Thunder in the Blood (22 page)

‘Peter Devlin,’ McGrath said quietly. ‘I’d have thought you’d have guessed.’

20

I phoned Wesley from a call box in a large shopping mall on the edge of Silver Spring. It was half past eleven at night and the place was quite empty.

‘Devlin,’ I said, when he answered.

It took him a second or two to sort himself out. For half past four in the morning, I didn’t blame him.

‘What?’

‘Devlin. Peter Devlin.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s out here. In Dallas. He’s working with Beckermann. He’s part of it all.’

I paused, trying to picture Wesley in the darkened flat. Eight hours in McGrath’s company had given me a new perspective on AIDS. Maybe, after all, there were worse things than dying. Wesley came back on the phone. He sounded awake at last.

‘What made you phone here?’ he said. ‘I told you not to.’

‘Devlin,’ I repeated.

‘Listen—’

‘Devlin,’ I said for the fourth time.

There was a silence. Then, reluctantly, he acknowledged the name. ‘Polly’s son?’ he said. ‘In Dallas?’

‘Yes. I’ve got an address.’ I fumbled in my bag. ‘Devlin, Coffey and Sweetman. That mean anything?’

‘No.’ he paused. ‘But why are you phoning here? What’s wrong with the other number?’

‘Nothing,’ I lied, ‘except it’s always engaged.’

‘Try again, then,’ he said, ‘and stay on the fucking case.’

The phone went dead and I backed slowly out of the call box, still uncertain whether the name had really registered or not.
‘Polly’ Devlin was a cabinet minister. His real name was Anthony but people in the know, people like Wesley, called him Polly because of his closeness to his ex-leader. For years, clambering up the ladder, he’d faithfully parroted her views. What she believed, he believed. In due course, to no one’s surprise, he’d earned his rewards. First, he’d become a junior minister, non-cabinet rank. Then, after a major reshuffle, she’d led him to the bridge and given him a turn at the wheel. Secretary of State at the Department of Trade and Industry. One of the UK’s key posts.

I walked slowly back across the car park. For whatever reason, I’d never made the connection. There’d been whispers about Devlin’s son, certainly. I’d heard them in the usual ebb and flow of Whitehall chit-chat, rumours and counter-rumours that washed around the great bureaucracies. One or two had even ended up in the Curzon House files: stories about commodity deals in Central America, information from a British businessman about a hushed-up Customs arrest in Miami, even a whisper linking Peter Devlin to the Fort Lauderdale arm of a Mafia cocaine cartel. None of this had ever been substantiated, and in the political culture of the late eighties, much of it had done him no harm at all. On the contrary, it was proof positive that young Devlin had the wit and the footwork to mix it with the best of them. But arms dealing? With Beckermann? And the Iraqis?

That, with some reluctance, had been McGrath’s contribution. Over dinner, while Nghien fed him spoonfuls of chopped noodles and shredded chicken, he’d taken me as far as he was prepared to go. Peter Devlin, he’d said, had recently established a base in Dallas. Like many businessmen, he’d recognized the end of the Iran-Iraq war as an enormous opportunity. Iraq needed re-equipping. She had oil money. She had limitless ambition. And so Devlin had joined the immigration queues at Saddam Hussein Airport, focusing his energies on feeding the voracious Iraqi war machine.

And it hadn’t stopped there. The Persian Gulf was full of the kind of tensions that only big money can generate. The one, McGrath had pointed out, fed off the other, a neat symbiosis. Wherever you looked – Kuwait, Saudi, Oman, the Emirates – there were ruling families desperate to swop a little of their wealth for another few years in the sun. That meant weapons, the best
stuff off the shelf, the latest armour, the smartest bombs, preferably a bigger helping than the next guy down the Gulf. In the supply of all this hardware, there were problems, sure, but nothing that money and influence couldn’t sort out. If item A was deemed off-limits for the Middle East, then it was simply rerouted via another destination. At every stage, there’d be kickbacks and commissions, but what mattered was that the stuff still got through. The Middle East was a giant bazaar. With the right word in the right ear, the Arabs could buy anything.

But Devlin, I’d said. What about Peter Devlin?

McGrath had pondered the question, signalling Nghien for more rice wine, watching the little Asian dancing round the table with the carafe. The carafe had a long glass spout. He held it above McGrath’s open mouth, inch-perfect with the pale gold stream.

‘Devlin,’ he’d said at length, ‘brought blessings.’

