The Devil's Breath (30 page)

Now, turning into the recreation ground, Friedland watched the white Citroën park beside the line of football pitches. Billy, McVeigh’s boy, was out of the car before it had stopped, dragging his knapsack behind him, running towards the distant pavilion that housed the changing-rooms. Ross, he now suspected, would stop at nothing to postpone his own departure from the inner circle. That was what power, real power, did to you. It was a drug. It bred dependence. It warped your judgement. It fed into a long narrow tunnel from which, in the end, there was only one outcome. Either you were prepared for real life again, or you weren’t. Friedland, still watching Billy, suspected that Ross wasn’t. Real life was no longer of any interest to him. It would be dull. It would be ordinary. It would be routine. All he wanted, all that mattered, was a permanent place in the sun.

Billy at last disappeared into the changing-rooms and Friedland waited a moment longer, enjoying the last of the September afternoon, before reaching for his notepad and his A–Z. He’d heard from the matron that morning. She’d phoned to say there’d been no news. Stephanie might be back in Hastings. She might have come to London. She might even have gone abroad. No one knew. Friedland thought about it, his own flesh and blood, twenty-two years old, adrift and rudderless, consoled only by the contents of a syringe. He’d watched her shooting up. The worst times, he’d even helped her. It had seemed, then, a kind of answer. Now? He shuddered, opening the A–Z. Hornsey Flats was on page twenty-nine. Friedland marked the spot with a neat pencil cross, peering round, looking for other exit roads, committing the place to memory, happy to add it to the growing list of potential locations. In some ways, God forbid, it was better than the school. Less busy. More space. Fewer witnesses.

*

McVeigh let Cela lead, slipping out through the gate in the security fence, finding the path through the rocky scrub, climbing away from the kibbutz. At four in the afternoon it was still hot, the sun high. The heat came bubbling back from the hillside, gusts of it rising to meet them, and McVeigh was soon out of his T-shirt, carrying it in his hand, plodding upwards behind the woman.

They’d spent the early afternoon at the swimming-pool, two towels side by side on the grassy slope. Cela went there every day, a break from the kids in school. She swam for half an hour, length after length, an easy crawl, and McVeigh had found it difficult to match her, settling instead for a series of untidy dives off the high board. Afterwards, dripping wet, they lay together on the towels, talking.

Cela had asked him about Yakov, with genuine curiosity, what he’d thought of the man, what kind of impression he’d made, and McVeigh had stretched out on the towel, shutting his eyes, going back to the wet afternoons on the touch-line in North London, the shouts of the kids in the pale winter light, the half-conversations they’d enjoyed, Yakov’s eyes never leaving the game, always watching, sometimes the ball, mostly the players. Cela had smiled at this, recognizing the man she’d known. He played chess as well, she’d said. And he seldom lost.

Now, a mile or so from the kibbutz, Cela paused on the hillside. The walk had been her idea. Up on the mountain, hidden amongst the rocks, was a pool. The pool was fed from an underground stream, ice-cold water, and it was deep enough for swimming. She’d gone there first as a kid, twelve years old, back in 1967, the summer of the Six Day War. Before ’67 the kibbutz had been on the old border, 100 metres from Syria, the mountain barred by mine-fields and occasional groups of patrolling soldiers. Sometimes, after dark, there’d been firing in the mountains, and most nights the kids in the kibbutz slept underground in the bomb shelters. In ’67, though, everything had changed. She remembered the Army tanks, grinding up the road from the valley floor, and the thunder of jets, swooping low over the kibbutz, bombing the Syrian trenches on the
mountainside above. The fighting had gone on for days, the shellfire slowly receding as the Army pushed the Arabs back towards Damascus. After a week, unbelievably, it was all over, and with peace had come the discovery of the pool in the mountains, a private place, an hour’s hard walking in the heat of the day.

McVeigh looked down at the kibbutz. A truck from the orchards was turning in the yard behind the dining-hall, coming to a halt in a cloud of dust. People spilled from the trucks, tiny dots, wholly insignificant in the ticking heat. McVeigh wiped his face with his T-shirt.

‘Was Yakov on the kibbutz?’ he said. ‘Was that where you met him?’

‘Yes.’

‘You grew up together?’

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘Down there.’

‘Same age?’

‘Yes.’

McVeigh smiled, thinking of the photo again, the two faces. He had it with him now, buttoned into his back pocket. They might have been brother and sister, he thought. In some ways they probably were.

