Jigsaw (31 page)

She linked her arm through his, a gesture that pleased and surprised him. He walked with her to the end of the square, where it flowed into a narrow street leading down to Piccadilly Circus. He had the feeling that some of the chill had just been sucked out of the afternoon; behind the barren density of cloud cover a sun was surely shining somewhere.

He bit into an egg mayonnaise sandwich. The girl sipped coffee and watched him, seemingly amused by the speed at which he ate.

‘You don't waste much time on food, do you?' she asked.

‘I don't have time to waste,' Pagan said. ‘Anyway, my attitude to food's pathetically basic. It's fuel. Keeps the body going. That would be sacrilege to somebody in your occupation, I suppose.'

‘Worse,' she said. ‘Do you know you're supposed to chew each morsel of food at least fifteen times?'

‘Christ, I'd be here forever,' he said. ‘I'd never get anything done.'

She propped an elbow on the table, placed her chin in the palm of her hand. She had, Pagan thought, a way of looking at him that was just a little unsettling. The brown eyes probed, certainly, but it was the small light of mischief behind them he found the unnervingly attractive factor. He was pleased to be in her unexpected company; he kept receiving tiny waves of enjoyment – the old-time word ‘vibes' came into his head – but under her gaze he was conscious of a strange awkwardness in himself, a clumsiness. A glob of egg salad slid from his sandwich and dropped in the middle of his plate, and he was embarrassed. He made flurries with his paper napkin, which tore between his fingers. He wasn't doing very well and he wasn't sure why.

He looked at his watch. He still had thirty minutes before he was due to meet Martin Burr.

‘I'm keeping you from something,' she said.

‘I have an appointment.'

‘You sound apologetic. Don't. You don't have to drop everything just because I'm here. And that includes your egg salad.'

She pushed a lock of hair from her forehead. Pagan thought this gesture endearing. Endearing: now there was a fresh discovery for him. All of a sudden. He looked at her face. She had a fine mouth which, when she smiled, created an impression of honesty and directness. He could detect nothing false or hidden in her and wondered why he even took the trouble to think about quarrying faults out of her. Old habits. He had a turn of mind, stoked by years of seeking concealed motives and foraging in the darker territories of the human heart, that led him into foggy areas. He sometimes found it impossible to accept things at their face value. It was cop mentality. After years, it was a tough habit to break.

He pushed aside his plate, covering the stray dab of egg salad with the ruin of his napkin.

She said, ‘I saw your name in the morning paper. I read you're working on this explosion business in the Underground. I couldn't cope with anything like that, Frank. I guess you need a shield around you when that kind of shit happens.'

‘I'm not sure how good my shield is,' Pagan replied. ‘You get older, death gets harder to take. Funny. I always thought the opposite would happen.' He looked down at the napkin, seeing how moisture from the salad had seeped through the paper. He raised his face and thought: You could look into her eyes and believe no such thing as the tunnel existed, nobody had died, there were no mysteries, like Quarterman, Bryce Harcourt, Streik, Carlotta. These were unconnected shadows from another dimension.

Brennan Carberry represented a simpler world, a sunny place where birds sang and every night brought a magical full-blown moon, awesome in a starry sky.
Jesus Christ
. Get real, Frank. Next thing you'll be thinking nightingales in Berkeley Square. He withdrew into silence. You couldn't make the world go away just because you found a good-looking young woman attractive and sympathetic.

‘Have you any idea who planted the bomb?' she asked. Then she shook her head, held up one hand. ‘No. Forget I asked that. It's none of my business. And you've had it up to here anyhow. I can tell. You don't look so good. Stressed-out.'

‘It must be the light. I never look my best under fluorescence.'

‘Sure. And I bet you don't get enough sleep. I bet you don't look after yourself properly. You don't eat what's good for you.'

‘Yes, mother,' he said.

‘You've got circles under your eyes. You're pale.'

Pagan wanted a cigarette, a jolt of nicotine. Instead he tapped his fingertips on the formica table. He noticed the half-moons of his nails were practically invisible. Wasn't that a sign of poor nutrition and vitamin deficiency? He said, ‘I probably need freshly squeezed orange juice. Raw carrots. Some of that posh lettuce you mentioned.'

