A Delicate Truth (26 page)

‘What briefing was that then,
Jeb?’ Kit interrupts, momentarily resentful that he wasn’t invited.

‘The briefing in Algeciras,
Paul,’ Jeb replies patiently. ‘Pre-op. Just across the bay from Gibraltar.
Just before we’re to get ourselves into position on the hillside. In a big room
above a Spanish restaurant, it was, and us all pretending to be a business conference.
And Elliot up there on the platform, telling us how it’s going to be, and his
ragtag team of American freebooters sitting there in the front row, not talking to us
because we’re regular and Brits. Source
Sapphire
says this, source
Sapphire
says that. Or Elliot says she does. It’s all according to
Sapphire
, and she’s right there with
Aladdin
on the fancy
yacht. She’s
Aladdin
’s mistress and I don’t know what else
she isn’t, all the pillow talk she’s hearing. Reading his emails over his
shoulder, listening to his phone calls in bed, sneaking up on deck and telling it all to
her
real
boyfriend back in Beirut, who passes it on to Mr Crispin at Ethical,
and Bob’s your uncle, like.’

He loses the thread, finds it, and
resumes:

‘Except Bob isn’t
anybody’s uncle, is he? Not Bob. Maybe as far as Ethical is concerned, he is. But
not for our own British
intelligence. Because British intelligence
won’t buy into the operation, will it? Same as the regiment won’t – or
nearly won’t. The regiment doesn’t like the smell of it – who would? But it
doesn’t like missing out either. And it doesn’t like political pressure. So
it’s a good old British compromise: a deniable toe in the water but not the whole
foot. And me and the boys, we’re the toe, like. And Jeb here will be in charge
because good old Jeb’s the steady one. Maybe a bit on the pernickety side, but
with those daredevil mercs around, all the better for it.
Granny
Jeb, they used
to call me. Not that I minded, if it meant not taking unnecessary risks.’

Jeb takes a sip of his beer, closes his
eyes, and plunges quickly on.

‘House number seven it’s
supposed to be. Well, we thought: let’s take six and eight too while we’re
about it, one house per man and me the back-up, it’s all a bit daft anyway, what
with Elliot at the controls there. All a bit Mickey Mouse, frankly, half the equipment
not working the way it ought, what’s the difference? There’s no way
they’d teach you that in training, is there? But the targets weren’t going
to be armed, were they? Not according to Elliot’s brilliant intelligence. Plus we
only wanted one of them, and the other we can’t touch. So go into the three houses
simultaneously for the surprise, we say, and do a room-by-room. Catch your man, make
sure he’s the right man, bundle him over the balcony to the shore party, keeping
your feet at all times planted firmly on the Rock. Simple really. We had the layout of
the houses, each the same as the other. One nice living room with big balcony on the
seaward side. One master bedroom with sea views and one cupboard-sized second bedroom
for a child. Bathroom and kitchen-diner below, and the walls paper-thin, which we knew
from the estate agent’s particulars. So if you don’t hear anything apart
from the sea, assume they’re hiding or not there, employ extreme caution at all
times, plus
don’t use your weapon except in self-defence and get
the hell out in double-quick time. It didn’t feel like an op, why should it? More
a silly ghost walk. The boys go in, one house each. I’m outside keeping an eye on
the open staircases down to the seashore. “Nothing there.” That’s Don
in six. “Nothing there.” That’s Andy, house eight. “I’ve
got something.” That’s Shorty, in seven. What have you got, Shorty?
“Droppings.” What the hell d’you mean, boy, droppings? “Come and
see for yourself, man.”

‘Well, you can fake an empty house, I
know that, but house seven was truly empty. Not a skid-mark on the parquet floor. Not a
hair in the bathtub. Kitchen the same. Except for this one plastic bowl on the floor,
pink plastic, with bits of pitta bread and chicken meat in it, torn up small like you
would for’ – he is searching for the right small creature – ‘for a cat, a
young cat.’ But cat’s not right: ‘Or a puppy or something. And the
bowl, the pink bowl, warm to touch. If it hadn’t been on the floor, I suppose I
would have thought different. Not cats and dogs but something else. I wish I had now. If
I’d thought different, maybe it wouldn’t have happened, would it? But I
didn’t. I thought cat or dog. And the food in the bowl warm too. I pulled my glove
off to put my knuckles on it. Like a warm body, it was. There’s a small frosted
window overlooking the outside staircase. The latch is loose. You’d have to be a
midget to squeeze through a space like that. But maybe it’s a midget we’re
looking for. I call up to Don and Shorty: check the outside staircases, but no going
down to the shore, mind, because if anyone’s going to tangle with the boat party
it’ll be me.

