The Black Art of Killing

by Matthew Hall

  Lunch was a hunk of bread, cheese and cold meat, which he ate outside in the shade of the apple trees. He had built the table at which he sat from an ash that had once stood by the stream until a summer storm had brought it down. Finn had helped him plank it up on an old diesel-powered saw bench he had bought at a farm sale. It had been a long day of sweat and cursing. Finn had accused him of being a mad hermit and yelled at him to move to a proper house and get himself a wife. Black had never cared much for indulging nostalgic memories, but his old friend had worked his way into the grain of this place. Everywhere he looked, there were more reminders: he had helped him set the lintel over the back door and rebuild the stonework above it as high as the roof. The date inscribed in the cement beneath the apex of the gable was in Finn’s hand. Of the two of them, and to Black’s lasting frustration, Finn had been by far the better builder, untrained, but with natural ability like that possessed by men who knew engines without ever having opened a manual.

  Eventually, the procession of unprompted recollections grew too much and Black tried to banish them from his mind, reminding himself that sentimentality was the very opposite of what had bound him and Finn together. Yes, they had been firm friends away from their work but they had gone about their military tasks with cold, rational detachment. They had been professional soldiers who had accepted the risks. Death was always a possibility, but both had known that it was most likely to come about as the result of poor judgement or lack of planning, with bad luck trailing a distant second. If Finn had made a mistake in Paris, it was a great pity, but not a tragedy. Tragedies happened to the innocent. There was nothing innocent about Finn.

  Enough.

  Impatient with his mind’s restless churning and disconcerted by the unfamiliar feelings they were stirring, Black tossed his crumbs to the sparrows, changed into his walking boots and set off up the hill, determined to keep going until his thoughts became his own.

  His muscles complained loudly as he pushed on up to the ridge and continued across the level summit to the trig point at the top of the Twmpa. He paused a while to rest and take in the fifty-mile view across mid-Wales: a thousand shades of green rippling with shadows cast by a restless sky. Buffeted by the wind, he followed the ridge south for six miles, then, as dark clouds moved in from the west, descended towards the valley bottom before making his way back northwards, following the narrow trails cut through the heather and bilberry by sheep and wild ponies.

  The storm broke when he was still an hour from home. He picked up to a jog, abandoned the paths and took the shortest route across open country. Chest heaving, he slipped and scrambled over wet, tussocky grass to the accompaniment of thunder claps that ricocheted off the mountainsides with the drama of exploding shells. The clouds grew lower still, shrouding the landscape in mist. Without map or compass he was forced to navigate by memory and instinct. He had lost his touch: having made his way back over the ridge, rather than hit the stream he had planned to follow to his front door, he found himself chest-high in bracken. Wet to the bone and with no chance of retracing his steps, he bush-whacked downhill before eventually emerging in familiar territory, though well off course.

  Feeling every one of the twelve miles he had covered in his aching legs, Black stepped gratefully out of his sodden clothes and into a hot shower. The sensation of the near-scalding water needling his flesh was close to bliss. His body and mind slowly unwound in tandem, the accumulated tension of the previous forty-eight hours yielding to a pleasantly leaden sensation.

  Heavy and relaxed, he dressed in jeans and an old plaid shirt and drifted downstairs to reward himself with a large whisky in front of the fire.

  Here’s to you, old friend. So long.

  He raised his glass in a silent toast and drank.

  14

  Black woke abruptly in his armchair, convinced for a moment that someone had stabbed a finger in his chest. He glanced around the room. He was alone, of course. Coming fully to his senses, he noticed that it was dark outside and that the fire had reduced to a glowing heap of embers. He leaned forward to fetch a log from the basket and checked his watch. Ten thirty. He had been asleep for nearly two hours. No wonder he felt groggy. He sank back into his chair and stretched his aching feet out towards the warmth, far too comfortable to drag himself up to bed. Staring into the flames licking the glass of the stove, he thought idly that there could be far worse fates than making a quiet life here if his hopes of an academic career came to nothing. Perhaps, after all, his destiny was to be no more or less significant than the men who came to this empty hillside and built Ty Argel all those centuries ago.

