Spoils of War, page 20
‘God, no! One thing she does have definite opinions about is money. Mainly she reckons I don’t earn enough of it to keep her in the style she would like to become accustomed to. She’s right, I suppose. I’m afraid I haven’t done too well for the past couple of years.’
Dale said with amusement: ‘There you go being afraid again, Jack.’
‘Maybe justifiably, this time. What do the middle classes fear more than poverty? The trouble is, I can’t get worked up about money the way other people do. I’ve seen some of its nasty side effects. In fact, I’ve helped bring some of them about.’
‘How?’
‘Didn’t I tell you I used to be a financial investigator?’
The brandy was warming and powerful; he could feel it making him expansive. And she was easy to talk to, giving him her full attention, watching him with steady green eyes over the rim of her glass as he told her about his time at Hellig’s.
‘As an example of what I mean,’ he said, ‘there was an old family baking and milling firm here in London, down the river a bit, near a place called Silvertown. They made very good bread and a special kind of ginger cake. During the seventies they’d gone public so that they could expand to supply a couple of supermarket chains. They also owned a few of their own retail outlets, but the heart of their business was still an old mill with a hundred yards of river frontage, where barges delivered corn and they ground their own flour. They had a staff of about a hundred. They made consistent, modest profits and they kept their shareholders happy.
‘We spotted this company for one of our clients. He wasn’t a believer in modest profits, and he wouldn’t have known a good ginger cake from a bar of soap. He was an asset-stripper. All that interested him was that hundred yards of river bank.
‘He bought up shares in the bakery, through a number of shell companies, until he’d acquired a controlling interest. It cost him about nine million pounds. Within three months he had broken the firm up and sold it off in separate lots. The brand name went to a processed-food corporation. The shops were bought by a discount chain. The workers lost their jobs. The mill was sold to a property development company in which our man also had a major interest. The site is now a yuppie condominium with a marina attached. A hundred apartments at a quarter of a million each: not a bad return. And . . . this is the final irony – do you know what they call the place? Baker’s Wharf. It was that kind of thing that drove me out of that business.’
Dale nodded approvingly. ‘Good for you. I hope you made a stirring farewell speech.’
‘Of course not. Nothing I did was going to make any difference to the system. But it made me feel better not to be part of it.’ Seeing her reach for the brandy bottle, he said, ‘No more for me. I’ve got to drive. Besides, I’m talking too much. It’s time I left.’
‘There’s no rush as far as I’m concerned.’ Dale poured herself a small drink and then spluttered with unexpected laughter. ‘Do you know what I just thought? You’ve been with me up here, what, twenty minutes? You walk out, and right afterward I take a thousand pounds down to that creepy night clerk and ask him to put it in the safe . . . He’s going to think I’m one hell of a high-priced hooker!’
Jack laughed as well, but rather more uncertainly. There had been nothing contrived in the casual way she had invited him to her room, and there seemed to be no innuendo in this joking reference to sex. It might even be a way of keeping the subject at arm’s length. Yet her physical nearness to him was a reminder of the powerful attraction he had felt for her back in the coffee house in Kuwait. Unless he had been fooling himself, she had felt it as well. On the other hand, in her case it might have been a mere passing inclination. The way she was looking at him now, with bright eyes and a relaxed smile, made him wonder again whether she was aware of those guilty private desires of his, and whether she found them exciting or just amusing. The signals were confusing.
‘How long are you staying in London?’ he asked. Taking refuge in the ultimate cocktail-party question.
‘Three or four days, I guess. Then I’ll head for Paris, catch up on those Sorbonne friends and spend some time oiling my rusty French. And you’re going to Zurich? It seems the boot is on the other foot this time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The last time it was me asking you how much longer you’d be in Kuwait. It seems we’re destined to meet only fleetingly at the world’s crossroads, Jack.’
‘It looks that way. But I hope we’ll stay in touch.’
‘Of course we will.’
