Raoul got to the phone after the first trill. He sounded more relaxed, but still cautious. I peered at my list of questions, the fruit of my intermittent discussions with Wesley, nothing I’d dignify with the word ‘analysis’, simply an attempt to join the most obvious of the dots.
‘Grant Wallace,’ I began. ‘You getting anywhere? All those contacts of yours?’
‘Sure.’
‘And?’
There was a long pause here. I was watching the digits in the little window, the ones that tell you how much time you’ve got left. Silence comes expensive on transatlantic calls, even at two in the morning.
Then, suddenly, Raoul was back. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘you ought to level with me. OK?’
‘Level?’
‘Yeah. Like who you are, and who you’re fronting for, and why the fuck I should be Mr Helpline.’ He paused. ‘Am I making any sense?’
‘Yes,’ I said drily, ‘lots.’
‘Well?’
It was my turn to say nothing. A car had appeared at the end of the street, a rusty old Capri, a big pudding face behind the wheel, unshaven, swivelling to watch me as the car cruised slowly past.
Raoul was into guesswork now. ‘Press? Media?’
‘No.’
‘Police?’
‘No.’
I cut him short, telling him as much of the truth as I dared. I’d been working for British Intelligence. Just now, I was off the case. The whole thing stank.
Raoul broke in again. ‘Stank?’
‘Stinks.’
‘What does?’
‘What I’m into. Please, just tell me about Wallace. And trust me.’
There was another silence. Then, reluctantly, Raoul told me what he knew about Grant. According to police insiders, he’d been killed after a struggle of some kind. There’d been blood under his fingernails, and contusions on his ribcage, though these looked a day or so older.
‘I know about them,’ I said quickly. ‘Beckermann did them. Out on his ranch. With a riding whip.’
‘You kidding?’ I heard Raoul’s soft laugh.
He went on. The gun he’d used appeared to be his own, same make, same model, but there was some confusion about the serial numbers matching the ones recorded on the original sales invoice. He’d been to the shop, the Sun Valley Arms Corp, but it was obvious that the owner had been told to say nothing. When Raoul had asked him whether he’d sold anything similar recently, he’d said he couldn’t remember. When Raoul suggested he consult his records, the man said he was far too busy. Frustrated, Raoul had next tried contacts at the police laboratories, but it seemed that the slug in Grant’s brain had proved useless for forensic purposes.
‘Why?’
‘It was soft nose. You know about these things? Soft nose goes squashy. It’s the favourite for professionals. Leaves nothing but the mess inside your skull.’
I frowned, remembering now the box of shells I’d found in Wallace’s attaché case. Fifty rounds. Full metal jacket. Definitely not snub nose. I told Raoul. The news didn’t appear to surprise him.
‘Homicide,’ he said. ‘Obvious to everyone. Except the guys in charge.’
‘You mean the police?’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Who then?’
Raoul didn’t answer and I asked the question again. When he still refused to say anything, I changed the subject, consulting my list.
‘I’ve got a name for you,’ I said. ‘You get this one for free.’
‘Pardon me?’
‘François Ghattan.’ I spelled it. ‘You get that?’
‘Sure. Who is he?’
‘Close friend of Beckermann’s. We’re pretty certain he died earlier this year. Probably some time in June. Probably in Dallas.’
‘What was the problem?’
‘Heart condition.’ I paused. ‘We think.’
‘You want me to check it out?’
‘Please.’
Raoul laughed again, a wholly pleasant chuckle, warmth in the chilly darkness. I could see another pair of lights in the distance. I hoped to God it wasn’t the Capri again.
‘Another thing,’ I said, ‘another name.’
‘Yeah?’
‘This Ghattan, the name I’ve given you, the man had a bodyguard. An Iraqi. Rahman Khalil.’ I spelled the name, watching the headlights creeping up the road towards me. ‘You got that? Only we’d be interested if you could come up with anything.’
