Jigsaw

by Campbell Armstrong

  ‘It must be the light. I never look my best under fluorescence.’

  ‘Sure. And I bet you don’t get enough sleep. I bet you don’t look after yourself properly. You don’t eat what’s good for you.’

  ‘Yes, mother,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve got circles under your eyes. You’re pale.’

  Pagan wanted a cigarette, a jolt of nicotine. Instead he tapped his fingertips on the formica table. He noticed the half-moons of his nails were practically invisible. Wasn’t that a sign of poor nutrition and vitamin deficiency? He said, ‘I probably need freshly squeezed orange juice. Raw carrots. Some of that posh lettuce you mentioned.’

  ‘You need more than posh lettuce,’ she said. She drank some coffee, gazing at him over the rim of her cup.

  Was there a hint of flirtation in her manner? It was nothing so blatant as a fluttering of eyelashes: it was the clarity of her look, the way she focused on him.

  ‘And what would you recommend?’ he asked.

  ‘A week in a health spa. Daily workouts. Massages. Sleep. All the stuff you don’t have time for right now.’

  ‘It sounds like bloody torture anyway.’ He was not overweight – in fact his weight hadn’t changed in years and he still looked lean – but under the surface was another matter. Under the surface was some slight deterioration. He’d been sedentary for too long, weeks behind the wheel of a car, too many cigarettes smoked on dreary highways.

  The girl reached across the table and momentarily touched his hand. He was abruptly shuttled back to the Hilton, the expectation of her kiss, the electricity of the moment.

  ‘How long are you staying in London?’ he asked.

  ‘It depends.’

  ‘Depends on what?’

  She shrugged. ‘This and that. If I like the place … I’m getting kinda attached to the Hilton. You keep running into nice old folks from Idaho who want to show you photographs of their grandkids. It’s all very American. Like a club. We Americans don’t travel too well, Frank. One foot is always back in the States.’ She had a nice form of self-mockery he enjoyed.

  ‘I suppose you want to see Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard and the Houses of Parliament and all the rest of this great city’s sights.’

  She was quiet a moment. ‘Actually, I was kind of hoping to take you up on your offer of showing me around. Obviously I could have picked a better time.’

  Pagan had the sudden urge to take the girl by the hand and walk her through those parts of the city that still had elements of enchantment for him: Pall Mall, Regent’s Park. He had a lingering fondness for the Serpentine, parts of Chelsea, the leafy walks of Harrow-on-the-Hill, Kew.

  ‘You’re right about your timing,’ he said. He looked at his watch again. He had fifteen minutes to get to Martin Burr, and the old man liked punctuality. ‘Look. I’ll call you at the Hilton. I can’t say when. I wish I could, but I just don’t know.’

  ‘Frank, you don’t have to feel any obligation. I mean that. I don’t want to get in your way.’

  ‘You’re not in my way.’

  ‘Next time you’re hungry and want to take time out to eat, get in touch with me. If I’m not there, leave a message. I mean that.’ She touched his hand again. She let her palm rest against his knuckles. He was reluctant to get up and go. What was happening here? What was going on between himself and this girl he barely knew? The perplexities of feeling. The quicksands of emotions. He wanted her; a quick shadow of desire stirred inside him.

  He gazed a second at the window of the sandwich bar where slanting rain struck glass and created intricate rivulets. How much easier it would be to sit here with Brennan Carberry than go into the world. He sighed and stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I hate to leave you so abruptly.’

  Pagan moved away from her. He turned, looked back at her as he went toward the door. ‘I’ll be really disappointed if you don’t call, Frank. And I mean that.’

  The smile, he thought. Something in the smile: a suggestion of joy. He went out into the drab wet street in search of a taxi. When he found one he settled in the back seat, head inclined, thinking about the girl. She’s too young for you, he thought. She’s a generation removed from yours. What common element could bind you? Her apparent affection was undeniably flattering. It stroked the dormant beast of his ego. But his mind, that murmuring insomniac nuisance in his head, raised a question of its own: What can she possibly see in you, Frank? The question bothered him all the way to Knightsbridge.

