The Beaufort Sisters

by Jon Cleary

  He ducked as he heard the first shots, falling off the seat and down behind the back of the front seat, pulling Lucas with him. Then the bullets swept through the car, smashing the windows and windscreen; glass spattered them like sharp hail. Still crouched down, he heard a grunt above him, heard the Schmeisser go off in a wild burst. He dragged the pillow case from his head, looked up and saw both Hassan and Zaid, their faces blown away, lying with their heads slammed back over the top of the front seat. The Schmeisser, Zaid’s dead finger still clutching the trigger, was ripping the last of its magazine through the car roof.

  The lights of the Chrysler were still on, still unsmashed; the ambushers, whoever they were, must be deliberately firing to miss them. The Simca’s lights had gone, but they were suddenly replaced by a brighter illumination; there was an explosion and a sudden red blaze as the Simca burst into flames. Tim flung open the door of the Chrysler, afraid that it, too, would go up in flames; he tumbled out into the dirt, yelling to Lucas to follow him. Lucas, pulling the pillow case from his head, did so. But age, the stiffening of his limbs, hampered him. Instead of falling out to lie low on the ground, he stepped out.

  He stood up, almost as if stretching his cramped body. There was another short burst of fire and the bullets hit him in the chest. He fell on top of Tim with something that sounded like a gasp of disbelief. Tim rolled out from under him, grabbed him and pulled him away from the car. He rolled Lucas over on his back and crouched above him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone get up from beside the Simca and run away into the rocks beside the road; it looked like Roger Devon but he could not be sure. By the glow of the burning Simca he could see the pain and shock in Lucas’s face; the old man coughed and blood came out of his mouth. One hand clutched Tim’s arm, but there was no strength in it.

  ‘Tim – ’ The words were just bubbles of blood on his lips. ‘Go home – please – ’

  Tim pressed the old man’s hand. His mind was a whirl, no line of thought coherent. He was wondering who had ambushed them: was it the PLO? He was still crouched down, still with the instinct to survive: if the ambushers were the PLO, he might be no better off than he had been with Hassan and his group. But no matter who the ambushers were, they were of no further concern to Lucas. The old man was already dead; Tim felt the hand slacken in his own. He looked down at the man he had hated for so long and suddenly wanted to weep. Lucas would never know how much he had longed to go home.

  Then he heard the men coming out of the rocks across the road. He straightened up, saw the five men with guns outlined against the glow of the burning Simca. He said in Arabic, ‘Don’t shoot – please – ’ Then the bullets hit him and he fell face down on Lucas.

  He heard the further shots coming down from the hillside. In the moment before he died he heard the men with the guns, as they turned and raced away, shout something in Hebrew.

  2

  Lucas’s body in a plain coffin was loaded on to the Boeing 707, then Prue, Nina and Roger went aboard. Magnus was the last to go up the steps, waiting for his final word with Ambassador Bredgar and Ben Criska.

  ‘You understand, Mr McKea,’ said Bredgar, ‘that nothing must be said about this. I’m sorry, but it is just impossible to release the full story.’

  ‘I know,’ said Magnus, not attempting to disguise his bitterness, ‘there are broader issues.’

  ‘There’s no point in repeating how sorry we are,’ said Criska. ‘I thought we were doing the right thing. We’d had the Israelis alerted from an hour or two after we learned about the kidnapping. If it had come off, you would have been grateful.’

  ‘I think we should have been consulted first,’ said Magnus.

  ‘Certain things have to be kept under wraps, Mr McKea.’ Criska sounded annoyingly patient, as if he spent all his time explaining to people actions they would never understand. ‘We followed Burgess as far as Merjayun – we’re pretty sure he didn’t see us. Then when he turned up into PLO country, we had to turn back. There wasn’t time to come back here to Beirut. I sent a man across the border into Israel and he phoned our man in Jerusalem. The Israelis know that territory like the back of their hand – they even knew where the Abu Sadar people hung out. They had patrols standing by and we had to use them. We had no one else to turn to if we hoped to get Mr Beaufort and Mr Devon out alive. Those Abu Sadar guys were never going to take no for an answer from Washington.