I hesitated a moment, certain now that it was the Capri, same big face, same staring eyes, mouth slightly open, head turning as the car began to coast to a halt. I swallowed hard, feeling my pulse quicken. For weeks, I’d stayed one step ahead of the game, taking my chances, pushing my luck. Now, in Exmouth of all places, my luck seemed to have run out. I bent quickly to the phone. Raoul was back on the line.
‘This “we”,’ he was saying, ‘you and who else?’
‘A friend,’ I said, ‘someone pretty special.’
The Capri had stopped a yard or two from the phone box. The door was opening. The man behind the wheel was getting out. I dropped the phone, grabbed the recorder and made a bolt for the darkness. Beside the phone box was a small park. There were trees in the park and shrubs beside a footpath. I clambered over a low wall and pushed through the bushes, crouching in a flower bed, hidden from the road. I heard a car door slam. Then there were footsteps and the sound of someone bulky crashing through the undergrowth. Already, I knew it couldn’t be surveillance. Even MI5 couldn’t be this obvious, this gross. No. The figure coming at me through the bushes was altogether simpler. Someone big, and probably drunk, and very definitely looking for company. I stayed motionless, convinced he couldn’t see me, not understanding why he kept coming on, straight towards me, unerring. Then I looked down, realizing too late that the recorder was still on, the bright red glow of the battery warning light winking in the darkness, my very own homing beacon.
Too late, I abandoned it, throwing it into the bushes, but the figure was on me now, huge belly, baggy jeans, boots, lunging at me, pinning me to the ground, my face turned away, driven into the wet soil by the sheer weight of his body. I smelled the hot, sour smell of whisky, and I heard the man grunting as he tore at my jeans, the huge hands ripping open the fly zip. I tried to struggle free, knowing I could outrun him, badly frightened now, and then there was an explosion of lights inside my head as he began to hit me, the smack of knuckle on bone, again and again, the man grunting and cursing with the effort. I tasted blood for the first time, the side of my face numb, and as he rocked back on his heels, trying to get out of his own jeans, I rolled over, into the leaves.
He lunged at me again, half naked beneath the waist, unable to move properly, and I spotted my chance, remembering with absolute clarity one of the tricks they’d taught me at Hereford. I could see the black shadows of his groin, and I went for it, one hundred per cent, the way they said you had to do it, total commitment. Astonished, he hesitated for a second, a big mistake, giving me time to grab and squeeze and squeeze harder and twist with all my strength. He began to bellow, an animal roar that became a scream and then a whimper. When he was quite still, gasping for air, his knees drawn up, I let go, both hands finding his neck, up by the Une of the chin, the skin rough with stubble. I put my hands round his neck and drove the thumbs in as hard as I dared, hearing him beginning to choke, the eyes popping in his face, the huge belly writhing beneath me. I hung on for a moment or two longer, then let go, stepping away, on to the grass, watching his body go limp. I’d no idea whether I’d killed him, and in truth I didn’t care.
On the way past the Capri, I reached in and took the key. If he’d survived, the last thing I wanted was him coming after me again, so I threw the key as far as I could, over the wall across the road, into the grounds of a big hotel. Then I set off, up the hill, back to the flat, pausing twice to be sick in the gutter. Wesley met me at the door, minutes later. He’d been worried about me. Anything, he said, could have happened.<
br />
‘It did,’ I said, collapsing. ‘I think I just killed someone.’
Wesley was brilliant, quite brilliant. He sat with me until dawn. He sponged the blood from my face and put together an ice pack with cubes from the fridge and an old drying-up cloth. He raided his supply of drugs for a couple of painkillers and found a quarter bottle of brandy. The combination of the two had an extraordinary effect, loosening my brain from my body, and as the drugs began to blanket the pain, I broke down completely, sobbing and sobbing, Wesley beside me on the narrow little bed, his thin arms enfolding me, his big face in mine.
‘Hey,’ he kept saying, ‘hey, now.’
