with Michelle? Lured her away with his big innocent grin and £70,000 of our money? Or, please God, did I have it all wrong?
‘Tell me, Steve,’ I said. ‘Tell me about Michelle.’
‘She left me.’
‘I know that. Tell me why.’
‘You know that?’
Steve was fighting to focus his eyes. I told him about Dennis.
‘Dennis is away,’ he muttered. ‘Gone away. Gone to Barbados.’
It was true. Dennis Wetherall had indeed departed to the West Indies, one of the periodic breaks he fitted in, a mix of business and pleasure with the emphasis very definitely on the latter. I’d been phoning him for the best part of three weeks, desperate to find out more about our missing £70,000. Now it occurred to me that there were easier ways of nailing down the money. Maybe I should be asking Steve.
‘My husband gave you seventy thousand pounds,’ I said slowly. ‘I’d like you to tell me why.’
‘Lent.’ Steve gave the word a lot of emphasis. ‘He lent me it.’
‘Lent, then. But why?’
Surprise.’
‘Surprise?’ I was getting angry now. ‘Steve, he’s dead. He’s gone. One of the last things he did was give you a whole pile of money. Our money. My money. I want to know what’s happened to it. And why he just lent it to you like that.’
Steve followed my outburst with nods of his head. One hand crabbed up his jacket and slipped inside. I found myself looking at a cheque for £70,000.
‘You’re supposed to be broke,’ I said. ‘Where did this come from?’
Steve ignored my question.
‘I came to say sorry,’ he repeated, trying to get up.
I put the cheque on the desk and gave the chair a kick. Steve slipped helplessly back as it began to spin. Outside, in the corridor, I heard a sudden peal of laughter, the way it happens when someone opens a door.
I spun the chair another half-turn. Steve was starting to look ill.
‘Tell me about Michelle,’ I said savagely. ‘That’s the least you owe me.’
‘She went off,’ he protested. ‘Not my fault.’
‘Yes, but who with?’ Steve gaped up at me.
‘Who with?’
He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then I heard a door opening and I looked up to find Harald standing on the threshold. He had a glass of orange juice in one hand and seemed surprised to find me talking to Steve.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s no problem.’
‘It’s just -’ He was looking at Steve. ‘He OK?’
‘He’s fine.’ I waited for Harald to say his piece. Harald was still studying Steve. Steve, at last, seemed to recognise him. Then he bent forward, vomiting noisily on the carpet. I tried to step past Harald, en route to fetch a bucket and a cloth from the kitchen. Harald stopped me, the gentlest pressure.
‘I’ll fix Steve up,’ he said. ‘I think you should go see your sister.’
‘Why?’
‘She’s making a bit of a scene. It’s your mother I worry about, and the other older folks. Maybe…’ he shrugged, ‘… you could do something.’
When I got back to the lounge, Andrea was on the sofa with Jamie Pierson. Jamie had been helping us pass round the food and drink, eternally cheerful, but Andrea had clearly told him it was time for a break. There was a bottle of Chenin Blanc on the carpet between her feet and as I watched she poured what was left into her glass. She seemed no drunker than when I’d left, though the way she slipped her arm around Jamie’s shoulders, and gave him a little hug, undoubtedly signalled intent. She’d been fantasising about Jamie for weeks but so far I’d seen no signs of reciprocation.
I looked for my mother. She was locked in conversation with Douglas, the vicar, on the other side of the room. I picked my way towards her. She looked far from perturbed.
‘My darling.’ She grabbed my hand. ‘Tell me how I smuggle this delightful man back home.’
‘Home?’ I was looking at Andrea again. She was telling Jamie some story or other, her eyes hooded, her head cocked at her favourite angle. Maybe Harald was right. Maybe we were in for the full number.
‘Yes, I keep telling him we need someone with a bit of… I don’t know… vim.’ My mother turned back to the vicar. ‘Douglas, you still haven’t told me how you did it, getting Adam off like that. It was remarkable. He could have been standing there with you. Don’t you agree? Ellie?’
