Jigsaw (57 page)

‘And if I don't? Do you shoot me?'

Pagan didn't reply.

She said, ‘I don't think so. Most people are weak, Pagan. Like Barron. Like yourself. You have fronts you assume. Barron likes power because he finds it an elevating drug. Plug him into the power source and he feels strong, complete. That's his front. You like law and order, because you can't cope with chaos. That's your front. I knew that about you years ago, and you haven't changed. But I surprised you back then, didn't I, Pagan? I gave you something to ponder. I showed you a dark side of yourself and you didn't like what you saw.'

‘You're right. I didn't like it,' he said.

‘But it's part of you, Pagan. It's a part you choose to ignore because that way you're not inconvenienced by unwanted urges. You can sail along undaunted by your own demons. You just deny their existence. Dead simple. Frank Pagan, cop, upholder of the law, good citizen, boy scout. But there's something else murmuring in a corner of Pagan's heart. Something he doesn't want to face. Relax, Frank. We all have our little monsters. The trick is to recognize them. When you've done that, living with them is easy. Every now and then you just turn them loose and let them do what they have to.'

‘You turned them loose in London all right,' he said.

‘I gave them a field day, Pagan. I gave them what they wanted – their freedom. You should try it some time.' She moved nearer to him and he was conscious of her scent, the way her silk dress clung to her body, the boldness in her eyes. ‘You've never forgotten our meeting, have you? It's stuck with you. And every so often it surfaces and you wonder, you wonder what's inside you, if you're capable of betrayals, and lies, and infidelities, and your whole little world tilts just slightly. You wanted to fuck me that day.'

‘Yes …' Funny: the admission didn't embarrass him.

‘You wanted it so goddam bad I could smell it on you.'

‘It was long ago—'

‘But not so very far away, Pagan.' She stared at the gun. ‘I left the message as a reminder. I wanted you to remember that I'd done a number on you ten years ago, and that I could still do it. I had you climbing a very uncomfortable tree back then. And I have you climbing one now.'

‘I don't think so,' he said. ‘Things change.'

‘Not the underlying things, Pagan. They don't change. There's still the same dark corner in you. You keep it hidden. But it's there. And I've got news for you: it's never going to go away.'

The same dark corner, he thought. He wondered if she was partly right. She came closer still to him. She reached out, caught his lapel, rubbed the material between thumb and forefinger. She looked at the gun and said, ‘You'd rather fuck me than shoot me, Pagan.'

‘I don't think so,' Pagan said.

She smiled and it was dazzling. ‘I know you, Pagan. You don't like to admit that, but I know you. And the reason I know you is because we're opposites. You think of rules. I don't. You worry about things making sense. I don't. What you see as endings are only beginnings. It's all a matter of perspective. Yours is very different from mine.' She stepped back from him, raised one hand, studied her fingernails, which were glossy and pink. ‘The very things you'd find precious, I see as worthless. Love is a joke. Kindness is
always
self-serving. Human life has all the value of a counterfeit coin. You see a train packed with people. I see only one face. You see an eminent politician, and I see a man who means nothing in the general course of things.'

An eminent politician
. ‘It's another device, isn't it? Like the one in the Underground.'

‘You're the detective. You figure it out.'

‘When is it due to go off?' he asked.

‘When is what due?'

‘Don't screw with me, Carlotta.
When is it due to go off?
' he asked again.

She was playing for time, stalling him. She moved back from the table and turned towards the glass door. He couldn't see her face now. He had the feeling she was about to do something, produce a weapon from somewhere and wheel round with it in her hand, more trickery. But all she did was to point across the room to a door and say, ‘Unlock that and guess what you'll find. The soul of Tobias Barron.'

Pagan gazed in the direction she'd indicated and in that second when his attention was diverted, she struck the glass doors with her body, burst her way through them with a force he couldn't have imagined, and he went after her even as glass sprinkled the air around his face, he pursued her out to a small balcony and saw her leap the handrail and jump into the darkness of the canal below, avoiding his outstretched arms. He heard the splash as she struck water. He went to the rail and looked down, but the canal was black and although a few foaming circles of white water broke the surface, he could see no sign of the woman. He called out her name a couple of times, imagined he heard an incomprehensible response from a place beneath him, thought he saw a movement along the narrow ledge that bordered the canal – a cat, that was all, a white cat slinking through the night for prey.

