12

He brought the last load of clothes out through the gates. He had dropped a few bits and left them in a trail from the wardrobes, into the corridor, across the hall and scattered on the gravel. The shoes were already out, in three bin-bags, the handbags in another, stacked on top of the suitcases that the police had repacked.

Harvey Gillot moved Josie’s possessions with a sort of manic precision – he would have brought the same degree of concentration to the preparation of a big deal. There was no Military List for his wife’s clothing and accessories, and he needed no end-user certificate to deliver them to the front gate, but his mind kept an inventory of what he had shifted and what was yet to come.

The parked car was in front of him.

Roscoe was sprawled half in and half out of the open front passenger door. The girl was perched on the bonnet. The burly one with the northern accent was up the lane a few paces, hunkered on a stone at the side of it. He thought they waited for instructions, perhaps to pull out and leave him to whatever Hades’ devils had in store, or move in and set up a defensive perimeter. The compromise, while they waited, was to be outside the gates. He couldn’t see Roscoe’s gun. The girl’s Glock protruded from her handbag. The heavy fellow was mopping his forehead with a handkerchief – the action swung aside his jacket giving a clear view of his weapon in its holster. In a different world, Harvey would have brought them a tray with a teapot, mugs, a jug of milk and a plate of biscuits. They were not friends, not allies, and he knew they disliked him.

He was in no mood to placate them as he carried out the last of his wife’s clothes on their hangers. He made a line of them along the gates, to give the effect of a football stadium where the fans had hooked their flags on to the railings.

Harvey Gillot wasn’t a man to change his mind or compromise. He didn’t consider whether Josie might come back to Lulworth View when she had calmed down. He knew her well enough to assess that she would not.

They held memories, those clothes. A dress she had worn, a sort of Mediterranean blue, when they had entertained a brigadier of the Sri Lankan Army; another, scarlet, close-fitting at the waist and flaring out at the hem, had gone with a cutaway white jacket and a wide-brimmed hat, her choice for a hospitality lounge at Cheltenham when the guests had been from the procurement section of the Kuwait defence ministry. A Thai-silk two-piece for when they had entertained a gang of guys from Belarus who had raped her with their eyes, but had agreed the sale of gear that had gone to Lima, Peru. They were clothes from the ‘old days’ when Harvey and Josie had been a team that tilted at impossible targets and hit most of them. Too bloody long ago… The two skirts he had bought her in Milan where they had been for a fair to show off Italian Air Force surplus… The winter coat, with the fur collar, purchased in Helsinki where there had been an exhibition of body armour. What he did was an act of spite. All the clothing he liked had been bought before they moved to the Isle of Portland – before he had isolated them from the world in a place where he had felt safe.

They watched him.

Free country. Couldn’t stop them.

He hummed, as he lifted the last of the hangers, his anthem: Nobody Loves Us and We Don’t Care. He knew a little of the style and ethics of protection officers. Perhaps once a year he would be in central London, taking a client to dinner at the Ritz or Claridge’s, busting open the expense account in the hope of rich reward, and the guest would have them swarming on the pavement and in the lobby. Roscoe, the girl and the big fellow would have had the training. Something bordering on arrogance enveloped anyone with a Glock, who rode in a car with a compartment for a Heckler amp; Koch machine pistol, vests and gas in the boot, and a list in the front of blood groups, religious affiliations and the nearest hospitals. He knew these three weren’t bullet-catchers. He doubted they reckoned it their duty to put their lives on the line if it went hard for him.

There were cardboard boxes in the garage and a stack of old newspapers in the tool shed. He would go back in and start on the ornaments – glass, pottery, china vases – that she had accumulated over the years. They’d be wrapped, put in the boxes and come out of the front door, across the drive and up to the gates. He turned away from the watchers and went back inside.

He hadn’t thought through the matter of his daughter – Fiona – but he’d likely lump her with her mother and the horse. If he did, her room would be next on the list for clearing.

She saw the door close, heard the latch fasten and his tread fade.

She was short of a friend. There were women at work with whom, occasionally, Barbie went for coffee – even a drink – and a movie, but not many. The visit to the show, in the West End, was rare but anticipated with warm pleasure. There was nobody at the store in whom she would confide, not even the girls she would be with tomorrow evening. It made for an enduring loneliness. There was family – an elder sister lived with two children, no husband, in Lincolnshire, and was close to their parents, but Barbie wouldn’t bare her soul to any of them.

First she thought she would finish some ironing, then wash up what was in the sink, but she wasn’t sure which to attack first.

Her only friend, doubling as lover and keeper, was Robbie Cairns. He had wolfed a sandwich, then had walked, naked, into the bathroom. She had heard the shower run and he had gone into their bedroom. She had put his clothing into the machine and had turned the dial so that the wash would be thorough. While it went through the system and then into the dryer he had slept on their bed, under the coverlet. A couple of times she’d tiptoed to the door and peeped in. There had been a sort of calm on his face.

She didn’t start with the ironing or the washing-up but went into the bedroom to straighten the sheets and bang the pillows.