  ‘You’ve warned Mr Devon not to say anything? About how we got him back from the Israelis?’ Bredgar looked embarrassed; twice in five minutes he had taken off his glasses and polished them. ‘Not even to his wife?’

  ‘His wife and her sister both know. I told them.’

  Bredgar shook his head at the folly of civilians. ‘Mr McKea – ’

  ‘I owed it to them,’ said Magnus. ‘They were entitled to know how their father died. Despite the broader issues.’

  He had not told Prue and Nina immediately. It was twenty-four hours after Raclot had left to give the money to the go-between before Roger, cut and bruised, a bullet wound in his shoulder, had been brought back to the embassy by Criska and another official. Magnus had been sent for, first being cautioned that he was not to bring the women with him or say anything to them till he had been briefed by the embassy. Worried at what news he was to be given, upset that he had to leave the equally worried Prue and Nina at the hotel, he had gone to the embassy. He had been ushered at once into the ambassador’s office where only Bredgar, Roger and Criska were present.

  He had guessed at once that the worst had happened, that Lucas was dead. But he was stunned by the story Criska had told him, of the terrible mistake made by the Israeli patrol that had been waiting in ambush for the terrorists.

  ‘They thought Mr Beaufort and Mr Devon were in the second car, the Simca. They only blew it up after they saw the men jump out. That was how Mr Devon got away – he was hit by an Abu Sadar bullet, not by Israeli fire. It was all just a terrible mistake – ’

  Then anger flooded Magnus and he wanted to hit Criska. It had been Roger who had restrained him. ‘Please, Magnus – it won’t help. Not now.’

  ‘Where is Mr Beaufort’s body?’

  ‘The Israelis left the two bodies, Mr Beaufort’s and the go-between’s, where they were. The PLO came down when they heard the firing and the Israelis had to slip back across the border. They managed to take Mr Devon with them. We’ve had to wait to bring him back via Cyprus.’

  ‘What about Mr Beaufort?’ Magnus persisted.

  ‘We’ve already heard from the PLO. We have our contacts,’ Criska explained. Jesus, thought Magnus, how do these people work? Do they draw no lines? ‘They’ve taken the bodies down to Merjayun. A Greek merchant there has them. We can collect them whenever we wish.’

  ‘Let’s go back to the hotel,’ Magnus said to Roger. ‘I’ll call you in half an hour, Mr Criska. I’ll want someone to come with me down to Merjayun. I’d rather it wasn’t you.’

  It was Bredgar who flushed angrily, not Criska. But Magnus was already on his way out of the office with Roger.

  Back at the hotel Prue and Nina, prepared for the worst, took the news of their father’s death stoically. Later they would both break down, but for the moment they kept control of themselves and took relief and compensation in the safe return of Roger. Newspaper and television correspondents were clamouring for a press conference, but the hotel had kept them all down in the lobby. A doctor was called for Roger, the bullet was removed with a local anaesthetic and he was put to bed in the suite; he refused to go to hospital and Prue, wanting something to do, some distraction to keep her from thinking just yet about her father’s death, said she would take care of him with the aid of a nurse sent in by the doctor. Nina, also wanting to keep herself occupied, said she would handle the calls from Kansas City. In the meantime both sisters wanted their father’s body brought back to Beirut as soon as possible.

  Magnus, slipping out of the hotel by a back door, went down to Merjayun in an embassy ca
r, accompanied by a Second Secretary, a young man named Fisher; the embassy car was accompanied by a hearse. Magnus sat without saying anything and Fisher, a big bluff man with glasses and a nervous tic to his mouth, respected his silence. At least, thought Magnus, giving him a side glance, he’s a better diplomat than that bastard Criska. Later, much later, he would come to appreciate that Criska had done what he had thought was best; but for the time being he was filled with a bitterness that was like a sickness.

