Requiem

by Clare Francis

  The hire car, a grey-green Escort, sat on the far side of the Airport Inn car park, in the tight space she had found for it at eight the previous night.

  It was a moment before she got it started, a moment that brought the time up to nine exactly. She drove round to the front of the hotel and peered under the canopy.

  Campbell must have been watching for her, because he came straight out and, throwing his bag into the back, sank wordlessly into the seat beside her. He was wearing his usual tweeds, she noticed, though as a gesture to town life he had forgone the headgear he had been sporting when she met him off the flight – a countryman’s narrow-brimmed hat of great age and uncertain shape. What Campbell thought of her costume he wasn’t saying. She had deliberated long and hard over the choice of clothes that would achieve both transformation and anonymity, finally borrowing from Jenny some loose charcoal-grey trousers, a black cossack jacket and a deep-brimmed grey hat, turned back at the front in Paddington Bear style. She had tied her hair up inside the hat and added tinted glasses: a student traveller, an artist, a would-be actress on her way to New York.

  At Terminal 3 she stopped in one of the drop-off lanes and instructed Campbell on the various manoeuvres that would be needed to elude traffic wardens: moving the car a few yards along the lane, hovering at the far end, in the last resort making a circuit of the traffic system.

  Leaving Campbell, she went to the arrivals hall and, having established the flight was on time, took up station in an ill-lit corner furnished with two lines of bucket seats and a wide pillar. There was a dense crowd at the barriers around the customs exit. Shortly after nine thirty she saw Jenny arrive with the two security men, who looked like everyone’s idea of bodyguards, large, with jackets that sat uneasily on their shoulders and heads that swivelled continuously. Led by Jenny, the three of them took up a position at the corner of the barriers, where Jenny’s hand-held sign was visible to the emerging passengers. At ten, when the ‘landed’ sign lit up next to the American Airlines New York flight, Simon was nowhere in sight, and when he still hadn’t arrived by ten fifteen it occurred to Daisy that he was putting them through this uncertainty on purpose.

  It was ten twenty when Jenny and the two security men finally pushed their way free of the crowd and closed around a family negotiating their trolley out of customs: Alan Breck, instantly recognizable behind his owlish spectacles, and next to him his wife, a dark-haired, intense-looking woman, and their son, ungainly and sullen in a football jacket and cap.

  As Jenny shook their hands Simon appeared as if by magic with a photographer at his elbow, and, in his effortlessly dominating way, took charge of the party and guided them towards the exit.

  Now, Daisy. Use your eyes, stay back, don’t hurry, don’t lose them, stay back.

  She started forward, then halted at the edge of the flowing crowd which was dense with relatives and high-stacked trolleys, sometimes three abreast. Through the heads she saw Simon lead his group down the concourse towards the side exit.

  She manoeuvred into the crowd, scanning faces, heads, clothes, people who might be making for the side exit, people who might be hanging back. There was nobody. As the party disappeared out into the light, she doubled back and made as rapidly as possible for the only other exit, inexplicably located at the far end of the building. Getting out at last, she made her way to the corner and looked down the side of the building to see that the group had wandered in her direction and were close enough for her to see that Simon and Jenny were in urgent and visibly acrimonious discussion. Alan Breck and his family were looking on apprehensively, the security men were hovering, the photographer was diplomatically observing airport life.

  Daisy inwardly raged, and had to restrain herself from striding down and taking Simon by the neck. What was he up to? What did he think he was playing at? She deflected her frustration into rooting for Jenny. Come on, she shouted silently, don’t let him talk you down, girl. Stand firm, tell him where he gets off, ease the moment over. Come on, Jen. Come on.

  At last Jenny turned her back on Simon and went over to the Brecks. Daisy was so intent on their reactions that she almost forgot her watching job, and twisted hastily round to scrutinize the steady trickle of people continuing to ooze from the building. A bus drew up with a screech of brakes, a child screamed inconsolably; no one looked her way.

