The Devil's Breath (12 page)

Sarah was looking at him. ‘Why not?’ she said.

McVeigh took a last mouthful of squid and put his knife and fork down. ‘He went away,’ he said, not wanting to explain.

Sarah eyed him, cold, appraising. Then she frowned. ‘It’s funny,’ she said, ‘Billy’s mentioned him a couple of times and …’ She shrugged.

McVeigh was watching her carefully. He knew the signs. He knew when she was holding back.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Nothing.’

‘Yes, there is.’

She looked up at him quickly. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ she said, ‘you’re not at work. I’m not some bloody suspect.’

McVeigh ignored the sarcasm. Sarah had never accepted the job he did. She thought it was grubby, demeaning, an excuse to mix with riff-raff. She’d married a Royal Marine, a tall, good-looking sergeant with real prospects, an NCO tipped – unusually – for a commission. It had been an unlikely pairing – her friends had called it quaint – but she’d had her reasons, and
in the early days it had been fun. But then he’d fallen off a mountain and broken his leg, and the soldiering had disappeared, and the promotion with it. The marriage had survived another eight years, growing increasingly bitter. The night he’d left, she’d told him he was lazy and dull, no prospects, no guts, no ambition. He was totally selfish and had never cared less about anyone else in the world. McVeigh had remembered the description ever since, wondering whether it was true. Sarah’s father had been a brigadier. She had a real problem with expectations.

McVeigh reached for his glass and emptied it. They’d been having a conversation. She owed him an answer. ‘This guy Yakov,’ he said, ‘you were going to tell me something.’

Sarah shook her head, composed again. ‘No,’ she said, not bothering to hide a yawn. ‘I was just thinking what a lovely name it was.’

Afterwards, the meal cut short, Billy came back to the flat with McVeigh. They’d had a brief conversation on the pavement outside the restaurant, the boy hopping up and down, pleading with his mother to let him spend the night at his dad’s. He’s going away, he kept saying. He won’t be here for a bit. He can drop me off at school tomorrow morning. Reluctant, but boxed in, Sarah had finally consented, making McVeigh promise Billy would be in bed and asleep by ten o’clock. His school uniform he’d have to pick up in the morning. She left them with a nod and an icy thank-you for the meal, and McVeigh watched her getting into the white Citroën GTI, a good-looking woman in her mid-thirties, a total stranger.

Billy and McVeigh drove back to the flat. On the way, the boy burbled happily about the new season, the goals he’d score. As they joined the thin stream of traffic winding through Crouch End, he abruptly changed the subject, looking across at McVeigh, running his fingers up and down the empty champagne bottle the restaurant owner had given him as a souvenir.

‘Where are you going, Dad?’

‘Israel.’ McVeigh glanced down at him. ‘It’s in the Middle East. It’s where God came from.’

‘Why? Why are you going?’

‘On a job.’ McVeigh smiled. ‘For a man who’s paying me lots of money.’

Billy nodded, absorbing the information. The car turned left. In twenty seconds, they’d be home. Billy looked thoughtful. ‘Is it to do with Yakov?’

‘Yes.’

Billy nodded and said nothing for a moment. ‘He really is dead, isn’t he?’ he mumbled at last.

‘Yes, son. Yes, he is.’

‘I thought so.’ He paused, solemn. ‘It’s a shame, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘He could have come and watched me play.’ He frowned. ‘What do you think he’d say? If he knew about it?’

McVeigh shrugged, turning into his road and coasting the Escort to a halt outside the flat. He reached for the ignition key and switched off the engine. Talking to Sarah again, sharing an hour or so with his ex-wife, had made him realize what a loveless adventure the marriage had been. The long winter nights when there was nothing left to say. The endless attempts to rekindle some kind of sex life. The drinking. It had all been so pointless, such a total waste of time, yet he’d go through it all again, every second of it, just for this, his son beside him, Billy, the world’s best centre-forward, newly chosen for the Hornsey Schools Representative XI. He bent towards the boy, trying to find a word or two to express how he felt, how proud he was, but Billy’s hand came out, stopping him, a caution. He was looking out of the window. He was looking up. ‘Dad,’ he said quietly, ‘someone’s in the flat.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I saw them.’

