The Devil's Breath
Page 24
The desk tidied, Cela reached for a sweater, draping it around her shoulders and knotting the sleeves loosely across her chest. McVeigh was still sitting on the desk, still waiting for an answer.
‘Well?’ he said at last.
She hesitated. Then her hand reached down for the pile of paintings, one final adjustment. ‘You know what Yakov said he’d miss most about London?’
McVeigh shook his head. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Your son. Billy.’ She paused. ‘I think you should stay.’
9
Ross sat at Friedland’s desk, quarter to nine on a wet London morning, waiting.
One of the secretaries had let him in, a sodden figure, sleepless, bad-tempered, pushing into the hall and up the stairs without a backward glance. Finding the office empty, he’d hung his raincoat on the back of one of Friedland’s antique chairs, watching the drips pooling on the pale grey Wilton carpet. It was a small gesture, but when Friedland finally arrived, it would serve to make the point. Our chair, it said. Our carpet. Our money. Our rules.
A phone began to ring, one of two on the desk. Ross looked at it for a moment, wondering whether the line was routed through the switchboard in the office downstairs. Deciding that it wasn’t, he picked it up. A woman’s voice came on at the other end. She sounded anxious. She wanted to talk to Mr Friedland. Ross explained that he’d yet to arrive. She could leave a message. All would be well. The woman hesitated, then talked for perhaps a minute. Ross nodded, saying nothing, permitting himself a brief smile. At the end of the conversation he thanked the woman, putting the phone down and checking his watch. Past nine o’clock, there was still no sign of Friedland.
Picking up the other phone, Ross asked for a cup of coffee. Then he opened the brief-case he’d carried up and pulled out a large manila file. Spreading it on the desk, he reached for one of Friedland’s sharpened pencils and began to check the draft memorandum he’d drawn up some seven hours before. The memo, intended for circulation to a tiny group of Cabinet ministers, detailed the political fall-out should the press get wind of the scale of recent arms sales to Iraq. He’d drafted it as a contingency, an exercise in damage-limitation, and he’d persuaded himself that sending it was a simple act of political prudence. The arms trade was a mine-field for any government, and this single sheet of paper – three brief paragraphs – was nothing more than a map. Follow this path, and we might avoid injury. Ignore it, and we’re probably dead.
Ross read the memo a second time and then leaned back in the chair, revolving it slightly, the pencil still in his hand. Scandals in the arms business were, alas, nothing new. A huge slice of the country’s manufacturing industry was defence-related, and exports were its life-blood. Back in April, Customs and Excise investigators had seized a number of steel pipes en route to Iraq. The pipes, allegedly for use in the petro-chemical industry, had in fact been designed as part of an Iraqi supergun. The supergun, potentially, had the range to bombard Tel Aviv. Customs and Excise had been obliged to act after pressure from Mossad, and the resulting scandal had reached higher and higher. Indeed, Downing Street itself was now coming dangerously close to complicity.
After six months of press speculation, the political lessons of this episode were crystal-clear, and expressed at the top level with characteristic vehemence. There were to be no more surprises, no more invitations for the media to run riot. The country, after all, was preparing for a major war, and war imposed its own brutal logic. A government that went soft would lose. To win, therefore, you had to be firm and courageous, and willing to take the odd risk. That was the lesson of history. That was how sovereignty had been restored to the Falkland Islands. Government, real government, brought responsibility, and now was no time to shirk it. It was as simple, and glorious, as that.
Standing in the small, sunlit sitting-room on the top floor, listening to the tirade, Ross had no doubts about the real agenda. The real agenda had to do with keeping the genie in the bottle. Whatever we’d been selling, however lethal, the country at large was best left in ignorance. That was Ross’s job. That was what he couldn’t afford to get wrong. Unless, that is, he wanted to end up like Friedland, marginalized, pensioned-off, the wet-eyed old retriever brought out for special occasions.