  The security firm’s car, an excessively showy limousine with darkened windows, had drawn into the kerb beside Jenny. The bodyguards loaded the baggage for the short journey to Terminal 1. Simon, having struck his journalist-of-the-world stance, all weariness and tested patience, now roused himself to talk to the photographer and gesture in the direction of the other teminal. A moment later, he set off on foot with the photographer in train. There wasn’t room for everyone in the car, but it wasn’t that which had annoyed him, she guessed. No, it was Scotland. He wouldn’t have taken kindly to having such an out-of-the-way destination sprung on him, particularly when he knew it had been planned by Daisy. Well, he would survive. The fresh air would do him good.

  Daisy lowered her head and, skipping across the traffic lane, walked hurriedly to where the Escort was waiting. As she climbed in Campbell gunned the engine like some getaway driver.

  ‘Easy, easy,’ she murmured.

  They watched as the limousine drew out ahead and, threading itself into the flow of traffic from the other lanes, turned into the one-way system and disappeared around the side of the multi-storey car park. Daisy mentally logged the traffic that followed: a transit bus, a beat-up pink jalopy, a black cab, a Volvo estate, two more cabs. None of which, from what she could see, had started its journey from that side exit, or even hovered near by.

  ‘Anything?’

  Campbell shook his head and they started off, resighting the limousine as it set itself at the Terminal 1 ramp and snaked its black body up to the departure level. Coming over the lip of the ramp, they saw the limousine at the far end of the car lane, a security man stationed on either side as a porter unloaded the baggage.

  In the adjoining lanes there was no Volvo, no beat-up jalopy, nothing that might be hovering at a careful distance, only travellers wheeling their trolleys over the crossings and the usual procession of buses and cabs.

  Campbell leaned forward and rested his arms over the wheel. ‘What about the red car there?’

  It wouldn’t be red; whatever colour, it wouldn’t be red. But she followed his gaze anyway to see a business-suited man get out and pull on a thick camel coat.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  Jenny and the Brecks were negotiating the passenger crossing, the porter ahead, the security men back and front; the limousine was pulling away. Reaching the terminal building, Jenny led the way towards domestic departures.

  In the drop-off lanes taxis squealed to a halt, cars came and went, people humped bags onto trolleys and kissed each other and hurried away; only two cars showed no signs of activity, but neither had been following the limousine when it came up the ramp.

  ‘I’ll watch them to the gate,’ said Daisy with a baffled sigh.

  She went into the building by a central door. This terminal was a little less crowded, and she took care to walk briskly across to the far side of the concourse and place herself between a roundel of postcards of the Royal Family and a Sock Shop before looking round. She spotted Jenny immediately, standing at one of the British Midland check-in islands, in conversation with the ground staff. Her flock was gathered moodily around her. Alan Breck looked a little more relaxed, though that wasn’t saying a great deal, but his wife still wore the thunderous expression she’d acquired during the altercation outside Terminal 3, and Daisy knew whose feathers were going to have to be smoothed once they arrived at Glen Ashard.

  After five minutes the walking party arrived, and Simon, characteristically impervious to atmosphere, chose to stand and talk to Alan Breck in a close shoulder-hunched way that conspicuously excluded the wife. Even at that distance Daisy could pick up her resentment whi
ch flashed like so much dark electricity across the hall. More of Simon’s winning ways and the party would be in danger of falling apart.

  Watching Mrs Breck’s grim face, Daisy almost missed the raincoat. It was on the near side of the same island, standing by a closed check-in point. The wearer, a shortish man with cropped gunmetal hair, was turned towards her but his head was bent over an information leaflet, so that only a wide forehead and the tip of a flat fleshy nose were visible.

  Nonetheless there was a familiarity, an echo, to him – or was it just the raincoat? In her present state of nervousness she had no trust in her jittery memory. She saw again the striding jaunty walk of the man approaching her on the housing estate, the raincoat flapping around his knees. Was he short like this? Was his nose squashy and flat?

