Jigsaw

by Campbell Armstrong

  They crossed the Rialto, and entered a maze of streets and alleys, some of which opened quite unexpectedly into startling squares. Pagan had a sense of wandering through cramped tunnels that led to boxes. It was, he supposed, apt – this awareness of a maze, of going blindly, of not knowing if the direction he was following would turn out to be correct. He could be perfectly wrong: the picture taken of Carlotta and Barron was years old, after all. There might no longer be any relationship between the pair – but why then had Barron sent down the execution order? The murder of Pagan made no sense unless it was examined in the context of his being a menace, a threat to whatever Barron was involved in …

  They came to San Marco, where nuns led a procession of school kids across the square and tourists snapped photographs of the basilica and the campanile. In the failing coppery light the piazza had an ephemeral quality. Pigeons floated and fluttered, people strolled under the darkening archways, artists sold their insipid water-colours.

  In the centre of the vast square he paused, glanced at the girl, saw dying sunlight strike the lenses of her glasses. A curious breathlessness affected him, as if everything conspired in this place to induce a contrary sense of peacefulness. He imagined drawing the girl toward him and kissing her on the forehead and plunging into the warm welcome of amnesia. How convenient it would be, he thought, to forget the reason he’d come to this city, to set aside the girl’s treachery, and take her to a little pensione with a high cracked ceiling and peeling cornices and a big brass bed that creaked to the act of love.

  A wind came up, sloughing across the square, blowing papers and breadcrumbs and discarded tourist leaflets – and the banality of these objects snapped him out of his reverie. He listened to the flap of flags and the crackle of bunting and his frame of mind was replaced by an unfocused sense of urgency.

  He thought of Gurenko again. If he were assassinated – what would the consequences be? For starters, chaos. Chaos. The fragile Russia whose factions Gurenko barely managed to hold together would come instantly unglued, and voracious vultures would bicker over the corpse, hardliners as well as reformers, the old strife between change and familiar sterile stability – even civil war.

  Pagan, sensing the origins of a headache, a throbbing pain behind his eyes, zigzagging lines coursing across his perceptions, heard Streik’s voice again. Peace is bad for business. Bad for business – if your business happened to be weapons of death.

  And that was William J. Caan’s line of work. It was the basis of his fortune.

  He thought he had it just then, the fine connections, the loose pieces that formed the picture. You created a line that led from Caan and The Undertakers to Carlotta, and in the centre of that line you placed the middleman, Tobias Barron, who had commissioned Carlotta to kill Bryce Harcourt, who perhaps didn’t like what he was involved in, who was scared like Streik, and maybe ready to blow the whistle … He thought he had it, but it was elusive even yet, because if there was no association between Carlotta and Barron there was nothing.

  He walked under the archway, kept moving, the girl at his side. He consulted the map. ‘We turn left here,’ he said, and they entered a street of pizzerias, trattorias, grocery shops in whose windows hung hams and sausages; Pagan had a stab of hunger. He couldn’t recall when he’d last eaten. The sun was beginning to abdicate the sky and the city was fringed by growing darkness.

  ‘We need to find the Calle della Manola,’ he said. The wind seized his coat and he shivered as he entered a square, a mysterious space, shadows lingering round its perimeter where plaster flaked from terracotta walls.

  They crossed a short bridge, and then came to another square, the Campo Sant’ Angelo, where a drunk singing to himself lurched out of nowhere into Pagan’s path. Pagan, his nerves strident, reached back for his gun, but the drunk swayed away from him, and staggered into an alley.

  ‘We’re almost there,’ he said. He stopped, examined the map to be certain, then headed across the square toward a sombre, narrow passageway which the sun didn’t penetrate.

  ‘This is it. The Calle dei Avocati,’ he said. And paused, because suddenly whatever small assurance he’d had seemed momentarily to desert him. It was as if he were caught up in one of those weird dreams in which you were completely alone in a place of strangely angled buildings, where streets were crooked and led nowhere, and misshapen faces gazed at you from dim windows, and you experienced the kind of choking panic that forced you awake.

  They entered the passageway.

