One day, perhaps, that story might be told, but he no longer had to be the one to tell it. In any case, he had nothing. Some strange payments through a dead man’s company and a hint of a conspiracy from, of all people, the Gulf’s most energetic conspiracy theorist.
“I’ve seen the light,” Webster said.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re right. We should end this.”
Hammer was quiet, waiting for more.
“As painlessly as possible. I’ve got no appetite left.”
Webster heard Hammer take in a long breath. “Good. It’s one thing you being ruled by your appetites. It’s another when we all are. Welcome back.”
His next call had been to Oliver, and just dialing the number had made him feel cleaner.
“Dean. It’s Ben.”
“This is late for you. Not for me, of course.”
“We need to stop work. Send me your bill. Make it healthy.”
There was a pause. “You’re sure you want to do that, Ben?”
“I’m sure. Something’s happened. The client’s had enough.”
“Well that’s a shame. It’s getting interesting.”
“The money?”
“That’s a long trail. Both ways. No. Something else.”
Webster paused, knowing he had to hear it.
“We got the bins again on Tuesday. You should see some of the stuff that guy throws away. I could live off it. Anyway, not much of a haul, except two sheets of flight log for his jet. First quarter of this year, but I managed to get the rest. It’s a Bombardier, super long range. Flies it to New York, Hong Kong, Dubai. Always those three places. And Milan. Once to St. Kitts for a week. But there are one or two odd ones in there. Caracas, for a day, back in November. Flies in in the morning, back overnight. Belgrade early last year. He spent the night there. And Tripoli, in January.”
“OK. So what else?”
“Ben, you need to be a little more patient.” Oliver paused, and Webster apologized. “I’ve also done his cell phone. Took a while because it’s in the company name. He uses it a lot. Anyway, I couldn’t see anything in there, but I fed it all into this program I’ve got that spots patterns in data, along with the flights, everything we know about transactions on Mehr’s accounts, the lot.”
“And?”
“And two or three days before each of those trips, he gets a call from the same number. A UK cell phone, pay-as-you-go. I checked with Vodafone. Set up with bogus details—false address, false name. But it only ever calls one number—Qazai’s. That’s it. It was set up two years ago, and in that time it’s made just six calls. One before each of the trips, and three others. But in the last fortnight, it’s made two more calls. Both to that number.”
That was interesting. If Webster had wanted to establish a secure means of talking to a source, this is how he would have done it, and if he had wanted to meet him quietly—somewhere no one was looking, where discretion was assured—those might be the places he would choose. Interesting, but tenuous, and redundant.
“Thanks, Dean. But send me the bill.”
“You’re serious?”
“I am.”
“What happened?”
“Qazai’s son died.”
“You have a very decent client,” said Dean, after a pause.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, some people would say this is the time to press on.”
“Some would,” said Webster.
And that had appeared to be that. So convinced was he that the world had changed that when he and Hammer had received a call from Qazai’s secretary asking them both to attend the funeral, Webster had seen it as confirmation, a formal offer of a truce.
• • •
WEBSTER’S GRANDFATHER HAD DIED when he was nine. For a year and a day his grandmother, a Catholic, had worn black: entirely at first, and slowly introducing muted colors as time passed. Fascinated by the process, he had asked her why she did it, and she had told him that his grandfather would want to know that she was missing him, and this was her way of showing that she did. He would see the black and know.
The day after the funeral, walking to Mount Street with Hammer at his side, unity restored, Webster thought this was no way to mourn, with meetings and negotiations and business. What it said about Qazai that he should persist in this way he didn’t know. Was it heartlessness or doggedness? Or simple desperation? A week ago that would have been one of the questions that Webster would have liked answered above all, but now he couldn’t bring himself to care. What he had seen yesterday had shown him that his client, proud and tricky and even poisonous as he might be, was still a human being and therefore worthy of some charity. And some humility: who was Webster, after all, to take it upon himself to judge this man?
It had rained overnight, enough to freshen the air a little but not enough to wash away the heat, and even at ten it was uncomfortably warm. Mayfair woke up later than other parts of London and was still quiet. So was Hammer, by his standards. He was letting Webster know that his mood hadn’t softened nor his ultimatum changed just because Timur had died, and Webster felt a certain relief that for once he wasn’t going to have to fight him.
At the Qazai house they were shown by the butler, with greater than usual solemnity, into the sitting room, whose many treasures were showing only dimly through the gloom. The curtains were drawn and the only light came from four large, fabric-shaded lamps stationed around the walls. The air was stale and warm and smelled of must.
Qazai and Senechal rose from their sofa, offered their hands to shake and then gestured that everybody should sit. No words were spoken. Webster kept his eyes on Qazai, who sat back with his hands neatly on his thighs, staring down at a fixed point ahead of him, the skin under his eyes purple and black like a bruise. Next to him, Senechal looked full of life. It was he who began.
