The Dealer and the Dead

by Gerald Seymour

  She called from the landing. ‘A whisky, I think, Benjie. You’ll be a voyeur, won’t you? Not going to clash with any scant sense of morality?’

  He laughed with her. ‘Bugger the morals. I’m banking on a fine show.’

  ‘And, of course, you’ll play the universal idiot, and do it well.’

  ‘They’re the clothes I’m comfortable in.’

  At the Gold Group meeting there was little enthusiasm for extending the session further into the late evening.

  ‘Bizarre circumstances, agreed, but not entirely unwelcome.’ From SCD10, Surveillance: ‘I would have to say, Ma’am, that we were not happy with declining an invitation to mount the sort of job that was required. Just don’t have the people. If we were to have put in a covert rural observation point, we would have had to pull a very expert team off secondment to Box 500 or to one of the narcotics scenes, important, down on the south coast. We’re singing and dancing if the Tango’s done a runner.’

  From CO19, Firearms: ‘We, too, have Box 500 commitments, but the whole VIP scene is a killer in resources. We have an obligation to the target to protect him, however obstinate and daft he wants to be. Him going gives us a chance to reassess – and hope he keeps moving and doesn’t turn round.’

  From SCD11, Intelligence: ‘We don’t have a line on the identity of the guy who took the contract. It’ll sneak out – always does – but at this moment I have no idea who this village bought.’

  From SCD7, the inspector: ‘I have Mark Roscoe back from the coast. He knows the Tango better than anyone … Yes, I am concerned about our duty-of-care obligations. My suggestion, while the Tango plods across Europe, we put Roscoe on a flight first thing in the morning. He can liaise in Zagreb, then go on to Vukovar. What he’ll do there I don’t know, but it’ll give our shoulder-blades some cover.’

  From HMRC, a line manager: ‘We have there, already in place, Penny Laing and she’ll be able to brief Roscoe. She’s an experienced, highly capable operative and—’

  The inspector flared, ‘My man, Roscoe, is quite capable of crossing a road on his own and will not need his hand held.’

  The line manager said evenly, ‘I wouldn’t want heavy police boots blundering over the sensitive ground that our investigator is looking at.’

  Time for Phoebe Bermingham to call a halt, and she did. It had always astonished her that separate departments went on to a war footing when co-operation was called for. The concept of a detective from the Flying Squad working with an investigator from HM Revenue and Customs was obviously built on shifting sands.

  ‘I’m sure they’ll do very well together and create complete harmony in their professional relationship. The Tango’s gone and we should be thankful – whatever happens to him is to be laid squarely at his own door. Safe home, gentlemen.’ She shuffled her papers together, pushed back her chair. It was an afterthought and she had forgotten herself sufficiently for a puzzled frown to gouge her forehead. ‘I cannot imagine what he thinks he can achieve – and it’s all so long ago. I mean, do I look back to what happened in my life nineteen years ago and allow the past to dictate my present? Aren’t memories fogged by time? It’s Europe, the twenty-first century, and blood vendettas should be consigned to history classes. Is nothing ever forgotten?’

  ‘No, Ma’am,’ the Intelligence man said softly. ‘Never forgotten and never forgiven. He’ll probably get the top of his head blown off.’

  Simun touched her arm to attract her attention, then pointed. ‘You see, Penny, no wedding ring. And there was no ring on the finger of Maria, the wife of Andrija, and my mother had no ring when she was buried. She has no ring, no gold chain with a crucifix, or any earrings. Everything she had went into the bag that was taken by Harvey Gillot.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was late. She had been brought to a farmhouse. She was sitting at the kitchen table, hewn wood, and the chair was old, its legs uneven. She had been offered, and had taken, a glass of tap water. The eyes of the woman opposite never left Penny’s face. She could see where the house had been rebuilt. The beams were exposed, some charred, and the walls were not plastered. In one there was a big hole, like a bite from an apple, filled with different bricks and newer mortar.