  Black reached for the whisky bottle to pour himself a nightcap. As he did so, a flicker of light caught his eye. He turned his gaze to the uncovered window but saw nothing. Dismissing it as a trick of the imagination, he settled to his drink. Moments later there was another, this time accompanied by footsteps on the path. Black stood up from his chair as three loud knocks sounded on the door.

  ‘Hello? Anybody home?’

  It was a voice he hadn’t heard in five years.

  ‘Leo? It’s Freddy. I come in peace.’

  Black hesitated before moving to the door and lifting the cast-iron latch. He opened it to reveal the smiling, compact figure of his former CO, Colonel Freddy Towers. All five feet five of him, exuding the same inexhaustible energy that had earned him the nickname ‘Fireballs’. He was a little older and greyer, but the lights in his eyes shone as furiously as ever.

  ‘Dear God, Leo. When Kathleen said you were out in the sticks I didn’t know she meant halfway up a bloody mountain.’ He stepped inside and wiped his muddy brogue boots on the mat. ‘Had to leave the car down at the farm. Thankfully, the old boy stopped me going any further before I sank it in a bog.’

  ‘Hello, Freddy,’ Black said, slipping naturally into the same overly patient tone he had used to pacify his former superior for over two decades.

  Patience had been necessary because Towers had perfected the art of self-parody to the point where the intricate complexities of his true self – of which Black had caught only occasional glimpses, invariably in eruptions of uncontrolled rage – were almost unreachable. The only way to deal with him was to play along. He hid his sharp, astute intellect and unrelenting ruthlessness behind an eccentric, clubbable persona modelled, no doubt, on the gin-soaked masters at his public school and the senior guards officers who had impressed themselves on his young mind. It was both an act and a shield and also a compensation for being the shortest officer in the mess, but it had made him a leader. And one who had been universally feared.

  ‘Still, you always were a bit of an odd one.’ Towers made for the stove, critically scouring the inside of the cottage as he removed his battered waxed jacket. ‘Very you. Could do with a woman’s touch. No progress on that front, I suppose.’

  Black ignored the remark. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘Not something you brewed yourself, is it?’

  ‘Whisky. Blended, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’ll do.’ He stood warming himself while Black fetched another tumbler. ‘You wouldn’t believe it was bloody June. It must be close to freezing out there.’

  Black returned to find Towers settling into the second armchair. He had always had an unnatural ability to make himself instantly and comfortably at home, whether in jungle camp, Iraqi desert or a suite in the Ritz Carlton.

  ‘Rotten luck, eh?’ Towers said without further explanation.

  ‘Something like that.’ Black poured large measures into each of their glasses. He had a feeling they would need it.

  ‘Cheers.’ Towers threw back most of his drink in a single mouthful and exhaled deeply. ‘That hit the spot. Getting soft in my old age – too used to city living.’ He gave the short dismissive laugh he had always used to make everything seem a joke, even the prospect of parachuting into a hornets’ nest behind enemy lines. ‘Oxford treating you well? Up for a fellowship, I heard.’

  ‘Jun
ior research fellowship,’ Black corrected. ‘All being well.’

  ‘How do you rate your chances?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Contending with a bunch of dewy-eyed lefties, I suppose. Sooner have some silver-tongued mufti at high table than an old soldier. Think tolerance is the answer to everything, that sort –’ the laugh again – ‘until some lunatic has a knife to their throats. Oh well, I suppose the deluded are as entitled to their freedom as much as the rest of us.’

  Black was reminded of another of Towers’ persistent habits: frequent unprompted homilies on the folly of the thinking classes.

  The colonel fell silent for a moment and stared into his glass. ‘Poor Finn. No way to go. Not for a man like him.’

  Black nodded in agreement.

  More silence. Towers’ face creased and twitched as he wrestled with evidently troubling thoughts.

  Black waited and sipped his whisky, sensing that he was about to learn the reason for this unannounced visit.

  ‘You know, Leo,’ Towers said abruptly, ‘there really is no ill feeling, not on my part. None at all. I still haven’t a clue why you walked when you did, drove myself crazy thinking about it, if I’m honest – wondered if it was my fault – but there we are. You had your reasons, I’m sure, and I … well, I want you to know I respect them.’

