Permissible Limits

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘That’s what I hear.’

  ‘So who does he sell all this stuff to?’

  ‘Central America, right on his doorstep. Contras. Guatemalans. Salvadoreans. Then you go further south. Venezuela. Colombia. Ecuador. Anyone with an insurgency problem. Anyone with bank facilities in Miami. It’s money, Ellie. Money has no smell. Guys want to buy aeroplanes, something rugged, something not too fancy, Harald Meyler’s the guy they phone.’

  I gazed down at my plate of sea bass, still wondering where Dennis had picked up this information. Maybe he’d met someone in Barbados. Maybe he really had been there on business, in between the lazy days at the poolside. Then I had another thought, much closer to home.

  ‘That bank manager we met,’ I said slowly, ‘the one with the funny name.’

  Dennis pretended he’d lost the plot. Finally I coaxed the name from him.

  ‘You mean Ozilio?’ He frowned. ‘Ozilio Sant’Ana?’

  ‘Yes. Does he know Harald?’

  The momentary hesitation gave Dennis away. I tried to stifle a grin. At heart, like Adam, Dennis was just a kid.

  ‘Meyler does a lot through Tony’s bank,’ he conceded. ‘Since you ask.’

  ‘Sant’Ana told you that?’

  ‘No, someone else did.’

  I nodded, struck by another connection, another name.

  ‘Steve Liddell,’ I said. ‘Is that why he went to Sant’Ana’s bank for the loan? Because Harald fixed it up for him? Was that the way it was?’

  Dennis was getting in deeper than he’d anticipated and I took the grudging nod as a kind of compliment. I was Adam Bruce’s pretty little wife. I wasn’t supposed to ask questions like this. I wasn’t even supposed to be interested. Amazing what a month of widowhood can achieve.

  Dennis was leaning forward, eager now to qualify what little I’d managed to tease out of him.

  ‘Your friend Meyler’s a class operator. He’s made sackfuls of money in a very competitive business. He knows the moves. He’s very sharp. He can handle himself. That’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘You make him sound like a gangster.’

  ‘He’s not a gangster. Loner, yes. Gangster, no.’

  ‘So are you telling me to be careful? Is that it?’

  Dennis gave the question some thought. Then he shook his head and barked with laughter.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m just really proud of you for chiselling out that hundred and sixty grand.’

  It was at this point that I gave him Steve Liddell’s cheque for £70,000. Dennis looked at it in disbelief, held it up to the light, then voiced the obvious question. Just where had Steve Liddell got his hands on a sum like this? I said I didn’t know and didn’t - to be honest - much care. Far more important to me were the questions that preceded it. How had Adam acquired the money in the first place? And why hadn’t he shared news of this little windfall with me?

  On the phone, Dennis had used the word ‘laundered’ and I quoted it back to him, toying with the remains of my fish while he explained exactly what Adam had done.

  A group of international businessmen, it seemed, wanted to re-stage a famous wartime operation involving Mustangs and B-17s, the hefty four-engine bombers known to the Mustang pilots as ‘Big Friends’. The mission, made possible by the range of both aircraft, centred on a bombing raid against German targets around a town called Ruhland. Bombs gone, the B-17s and their escorting Mustangs headed east to an airfield in friendly Russia. A couple of days later, refuelled and rebombed, the task force hit Poland, then flew on to Italy. A week later, after excursions into Hungary and Romania, the Mustangs returned to the UK, completing the triangle. Within days, the American PR people had turned the operation into a legend. Hunting for a headline, they dubbed it ‘The Russian Shuttle’.

  I followed Dennis’s account, trying to fit our own Mustang into the story, trying to visualise our little silver fish swimming in the clear, cold air over Russia.

  ‘But why the businessmen?’ I queried. ‘Why their interest?’

  ‘It’s a gimmick,’ he said at once. ‘It’s a deal dressed up as history. Just now, Russia’s hot, really hot. That’s where the opportunities are. That’s where the sharp guys make the real killings. What they’re after is an angle, a way in. The Soviets are still obsessed by the war. Stage a re-enactment, make an anniversary of it, throw in a couple of gallons of vodka, and you’ll have them queuing round the block.’

  ‘And this was Adam’s idea?’