He turned back into the room. Katherine Cairney was standing in the doorway, watching him. He was beset by the urge to move quickly.

‘I have to go—' And he brushed past her, hurrying down the stairs, down and down, back to the first flight where Barron lay on the flagstones at the bottom, his face turned to one side. His cheek-bone had splintered flesh. His lips had been cut by his teeth, which were no longer perfect. Across his forehead was a series of blue-red indentations where his skull had struck the cutting edge of stone. Blood flowed from his ears.

The servant in the black suit hovered without purpose.

‘He's dead,' the man said.

Pagan made no response. He moved toward the front door and was gone.

THIRTY-SEVEN

VENICE

G
URENKO WAS COLD
. I
N THE UNDERHEATED MAIN HALL OF THE
S
CUOLA
he sat at the centre of the long table, facing the Italian Prime Minister, a small bald man delighted that his country was playing host to the Russian President, delighted that Venice in particular had been selected as a meeting-place. Hadn't it once been a crossroads of Europe, a forum for men of vision? He rambled on about democracy and democratic ideals and the dangers of fascism, then segued into the subject of great art. It was, Gurenko thought, an altogether boring speech, most of which he managed to tune out.

Every now and then he would gaze away from the Italian, his eye drawn – where else? – to the paintings on the walls. They excited and startled him. He could
hear
the paintings; they spoke to him in subtle whispers. A sense of vibrancy entered him, a surge of anticipation.

As soon as the Prime Minister was silent, Gurenko would stroll from one picture to the next, studying each, ignoring the expert – a florid man with a handlebar moustache – whose task it was to point out the salient features of the works. Gurenko didn't need a lesson in art history. No, he'd enter each painting as he came to it, he'd move into the dimension between the frames, he'd lose himself in those delicate combinations of shadow and colour.

The security people stood along the wall, watching. They were happy with Venice as a venue. It was an island, easily protected. A couple of official photographers held their cameras in a reverential way. Gurenko rearranged his position. His bones were beginning to lock. The cold was feathered by damp and the air had a suggestion of mildew. It was this dampness and chill that Budenny had used as an excuse for his absence. Claiming a headache and the onset of a cold, he'd remained in the hotel. Fictions, Gurenko thought. He was probably watching TV, feet up, vodka in hand. Maybe he'd even found himself a local girl for amusement.

The Italian Prime Minister had apparently finished his speech. His aides and associates and the prominent dignitaries who'd gathered in Gurenko's honour applauded. Gurenko clapped his hands too, more from relief than appreciation. He got to his feet and was at once surrounded by people – the Prime Minister, his deputy, the mayor of Venice, and the art expert. Why couldn't he be left alone to wander the Scuola? Why did they press in on him with such an eagerness to please?

‘This way, Mr President,' said the art expert, and took Gurenko gently by the elbow, leading him towards the paintings.

Gurenko smiled. He'd suffer this fellow, but he wouldn't listen to him. Great art was something you explored alone. It was a private experience, a communication between yourself and a painter long dead. There was, he thought, an element of a seance about the business, a spiritual affair.

Pagan went hastily, crossing the dark of the Campo Sant' Angelo, hurrying along the Calle della Mandola where he came to a bridge that led him to the Campo Manin. He had no idea where the Scuola Grande di San Rocco was located or if Gurenko was even going to be there. The newspaper he'd seen in Marseille Airport had mentioned the place, and Barron had casually remarked that the Russian was scheduled to view some paintings; it was a matter now of luck and timing.

