The Dealer and the Dead

by Gerald Seymour

  Steyn climbed out of his car – damn near clapped-out, but the supporting charity could run to nothing better. There would be no tears shed when it failed and he finally took the train out. Not his tears and not theirs.

  Damn you – we’re missing you. The dog is, Fee is and I am … and we’re frightened for you. Too much said and done, probably, for it to be easy to put a plaster on it. Don’t get the top of your head shot off – don’t. We bloody miss you, whatever damn fool idea’s in your head and wherever you are. Make it through, and we’ll try something. The dog can’t and Fee can’t and I can’t live without the wretched old rogue who is owner and father and husband. Don’t touch anyone there because you’ll destroy them if you do. Look after yourself. Do, please … I’m not interested in this house or the knick-knacks, but I want you, and Fee does, and the damn dog does. Don’t break anyone else like you’re breaking us. God, why did I marry you? Would have been for your bloody smile. Love you …

  The phone was switched off. Steyn saw a man who had learned where his life stood, had listened to others, and was now prepared to walk on and away. Steyn thought he knew where it would end, and how, and that a wife’s mayday call would help him not at all. What to do? Nothing to do … There was a vineyard beside where the car was parked and a man, stripped to the waist, drove a tractor along the lines of almost ripe grapes. Peaceful – a damn fraud. Gillot came out of his seat, arced his back, and a most captivating smile split his face. To himself Steyn admitted that he would have bought anything off this guy, might even have bid for the Eiffel Tower, if the guy had offered it, cut price and discounted. The plastic bag was in his hand, there was a murmur of gratitude, and Gillot was gone.

  He could still see, as the distance grew and a firm stride took him further, the holes in the shirt where the bullets had punctured it. Steyn crossed himself – he didn’t make a habit of it. The plastic bag, not much in it, seemed to bounce against Gillot’s thigh. The heat of the day came on and the road had started to shimmer and distort.

  ‘Is there anything we should be doing?’ Phoebe Bermingham asked.

  ‘Don’t think so, Ma’am,’ from Steve, Covert Surveillance, SCD10.

  ‘Maybe not “out of mind” but certainly “out of sight” from where I’m looking at it,’ from Harry, Intelligence, SCD11.

  ‘Mark Roscoe’s a big boy, and I’d bank on him being sensible enough to look after himself – do what he’s paid to do and not stand too adjacent,’ from Donny, Firearms, CO19.

  The inspector from SCD7, Roscoe’s boss, reported the early-morning call, the state of play, the assessment and reprise on the expected course of the morning. And repeated something about ‘a fucking club of vultures’ that had gathered in the town and now headed for the cornfields. Dermot, ill at ease when exposed and isolated among the police, reported that his Penny Laing had found no evidence of criminality that would stand up in a court of law from the alleged events of nineteen years earlier, and had told them she was booked on a flight out in the early afternoon.

  Phoebe did the summary. ‘I cannot see that we could have achieved more. We were faced with an obstructive and obstinate Tango who refused the advice of experienced personnel and safe accommodation. I don’t go so far as to say that Gillot made his bed and therefore can lie on it, but I believe we’ve acted honourably and adequately in this matter – and the fact that he has transferred the threat to himself to a foreign location is, quite simply, to be regarded as a blessing. In view of the extraordinary refusal of the Croatian authorities to grant liaison facilities, I would suggest that Sergeant Roscoe returns to the UK on the first available … I think our hands are clean. Comments?’

  None.

  Time, then, for Phoebe Bermingham, with a smile on thin lips, to let the detective inspector, Roscoe’s man, and the one from Revenue and Customs, Penny Laing’s, collect their papers, finish their coffee, make their farewells and get the hell out. Not sorry to see them go. The Gold Group, in relation to Harvey Gillot, had been an unsatisfactory frustration. Three new men and women took their places. Another Gold Group was in session, better stuff and straightforward: an Albanian brothel owner from Kilburn had ‘kidnapped’ a star girl who worked for a Kosovan pimp. If the Kosovan and his chums found their Albanian ‘cousin’, he was dead wherever they could reach him with a knife or an Uzi sub-machine gun. The man was refreshingly grateful for the protection offered.