  ‘The Shuttle?’ Dennis shook his head. ‘Came from another guy, very well-connected, good footwork, big player in the warbird market. You may have come across him.’ Dennis tore at the remains of his bread roll, waiting for me to catch up.

  ‘You mean Harald?’

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘Harald asked Adam?’

  ‘Yeah. To organise the Shuttle. Get some Mustangs together. Talk to the people with the refurbished B-17s. Plot a route. Shake down the logistics. All that shit.’

  ‘And the seventy thousand?’

  ‘A down-payment on his fee.’

  I blinked, watching Dennis brush breadcrumbs into his cupped hand and toss them over his shoulder. So why did Adam pass the money on to Steve Liddell I wondered? And why had he never mentioned this Shuttle operation to me? I began to put the questions into words but thought better of it. If Dennis was so well-informed, there was a more important issue to resolve.

  ‘Tell me about Steve Liddell,’ I said, ‘and this woman Michelle. Why did she leave him?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Was it someone else?’

  ‘Yeah. But I don’t know who.’

  I spotted the waitress approaching with the brandies. ‘You mentioned some windsurfing school.’

  ‘That’s right. Place out on the west coast. St Ouen’s Bay. Somewhere near L’Etacq.’

  ‘Is it hers?’

  ‘As far as I know. She started up last year. Did well, the way I hear it.’

  The waitress deposited the drinks between us. The huge balloons of Courvoisier brought a smile to Dennis’s face. He reached for his glass and proposed a toast. I ignored him.

  ‘How much does it cost to start a windsurfing school?’

  ‘No idea. Starting anything ain’t cheap.’

  ‘Seventy thousand?’

  I looked him in the eye, waiting for an answer. He took a mouthful of the brandy, then wiped his mouth.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ he said at length. ‘You think Adam funded that? Is that where you’re coming from?’

  ‘It’s a question,’ I said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘But you think she needed someone else’s money? Michelle La Page?’

  This was the first time I’d heard the girl’s surname. The inflection in Dennis’s question suggested I was being woefully naive.

  ‘Tell me about the La Page family,’ I said evenly. ‘What have I missed here?’

  ‘You’ve never heard of Bernard La Page?’

  ‘Never. Should I have done?’

  Dennis gave me one of his despairing shrugs. Bernard La Page, it seemed, was a major, major player on the island. Amongst his many business interests was a clutch of engineering firms in the West Midlands, and sole ownership of a small commercial airline, ChannelAir.

  ChannelAir I’d come across. Short Skyvans in a rather fetching shade of green.

  ‘Don’t they fly to Heathrow?’

  ‘Twice daily. The Heathrow slots are worth a fortune. Just one reason the guy’s got money to burn.’

  ‘And Michelle?’

  ‘Is his daughter.’ Dennis nodded. ‘Seventy grand to her would be a birthday present.’

  ‘So Adam wouldn’t… ?’ I could feel the relief flooding through me.

  ‘No way. If Michelle went into business, Daddy would have footed the bills.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Stands to reason. That’s what families are for, isn’t it? Sticking together? One for all?
All for one?’

  He gave me a rather sharp look, and seconds later I realised why. He’d liked Adam. And, more importantly, he’d thought that Adam had rather liked me.

  ‘He could be very stupid sometimes,’ I said defensively. ‘Very silly. You know how headstrong he was. How he always wanted his own way.’

  ‘But you think him and this… Michelle chick? You really think that?’

  In my mind’s eye, I could see the creased photo in Adam’s drawer, the rolled-down wetsuit, the expression on her face, the adolescent message scrawled across the back. For you, my darling, she’d written. From all of me.

  Dennis was still waiting for an answer.

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘I think it’s a real possibility.’

  ‘You’re nuts.’ He frowned at me. ‘You’ve got evidence?’

  I didn’t answer him. Not directly. At length, I took a sip of brandy. It burned my throat and made my eyes water.

  ‘You haven’t told me what happened to the seventy thousand,’ I reminded him. ‘You haven’t told me why Adam give it to Steve in the first place.’

  ‘That’s because I don’t know.’

  ‘Then it could have been…’ I shrugged hopelessly, ‘… something to do with her, couldn’t it?’

  Dennis, never patient, was beginning to get irritable. He picked up Steve’s cheque, still lying on the table between us.