‘Them?’

‘Two people. Men. I saw them. I did.’

McVeigh looked at him for a moment, then told him to stay where he was, not move an inch, lock the doors. Billy nodded, still gazing up at the flat. McVeigh got quickly out of the car, checking for himself. His flat was on the first floor. There were three windows at the front. Two belonged to the living-room. The other one was the kitchen. The curtains were half-drawn in
the living-room, the way he’d left them. The blind was down in the kitchen, nothing wrong there. He crossed the road and pushed in at the gate, wondering whether success had gone to Billy’s head. Then he saw the front door. The front door was shared with the girls in the flat beneath. House rules, and the local crime rate, meant that it was always locked. Now, by an inch, it was open. The jamb around the lock was splintered.

McVeigh hesitated for a moment, then bent for an empty milk bottle on the step. Halfway up the staircase there was a right-angled turn. He took the turn quickly, on the balls of his feet, perfectly balanced, feeling the blood pumping, the old excitement. At the top of the stairs was his door. It was open. He hesitated again, listening for movement inside, hearing nothing but the tick of the water-heater and the steady drip of the kitchen tap he’d been meaning to fix. They’re waiting, he thought. They’ve seen the car. They’ve seen me. And they’re tooled up. And they’re waiting. He looked at the bottle. Courage, he knew, had a great deal to do with calculation. You worked out the odds. You worked out the geography. You worked out what kind of shape you were in after a plateful of calamari and four glasses of champagne. And if you still did it, went for it, then you were either very brave or very stupid.

McVeigh grinned in the half-darkness. He could feel it coming, and in a curious way he was looking forward to it. He moved slightly to the left, bent slightly at the shoulders, then he was inside the tiny hall, pivoting right, sensing the figure behind the kitchen door, the long French chef’s knife he’d bought only last week raised in readiness. He kicked at the door, a serious kick, smashing it back against the fridge. He heard a gasp of pain, and then there was a second shadow on the wall opposite, and the sound of splintering glass as he smashed the milk bottle against the door-frame and dug the jagged end into the face that lunged at him out of the darkness.

The man screamed with pain, clawing at the bottle, and McVeigh felt a rush of air as something heavy smacked into the wall beside his head. He ducked low, avoiding a second blow, and then drove hard, belly-height, head and shoulders, hoping to God the man didn’t side-step, leaving him nowhere to go.
The man didn’t, and McVeigh hit him squarely in the gut, hearing the air whistling out through his broken mouth. The man folded briefly, then bolted for the open door.

McVeigh turned, still holding the bottle. Then he was into the kitchen, tearing the door back, pulling at the figure behind, seeing the eyes, big, and smelling the sour prison smell of roll-ups and stale sweat. He raised the bottle, then hesitated a fraction of a second, long enough for the man to lunge for the stairs. He was black. He was young. He was medium-height. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He clattered down the stairs, cursing, a flat London accent. His buddy was in the hall. They ran out into the last of the evening light, footsteps on the pavement, receding fast.

McVeigh stood at the top of the stairs, getting his breath back, making sure they’d gone. Then he turned back into the flat, circling the rooms, noting the usual damage, the drawers out, the wardrobe overturned, the cupboards emptied. Coming out of the bedroom, he heard footsteps on the stairs. He tensed and stepped back into the hall. He still had the bottle, the broken end slippery and wet with blood. He took a half-step forward, his arm raised, watching the angle in the stairs. Getting caught was foolish. Coming back was very silly indeed. This time he’d do the job properly.