‘You need more than posh lettuce,' she said. She drank some coffee, gazing at him over the rim of her cup.

Was there a hint of flirtation in her manner? It was nothing so blatant as a fluttering of eyelashes: it was the clarity of her look, the way she focused on him.

‘And what would you recommend?' he asked.

‘A week in a health spa. Daily workouts. Massages. Sleep. All the stuff you don't have time for right now.'

‘It sounds like bloody torture anyway.' He was not overweight – in fact his weight hadn't changed in years and he still looked lean – but under the surface was another matter. Under the surface was some slight deterioration. He'd been sedentary for too long, weeks behind the wheel of a car, too many cigarettes smoked on dreary highways.

The girl reached across the table and momentarily touched his hand. He was abruptly shuttled back to the Hilton, the expectation of her kiss, the electricity of the moment.

‘How long are you staying in London?' he asked.

‘It depends.'

‘Depends on what?'

She shrugged. ‘This and that. If I like the place … I'm getting kinda attached to the Hilton. You keep running into nice old folks from Idaho who want to show you photographs of their grandkids. It's all very American. Like a club. We Americans don't travel too well, Frank. One foot is always back in the States.' She had a nice form of self-mockery he enjoyed.

‘I suppose you want to see Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard and the Houses of Parliament and all the rest of this great city's sights.'

She was quiet a moment. ‘Actually, I was kind of hoping to take you up on your offer of showing me around. Obviously I could have picked a better time.'

Pagan had the sudden urge to take the girl by the hand and walk her through those parts of the city that still had elements of enchantment for him: Pall Mall, Regent's Park. He had a lingering fondness for the Serpentine, parts of Chelsea, the leafy walks of Harrow-on-the-Hill, Kew.

‘You're right about your timing,' he said. He looked at his watch again. He had fifteen minutes to get to Martin Burr, and the old man liked punctuality. ‘Look. I'll call you at the Hilton. I can't say when. I wish I could, but I just don't know.'

‘Frank, you don't have to feel any obligation. I mean that. I don't want to get in your way.'

‘
You're
not in my way.'

‘Next time you're hungry and want to take time out to eat, get in touch with me. If I'm not there, leave a message. I mean that.' She touched his hand again. She let her palm rest against his knuckles. He was reluctant to get up and go. What was happening here? What was going on between himself and this girl he barely knew? The perplexities of feeling. The quicksands of emotions. He wanted her; a quick shadow of desire stirred inside him.

He gazed a second at the window of the sandwich bar where slanting rain struck glass and created intricate rivulets. How much easier it would be to sit here with Brennan Carberry than go into the world. He sighed and stood up. ‘I'm sorry. I hate to leave you so abruptly.'

Pagan moved away from her. He turned, looked back at her as he went toward the door. ‘I'll be really disappointed if you don't call, Frank. And I
mean
that.'

The smile, he thought. Something in the smile: a suggestion of joy. He went out into the drab wet street in search of a taxi. When he found one he settled in the back seat, head inclined, thinking about the girl. She's too young for you, he thought. She's a generation removed from yours. What common element could bind you? Her apparent affection was undeniably flattering. It stroked the dormant beast of his ego. But his mind, that murmuring insomniac nuisance in his head, raised a question of its own:
What can she possibly see in you, Frank?
The question bothered him all the way to Knightsbridge.

Martin Burr's flat was located in a quiet square. It was a gracious nineteenth-century place: high ceilings, marble fireplaces, but the sense of space had been diminished by the amazing clutter of furniture. Too many chairs, tables, couches: there was a kind of obstacle course in each of the rooms. Burr, who walked with a walnut cane and wore a dark green eyepatch over his missing right eye – a consequence of the Second World War, when he'd served in the Navy – greeted Pagan effusively, a prolonged tight handshake, a smile, a slap across the shoulder.

‘Herself,' he said, and frowned as he waved his cane at the furnishings. ‘Marcia considers this a storage unit. Sell some of the bloody stuff, I tell her. Get rid of it. Says she doesn't know what she needs down in the country cottage. Hasn't decided yet. Meanwhile, everything stays here until that strange entity known as a woman's mind goes through the decision-making business. Like a bloody auction room in here.'