‘I’m talking slow motion because
that’s how I remember it,’ Jeb explains apologetically, while Kit watches
the sweat running down his face like tears. ‘It’s one thing then the next
thing for me. Everything single, like. That’s how I remember it. Don comes
through. He’s heard this scuffle. Thinks there’s someone
hiding down on the rocks underneath the outside staircase. “Don’t go down
there, Don,” I tell him. “Stay right where you are, Don, I’m coming
right up.” The intercom’s a proper madhouse, frankly. Everything’s
going through Elliot. “We’ve had a tentative, Elliot,” I tell him.
“Exterior staircase number seven. Underneath.” Message received and out.
Don’s standing sentry at the top, pointing down with his thumb.’

Kit’s own thumb, as if unknown to him,
was making the same gesture as he told Jeb’s story into the flames.

‘So I’m going down the outside
staircase. One step, pause. Another step, pause. It’s concrete all the way, no
gaps. There’s a turn to the staircase, like a half-landing. And there’s six
armed men on the rocks below me, four flat on their bellies and two kneeling, plus two
more back in the inflatable behind them. And they’re all in their firing
positions, every one of them, silenced semis at the ready. And underneath me – right
under my feet here – there’s this scrabbling noise like a big rat. And then a
little shriek to go with it, like. Not a loud shriek. More pressed in, like it was too
scared to speak. And I don’t know – and never will, will I? – whether that shriek
came from the mother or her child. Nor will they, I don’t suppose. I
couldn’t count the bullets – who could? But I can hear them now, like the sound
you get inside your head when they pull your teeth out. And there she is, dead.
She’s a young Muslim woman, brown-skinned, wearing a hijab, an illegal from
Morocco, I suppose, hiding in the empty houses and living off her friends, shot to
ribbons while she’s holding her baby girl away from her to keep her out of the
line of fire, the little girl she’s been making the food for. The same food I
thought was for a cat because it was on the floor, see. If I’d used my head
better, I’d have known it was a child, wouldn’t I? Then I could have saved
her, I suppose. And her mother too. Curled up on the rocks like she’s flying
forward on her knees from the bullets they put into her, the
mother
is. And the baby girl lying out of her grasp in front of her. A couple of the sea party
look a bit puzzled. One man stands with his fingers spread across his face like
he’s trying to tear it off. And there’s this quiet moment, like, when
you’d have thought they were going to have a good quarrel about who’s
responsible, until they decide there’s no time for any of that. They’re
trained men – of a sort, anyway – they know what to do in an emergency, all right, even
if they don’t know anything else. Those two bodies were on the inflatable and back
to the mother ship faster than ever
Punter
would have been. And Elliot’s
boys along with them, all eight, no stragglers.’

The two men are staring at one another
across the bedside table, just as Toby is staring at Kit now, Kit’s rigid face lit
not by the glow of the London night but by the firelight in the stable.

‘Did Elliot lead the sea party?’
Kit asks Jeb.

Jeb shakes his head. ‘Not American,
see, Paul. Not immune. Not exceptional. Elliot stays home with the mother
ship.’

‘So why did the men fire?’ Toby
asked at last.

‘You think I didn’t bloody
ask
him?’ Kit flared.

‘I’m sure you did. What did he
say?’

It took several deep breaths for Kit to come
up with a version of Jeb’s answer.

‘Self-defence,’ he snapped.

‘You mean, she was
armed
?’

‘No I bloody don’t! Neither did
Jeb. He’s thought of nothing else for three years, can’t you imagine?
Telling himself he was to blame. Trying to work out why. She knew
somebody
was
there, sussed them somehow – saw them or heard them – so she grabbed the child and
wrapped it in her robe. I didn’t presume to ask him why she ran down the steps
instead of heading inland. He’s been asking himself the same question day and
night. Maybe inland scared her more than the sea. Her food bag
had
been picked up, but who by? Maybe she mistook the boat team for people smugglers, the
same crowd that had brought her to the Rock in the first place – if they did – and they
were bringing her man to her, and she was running down the steps to greet him. All Jeb
knows is, she came down the steps. Bulked out by the child inside her robe. And what did
the beach team think? Bloody suicide bomber, coming to blow them up. So they shot her.
Shot her child while he watched. “I could have stopped them.” That’s
all the poor bugger can say to himself when he can’t sleep.’