The footsteps paused for a moment on the stairs. Then Billy was there, standing in the half-darkness. His eyes were wide and his arms was raised. He cast a long shadow for the single bulb in the hall downstairs. McVeigh stared at him, then started to laugh. In Billy’s hand was the champagne bottle, the neck tightly gripped, the knuckles white.

McVeigh clattered down and lifted him up, aware, for the first time, of the blood on his own face. He held the boy the way he’d always done, from the early days, up close to him, cheek to cheek, nuzzling.

‘Wazza,’ he said softly. ‘Bloody wazza.’

*

The old man, Abu Yussuf, looked at the boy across the garage.

‘How do you know?’ he said again. ‘How do you know it’s not a trap?’

The boy shrugged and turned away, a gesture of dismissal. Lately, he hadn’t bothered to disguise his contempt. The old man was typical
samadin
, one of the passive ones, debris washed up from the tides that flowed back and forth across the Middle East, a Palestinian, coming from nowhere, destined for nowhere, an old man on whom it was pointless even wasting breath.

‘It’s not a trap,’ he said.

The old man frowned. The boy had only just arrived, the usual three taps at the door. He’d brought a message from the Syrian. The stuff for the car was here, ready for collection. There was a rendezvous they had to keep, a car park to find, a big shopping mall up in Paterson. A guy with a white Pontiac had the stuff in his trunk. It was heavy. They’d need two of them to lift it. He’d only wait fifteen minutes. Maybe less. They’d have to go now.

The boy looked at his watch, then leaned back against the car. The air in the garage smelled funny. The old man must have been running the pump again, he thought. It’s a toy. He’s obsessed with it. He never leaves it alone. Typical
samud
. Brains made of jelly.

‘So let’s go,’ he said. ‘Now.’

The old man circled the car, watching him. The resentment showed in his face, his distrust of the boy, how uncomfortable he felt having him in his garage. Lately, the last day or so, he’d become convinced that the boy was watching him. He never talked about himself, where he’d come from. He never talked about his family, his mother, his brothers. He never discussed the struggle back home, how bad it was, how terrible to be driven to lengths like these. He never mentioned the Israelis, except to call them scum. In fact the only conversation they’d ever had revolved around the boy’s job. He’d worked in a big hotel over in Manhattan somewhere. He’d earned hundreds of dollars a week. He’d done well.

Now the boy was opening the garage doors. The heat bubbled in from the street outside bringing with it the smell of garbage and bad drains. The old man followed him on to the sidewalk, blinking in the harsh sunlight.

‘How far is Paterson?’ he muttered.

‘Half an hour.’

‘When will we be back?’

The boy shrugged. ‘Five,’ he said. ‘Six. I don’t know. Why?’

The old man glanced back into the garage, the hot dark box that had become a kind of home. ‘We’ll need to test it,’ he said. ‘Make sure it works.’

The boy frowned. ‘Test what?’

‘The gas. The tear gas. We can do it with the door open. Later the better.’

The boy stared at him a moment, then began to laugh, remembering the stuff in the aerosol, what they’d told him it could do. ‘
Tear
gas?’ he queried.

The old man nodded, and looked at his watch. ‘You’re right,’ he said gruffly. ‘We ought to go.’

5

The 5-gallon drum from Ramsgate arrived at the Newbury Waste Transfer Station on Friday 26 August. The analyst, as it happened, was abroad on leave. He reappeared two days later, tired and badly hung-over after an overnight flight back from Athens. There was a pile of paperwork on his desk and it was mid-afternoon before he got round to the Ramsgate drum.

The drum, still sealed inside a fire brigade container, was stored in a section of the warehouse reserved for suspected poisons. The shift leader had seen the death’s-head symbol when the van arrived from Ramsgate, and had drawn the appropriate conclusions. The storage area, in a corner of the warehouse, was well lit, with windows on two sides.

