Vagabond (44 page)

Danny Curnow shrugged, shook his shoulders, reckoned he’d ignore what she’d said. She slipped a hand into his arm, and they were another couple seemingly with time to kill in a tourist city, near to a bank, watching a Mercedes squeeze into a parking slot. He heard her laugh.

Chapter 14

The laugh was brittle, humourless, and there was the scent of her growing superiority over him. Not much Danny Curnow could do to slap down Gaby Davies’s new-found confidence.

He had good eyeball. The Irish walked briskly towards the bank. He saw the caution of the man and the thrust of the girl’s stride: he looked around him and she did not. The brigadier was out of the car first. His face was marked, not as badly as Karol Pilar’s or his own, and he hobbled as if his hips or groin were still painful. Danny thought that at the peak of his military career he would have been handsome, authoritative on a parade-ground. Now he was hunched and a scowl creased his features. Ralph Exton was behind him: uncertain, hesitant, hanging back. Danny understood his ‘rather be somewhere else’ look. He had seen it often. The agent is at a meeting of importance and the pressure builds on him to deliver. What had seemed an excellent idea a week or a month ago is now wrapped in hazard. Danny could not, then, get close to Ralph Exton and speak to him. He would do it with eye contact.

She laughed again. Danny and Gaby Davies were a hundred yards apart. For a moment his concentration broke and he cursed her softly. It was about the exercise of control – manipulation. For a moment, Exton had broken stride – had to. A snake of tourists followed the inevitable umbrella, perhaps listening to the history of Wenceslas, then three tall Africans with sports bags that bulged with handbags to sell on the street.

‘A glance of death’, was what Matthew Bentinick had called it. ‘Necessary to have it, my boy, and necessary to use it. The chance to nail a man with a glance at a hundred metres as effectively as a sniper can,’ he had said, while toying with a plastic beaker of coffee. ‘Because it’s about winning, and anything other than winning is unacceptable. He’s more afraid of
you
, my boy, than any of the scumbags who float round him – he has to be, or you pack up and go home.’ Vagabond had gone out into the soft rain of an early morning and had run to the car where Dusty had the heater on and the windows were well misted. Some men and a few women could deliver the ‘glance of death’. Others failed, tried again and were ridiculed.

The Africans and the tourists did the work for him: Ralph Exton looked around to see if further ambushes would impede him and their eyes met.

Danny Curnow kept his head still, focused on his target. The only movement he made was to rock slightly on the balls of his feet. The target saw him, then moved on, checked further up the pavement for obstructions, and the eyes darted back. Danny held him. He had a useful prop: his face had the clear marks of the night’s violence, which would further intimidate.

It ended. The brigadier had Ralph Exton’s arm and pushed him forward. The girl came to intercept them – the man had seemed to shrink and his shoulders had convulsed. The moment was gone. The laughter beside him was stifled. She’d have seen her prize and her confidence would have ebbed. They went into the bank, after Malachy Riordan had paused in the doorway, spun on his heel, raked his eyes over the square.

She said, ‘I see you shared the door. Generous. Don’t I get in the loop?’

‘When you deserve to – when your Joe doesn’t walk out on you.’

She managed a smile, left him and walked to the bank.

Malachy Riordan hissed, ‘That is serious money, but you’re saying it’s to be transferred beyond retrieving and we’ve seen nothing.’

The Russian, creepy bastard, his facial injuries playing havoc with his mood, said, shrilly, ‘When it’s transferred and cleared you’ll see what is the merchandise.’

‘Which might be shit.’

‘You take that chance.’

‘We pay and have no guarantee.’

‘Wrong.’

Riordan was agitated, and the girl was confused because he had elbowed her aside.

Ralph Exton was cut off from the argument – it might have been almost funny, a Republican gunman and a former Soviet-era intelligence officer bickering inside a modern Prague bank about ‘terms and conditions’ for the purchase of lethal weapons and explosives, but it wasn’t.

Riordan slapped a fist into a palm. ‘You telling me that we pay when we’ve had no sight of what we’re buying? Where’s the guarantee?’

‘He is. Him.’ The brigadier jerked a thumb towards Ralph Exton. ‘It’s about trust.’

‘I want to see what we’re getting.’