  ‘It’s back,’ he said gruffly. ‘The money’s back. What the hell does it matter why Adam parted with it?’

  ‘Is that a serious question?’

  ‘Of course it is. You’re paranoid, Ellie. The last thing you need just now are more problems. Christ knows what Adam was up to. You know what he was like. He could be a real lunatic sometimes, a complete dickhead. He’d get some idea, some bee in his bonnet, and off he’d go. The unguided bloody missile. Completely out of control.’

  I looked at him for a moment, looked at the exasperation in his face. Then I pushed back my chair and stood up.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said coldly. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  I found Steve Liddell in his hangar on the far side of Jersey airport. He was perched on a pair of wooden steps, working on the engine of one of Harald’s latest batch of Yaks. The driver of my taxi was eager to get back to St Helier. I asked him to wait.

  ‘This won’t take long,’ I said grimly.

  Steve watched me walking into the hangar. With the greatest reluctance, he abandoned his spanner and clambered down the steps to meet me. He looked wary and ill-at-ease. We didn’t shake hands.

  ‘We were having a chat,’ I said. ‘Over at Mapledurcombe. I don’t suppose you remember.’

  Steve wiped his face with the back of his hand.

  ‘Yeah,’ he grunted, totally noncommittal.

  ‘I was asking you why Michelle left. You told me it wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then whose fault was it?’

  Steve bowed his head. He was wearing overalls and his old peaked Timberland cap, and when he looked up again his eyes were shadowed.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said.

  ‘Can’t tell me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  He shrugged, and the way he glanced up at the exposed engine said it all. I’m in the middle of a job. I need the money. What I don’t need, just now, are questions like these.

  ‘Was it Adam?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Nonsense. Of course you know what I mean. Michelle left you.

  She left you for someone else. I’m asking you again, Steve. It’s a really simple question, a yes or a no. Was it Adam?’

  Steve began to frame an answer, then had second thoughts. Instead, he rolled his head on his shoulders, round and round, the way you do when the muscles get tight.

  ‘I’m sorry about throwing up,’ he muttered at length. ‘Across at your place. That was out of order.’

  ‘It’s not a problem.’ I stepped closer. ‘Yes or no. Then I’ll go.’

  He looked down at me. Then, very slowly, he shook his head.

  ‘Is that a no?’

  He shook his head again. For a moment, I wanted to hit him. It was a quick, hot gust of anger, almost a reflex. I linked my fingers, squeezing very hard, fighting for control. Violence would solve nothing. Violence would simply get Steve off the hook. Adam’s missus. Just another hysteric.

  I changed tack.

  ‘Adam lent you seventy thousand pounds,’ I pointed out.

  ‘I gave it you back.’

  ‘I know, but why? Why did he give you that money in the first place?’

  This time Steve obliged me with an answer, gesturing round at the half-empty hangar.

  ‘Debts,’ he said. ‘Running costs. He bailed me out of the shit.’

  ‘Because he felt guilty? About Michelle?’

  Steve thought about the proposition. For some reason it seemed to amuse him, a ghost of a smile that came and went.

  ‘She’s gone,’ he said bleakly. ‘It’s over and that’s that.’

  ‘You don’t feel bitter?’

  ‘Of course I feel bitter.’

  ‘About Adam, I mean.’

  For a moment I thought he was going to fall into the trap, but then his eyes closed and he shook his head and shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

  ‘This isn’t helping. I know what you want but I can’t -’ He shrugged. ‘There’d be no point.’

  ‘There’s every point. He was my husband.’

  ‘Yes, I know. And I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s what you said before. Sorry’s not enough, Steve. Sorry’s too easy. What I want from you might sound like the earth but actually it’s very simple. In fact it couldn’t be simpler. Did Adam have an affair with Michelle? Yes or no?’

  ‘The money’s safe,’ he repeated. ‘I gave you a cheque.’

  ‘Fuck the money. Just yes or no.’

  I thought my language might shake the truth out of him but I was wrong. He just looked down at me, unyielding, and it was then that I realised that the conversation wasn’t going any further. We’d hit a wall. For whatever reason, Steve Liddell wasn’t going to tell me about Adam and his precious ex-partner.