The analyst studied the drum. It was stoutly made, thicker-gauge steel than usual. He could see no corrosion, no rust, no leaks. He and two other men lifted the drum from the secure container and walked it across the concrete floor towards the bench where he’d laid out his equipment. The weight of the drum suggested that it was full. He thanked the men and bent to examine the screw-cap on the lid of the drum. One of them, an older man, asked about the suit and mask he was supposed to wear. It was site regulations. The company was very strict. The analyst shrugged his advice aside. He still felt nauseous from the duty-frees he’d drunk the previous night. He’d wear the gloves and the thick rubber galoshes in case of floor spillages, but the rest he’d do without.

The older man said he was a fool and left the section. The analyst returned to the drum, studying it again, reading the notes supplied by the company’s North Kent division, and the photostats of the fire brigade reports. In neither case was there any conclusion about what might be inside. The only clue was
the half-line of German scrolled across the bottom of the drum. The analyst peered at the lettering. He knew a little German. ‘Property of …’ it went, then the rest of the line painted over. He looked harder. One or two of the letters were just discernible, slightly raised shapes under the layer of paint. He ran his fingertips over the word at the end, as if it were braille. There were five letters. One of them might have been an ‘H’. He wasn’t sure, couldn’t be certain. He pulled on the thick rubber galoshes, bending down to tighten the laces. He reached for the gloves and wriggled his fingers inside. Then he stooped to the drum and tried to loosen the screw-cap.

It wouldn’t give. He tried again, twisting hard, applying as much strength as he could muster. Still no movement. He turned to the work-bench and selected a small hammer. Corrosion, he thought. A little sea water under the lip of the screw-cap, the rust bonding it. Nothing that a whack or two with the hammer couldn’t shift.

He began to tap the lid, working round it. The noise of the hammer made his head hurt. He completed the circle and turned the cap again. He felt it give, slowly at first, the barest movement, then it freed itself, turning easily between his fingers. He paused, tossing the hammer back on to the bench, then returned to the drum, removing the cap. He turned it over. There was a thin film of clear liquid on the underside. He bent low, peering into the drum, seeing the light reflected on the liquid inside. He sniffed, then sniffed again, trying to identify the smell. The smell reminded him of rotting plums.

He sniffed again, wondering why his eyes hurt so much, why the drum was slipping out of focus, what this terrible pain was in his chest, and seconds before the darkness came, it occurred to him that hangovers were never as bad as this, and that maybe – after all – he should have listened to the older man.

*

Telemann, who normally slept on west–east transatlantic crossings, sat by the window all night, a glass on the arm-tray at his elbow, trying to get the letter right.

By dawn, half an hour west of Ireland, he thought he’d finally succeeded. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t pathetic. It wasn’t bitter.
It simply detailed the way he felt, what it meant to him, the shock. He called the stewardess. He ordered his fourth bourbon. He took twenty minutes to drink it, watching the clouds beneath, pinked by the rising sun. Then he reached for the pad and read the letter again, and realized that he hadn’t got it right at all. The thing was dead. It read like a medal citation. Grace under fire, determination to press on despite grievous wounds. He read it again, toying with the empty glass, then ripped the sheet from the pad.

At the airport, he’d watched Emery drive away. The older man had wished him good luck,
bon voyage
, but his eyes were cold and it wasn’t at all clear which journey he meant. From a pay-booth in the terminal, Telemann had phoned Laura. Bree had answered. No, she’d said, Mummy was out, at the mall, shopping. Telemann had thanked her and told her that it was nothing important, nothing that couldn’t wait until he got over to Europe, but there was another voice in his head, loud, crude, insistent, and whatever he did, there on the phone to Bree, or afterwards, joining the queue to check his luggage, he couldn’t switch it off. Where had Laura really gone? Where had they agreed to meet? How much time did they give each other? What did they say? What did they do? And how often?

