‘Australian. Like I said, she’s new to it. If you want her to enjoy herself, give her a bottle that will make her think wine is great, not a bottle intended to make her think you’re great. You copy, sir?’
Bett sighed. This was all very confusing for him.
‘I think so,’ he said. ‘Will I have to drink the same stuff?’
‘Only if you don’t want to look like an asshole.’
‘Copy that,’ he said, a glowering rumble in his voice telling her this was probably a good time to cut and run.
Bett was waiting for her in the drawing room, where they’d first met those long few days ago. He smiled a little stiffly by way of welcome, standing by that window he was so fond of gazing from. He had that incredible self-confidence when there was a multitude to be ordered and addressed, but he seemed less assured now that it was just the two of them, and markedly less so than their first one-on-one, when there was the demarcation of roles between them: the man of shadow and the woman he had mysteriously summoned. That said, he still had a presence that filled the room, and it had to be borne in mind that a less assured Bett still presented a more commanding countenance than the majority of the male population at their most cocksure.
She stood just inside the doorway and they both sized each other up for a wordless few moments. She was looking at him a while before noticing that he hadn’t gone to the same pains and stresses as she with regard to dressing for the occasion. The reason it took a few seconds was that her immediate impression was simply that he looked good, he looked right, with issues of code or formality only factoring into her assessment as an afterthought. He wore a crisp pair of pale green chino pants and a sandy polo shirt. Jane had opted for a peach dress that Alexis had picked out at the supermarket. It was a light and airy garment, and the feel of it against her newly-shaven legs, without tights, made her think of holidays.
Given the grandeur of her surroundings, she’d had uncomfortable visions of Bett fronting up in a DJ and making her feel like a taffeta-deficient poor relation. However, when she saw him, she felt precisely that anticipated anxiety of being underdressed, despite the relaxed informality of his chosen attire. There was something intimidatingly formidable about his appearance that would have had that effect no matter what she’d been wearing. The short sleeves of his polo shirt hugged taut muscle, an unflinching sturdiness about him that made her picture someone hitting him with a crowbar and the crowbar bending, like in the cartoons.
‘Hello,’ she managed nervously, once they’d been smiling awkwardly at each other for one nanosecond longer than she could possibly tolerate.
‘Good evening,’ he replied. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
He stepped across to a table by the wall, which bore eight or nine bottles of spirits and some glasses. She stared at them, wondering how bad it would sound to admit she wasn’t very well versed in the whole aperitifs thing, or the whole drinking alcohol thing in general.
‘Gin and tonic, perhaps?’ he suggested.
‘Yes, please,’ Jane assented, simply to disguise the fact that she didn’t have a clue.
‘Tanqueray, Bombay Sapphire?’
She looked at the bottles and opted for the blue one. The stuff she’d tried once before had been from a green bottle, so maybe the blue stuff didn’t taste like bleach.
Bett poured two and handed her a glass.
‘Your health,’ he said, subtly tilting his glass.
‘Which is … strangely as good as I can remember, though I’m left wondering whether that’s in spite or because of everything else in my world falling down about my ears.’
‘It’s times like these that show you what you’re really made of. In your case, sterner stuff than you perhaps suspected.’
‘I’ll drink to that,’ she said, and tried not to wince as she raised the glass to her lips. She took a decent mouthful, having learned from wine that you taste nothing but bitterness if you only take an apprehensive sip.
She smiled in mild surprise. It tasted quite refreshing, and barely like bleach at all. She wondered whether it was the circumstances, her surroundings or the quality of the drink that made the difference, but, given that it was easily twenty years since her last go at the stuff, it was fairly possible her palate had matured a little.
Bett invited her to take a seat opposite him, having positioned two armchairs either side of his favoured window. They traded small talk as they drank, mainly about her training, and avoiding the subject of why she was undertaking it. It was safe, neutral stuff: common ground, in fact the only common ground they had, given that she knew next to nothing about him. Jane was already starting to worry how they would fill the gaps between courses when Marie-Patrice appeared at the door to summon them to dinner.
Bett walked behind her, carrying her drink, while Marie-Patrice led the way, holding the door open for them when she reached the dining room. Jane gaped. The table could comfortably have seated twenty, but only two places were set, down at the far end, at ninety degrees to one another. The conversation position, she remembered Michelle explaining it, as opposed to the more confrontational aspect of sitting face to face.
The ceiling hung sufficiently high above for her to imagine clouds obscuring the elaborate cornicing on a rainy day. Around her the walls towered to meet it, replete with coverings that looked luxuriant and expensive enough for Derry Irvine to have blanched at spending other people’s money on. Jane found herself concentrating on the two carved chairs and the place settings, trying to zone out their wider surroundings, as they were giving her something she imagined was akin to stage fright. She would come in here again, alone, in the morning and have a look around, then she could merge the decor details into her memory of the meal.
Bett poured them each a glass of wine and some water from a pitcher as Marie-Patrice brought their starter. It was, she explained, brik: a deep-fried egg in the lightest filo pastry, stuffed with spinach, and accompanied by some tiny merguez sausages.
