The Jackal's Share

by Christopher Morgan Jones

  Running a hand through his hair he looked up and down the street, and did his best to think. Qazai’s phone sounded as if it was off. Even if he had the means it would take far too long to trace. No, that route was closed. But Ava might know where her father was, and if she didn’t, the answer might lie in the house, which only she could open for him. Regretting even more keenly that he hadn’t treated her better, he wrote her a text message.

  If your father isn’t at his office by noon he will be dead by the end of the week. Help me find him and I’ll explain everything. I know I should have done so before. Ben.

  He hit send, watched the message go, and sat down on the bottom step of the Qazai house to wait. It was warm again, the sun just showing through thick morning haze, and the air already felt slow with unreleased heat. Webster took off his jacket and draped it across his knees. He could find out where Ava lived, if he needed to, though what good that would do he wasn’t sure.

  His phone bleeped, and a message flashed onto his screen.

  No need to explain. Find him yourself.

  Webster stared at the words and did his best to take them in. No need to explain. She knew. Did she know? He shook his head and took in a deep, worried breath before replying.

  You may be dead too. And others more dear to you. If you know anything, you should know that. Call me.

  A butcher’s van passed, and on the opposite side of the street an old man, incongruously unkempt, wheeled his bicycle along the pavement, muttering to himself and occasionally ringing the bell, tinny and clear against the low hum of traffic from surrounding streets. Webster watched him make his progress. Surely she would call.

  But she didn’t. Not straight away. After a full two minutes, just as he was making plans to find her house and somehow force her from it, his phone rang in his hand.

  “Where are you?”

  “Mount Street.”

  Ava hung up as the old man rounded the corner out of sight.

  In three minutes a small, understated Mercedes, black, with black windows, drew up in front of the house, and after a nervous moment, just long enough for Webster to begin to worry that she had changed her mind and was about to drive away again, Ava got out. She walked briskly toward him, with such purpose that for a moment Webster thought she was going to hit him; and he wished, when she stopped in front of him and started speaking, that she had.

  “You don’t need to explain. I found out.” She was wearing no makeup and her face was drawn, the skin around her eyes thin and bruised, the eyes themselves bloodshot and black and raging, as if all the life in her was concentrated there.

  Webster didn’t know where to start. “I’m sorry.” He meant it, but it sounded redundant. “Did he tell you?” It began to dawn on him that perhaps Qazai had disappeared to escape the fury of his daughter.

  She shook her head, her arms tightly crossed. “No. I found out. I went to Paris.” Each word was hard and distinct. Webster looked blank. “To see my friend. He told me what he couldn’t bring himself to tell me before. What you thought you should keep to yourself.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Why? Because my father’s a traitor? Or because you lied to me?” There were tears in her eyes.

  “I never lied to you.”

  “You never told me the truth.”

  He nodded. He could tell her that it had been necessary, and that would have been true, but she was still right.

  “Does he know?”

  Ava drew the back of her hand across her eyes, sniffed, collected herself. “When I think of all the good people his money has had killed. All the guns his money has bought. He disgusts me.” She looked up at Webster. “He knows. He was still up when I got back. I told him . . . I told him I was leaving. I told him he wasn’t my father. That he never had a daughter.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “I don’t care where he is. I won’t ever care where he is. He tried to get me to stay. Told me if I did anything stupid, that Raisa, and . . .” She trailed off.

  “That’s all true,” said Webster.

  She shook her head. “It’s bullshit. He’s lying, all the time, to everyone. He’s sick with it.”

  “Not now. If he doesn’t pay them back, in four days, you and your family are at risk. Mine, too.”

  Ava looked away down the street, watched a car drive too fast toward and past them.

  “They’re dangerous,” he said. “I think they killed Mehr.”

  “So did they . . .” The words caught in her throat. She turned and looked at him, her eyes courageous and fearful at once. “What happened in Dubai?”

  He hesitated. He knew what had happened in Dubai. “I don’t know. Really.”

  “Did they kill Timur?”

  With effort, he held her eye. “We don’t know.”

  “Oh God,” she said, clutching herself, shaking her head, her hands scratching at her upper arms. “Oh God. Tell me that wasn’t because of my father. Tell me. I couldn’t . . .”

  Webster moved toward her and put his hand on her shoulder, felt her body gently rocking.

  “We might never know. Ava. Look at me. Look at me. This is real. If your father doesn’t pay back what he owes something bad will happen. They will make it happen. It’s their job. It doesn’t matter where we go, how many guards we have, they’ll keep coming. Ava, look at me. I know that you don’t want to save him. I don’t either. But if we don’t . . .” He couldn’t finish the thought. “I have to find out where he is.”

  Her eyes, endlessly sad now, held his for a moment, and so intense was the pain there that he felt sure he had lost her, that all she could hear was her grief. But then she spoke, sniffing and wiping her eyes.

  “Your family?”

  “Yes, my family. And yours.”

  She nodded, as if considering something for the first time.

  “Your children?”