  So that was it. Unlikely as it seemed, Towers had travelled through the night to bury the hatchet. Or perhaps even to seek absolution for all the times he had sent him and Finn to almost certain death. Was it actually possible that he had harboured a grain of compassion for his men, after all?

  ‘Thanks,’ Black said, failing to disguise the note of surprise in his voice. ‘If it makes you feel any better, you weren’t the reason, Freddy. I think I’d had enough, that’s all.’

  ‘I believe a psychopathic game of whack-a-mole, were your precise words.’

  ‘In the heat of argument.’

  ‘In ira verum.’

  ‘Do you really want to have this discussion?’

  ‘It would be nice to know, Leo – whether you really do think it was all a waste of time? Isn’t that the line you’ve been peddling?’

  ‘I don’t … I just think that we didn’t learn the lessons. I don’t want to see another generation repeat the same mistakes.’

  ‘Ha! So you’re an idealist!’ He exclaimed the word triumphantly, as if it explained everything. ‘You hid that well … Not the worst trait, I suppose. Within limits.’

  Black refused to rise. Long experience had taught him that once Towers felt he had a willing debating partner he’d happily keep the discussion going till dawn.

  Towers tossed back the rest of his whisky and held his glass out for more. ‘Just a drop, if you wouldn’t mind.’

  Black poured him three good inches.

  ‘Bit of a shock, if I’m honest,’ Towers said, changing the subject yet again. ‘Finn and I stayed in touch, met up in town now and then. Got the feeling he rather missed you.’

  ‘He could have called.’

  ‘Perhaps he wasn’t sure what sort of reception he’d get?’

  ‘I’d have been glad to speak to him. He should have known that.’

  Towers fixed Black with an intense, questioning gaze, his steel-rimmed glasses perched on a nose battered flat across its bridge during his years as army lightweight champion. ‘Do you mean that honestly, Leo?’

  ‘Of course. I didn’t disown my old life; I just wanted to have another.’

  Towers nodded. ‘Well, that’s good to know. Because we were close, weren’t we – the three of us? Saw more of you two than I ever did my family. Claire and I separated, by the way. Well, she left is the truth – virtually the day after I retired from the Regiment.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Probably for the best. At least the kids had grown up. If she wants a lonely old age in Norfolk, it’s up to her.’ He gave a grunt, then a wistful look came over his face, and for a passing moment Black was seized with dread at the thought that he had come to him for solace. His fears proved unfounded. ‘Actually, I’ve been a good deal happier. Got myself another job. Did you hear?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve been out of the loop.’

  ‘Had a tap on the shoulder about six months after I left. The Cabinet Office asked me to run a little operation out of the Ministry of Defence.’

  ‘The MOD? I thought you despised those people? Limp-dicked desk jockeys was one of your kinder descriptions.’

  ‘Sounds like flattery coming from me.’ He smiled. ‘No, I haven’t sunk quite that low, I’m a PC – private contractor. Interesting work, actually. Fallen on my feet. Beats grubbing around for some private security outfit.’

  Black tried to resist the unspoken invitation to pry further, but curiosity got the better of him. ‘Are you allowed to tell me more?’

  Towers looked at him over his glasses as if weighing whether he could trust him. He took another gulp of whisky. ‘I suppose I’m meant to be a sort of spy-catcher, though I haven’t caught many yet. Not in the sense of having enough evidence to bring them to justice, but we’ve weeded out a few bad apples.’

  ‘Isn’t that the Security Service’s territory?’

  ‘Ah, well – there’s the thing. It’s a job that arose out of something else entirely. When I left the Regiment I was offered a berth in the MOD with a brief to identify emerging technologies with defence applications. It was a lot of fun going out to meet young scientists pushing at the boundaries. I was making good progress, building up contacts, generating a steady flow of intel which I passed on to a team at MI5, and then we started leaking.’

  Black felt his hand begin to tighten involuntarily around his glass.