  Jenny was shepherding everyone towards the domestic departure area. Typically, Simon, engrossed in his conversation with Alan Breck and apparently in no mood to hurry, was slow to move. Mrs Breck began to follow Jenny then, realizing her husband wasn’t with her, hung back to let him catch up, while the son, looking mutinous, arced off in the direction of a newsstand. As the party fragmented, the security guards showed their first signs of agitation, fanning out on either side, as if to round up a dissipated flock.

  The man in the raincoat glanced up from his timetable. He looked in the direction of the straggling group and his stare did not waver. From this angle the blunt face looked unfamiliar.

  He put the timetable on the counter and, leaving it there, sidled round the island and spoke to the check-in clerk. Head on, he was suddenly promising again; there was a squareness to his face, a set to the jaw, that could have belonged to the murky figure of the council estate.

  The raincoat man was gesturing, pointing towards the departure area. The clerk leaned forward to follow his gaze, then nodded and jerked a hand in the same direction. He asked her another question and seemed satisfied with the answer he received because, with a brief nod of thanks, he set off towards the departure area.

  Daisy moved clear of the postcards and watched him crossing the concourse. That stride – cocky, jaunty. It looked right. Even from side on, she could see the roll in his walk, the swagger in his shoulders. His image slipped effortlessly into its night-time guise.

  Making her way along the fronts of the boutiques, her eyes on the striding figure ahead, she felt the unaccustomed sensation of sweat against her shirt.

  The departure hall was L-shaped. The short arm led to the domestic departure gates by way of a waiting and information area. Reaching the corner, Daisy saw the raincoat man come to an abrupt halt half-way across the area and stare up at the information board. Reaching into an inside breast pocket he pulled something out and began to write on it.

  Another man stopped beside him to look up at the board. The raincoat man, without any sort of acknowledgement, held out a scrap of paper to the second man, which he took and read. The second man – fiftyish, balding, draped in a shapeless waterproof jacket – said a few words then went off towards the departure gate.

  She was still watching the balding man when the raincoat man turned and walked straight towards her.

  She stood still, transfixed by the suddenness of his movement, unable to unfasten her gaze from his face so that, when his glance flickered onto hers, their eyes met. In a reflex that seemed to come far too late, she managed to drag her eyes to a point a few feet above his head, to the information board which she read with apparent concentration.

  He was coming quickly, his step showy, purposeful. The rain-coat flapped around his knees. Muggers don’t wear raincoats. He gave her another brief glance as he passed. He did not appear to recognize her. But now it seemed to her that she recognized him very well indeed.

  She kept on staring at the board for what seemed a long time but which was only a half a minute or so, then turned very slowly and fumbled in her bag as if searching for something. Keeping her head down, she looked out over the top of her dark glasses. He was not in sight. Sweeping the concourse more openly, she began to walk unhurriedly towards the nearest exit, then, remembering the speed with which the raincoat man had been travelling, more urgently.

  Move, she thought; take it slow. Mustn’t lose him; mustn’t rush it. Hurry. Slow. He might be waiting outside, watching for her to burst out and give herself away. Careful. Think this through. Take your time.

  Unable to decide on the most sensible course, she swerved towards another door, wrenching the hat off her head and pulling the elastic bands out of her hair as she went. She was still pushing the hat into her bag and agitating her hair into some sort of frizzy disorder when she came through the doors. The scene was cluttered: in the first lane were coaches and buses and cabs; in the next cars; and close by on the pavement, a large group of package-tourists blocking her vision. She couldn’t see the raincoat man. She couldn’t even see Campbell.

  She ran across to the pedestrian island, then, conscious of the risk of exposure, held back and shifted sideways instead. Take your time, take your time. She had got Campbell now – he’d been hidden by a black cab. He was standing beside the Escort talking to a traffic warden. She kept moving, following the edge of the pavement, dodging past a hotel bus, peering into blind spots. A knot of people stood at the taxi rank. Beyond them were two isolated figures searching vacantly for transport. Neither was raincoated.