  The Greek merchant opened the door to them before they could knock. He had obviously been waiting for them; and so had the small crowd gathered outside the house. Magnus caught a glimpse of two women and some small children hanging over a stairway landing as the Greek led them to a bedroom at the back of the house. He wondered how the women felt at having the corpses of two strangers kept in one of their bedrooms.

  The two bodies lay side by side on a double bed, a sheet draped over them from head to foot. ‘Who brought them here?’ said Fisher.

  The little old man shrugged. ‘I never ask for names, sir.’

  His English was good, with a slight American accent. Magnus wondered by what roundabout route he had come from Greece to finish up in this small town in the Lebanon hills. But then by what roundabout route had Lucas arrived at the same point? And, unlike the Greek’s, his journey was finished. Or almost.

  He turned back the edge of the sheet and looked down at the dead Lucas. For a moment it seemed that he was looking at a stranger: smaller, older, paler than the Lucas he had known for so long. He put a hand to his mouth, stifling the sob he could feel welling up in him.

  ‘Do you know this man?’ Fisher had turned back the sheet on the man who lay beside Lucas.

  The man, unlike Lucas, was indeed a stranger. He was about Magnus’s age, with thick grey hair; his lean, tanned face was more than half-hidden by a rough bandage that someone had applied. His one visible eye was closed; the nose and mouth and other eye were covered by the bandage. Magnus stared at him, wondering what debt the Beauforts owed him. His death had not been anticipated, probably least of all by himself; otherwise he would not have volunteered. He had probably volunteered for no other reason than out of friendship for Colonel Raclot, the one who owed the debt, whatever it was, to Prue.

  ‘Did they have any papers?’ Fisher’s tic had increased, as if he was not experienced in the sighting of dead men. ‘Passports, anything like that?’

  ‘No, sir. There was nothing on them at all.’

  ‘It figures. I wonder what happened to the money? The five million bucks?’

  The old Greek blinked; but Magnus ignored him. ‘The PLO probably has it. We can kiss it goodbye.’

  ‘Ben Criska won’t like that.’

  That fact pleased Magnus, but he didn’t comment on it. Instead he said to the old Greek, ‘We should like to pay you for your trouble. Do you mind taking American Express travellers’ cheques?’

  ‘Sir, there is no need – ’ But the old man had already produced a Parker fountain pen, a gold one.

  So the body of Lucas Beaufort, worth conservatively two billion dollars when he was alive, was bought back for two hundred dollars. The body of the stranger was a bonus; or so it seemed. The two corpses were loaded into the hearse and the return trip to Beirut was begun.

  ‘We’ll keep Mr Beaufort’s body at the embassy till you’re ready to leave,’ said Fisher. ‘What about the other guy?’

  ‘I’ll see Colonel Raclot as soon as we get back. Would you call him and have him come to the embassy? I don’t want him interviewed by any press men. I’m sure he would not want it, either.’

  Magnus waited at the embassy till Raclot arrived. He took the Colonel into the side room where both bodies had already been put into plain coffins. Raclot stood a moment with his head bowed in prayer, then he blessed himself and followed Magnus out into the corridor. People were coming and going in the corridor: senior officials, clerks, people asking where to get visas. The business of government did not stop for two bodies in a side room.

  ‘What was his name?’ said Magnus.

  Raclot shrugged. ‘Nigel Burgess. But it could have been anything. He was a mercenary like myself, years ago in Africa. Most of us didn’t use our real names out there.’

  ‘Where did he come from?’

  ‘I think he was English. I saw him only once or twice a year, when he came here on business. He never told me his business and I never asked. We tend to be like that. People like us, I mean.’

  ‘We’ll pay to have him buried. Where was he staying?’

  ‘I don’t even know that. I always had the feeling he had more to hide than I had. Each time he came into Beirut he would phone me and we’d have a drink or dinner. That was it, nothing more. I suppose that sounds strange to a man like you, M. McKea, always surrounded by friends and business acquaintances.’