  “My children, yes. A girl and a boy.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Somewhere safe. Fairly safe.”

  She turned away from him and for perhaps a full minute stood staring down the street, her head gently shaking.

  “What do you need?” she said at last.

  “I need to get into the house. And I may need you to go a meeting.”

  Blankly, she nodded, and he guided her up the steps.

  • • •

  “LEAVE US,” Ava said to the guard once they were inside. He hesitated for a moment, clearly wondering whether Webster posed a threat. “It’s all right,” she said. And then with irritation as he continued to stand there, conspicuously upright and in protective mode, “Go. Please. I’ll call you if I need you.” Webster watched him leave without satisfaction.

  “He’s good,” he said, once he had disappeared down the corridor that led out of the hall at the back of the house.

  “No doubt. I just don’t want him in my world.” She looked at Webster meaningfully.

  “I won’t be around for long.”

  “You’re here now. Do what you need to do.”

  “I need to ask you some things.”

  A pause. “When do I get to ask you something?” He held her eye, and she sighed. “Go on.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Everything. Not enough.”

  “What did he say?”

  “It’s not important what he said.”

  “It’s all important. What did he say?”

  “I don’t know . . . Excuses? Justifications? I couldn’t stand to look at him.”

  “He didn’t mention any plans? Any meetings?”

  “Nothing. Just that he had to pay the money back and was selling everything. I think he wanted my sympathy for that.” She sounded more astonished than disgusted.

  Webster nodded and walked across the hall toward Qaza
i’s study, turning as he reached it at the sound of Ava’s voice.

  “He keeps it locked.”

  Webster tried the handle.

  “Who has a key?”

  “He does.”

  “What about the housekeeper?”

  “Not to this room. He keeps it with him. We were never allowed in here. He used to tell us when we were children that everything in his study was electrified.”

  Webster stood back a pace, set himself and kicked at the door just below the handle, startling the muted house with a shock of noise. He balanced himself, and kicked again, harder, finding satisfaction in the sudden burst of energy. At the third kick, the wood around the lock began to splinter and shear; at the fourth it gave way, and the door swung powerlessly open. Ava, her face empty, didn’t say a word throughout. As they went in, the security guard came bounding into the hall with heavy steps, his face professionally alert.

  “I’m still fine,” said Ava, “please go,” and left him looking thrown.

  There were papers on the desk, neatly arranged in piles: sale documents, hard copies of Tabriz e-mails, general correspondence. Nothing of interest. A cordless phone stood on its own small table to the right of Qazai’s chair: Webster picked it up and made a note of the last numbers dialed, all of them UK, the most recent a cell phone. He called Oliver.

  “I’ve got a number for you. It’s urgent.”

  “Morning, Ben. How are you?”

  “I mean it, Dean. This is important.”

  “Ben, where do I put it? Is it more important than all the other important things you’d like me to do?”

  “Dean. I’m sorry. But I need it right now. Who it belongs to. That’s all. Take you five minutes.”

  “Ten.” Dean’s voice was resigned.

  “Thank you. Call me.”

  “Does anyone like you at the moment?” said Ava.

  Webster looked up and managed a grim smile. “My father,” he said, and immediately regretted his lack of tact. “Sorry.” Ava just looked away.

  The desk was delicate and had two shallow drawers. He tried one, then the other, found both locked, and after inspecting the keyhole for a moment reached for a brass letter opener that lay beside some unopened letters and slid it into the thin gap at the top of the drawer, near the lock.

  Ava was frowning at him. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to see how strong this lock is,” said Webster, standing up and levering the drawer away from the desk, at first with constant force and then jerking it as hard as he could, crouching down and gripping the letter opener in his fist.

  “Don’t they teach you how to do this sort of thing?” said Ava, as the wood holding the bolt of the lock gave way with a snap. Inside were two cardboard folders, each full of Tabriz correspondence that meant nothing. Webster tried the next and it gave way more easily. Lying on top of a neat jumble of pens and stationery was a large envelope of coarse brown paper.

  There was no address, no stamp—only the name “D. Qazai” printed in thick black marker pen on the front. He lifted the flap, which had been sealed and already opened, and from inside drew two photographs the size of holiday snaps. At first they appeared to be in black and white, but there was some color in the stark chiaroscuro of the flash-lit scene, some dusky red about the temple, matted in the hair, running down the cheek; a flick of brighter red on the plain bright white of the shirt. It was Senechal, lying curled up on his side like a child, clearly dead.

  Webster closed his eyes. A burst of fear ran through him. The image matched so perfectly his memory of that same body prone in the desert that he could only believe that he had killed the man after all, and that soon afterward someone had photographed the evidence. He forced himself to look again. The blood was scarlet, fresh, still liquid, and at its source so red it was nearly black; the body was lying on tarmac, not sand, and in the top right-hand corner of the picture there was something like a car tire. He took the next photograph. Senechal stared at the camera in close-up, one eye open, the other a dark hole in his face where he had been shot.