Pagan had a moment in which he realized how much he missed Burr, even if in the past they'd had their differences. But Burr, unlike George Nimmo, had understood police work and stayed as far away from politics as any commissioner could. Burr wasn't a control freak. He allowed his men to get on with their work. He rarely interfered unless he found it essential.

‘Step into my office. If you can.' Burr hobbled ahead of Pagan along the hallway. They went inside a long narrow room stuffed with books; a word-processor hummed on a desk strewn with sheets of paper. Burr, who used his cane as a means of expression, waved it toward the desk. ‘Predictably, I'm writing the old memoirs, Frank. Publisher chap called me up when I retired. Had a bit of a chat. Next thing I know I'm signing a contract. I was never one for putting words on paper. Damned hard. Don't know how those writer fellows do it, frankly.'

Pagan walked toward the window, which overlooked a barren back garden, a greenhouse against which rain hammered. It was a desolate scene: the crux of winter, decay, corruption. Spring might have been a thousand seasons away.

‘Find a pew,' Burr said. ‘Just toss the papers on the floor.'

Pagan moved some papers from a chair and sat down. He regarded Burr a moment, thinking how retirement had diminished him. The grey wool cardigan, the baggy old flannels, carpet slippers. He also needed a shave. During his term of office, Martin Burr had always dressed in immaculate conservative suits.

‘I know what's on your mind, Frank. I don't look like my old self. Right?'

Pagan began to dispute this, but Burr jabbed him gently in the stomach with the walnut stick. ‘Don't deny it, Frank. One thing about you. You were always a bloody poor liar. Good policeman. If too headstrong. But damn awful liar. You're looking at me and you're thinking: Poor old sod's gone to seed. Writing his memoirs like some superannuated general or something.'

Pagan smiled. ‘I've never seen you in anything but a suit,' he remarked quietly.

‘Suits. Not much use to me these days.' Burr sighed, glanced at the word-processor as if it had materialized on his desk from another galaxy, an object of unknown function. ‘Still. Retirement has its advantages. Provided you keep in touch. That's the secret, Frank. Be informed. Don't hibernate. What's the term the Americans use? Get with it?'

Pagan wasn't going to comment on Burr's archaic slang. He watched Burr adjust his eyepatch, which he did periodically.

‘I keep an ear to the old wall,' Burr said. ‘I hear about our man Nimmo. Not my style. George always strikes me as the sort of fellow who'd be better off doing something nasty in the City. Shark at heart. Doesn't have a way with people. Look how he treated you. Banishment. No tact.' Burr shook his head in a sorrowful way. ‘Still. He's got the job and that's it. No good moaning and bitching about the old
fait accompli
. Place has changed, I would say.'

‘That would be an understatement,' Pagan said.

‘They brought you back for this appalling Underground business, correct? Ghastly all round. Any progress?'

‘The name of Carlotta has cropped up.'

‘Carlotta?' The old man rubbed his chin. ‘Well, now there's a sharp echo. Is there evidence?'

‘Not yet. She killed a young prostitute the night of the explosion. Not far from the Tube station. We know that much.'

‘Carlotta, Carlotta,' Burr said, as if to himself. ‘I always had the sense she was the sort who liked the limelight. She had to work in the dark, naturally, but I always had the impression she wanted more somehow. She wanted … how shall I say it? Recognition? Admiration for her destructive abilities? A round of applause? That's the feeling she gave me. I do however recall being more than a touch staggered by her audacious beauty … as you were, Frank.'

Nothing escaped Martin Burr, Pagan thought.

‘I thought she'd retired,' Burr said.

‘Didn't we all?'

‘They never really retire, do they?' Burr said, looking thoughtful. ‘Something keeps bringing them back. In the blood, I dare say. Inactivity makes them restless. Bored. They need a high.'

A hell of a high, Pagan thought. He gazed at Martin Burr a moment, noticing how the elbows of his cardigan were frayed. He rose from his chair, gazed down at the greenhouse in the rain. His thoughts strayed momentarily toward Brennan Carberry. Why had she chosen such a godawful time to come to London? Why hadn't she come when he was free?