Then the girl had wandered to her from the car, had flashed the ID card and asked what business brought her here. She had expected then to be given the boot. With defiance, she had been chattering about ‘legal and peaceful protest’ and the ‘rights of the individual on a public highway’. The policewoman had grimaced and her lips had moved in near silence – she might have said: ‘Please yourself, sunshine, the stage is yours.’ The guy, big, heavy built, sweating rivers, had called across the road that Gillot had taken the dog for a walk.
The police attitude further flustered her – they were, from everything she rated sacred, in alliance with the dealers in death. She had asked, of course, why the clothing was on the gate, smart jackets and dresses and blouses and coats – far beyond her range and inclinations but it might have suited her two sisters-in-law. There had been grim smiles, and she had not been enlightened. So, she had steeled herself and waited, and had heard the rhythmic beat of a horse’s hoofs. She had seen him … filthy, looked as if he had slept in those clothes, lost his razor … looked pretty bloody ordinary, or like a derelict from Hackney, Pentonville or the Caledonian Road. Now he stared at her, as if she had come from under a stone. She lifted the bullhorn. ‘Harvey Gillot, dealer in murder, guilty … Harvey Gillot, dealer in murder, guilty … Harvey Gillot, dealer in murder, guilty …’ She hammered it into his face, but he didn’t blink. The horse strained and the dog sniffed her jeans. She felt anger rising because she had won no response. Felt cheated, too, that the police had not intervened to protect him, and short-changed because there was no crowd at her back and her denunciations had gained no audience. She was asked her name.
She spat it at him, and that of the organisation she was proud to belong to.
His voice was calm, as if emotion had drained away through a muslin cloth. ‘Right, Miss Behan, where you fit into this game, I haven’t a clue, but probably nowhere. It’s a bad day for me. My wife has left home after eighteen years of partially successful marriage and will be back shortly to collect her stuff. She has left home because I accused her of getting herself fucked by our jobbing gardener, and also because …’
She drowned him, full volume: ‘Harvey Gillot, merchant of death … Harvey Gillot, killer of babies … Harvey Gillot, trader in misery … Harvey Gillot, dealer in …’
It was a fast, short jab from a stubby fist. It was not aimed at her face but at the side of the bullhorn. The blow was strong enough to break her grip. It would have been a triumph, major proportions, if the fist had caught her chin, lip or teeth, but she was denied it. The bullhorn fell on the lane, bounced, settled in nettles. She saw that the police had straightened and knew none would intervene in defence of a dropped bullhorn.
Still quiet, still a voice that sounded reasonable: ‘My wife was fucking the gardener, which was one reason she thought it right to leave home, but she wanted to go, too, because my life is now out to tender. Got me, Miss Behan? There’s a contract and a man’s been hired to do the business, which is to kill me. Simple enough for you, Miss Behan? To shoot me. He tried this morning while I took out the dog and my wife did the foreplay with the gardener. Tried and failed. Sorry and all that, Miss Behan. I expect it would have made your day to get down here and find police tape and a tent with my feet sticking out under the side, half the world’s snappers and me cold, stiff and dead. He fired twice and missed twice. Bad luck for you, Miss Behan.’
She didn’t bend to pick it up. Her voice was almost reedy – pretty pathetic without the amplification, but she cupped her hands over her lips for the megaphone effect. ‘Harvey Gillot, merchant – trader – dealer in death – misery …’
‘Do us all a favour. Go down to the beach and keep walking.’
‘You are a dealer in evil, a purveyor of destruction, you are—’
‘A man came here, to my home, and waited outside my gates. He had a pistol, I thought it a Baikal 9mm – a conversion job. It starts off as a tear-gas gun on the same lines as the Makharov. The conversion is done in Lithuania, and he’d have used soft-nose bullets – that’s dumdum – and he was at point-blank range. I was half on the ground and a wasp went up his nose. He missed twice. You’re small beer, Miss Behan, less important to me than the wasp. You want to stand out here, make an idiot of yourself, do it. See if anyone notices you, Miss Behan, and I doubt they will. For me, getting shot at is higher up the ladder of my concerns than you are. You’re not even on the first rung.’