The churning sensation in Jane’s stomach, which she had assumed to be trepidation, revealed itself to be hunger as soon as she got a noseful of the aroma. A sense of etiquette restrained her from just scarfing the lot in between exquisite mouthfuls of velvety wine, while discussion of the dish’s constituent ingredients and their coalescent deliciousness further eased the pace.
It was followed by a spicy and aromatic lamb tagine served with couscous: rough chunks of meat and root vegetables bobbing in a large casserole from which Marie-Patrice ladled the portions, steaming, to their plates.
‘This is Marie-Patrice’s speciality,’ Bett informed Jane almost conspiratorially once the cook had left the room. ‘Family recipe. Her mother is from Tunisia. Do you like it?’
‘It’s wonderful,’ Jane enthused.
‘Isn’t it. Though I have to confess it wasn’t my first choice for the menu. I had planned something a little more … a lot more elaborate, but I was advised by young Ms Richardson that it might seem somewhat grandiose.’
‘I’d still have eaten it, I’m sure.’
‘How’s the wine?’
Jane swallowed the sip she’d been savouring.
‘Habit forming.’
‘She was right about that, too.’
‘Handy girl to have around, in any number of ways.’
‘Indispensable, is the word I’d use.’
‘And for her to end up in your service,’ Jane remarked. ‘More serendipity, would you say?’
‘Only if we discount the notion, which I don’t, that you make your own luck. But of all the luck I’ve made, finding Alexis has been among the best of it.’
‘And did all of your company arrive by such, what was your word, crepuscular routes?’
‘She told you how she came to be here?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s quite a confidence so soon. Bodes well for your ability to elicit more vital information.’
‘Well, this one didn’t require any subterfuge. I’ve developed the impressi
on there’s a lot of people around here missing their mother.’
Bett nodded sagely, staring into his plate.
‘Somboon’s the only one who’s still a little shy of me, but he’s getting there.’
‘Somboon’s naturally shy of everyone, at first,’ Bett said. ‘If he starts wittering away, it’s not necessarily because he’s decided he’s comfortable with you; it’s usually just a more nervous manifestation of his shyness.’
‘I noticed. He’ll get past that too.’
‘Perhaps. But the last thing he’s going to talk to you about is how he got here.’
‘Did you come to his rescue, too?’
‘Only in as much as I saved him from himself.’
‘How?’
‘I’m not sure he’d want me to tell you. They’re all a little skittish when it comes to … certain matters. I’m never quite sure who knows what or how much about whom, and it’s kind of an unwritten rule not to ask.’
‘Okay, that covers why he might be reluctant to tell me. It doesn’t stop you telling me.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ he agreed. ‘But it’s also my choice not to.’
‘Hmm,’ Jane said, sensing a weakness. ‘You know, in the UK these days, your decision to remain silent can be used against you in court. Thanks to those crazy liberals in New Labour.’
‘What are you getting at?’ Bett asked, slightly suspicious.
‘It means you’re giving up your right to prevent me drawing my own conclusions.’
‘And why should I care what those conclusions might be when I know the truth?’
‘Because you do care. You care about them. You’re not as impervious as you like to make out. I’ve seen you. You’re protective of them, you’re proud of them, and you care what I think of them. You chewed my arse off the other day for selling them short.’
He smiled rather shyly. Found out.
‘Can I trust you?’ he asked. ‘Can they?’
‘Other than that you’re teaching me to be devious and deceptive, I think you can.’
‘I think I can too.’ He took a swallow of wine and washed down a last forkful of couscous.
‘Somboon is an orphan,’ he said. ‘But don’t tune up the violin just yet. He’s from a moderately wealthy background and the sob part of his story only began four years back. His parents were murdered in a bomb attack while on business in Indonesia. Islamic fundamentalists.’
‘They were targeted specifically, or just …’
‘As much as those fascist psychopaths specifically target anyone. They were part of a trade delegation at a tourism conference. It was attacked because of pandering to the West, encouraging immorality, something vague and ill-defined like that. You know how well thought-out their ideological motives tend to be: pick an insane bigotry and run with it.’
‘And Somboon?’
‘Somboon was home in Bangkok. A bright kid, as you know. Resourceful, inventive, intelligent, and now very lost and very, very angry. To cut an extremely long story short, he began dedicating himself to vengeance. He was planning to become a one-man, or one-boy, counter-terrorism assassination unit. I couldn’t tell you exactly what he was planning, but the least worst scenario would have been him ending up only killing himself.’
‘So how did he come to your attention?’
‘Another very long story. But the punchline is I was in Bangkok and caught him trying to steal a potentially catastrophic quantity of plastic explosive. I offered him an alternative path, a way of channelling his anger.’
‘Alternative just to vengeance, or would I be right in guessing an alternative to jail?’
Bett gave a thin and knowing smile.
‘It’s good intelligence practice to recognise the recurrence of a pattern,’ he conceded.
‘You offered alternative paths to Nuno, Rebekah and Armand too, then?’
‘Not Armand. He’s an old friend, we go back a long time. When I planned to set up this enterprise, he was the first person I called.’
‘Nuno?’
