Death Comes for the Fat Man

3

Hugh.”

“Andre.”

“De Payens.”

“De Montbard.”

one thousand two thousand three thousand

“Everything all right?”

“Yeah. I’m very comfortable.”

“Don’t get too comfortable. You’re on your way. East Midlands 0630 hours, singles holiday to Alicante so you won’t stand out. Room booked at the EM Hilton tonight, package to pick up at the desk with passport, tickets, euros.”

“And then?”

“Head down for a while. No long-term problem. Bernard says eventually you’ll be recruited. Once you’re on the books officially, the slate’s wiped clean.”

“Nice. So this means our mad mullah gets an extension?”

“I thought I’d made that clear. Bernard says let the dust settle. You’ve got Geoffrey O under control?”

“Absolutely.”

“Good. Bon voyage then.”

“Cheers.”

Jonty Youngman switched the phone off and looked at Kilda.

“That’s it confirmed,” he said. “I’m off to brown my knees in the sunshine, every thing here stays cool. Orders.”

“Do you always obey orders?”

“Oh yes.”

“You didn’t when you went in after Chris.”

“That was different.”

“No. Nothing’s different. Everything’s always the same.”

He regarded her thoughtfully. Normally women didn’t baffle him, because he wasn’t interested in what they were thinking. They were soft machinery, a pleasurable arrangement of moving parts. But, maybe because he’d never managed to get hold of any of Kilda’s moving parts, he found himself from time to time trying to get a grip on her thought processes.

“You want I should tell you what I did to that Ab again?” he asked.

When first he told her the details of how he’d killed the man who’d tortured her husband, he’d thought she was finding it a sexual turn-on, but she’d soon disabused him of that notion. But it certainly did something to her.

She shook her head.

“No. I’m beyond that,” she said. “So Hugh says you’ve got to go, and you’ve got to go quietly, is that it?”

“That’s it.”

“He must be a pretty scary guy to make someone like you jump.”

“Scary enough, but it’s not Hugh who bothers me here. This guy Bernard, don’t know who he is, but I do know a slap on the wrist from him would likely take my hand off.”

“Did Hugh pass on any instructions from scary Bernard about me?”

“Says I should kill you before I go.”

He usually found it hard to get a reaction from Kilda but that did it.

He let her think he was serious for a moment then laughed.

“Only joking.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, if I killed you then I’d have to off your bro-in-law too, and I don’t have the time. Anyway I told Hugh I had you under control.”

“He believed you?”

“He thinks I’m shagging you rotten.”

“You told him that?”

“Didn’t need to. Just assumes anything shaggable comes my way, I’ll have a slice.”

He grinned and went on, “Should have thought of that when he introduced me to his mam. Many a good tune played on an old fiddle.”

“He didn’t mind?”

“He didn’t know. You don’t think of your old mam as shaggable, do you? Not unless you’re seriously bent.”

She looked at him over her coffee cup.

“I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone else like you, Jonty.”

“You’re pretty unique yourself,” he said. “In two ways at least.”

“Which are?”

“One, you hate Abdul even more than I do. And, two, you’re the first woman I fancied fucking that I didn’t.”

She smiled coldly and said, “Into every life a little rain must fall. Which reminds me, I should be on my cloudy way.”

“Don’t forget your camera,” he said.

She picked the Nikon up from the table.

“It’s all fixed, is it?”

“You’re the photographer. You just point and click.”

“Will you get into trouble for this?”

“You really bothered?”

“Not really.”

“Thought not. So why bother with something that doesn’t bother you?”

“What bothers you, Jonty?”

“Not a lot.”

“So why did you get involved?”

He shrugged.

“Needed something to do when the Service dumped me. Till then, skirt and offing Abdul had been enough. Now I just had skirt. Man needs more than skirt.”

“You could have joined the BNP.”

He laughed derisively.

“Bunch of wankers. All mouth and beating up kids and women. Let them get a sniff of real action and they’d shit themselves.”

“Is that why you started writing your books? Because you missed the real action?”

“I suppose. Don’t reckon much to that analysis stuff. But when I saw the chance to get back into the action, no, I didn’t hesitate. So that’s me. How about you?”

“What about me?”

He said, “Normally I’m not much interested in what goes on in a tart’s head, ’cos it’s like chasing a gnat in a dust storm. But you’ve been one exception so you might as well be another. You were so crazy about Chris that losing him’s driven you a bit crazy, right? So why did you fuck his brother?”

For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer. She rose, picked up the camera, and went to the door. Then she paused and without turning said, “It was my wedding anniversary. Maurice had been best man. He said I shouldn’t be alone on that day and he took me out for a drive to the coast, then we had a meal together, and when we got back we had a couple of drinks at the Hall, and looked at some photos and talked about Chris and who said what at the wedding. I think we both had a bit more to drink than we were used to. I realized how much when I went to the loo, but I bathed my face in cold water and thought I was OK. Then I came out of the bathroom and a little farther down the landing Maurice was just coming out of his bedroom. It was a trick of the light, or a trick of the drink, or a trick of the imagination overheated by all that talk of my wedding day, whatever, it all combined and for a moment he was Chris, or so like Chris it seemed to make no difference. From us grabbing hold of each other to him rolling off me and us lying there naked realizing what we had just done seemed like the blink of an eye. And I hadn’t had time to really start feeling guilty when the phone rang. Later it felt like what I did made it ring. I know that’s stupid. The phone would have rung just as surely if I’d gone straight home. But at least I’d have been there to answer it…”

Now she turned to look at him.

“There,” she said. “That make you happier?”

“No,” he said. “I don’t do happiness. Just oblivion. Sex and offing Abdul does that for me.”

“I need something a bit longer lasting,” she said.

“I know. Good luck.”

“You too. You won’t hang around here too long, will you? They’ll come looking.”

“Not for an hour or so. I’ll be long gone. Kilda, you sure about this? You could come with me, no strings…”

“There’s always strings, Jonty. I just want to cut the last of them.”

“Sure?”

“What else do I have to be sure about?”

She left.

Not even a good-bye kiss, thought Youngman.

What the hell. There was no shortage of available women, especially if you were going on a singles holiday.

He finished his coffee and then went upstairs to start putting his gear together.