  ‘He went to the bank and took out a loan for five thousand euros. That was his share for the payment on the contract.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Their boy went to the place where the Malyutkas were to be delivered. The delivery was not made and their boy was identified by his size and the scraps of his clothing that remained. His testicles were in his mouth. They will not speak of the siege and the death of their son.’

  She had been told that in the days between the loss of their son and the collapse of the village’s defences, their home had taken a direct hit from a tank shell. If the Malyutka missiles had arrived the tank would have been destroyed. Simun had said that their son’s room was sealed now, the window bricked up. The wife had been in the kitchen: if she had not been close to the table and able to crawl under it as the floors above collapsed, she would have died too. She had been unhurt except that her hearing had gone. She lived in silence. They were separated, Simun had told Penny. Her company was the quiet and his was the anger at what had been done to them. The focus, now, of the anger was Harvey Gillot – and it was as if a man crouched by a fire, blew on its embers and flames reared.

  ‘He farms a hundred hectares that he owns and another hundred and fifty that he rents. He could be rich, but is not. All the money that the farm makes goes to the association for the support of war veterans. He is a pauper. Look at his clothes, how she dresses. He is a fine farmer, but is now in his sixty-eighth year. Soon he will drop and his farm will be sold, maybe to businessmen in Zagreb or to expatriates living in America. For now he stays close to his son’s room. His son should have farmed this land and lived here. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She was looking at her hands on the rough table and imagining the woman under it, the dust cascading with the beams and bricks, when her mobile rang. She answered it brusquely, was given a name, asked for it to be repeated, then spoke it aloud: ‘Mark Roscoe, sergeant, SCD7.’ She remembered him, sharp and abrasive. She had called him ‘patronising’ and had thought him stereotypical of the average specialised-unit policeman: he would have thought the sun shone from his backside and the rest of the world was second rate. She was given a travel itinerary, and rang off. Simun queried, but she shook her head and stood.

  They went outside into the night.

  She sensed, then, that time was short, that a world created for her in this village, with its history, would imminently fracture.

  She thought that the son – who would now have been in his late thirties, with a wife and a clutch of kids – would have gone with a village girl to the barn behind the house where the winter fodder was stored. Perhaps the boy with her might have been there with a new generation of village girls. Penny Laing thought herself absorbed into the life of the village; the Alpha team and her bed-sit were almost blown away. They went towards the darkened hulk of the barn and she could hear animals – maybe pigs, goats, heifers – and a truth smacked across her face.

  Had Harvey Gillot broken the law of his own country, flown in the teeth of a Security Council resolution, and supplied Malyutka missiles to this community, there would now be a statue in his honour in front of the church, and a street or the café would bear his name. She thought of the great and the good in Whitehall, and the Alpha team who made their policy decisions. They had not been here, had seen nothing and were ignorant. But Harvey Gillot had failed on the deal and was condemned.

  They climbed bales. She helped him to strip, and felt the prickly warmth of hay against her skin. He had brought his own condom and was shy when he gave it to her. She split the packet and rolled it on to him, then arched, took him and felt a liberation – a cord cut, a link broken. She had never before belonged – not even with her naval man – and she clung to him. He cried ou
t to his animal audience, gasped and sagged. She held him, clung tight. Into his ear, kissing him, she whispered, ‘When he comes here …’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘When Gillot comes here …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘… will he be killed?’

  The boy slipped wetly out of her. ‘Why not? If he comes here, of course he will be killed.’

  The train had halted and was lodged in a siding. He didn’t know how far they had travelled, but he estimated from the time that they were outside Cologne. The long-distance trains, travelling overnight, needed places to park so that they would arrive at their destination after the world had woken.

  He lay on his back. Earlier he had washed and scraped off the sweat of the previous day. He hadn’t really slept, but the project was still forward in his mind: armoured cars, the big new market area. Could be Mercedes – he had a smattering of German, enough to ingratiate himself with the sales force of this particular specification, which was important because he would be looking for exclusivity in the territory agreed and also for decent profit margins. Could be Jaguar.