‘Blessings?’

‘Some of the UK stuff was embargoed. It was politically sensitive. Clients would need to be assured it would arrive…’ he smiled, ‘regardless.’

I’d nodded, remembering all the fuss about Clive Alloway, why it had happened, where it had led.

‘And Devlin brought that assurance?’ I’d said.

‘He
was
that assurance.’

‘Because of who he was?’

‘Of course.’

‘For money?’

‘You bet.’

‘And Beckermann?’

‘Beckermann’s taken him on. He works for Texcal now, the parent company. He’s more than useful to them. Bet your life on it.’

‘No conflict of interest?’

‘I doubt it,’ he’d said thinly. ‘Half a million dollars is a lot of money.’

‘You mean he’s on the payroll? As crude as that?’

‘No. He has a consultancy. Devlin, Coffey and Sweetman. The half million’s a retainer. There’s money on top, of course. For performance.’

Now, as I crossed the shopping mall car park towards the Chrysler, I thought again of the young Englishman I’d seen so briefly out at Beckermann’s ranch. The more McGrath had talked, the more I was convinced it had to be Devlin. Another reason his father was called Polly was his looks. Devlin senior, according to most women’s magazines, could have made his living in the fashion world. He was the perfect clothes horse. The face I’d seen at Beckermann’s had come from the same mould: same hair, same bone structure, same ability to smile at a total stranger without the faintest trace of insincerity. That made him Pretty Polly’s son. No question.

And Priddy? I shook my head, getting back to the car at last, realizing just how slow I’d been. Priddy, at the DTI, worked for Polly Devlin. Before his recent promotion, he’d been hand-picked to be the Secretary of State’s PPS. Now he was himself a junior minister, a key part of the Whitehall sales team, pitching for what Wesley called ‘UK Ltd’ or ‘The Firm’. That meant, of course, that he’d know Peter Devlin. That explained the invite to Beckermann’s ranch, the hand extended from the inner circle. But why, then, had Priddy invited me to join him out at Fairwater? Why had he taken the risk? Lust? Pride? Some male fantasy about getting it right? After our last disaster?

I shook my head again, unlocking the car door. I got in and reached for the ignition. Then I stopped, aware at once of a terrible, terrible smell, an animal smell, a smell so heavy it was almost tangible, a physical presence. My eyes went to the mirror, but hard as I looked I could see only the pale empty spaces of the car park. I reached slowly for the glove box. I eased it open, feeling inside, but after a second or two I knew it was pointless looking any further. Grant Wallace’s gun, my precious Beretta, had gone.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to breathe properly, forcing my pulse back to normal. Then I looked round. The car was empty. I leaned back, bending over the seat, peering down at the floor, half wanting to use my hands, feeling for whatever it was that smelled so hideous, terrified now of what I might find. After a while, certain there was nothing there, I got out of the car again, looking around, aware of how exposed I was. I went to the boot and unlocked it, standing back and letting it open on the
spring. For a moment or two, I did nothing, knowing now that I’d found the source of it. The boot open, the smell was overpowering. Finally, I stepped forward, my body shadowing the inside of the boot. All I could see was my case. I reached inside the boot and opened the case, aware of something bulky jammed inside. Then I moved slightly, letting the light in, recognizing the huge shoulders, the square head, the teeth bared in a final snarl, the throat torn open, the huge wound still crusted with blood. I steadied myself against the car, my hand to my mouth. Mogul’s first victim. The dog I couldn’t find in the creek.

Half an hour later, I was back outside McGrath’s place. By now, I was as sure as I could be that I wasn’t being followed. Coming out of the car park at the shopping mall, I’d driven classic anti-surveillance patterns, a succession of lefts, then rights, then a couple of U-turns, watching all the time for movement. But there’d been nothing, just the endless grid of suburban streets, the parked Volvo estates, the shadowed gardens, the cold blue flicker of TV sets, curtained from the world outside. At a major intersection, glad of the occasional traffic, I’d pulled on to the sidewalk and opened the boot. I had no gloves, not even a piece of rag. Everything I had was in my case, and on top of everything lay the rotting body of the dog. I had no choice, therefore, but to use my bare hands, and I reached in and lifted the dog out, leaving him curled by the roadside. The body was heavier than I’d expected and slippery with something I tried hard not to think about, and afterwards, I’d knelt on the verge, wiping my hands on the dew-wet grass. But they still felt sticky, even now, a minute past midnight, parked in the darkness at the end of McGrath’s cul-de-sac, wanting to go in, knowing I shouldn’t.