Summoned by the lights of a passing car, Kit
strode to the arched window and, standing on tiptoe, peered keenly out until the lights
disappeared.

‘Did Jeb tell you what happened to him
and his men after the boat party had returned to the mother ship with the bodies?’
Toby asked, of his back.

‘Flown to Crete same night by charter.
For a debriefing, so-called. The Americans have got a bloody great airbase there,
apparently.’

‘Debriefing by?’

‘Men, plain-clothes chaps.
Brainwashing, by the sound of it. Professionals, was all he could say. Two Americans,
two Brits. No names, no introductions. Said one of the Americans was a little fat
bastard with effeminate mannerisms. Pansy-boy, according to Jeb. The pansy-boy was the
worst.’

But better known to the staff of the Private
Office as Brad the Music Man, thought Toby.

‘Soon as the British combat team
touched down in Crete they were separated,’ Kit went on. ‘Jeb was leader so
he got the heavy treatment. Said the pansy-boy ranted at him like Hitler. Tried to
persuade him he hadn’t seen what he saw. When that didn’t
work, he offered him a hundred thousand dollars not to bubble. Jeb told him to shove
it up his arse. Thinks he was confined in a special compound for non-accountable
prisoners in transit. Thinks it’s where they would’ve put
Punter
if
the story hadn’t been a lot of bollocks from the start.’

‘How about Jeb’s
comrades-in-arms?’ Toby persisted. ‘Shorty and the others. What became of
them?’

‘Thin air. Jeb’s hunch is,
Crispin made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. Jeb didn’t blame them. Not
that sort of chap. Fair-minded to a fault.’

Kit had lapsed into silence, so Toby did the
same. More headlights drifted across the rafters and vanished.

‘And
now
?’ Toby
asked.

‘Now? Now
nothing
! The big
empty. Jeb was due here last Wednesday. Breakfast 9 a.m. sharp, and we’d go to
work. Said he was a punctual chap. I didn’t doubt him. Said he’d do the
journey at night, safer. Asked me if he could hide his van in the barn. I said of course
he bloody could. What did he want for breakfast? Scrambled egg. Couldn’t get
enough of scrambled egg. I’d get rid of the women, we’d scramble ourselves
some eggs, then put the story down on paper: his part, my part. Chapter and verse all
the way. I’d be amanuensis, editor, scribe, and we’d take as long as it
took. He’d got this piece of evidence he was all excited about. Didn’t say
what it was. Cagey to a fault, so I didn’t press. You don’t press a chap
like that. He’d bring it or he wouldn’t. I accepted that. I’d make the
written presentation for both of us, he’d vet it, sign off on it, and it would be
my job to see it through the proper channels to the top. That was the deal. Shook hands
on it. We were –’ he broke off, scowled into the flames. ‘Happy as
fleas,’ he said jerkily, colouring. ‘Eager for the fray. Pumped up. Not just
him. Both of us.’

‘Because?’ Toby ventured.

‘Because we were going to tell the
bloody truth at last, why d’you think?’ Kit barked angrily, taking a pull of
Scotch and subsiding into his chair. ‘Last time I saw him, all right?’

‘All right,’ Toby agreed softly,
and a long silence followed, until Kit grudgingly resumed.

‘Gave me a cellphone number. Not his
own. Hasn’t got one. A friend’s. Comrade’s. Only chap he still
trusted. Well, partly, anyway. My guess is it was Shorty, because they seemed to have a
rapport in the hide. I didn’t ask, wasn’t my business. If I left a message,
somebody would get it to him. That was all that mattered. Then he left. Left the club.
Down the stairs and away, don’t ask me how. I thought he’d leave by the fire
escape, but he didn’t. He just left.’

Another pull of Scotch.

‘And you?’ Toby enquired in the
same quiet, respectful voice.

‘I came home. What d’you think?
To this place. To Suzanna, my wife. I’d promised her everything was all right, now
I had to tell her it wasn’t all right at all. You can’t fake it with
Suzanna. I didn’t tell her the details. I told her Jeb was coming to stay, and
between us we’d sort it out. Suzanna took it – the way she does. “Just as
long as it means resolution, Kit.” I said it did, and that was good enough for
her
,’ he ended aggressively.