  With a growing sense of futility, she crossed to the island and looked along the line of cars, then across to the car park.

  She walked disconsolately back towards Campbell who was easing himself gently away from the warden and into the car, bowing slightly, fingers tipping a salute against the brim of his absent hat. The warden, a small woman with violently bleached hair, was looking charmed and had just placed her pen firmly back in its holder. Immediately ahead of the Escort a second warden had found a less amenable citizen in the form of a black-cab driver, who was arguing vehemently over some transgression. His passenger stuck his head out of the window, trying to intervene.

  The head was square-shaped with a gunmetal crop. The wrist, appearing suddenly over the sill, was wearing a raincoat. He turned slightly and she saw his face. It was the raincoat man.

  She dropped into the seat beside Campbell while he was still completing his conquest of the warden through the open window. ‘I’m supposed to be meetin’ ma granny,’ he hissed at Daisy out of the side of his mouth.

  Ahead, the argument ceased, the driver slammed his door and the black cab roared off.

  ‘Tell her Granny’s been delayed.’

  They followed, staying on the cab’s bumper until they were safely into the airport tunnel, falling back when they came onto the motorway proper. Campbell, in a state of grim concentration, did not speak. Daisy too was silent as she plodded morosely through a sudden burst of doubts. That walk, that stride, had they really been so familiar? And the face, she’d never really got a good view of it that night. Even the interest the man had seemed to show in Jenny and her group could have been innocent. And while she had been watching him, had there been someone else? Someone she’d never seen, someone who’d seen her?

  While Campbell stared stoically ahead, she changed her clothes, swapping the cossack top for an old donkey jacket and the loose trousers for some jeans, and tied her hair back with a band.

  They were forced to close up on the cab at Chiswick because of the lights, and, except for the run over the Hammersmith fly-over, had to stay close all the way to the junction with the Earl’s Court Road, where the cab peeled off to the right and headed south.

  The Earl’s Court Road was jammed. They inched forward, one car between them and the cab. Daisy checked the batteries on the pair of walkie-talkies that she had hired from the security company and, sliding one into her shoulder bag, laid the other on the seat where Campbell would be able to reach it.

  In the next lane was a black cab with an illuminated for-hire light and no one hurrying to bag it.

  ‘Feeling brave?’

  Camp
bell raised his eyebrows uncertainly.

  ‘Remember,’ she said as she prepared to open the door, ‘stay with him until I tell you.’

  She did not look back as she wove between the cars to the free cab and climbed in. Only when she was in the darkness of the interior did she peer forward, but if the raincoat man was looking back he wasn’t doing it just then. Neither was the driver, whose face was just visible in the wing mirror.

  ‘You want to follow that cab?’ Daisy’s driver repeated phlegmatically. ‘Well, I’ll tell you straight off, it ain’t so easy as it looks in the films.’

  The traffic was moving now, filtering slowly down to two lanes in the narrow section by the tube station. Campbell was three cars ahead and two behind the raincoat man. Approaching the junction with the Old Brompton Road the lights turned red and Daisy watched in sudden tension as the raincoat man’s cab sped over the junction into the beginning of Redcliffe Gardens. The car behind also scooted across on the red and then, to the sound of indignant hoots and a near collision, the Escort.

  ‘See what I mean?’ the cabby called as they ground to a halt.

  Daisy thrust the walkie-talkie to her ear and when after a few seconds Campbell hadn’t come through she called him up. Finally there was an answering crackle, and Campbell’s voice informed her he was at the next lights, with the cab just ahead, looking as though it was going straight on. She described the next junction and how, once over it, he would come to the river and curve round to the left and that he should call her if the cab showed any signs of turning off. Whatever happened, he was to stay as close as possible.

  When the traffic moved off again, the cabby put his foot down, skilfully cut up a couple of cars and gained three places. They beat the next two sets of lights, so that they caught up with the Escort on the Embankment just as Campbell’s voice winged over the radio to tell her that their quarry was indicating right to turn over the river.