I stayed with them for the next twenty minutes or so, buffering the poor vicar from the worst of my mother. One of the many things she missed on the Falklands was the chance to play the landed gentry. Running six hundred head of sheep on several thousand acres of bog and tussock cuts very little ice in Stanley but here, to my mother’s delight, the numbers had an altogether different impact.
Eventually, as gracefully as I could, I disentangled myself and made for the door. Across the hall, the study door was shut. When I opened it, I could smell bleach and a ghastly pine-fresh airspray Andrea had picked up in the village. There was a damp patch on the carpet in front of the chair, but of Harald and Steve there was no sign.
I went through to the kitchen. One of Adam’s Fleet Air Arm chums was on his hands and knees, mopping up a pool of liquid by the fridge. When I asked about Steve he peered up at me.
‘Tall bloke?’ he queried. ‘Quite young? Baggy suit?’
‘Yes?’
‘With another guy? Older? American? Bit of a tan?’
‘That’s him.’
Adam’s chum rocked back on his heels.
‘They were in here a couple of minutes ago. The young guy was pissed out of his head. The American was taking care of him. Said he’d give you a ring.’
‘He’s gone?’
‘Yeah, said it was for the best. And you know what?’
‘What?’
Adam’s chum gave the floor a last wipe and got to his feet.
‘He was right.’
Two days later, Dennis Wetherall phoned. He said he was sorry to have missed the memorial service but business had delayed him in Barbados. We had the usual exchange about his particular brand of bullshit and after I’d told him what an amazing wake he’d missed, he sounded almost regretful.
‘How long?’
‘Six in the morning. I kid you not. Bodies everywhere. Dennis, it was like a battlefield.’
Our accountant’s appetite for parties was legendary, but there was a quirkier side to him that I was only just beginning to recognise. He had a taste for the surreal, for the bizarre, territory that came with one or two of his clients from the music business. Mixing grief with abandon, the way the English so rarely do, would have been a gig worth treasuring.
He was trying to put the thought into words but I spared him the effort. The memory of my unfinished conversation with Steve Liddell wouldn’t let me go. I’d got so close to finding out, to confirming my worst nightmare, and regardless of the pain that lay beyond it, I was determined to complete our little exchange. As I’d tried to say at the time, the least Steve owed me was the truth. What happened after that would be my responsibility.
Dennis was still musing about the party.
‘Was it really wild?’ he asked plaintively.
‘Very. I’m coming over tomorow. I’ll tell you all about it.’
Dennis, ever the gentleman, met me at Jersey airport. With his Barbados tan, his Lacoste shorts and his bougainvillea-print cotton shirt he looked like one of his clients. Crossing the car park, I asked him whether he wasn’t cold.
‘Freezing,’ he snorted. ‘But a suntan’s like any other asset. The last thing you bloody do is waste it.’
We had lunch at a new place he’d found, a sushi bar in one of the little back streets near the covered market. Only when we were tackling the second course did I make the connection with Adam.
‘This is where he came that last night,’ I said, ‘with Harald.’
‘Yeah?’ Dennis had a mouthful of raw squid.
‘Yes, Harald mentioned it. That first day he flew over. When it had just happened.’
I looked round. The realisation that Adam had been here invested the little restaurant with a new luminance. What had he eaten? Where had he sat? Had he looked at the waitress? The local girl with the purple nails and the big chest?
Mention of Harald had finally tugged Dennis away from Barbados.
‘Interesting bloke,’ he grunted, ‘your friend Meyler.’
‘You think so?’
‘Definitely. He’s well-connected, too. Shrewd of you to stick so close.’
‘You think I’m interested in all that?’
‘Of course you are. No point otherwise, is there?’ He eyed me over his napkin. The notion of friendship, of a loyalty untainted by anything remotely commercial, was utterly alien to Dennis. Whatever you did in life, whoever it touched, there was always a deal.