He stood up, pushing back the chair to make room to get out. He felt a little deflated, the way he had the first time they had met, that she took their parting so much for granted. She stood as well, smoothing down her dress as she followed him to the door. He opened it and turned, expecting to peck her on the cheek again, but she had stopped just out of range. She stood with her arms folded across her breasts, her look now faintly sardonic.
‘I told you the other day you were a nice man, Jack. One of the nicest things about you is that you don’t even know you’re desirable. Why would any woman want to give you up?’
He stood in the doorway, staring at her.
‘Why would any man give you up?’ he said.
He reached out and touched her face, just where the loose ringlet brushed her cheek. Her skin was warm against his palm. She didn’t flinch, didn’t move except to twist her head slightly, rubbing the cheek under his hand like a cat asking to be stroked. He stepped closer, feeling a surge of disbelieving excitement. He put his arms around her waist, drew her close and kissed her on the lips. Her body pressed into his. She explored his mouth briefly with her tongue and then pulled gently back, holding him by the shoulders, looking him full in the face.
‘Do you want to break the mould, Jack? Would you like us to stop just meeting and missing each other?’
‘Yes.’
‘So would I. There’s nothing I’d like more than to hop in the sack with you right now, but in twenty minutes’ time you’d be looking at your watch, worrying about getting home, thinking about your trip. I want it to be good when it happens. I want to take it slowly. We’ve both been through shitty marriages, Jack, and we deserve a better start than that. Besides, it’s . . . such an obvious thing to do, isn’t it? I hate doing the obvious.’
‘How do you want to handle it?’
‘Why don’t you call me when you get back? We can take it from there.’
‘I’ve got a better idea. Come with me tomorrow.’
She began to laugh but he said: ‘I’m serious. You were planning a holiday, weren’t you? Why not start in Zurich? Go on to Paris afterwards if you like. If we want to get to know each other it’s the best chance we’ll have. What’s there to stop you?’
She was smiling, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know. It just doesn’t seem like you to be so . . . impulsive. Maybe you’ll have changed your mind by the morning.’
‘No.’ Strangely, he was not at all surprised by his own impetuosity. He was in a state of euphoria that made anything seem possible. ‘Listen, if it’s the money you’re worried about I’ll pay your fare and your hotel bill. But I don’t want you to feel under any obligations. We’ll have separate hotel rooms. And if it’ll make you feel better you can actually help me. There’s someone I need to trace in France, right across the border, and you’d make a better job of it than I would. Even if your French is rusty it’s bound to be better than mine. You can be my research assistant.’
Dale was still hesitant, but he could see that she was taken with the extravagance of the idea. ‘Just like that, huh? But you’re leaving in a few hours’ time.’
‘I’ll call the airport now, make sure I can get an extra seat. Come on, let’s just do it!’
Six miles north-west of Russell Square, the Range Rover turned off Cricklewood Lane at a junction indicated by Ali Shakir. It travelled for a hundred yards or so before he told the driver to stop.
They were in a street called Orange Grove Avenue, another name of the sort that had once puzzled Ali. It ran behind Plumtree Road, and the house opposite which they were now parked, number 26 on the avenue, was the one that backed on to number 48 on the road. They were identical in most respects, one difference being that number 26 had no garage. Instead, the concrete-paved drive that led down the side of the house was blocked off at the rear by a head-high brick wall with a small gate set in it.
All this Ali had established in daylight. Now it was well after midnight, the street was deserted and most of its houses, including number 26, were in darkness.
There were four of them in the Range Rover. Ali had guided them here but the man who drove was in overall command, the Mudeer who had taken charge four months ago of their work in London. He was a taciturn man, like a wise and stern father to them, who commanded their total respect. From a canvas bag he took out and distributed equipment to Ali and his two younger comrades, his brother Issa and a newly trained man named Osman. Each was given a pistol already loaded, a balaclava mask and a pair of black cotton gloves. The pistols were 7.62-millimetre Makarovs with silencers screwed on to their barrels. They checked and cocked the weapons and tucked them awkwardly into their waistbands, then put on the hoods and gloves before slipping out of the vehicle. Ali carried the bag containing the other things they would need.