  Martin Burr’s flat was located in a quiet square. It was a gracious nineteenth-century place: high ceilings, marble fireplaces, but the sense of space had been diminished by the amazing clutter of furniture. Too many chairs, tables, couches: there was a kind of obstacle course in each of the rooms. Burr, who walked with a walnut cane and wore a dark green eyepatch over his missing right eye – a consequence of the Second World War, when he’d served in the Navy – greeted Pagan effusively, a prolonged tight handshake, a smile, a slap across the shoulder.

  ‘Herself,’ he said, and frowned as he waved his cane at the furnishings. ‘Marcia considers this a storage unit. Sell some of the bloody stuff, I tell her. Get rid of it. Says she doesn’t know what she needs down in the country cottage. Hasn’t decided yet. Meanwhile, everything stays here until that strange entity known as a woman’s mind goes through the decision-making business. Like a bloody auction room in here.’

  Pagan had a moment in which he realized how much he missed Burr, even if in the past they’d had their differences. But Burr, unlike George Nimmo, had understood police work and stayed as far away from politics as any commissioner could. Burr wasn’t a control freak. He allowed his men to get on with their work. He rarely interfered unless he found it essential.

  ‘Step into my office. If you can.’ Burr hobbled ahead of Pagan along the hallway. They went inside a long narrow room stuffed with books; a word-processor hummed on a desk strewn with sheets of paper. Burr, who used his cane as a means of expression, waved it toward the desk. ‘Predictably, I’m writing the old memoirs, Frank. Publisher chap called me up when I retired. Had a bit of a chat. Next thing I know I’m signing a contract. I was never one for putting words on paper. Damned hard. Don’t know how those writer fellows do it, frankly.’

  Pagan walked toward the window, which overlooked a barren back garden, a greenhouse against which rain hammered. It was a desolate scene: the crux of winter, decay, corruption. Spring might have been a thousand seasons away.

  ‘Find a pew,’ Burr said. ‘Just toss the papers on the floor.’

  Pagan moved some papers from a chair and sat down. He regarded Burr a moment, thinking how retirement had diminished him. The grey wool cardigan, the baggy old flannels, carpet slippers. He also needed a shave. During his term of office, Martin Burr had always dressed in immaculate conservative suits.

  ‘I know what’s on your mind, Frank. I don’t look like my old self. Right?’

  Pagan began to dispute this, but Burr jabbed him gently in the stomach with the walnut stick. ‘Don’t deny it, Frank. One thing about you. You were always a bloody poor liar. Good policeman. If too headstrong. But damn awful liar. You’re looking at me and you’re thinking: Poor old sod’s gone to seed. Writing his memoirs like some superannuated general or something.’

  Pagan smiled. ‘I’ve never seen you in anything but a suit,’ he remarked quietly.

  ‘Suits. Not much use to me these days.’ Burr sighed, glanced at the word-processor as if it had materialized on his desk from another galaxy, an object of unknown function. ‘Still. Retirement has its advantages. Provided you keep in touch. That’s the secret, Frank. Be informed. Don’t hibernate. What’s the term the Americans use? Get with it?’

  Pagan wasn’t going to comment on Burr’s archaic slang. He watched Burr adjust his eyepatch, which he did periodically.

  ‘I keep an ear to the old wall,’ Burr said. ‘I hear about our man Nimmo. Not my style. George always strikes me as the sort of fellow who’d be bette
r off doing something nasty in the City. Shark at heart. Doesn’t have a way with people. Look how he treated you. Banishment. No tact.’ Burr shook his head in a sorrowful way. ‘Still. He’s got the job and that’s it. No good moaning and bitching about the old fait accompli. Place has changed, I would say.’

  ‘That would be an understatement,’ Pagan said.

  ‘They brought you back for this appalling Underground business, correct? Ghastly all round. Any progress?’

  ‘The name of Carlotta has cropped up.’

  ‘Carlotta?’ The old man rubbed his chin. ‘Well, now there’s a sharp echo. Is there evidence?’

  ‘Not yet. She killed a young prostitute the night of the explosion. Not far from the Tube station. We know that much.’

  ‘Carlotta, Carlotta,’ Burr said, as if to himself. ‘I always had the sense she was the sort who liked the limelight. She had to work in the dark, naturally, but I always had the impression she wanted more somehow. She wanted … how shall I say it? Recognition? Admiration for her destructive abilities? A round of applause? That’s the feeling she gave me. I do however recall being more than a touch staggered by her audacious beauty … as you were, Frank.’