  There wasn’t much in price between the German and British vehicles, both around a quarter of a million euros, and he could hear his patter: A bargain, actually. Only thing that comes cheaper than this vehicle is a funeral – yours. Some customers would look for a German product on principle, and others had to have British-made. Of the Jaguar, his line might be: At a quarter of a million, it’s a snip. I predict it’ll be the preferred transport for heads of state, business leaders, celebrities, the Diplomatic Corps. Such fine lines … He buried himself, through that night, in the thicknesses of armour-plating systems, the depth of bulletproof-glass windows, the cost of run-flat tyres, a global after-sales service to check the continuing effectiveness of Kevlar plates, the armour-driving training course for a big man’s chauffeur.

  There was a low throb of air-conditioning.

  He did not think – whether for Mercedes or Jaguar – that prospective buyers would be Russian. He would look for the fringe markets, where he was better known – Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova or Belarus, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. In their literature Jaguar said: Dealing with real security risks in our everyday lives is becoming commonplace. Too right.

  He felt strangely better for being alone, anonymous, tucked away in a sleeper carriage, safer than if he had been behind the wheel of a massive car that was low on the road from the weight of its armour plating.

  The bed shook, the carriage rocked and the glasses above the wash-basin rattled. The train edged forward. He felt relaxed, not frightened.

  The aircraft had come down fast, had hit hard, and the landing had shaken Robbie Cairns.

  It had taken him almost half an hour to find the right platform for the train into the city, and the journey then was another forty-five minutes. He had emerged at the Hauptbahnhof where he had followed his instructions and rung the first number on the contact list. He was supposed to be the cool guy, fazed by nothing, but his hands had been shaking when he had dialled the number in a phone booth and waited while it warbled. It had been answered, and Robbie had blurted English words. Then he had heard an aloof, distant voice, accented, that – thank Christ – he understood.

  He had thought of her, had done all through the flight, on the train into Munich and at the station, on the concourse and at the call booth. Had thought she would be colder, paler … He was told what he should do.

  The taxi driver grinned at him lewdly as he gave the address.

  He was driven away from the main streets, not far from the station, and into darker roads. The destination was a bar. A doorman stepped forward, waved Robbie towards the entrance and settled with the driver. He was led inside. Music blasted and there was a girl on a stage, but they went past her, past empty chairs and tables. The girl danced but still had clothes on. Robbie did not go to strip or lap clubs and kept his eyes on the tired carpet. They went to an office.

  Two men were inside.

  He was asked for identification and showed his passport. They looked at the photograph, then at him, and a light was tilted to shine full in his face. He was asked the date of his mother’s birthday. He gave it. One of the men stood and the other sat in a desk chair of upholstered leather, trays of invoices and receipts in front of him. A drawer in the desk was unlocked, pulled open and a cardboard box taken out. The top was lifted. Robbie knew the Walther PPK. The butt had a black plastic inlay, while the barrel and mechanism were dull grey. The weapon rested easily in his hand. He looked first at the safety lever, then cleared the breech, hearing the smooth sound of metal on metal, which told him the weapon was well-maintained. Satisfied it was empty, he aimed at a photo of a girl on the wall, pulled the trigger and learned the degree of squeezed force required.

  Robbie Cairns noted the camera. It was high in a corner. The lens would have been the size of his little-finger nail and was aimed downwards. It would have covered him from the moment he came through the door. He realised no one would ask him to sign for the gun. There was a television screen beside the desk and the girl who danced on the stage was now naked. The hair on her head was blonde, but black below her belly, as Barbie’s was.

  The man at the desk said it was a Polizeipistole Kriminalmodell and the calibre was 7.65mm. The magazine held seven rounds and the range was … He didn’t need to know the range, the calibre or the size of the magazine. It would be close, and it would be what the police called ‘double tap’.

  He was given two magazines, then a silencer attachment.

  The camera eyed him. He couldn’t escape it. He thought himself stripped. They had achieved power over him and he didn’t know who owned a tape that could convict him. He wanted to be gone.