For a few moments they stood in the shadow of a high privet hedge while the Range Rover moved off. Then Ali led them across the road and went quietly down the drive of the house.
They easily scaled the wall at the end, waiting in silence to be sure their intrusion had not been heard before crossing an overgrown back garden to another wall, the one that divided this property from 48 Plumtree Road.
Ali hoisted himself up, clinging to the rough brickwork. With only his head exposed, he peered through a margin of shrubbery to survey the rear of the Kurds’ house. There was a light on outside the back door and another glowed dimly from somewhere on the ground floor, but there was no sign of movement. The bedroom windows upstairs were dark. There was no floodlighting and, as he had observed earlier, no alarm and no evidence of guard dogs; the house was protected only by its suburban anonymity, and yet this did not lessen its dangers. There had not been time to subject it to a full surveillance. They knew nothing about its layout or the routines of its inhabitants, or how many henchmen the renegade kept here to protect him. All they were certain of was that they must take the traitor while they knew where he was. For the rest, in the English phrase Ali liked to use, they must play it by ear.
He swung a leg over the wall and straddled it, signalling to the others to follow. As soon as they had dropped into the shrubbery he began to work his way through the shadows at the edge of the garden to the back door. Like most houses of its age and type, this one had had a modern kitchen extension built on at the rear. The door had glass panels in its upper half, and by the light above it he saw that it was secured by a deadlock and an internal bolt. There was a full-length window beside it, however, divided into two sections. The lower part of the frame contained a pane of glass about two feet high by three across.
Kneeling by the window, Ali took a roll of wide parcel tape and a knife from the bag. Cutting strips of the tape swiftly from the roll, he stuck them vertically and horizontally around the edges of the pane, making sure their ends clung to the frame, and then placed two lengths diagonally across it. He wrapped a square of muslin around the butt of his pistol, and with four muffled taps he broke the pane neatly and almost silently at its outer edges. Peeling the ends of the tape back, he lifted the broken slabs of glass in one shaky rectangle out of the frame.
‘God is great,’ Ali muttered in gratitude. Again he waited, watching and listening for a minute, before beckoning to the others.
They crawled through the opening one by one. In the dark kitchen they drew their pistols and stood close together, hearing only the sound of each other’s breathing. Still carrying his bag of equipment, Ali moved to the inner door and eased it open.
A wide, unlit hallway running to the front entrance. A staircase with a door on either side of it, the one on the left closed, the other one open with a light on in the room behind it. Western pop music playing softly, a smell of cigarette smoke. Somebody in there for certain, probably whichever of the bodyguards was on duty for the night.
They paused and then went in single file down the carpeted hall. Ali got to a couple of feet from the open door and signalled to the others to wait where they were. He pressed his back against the wall and edged along it, the pistol held close to his side.
Suddenly the other door opened. A door to a room he had assumed was unoccupied. A shaft of light fell from it and a man emerged, about to cross the hall, starting to say something to whoever was in the opposite room, then halting in disbelief as he saw the armed and hooded figure in front of him.
The man wore thin-framed glasses that glinted faintly in the dim light. He carried some sheets of paper. He uttered a guttural word of surprise.
Several things happened at once. Ali was just as astonished as the other man, and stood facing him for a moment with the pistol still hanging in his hand. He sensed rather than saw Osman, just behind him, raising his gun, and he swung round to slap down his arm. Their orders were to take the renegade alive. At almost the same moment another shape sprang from the open doorway on the right, the figure of a stocky man in a leather jacket. A bodyguard, taken by surprise but still moving swiftly and lithely, wielding a revolver which he aimed two-handed at Osman.