At Brussels Airport, Telemann stepped into the washroom by the baggage carousel before facing the day. Soaping his face in the mirror, he realized the kind of trap he’d stepped into, a trap of his own making. What you never did in the field was make assumptions. You never assumed you weren’t being followed. You never assumed that rooms weren’t wired, phones tapped. You never assumed that the casual acquaintance in the hotel bar, with his buddy-buddy smile and firm handshake, wasn’t the guy they’d sent to burn you. That way, ever-sceptical, ever-alert, you survived. But private life, your own life, your wife and your kids, hell, that was supposed to be different. There were rules there, loyalties. You’d sworn an oath. You’d built a home and tried for kids, and finally made a damn good job of bringing up a bunch of other people’s. You’d done it all, done it OK, better than OK, and now it was all ashes. The other guys, the guys he’d met in the office, in the
field, maybe they had it about right after all. Whichever way you looked at it, however hard you tried, you got screwed. Telemann looked at himself in the mirror, a night’s growth, the eyes reddened with booze and exhaustion. Laura, he thought. Of all people. Her.

He hired a car from the Hertz desk. He was travelling on a US passport under the name of Lacey. On the booking form, under the section headed ‘Business Address’, he scribbled a location in Chicago. The details had come through Juanita, the documents too. For cover, he was operating as a freelance journalist, working on assignment for a heavyweight magazine in the mid-West. He’d flown to Europe looking for background on a trade story. Would the tariff barriers close around the enlarged EC? Should the rest of the world brace itself for a trade war? The usual questions.

He drove north to Antwerp. He was there in less than an hour. The port area lay on the other side of the city, and he drove with his eyes half-closed, trusting the big blue signs, remembering the address of the police station which had handled the incident with the Greek sailor. Overnight, Emery would have cleared a path to his door, going out of channels, bypassing the normal protocols, ensuring that Telemann got the access he needed. It was one of the last things they’d discussed in the car, waiting in the drop-off zone, Laura’s letter on the seat between them, and Telemann didn’t have the slightest doubt that Emery would do as he’d promised, and grease the wheels. Work and pleasure, as he’d always insisted, were strictly incompatible.

At the police station, Telemann found the detective in charge. He didn’t speak English. They talked for several minutes in halting French, and the detective confirmed that they had no leads on the attack. The Greek, he said, had been badly beaten. Whoever did it had known a great deal about physical violence. The doctors at the hospital said he was lucky to have survived.

Telemann nodded, making notes, aware of the man’s curiosity, this small, dark, intense American, walking in from nowhere. The detective offered to drive him to the hospital, take him to the sailor, but Telemann said no thanks. He had the
name of the ship, the date of the attack, the confirmation that the
Enoxia
had left the next day. The guy he really wanted to talk to was Vlaedders, the agent.

‘You know him?’ he asked.

The detective nodded. Everybody knew Vlaedders.

‘What’s he like?’

‘OK. Rich.’

‘Where’d he get the money?’

‘From his business.’ The detective laughed. ‘Where else?’

Telemann looked him in the eye, long enough to know that the man wasn’t bluffing, probably didn’t know about the Israeli connection, if – indeed – there was one.

‘Where do I find him?’

The detective reached for a phone book, confirming the address that Emery had already given him, and explaining how to find it. The detective looked at his watch. Vlaedders kept rich man’s hours. If he wasn’t at his office, he’d be at home. He gave Telemann another address.

Telemann drove away from the police station, following the detective’s directions. He took the main road back towards the city, trying to avoid the trams that clanged noisily past. In the old quarter, several blocks away from the railway station, he found a car park. The walk to Vlaedders’ office took less than five minutes. Telemann was awake now, alert, his mind emptied of everything but the next half-hour.

Vlaedders’ office occupied the third floor of an old pre-war building beside a small hotel. Telemann went in, taking the stairs at a steady trot. Each landing was hung with fading water-colours, wide flat landscapes, candy-floss clouds. There was wooden parquet flooring underfoot. The smell reminded Telemann of school. Vlaedders’ office door was open. Inside, a secretary sat behind a desk. She looked about ninety. Telemann introduced himself, using the cover name. He explained that he had no appointment with Mr Vlaedders, but would appreciate half an hour of his time. He was a journalist on assignment from the USA. He was researching a long piece on the prospect for European trade. Mr Vlaedders was at the sharp end. He must have seen all kinds of changes. It might offer a nice angle.