  ‘I don’t think anything will sound strange to me after the past forty-eight hours, Colonel. Can I leave everything to you? If you should trace any relatives, a wife, children, please let me know. We’ll see they are properly compensated.’ He saw the look on Raclot’s face and he gestured awkwardly. ‘I know, Colonel. Money is no real compensation. I don’t always think only in terms of dollars. But if he had a wife and children, I’d hate to think he’d left them unprovided for.’

  ‘I understand, M. McKea. I have no wife or children, so one doesn’t think in practical terms like that. You are right. I’ll do what I can to see if he can be traced.’

  Tim Davoren was buried next morning under the name of Nigel Burgess. Colonel Raclot began at once trying to find some clue that would lead him to the true identity of his dead friend. Because Tim had always been well-dressed and looked reasonably affluent, he made the mistake of going only to the better hotels. He drew a blank there, so he got in touch with a Christian Arab in the police force. The police officer got back to him in a week: there was no registration of any foreigner named Burgess. Raclot gave up. If Burgess had gone to such lengths to hide his identity when he was alive, what right did Raclot have to try and disclose it now he was dead? Magnus had asked the wrong man to do the job.

  The owner of the small pension on the Rue Zarif waited for the Australian M. James Harvest to come back to claim his two suitcases; after two weeks he opened the suitcases, took out what he fancied and then told his son to take the cases out and dump them near the Kurd refugees’ camp on the Juniye road. The Kurds would soon make use of them and they would never be traced. He did not go to the police to inform them that one of his guests was missing. In Beirut you never went looking for trouble. If trouble was going to happen, it would come to you sooner or later.

  The police, after a month, did go looking for James Harvest. But they went to the gem dealer on the Rue Kantari, whose address Tim had given when he had been asked on arrival where he could be located while in the Lebanon. The gem dealer said he had not seen M. Harvest at all on this trip. He was a reputable man, with a thriving business among influential Arabs, and the police had no reason to doubt his word. They asked if M. Harvest had a foreign address and the gem dealer, for the first time looking uneasy, said no. M. Harvest, who had seemed a very honest man and had always traded honestly, came and went without ever giving an address, either here in Beirut or overseas, where he could be located. All their transactions had been in cash; but that was not unusual in Beirut, was it, gentlemen? M. Harvest had sounded as if he were English, but he would probably have had to come from Australia to bring the magnificent opals that he offered for sale. Possibly, said the police, but the immigration records showed that he travelled on a British passport. They thanked the gem dealer and went away and started a file on the missing James Harvest; but a year later, when the Arab-Christian civil war broke out, no further entry had been added to the file and James Harvest had been forgotten. He was not the first and he would not be the last foreigner to disappear in the back streets of Beirut.

  Prue, Nina, Roger and Magnus left Beirut for home the day after the st
ranger was buried. Lucas’s coffin had been placed at the rear of the main cabin, screened from those sitting in the forward end by a curtain. The plane climbed into the morning sun, banked and headed west out across the sea.

  ‘All I wish,’ said Nina, ‘is that he had died at home. I don’t think it ever crossed his mind that he wouldn’t die in Kansas City.’

  Magnus looked back at the snow-topped mountains, at the city climbing the slopes, at the cypress-lined cemetery where the stranger would lie in a grave that would probably never be tended.

  ‘At least he’ll be buried at home,’ he said. ‘Beside your mother. That would please him.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Sisters

  1

  So we are back in the spring of the present. Time has moved in its own time. The emotions stretch it and condense it; memory has no hours. History, as Prue once remarked to herself, repeats itself, if only in cracked mirrors. Questions are still asked, answers still have to be given. Perhaps history is no more than that: but with one final question to which history has no answer. In the meantime …

  ‘Where’s Miss Nina?’ Margaret said.

  ‘In the drawing-room,’ said George Biff. ‘With Mr – Mr Harvest.’

  Margaret paused in front of the hall-mirror to look at herself: not at her hair or her make-up but at her attempt at composure. She was satisfied, but only just. ‘Do you know who he’s claiming to be?’

  ‘Yes.’