They climbed again, the path steeper now, loose shale and low drifts of thorn bush. Soon, the kibbutz had gone completely, hidden by a fold in the landscape. McVeigh called ahead, his breathing faster than he liked to admit.

‘You went to the Army?’ he said, ‘after the kibbutz?’

‘Everyone goes to the Army. You have to. We need to. Without the Army there’d be no Israel. Going to the Army is just something you do. It’s automatic. It’s like helping an old lady across the road.’ She stopped, looking round. ‘So you do it.’

McVeigh caught up with her. Her face was wet with sweat, but she wasn’t out of breath.

‘And Yakov?’ McVeigh said. ‘He went to the Army too?’

‘Of course. He went to the tanks. He was in Sinai. During Yom Kippur.’

‘He did well?’

‘Everybody did well.’

McVeigh smiled, still panting, amused by this strange, tight-knit society. Cela was right. No Army. No Israel. A simple fact of history that did wonders for morale.

Cela peered at him, sensing his amusement. ‘You think that’s funny?’ she said.

McVeigh shook his head. ‘No,’ he said truthfully. ‘I think it’s great.’

They reached the pool half an hour later. It was about 10 metres across, overhung by rocks on three sides. The mountain fell away before it, offering a fine view of the patchwork of orchards and fishponds in the valley below. The rocks were hot to the touch, worn smooth by the wind and the rain, and looking down at the pool, McVeigh could sense the magic of the place. The water was crystal-clear, the colour of white wine, and it was difficult to gauge its depth. There were pebbles and small rocks at the bottom of the pool, yellows and browns and daubs of ochre.

McVeigh looked down at the pool for a long time, standing on the rocks, anticipating the taste of the water and the feel of it, cold silk, against his baking skin. He looked up. Cela was standing on another rock, 10 feet above the pool. She’d taken off her shirt and shorts. She wore briefs but nothing else. She ignored him, gazing down at the water. Then she dived, a perfect arc, and McVeigh recoiled instinctively as the water splashed around him, drying at once on the hot rocks. Cela surfaced, her hair flattened against her head. She spouted water from her puckered mouth and jack-knifed down again, two strokes taking her to the bottom of the pool. McVeigh watched, her shape distorted by the broken surface of the water, her small, neat, brown body rippling and rippling. She was looking for stones, he could tell, picking one up, examining it, discarding it, the other hand looking for another, and then a third. Finally she surfaced, the ritual complete, a small white pebble in her hand. ‘Here,’ she said, offering it. ‘For you.’

Flattered, McVeigh reached down for the stone, realizing too late what an old trick it was, her hand grasping his wrist, himself off-balance. Before he hit the water he marvelled briefly at her
strength, then the pool swallowed him and he surfaced, gasping at the shock of it, his borrowed shorts ballooned with air, his legs heavy with the weight of the sodden boots. He grinned at her. This must have been the way of it, he thought, with Yakov. Kids all their lives. Tricks and games and treats like this on the hottest afternoons. No wonder he’d been longing to go back. No wonder he’d missed her.

Afterwards, still dripping, they sat beside the pool, McVeigh’s shirt and shorts drying on a nearby boulder. The sun was lower now, and the valley was shadowed by the late afternoon haze, but the rocks had kept the midday heat and the air was still. Far away, McVeigh could hear the whine of a bus changing gear and the sound of a dog barking. He looked at Cela. She was sitting back against a rock, her eyes closed. She had the body of a young girl, flat belly, small breasts, shoulders dusted with freckles. Somehow her body matched her candour, her directness, and looking away, across the valley, McVeigh realized how much he liked her. She had qualities he normally associated with men. He could be frank with her, honest. She had strength. Whatever he said, whatever happened, he knew he could rely on her to stay in one piece.

‘I went to your flat,’ he said carefully. ‘In Tel Aviv.’

Cela opened one eye. She wasn’t smiling. ‘I know,’ she said.

McVeigh blinked. ‘What?’

‘I know you went to my flat. You broke in. It was locked.’

‘How do you know?’

Cela looked at him for a long moment. Her body was already dry. ‘You tell me,’ she said at last.

McVeigh frowned, back in the classroom, pupil and teacher. ‘The hut,’ he said. ‘You searched my bag.’

‘Yes.’

‘And found the photo.’

‘Yes.’