  ‘Several of our most sensitive technologies – all ones which I had identified – were stolen and popped up in the US and China. And in the last six months we’ve had four leading researchers disappear.’ The lightness left his voice. ‘Dr Sarah Bellman was the third. Her senior colleague, Professor Alec Kennedy, went missing two months ago and a young computer scientist shortly before that. The morning after Bellman was taken another of ours went missing – from Copenhagen. A neuropathologist named Holst.’

  In a few short sentences any sense of contentment Black had managed to regain during his retreat to Ty Argel bled away.

  ‘After the second went missing I fully expected to be shown the door, but the opposite happened. My brief was expanded – to detecting the source of the leaks. There are wheels within wheels, but strictly in confidence I can’t help wondering if the powers that be knew they were leaking before I was put in post. It would make sense, I suppose.’ He nodded, as if banishing any lingering doubts. ‘Yes, the task I’m now faced with is rather more up my alley.’

  ‘Sarah Bellman was one of your contacts?’

  ‘Correct,’ Towers said with a note of regret. ‘One of my most promising.’

  ‘So it was you who employed Finn to look after Bellman?’

  ‘I did recommend him to the relevant party, yes. Thought he’d do a good job.’

  ‘Have you told Kathleen?’

  ‘I can’t see that it would help.’

  ‘You’ve been to see her – she’s beside herself. She’d like to know why he died, Freddy.’

  ‘I’m sure she would.’

  ‘It’s not as if he died in uniform. He was a civilian.’

  ‘Of course. And I would like nothing better than to be able to tell her … I’m not sure what you think of me, Leo, but you have to believe me when I say this grieves me deeply. I was almost as close to Finn as you were.’

  Black met his gaze and saw a side to Freddy Towers he had never seen before; he had the pained eyes of a man with a troubled conscience.

  ‘And you came here to tell me this why exactly?’

  ‘Because I thought you needed to know.’

  The half-truth. Another of Towers’ specialities. Black glanced away and shook his head. He had a bad feeling.

  ‘I know you went to the George
V, Leo. And it wasn’t exactly easy persuading the French not to bang you in a cell for the weekend.’

  ‘You had me followed?’

  ‘Purely for your own safety.’

  ‘How –?’

  ‘The Foreign Office called me for a reference,’ Towers said, anticipating his question.

  Black felt a surge of anger rise in his chest. ‘Whatever it is you’ve come here for, Freddy, I want no part of it.’

  Towers drained his glass and thoughtfully wiped his lips. ‘I guessed that’s what you’d say. Fair enough. I shan’t beg. I’ll leave you to it. Sorry to disturb your evening.’ He pushed up from his chair, reached for his coat and rooted around in its pockets. He retrieved a business card and handed it across with one hand while continuing to rummage with the other. ‘In case you need to get in touch.’

  Black glanced at the Bayswater address, wondering how he could make his position any clearer without marching him out of the door.

  Towers found the second item he was looking for and brought it out: an army-issue Glock 17 pistol. The seventeen signifying the number of rounds held in a full magazine.

  ‘Better safe than sorry.’

  He tossed it on to Black’s lap. Black laid it on the arm of his chair, straining to hold his temper.

  ‘It may interest you to know that some forensic results came through this morning. They found traces of blood from three separate assailants on Finn’s body. Two male, one female. The conference’s head of security, Sebastian Pirot, has vanished from his apartment and as far as we can ascertain he was operating under a false identity. I’m not sure who I’m dealing with yet, Leo, but I would hate to feel responsible for another accident.’

  Black tossed the gun back to him. ‘Thank you for your concern. But if you’re looking for someone to find Pirot, I’m sure you have better options than a middle-aged historian.’

  Towers nodded with an expression that seemed to accept that he’d come on a fool’s errand. He pulled on his coat and slipped the gun back into a side pocket. He crossed to the door, where he paused. ‘Dr Sarah Bellman was honey-trapped – by a woman. We’re only sixty per cent sure, but we think the CCTV stills are a match with a twenty-eight-year-old CIA agent named Linda Courteney. Our friends across the pond tell us she went missing presumed killed in Libya over a year ago. It’s all very strange.’ He lifted the latch and stepped out into the night.