How to proceed? This side of the Grand Canal, the other – Venice lay around him in the manner of a formless labyrinth, a place beyond the skills of any cartographer, blind alleys, side-streets, bridges, a cold intricate cage of a city. He was panicked by his lack of geography. He reached the Campo Manin, thinking
The Scuola, how the hell do I find the damn place?
He kept hearing Barron say
Tick tick
…

OK, you ask, you just go up to somebody and ask and hope whoever it is speaks reasonable English. Among the pedestrians he stopped in the Campo Manin he came up luckless three times, somehow managing to choose winter tourists, a Turk, a middle-aged American couple trawling the historic places of Europe, a slender long-haired girl in a metal-studded leather jacket who spoke only Italian,
Non capisco, non capisco
.

When he encountered an elderly man carrying a rolled umbrella, his luck changed. The man was a retired professor of literature, who walked with less speed than Pagan would have liked, but who was prepared to show him the way to the Sant' Angelo
vaporetto
station, where he would be ferried across the Canal to san Toma, and from there it was a short walk to San Rocco. There were signs; Pagan only had to follow them. The alternative, on foot, would mean crossing the Rialto and going by way of Campo San Polo, a long way round through a
parrocchia
, a neighbourhood, in which it was easy to get lost.

They left the Manin, loosely followed the course of the Rio di Luca for a short distance, reached the Grand Canal, where the retired professor indicated the
vaporetto
station. There was no sign of activity. ‘Here you must wait,' he said.

‘I can't wait,' Pagan replied. He looked across to the opposite bank. What was the distance? One hundred, two hundred feet? It was frustratingly short.

The elderly man smiled as if impatience were a character defect he'd managed to eliminate from his own life. ‘Of course, the signore could always swim.'

‘It crossed my mind,' Pagan said. He imagined going into the water, ploughing desperately to the other side.

‘There is always the expensive water-taxi,' said the professor. He nodded his head towards a small launch docked some yards away.

Pagan moved toward the launch, looked down into the cabin, where a white-haired man in a heavy sweater and muddy boots was chewing on a
tramezzino
. The professor, eager to help the anxious Englishman, followed. He spoke to the taxi-driver in Italian; there was haggling, which increased Pagan's impatience. How long did he have? If Carlotta had planted a device in the Scuola, when was it timed to detonate?

The professor said, ‘For twenty thousand lire, he'll take you across. It's exorbitant.'

Exorbitant or not, Pagan agreed, stepped down inside the launch, thanked the man. The driver started the motor, the craft throbbed violently. Pagan turned, facing the other bank, beating the palm of his hand on the brass rail. This rushing, this motion – what if it were futile in the end? He stared at the lights on the other side as the water-taxi vibrated so vigorously it shook his bones.

‘San Toma,' the driver said.

The crossing had taken about a minute, no more. Pagan crammed some money into the driver's hand.

‘Sterling, sorry,' Pagan said, and he skipped up on to the bank, grasping a wooden rail for support. He'd given the driver everything he had, about seventy pounds, which wasn't bad for a minute's work. He hurried away from the taxi, looking for the signs the professor had mentioned, couldn't find them. He walked quickly, sometimes breaking into a sprint. Finally he came to a small blue plaque with arrows, one of which pointed to San Polo, the other to San Rocco. How far? he wondered. He felt drained, operating on weak batteries.

He knew he'd reached San Rocco when he saw the congregation of police and security personnel and the harsh arc-lights rigged up by TV crews, people milling restlessly in the street, vendors selling coffee and tea and sandwiches, the whole circus of security and sustenance that follows the president of an important nation. The Scuola itself was lit by a series of electric beacons, which played criss-cross upon the surface of the building and created the impression that the structure was floating a few feet off the ground.

He saw at once that it was going to be impossible to get close to the rather unimposing building because armed guards behind a yellow tape blocked the way, but he had little choice except to try somehow, even if he understood that there was an excellent chance of having himself shot in the process. He shoved forward, pressing past photographers and media hawks and members of the footloose clan that called themselves stringers. He heard complaints on either side as he pushed –
rude bastard, where do you think you're going, hey buddy watchit
. He elbowed people aside, causing hot coffee to spill down the front of somebody's coat. He reached a point where he could go no further because he'd come face to face with an Italian soldier with an automatic rifle, who immediately stuck the weapon in Pagan's chest.