‘A promising, ambitious and idealistic young police officer. Too promising, too idealistic and way too ambitious for his own good, as it turned out. He made enemies of some powerful senior officers, went sniffing around too close to their slush funds. They were setting him up to take the fall for a police corruption scandal. He’d have ended up in jail and then been looking at an exciting career as a security guard if he hadn’t been brought to my attention.’
‘By whom?’
‘Contacts.’
‘Okay. What about Rebekah? My instincts suggest a military background, and, given her particular talents, I’d guess the US Air Force. How the hell did she come to your attention?’
‘That’s a little more sensitive,’ he said, his voice lowering though only they and Marie-Patrice were left in the building, and even she had to be at least fifty yards away. ‘Rebekah was actually in the US Navy.’
Jane smiled sadly to herself at the mention of it, as it made her think of Ross, who could not hear the US Navy discussed without pointing out that it was founded by a Scot.
‘It’s little-reported enough in the US,’ Bett went on, ‘and therefore barely at all overseas, but the US Air Force has had some serious problems with regard to the training of its female recruits. Still too much of a macho culture among the fly boys who reckon just because women have been allowed in doesn’t mean they have to make it easy for them. This has taken all the petty forms you might imagine, but also far less petty forms too.’
‘Are we talking about …’
Bett nodded solemnly. ‘At times, near systematic sexual abuse, using seniority and the chain of command to keep the victims silent. But the real scandal of it has been that the ones who spoke up and said J’accuse have ended up being punished or even discharged. It’s been covered up on a disgusting scale, but there’s been a snowball effect among victims in recent years: the more who speak out, the more who come forward.
‘The same problems were believed to be less manifest among the navy pilots, but Rebekah’s experience suggests it’s merely that the story has yet to be told. It also illustrates how far they’re prepared to go to ensure that it won’t be.’
‘What happened? I mean, spare me the details for the sake of the girl’s dignity. Just the end result.’
‘Rebekah was being “groomed” by a senior officer. He had got her to do certain things, sexually, but not … Anyway, he demanded she meet him after curfew one night, at a location on the base where she had no authorisation to be. She knew the set-up, guessed what was coming. This was how the bastards shielded themselves: the victim can’t say where she was because she wasn’t supposed to be there. Either she’s lying or she’s in serious breach of base discipline. The location was high-security, a maintenance hangar. He had clearance, she didn’t.’
Bett took a long, slow sip of wine and sighed.
‘He had a side arm in case the weight of all his other means of coercion wasn’t enough. He underestimated Rebekah, though. She’s a strong girl, in lots of ways. There was a struggle. He lost.
‘So there she is, standing over a dead senior officer in a hangar in the middle of a US Atlantic Naval base, thinking what the hell do I do now? Nobody’s going to believe her about what happened; too many senior figures can’t afford her to be believed. Her career is over and she could be looking at decades in jail. There is, however, a fully-fuelled Harrier jump jet sitting about twenty feet away.’
‘She stole it?’
‘Flew right out of there and headed east. Those things have a flight range of about twenty-five hundred nautical miles. She came coasting in on fumes and landed in Brittany.’
‘Where you became aware of her through “contacts”.’
‘Quite.’
‘What did the US Navy do about it?’
‘Their principal concern was keeping the whole thing under wraps, but they were also understandably put out at misplacing several million dollars’ worth of aeroplane.’
‘What happened to it?’
‘I brokered a deal, through diplomatic backchannels, to return it to them. So you can officially call me an arms dealer, to add to my other crimes and shames.’
‘How much?’
‘Money did change hands, but the greater part of my price was an assurance that they forget about Rebekah. I sold myself short – I should have anticipated they’d be only too happy to. Got themselves a bargain. She disappears and so does their embarrassing tale. So their nasty little secret can stay under wraps a little longer.’
‘But you used their plane as a bargaining chip to save her. That was … pretty selfless.’
‘Don’t let’s colour me too altruistic. I cleared a few euros from it, more than enough to buy that helicopter.’
‘Complete with fully trained pilot.’
‘Yes, and a good deal more besides. I didn’t take her on because I reckoned I could use a flyer. I took her on because she had what it takes, what I need. When it came down to the moment, face to face with the enemy, when she was looking him in the eye, she pulled the trigger, and that’s a lot harder than you might think.’
‘No, I think it would be extremely hard. But not as hard as facing up to what would follow.’
‘Sometimes you can’t afford to think about that. Especially when you know your enemy won’t.’
‘True, but that still doesn’t make it easier to live with yourself afterwards.’
‘It makes it easier to live than if you’re the one getting shot,’ he retorted impatiently.
‘But it’s not always you or them, kill or die, is it?’ she asked.
Bett narrowed his eyes, his posture stiffening.
‘You and Alexis really have been talking, haven’t you?’ he said tersely.
‘She’s just a kid,’ Jane protested. ‘Not everybody’s cut out for this stuff. Not everybody’s got what it takes to kill people.’
‘Some have it, some learn it,’ he said. Jane thought she detected a hint of sorrow in his tone, but maybe she was giving him too much credit for anything north of glib.
‘Don’t you think nineteen’s a bit young to learn? And don’t you think it should be a choice?’
All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye Page 33