She remembered.
He led the horse away from her and the dog gambolled at his side. The policeman who must have walked with him hurried past her and chased Gillot towards the gates.
She remembered. A phone call: her hammering the keyboard, stressed at the press-release deadline. Harvey Gillot … I’m a freelancer … Have you an address for him to get me started? Remembered it well. No contact name or number. Excuse enough that she had been busy?
She shouted, ‘Dealer in death … Harvey Gillot … Trader in misery … Harvey Gillot … Blood on your hands … Harvey Gillot.’
The gates closed on them. Her throat was hoarse.
She didn’t know what a Baikal pistol looked like or, indeed, whether a bullet wound in a body was clean or messy, bloody or of geometric precision. To bring purpose to her life she must crouch, put her hands on the bullhorn, lift it and use it …
Roscoe said, ‘We’re prepared to give you twenty-four hours, Mr Gillot, to put your affairs into some sort of order and then to move out.’
‘Have we not had this conversation?’
‘You will have protection for that number of hours – they’ve started – and then protection will be withdrawn.’
‘Am I permitted to comment?’
‘Why not?’
The woman was on the bullhorn, as repetitive and tedious as before, and as lightweight. Roscoe would have admired a silent protest, one without the bucketload of cliché. He had done enough public-order events before he went to CID and then the Flying Squad to recognise that most protesters were brimful of passion and ideology, just short of good scriptwriters. He had no objection to her being where she was, only wished she’d freshen up her text.
‘It’s bullshit.’
‘That’s neither sensible, sir, nor rational.’
‘Bullshit, and that’s polite.’
He didn’t argue. He supposed he should relay what the Gold Group had passed down. He, Suzie and Bill would do relays of sleep and observation from the car. He looked at his wristwatch. Twenty-three hours and fifty-seven minutes remained. He wondered if an officer with greater seniority would arrive to read a Riot Act towards the end, but thought it unlikely. He would have liked to say, ‘From our brief acquaintance, Mr Gillot, I see you as a man of stubbornness and rudeness, without decency, manners or concern for others. Your money is earned from a trade that most right-minded folk would regard as disgusting, bordering on immoral. Don’t expect me to volunteer for duty standing in front of you … and if you’re going to get yourself shot, would you please ascertain that I’m off duty at the time. Not on my watch.’ He didn’t say it.
His tone tried to placate: ‘You leave us with very little option but to—’
‘If my wife comes you can help her with the clothes and tell her that her junk’s in the boxes. The horse will be inside the gate and hopefully it’ll find a good feed off the roses. Thank you, but no. I can manage her boxes.’
The gate was opened – a winter coat and a summer jacket fell from their hangers – the horse was taken inside, let loose, and the dog ran towards the house. Its movement activated the security lights. Roscoe couldn’t recall when he had hated a job as much as this one. Chrissie used to say it would take bubonic plague to keep him off work. Gillot carried a cardboard box through the gates, the size a house-removal company would use. When he dumped it, Roscoe heard china break. The woman, Megs Behan, was still bawling her message. A second box was brought out and put down heavily. He would have liked to say, ‘I tell you, Mr Gillot, it’s not easy to be lucky
every time … and you as a broker in weapons will know what they do to the human body. That they don’t kill as prettily as the films would have us believe. It hurts and it’s ugly – as you’ll find out if you stop being lucky. But I’m sure you know all that, Mr Gillot.’ He waited till Gillot was pulling shut the gates. ‘We’ll see you in the morning, sir.’
The man smiled, did it well.
*
‘A good day, dear?’
‘Not bad, thank you.’
‘Drunk too much?’
‘Some, but not too much.’
It was a ritual. Deirdre had driven the Land Rover from their home to Shrewsbury station and met Benjie off the train. She asked the same questions as she pulled out of the forecourt and received the same answers, then moved on to the business particular to that day. The hip: what was the verdict? ‘Not too bad, quite a good prognosis.’