I shook my head, angry at the tears, all that raw emotion, but quite unable to do anything about it. Finally, at God knows what time, I must have gone to sleep because the next thing I remember is sunshine pouring in through the thin curtains, and Wesley back beside the bed with a huge mug of tea.
I reached for it, grateful. I noticed how ugly my hands looked, the nails broken, cuts and scratches everywhere. The sight of them brought it all flooding back, the smell of the man, the weight of his body, and I began to tremble again, spilling my tea. Wesley fetched a blanket from his own bedroom and wrapped it around my shoulders. I noticed, for the first time, that he was wearing a coat.
‘Where have you been?’ I said.
‘Out.’
‘Where?’
‘Down the hill. Where you said.’
‘And?’
‘The car’s still there. Police all over it.’
‘What about the guy?’
‘Nothing. No sign. Either he went of his own accord, or they picked him up.’ He paused. ‘Supposing he was still alive.’
I stared at him for a moment. ‘Shit,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘The recorder.’
‘What about it?’
‘I left it there. With the tape. Everything… It was in the bushes. They must have found it. Must have.’
I risked a sip or two of tea, swilling it around my dry mouth, trying to remember exactly what I’d said to Raoul. I knew he’d been pushy, wanting to know who I was, who I worked for, and as near as dammit I knew I’d told him. Intelligence, I’d said, British Intelligence. With dialogue like that, the local constabulary wouldn’t need too much prompting. The cassette was probably already en route to London, PO Box 500, one of those neat little HMG jiffy bags.
‘Shit,’ I said again, finishing the tea.
I didn’t leave the flat for the next two days, a combination of vanity and caution. My face ballooned less than I’d anticipated. One eye was blackened, and there was more bruising along the Une of my cheek bone and down the side of my neck, but nothing seemed broken. Even my precious teeth, which had survived the accident in Northern Ireland, had once again come through intact. All in all, given the physical odds, I’d been incredibly lucky.
Not that Wesley had much time for luck. Frail as he was, he’d taken over entirely, a real reversal of roles, and he fussed around the flat, keeping me supplied with never-ending mugs of soup and hot tea. He made occasional expeditions to the local shops, returning with titbits he thought might cheer me up, and after one of these trips, he reappeared with a copy of the local weekly paper.
My little adventure in the park had made page one. The man’s name was Jason Livingstone and he was, thank God, still alive. From his hospital bed, he’d given police a detailed description of the gang that had assaulted him. They were, he’d said, young, a handful of teenagers who’d dragged him from his car, beaten him senseless and left him for dead. The report included a photo of the hapless victim. He was sitting up in his hospital bed with a loose crêpe bandage around his throat and an expression of wary innocence. Beside the report was a paragraph or two of editorial comment, heavy black type, headed ‘HAS IT COME TO THIS?’ Wesley read it to me, line by line, circling the living room, aiming the odd kick at the furniture. The editorial was full of phrases like ‘motiveless violence’ and ‘teenage thuggery’, and at the end of it – inevitably – there was a call for the return of national service. Wesley waved it at me, outraged.
‘Can you believe they print this shit?’ he said.
I smiled, an amazingly painful experience. ‘Of course,’ I said.
Wesley stared at me. ‘What?’ he said. ‘After all that?’
‘Yes.’ I shrugged. ‘What’s so special about the truth?’
My mother’s surprise party took place on the Saturday. My first instinct, recovering from the attack, was to cancel, and I got Wesley to phone from a box and tell her I’d been sent abroad. He did what I asked, but it was obvious that she’d been really disappointed, and the more I thought about it, the more I knew I owed them both an appearance. I didn’t look my best, but an hour or two with the Max Factor would hide the worst of the damage, and in any case my father had never been the kind of man who worried unduly about appearances. What mattered to him was what mattered to me: the fact that we cared enough to make an effort.