She had no friend. Had there been one, questions would have been asked. Who was he? What did he do? Where did the money come from? When was he going to ‘out’ her as his girlfriend? And what confused her as much as her lack of knowledge about him was his apparent indifference to her past. Her age? He had never asked. Neither had he shown any interest in her family. He didn’t want to know what men she had been with before he had found her in Fragrances. She had been married – her eighteen, him nineteen, a junior maintenance fitter at the air-force base at Scampton. It had lasted a week less than six months, and the divorce had been through years ago. She had no contact.

Coming from the bedroom, crossing the living room, she paused by the window, parted the lace curtains and saw him coming off the pavement and going into the road. His hands were deep in his pockets, his head was down and there was no spring in the step. He went through the traffic and she lost him.

She had pretty much given up on being close to a man until this one had wandered into her life. He had come with certainty, had never seemed to consider that he might not be welcome. There was little conversation, and he might go almost an entire evening and not speak a dozen words. He would nod, the basics of gratitude, when she’d cooked and he’d cleared the plate. No shouting in sex, and he didn’t expect a grunt chorus from her. Most often it was television, and he chose what to watch – nature, angling, endurance. All the bills were paid. Each week a hundred pounds, in notes, was left in a plain brown envelope and she was expected to shop with it. She wouldn’t have called him generous or tight. Had there been a friend, and had honesty ruled between them, Barbie would have been hard placed to acknowledge why Robbie Cairns needed her in the apartment. The meals were infrequent, the sex was indifferent and occasional, the conversation was halting, but she wasn’t a fool and she understood that he could not have found elsewhere the peace she had seen on his face as he slept.

She paused in the middle of the room and frowned. Her nostrils twitched. Petrol, paraffin. He’d called it lighter fuel. She never criticised him – she wouldn’t give him lip for making the room smell, and the furniture.

Who was he? A criminal, probably. Maybe a fence who received stolen goods and passed them on, or a money-launderer. The smell annoyed her and the cushions in the chair were rucked up.

What did he do? Nothing legal, but also nothing that hurt because she couldn’t believe him capable of that. There had been peace on his face on the bed, and the same peace when he slept against her, his head on her breast – then he was like a child. She reached for the cushions to smooth them.

Where did the money come from? Money from pills, money from car radios that were taken but covered by insurance. Well, not everyone was white as the driven snow, and she had never had a place as nice and… She lifted a cushion.

The light was dropping outside, and heavy shadows were thrown across the room.

Its handle was black, the grip manufactured with a roughness that would make it easier to hold. The trigger lever seemed huge, and the hammer was depressed. Barbie knew little about pistols, except that… For God’s sake, the local paper in Rotherhithe was full of gang shootings. Most were black on black. Most were targeted. The material of the chair was cream and the weapon an ugly intruder.

Should Barbie have been shocked? She was the mistress of Robbie Cairns, who had never explained what he did. She was the workhorse of Robbie Cairns who didn’t tell her where the money came from that furnished the flat and bought the food. The handgun had shocked her, like a blow to the stomach… where his hand rested when he was still.

She bent. She allowed her fingers to run on the smooth metal shape, and she could see the faint discoloration of the gun oil.

Her knees weakened. The cushions were on the floor. She sank down and laid the pistol her lap. It was a moment of enormity, beyond anything she had known in her life before. If a man had a pistol – not a kid but a man – he owned it for a purpose. Her manager had said in her last annual assessment that she was an employee of loyalty and intelligence. Did she owe loyalty to Robbie Cairns who had a handgun, when the purpose of a handgun was to kill? She was trembling, and couldn’t prize her hands off the gun. The light failed around her. She didn’t know when he would come back or what she should do.

Leanne stood behind her grandfather, her hands resting on his bony shoulders.

Granddad Cairns said, ‘Your sister was there, lad, when the police came, but not uniform. What your sister saw was London people, and that’s most likely the Squad. They had jackets on, and it’s hot enough to be stripped on the beach. So, there’s guns, and the Squad carry guns… When you was there, Robbie, there was no detectives, no Squad people, no guns – but there was fuckin’ wasps.’

Robbie stayed silent.

‘For that information, your sister had to hang round the street, then take a fuckin’ bus and a train. Had to show balls, and she did. Good money was paid. A good chance of a hit was there – but fuckin’ wasps was in the way, and the good chance went. What about the good money, Robbie?’

He didn’t answer, wasn’t expected to.

‘A man on the other side of the continent, Robbie, speaks to a good friend and makes a request of him, and it’s passed on. Came to rest with Lenny Grewcock, and he’d heard of you so he came to us. You get chosen, the deal comes to us and the money’s paid. What do I do, Robbie? Tell the big men that our kid’s no good if there’s wasps?’

Robbie would have half killed Vern if he’d spoken to him with such contempt, would have bloody near broken his father’s neck. He heard out his grandfather, and his sister saw his humiliation.