Ross got up and went to the window. Already, he knew, circumstances were working to his advantage. Yesterday’s speech by George Habash, leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, had directly threatened Western targets in the event of American action in the Gulf. The threat had galvanized the security services. There was talk of another Lockerbie, or an outrage at some big city railway terminus. Contingency plans had been activated, key points isolated for special attention. There was a rumour that non-travellers were to be banned from all major airports, that armed troops were to be posted to oil installations, that nuclear power plants were to be similarly protected. He’d even seen a memo, yesterday evening, that speculated about the possibility of chemical weapons in terrorist hands.
Ross pondered the thought, wondering what the security chiefs would make of five missing gallons of Tabun GA, watching Friedland in the street below, hurrying in from the rain. Politically, Ross was convinced that the Newbury incident was best kept under the tightest of wraps. Whether that would be possible, whether a deal could be struck with the mysterious authors of the note he’d received, he still didn’t know. But any cover-up must start at source, and for that role, at least, Friedland would be perfect.
He heard footsteps downstairs in the hall and a brief, muttered conversation. Then Friedland was at the door, a cup of coffee balanced in each hand. Back in the chair behind the desk, Ross watched him crossing the room, thinking how old the man had become and how tired he looked.
Friedland paused at the desk, giving Ross one of the coffees and putting the other on the blotter. Then he retrieved Ross’s coat from the chair and hung it carefully on the hook on the back of the door, and sat down. To Ross’s disappointment, he didn’t appear to notice the sodden patch of carpet at his feet.
Ross glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got five minutes,’ he said briefly. ‘You’ll need this.’ He pushed a notepad towards Friedland. Friedland made no attempt to pick it up but stirred his coffee instead, inviting Ross to carry on with a polite smile of enquiry. Ross looked at him for a moment, then opened the file. The rapport they’d begun to establish en route to the City Airport had quite gone. Of that one brief moment of weakness there was no trace. Ross was back where he’d always been, standing over Friedland, one foot on his throat.
‘Newbury,’ he said briskly, ‘is where the drum of chemical went missing. Group headquarters is at Basingstoke. The man I want you to see is a Mr Lovell. He’s managing director.’
Friedland nodded, sipping the coffee, watching Ross over the rim of the cup. Ross hesitated, one finger still in the file, expecting a reaction of some kind, irritated by its absence.
‘Lovell,’ he repeated, ‘is the boss. He’s made the running. He’s the one who decided not to go the police.’ He paused. ‘A week is a long time to have kept a secret like that. I can’t imagine he’ll take much convincing.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of this.’
Ross extracted a sheet of paper from the file and slid it across the desk. Friedland reached forward and picked it up. It was a standard form, issued by the Department of the Environment. Across the top, in heavy black letters, it read: ‘Notification of Toxic Substances’. Two lines down, beside ‘Name of Company’, the word ‘Dispozall’ had been pencilled in, together with a postal address and a phone number. Further down, in the half-page allotted for a detailed description of specific substances, there was a pencilled cross. Only at the foot of the page, beside the word ‘Date’, did another pencilled entry appear: ‘26 August 1990’ it read.
Friedland glanced up. ‘That’s last month,’ he said mildly. ‘It’s dated last month.’
‘Correct.’
‘So what do you want me to do with it?’
‘I want you to give it to Mr Lovell. And then I want Mr Lovell to do his test all over again.’
‘He can’t. The chemical’s gone.’ Friedland paused, deliberately obtuse. ‘It’s been stolen. It’s disappeared.’
Ross smiled, reaching for his coffee. ‘Wrong,’ he said. ‘The stuff’s been destroyed.’ He nodded at the form. ‘In compliance with the regulations.’
Friedland frowned, his eye returning to the form. ‘And the cross? The pencil mark? What does that mean?’
Ross shrugged. ‘That’s for Lovell to fill in. He’s the expert. Not me.’ He paused. ‘I imagine there are thousands of chemicals that would do the trick. All of them lethal. None of them nerve gases.’ He paused again. ‘Are you with me?’