  I glanced over my shoulder. The taxi-driver lifted his wrist and tapped his watch. Across the other side of the hangar, muffled by a thin partition wall, I heard a phone start to trill. The summons made Steve physically flinch. I saw the uncertainty in his eyes, the overwhelming urge to turn his back and run. I reached forward, picking a curl of metal from the sleeve of his overall.

  ‘Answer it, Steve,’ I said bitterly. ‘It might be something important.’

  Back in the taxi, the driver had started the engine. ‘St Ouen’s Bay,’ I told him. ‘I’m looking for some kind of windsurfing school.’

  Nearly an hour later, the taxi delivered me to a couple of deserted Portakabins on a patch of scrubby ground beside the long sweep of St Ouen’s Bay. Beyond the Portakabins, crudely gravelled, was half an acre or so of empty car park, buttressed at the far end by a line of three rusting freight containers.

  I got out of the taxi and paid the fare. This time, come what may, I wanted to be alone. Whoever I talked to, however direct my questions, I was getting absolutely nowhere. I’d never felt so angry in my life and I needed time to cope with the consequences.

  The taxi driver pocketed the £20 I’d given him and pulled the dented Renault into an untidy U-turn. I was glad when he’d gone. The silence, broken only by the cries of the gulls and the distant rasp of surf, was an immense relief.

  I circled the two Portakabins. They were chocked up on concrete blocks and I had to stand on tiptoe to peer in through the windows. One room was evidently an office. It looked neat and businesslike and the calendar on the wall behind the desk was already showing April. On a chair beneath the window I could see a pile of clothes, but when I tried the nearby door it was locked.
>
  Next along from the office was a classroom of some kind, cheap folding chairs drawn up in a semicircle around one of those big prop-up easels sales reps use in meetings. There was a triangular diagram on the plastic wipe-board, bold lines in blue Pentel, and I studied it a moment, trying to make sense of the thicket of little symbols. It was obviously something to do with windsurfing, how best to steer around three fixed buoys. Me, and Adam, and the bitch-queen Michelle, I thought. Wind force eight and rising. Hurricanes expected within the hour.

  I quickly circled the other Portakabin then crossed the car park and checked out the containers. The big padlocks looked brand new. I tried each in turn, not knowing quite why, but none of them budged. I looked back across the car park again. There was a nicely painted sign across the width of the two Portakabins. Ultra-Max, it read. Windsurfing for Girls, Guys, and Gods. The turn of phrase made me shudder. Ultra-Max? Gods? What had Adam got himself into?

  I leaned back against the container. In the early spring sunshine, the metal was already warm to the touch. I closed my eyes a moment, trying to think things through. Should I wait until someone turned up? Or should I find a phone box? And say I did, say I found a number for Michelle La Page, what would I do then? What would I say when a woman’s voice answered and I had to introduce myself and explain why I’d made the call? Should I be frank? Insist on a meeting? Somewhere nice and quiet, somewhere a bit like this, somewhere I could indulge my anger and circle this woman’s neck with my bare hands, and take a little modest revenge for all the grief she’d given me?

  I smiled grimly, content to let this nonsense swirl around my fevered brain. Normally, I’m never this self-indulgent. On the contrary, I normally keep my emotions firmly in check. Letting go is strictly for people like Andrea, or - as I was beginning to recognise - Adam. One emotional basket case in the family was quite enough.

  After a while, I had the urge to take a pee. I squeezed down the gap between two of the containers, looking for the shelter they’d give me at the far end. Squatting in the sunshine, I saw the mountain bike. It was red and shiny and brand new. Like the containers, it was padlocked.

  Someone was here. Maybe it was Michelle. Maybe she was on site somewhere, watching me, wondering who the hell I was. Then I remembered the pile of clothes in the office. Jeans. A T-shirt. An anorak of some kind. I ran back across the car park. From the Portakabins, a line of paving stones led across to a gap in the sea wall. I looked down at the sand, gleaming wetly in the sunshine. Footsteps tracked away towards the distant line of breaking surf. I jumped from the sea wall and slipped off my shoes. Her feet were a size bigger than mine. Tall, I thought. Taller than me. Younger than me. More beautiful than me. But mine, now. There for the taking. I shook my head, gritted my teeth. Try as I would, the anger kept returning.