‘They have a crowd at the Yard, part of the Squad, supposed to protect men threatened by a contract. What’ll they do? They’ll move him. There was a chance but it’s like the door’s slammed. You don’t know nothing about rifles, for distance, and you don’t know nothing about bombs, for under cars. What you know about is a pistol, close-up, in a face. He’ll be protected, and he’ll be moved, and then fuckin’ hell knows how you find him. You blew it, kid. Do I go down the bank, order up a draft, take it round to Lenny Grewcock’s, give it him back and tell him our kid’s shit?’

He thought his sister might have stood in his corner, but she did not.

‘Tell him our kid’s frightened of a fuckin’ wasp up his nose? It’s a proud name is ours in Rotherhithe. It’s not fuckin’ laughed at. It will be… I reckon there are three questions for you. Listening?’

He stared across the little room. Beyond the kitchen door, a little open, his grandmother would be cooking supper. Mostly it was stew, the beef cut small for Granddad Cairns’s teeth. Nothing in this room had changed since his first memories of it. The same picture, over the gas fire, of hills in Scotland, bits of china, plastic flowers, photographs of a man in military uniform who had been his great-grandfather and was not a Great War hero, but had spent most of it in the Glasshouse, the military detention centre at Aldershot.

‘Three: you tell me to pay the money back. I die of shame, your grandmother and your father won’t know you, nor Leanne and Vern, and you don’t show your face in Rotherhithe. Two: you fetch the pistol, bring it to me and I go and do it because you’re not capable. I go down where there’s guns – never fired one in my life – and I try to do it. One: you finish it. You go to the end of the fuckin’ world but you do it. So?’

He said, ‘He’s done, Gillot is. He’s dead.’

Robbie saw the light come back to Leanne’s eyes, and colour flushed her face. Breath whistled from between his grandfather’s teeth, as if it had been trapped there and could now be freed.

He let himself out through the front door and kicked it shut after him. He didn’t know who had paid for the contract, where the money had been raised, couldn’t see it in his mind – not the people or the houses. But he had made his call, no stepping back: He’s done, Gillot is. He’s dead.

She stood in the centre of the room and gazed around her. The boy translated and Penny listened.

The man was named Tomislav and she thought him a prisoner of the eighty-day siege that had ended nineteen years before. Simun’s voice was gentle in her ear and seemed to massage the words he used. There were photographs of faces, some from weddings, some snapshots and others the staring type from official identification cards: the boy pointed to them individually or gestured to groups.

‘Those three, they had been at the school together, lived in the same road in the village, worked in the same factory at Vinkovci and died together. The bunker was at the edge of the village on the little road to Marinci and it took a direct hit, a mortar. They all died there… The woman was going between the crypt under the church and her home when a shell from a tank landed in the street and decapitated her. They had a marksman on the Bogdanovci side of the village – good but not as good as Andrija – and he killed those four men. Good men, brave men. His wife was raped after the surrender. When they had finished with her she went to her home – her husband had made for the cornfields but was found and shot – and into the roof where there were still grenades. She held one against her bosom and took the pin free

…’

Penny knew where fourteen men and three women had died in the village’s defence, and she knew the names and occupations of the nine who had perished from disease, abuse and torture in the concentration camps. She saw the weapons of the village people and their attackers; rifles were pointed to and she was told who had used them. There were small mortars, a machine-gun, many grenades and an RPG-7 launcher.

Then she was led towards the maps. With the same gentleness in his voice, the boy eased her forward, back or to the side and turned her, his fingers careful on her elbow. At the maps she understood why the contract had been taken out, why Harvey Gillot was condemned.

‘Tomislav would have fired the Malyutka missiles that the schoolteacher had bought. He had the training from the regular army. He persuaded Zoran that the village would survive and the Kukuruzni Put would stay open if we had the Malyutkas. He was the expert. He said the village could be saved. They would have changed the battle. With the Malyutkas, the village would have been saved. Tomislav’s wife is in Serbia and he does not know where are his children, and he does not work. He has only this house and these rooms and these memories.’

She felt weakened by the dried-out heat in the room, the dust that had long settled, the weapons and shrapnel, the greyness of the paper on which the maps were printed. They were near to the door. She sensed that the light dropped beyond it, dusk coming, and the end was near of a day unlike any other in her life. More portrait photographs confronted her. An older man, wearing a teacher’s gown, in a formal half-profile pose, and three youngsters.

‘He was a fine and honest man. He believed Harvey Gillot would keep his word. That one, the second picture, he is Tomislav’s boy. He was killed when they waited for the Malyutkas to come. They took off his testicles and put them in his mouth but we do not know if that was before he died or after, the same with Andrija’s cousin and Petar’s son. Do you understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘Do you wish to see more, hear more?’

‘I have seen and heard enough.’

Very gravely, Penny Laing shook Tomislav’s hand. It had a steely strength, and the lack of flesh on the fingers seemed to dig into her skin. She felt, almost, that he thanked her for her interest. There was no life in the house and the door was not closed after them. They left behind them silence – the sound of the dead. The darkness was coming fast.

