O'Farrell's Law

TWENTY-ONE

THE BOARDINGHOUSE in Queens Gate Terrace proved the worst—professionally—that he’d chosen. It was run by a widow who insisted that all her guests call her Connie and who set out to be a mother figure to the unattached and a what-I-remember-about-London landlady to all. O’Farrell had stayed aloof and guessed she was offended, but didn’t think it mattered, now that he was leaving.

He had refused any meals, as he had in those before, but the last morning was different. He needed a news broadcast, and the television ran permanently in the breakfast room, which would normally have been sufficient reason to avoid the meal anyway.

O’Farrell was up and packed early, downstairs to pay her ahead of anyone else, and asked if he could change his mind and have coffee and toast maybe. Connie beamed and offered eggs, but O’Farrell said toast would be fine.

All the morning papers were displayed on a table just inside the room and O’Farrell flicked through them, apparently unable to choose. He guessed it would have been front-page and there wasn’t a report in any of them: too late, he guessed. He chose the Times and then orange juice, nodding to the four people already in the room, who, thankfully, ignored him. O’Farrell took a table near the wall. He went through the motions of reading the newspaper, seeing nothing. Predictably the television was on; the set was attached to a support arm suspended quite high on the wall, so the lift of the watchers’ heads gave them all an attitude of piety. O’Farrell supposed it was fitting, for the awe in which television was held.

A rock group plugged their latest release, a trade-union leader insisted some labor dispute was the government’s fault, and a tongue-tied gardener tried to explain how he grew prizewinning produce. Then the anchor person started “… extended news because of last night’s horrific incident in Hampstead …”

The first picture on the screen was a long shot of Rivera’s house from the far side of Christchurch Road. The house itself had sustained hardly any damage apart from broken windows, but the front of the garage was completely blown in, with firemen still dowsing the embers. What remained of the BMW, a pressed-flat piece of metal attached to one wheel and a few engine parts, was propped oddly on its edge against the garage wall, and a large area of the gravel was scorched black.

The camera panned in closer. A reporter stood at the gate next to a policeman self-consciously aware of being on camera.

“… no explanation yet for the outrage,” the reporter was saying. “What is known is that because of this morning’s rain Mrs. Estelle Rivera”—here the screen was filled with a still photograph of the woman, obviously at a reception with Rivera—“wife of the Cuban ambassador, José Rivera, went to their BMW car to get it closer to the house to pick up their son, Jorge, to deliver him to the lycée. I understand the explosion, which in turn created a fireball, was immediate. Death would have been instantaneous. Forensic and bomb-disposal experts have recovered parts of an explosive device but are disclosing no details, although one expert has told me it was clearly planted by an expert to cause …”

A swirl of dizziness engulfed O’Farrell, so much so that he could not clearly see the television screen, and a sickness rose through him, like it had after the stupidity of the brandy, and a coldness, a chilling, shivering coldness tightened around him, taking his breath. Mouth clamped, he tried to push the sensation back, wanting to see and to hear everything before the newscast finished.

“We have learned,” came the voice distantly, through a fog, “that the housekeeper who normally drives the boy to school in her car has recently been ill and unable to do so. Jorge, twelve, was at the rear of the house at the time of the explosion and was fortunately uninjured, although he is being treated for shock. Señor Rivera is also said by the household to be deeply shocked.…”

With the promise to report further as information became available, the remote broadcast returned to the studio. O’Farrell let the screen recede into a blur again, trying to think—to create another order of priority as he had so very recently done—but nothing rational came through the cold sickness.

“… shocking. Absolutely shocking …”

O’Farrell blinked up at the landlady. How long had she been standing at the table, talking to him? She handed him the toast and said, “Here you are. Eat it while it’s hot.”

O’Farrell nodded, unable to speak, accepting the toast he didn’t know what to do with.

The woman gestured toward the television. “Can you imagine the mentality of anyone able to do such a thing!” she demanded.

“No,” O’Farrell managed.

“Shot,” the woman insisted. “That’s what should happen to him when he’s caught. Stood up against a wall and shot.”

“Yes,” O’Farrell agreed shortly. He’d killed—murdered—an innocent person! The awareness flooded in upon him, and his need to vomit worsened. That first morning’s surveillance had begun too late to monitor any school run; he’d only been interested in Rivera’s pattern. Yet he’d seen the wife and child! Should have considered how he got to school! Slipshod. Careless. So because he’d been slipshod and careless, he murdered an innocent person; come close to murdering an innocent kid as well. Unprof—O’Farrell stopped himself even completing the word, refusing it. What the fuck was professional about what he did! Where was the profession—the art—in killing? Innocent, he thought, unable to get the word out of his mind. Completely innocent; beautiful and poised and innocent. Christ—oh dear Christ—what had he done! No turning back, no putting together what was destroyed, no expiation. Innocent.

Now he had to run. Run like a rat would run, away from something it had fouled or contaminated. Destroy but don’t be destroyed, judge but avoid judgment, catch but don’t get caught. Innocent.

O’Farrell felt suspended, almost as if he were outside his own body, watching himself perform. He crumbled the bread to convey the impression of having eaten and forced some coffee down. He went through the charade of farewell and drove the rental car without any conscious awareness back to its garage, remembering to get the credit-card slip back for cash. He canceled the remaining boarding-house, in Crossmore Road, and took two taxis to the embassy, finally approaching Grosvenor Square on foot from Park Lane. Petty spoke first when the connection was made.

“It’s very bad.”

“Yes.”

“Any risk of our involvement becoming known?”

“No.”

“Sure?”

“Positive.”

“Everything cleared up behind you?”

“Everything.”

“Get out.”

“The reservation is for two this afternoon. TWA.”

“Don’t tell your wife.”

“Why?”

“We’ll meet you.”

* * *

Rivera had no difficulty displaying the attitude the police and the Special Branch and the Diplomatic Protection Squad expected. He was, after all, genuinely frightened for himself and it showed, and he let it, unashamedly. And he was frightened, maybe more, for Jorge. He’d insisted upon hospital observation of the child, although the doctors disagreed on the need, and insisted further that members of the embassy staff, in reality officers of the DirecciÓn Generale de Inteligencia, guard the child in addition to the British protectors now assigned.

He had some feeling, too, about Estelle. Whatever he’d felt, or rather not felt, it was difficult to conceive of her being blown apart as she had been, so that identification had to be made from items of jewelry. So he cried, although not for long.

It was the afternoon before he had any proper interview with the authorities, who told him more than he was able to tell them. The forensic experts believed both the explosive and the detonators were from the communist bloc, almost certainly Czechoslovakian; they’d know definitely after more tests. The materials had been placed throughout the vehicle, not concentrated in one spot; it was undoubtedly the work of a professional assassin. It was impossible to be sure, until they caught whoever did it, but they were working on the theory that the bomb had been intended for him, not his wife.

“Have you any idea, Excellency, who might want to do a thing like this?”

Rivera spread his hands, a gesture of helplessness. “I haven’t the slightest idea,” he said.

He had, of course. He’d never imagined Belac would go this far.

Havana predictably labeled the attack a capitalist conspiracy, but with some irony accused America of being the originator. A State Department spokesman in Washington said the claim was too ridiculous to be treated seriously.