  Lamps had come on suddenly. Their light accentuated the delicacy of the girl’s features. She was hesitant now and he wondered how he’d react if she stubbornly refused to do what he’d asked of her when she reached the threshold of Barron’s house – but he didn’t want to consider that possibility. Huddled against the renewed force of wind, they searched for the number, which turned out to be a dark four-storeyed building adjoining structures of a similar kind. The door was of solid blackened wood; the upper panel had been carved in the form of two ferocious lion heads so realistic they looked as if they were in a feeding frenzy. He thought of Audrey Roczak’s studio in Lyon – his life seemed to have become a sequence of implacable doors, rooms from which he was excluded, secret places.

  ‘Ring the bell. I’ll be right behind you. Don’t try to warn him in any way. Don’t even think about it.’ He took his gun from the holster and held it, half-hidden, in the folds of his coat.

  The girl looked at him, didn’t move.

  ‘Ring the bell,’ he said again.

  She stared at the ground, shifted her feet.

  ‘For Christ’s sake,’ he said, impatient. He reached past her, stuck his thumb on the doorbell, heard it ring deep inside the house. Then he stepped a couple of feet away.

  The man who opened the door was not Tobias Barron. He was pallid, slightly stooped, dressed in a black suit. He didn’t see Pagan at once, only the girl.

  ‘Signorina Cairney?’ he asked.

  The girl nodded. There was no enthusiasm in the gesture. Tense, Pagan anticipated an erratic act on her part, a warning shout, perhaps a surreptitious sign of caution. But she simply stepped into the doorway.

  ‘Come, you are expected,’ and the man opened the door a little wider—

  —which was the moment Pagan chose to make his appearance, moving forward swiftly, gun out, barrel held directly to the side of the man’s head.

  ‘Back up,’ Pagan said. ‘Back up, keep your hands at your sides. You understand me?’

  The man looked at the girl uncomprehendingly. ‘Who is this?’

  Pagan stepped inside, kicked the door shut. He was aware of a large flagstoned vestibule where a chandelier of Venetian glass threw a glittering confection of lights.

  ‘Who is this?’ the man asked again.

  The girl said nothing. Her expression was despondent.

  ‘Where’s Barron?’ Pagan asked. He stared into the sallow features of the man, the dark-brown eyes that registered confusion and alarm.

  The man stepped away, disconcerted. Pagan was conscious of a stone staircase beyond the reaches of the light from the chandelier.

  ‘I asked you a question,’ Pagan said, and reached out, prodding the barrel of his gun into the man’s forehead. Pagan’s imagination sprinted – perhaps an alarm system was set into the flagstones and needed only the pressure of a foot to activate it, perhaps there was a form of hidden signal which, once given, would bring down all kinds of grief in the form of armed men swarming from the upper floors.

  ‘Don’t make me ask again,’ Pagan said, and pressured the man’s brow with the gun. The girl, hands in the pockets of her leather jacket, was gazing towards the stone staircase, her attention drawn there by a movement in the upper shadows.

  A figure appeared in the gloaming. The man in the dark suit turned his face toward the stairs and flicked both hands in a gesture of uncertainty. The figure on the staircase moved, stepped down into the reaches of the light from the chandelier. He continued to
descend and halfway down paused, one hand on the banister-rail, the other tucked in a pocket of his jacket.

  Pagan regarded the tanned features, puzzled by the way celebrity seemed to create a nimbus around those who had achieved it. It had something to do with the surprise of recognition, the photograph becoming flesh, substance behind image.

  ‘Katherine,’ he said. ‘And Frank Pagan. Surprise surprise.’ He looked at the girl, smiled, inclined his head a little. The voice was deep, a salesman’s voice in a way, the kind that might persuade you into signing elaborate life-insurance policies you didn’t need. ‘You disappoint me, dear girl.’

  Katherine Cairney said nothing. Barron seemed disinclined to descend further, enjoying his lofty viewpoint.

  ‘I’m glad we can dispense with introductions,’ Pagan said.

  Barron smiled. ‘I’ve been following your recent career with interest, Pagan. But you know that by this time,’ and he nodded toward Katherine Cairney, to whom he addressed his next remark. ‘I think I asked too much of you, didn’t I? You weren’t quite ready, I’m afraid. Your brother’s blood doesn’t seem to flow in your veins, Katherine.’

  At the mention of her brother, the girl stepped toward the foot of the stairs and looked up. ‘You told me Pagan shot Patrick. He denies it.’