The boy still held her arm, though she did not need guiding once she had come down the veranda’s steps. She saw no vehicle headlights, no streetlights, but at the far end of the village the half-built church was illuminated and the cafe showed.

He asked her whether she would like to go to one of the forward positions that Tomislav had marked on the map for the Malyutkas.

Back in the Alpha-team office, on Whitehall in faraway London, they would still be at work, with their time difference, and wouldn’t comprehend what it was to visit a shrine to men and women killed brutally, to walk in a field of ripened corn where a grave had been dug up by a ploughshare, and to look down into a hole in the ground dug nineteen years before. Well… they weren’t there and they knew nothing.

‘Yes, I’d like to,’ she said very quietly.

There was a farm with low light over a cattle shed and tractors that threw the last shadows from the sun, a field of sunflowers and a warm breeze. He pointed to the defensive position from which a missile might have been fired against a tank. She could hardly see her feet, let alone a damn hole – and his breath tasted of chewing gum when they kissed.

She held tight to him, felt him against her, wanted to kiss and be kissed. And she understood why Harvey Gillot would die. Her breath slackened, and she felt his tongue and those gentle fingers smoothed back her hair, touching her neck where the cream had gone. In her mind were images of the young who had died here, of the gaunt Tomislav who would have been crouching in what was little more than a shallow ditch, and would have directed a bloody great missile against armour, and of Harvey Gillot.

He whistled and the dog was at heel, close to his leg. He went out through the gates. It must have been the jolt of opening it or pushing it shut, but a trouser suit and a summer dress slid down and into the lane. He didn’t stop.

Harvey didn’t acknowledge them. The one from the car, Roscoe, jack-knifed clear of the door, the girl slid down from the bonnet, and the big fellow pushed himself up off the stone. Harvey saw that Roscoe’s hand hovered inside his jacket, the girl’s was over the zip of her handbag, and the big fellow’s jacket was hitched back, giving a good view of the holster.

He didn’t make eye contact as he walked past the car, but he heard a stifled curse – Roscoe’s.

He didn’t look back, walked briskly, and the dog, too, ignored them.

‘Excuse me, Mr Gillot.’

He didn’t turn his head but answered, ‘What?’

‘I’m feeling like a spare bollock, sir. It’s not how my colleagues or I should be treated.’

‘Your sensitivities are pretty much bottom of my list.’

He took a left-hand fork, which would lead him towards the coastal path that went south. Going that way, he would not pass the place where the rotten apples had been dumped beside the track. He supposed he had achieved a sort of liberation. Didn’t know how long it would last and whether, once it had been lost, he would be able to summon it again. It was as if he had shed fear.

On the other side of the island, in the housing estates of Weston – once homes to the scientists, engineers and technicians of the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment, now closed – a new Beirut had been born, it was said. Along with teenage pregnancies topping national charts, there was widespread narcotics dealing and abuse. Harvey Gillot had never used heroin, cocaine or ecstasy, not even smoked a joint. He didn’t drink to excess either. He supposed he was as much under the influence of an adrenalin surge as any of the wan, hooded kids who loafed in Weston, Southwell, Easton and Fortuneswell. He didn’t slow, although he could hear the pound of feet behind him. Bloody good to have given them a finger. He didn’t know how long heroin, cocaine or cannabis would remain in the system, but knew the fear would be back. Not now.

He had packed two cardboard boxes with Josie’s favourites – and there had been a nibble from a Saudi-based company, via email, and a code signal to say that a freighter of Liberian registration had slipped moorings and was now, cargo aboard, in the international waters of the Black Sea. At that moment he didn’t imagine that a contract killer could wound, maim or kill him. It wouldn’t last, but it was good while it did.

‘Mr Gillot.’

He came through trees, past high boulders and was on the path that overlooked the sea. There were yachts and launches inshore, and further out the car ferry heading for France. Beyond, a couple of bulk carriers would have been going into Southampton and the docks. The gulls were over him, circling and shouting. He met Ben Parsons, who bored for Britain on the subject of a supermarket for the island, listened to him and showed interest, even bent to tousle the coat of the man’s spaniel. And after Parsons and the supermarket – the disaster it would be – came George Wilkins, obsessed with the island’s history; Harvey heard of a plan to commission a plaque commemorating Jack Mantle, a twenty-three-year-old leading seaman who had died heroically seventy years before while firing a 20mm anti-aircraft ‘pom-pom’ at Stuka dive-bombers; he had been awarded the Victoria Cross and was buried in the military cemetery overlooking the old naval base. He heard Wilkins out, and told him it would be a valuable addition to Portland’s heritage. Normally he would not have given either man the time of day. He didn’t do dinner parties or Christmas drinks, he belonged to nothing, and appeals that came to the letterbox beside the gates were shredded unopened. When he walked he heard the footfall behind him. When he stopped and listened to new-found ‘friends’, he could hear the detective’s rasped breathing and fancied the frustration burgeoned. The path was open and flat, and a kestrel fluttered over a field. He stopped at a gate and the footsteps came close. The breathing had an edge.