The light was still on in the bedroom. I could talk to him, warn him, apologize, but the more I chased the conversation around in my head, the more I knew that it was a conversation we shouldn’t have. The man was hopelessly vulnerable and I’d exposed him already. By simply arriving, by parcelling up all Wesley’s questions, knocking on his door and inviting him to admire this dangerous new toy, I’d made him part of it, one of us. That, he didn’t want. He’d been prepared to talk about Devlin, but the rest was off-limits. The stuff that Grant had done was fine, he’d said, as far as it went, but a chronology as loose as
that could support a thousand interpretations. If Wesley could make a case for George Bush fixing the war ahead of actually fighting it, then so be it. It was a neat theory. It might even be true. But either way, McGrath was wholly agnostic. He said he didn’t know. And he said he wouldn’t guess.

I’d mentioned Beckermann again, at this point, one last attempt to coax at least a hint from him. I’d described my afternoon out at the ranch, the scene down by the creek, the pit-bulls. At the mention of the dogs, McGrath’s head had jerked up, and I’d paused there, asking him what he knew. I’d described Mogul, the top dog, the killer they’d all come to see, and he’d nodded, evidently recognizing the name, but saying nothing. Later, back in the bedroom, before I’d left, he came close to offering me an apology. I was getting myself into a war, he’d said. I was tangling with serious money, and honourable though my cause might be, he was remaining strictly non-combatant. Nothing personal. Nothing unduly heavy. Just an understandable urge to hang on to what little he had left.

I sat in the car in the darkness, knowing now how right he’d been. Blood had been shed. Not mine. Not yet. But blood, none the less. I checked the mirror again, certain before I did so that it would be empty. Looking for the obvious was pointless. These guys, whoever they were, were infinitely better than that. They didn’t lumber round America, a hundred yards behind you, an obliging dot in the mirror, a face behind a wheel. No, it was altogether more subtle than that and altogether more menacing.

I reached for the ignition key and started the engine. Backing the car slowly up the cul-de-sac, I opened the electric windows, oblivious of the cold night air, determined to get rid of the smell. Twenty minutes later, freezing, I was out of the suburbs, heading north, away from Washington. When the houses stopped and there was nothing but darkness, I checked the atlas again. Beyond Wheaton, according to my Rand McNally, there was a big reservoir. I guessed the distance at no more than ten miles. After a while, I saw a sign. Then another. I took a right turn off the road and bumped down a rutted country track. There were trees up ahead, and then the ground began to fall away, a gentle slope, cropped grass, the shadows of fleeing sheep and the inky blackness of water beyond.

I drove as far as I dared across the grass and then stopped. I kept the car headlights on, retrieving my case from the boot and walking down the lit path to the water’s edge. It was a cold, still night. I laid my case on the wet stones, and began to sluice the inside of the lid with water, rubbing hard with my knuckles, trying to get rid of the slime. When I’d done as much as I could, I pulled everything out, garment after garment, lifting them to my nose, trying to judge what stank, what didn’t. The pile of ‘Don’t knows’ grew by my side, and in the end I gave up, and stripped off the clothes I was wearing, one by one.

Stark naked, I waded into the reservoir, catching my breath at the cold, feeling mud oozing up between my toes. Up to my waist in freezing water, I washed myself all over, using soap from the last motel, lathering as hard as I could. Dripping wet, I used a towel from the bottom of the case, rubbing the hard nap against my skin, returning a little warmth. Then I got dressed again, jeans, a vest, a sweatshirt on top, stuff I’d packed deep in the case. It was a scene that would have made my father proud of me, but what I still smelled like, I shuddered to think.

Back in the car, I pulled the Chrysler in a tight circle and bumped back up towards the trees. I’d left the clothes I’d been wearing in the reservoir, weighted down with rocks from the water’s edge. Ditto the suitcase and stuff I knew was beyond salvation. Some day, maybe, they’d come to light. But by that time, God willing, I’d be back in the real world.

An hour later, no questions asked, I was standing in front of a mirror in Room 17 of the Days Inn, just south of Leesburg. The shower was waiting for me and I’d found some Ella Fitzgerald on the bedside radio. Four miles down the road was Dulles Airport, and from Dulles Airport, according to the Puerto Rican woman behind the reception desk, there were plenty of transatlantic flights. Tomorrow, I thought, I can end this madness.