  Nothing escaped Martin Burr, Pagan thought.

  ‘I thought she’d retired,’ Burr said.

  ‘Didn’t we all?’

  ‘They never really retire, do they?’ Burr said, looking thoughtful. ‘Something keeps bringing them back. In the blood, I dare say. Inactivity makes them restless. Bored. They need a high.’

  A hell of a high, Pagan thought. He gazed at Martin Burr a moment, noticing how the elbows of his cardigan were frayed. He rose from his chair, gazed down at the greenhouse in the rain. His thoughts strayed momentarily toward Brennan Carberry. Why had she chosen such a godawful time to come to London? Why hadn’t she come when he was free?

  ‘There’s a complication. Which is why I’m here.’ He turned to look at Martin Burr.

  ‘Good. Love complications. Speak.’

  ‘I need information on the American Embassy.’

  ‘Ah. And I assume it isn’t entirely the kind of information you can just pop in and get from any old consular official, Frank, is it?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You want inside the machine, so to speak.’

  ‘Right again.’

  ‘And this is connected to the explosion?’

  ‘It appears so.’

  Martin Burr juggled his cane from one hand to the other in a deft little movement. ‘Speak to me, Frank. Tell me what you have and what you want.’

  Pagan quickly related the story of Bryce Harcourt, the death of Quarterman, Streik’s message. In his pocket he had the cassette he’d purloined from Harcourt’s answering-machine, but decided against playing it for the moment, as if it might slow down his hurried narrative.

  Burr looked suddenly cheerful, animated, as if Pagan’s request were a passage of high excitement in a retirement more dreary than Burr was prepared to admit. He hobbled round the narrow room, humming to himself, avoiding boxes and chairs and an empty old-fashioned birdcage on an iron stand. ‘The American Embassy,’ he remarked. ‘That font of mystery.’

  ‘I was hoping you might know something,’ Pagan said.

  Burr leaned on his cane. ‘The names you mentioned. Streik doesn’t mean anything to me. Nor Harcourt. Sorry. Quarterman, though. He was one of William Caan’s boys.’

  ‘One of his boys in what way?’

  ‘What do you know about Caan?’

  ‘I’m not famous for mixing in ambassadorial circles,’ Pagan said drily.

  ‘He’s been ambassador for – what – two years now? Made his fortune in electronics, weapons systems, computer support for long-range missiles, that sort of thing. He gave liberally to the President’s election campaign and was consequently rewarded with a nice diplomatic posting. A peach.’ Burr wandered to his desk, leaned against it. ‘Politics being what, the President – haunted by the horror of the budget deficit – decides to slash away at the Pentagon’s profligate spending, no easy matter for any president. Consider the vested interests pitted against him. Consider the fellows in the Pentagon who’re accustomed to a continuing supply of new toys. Suddenly, Santa’s a skinflint. The stockings aren’t filled quite so liberally. A whole industry suffers. And all the sub-industries, all the sub-contractors, all the research-and-development boys start to hurt as well. The old domino effect. Scrap a new missile, you also scrap everything that goes with it.’ Burr shrugged. ‘I’m not saying Caan is hurting personally. But the future for that whole industry isn’t quite so rose-coloured these days … Anyway, that’s a little background for you on William J. Caan. I’ve met him a few times socially. He’s big on law and order, but he’s no cowboy. Quite the contrary, he’s as smooth as they come. A little flashy, perhaps, from my staid English point of view. But civilized with it. Spent a year at Cambridge. Some time at the Sorbonne.’

  Pagan wondered where this portrait of Caan was leading. But he knew better than to interrupt Martin Burr, who said, ‘An ambassador always sets the tone for his embassy. Or so they say. In Caan’s case, it seems to be true enough.’ Burr raised an index finger, in the manner of a man testing the direction of the wind. ‘It’s been common knowledge for ages that the Embassy has, shall we say, a darker aspect?’

  ‘Spooks,’ Pagan said.