“Gentlemen. I do not want to keep Mr. Qazai any longer than is necessary. So I will come straight to the point. You have had two months and hundreds of thousands of pounds. We need our report. Right now.”
For once Webster didn’t feel the urge to respond. He let Hammer reply.
“We understand. I have a proposal to make that I think will suit everybody.” Senechal nodded that he should proceed; Qazai didn’t lift his eyes. “We’re in a position to write the report. I think you’ll be happy with it. It may not be complete but it should serve your purpose.”
“What do you mean, not complete?”
“Philosophically speaking, these things are never complete. We could go on looking forever.”
“You’ve looked long enough.”
“We feel the same way.”
“What if we do not like your report?”
Hammer paused for a moment, his eyes on Senechal’s. “Then I’m afraid you can lump it. We will only be writing one report on this case.”
Senechal’s expression didn’t change but he stiffened. “That is not what we discussed.”
“Mr. Senechal, you haven’t been the easiest of clients. You haven’t given us all the information we asked for. You offered one of my people a bribe. And some of what we’ve found smells off.” He waited for Senechal’s reaction but there was none. Either he had complete mastery of his emotions or he simply didn’t have any. “For those reasons, you don’t get full marks. The sculpture story we know is nonsense, and we’ll say so. That’ll be the focus. But we can’t say you’re saintly. Because you’re not.”
Senechal drew himself up still further but before he could reply Qazai raised a finger and spoke, and though his voice was cracked it had a cold authority that filled the room.
“When I hired you,” his eyes were fixed on Hammer’s, “I didn’t know that the man you would assign to us—to a job of great delicacy—was a crude hack of low morals who thinks nothing of breaking into offices and bugging pe
ople’s phones.” Webster started to respond, but Hammer raised his hand and he kept himself in check. “But now I do, through good fortune, if you can call it that. So here is what I propose. You remove this man from the case. Then you yourself or some more reputable colleague writes a report to our specifications. If you do these things, I will not tell the world that Ikertu employs cheap crooks. And I will not encourage the Italian police to pursue their investigation.”
Webster’s vision seemed to cloud with red; he closed his eyes and tried to shake it away. When he opened them Qazai was staring at him in unblinking challenge, his tired eyes wide. Hammer was saying something but Webster was barely conscious of it and talked across him.
“So what’s the going rate?” he said. “For an Italian policeman? More than you were going to give me? Or does he work it out for you? So that you don’t have to think about it.” He pointed at Senechal but kept his eyes on Qazai. “Tell me. How much was Timur worth? How much did you pay him to live in the desert sitting on your lies? I hope it was a lot. Because it strikes me he gave you his life twice over.”
“Ben, that’s enough.” Hammer brought his arm up to restrain Webster, who was getting out of his seat.
But Qazai hadn’t moved. He sat perfectly still, looking at Webster, his own rage contained. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean that in one way or another, he died because of you.”
Qazai pulled himself to the edge of the chair and pointed a finger at Webster, his words slow and filled with the certainty of the inspired.
“Mr. Webster, I have provided for my family for over thirty years. I am a constant man. But you, you have some resentment I do not understand. Perhaps you measure yourself against other men and find yourself wanting. So you do reckless things. You flirt with criminals, with prison. You are vain and weak. You even flirt with my daughter.” The words hit Webster with the force of some shameful but indistinct recognition, like a drunken impropriety remembered the next day. He shook his head and started to speak. “No,” said Qazai, “you will listen to me. Go back to your wife. Go back to your family. And when you have committed yourself to them, when you are a whole man, then we can talk about me. And my son.”
Qazai stood up and looked at Hammer. “In the meantime, I want my report. Tomorrow.”
Webster was standing too now, reaching for something to say or do that would settle this for good, but he was thrown, and nothing came. All he could do was listen impotently to Hammer.
“You’ll have it in a week.”
“Tomorrow. Or I go to the papers.”
“In one week. Or on the front of tomorrow’s FT will be a big fat story about how no one wants to buy your company because you might be an art thief. And whatever you’ve started in Italy needs to stop or I’ll leak that too.”
“I haven’t started anything, Mr. Hammer.”
“Well you can stop it anyway.”
Qazai straightened himself. He was almost a head taller than Hammer and he did his best to look down on him from the greatest possible height.
“I’m beginning to understand the ethics of your industry, Mr. Hammer.”
Hammer returned his gaze, a trace of a smile at the corners of his mouth. “And I yours.”
• • •
OUTSIDE, Mount Street was reassuringly sane. The sun shone, taxis rolled past, people strolled about. Webster felt like he had been in some infernal show, a diabolical entertainment, and even though he had been released into the light his thoughts still whirled in confusion.
“Unbelievable,” said Hammer, looking up the street. “Un-fucking-believable.”