‘You could co-operate, Mr Gillot.’

‘Should I prepare myself for another lecture on the subject of luck? Needing to be lucky “every time”, and being lucky “once”? Are we winding up for a repeat performance?’

‘I have a job to do.’

‘And probably, Sergeant, you would do it more effectively if your tongue stopped flapping.’

‘You make it hard for me, Mr Gillot, but harder for yourself.’

‘Which sounds rather like something my wife might have parroted, maybe read it on an agony-aunt page. I am, Sergeant, an arms dealer. I buy and sell the weapons of war. I have good years and bad years, but I stay afloat. I pay, believe it or not, the taxes that make up your salary, your pension scheme, your freebies, perks and overtime rates. It could be said that I own a damn great part of you, Sergeant. Through my personal efforts I have bought a big piece of Mr Roscoe. You are a public servant. Get that into your head – and scrub out of it that I owe you a bunch of flowers and a basket of gratitude.’ It was as if another dose of the narcotic was flowing through his veins.

He closed the field gate after him and set off across the dried ground, sparse grass, towards the water trough where the horse was… might have been a pony. For all Harvey knew, it might have been a donkey – or one of those mules, high-value animals, that had lugged the crates protecting the Blowpipes over the mountains and through the passes of Afghanistan in the good old days. Whatever, his daughter loved it more fervently than she loved him, and it cost a mint in veterinary fees and fodder. It had a foul temper and was likely as not to bite him. Its name was Norah, he was unsure of its age, and it lived in this rented field in the summer months and at a livery stables in winter. It was brown with white patches and eyed him as malevolently as he reckoned the detective did, but it wore a head-collar. The leading rope was hooked on the fence by the water trough and he unfastened it – felt quite pleased with himself. A short-arm lunge and he had the halter attached to the head-collar. He reckoned he was now on the way to saving the rental on the field.

He left the gate open behind him.

The dog went ahead. He led the horse, or pony, and the detective was behind.

*

The Gold Group was gathered at a table. Phoebe Bermingham, Gold Commander, would have hoped for a consensus, would bite and kick to avoid making the decision herself. On her pad she had doodled around the name Harvey Gillot; What to do and Resources and Budget and Options, Options, OPTIONS were fiercely underlined. She sensed, correctly, that few medals were on offer in the case of a man showing pig-ignorant obstinacy. She would use a pencil to indicate who should speak next.

It pointed at the Covert expert from SCD10. The answer: ‘I have checked rosters. Put simply, we don’t have what it would need. I have people away on two narcotics scenes on the south coast and unrelated, and I have to supply Anti-Terrorism with most of the rest. The property in question has a front and a back and is close to a caravan park. It would require more bodies than I have. It’s properly done or not at all. Sorry, but I can’t help.’

The pencil moved on to Intelligence, SCD11. ‘We don’t have a line as yet, Ma’am, to an individual. I have no names and no organisation. We need much more before we can make an identification. Negative. Can’t be anything else.’

And on. The sharpened lead aimed at Firearms, CO19. ‘I have a flat refusal from the natives at the seaside. Not prepared to get themselves into an open-ended commitment. To do the job from London would require a deployment of sixteen officers, a command structure and a communications set-up. We’re not in the marketplace for that. Apologies, Ma’am, but we have to live in the real world.’

She came to the inspector from the specialist squad, the one that had a workload so narrowly defined that it made her nervous. ‘We have Roscoe in place and two others. There has regretfully been something of a breakdown in communications and they’re outside the property’s boundaries. As is pretty much routine, they’re carrying hand weapons, but not heavier stuff, and they don’t have back-up. I have to say that the report of the attack indicates an unprofessional approach. I don’t understand why. I would suggest a very limited time span of protection – perhaps twenty-four hours, no more.’

The pencil was directed at the leader of the Alpha team. ‘Our Penny Laing is on the ground in Croatia. Everyone is very frank and up-front with her. Yes, there is a contract, an expensive one – money has been paid – and they believed they’d hired a good and efficient man. Harvey Gillot is condemned because he took an initial bagful of money, quasi-valuables and property deeds. He didn’t deliver and didn’t return what he’d been paid – which would have been difficult as the village was virtually isolated by a murderous enemy and its defences were about to collapse.’

The pencil tip rapped on the table; the sharpened lead broke off. Phoebe Bermingham, Gold Commander, said, ‘I’m having difficulty getting my head round the situation that existed there – where exactly the place is, what they were fighting about. I’ve asked around. Too many shrugged shoulders and too many “That’s the Balkans, isn’t it?” I find this matter irksome and time-consuming. Do I need further contributions?’

Heads shook. There were no offers. A reason for her rapid advancement up promotion ladders was her ability to read a situation and judge an audience. ‘In summary, then, we do not have the resources here or locally to mount close protection on this man. He has been offered expert advice and relocation help and has – with stubborn consistency – refused it. So, as has been recommended and not disputed, he should be warned that after twenty-four hours an armed guard will be withdrawn.’