Friedland said nothing for a moment. Then he sat back in the chair, crossing his legs, taking his time, making himself comfortable. Through his jacket, he could feel the dampness where Ross had left the wet coat. ‘You want me to cover the man’s tracks,’ he said carefully.
Ross shook his head. ‘I want him to cover his tracks,’ he said. ‘You suggest it. He does it.’
‘You know nothing.’
‘I know nothing.’
‘But he falsifies the records.’
‘Yes. By redoing the test. On something less … ah … newsworthy.’
‘Like what?’
Ross looked at him for a moment across the desk. Then he stood up, reaching for the file, snapping open his briefcase. ‘The man has a choice,’ he said. ‘He can either do as you’ll suggest, sanitize the record, pretend it was a perfectly straightforward industrial accident, employee negligence. Or—’ he shrugged ‘—we issue a press release, put him in the papers, withdraw his licence, and let the market do the rest. I imagine the commercial advantage lies in remaining in business, though of course—’ he smiled ‘—that would be his decision.’
‘And me? My decision?’
‘You don’t have a decision to make. All you do is get in your car and drive to Basingstoke. Mr Lovell will do the rest. I guarantee it.’
Friedland nodded, hearing Ross spell it out, the classic manoeuvre, stage one of the cover-up, totally deniable. ‘Five gallons of nerve gas have gone missing,’ he said quietly. ‘What happens to that?’
‘That’s no longer Mr Lovell’s responsibility.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘And is it yours?’
‘No.’
‘Then what happens if it turns up somewhere else? Where has it come from?’
Ross looked at Friedland for a moment, not answering. Then he shrugged, nodding at his brief-case, the manila file, the cuttings from yesterday’s papers. ‘The Palestinians are threatening a second front,’ he said. ‘Naturally they’ll need weapons, ammunition, Semtex—’ he shrugged again ‘—nerve gas.’
‘Nothing to do with Dispozall?’
‘No.’
‘Different source?’
‘Yes.’
Friedland nodded, following the logic upstream, the usual rationale, political expediency. Dispozall was a flagship company, a striking example of the new Tory ethic. It was profitable. It was efficient. It was beating the competition worldwide, the hardest commercial evidence that free markets and free enterprise worked. The company had won ringing prime ministerial endorsements, and now was no time to toss it to the wolves. Not, at least, if it could be avoided.
Friedland looked up. ‘Do you want it in writing?’ he said quietly. ‘Or can I just say no?’
Ross paused, halfway across the room, his briefcase in his hand. He looked round. Friedland was still sitting in his chair, facing the window, perfectly still. Ross stepped back towards him, bending down, his mouth to his ear. He spoke very slowly, his voice low, masking the irritation he still felt. ‘I took the trouble of answering your phone,’ he said. ‘Before you arrived. A Mrs Bellingham.’ Friedland looked round, a little too quickly, a new expression on his face. Ross smiled at him, back in charge. ‘Matron,’ he confirmed softly.
‘What did she say?’
‘She said that Stephanie’s gone missing. Evidently she left a note.’
‘And?’
Ross straightened, the brief-case still in his hand. ‘The note says she’s had enough of good intentions. She says she thinks heroin’s had a bad press.’ He paused. ‘We can pick her up. We can put her away. Nice little cell. No drugs. No medication. Would she like that? Would she survive it?’ He paused a second time, his hand on Friedland’s shoulder. ‘Would you?’
*
Telemann awoke at dawn, haunted by images of Laura.
He’d watched her all night in the big cool bed under the eaves on Dixie Street, himself in the shadows, a spectral presence. She’d been with Emery. Emery had made love to her, with limitless stamina and limitless skill. He’d played her like a keyboard, her favourite chords, taking his time, coaxing new tunes, new rhythms, her body arching beneath his, riding the crest of yet another orgasm, the low moan he knew so well, the one that started way down, the tiny gasps of surprise as it built and built, her hands reaching down, pulling him inwards, her breasts flattened against her chest, her eyes huge and wild, her chin back, the veins big in her neck.