‘He’s a friend,’ I protested. ‘Adam’s friend first. Mine now.’
‘You don’t know about the rest of it?’
‘No.’
‘He’s never told you?’
‘Never. He doesn’t tell me anything. Except how to cope with my problems. And at that, I have to tell you, he’s brilliant.’
I was thinking about Steve Liddell throwing up all over the house. Only Harald would have had the quiet presence of mind to clear it up and remove Steve before it happened again. As a small act of friendship - unfussy, unsung - it was altogether typical.
Dennis was still having trouble fitting Harald into the right box. Money and connections, in his world, equalled power. And powerful men always, always, talked about themselves.
‘Not this one,’ I said.
Dennis sat back, openly incredulous.
‘So here’s a guy, brings you a hundred and sixty grand for some beaten-up old aeroplane, and you know sod-all about him?’
‘You banked the cheque?’
‘Of course I did. What else would I do with it?’ He looked round the restaurant, glowering. ‘But that’s not the point. The point is, what’s he up to?’
‘He’s a friend. He helps me out.’
‘Sure, but why? What’s the angle?’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘Are you dreaming? There’s always an angle.’
‘Not this time.’
‘Bullshit.’ He paused, bunching and unbunching the napkin in his hands. ‘Is he in love with you?’
I’d once or twice asked myself the same question - not love, exactly, but maybe some passing fancy - but the longer I’d thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Men who are in love with you drop hints, act out of character, make moves, give themselves away. Not once had Harald done any of these things. No, Harald - as far as I was concerned - was exactly what he seemed. Steady. Dependable. A good, good friend.
Dennis was unconvinced.
‘He’s an arms dealer,’ he said. ‘Merchant of death.’
The phrase, heavy with moral outrage, made me smile. Dennis’s clients included a couple of businessmen on the fringes of the rock scene who Adam had been sure were major drug-dealers. To be frank, I’d no idea how Harald made hi
s money, but heroin, I suggested quietly, was just as lethal as anything in Harald’s armoury.
Dennis feigned indignation. He never touched drugs. Never touched people who dealt in drugs. Harald, on the other hand, bought and sold pretty much anything that would make a hole in you.
‘How do you know?’
‘Because I do,’ he said belligerently. ‘Because it’s my business to know.’
‘But who told you?’
Dennis suddenly grinned at me and touched the side of his nose. One of his favourite hobbies was withholding information. It gave him an enormous kick. Information, after all, was power. And power, for Dennis, was the only currency that really mattered.
‘Arms.’ He nodded. ‘All over the bloody world.’
‘What sort of arms?’
‘Planes, mainly, and all that fancy stuff that goes with them. The radar set-ups, the fuelling gizmos, plus all the hardware you can strap on. Rockets. Cannons. Bombs. He’s a trader, Ellie. He’s the guy in the middle. He finds a market, meets needs, and from what I hear he’s bloody good at it, too. Mind you, arms dealing?’ He spread his arms wide. ‘You’d be stupid not to get rich.’
‘How come?’
‘How come? You really want to know? One, it’s non-cyclical. One half of the world’s always trying to kick the shit out of the other half. Two - you listening to me?’
I’d remembered something Adam had told me a while back, when he first met Harald. He’d said he was a player, a real pro, and that - in Adam’s terms - was praise indeed.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘OK, so two, the world’s awash with weapons, good solid stuff, most of it Russian, or East German, or Czech, or whatever. These guys, they’ve lost a war, they don’t need it any more. Plus they’re flat broke, most of them. So along comes someone like your friend Harald and offers them hard currency, and bingo, it’s party time. For dollars, they don’t mind who screws them. He can name his price. Literally.’
‘You’re still talking about aircraft?’ I was thinking about the Yak and Harald’s connections in Romania. It certainly fitted the story. Dennis nodded.
‘Aeroplanes, sure. And more or less anything else you’d want. Armour. Small arms. Mines. The whole gig.’
‘But Harald specialises in planes?’
Permissible Limits Page 17