She breathed in hard. She might have taken the most momentous decision of her fast-track career. A reputation for being hands-off and avoiding responsibility for unpredicted events was in shreds. If a body bled from gunshot wounds on a pavement, a roadway, a drive or in a living room, she would be called to account.

‘Have it made plain to him that after a day and a night, the twenty-four hours, we are not beside, behind and in front of him. He’s on his own.’

Roscoe took the call. He said into his mobile, encrypted, ‘He’s along with the best for rude boorishness. About as unpleasant as it comes, full of shit, but I’m thinking this is a show that’s being put on for me. Where am I now? On the coast path and we’re doing a scenic walk. The dog has just crapped and the sea looks fantastic and the whole place is a postcard. We’re bringing a horse back from a field. I don’t know why we went to collect it or where we’re taking it. I’m not in the loop and I’m unrated as a need-to-know friend. We don’t talk… Yes, fine, shoot it… I’m telling you, it’ll be a somewhat abrupt response. Twenty-four hours, yes? And the clock starts ticking when I tell him, yes? Is the plan that this staggering piece of information will knock him so far off kilter that he’ll be begging for protection?

… Guv’nor, I don’t want to be a pooper but I’ll just get an earful… No, guv’nor, I’m fine, and it’ll be done.’

He put the mobile back in his pocket.

They turned off the coast path into the lane. The hoofs rattled and Gillot hadn’t turned, seemed to have forgotten Roscoe was there.

Ahead was the car, Suzie beside it and Bill behind. In front of it was a woman, a huge bag slung over a shoulder. Quite a good-looking woman, but not dressed for the coastal path or for an office: casual clothes that tried to make a statement and… She was burrowing in the bag. He thought it peculiar that neither Suzie nor Bill had reacted.

Roscoe flicked back the jacket by the top button and the weight of the keys in his pocket took it far enough not to snag him as he reached for the Glock. She brought out a bullhorn – not an RPG-7, a Kalashnikov or a Baikal firing 9mm soft-nose bullets. He was confused. He didn’t understand why Suzie and Bill hadn’t gone for their weapons. He didn’t think Harvey Gillot had noticed her.

It came with a blast, as if the volume was tweaked up.

‘Harvey Gillot is a merchant of death… Harvey Gillot is a merchant of death… Harvey Gillot is a merchant of death…’

Could have woken the dead in the chapel’s ruined graveyard.

Megs Behan shouted, ‘On Harvey Gillot’s hands is children’s blood

… On Harvey Gillot’s hands is children’s blood… On Harvey Gillot’s hands is children’s blood…’

She gagged for breath. She had been on picket lines, her hips pressed hard into crash barriers by the weight of bodies behind her, and she had bawled the same slogans. Different: then there had been a cacophony of sound in her ears and around her the true believers.

‘Harvey Gillot, trader in misery… Harvey Gillot, trader in misery

… Harvey Gillot, trader in misery…’ She was level with him, might have been five or six feet from him. The horse he was leading shied and he hung on to the rope fastened to its head-collar. The dog should have lunged for her – maybe it was deaf because its tail wagged and its tongue hung from its mouth in a lather of saliva. When she was shouting, she heard the perky little cries of songbirds, the wind in the trees above the lane and, distantly, the rush of broken waves on rocks, stones, whatever was there.

‘Shame on you, Harvey Gillot, killer of babies… Shame on you, Harvey Gillot, killer of babies… Shame on you, Harvey Gillot, killer of babies…’

She had arrived, had parked her bag by her ankles. She had gazed, mystified, at the clothes draped over the gates and the piled suitcases. It had been later than she had intended, but the delayed train was followed by a cancelled bus, then a traffic snarl after a road accident. A little of her enthusiasm had dribbled away and she was hungry, thirsty, tired and in need of a shower. She had rung the bell at the gates, and had not been answered.

Then the girl had wandered to her from the car, had flashed the ID card and asked what business brought her here. She had expected then to be given the boot. With defiance, she had been chattering about ‘legal and peaceful protest’ and the ‘rights of the individual on a public highway’. The policewoman had grimaced and her lips had moved in near silence – she might have said: ‘Please yourself, sunshine, the stage is yours.’ The guy, big, heavy built, sweating rivers, had called across the road that Gillot had taken the dog for a walk.

The police attitude further flustered her – they were, from everything she rated sacred, in alliance with the dealers in death. She had asked, of course, why the clothing was on the gate, smart jackets and dresses and blouses and coats – far beyond her range and inclinations but it might have suited her two sisters-in-law. There had been grim smiles, and she had not been enlightened. So, she had steeled herself and waited, and had heard the rhythmic beat of a horse’s hoofs. She had seen him… filthy, looked as if he had slept in those clothes, lost his razor… looked pretty bloody ordinary, or like a derelict from Hackney, Pentonville or the Caledonian Road. Now he stared at her, as if she had come from under a stone. She lifted the bullhorn. ‘Harvey Gillot, dealer in murder, guilty… Harvey Gillot, dealer in murder, guilty… Harvey Gillot, dealer in murder, guilty…’ She hammered it into his face, but he didn’t blink. The horse strained and the dog sniffed her jeans. She felt anger rising because she had won no response. Felt cheated, too, that the police had not intervened to protect him, and short-changed because there was no crowd at her back and her denunciations had gained no audience. She was asked her name.