  She did not expect that, as a Gold Commander, the name of Harvey Gillot would again cross her table. A difficult man and without gratitude.

  Benjie Arbuthnot marshalled them with the same skill as a Cumbrian collie would have employed on a flock of Herdwicks. He had his own bag behind his heels and the soles of the brogues crushed the matchbox, now empty, given him at the airport along with the medical materials.

  Mark Roscoe was waved into the front passenger seat, and William Anders – his grumble ignored – was told to dump his bags in the boot, then get into the back with the women. Last into the boot, flung there without ceremony, were the jacket and vest. Then the hatch was slammed down so that the vehicle shook on its chassis – it was only a hire car. At that stage of developments, he didn’t believe he could have done more. It was Arbuthnot who had arranged for Steyn, the doctor, to be in the hotel’s forecourt from five thirty a.m., wait for the emergence of Gillot and offer the man a lift to where he needed to be dropped. A small thing, but it had seemed important. Best, also, for young Roscoe to have the more comfortable place alongside him: he liked the detective sergeant and thought he might be the only one among them who had a code of ethics that would stand up to any rigorous examination. He had assessed him as a decent man, dedicated, and rare because he seemed to make no judgements on his fellows. He was about the only one Benjie was interested in.

  Not interested in Anders. He would greet the Californian with apparent affection, enthusiasm, but thought him egocentric. He believed the trade of digging up putrefied corpses merely kept alive vendettas and stultified reconciliation. At five thirty, on the forecourt, Steyn had told him that the villagers knew Gillot intended to cross the cornfields, and that the hired gun would be waiting where the bodies had been excavated. That would have come through the woman, Laing. He could see from her thrust-out chin, lowered eyes, defiance and back-to-the-wall defensiveness that she’d been humped rotten by a man who was both unsuitable and outside her supposed loop.

  He wasn’t interested in the woman Behan. She would have gone to his room with the intention of hectoring, lecturing and gloating, and the salesman’s smile would have flashed at her, maybe a little of the salesman’s pitch given her, and she had ended up destabilised, certainties wrecked, carrying a jacket that was not needed and an inappropriate bulletproof vest. Only Roscoe interested him – and he had seen that the pack was stowed on the detective’s trouser belt.

  He wouldn’t tell Roscoe where the hired gun would be placed. To do so would be intervention and would break the law of the safari.

  He turned the ignition and was about to murmur a further inanity about the departure of the Vulture Club, but stayed silent, reached inside his jacket and touched the pen that was clipped to the inside pocket. At that moment, he felt old, sad, exhausted, and the past – with skeletal hands – seemed to claw at him. It had been a damn long time ago that he had stood on the dockside at Rijeka … It would be over by lunchtime and then they could, guaranteed, get the first flight of the afternoon out of this damn place.

  He said, sprightly, ‘Right, ladies and gentlemen, the weather seems to be top hole for the day, so let’s get the club’s excursion on the road.’

  Mladen was efficient. It was expected of a leader. He had the sheet of paper in his hand and, for the last time, he repeated where each man and woman should be. One exception had been made – he could not have prevented it. The Widow had decided where she should be and had gone earlier, Maria with her because the heat rose and it was a long walk for an old woman.

  From the rest, he demanded discipline
. He walked at the front when they left the café, turned at the near-completed church, headed for the cemetery and was on the track that would bring them to the Kukuruzni Put. Behind him were many rifles, the sniper’s Dragunov and the RPG-7. Some of the men had only shotguns, and women who were without grenades carried kitchen knives.

  Far ahead, they heard a single shot, perhaps fired from a pistol. None could identify it, or think of a reason for it, but they pressed on, hurrying.

  One shot fired – he had needed only one. He had fired and killed as cleanly as he had in Zagreb when they had tested him.

  The man in Zagreb had slumped to his knees and gone prone. The fox had been bowled over by the impact of the bullet, which would have gone into the heart because there was barely a spasm. It lay now on its back, its legs erect and stuck out. He made the pistol safe and pocketed it, then bent to pick up the cartridge case. He threw it, bright and flashing in the sun’s low light, towards the tree-line and saw it fall where the grass was long, beyond ploughed ground. It had looped high over the cross. There was blood at the fox’s mouth, rich, dark. It came slowly in a dribble from in front of the incisors. A little flowed over the whiskers and some went into the nostrils. He looked at it for a long time.