“I told you. He’s a piece of work.”
“Not him, you. We have it all neatly wrapped, ready to go, and you can’t see it through. Can’t just fucking take it.”
He started walking toward Berkeley Square, one arm raised behind him telling Webster to stay where he was, not to talk to him. Then he turned, fury in his face.
“I don’t know who’s worse. You’re a pair of babies. Do me a favor. Stop fucking squabbling, and finish this awful fucking case.”
• • •
THE REPORT WAS HARDER WORK, not because Webster didn’t know what to write but because each sentence was a provocation. Every phrase had to be forced from his fingers. The calm he had felt after Timur’s funeral had gone, and above the words struggling onto the screen he could still hear Qazai’s stinging condemnation of him, potent with both lies and truth.
His anger growing, his concentration lost, he let his mind wander over the facts of the case in the hope that he might finally find the design behind them, but it was still deeply buried, and try as he might he couldn’t reach it. Mehr had been murdered, not by bandits but by someone who knew what he was really doing for Qazai. That was a fair assumption. His death had been organized, or at least condoned by someone within the Iranian government—the intelligence services, or the Revolutionary Guard. That was another. An unwelcome thought struck Webster. Perhaps the money that Mehr had been channeling had been destined to fund opposition groups in Iran. Perhaps Qazai’s secret was a noble one, and the death of Timur the terrible price of some quiet heroism.
No. That might fit together, but it didn’t explain why Qazai was so desperate to raise money that he had scarcely paused to mourn his son, or why he was summoned to clandestine meetings every six months, or why he had thought it necessary to threaten Webster’s freedom.
What should have taken a day, then, was dragging into a second and evermore uncertainly into a third when, as Webster was trying to find some agile language for the summary, Oliver called. He looked at the number, let it ring four times, saw it go to voicemail and continued to watch the screen until an alert told him he had a new message.
“Ben, it’s Dean. You never call anymore. Guess what I’ve found? Call me back.”
Webster put his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes. He should let it go. He couldn’t let it go.
“I knew you couldn’t resist,” said Oliver.
“I told you to stop.”
“I had some inquiries outstanding. About Mehr’s money. They came back.” He paused. “Do you want the long version?”
“Just the highlights.”
“I can do that. Last May, about seven million U.S. goes through Mehr’s accounts, then on a tour of the world’s most discreet little islands, before ending up with a company that finally spent some of it—on chartering a ship from Odessa to Dubai. With an interesting cargo. Customs got a tip-off, and when they had a look they found twelve containers full of machine guns and old Russian rockets.”
Webster sat back in his chair. “You’re serious.”
“They denied all knowledge, of course, but no, it happened. I found two articles about it. Then nothing.”
Christ. If only Oliver had found this a week earlier, or not at all.
“You’re saying the money that went through Mehr was used to buy weapons?”
“Looks that way.”
“Jesus. Where were they going? After Dubai?”
“Syria.”
“Syria?”
“Correct. With an onward ticket to Lebanon, I dare say.”
“Sorry. Qazai’s money is buying rockets for Hizbollah?”
“We don’t know for sure it’s his money. I’ve found out where it ends up but not where it comes from.” Oliver sniffed. “Are we on again?”
Webster considered it, and through his scrambling thoughts all he could see was Qazai’s righteous face, full of pride and fury, taunting him with his weaknesses.
“What about the rest of it? Where does that go?”
“I don’t know yet. Give me a chance. In all, I’ve found five groups of payments into Mehr’s company. Forty-three million in total. This is the only batch I’ve traced to the end. But on the way they all go through the same place.”
“Cyprus. A company called Kurus. Shareholders are obscure but one of them is a guy called Chiba. God knows what it does.”
“Who is he?”
“Low-key. Very. According to the filings he’s Lebanese, but there’s nothing else on him anywhere. At all. He could be anything.”
Webster thought for a minute, trying to make out the logic. Whatever was happening, it was serious, and sustained, and Qazai was involved. “Find out if the money really is his. Qazai’s. I’ll look at the shipment, see where it came from. Where it went.”
“You could do that. Or you could see what he’s up to in Marrakech.”
“Excuse me?”
“Qazai’s going on one of his little trips. Flight’s due to leave on Friday. All logged in with the airfield.”
Webster didn’t say anything.
“That cell phone that keeps calling him? He got a call from it yesterday. Lasted forty-five seconds. Half an hour later he filed his flight plan with Farnborough.”
Webster thanked Oliver and hung up. For a minute, perhaps two, he stared at the words on the screen in front of him until they were just black marks on the white. Then he picked up the phone.
16.
THREE HOURS TO AFRICA, that was all, but Webster wished it was longer. He would have liked to sleep. He had spent the night in the spare room, as he sometimes did before early flights, and with the short, terse argument he had had with Elsa still repeating in his head had passed a wakeful night.
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