The visit to the Monstrosity – as she always called VBX – had that been satisfactory? ‘Alastair’s done very well and sends regards. He’ll go a long way. He told me the story, and the opinion is that our sad asset is now in considerable manure. Sort of business where the past comes along fast in the outside lane when least expected. He’s not going to have protection.’
And Denys Foster, the lunch guest, had he been able to oil the waters? ‘I think so. Yes, he did. We talked of Blowback – something exploding in your face. And then we did a bit of Old Testament, “They sow the wind, They shall reap the whirlwind”, and I think Denys stiffened my spine quite successfully. He told me what I should tell Gillot … I’ll call him in the morning.’
‘You’re at the heart of this, Benjie – yes?’
‘Sadly, my dear, you are correct.’
‘Your suggestion to him that he should move the stuff on, dump those villagers?’
‘In line with policy, and putting more money in his pocket. But correct again.’
‘And it bothers you?’
‘A little. Let’s move on.’
They discussed, back to their more normal routine, the grandchildren, that night’s supper and which bottle they’d open to drink with it.
In the hotel dining room, William Anders and Daniel Steyn had a view from their table that took in the river, the snaking barges going upstream, the illuminated white cross, the hotel’s lawns and patio, where a few still sat and gossiped, the car park and the glass doors at the rear of the building.
Anders chuckled. ‘A very serious lady, and no doubt behaving out of character.’
Steyn grinned, grimaced. ‘She’ll make a good feed for a toy-boy.’
They saw the woman, blouse and jeans, head down, shades worn in spite of the darkness. She came across the patio and between the tables, using a route that skirted the lights. A boy held her hand but was led.
‘Miss Penny Laing, I believe.’
‘Far from home, and further from the world’s realities.’
‘That, Daniel, is pretty judgemental.’
‘And expresses, Bill, my acute jealousy of the boy, who I seem to recognise as the son of the capo of that village – and a pusher of pills on a minor scale. He is, I wager, doing a good job of guiding.’
‘People get caught up here, strangers, and all about a feeling of guilt.’
‘Correct – weren’t here, didn’t know. The ignorance makes guilt – and opens the legs.’
They were both laughing, coarse, from the belly, and Daniel poured more wine – good, from the Ilok vineyards. His mobile rang, and he answered it, listened, impassive. He thanked the caller and shut his phone. ‘That village, the process you started, Bill. They did the contract and bought the hit. There was a target this morning in England. It failed.’
‘Not the end of the story. Who told you?’
‘Funny old place, this – hear all sorts. Don’t ask. Not the end of the story because money was paid. He’ll go again, has to. You know about the First Battalion of the Ninth Marines, Bill, who had the heaviest casualties of the entire corps during the Vietnam War – got themselves called the Walking Dead. That’s a good name for Harvey Gillot, and it’s a bit down to you. But don’t lose sleep.’
‘Are you suggesting I’d lie awake because some weapons peddler gets zapped and I helped the process along? If the hit screwed up then I’m sorry – and it’s that which might affect my sleep. I hope they go again.’
They drank, and the woman and her boy were gone.
13
The peal of the alarm clock was followed by a jabbing elbow that broke into Benjie Arbuthnot’s sleep. Deirdre said, ‘You’ve a call to make.’
Would he argue with her at thirty-one minutes past six in the morning? Would he request tea first? ‘Yes, dear, of course.’
‘And don’t prattle. Tell him straight.’
He crawled from the bed, slipped on an old dressing-gown – cotton, light, bought at a street market in Buenos Aires when he’d been building bridges in the mid-eighties – and shuffled out of the bedroom. Early sunlight streamed through the windows of the old gamekeeper’s lodge to which he was now, in retirement, banished: his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren lived in the big house and farmed the land. It was a long time since he had stood on the quayside of a harbour in Croatia as a freighter had edged closer to shore. Responsibility? He had always fought, tooth and claw, to avoid the suffocation of it. But he had had a bad night, and Deirdre would have recognised it, so he was pushed from his bed and sent to clear his – very slight – conscience.