She spat it at him, and that of the organisation she was proud to belong to.

His voice was calm, as if emotion had drained away through a muslin cloth. ‘Right, Miss Behan, where you fit into this game, I haven’t a clue, but probably nowhere. It’s a bad day for me. My wife has left home after eighteen years of partially successful marriage and will be back shortly to collect her stuff. She has left home because I accused her of getting herself fucked by our jobbing gardener, and also because…’

She drowned him, full volume: ‘Harvey Gillot, merchant of death… Harvey Gillot, killer of babies… Harvey Gillot, trader in misery… Harvey Gillot, dealer in…’

It was a fast, short jab from a stubby fist. It was not aimed at her face but at the side of the bullhorn. The blow was strong enough to break her grip. It would have been a triumph, major proportions, if the fist had caught her chin, lip or teeth, but she was denied it. The bullhorn fell on the lane, bounced, settled in nettles. She saw that the police had straightened and knew none would intervene in defence of a dropped bullhorn.

Still quiet, still a voice that sounded reasonable: ‘My wife was fucking the gardener, which was one reason she thought it right to leave home, but she wanted to go, too, because my life is now out to tender. Got me, Miss Behan? There’s a contract and a man’s been hired to do the business, which is to kill me. Simple enough for you, Miss Behan? To shoot me. He tried this morning while I took out the dog and my wife did the foreplay with the gardener. Tried and failed. Sorry and all that, Miss Behan. I expect it would have made your day to get down here and find police tape and a tent with my feet sticking out under the side, half the world’s snappers and me cold, stiff and dead. He fired twice and missed twice. Bad luck for you, Miss Behan.’

She didn’t bend to pick it up. Her voice was almost reedy – pretty pathetic without the amplification, but she cupped her hands over her lips for the megaphone effect. ‘Harvey Gillot, merchant – trader – dealer in death – misery…’

‘Do us all a favour. Go down to the beach and keep walking.’

‘You are a dealer in evil, a purveyor of destruction, you are-’

‘A man came here, to my home, and waited outside my gates. He had a pistol, I thought it a Baikal 9mm – a conversion job. It starts off as a tear-gas gun on the same lines as the Makharov. The conversion is done in Lithuania, and he’d have used soft-nose bullets – that’s dumdum – and he was at point-blank range. I was half on the ground and a wasp went up his nose. He missed twice. You’re small beer, Miss Behan, less important to me than the wasp. You want to stand out here, make an idiot of yourself, do it. See if anyone notices you, Miss Behan, and I doubt they will. For me, getting shot at is higher up the ladder of my concerns than you are. You’re not even on the first rung.’

She remembered.

He led the horse away from her and the dog gambolled at his side. The policeman who must have walked with him hurried past her and chased Gillot towards the gates.

She remembered. A phone call: her hammering the keyboard, stressed at the press-release deadline. Harvey Gillot… I’m a freelancer… Have you an address for him to get me started? Remembered it well. No contact name or number. Excuse enough that she had been busy?

She shouted, ‘Dealer in death… Harvey Gillot… Trader in misery… Harvey Gillot… Blood on your hands… Harvey Gillot.’

The gates closed on them. Her throat was hoarse.

She didn’t know what a Baikal pistol looked like or, indeed, whether a bullet wound in a body was clean or messy, bloody or of geometric precision. To bring purpose to her life she must crouch, put her hands on the bullhorn, lift it and use it…

Roscoe said, ‘We’re prepared to give you twenty-four hours, Mr Gillot, to put your affairs into some sort of order and then to move out.’

‘Have we not had this conversation?’

‘You will have protection for that number of hours – they’ve started – and then protection will be withdrawn.’

‘Am I permitted to comment?’

‘Why not?’

The woman was on the bullhorn, as repetitive and tedious as before, and as lightweight. Roscoe would have admired a silent protest, one without the bucketload of cliche. He had done enough public-order events before he went to CID and then the Flying Squad to recognise that most protesters were brimful of passion and ideology, just short of good scriptwriters. He had no objection to her being where she was, only wished she’d freshen up her text.

‘It’s bullshit.’

‘That’s neither sensible, sir, nor rational.’

‘Bullshit, and that’s polite.’

He didn’t argue. He supposed he should relay what the Gold Group had passed down. He, Suzie and Bill would do relays of sleep and observation from the car. He looked at his wristwatch. Twenty-three hours and fifty-seven minutes remained. He wondered if an officer with greater seniority would arrive to read a Riot Act towards the end, but thought it unlikely. He would have liked to say, ‘From our brief acquaintance, Mr Gillot, I see you as a man of stubbornness and rudeness, without decency, manners or concern for others. Your money is earned from a trade that most right-minded folk would regard as disgusting, bordering on immoral. Don’t expect me to volunteer for duty standing in front of you… and if you’re going to get yourself shot, would you please ascertain that I’m off duty at the time. Not on my watch.’ He didn’t say it.