  The preparation for killing the fox had taken more than an hour.

  He had laid out the last of the sandwiches – some crusts and a quarter-slice of ham, with the core of the apple – on the ground near enough to the undergrowth at the tree-line to tempt it. Hunger had won. The animal had come out by the little track that led down to the water. He had seen the fur at the mouth that had brushed against his hand, the tongue that had licked his skin. Obvious to Robbie Cairns why he would kill the fox. It would have taken him down the riverbank to the pool. He would have walked and scrambled over the grass and weeds of the incline. The fox had small light padded feet and would not set off a landmine. It would have tricked him. The fox had nuzzled and licked him to deceive. He was pleased to have shot it and had done it well. No one deceived Robbie Cairns and walked away from it.

  He had forgotten his yearning to be loved by the fox. He stood, then walked to the animal and took hold of its tail, above where the mange infected it. He threw it hard and high, heard the body break through the branches and then the splash.

  It had tried to lead him into the mines.

  The sun was higher and beat on him. Far down a track that ran off through the corn he could see the movement of men and women, but they were hazed and indistinct. Sweat ran on him, and was in his eyes. It was the path, where the movement was, that his target would take.

  He came off the road and ahead of him was the small, squat pillbox. In front of the pillbox was the shrine with the painted statuette of the Virgin and behind it the pole. The flag fluttered dismally in the heat.

  Harvey Gillot crested a small hill, dirt and dust skidding out from under his feet, and realised there had been no rain for many weeks: the ground was baked dry. He passed the flag, then the shrine, and assumed it to have been built as a memorial to those who had died using the Cornfield Road. On the pillbox he could see the marks of war and the exposed lengths of steel wire on to which the concrete had been poured long ago. The ground in front of the shrine was covered with white chippings and weeds grew freely among them. He wondered why – if the past lived so strong – a man or a woman did not come here with a hoe and tidy it. Then the flag, the pillbox and the shrine were behind him.

  From the top of the slope, he looked forward. To his left, distant, was the water tower, which peeped above the corn crop. To his right, nearer, was a farmhouse among mature fruit trees. There was scaffolding on one of the walls as if an attempt was made to move on from the past. Ahead was an expanse of fields, corn and sunflowers, and above the corn, chimneys that were difficult to focus on in the bright sunlight. In places, between the corn stems, he glimpsed red-tiled roofs. It was the village that had paid him.

  It was why he was there.

  No reason to mess around. Time to step out and confront it. ‘It’ was a gun, a balaclava, a hammer blow on his spine, then repeated. Could have hidden and flinched at his own shadow. Harvey Gillot started his walk.

  The plastic bag, in his right hand, had little weight. The slight wind that blew on the open plain and was sucked down the path riffled it, making it flap against his leg. He wore a pair of creased lightweight trousers, should have been washed and pressed, and the shirt had been on his back since he had left the island. He was unshaven, which didn’t bother him. He had soft trainers on – he would have chosen them for a quiet day on the patio with his mobile for company. He hadn’t tidied his hair. He had dressed fast, moving on tiptoe around the hotel room, hadn’t showered or washed or swilled his teeth, and had looked often at her, fully dressed, sleeping well, her face calm. He hadn’t woken her. He had written the note, had done the smile – the rueful one – then gone out of the door and closed it with care.

  He murmured, ‘Well, Mr Lieberman, they say that if you’re stuck in a pit it’s best to stop digging, so I’ve dumped the shovel. I’m walking because your good chum, Mr Arbuthnot, offered that piece of advice. Would be grateful, Mr Lieberman, if you’d watch my back …’ Could have done with his dark glasses. It looked a long walk and he thought it would take him near to the red-tiled roofs, the jutting chimneys and maybe skirt a tree-line, but everything was indistinct: the light reflected up from the path and seemed to gouge at his eyes. He hadn’t gone far yet, and the path stretched ahead, the corn grew high, and a car door slammed, behind him, faint.

  It would have slammed on the road near to the flag, the pillbox and the shrine.