Afterwards, saving himself, Emery had folded his long body around hers, and she’d ducked towards his belly, her hair everywhere, her fingertips dancing across the soft triangles of flesh in his crotch, stroking him, nibbling him, making him bigger and bigger, her tongue working up and down, her fingers cupping his balls, her eyes half-closed, catlike, watching him. Soon, when he was ready, he’d begun to withdraw, and she’d shaken her head and taken him way down, her lips around him, up and down, sucking and sucking, that same low rumble in her throat. The rhythm had quickened, and finally he’d pulled out, all of it, and she’d folded her breasts around him, still moving, up and down, still watching his face, the way it crumpled, like a paper bag, when the stuff came pumping out. Afterwards, like babies, like dolls in Bree’s cot, they’d lain enfolded, her head on his chest, her hand on his belly, asleep.
Telemann turned over, feeling warm flesh next to his, grief-stricken. It was daylight. He could hear traffic. He opened one eye. Inge lay beside him, her shoulders bare above the sheet, her long body pressed to his. Telemann frowned, confused. He’d gone to bed alone. Of that he was sure. She’d said he could have the flat. She’d be staying elsewhere. He’d watched her leave, walking away down the hall. She’d called goodnight from the elevator, then she’d gone.
Closing the door behind her, falling into her bed, he’d been glad to be out of the hotel. The hotel was no longer secure. Emery had the telephone number, and with the number he’d find the address. With that, he’d send them round, the boys from the Consulate, or one of the special teams from Frankfurt, riding shotgun on his precious operation. He’d feed them some line or other, some pretext to justify the action he’d instruct them to take. Telemann had done it himself, a number of times, other field trips, corralling some luckless maverick, reining him in, returning him to the stockade. The usual excuse was pressure. The guys succumbed to pressure. It was never a question of blame, more a consequence of the job, a risk you took, another sacrifice for Uncle Sam. He never enquired what happened to the guys when they got shipped home, whether they were pensioned off, or quietly institutionalized, or whether – like some of their Soviet counterparts – they simply disappeared. Whatever happened, wherever they ended their days, it had always been strictly academic, someone else’s problem. Until now.
Telemann rolled over, grunting, closing his eyes, thinking of Laura again.
‘We wanted babies,’ he whispered numbly. ‘Kids.’
‘Ja?’
‘Yeah. We tried and tried.’ He looked up, aware of Inge behind him, propped up on one elbow, listening. ‘What do you think? You think it’s me?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You think there’s something wrong with me? Stuff doesn’t work properly? You know? Bad fucking?’
‘You want to do it?’ she said. ‘With me?’
Telemann shook his head, saying nothing, and Inge dipped her head, kissing him lightly on the shoulder. Then she drew the sheet back, almost a medical gesture, quite clinical, and knelt before him, her hands running the length of her body, down over her belly to the tight blond curls beneath. She splayed her thighs a little, watching herself in the mirror on the wardrobe door, her fingers curling inward, glimpses of nail varnish, her pelvis beginning to move, backwards and forwards. After a while, not smiling, she splayed her thighs wider still, and Telemann saw her lips, swollen and moist.
Inge’s eyes closed. ‘You like watching me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does it make you think of your wife?’
‘Yes.’
‘She does this?’
‘No. Never. Not with me.’
‘With someone else maybe?’ Inge opened her eyes again, looking down at him. Her hands were still now. Telemann shrugged, hopeless, saying nothing, and Inge looked at him for a moment longer before bending to him quickly, kissing him, stirring the merest flicker of movement, trying again, her tongue busier, getting nowhere. Finally, she straddled him. He could feel the warm moistness on his chest, caught her eyes for a moment, and she smiled at him, and fitted herself to his mouth, straddling his face, working herself against his upper lip, coming within seconds with a deep groan.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, touching his face.
‘That’s OK.’