His tone tried to placate: ‘You leave us with very little option but to-’

‘If my wife comes you can help her with the clothes and tell her that her junk’s in the boxes. The horse will be inside the gate and hopefully it’ll find a good feed off the roses. Thank you, but no. I can manage her boxes.’

The gate was opened – a winter coat and a summer jacket fell from their hangers – the horse was taken inside, let loose, and the dog ran towards the house. Its movement activated the security lights. Roscoe couldn’t recall when he had hated a job as much as this one. Chrissie used to say it would take bubonic plague to keep him off work. Gillot carried a cardboard box through the gates, the size a house-removal company would use. When he dumped it, Roscoe heard china break. The woman, Megs Behan, was still bawling her message. A second box was brought out and put down heavily. He would have liked to say, ‘I tell you, Mr Gillot, it’s not easy to be lucky every time… and you as a broker in weapons will know what they do to the human body. That they don’t kill as prettily as the films would have us believe. It hurts and it’s ugly – as you’ll find out if you stop being lucky. But I’m sure you know all that, Mr Gillot.’ He waited till Gillot was pulling shut the gates. ‘We’ll see you in the morning, sir.’

The man smiled, did it well.

*

‘A good day, dear?’

‘Not bad, thank you.’

‘Drunk too much?’

‘Some, but not too much.’

It was a ritual. Deirdre had driven the Land Rover from their home to Shrewsbury station and met Benjie off the train. She asked the same questions as she pulled out of the forecourt and received the same answers, then moved on to the business particular to that day. The hip: what was the verdict? ‘Not too bad, quite a good prognosis.’

The visit to the Monstrosity – as she always called VBX – had that been satisfactory? ‘Alastair’s done very well and sends regards. He’ll go a long way. He told me the story, and the opinion is that our sad asset is now in considerable manure. Sort of business where the past comes along fast in the outside lane when least expected. He’s not going to have protection.’

And Denys Foster, the lunch guest, had he been able to oil the waters? ‘I think so. Yes, he did. We talked of Blowback – something exploding in your face. And then we did a bit of Old Testament, “They sow the wind, They shall reap the whirlwind”, and I think Denys stiffened my spine quite successfully. He told me what I should tell Gillot… I’ll call him in the morning.’

‘You’re at the heart of this, Benjie – yes?’

‘Sadly, my dear, you are correct.’

‘Your suggestion to him that he should move the stuff on, dump those villagers?’

‘In line with policy, and putting more money in his pocket. But correct again.’

‘And it bothers you?’

‘A little. Let’s move on.’

They discussed, back to their more normal routine, the grandchildren, that night’s supper and which bottle they’d open to drink with it.

In the hotel dining room, William Anders and Daniel Steyn had a view from their table that took in the river, the snaking barges going upstream, the illuminated white cross, the hotel’s lawns and patio, where a few still sat and gossiped, the car park and the glass doors at the rear of the building.

Anders chuckled. ‘A very serious lady, and no doubt behaving out of character.’

Steyn grinned, grimaced. ‘She’ll make a good feed for a toy-boy.’

They saw the woman, blouse and jeans, head down, shades worn in spite of the darkness. She came across the patio and between the tables, using a route that skirted the lights. A boy held her hand but was led.

‘Miss Penny Laing, I believe.’

‘Far from home, and further from the world’s realities.’

‘That, Daniel, is pretty judgemental.’

‘And expresses, Bill, my acute jealousy of the boy, who I seem to recognise as the son of the capo of that village – and a pusher of pills on a minor scale. He is, I wager, doing a good job of guiding.’

‘People get caught up here, strangers, and all about a feeling of guilt.’

‘Correct – weren’t here, didn’t know. The ignorance makes guilt – and opens the legs.’

They were both laughing, coarse, from the belly, and Daniel poured more wine – good, from the Ilok vineyards. His mobile rang, and he answered it, listened, impassive. He thanked the caller and shut his phone. ‘That village, the process you started, Bill. They did the contract and bought the hit. There was a target this morning in England. It failed.’

‘Not the end of the story. Who told you?’

‘Funny old place, this – hear all sorts. Don’t ask. Not the end of the story because money was paid. He’ll go again, has to. You know about the First Battalion of the Ninth Marines, Bill, who had the heaviest casualties of the entire corps during the Vietnam War – got themselves called the Walking Dead. That’s a good name for Harvey Gillot, and it’s a bit down to you. But don’t lose sleep.’

‘Are you suggesting I’d lie awake because some weapons peddler gets zapped and I helped the process along? If the hit screwed up then I’m sorry – and it’s that which might affect my sleep. I hope they go again.’

They drank, and the woman and her boy were gone.

Загрузка...