  ‘And you believe him?’ Barron asked. ‘You prefer his story over mine?’

  ‘I don’t know what the hell to believe.’

  ‘I’m hurt,’ said Barron. But there was no conviction in his voice. Somehow Pagan couldn’t imagine Barron being pained; the impression he gave was of a man whose life is controlled, whose emotions are sealed, carefully balanced.

  The girl said, ‘If you’ve lied to me, Tobias …’ She didn’t finish her sentence. There was an odd tone in her voice, in part hope, in part the dread of disappointment.

  ‘Let me point out that you’re the one that has lied to me,’ he said. ‘You claimed Pagan was dead. And here he is in the flesh. Right before my eyes. Let’s not argue about lies, Katherine.’

  ‘Tell her, Barron,’ Pagan said. ‘Tell her the truth. And when you’ve done that, tell her about the bomb in the train, tell her about Carlotta. Tell her about your deep commitment to the Cause. Explain how you used her for your own purposes.’

  Barron looked at Pagan and was quiet for a moment. Then, as if Pagan had never spoken, he said, ‘I don’t have the inclination to discuss Patrick Cairney. Does it really matter who killed him? I don’t think so. The dead don’t give a damn,’ and he turned over his bronzed hands, examining them as if for flaws. ‘Besides, you can never reconstruct history.’

  ‘But you can revise it,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Of course. You can build a multitude of interpretations around any past event.’

  ‘You can also build lies,’ Pagan said.

  ‘Pagan killed Patrick Cairney. Pagan didn’t kill Patrick Cairney.’ Barron looked back at the girl. ‘Take your pick, my dear. In the end, what difference does it make?’

  ‘It makes a difference to me,’ she said. She placed a foot on the first step, as if it were her intention to climb and confront Barron, and Pagan was agreeably surprised by her determination. She wasn’t going to be pushed aside easily. Barron’s equivocations, his elliptical remarks, energized her.

  ‘I want it in black and white,’ she said. ‘It’s not just Patrick. What about these other accusations?’

  ‘Pagan’s in the business of accusations, my dear. That’s what he does for a living.’

  ‘You’re not answering me, Tobias.’

  Barron smiled. Perfect white teeth. ‘How long have you known me, Katherine? Years? And how long have you known Pagan? A few days?’

  He was persuasive, Pagan thought. The voice was confident, the manner comforting.

  ‘Your late father was one of my dearest friends, Katherine. On more than one occasion he asked me to keep an eye on you if anything should ever happen to him. And I did. I looked after you. I cared for you. Do you deny that?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t deny it.’

  ‘But you still have doubts.’

  ‘Yes, I have doubts. Because you’re still not answering me, Tobias. You’re evading my questions.’

  Barron descended a step, stopped. He raised a hand, palm outward. He looked weary for a moment, and sighed, and his shoulders slumped a little. ‘This kind of conversation is tedious to me,’ he said. ‘If you prefer to listen to your policeman friend, Katherine, that’s your decision.’

  ‘She simply wants some straight answers,’ Pagan said. ‘That shouldn’t be too difficult for you, should it?’

  The girl’s hands were clenched tightly at her sides. ‘This stuff about Carlotta – do you deny that? Do you deny you know her? Tell me, for Christ’s sake. Do that much, at least.’

  Barron was silent. He looked down at her as if he wanted to confide in her some irrefutable truth, some ponderous bit of advice: You see, my dear, it’s a grubby old world we live in, and sometimes we have to do grubby things, and nothing is ever really the way it seems. Don’t be too disappointed in people. He said, ‘I meet all kinds of people, Katherine. I travel the world, I shake hands, I give little speeches. All kinds of people drift past me.’

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean? Is that a yes?’

  Barron didn’t reply.

  ‘You’re playing goddam games with me, Tobias.’

  ‘I don’t play games,’ he said.

  ‘Do you know this Carlotta? Did you have something to do with the bombing of the Underground? Did you? Answer me.’

  Barron appeared to consider these questions. ‘You sound just like your friend Pagan, dear. He must have rubbed off on you. Pity.’

  ‘Just give me some fucking answers.’ The girl’s expression was stressed, her voice hard in a way Pagan had never heard before.

  Barron came down another step, glanced at Pagan. ‘Do you need to point your gun like that? I don’t keep weapons in this house, so your gun is a little superfluous.’