The secretary, who spoke excellent English, listened to him without comment. Then she got up and went into another office, shutting the door behind her. When she emerged again, she held the door open. ‘He’ll see you now,’ she said. ‘He has another appointment at three.’

Telemann thanked her and went in. Vlaedders was standing at the window. Expecting someone older, Telemann found a small, neat figure in his early thirties. He was wearing a dark, two-button suit, the jacket hung carefully over the back of his chair. He had thick, gold-rimmed glasses, and steady eyes, and an almost permanent smile.

He waved Telemann into a seat in front of the desk and sat down. Telemann explained who he was, what he’d come for. He sketched in enough background to justify the surprise call and then tried to narrow the focus. How long had Vlaedders been working in the shipping business? What kind of clients did he represent? Where were the real opportunities for a man who wanted to make serious money? What kind of changes would German reunification bring?

Vlaedders answered his questions one by one with an easy fluency. Like the secretary, he spoke perfect English. He knew a great deal about the shipping world. He indicated where the trends might lead. He agreed that reunification might make a major difference. Unless they were very foolish indeed, the Europeans would soon have the rest of the world by the throat.

The conversation went on, Telemann jotting the occasional note, Vlaedders watching him, ever-patient, ever-polite, the smile rarely leaving his lips. When Telemann enquired about particular cargoes, he conceded that there might be a problem. Bulk goods were sometimes a headache. Paperwork on finished products like televisions and fridges could be a nightmare. Telemann nodded, clearing the path ahead, picking his way carefully towards the Cypriot freighter, the consignment of pesticide, the source of the stuff.

‘I understand you handle chemicals?’ he said.

Vlaedders nodded. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Problems?’

‘Occasionally. Sailors are born clumsy. Stowage isn’t always
perfect. Containers are damaged in transit. You get gales. Bad weather—’ he shrugged ‘—leaks.’

‘Anything recent? Anything you can remember?’

There was a long silence, and Telemann wondered whether he’d overstepped the mark, changed gear too clumsily, hit a bump in the road. Vlaedders was still watching him. He had the expression of a man for whom life held few surprises.

‘You want to know about the
Enoxia?
’ he said. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

Telemann looked at him for a moment, then nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said.

Vlaedders smiled at him. Then he reached forward and took a single sheet of paper from a pad. He produced a pen from his pocket and scribbled a name and an address.

‘There’s someone a journalist like you ought to talk to,’ he said, ‘to save us both a great deal of time.’

Telemann nodded. ‘Here?’ he said. ‘In Antwerp?’

Vlaedders looked at him for a moment or two, speculative, curious, bored with the game they’d been playing. Then he shook his head.

‘No,’ he said. ‘You have to go to Hamburg.’

*

McVeigh finally found the Arab in a small restaurant in Mayfair. He was sitting alone at a small table at the back, reading a copy of
Newsweek
. He had a bread roll in one hand and a glass of something alcoholic in the other. He invited McVeigh to sit down.

McVeigh looked at him across the perfect square of white damask. ‘I need some answers,’ he said, ‘and you may have them.’

‘I may?’

‘Yes.’ McVeigh leaned forward across the table. ‘Last night my flat was done over. Two guys. One white. One black. They were still there when I got back. They left shortly afterwards.’

The Arab nodded. ‘Breaking and entering,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that the phrase?’

‘Sure. But explain this.’

McVeigh’s hand went to his jacket pocket. He produced a
small metal object, about the size and thickness of a shirt button. Tiny whiskers of wire curled from one side, soldered in place. McVeigh put the object on the table-cloth. The Arab looked at it, reaching for another bread roll.