  Acid rose in Webster’s throat; he fought the urge to be sick. One fear took the place of the other, and as he closed his eyes he saw Rad standing over the body, getting down on his haunches and holding the camera close to the ground so that he could capture the horror whole, like a butcher saving the blood.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s nothing,” said Webster, putting the photographs back inside the envelope and reacting too slowly as it was snatched away from him. He watched Ava’s face and saw it pinch with disgust, then dread.

  “What . . . was this them?”

  Webster nodded.

  “Why?”

  “At a guess?” said Webster, taking the pictures from her and putting them back in the drawer. “Because he wanted some of their money. He was blackmailing your father.”

  “How did they know?”

  “Perhaps he told them.”

  Ava looked at him, closed her eyes and shuddered.

  “Or they were eavesdropping . . .” Webster broke off as his phone rang; it was Oliver. He listened for a moment. “OK. When was it registered?” He listened some more. “Thanks. I’ll see you later.” He hung up and looked at Ava. “The last number he dialed from this phone was a pay-as-you-go cell phone. It was registered on Sunday to a name and address that don’t exist. In London.”

  She looked at him, not understanding.

  “They’re here. And he’s still talking to them.”

  Both were silent for a while. Ava leaned back against a bookcase and stared through the window at the brick wall opposite, her expression lost.

  “Should we call the police?”

  “With what?” said Webster. “It’s a picture of a dead man. We don’t know where it happened. Where the body is.”

  “We need to tell someone.”

  Webster shook his head. “No. This can’t come out before the money has been transferred.” He paused, watching her reaction. “He doesn’t have a family. He doesn’t have friends.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  For a minute neither said anything.

  “What if my father doesn’t show up?” she said at last.

  “I’ll find him. And you stall.”

  26.

  ICAN’T SIT IN THERE,” said Ava. “There are too many of them.”

  She stepped back, and Webster looked around the door. At the grand black table, arranged along one side with their backs to the mismatched towers of the City standing stark in the midday sun, sat five men, all in suits, each with a notepad set purposefully in front of him. Webster wondered whether they had sat on that side to keep their faces in shadow or to allow their visitors to enjoy the view.

  “You’re right,” he said. “That’s far too many lawyers. Come on.”

  He led the way down a wood-lined corridor and through a glass door into the lobby of Tabriz, marbled and bright.

  “Do you want some water?”

  Ava shook her head and sat down in one of the armchairs. She had changed, into a suit, put on makeup, and was on the surface composed, but in her eyes—unfocused, intense but unseeing—lay signs of the discord within. Even now she appeared not to hear Webster, and he had to ask her again before she looked up at him, smiled a quick, tight smile and said no, thank you, she was fine.

  Webster sat on the edge of the chair opposite and started thrumming his fingers on his thigh, watching the room and waiting for one of the elevators to open and produce the Americans. Tabriz staff wandered through alone or in pairs, studying documents or in hushed conversation; a motorcycle courier arrived, his helmet under his arm, and gave an envelope to one of the receptionists, who talked in low voices about things that Webster just failed to catch. Ava glanced down at his hand and he stopped tapping, his finge
rs continuing to fidget in his clasped hands.

  “I don’t see what you’re nervous about,” she said, shifting around in her chair at the sound of lift doors sliding open.

  “I’m not nervous. I’m tense.”

  “No word?”

  Webster reached inside his jacket pocket and pulled out his BlackBerry, even though there would be nothing new there. “No word,” he said, pressing the buttons anyway, checking his e-mails, his texts, his missed calls. Yuri in Antwerp had told him that he would try to locate the phone, but that it would probably take a few hours, and had bristled a little when Webster had told him that it seemed a little pointless to offer a service that could tell you with reasonable accuracy where someone had been a while ago but not where they were right now. No one at Tabriz knew where Qazai was, and nor did the lawyers. His passport was missing, as far as they could tell, but he didn’t appear to have booked any flights or, for that matter, bought anything at all. The chauffeur was still in Mount Street, and his employer’s phone was still very much switched off.

  “I’m nervous,” said Ava.

  “Don’t be. You’ll be fine.”

  “What if they know I’m lying?”

  “You’re not lying. Your father wasn’t feeling himself this morning. He’s having a brief rest and will be here shortly. That’s all true.”

  Ava raised her eyebrows and let them fall.

  “Listen,” said Webster. “They’re here to buy something they really want to buy at a price they probably can’t believe. They’re as keen as we are. A delay won’t matter to them. It matters to us, but not to them. They’ll talk to the lawyers, the lawyers will talk among themselves . . . it’ll be fine.”

  “If it matters so little why can’t those men in there do it? Tell them he’s not here.”

  “Your father’s sent you as a mark of respect. It’s the sort of thing he’d do.”

  Ava stroked the back of her hand, smoothing it out, staring at her skin as it tightened and released.

  “What if he stays away?”

  “Then we get you somewhere safe. I’ve made arrangements.”

  “Forever?”

  Webster gave her his frankest look and tried to sound confident. “I’m working on that.”