The party was to begin at eight. My mother had gone to elaborate lengths to get my father out of the house in time for the guests to gather. When he returned, he’d find the lights out and my mother fretting in the hall about the fuse box. He’d come in, take off his coat, go in search of his precious tool box, and while he was still looking – hey presto! – the lights would come on again. Whether or not it had happened in exactly this order, I didn’t know, but by the time I arrived in the camper, the street was full of cars, and there was laughter and music and the cheerful hum of people having a thoroughly good time.
I parked the camper down by the seafront, pausing a moment to listen to the long draw of the rollers on the pebble beach. It had always been one of my favourite sounds – audible from my bedroom when I lived here – and I drew my coat around me, somehow comforted. Whatever happened, wherever I went, I could always come back to this, one of life’s precious constants.
I walked back up the road towards the house. I’d left Wesley watching television in the flat. He’d had mixed feelings about the party, mainly, I suspect, because he’d have liked to have come. The last few days had brought us very close. He’d been there when I needed him, a commitment entirely free of any kind of strings. There was nothing, I told myself, he needed me for. Not sex. Not money. Not advantage. The only things he had left to give were time and effort, gifts all the more precious because he had so little of either left. All this probably sounds infantile. But to me his devotion matched nothing I’ve ever experienced, before or since. I wrote at the start of this account that Wesley was the bravest person I ever met. Part of that courage, that generosity, was the bit of himself he spent on me.
I had the key to the house, but I judged it best to knock on the door. Inside, I could hear accordion music and the jaunty scrape of a fiddle. There were footsteps along the hall, the door opened and then my father was standing there, his arms wide, a huge smile on his lovely face. He was wearing the old cardigan he put on for trips to the pub, and a paper hat, the sort you get in crackers. Christmas was round the corner and there was a big bunch of mistletoe inside the hall.
‘Sah,’ he said, the pet name he’d always used.
I felt his arms close around me and smelled the warm Erinmore Flake smell of Sundays by the fire. I kissed him and then kissed him again. I’d brought a present, a framed Falklands sketch Wesley had found for me in an Exmouth gallery. I gave it to him.
‘They let you go, then,’ I said, ‘poor fools.’
I stepped inside, into the light. My father was looking hard at my face. Not much got past him.
‘What happened?’ he said quietly.
I dismissed the question with what I hoped was a grin. ‘Nothing much,’ I said. ‘Long story.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. No problem.’
‘Look at me.’
I looked at him, my eyes beginning to moisten, a reaction so instinctive it took even me by surprise. I could see a blur o
f guests behind, up the hall, some of them looking my way. I fell into his arms again, his big hands cupping my head.
‘My poor love,’ he said, ‘my poor darling.’
It took me a minute or two to compose myself. The make-up, I knew, was wrecked. I slipped into the little cloakroom beside the front door, excusing myself. I had my bag with me. Not everything was lost.
Repaired, I emerged again. The big through-lounge was a sea of faces, most of them turned my way. I waved as gaily as I could, my biggest grin, trying desperately to find my mother, someone I could bury myself away with, a chance to catch my social breath.
‘Hi,’ I said, ‘hi, everyone.’
There was a chorus of answering hi’s, then the music struck up again, a wild swirl of violin chords, an answering barp on the squeeze box. Across the room, against the wall, was a table of food, rows of glasses and I picked my way towards it. The last thing I wanted was anything to eat, but I was beginning to have serious doubts whether I’d stay upright much longer and I thought a drink might help. I was still pouring a large glass of my father’s favourite Medoc, when I felt a tug at my elbow. I looked round. It was Ruth.
‘You made it,’ she said, ‘after all.’
I nodded, trying not to gulp. ‘I did,’ I agreed. ‘Bit of a surprise. My father. You know …’
Ruth was nodding. Her glass was empty. Without asking, I filled it. She watched me do it, surprised.
‘I wasn’t going to come,’ she said at last, ‘under the circumstances, your mother and I—’ She broke off, not bothering to complete the sentence. I looked at her, a mix of confusion and mild shock.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said woodenly, ‘if it makes any difference. I was a fool. We both were. These things …’ I raised my glass, touching hers. ‘Cheers. Happy Christmas.’
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