  ‘I think I’ll hold on to it anyway.’ Pagan studied Barron a moment. The man’s features, when you saw them in the sprays of light emitted by the chandelier, seemed to sag a little. The impression of smooth youthfulness was fractured. He might have been a small-time actor awaiting the ministrations of a make-up artist. Handsome, certainly, but tired, worn down, in need of a brush stroke, a touch of paint. He projected an air of weariness despite the way he tried to disperse it with a manner of confidence.

  Pagan asked, ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Good question.’

  ‘Give me a good answer,’ Pagan said. He looked at Katherine Cairney. She was confused, like somebody presented with a message written in impenetrable code. Sweet Uncle Tobias, feet of clay, the clatter of idols falling to the ground: he wondered if that was what she was thinking. He felt sorry for her – but the feeling was remote, at one remove from himself.

  ‘It’s a tough question, Pagan. She’s unpredictable. She isn’t like anyone else.’ He looked at the girl as he spoke, not at Pagan. It was as if he felt some abrupt need to explain Carlotta to her.

  ‘Unpredictable wouldn’t be my first choice,’ Pagan said. ‘Try murderous. Try callous. Try abominable. She’s a walking horror story. You should know, Barron. You call the shots, don’t you? You finance her. You meet the bills. And Carlotta is one of your expenses.’

  ‘That’s a simplistic deduction, if you don’t mind me saying so,’ Barron answered. ‘Carlotta does what she wants, Pagan. That’s how she’s built. She does exactly as she pleases.’

  Barron stroked his words in such a way when he referred to Carlotta that the music of affection in his voice was unmistakable. A new dimension opened up for Pagan all at once: the concept of a close relationship between Barron and Carlotta. He couldn’t imagine it somehow. He reached for it, but couldn’t grasp it. If Barron was fond of Carlotta and if fondness implied knowledge of her – what did that say about Barron’s own state of mind? But then he remembered
her face and manner, the bewitching way she cast spells without effort, her forceful sexuality, and he wondered if Barron had been enchanted the way Pagan himself had been years ago. Why not?

  Pagan shook his head. ‘I don’t think so, Barron. I think she does what you want. That’s the way I see it. Take Bryce Harcourt. You and your friends – and I’m guessing William Caan belongs in that category – want him out of the way because he’s getting pretty damn nervous about all this cash going around, so you commission Carlotta. She goes about it with a vengeance, which is the biggest understatement of my life. Afterwards, because she hasn’t quite had her quota of kicks, because a hundred people on a train isn’t quite enough to satisfy her rapacious appetite for destruction, she slices up some poor hooker—’

  ‘What hooker?’ Barron asked.

  ‘You didn’t know that? You weren’t informed? Let me edify you. She killed a prostitute in Mayfair and left a personal calling card behind addressed to me. You must know enough about her to realize she thinks it’s fun to slice somebody up with a pair of scissors. It’s a lark. Even then, she wants some extra spice, so why not leave a message written in blood behind – it makes the joke funnier still.’

  Barron was silent for a time. You couldn’t read anything in his expression. He was skilled at concealing himself, a knack for camouflage. Even the vague weariness that created an aura around him might have been designed for effect.

  Pagan said, ‘Where is she?’

  Barron moved down a couple of steps, saying nothing.

  ‘She’s here in Venice with you. She’s here with you because this is where the action is. Right?’

  Barron looked at his wrist-watch. ‘Action, Pagan?’

  ‘Gurenko. An assassination. Stop me if I err,’ he said. Finally giving voice to this notion imbued it with a sharp credibility for him. Gurenko. Marked for death. Peace is bad for business. There was an equation somewhere. There was a design even if its strands were still twisted.

  Barron looked distant, as if he were elsewhere, thinking thoughts that had nothing to do with whatever Pagan said. Then his mood appeared to alter, his face shadowed over, and Pagan had the notion that somehow the news about the vicious death of the hooker had touched him. But he rejected this idea. If Barron had commissioned Carlotta to destroy the Underground train, what was the blood of one young girl in Mayfair to him? Maybe Barron was one of those people who had a way of separating atrocities, placing them in different boxes, some labelled Necessary, others stored under the rubric Needless. Or maybe he was immune to death, as cold-hearted as Carlotta herself.