  The sound of the slam carried well and there was no noise on the path, other than that of leaves moving and songbirds. Up higher a buzzard soared – should have had his dog with him. If it had been a choice between the dark glasses to protect his eyes or the dog, head beside his knee, he would have chosen the dog. Had the dog noticed he’d gone? Always made a fuss when he came back, but he wouldn’t have bet good money on the dog’s loyalty if it were just a walk that was on offer. The dog would follow the food. She gave it food and it might turn down the chance of a walk in a cornfield that led to a village, a grave and … He heard the stamp of feet, running behind him. He quickened his step, thought of the gun, the balaclava. He didn’t know whether he should walk faster, trot, jog or sprint. The tread closed on him. Gillot didn’t want to turn. He could picture the slight, spare-shouldered shape of the man and thought, with that build, the man would be close enough to him to have the right range for a handgun. Twenty feet, a difficult shot; ten feet, a reasonable shot; five feet, certainty. Couldn’t stop or turn, and the sweat ran on his back. The wind eddied in the bullet holes of his shirt and cooled the wet on his skin.

  ‘For God’s sake, Mr Gillot, can you just slow down?’

  19

  Gillot shouted at the corn on either side of the path: ‘Go away.’

  ‘Can’t.’ The man heaved, panted, and the footfall thudded closer.

  Gillot stopped, turned. He stood his full height and tried to claw together authority. He and spoke with a harsh growl: ‘Words of one syllable … Get lost.’

  The sergeant was in front of him, dressed in a suit, collar buttoned, tie knotted. The polished shoes were now dust-coated, his hair was wrecked and the sweat ran in rivulets off his forehead. A gasp. ‘Can’t.’

  ‘I don’t want you.’

  ‘Put frankly, Mr Gillot, there’s a thousand places I’d rather be.’

  ‘Be there then, any of them.’ Harvey Gillot turned. No smile and no shrug. He did it like a dismissal – told the lamb to stop trailing and get back to its own field and flock. He walked, stretched his stride.

  ‘Can’t.’ He was followed.

  ‘Repetitive, boring. Get a handle on it. I have to do this on my own.’ He thought that reasonable. Only an idiot wouldn’t understand that the business of the day was personal to him. They were in, now, an avenue of corn that was densely sown
and made a wall to either side of them. A man – a devil, a killer, a bastard – could be two yards into the corn and there would be no warning of his presence. He would only have to extend an arm and aim and …

  The voice bored back at him, lapped at his shoulder. ‘Sorry. Whatever your personal preferences, Mr Gillot, I’m not able to turn away from you. It’s the job.’

  ‘Get behind me. Don’t crowd me,’ Gillot said quietly. He wanted this argument dead – wanted to know what was ahead of him and round the twist in the path, wanted to know what was beside him and two paces into the close corn.

  ‘Behind you, yes, but with you.’

  He thought they played with words. To Gillot, ‘behind’ was fifty paces back and detached, merely there to observe, far enough away not to distract him from his own survival chances. To Gillot, ‘with you’ was a couple of steps off his shoulder and alongside him, too near to give him a cat in hell’s chance. He’d reckoned he’d solved a problem and had had it thrown straight and hard into his face. The sun beat into his eyes and the sweat stung there. Temper broke.

  ‘Are you looking for a fucking medal?’

  ‘That’s insulting.’

  ‘Get off your high horse, Sergeant, and stop moralising.’

  ‘It’s called duty of bloody care.’

  He let his shoulders heave with derision, but the man hung in there. At school there had been kids who fancied cross-country running was a joy – panting and heaving and throwing up – and the teacher said that the lead kid had to drop the chasers or he’d not bloody win. He hadn’t dropped Roscoe.

  ‘Never heard of it. Doesn’t play big in any street I’ve lived in.’

  ‘And it hangs like a bloody millstone around my neck, but it’s there and I can’t lose it. That’s duty of care.’ What was new – anger. As if Roscoe had forgotten he was the policeman, the public servant. As if it was true: he’d rather be anywhere else and weighed down with the duty. He remembered the man in his living room, punctilious in his politeness, demonstrating neither sympathy nor personal involvement. He couldn’t offload the care.