  Burr looked at the tip of his finger, engrossed in a callus. ‘If you like. Now. Under the supervision of Caan, more electronic equipment has come in, more sophisticated stuff than Grosvenor Square had before. Her Majesty’s Government can only look the other way. If the Americans want to haul state-of-the-art spook equipment into their own Embassy, that’s nobody’s business but their own. But these weren’t the only changes. Out went most of the old staff and in came a new brigade. Maybe that’s par for the course. The Ambassador’s new broom, so to speak …’

  Burr hesitated, turned his good eye toward Pagan, who experienced a moment of slight tension, even if he wasn’t sure why. His mouth was dry and he was tapping the surface of Martin’s desk with his fingertips. ‘You’re trying to tell me something,’ he said.

  Burr smiled in a slightly secretive manner. ‘We’re not supposed to know the inner business of the US Embassy, Frank. That’s the protocol. The Embassy might lie in the heart of London and all, but it’s American territory as surely as Kentucky – with this significant difference: you can wander around Kentucky. Just the same … You hear things. You pick things up. It’s unavoidable. There’s a rumour-mill. Only human nature.’

  ‘And what are these rumour-mills grinding out?’ Pagan asked.

  ‘Some of the new people … how do I phrase this? Caan’s gone outside the usual pool of young career diplomats to fish in strange waters. And he’s landed some oddities altogether.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Quarterman for one. He was a career officer in the US Army. Did a couple of tours of duty in Vietnam. A hard man, as I understand it. Not what you’d call ideal background for a diplomatic posting. But Caan – or quite possibly somebody acting on his behalf, I don’t discount the idea he may not have made the appointment directly – plucks him out of limbo and gives him the wonderfully nebulous title of Special Projects Officer.’

  ‘Special Projects. That can mean anything,’ Pagan said.

  ‘The Americans have raised job titles to an art form. Now. As I understand it, Caan also brought on board a couple of retired colonels, also old Vietnam hands, career officers whose careers since that unfortunate war have been less than exemplary. Political chicanery, as I hear it. Dirty tricks, that kind of thing. These are men with blood on their hands. Figuratively, for sure. Perhaps even literally. They weren’t in Vietnam playing croquet, we may be sure of that.’

  ‘Special Projects officers, like Quarterman?’

  ‘I dare say. In addition, Caan’s added a few characters with past experience in a variety of financial transactions. Money markets. Wall Street, et cetera. Don’t ask me
their job titles, because I don’t know.’

  Pagan pondered this information a moment. ‘The Vietnam veterans – they could just be part of the spook pool.’

  ‘That’s a possibility.’

  ‘And the financial people …’ Pagan shrugged. ‘Maybe they’re here to drum up business investors. Who knows?’

  ‘Who indeed.’ Burr moved across the room, edging forward with his cane. ‘All I can say is that some odd bods are gathered under the roof of Grosvenor Square. What you might call a rough crew. Makes you wonder.’ The old man smiled and turned to Pagan. ‘I don’t have the names of these people, Frank. Quarterman I knew, because I met him at some function in the company of Caan. The rest is rumour, and it’s fuzzy round the edges, because that’s the nature of the beast.’

  Pagan was silent, turning over in his mind this assembly of characters Martin had called a rough crew. He had the feeling of being caught up in a maelstrom of gossip and fable. He slipped his hand in his pocket and took out Harcourt’s cassette. ‘I’d like you to listen to this,’ he said.

  Burr indicated an answering-machine stuffed behind the word-processor on his cluttered desk, where there was a knot of wires. ‘Try that.’

  Pagan inserted the cassette, pressed the play button. He turned up the volume and Streik’s demented voice filled the narrow room. Bryce. This is Jake Streik. Listen. Listen. If you’re there, pick up. OK. I need to talk with you. How are things holding up at your end? I got problems. Listen. I’ll get back to you later tonight if I can. You want my advice, get the fuck outta London. Get away from The Undertakers, unnerstand? Walk away from all that shit. If you don’t you’re a dead man … Bryce? You there? Bryce?

  The message ended. Burr stood looking directly down at the machine. He pressed rewind, and replayed the tape. When it ended, he turned to look at Pagan. ‘Get away from The Undertakers,’ he said rather quietly. ‘That’s interesting. That’s very interesting indeed.’