‘The one you kept in the flat.’

‘Yes.’

McVeigh nodded, reaching for his shorts, extracting the sodden photograph, laying it carefully on the rock between
them. Cela glanced at it without comment. McVeigh turned it over. The blue biro was perfectly legible, unaffected by the water. ‘What does that mean?’ he said.

Cela looked at it for a moment longer. ‘It means “our secret”. That’s the first part. Then there are two other words, “
Zhod k’mous
”. That means “Nobody else’s”. So—’ she shrugged ‘—“Our secret. Nobody else’s”. It’s something you say when you’re kids. It’s something you grow up with.’

‘You and Yakov?’

‘Of course. And anyone else. Everyone says it. It’s just—’ She shrugged again. ‘It meant something else too.’

‘What?’ McVeigh looked at her, the eyes, deep green, unblinking, the steady patience in her voice.

‘What do you think?’ she said. ‘What do you think it means?’

McVeigh reached for the photo, turning it over once more. It was easy to recognize the smile on her face. He’d seen it in the pool, the moment she surfaced, that first dive.

‘It means you loved him.’

‘Love him.’

‘Love him.’

‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘That’s what it means.’

McVeigh nodded, easing his body on the hot rocks, seeing no point in polite evasions, in dressing up the truth. ‘The flat,’ he said, ‘your bedroom was wrecked.’

‘Oh?’ Cela looked startled.

‘Yes. Someone had wrecked it. Taken their time. Done a good job.’ He paused. ‘Maybe someone who knows you.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because—’ he shrugged, remembering the shredded garments on the floor ‘—they were making a point.’ He nodded at the photo. ‘That phrase was on the mirror. I found this.’ He picked up the photo, holding it carefully between his forefinger and his thumb. ‘In the lavatory.’

For the first time, Cela looked away, out across the valley. When she turned back she was smiling, a small, grim smile. McVeigh watched her for a moment, waiting for a response, some kind of clue, anger maybe, or disgust, but she stayed quite
silent, her knees drawn up beneath her chin, her hands round her ankles, her whole body rocking slowly, backwards and forwards.

‘What made Yakov want to come home?’

‘He was tired.’

‘Bored?’

‘Tired.’

‘Did he like his job? The job he had?’

Cela looked at him, assessing him, openly sceptical, deciding how far to go.

‘The job changed,’ she said at last. ‘And we all began to change with it. Yakov didn’t like that. You understand? You understand what I’m saying?’

McVeigh frowned. ‘The job?’ he said. ‘Or the organization?’

‘The organization.’ She nodded. ‘The organization changed.’

‘Mossad?’

She looked at him again, not answering immediately, still wary, still uncertain.

‘In the beginning it was different,’ she said eventually. ‘We did what we did, and that was OK. It was good, too. It was fun.’ She nodded at the pool. ‘We had fun. We laughed a lot. We were good, too. The best.’

‘Yakov?’

‘The best of the best.’

‘So what happened?’

‘It changed. Everything changed.’ She paused, gazing down at the valley. ‘The kibbutz. The country. The organization. Us …’ She shrugged. ‘Everything.’

‘And Yakov?’

‘They sent him to Lebanon. After the invasion.’ She nodded at the mountains across the valley, brooding. ‘He went to Beirut. He hated it. What he saw. What was happening. What he had to do …’ She paused. ‘That was the start of it.’

‘Of what?’ McVeigh bent forward, repeating the question. ‘Of what? What did he hate? What made him change?’

Cela said nothing, looking at him with genuine sympathy, shaking her head, reaching for her shirt. She got up, pulling it on.

McVeigh picked up the photograph. ‘Who did this?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Who put this where I found it? Who wrecked your flat?’

Cela looked down at him, shaking her head again, reaching for the photo, wanting it back. She gazed at it for a long time, thoughtful.

‘There were three of us,’ she said finally. ‘Three of us down in the kibbutz. We were together all the time. Every day. Me, and Yakov, and the other one.’

‘Who?’

‘His name is Moshe.’ She paused. ‘He took the picture.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Moshe?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s still there, still on the kibbutz.’ She smiled. ‘He wanted to be in the organization too. Like us. But it was impossible. He was too stupid. Very strong but very stupid. Yakov used to make a joke with him about it. He used to tell him he kept his brains in his backside. So—’ she shrugged ‘—he stayed on the kibbutz.’