There wasn’t the slightest chance of stopping him. There was a mighty explosion and a muzzle flash, and Osman grunted and reeled across the hall. The Kurd swung his gun in search of other targets but Ali had his own pistol levelled by now, and with the sound of the shot ringing in his ears he fired at the bodyguard’s head, hearing the soft plop of the silenced pistol followed by the sharper sound of the bullet smacking through bone. Blood sprayed in dark blotches against the wall. The Kurd dropped to his knees, then fell on his side across the doorway.
The air was filled with smoke, reeking of cordite. Abdel Karim still stood by the door of his office, slack-mouthed and numb with shock. Ali stepped towards him, past the collapsed form of Osman, and became aware of a movement at the top of the stairs. He turned in time to see another Kurd, in pale pyjamas, dazedly raising a gun, but Issa had already spotted him and fired twice across the banister. The man gave a groan of pain, fell back on the landing and slid halfway down the stairs.
Ali jammed the muzzle of his pistol into Abdel Karim’s ribs.
‘Down!’ he said. ‘On the floor!’
As Karim dropped to his knees, Issa raced up the stairs. Ali forced the Kurd down on his face and heard from the upper floor a man’s shout and a woman’s scream, interspersed by four or five snaps from Issa’s silenced pistol. He felt himself shaking as he knelt beside Karim and reached into the bag for more of the parcel tape. Still half-deafened by the revolver shot, he knew that the plan they had made for a swift, quiet operation was in disarray. There would be no time now to search for the documents which were their other objective.
Karim had not spoken a word since his first grunt of surprise, and he did not try to resist or protest as Ali fastened bands of tape over his mouth and his eyes. He plucked a length of cord from the bag and tied Karim’s wrists behind his back. As Issa came clattering down the stairs he went into the office, pulled back an edge of curtain and looked out. The Mudeer had parked the Range Rover where they had arranged, just a few yards down the road. Lights had come on in one or two of the houses opposite, and although no-one had ventured out on the street it seemed certain that the revolver shot had been heard and the police summoned.
Ali pulled Karim to his feet and then crouched beside Osman. He jerked the hood off his comrade’s head and saw a lifeless stare in his eyes. The Kurd’s bullet had gone through his chest and the carpet beneath him was soaked with blood. There was no pulse; he did not seem to be breathing. Ali signalled to Issa, then seized Karim by the back of his jacket and unbolted the front door.
‘We can’t leave him here,’ Issa said, staring down at Osman.
Ali hugged his brother and said: ‘You did well. Osman will find peace with God. But we can’t let him impede us.’
He opened the door, pushing Karim ahead of him, and they all lurched clumsily out into the cold spring night.
The Range Rover’s engine was running and the door to the rear cargo deck was open. They bundled Karim inside and threw over him the sheet of black plastic they had ready. From the driving seat the Mudeer stared at them, an unspoken question in his eyes at the absence of Osman. But there was no time to explain. They dived into the back seat as the car swung away from the kerb.
*
It was after two o’clock when Jack got back to Prescott Gardens.
Its houses were completely in darkness now, and this time no curtain moved in the Reynolds’ window as he backed the Honda into the garage. A car that hadn’t been there earlier was parked outside their house, though, another and more anonymous Japanese model; glancing back at it as he unlocked the front door, he was almost sure he caught a movement in the back seat. The Reynolds’ daughter and her boyfriend? Probably there was some heavy petting going on, although it seemed a bit late, and why they should choose to do it under the parents’ bedroom window was a mystery.
Jack felt indulgent towards them. He was in love himself. There was no other way of describing the strange, almost adolescent sense of joy that had taken hold of him. The fact that it was still physically unfulfilled gave it an even headier quality. In spite of the punishing day he’d had he felt pumped up with excitement, as if he’d been taking stimulants, and was not in the least tired.
He averted his gaze from the car and let himself quietly into the house.
19
There was no avoiding an encounter with Alison the next morning. He was up well before she was, though, and had ordered a minicab and dressed and packed for his journey by the time she and the twins came down for breakfast. For a while they were saved the necessity of conversation through the chatter of the girls.