He had the number in his study. Not quite a trophy room, but there were photographs on the walls of the young Benjie in a sports team at school, another of his class at the Royal Military Academy, and a couple of him in camouflage fatigues with his troop and their Ferret scout cars on the inner German border and in south Armagh, more of Deirdre and himself in the Argentinian capital, in Damascus and Peshawar, but little that gave an indication of life after the cavalry. Did he do ‘responsibility’? Barely. A small photograph hung discreetly, almost out of sight behind the curtains. The Swiss had made an excellent 20mm rapid-fire anti-aircraft weapon – the Oerlikon – and it had been thought useful in the early 1970s to get a few down to the Sultanate of Oman without the stigma of overt UK association. A tried and trusted conduit had been used. He stood beside Solly Lieberman. The former cavalry officer and the former invasion-landing-barge crewman, the muscled and well-proportioned Briton with the near-emaciated American. The photograph had been taken by Deirdre at the factory gate in Zürich and—
‘Stop faffing about and get on with it,’ she shouted, from above.
Responsibility? The word was a stranger to him. Benjie Arbuthnot had employed many assets, and some would have died after interrogation and torture, by hanging or firing squad. Most would now have drifted into old age and eked out their remaining years. Some would have been handed on to new station officers and remained active. Now he would be hard put to name the majority, but Solly Lieberman had a place of honour in his memory. He had been at the funeral, interdenominational and sparing with religion, had stood at the back and slipped out before Harvey Gillot, the lady who ran the office, a bank manager, a solicitor, an accountant and a landlord had made their way down the chapel’s aisle. What had he admired most? The sheer brass and anarchy of little Solly and the … Harvey Gillot had had Solly Lieberman’s accolade. Old habits died hard. He unlocked a drawer at his desk. Opened, it showed a shoebox full of mobile phones – pay-as-you-go and disposable. Flat battery, of course. He plugged one into the mains, then dialled. When it had been used, it would be thrown into the depths of the lake in front of the big house and allowed to settle into thick silt.
‘Me here. No names, friend.’
‘What sort of bloody time is this?’
‘It’s a fine morning, and late enough.’
‘I thought you’d call me last night.’
‘Been fretting?’
‘Yes, and I’m entitled to.’
‘How are you on taking advice?’
‘I have g
ood days and bad. Three police outside the gates are offering me advice wrapped with ribbons that I’m declining. To them, I’m obstinate, stubborn, an imbecile, and they’re probably right. From you, I’m open to advice.’
He was already dressed, yesterday’s clothes, and had washed but not shaved. The house, empty but for the dog, had seemed a cold, desolate place during the night … Did he want her back? It was empty and sad. He held the phone to his ear, stood in the living room and watched the horse.
‘I take it as read that you won’t be crawling into a hole, hiding there.’
‘No.’
‘And can’t wait around at home, do the funeral arrangements and check the will.’
‘The police say they’ll withdraw protection this evening.’
‘And what do you say?’
‘I’m working on it.’
‘Ready for advice?’
The horse grazed the lawn, not that the gardener’s mower had left much for it to feed on. The geranium beds were wrecked, and it had tugged at the low branches of some shrubs. There were a couple of mini-mountains of its business on the patio, and the neatness outside was history.
‘Not going to gild it.’
‘I doubt you ever did.’ Harvey Gillot thought his irony was wasted.
‘You have to face up.’
‘How?’
‘You have to confront it.’
‘Where do I “face up” and “confront it”?’
‘There – has to be.’
‘What do I do “there”?’
‘Sorry, I don’t know. But if you don’t go there, you’ll be a fugitive for the rest of your days. I’m not big on religion, and doubt you are, but bits stick from childhood. St John the Baptist said, “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.” The big word repentance, a gesture … from Matthew three, verse eight. Are you with me?’
The Dealer and the Dead Page 30