  He was not asked for payment. He assumed, down the line of whatever conveyor-belt now operated behind him, they’d take a cut from the second payments, due on delivery of a body. He had no doubt that when the train came in the next morning and Harvey Gillot walked down the platform, he would be close and would fire the double tap – the first shot to the body, the second to the head – and that he would earn what was still outstanding.

  She was in his mind and he couldn’t scratch her out.

  He took the pistol, the magazines and the silencer. He asked for a taxi to be called.

  Did he want to drink in the club and watch the show? He did not.

  He preferred to wait on the pavement for the taxi, and the night settled on him.

  ‘I wouldn’t.’ Daniel Steyn had a grin on his face, more mischief than malice.

  ‘I’m packed, the bags are inside the door and the cab’s booked. In the morning I check out.’ It was a game, William Anders realised, and he must play it out.

  ‘Just that if it was me I wouldn’t.’

  ‘I have, Daniel, a lecture the day after tomorrow in Stockholm, and then I’m committed to a four-day seminar in Helsinki. It would take a powerful argument to enthuse me to scrub what’s been in place for six months.’

  ‘I wouldn’t leave here, not now.’

  It was supposed to have been a farewell drink, the end of the day, and the little party for the professor – given by those he had worked with on the Ovcara site – was over and his hosts had dispersed. The quack, Daniel Steyn, had stayed up late, driven over to the hotel, and they’d worked over a few malts. Anders had planned, Steyn knew, to be gone before eight and would be on an early flight out of Osijek for a German hub, Frankfurt or Berlin, and then … Steyn had a network of informants. A call had come. He was not an intelligence officer or a police source. Over the years he had recognised that knowledge was power, which he needed if he wanted to stay in decaying, forgotten Vukovar to do good work in psychotherapy. He needed power over the local politicians who would dearly have liked him silenced because he spoke truths. The town and its community were a monument to failure: reconciliation between Serb and Croat was at lip-service level, there was addiction to drink and antidepressants, and the treatment of comba
t trauma was underfunded and inadequate. Without the knowledge that gave him power, Daniel Steyn would have been forced, years back, out of the town. That he remained was a tribute to his dedication and his mental filing cabinet of informants’ tales. His parent charity was as susceptible as others to cut-backs but he had lowered his standard of living, and he lingered. He knew also that Anders – bombastic, domineering and furthering a personality cult – was a good, kindly man, who bought the meals and paid for the drinks. Probably a small box of Scotch would be delivered to his door the day after Anders had gone.

  ‘Late at night, Daniel, and I’ve shipped a fair bit of juice. Can we quit spoiling what’s left of the evening? Tell me.’

  ‘There was a hit attempt that failed.’

  ‘History.’

  ‘The latest I have is that Harvey Gillot – on whose head you facilitated the dropping of a contract – is currently en route to Vukovar.’

  ‘That is a goddamn joke – why? Is that the original death wish? Do we have a kind of suicide factory like the place in Zürich? Why would he do that? Why not dig a hole, climb into it and stay down?’

  ‘Could be an attempt to confront what he did. The big gesture.’

  ‘And you reckon it’ll be played out in public.’

  ‘Not the sort of matter where there’s a privacy clause attached.’

  ‘I quit my flight?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be leaving. I can offer you – my connections, my sources – a seat in the grand circle.’

  ‘Am I sure I want to be there? I don’t queue outside Huntsville gaol to watch lethal injections. Be a lynch job, wouldn’t it? Not sure that—’

  ‘You set it in motion, Bill, and that’s why you’ll be there.’

  They didn’t get round immediately to the matter of cancellations. Quite a number there would be: a taxi, the two flights, a little white lie, or a big black one, to the organisers of a forensic-pathology gathering in the Swedish capital and the seminar in Finland. Steyn could see he had set a cat among the canaries, and that his friend was weighing options. He knew which way the balance would go. William Anders, professor of the science of digging up long-buried bodies, was a prime mover in the efforts to kill the British-born arms trader. He’d stay.