Ralph Exton intervened: ‘It’s about trust, Malachy, and about me. You trust me and I trust the people with whom I’ve negotiated quantities and costs.’

‘If I don’t see, I don’t buy.’

‘If we all stay calm,’ Ralph did a negotiator’s smile, ‘we can resolve—’

The Russian chipped at them, a chisel on stone: ‘You think we care? You think this is business that matters to us? It is for sentiment. My employer’s sentiment for
him
, for Mr Exton. No transfer of money and I go. Does it matter to me? It does not.’

Ralph saw Gaby Davies, scarf over her hair, big glasses masking her face, eyeing bank papers, and he had spotted the handler outside. His options were minimal. He stuck to the plan – he had no other. ‘I believe, Malachy, that you have to concede on this point and trust them, or—’

‘Where I come from, too many graves have been filled because of trust. I trust men and women I know.’

‘I assume, Malachy, that you trust me, and I can only urge you, therefore, to trust the man I’ve introduced to you. Through my good offices you have available an excellent price per unit for materials you and your colleagues need.’

Ralph Exton had seen pictures of construction workers taking their lunch break on a spar while the Rockefeller Building grew in height in the years of the Great Depression. Eleven guys sitting on it with their sandwiches, no safety harnesses, the street 840 feet below. He felt now as if he was among them. His hands were shaking.

The brigadier said, ‘No transfer and we quit. You accept or you do not. There is no trust. This is business. You will have no opportunity to deceive me. You transfer or I walk.’

And, for God’s sake, it was a public place. People around them were drawing out money, sorting mortgage rates and paying utility bills. No one else was concerned with the purchase of assault rifles, machine-guns and bomb materials. He saw that the girl had gone white.

‘Can we please show good sense and restraint, and—’

The Russian stared into Malachy Riordan’s face. ‘Do you want the deal or not?’

Ralph Exton wondered how long it had been since the Irishman had last ceded ground. Malachy Riordan said nothing but gave a nod. It signified the concession and— He saw Gaby Davies, still reading the bank’s investment fliers. A man stood behind her.

It was as though a wheel had turned. The man behind Gaby Davies was outside the door but was peering in. He bore the marks of a street brawl on his face. Ralph Exton looked at the Russian and saw the same marks of violence round the eyes, mouth and across the cheeks.

Malachy Riordan saw them too. He was red with anger. ‘What happened to you?’ he spat, at the brigadier.

‘I was attacked, a thief – I heard a prowler, I went to—’

‘At your house? Not an agent? Not intelligence?’

‘A thief. My wallet was stolen, then dumped with banknotes taken, my watch pulled off me.’

‘Wait.’

He took Frankie’s hand and pulled her towards the door. Her feet slid on the smooth surface. A man had blocked the bank’s exit but was gone. Malachy’s knee hit the girl who was reading brochures on investments. They went outside. Across the pavement, he tugged her close. ‘What am I seeing?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘There was a man outside with a bruised face.’

‘If you say so. I didn’t see—’

‘Because you don’t look. A man outside had fist-fight marks. So did the man in the gardens.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘That Russian is jumped. He fights. Who? A thief, certain of it. Wallet and a watch. Big deal. Two more now, same injuries. I’m not happy.’

‘What do we do?’

‘Maybe quit. I’m not happy. We can turn, walk and—’

‘I’m not walking.’

‘You have to walk if it’s compromised. Don’t you see?’

‘I see you dithering. That’s all.’

‘I’m talking about turning my back on it because it stinks. When it’s compromised, and you’re lucky enough to see it, you walk away – or you go in the cage.’

‘You walk. I won’t.’

‘You’ll do as you’re told.’

‘Go back on your own, tell them you chickened out.’

A full-blown row in a street, men and women passing them. He caved.

She felt empowered. It was better than firing on the Sperrins, better than walking behind the guy, who was now in Maghaberry, through the press of the party, better than being told they had chosen her to travel. He seemed smaller, vulnerable. On the mountain, his territory, he would have backed his judgement and been justified, but he was not there. He had listened to her, was in her thrall. She led him back inside, took a pen from her bag and went with Exton and the Russian to the counter.

They made the transfer. He didn’t speak, seemed numbed.

Gaby Davies brought with her the bank’s investment brochures. She passed Karol Pilar, who looked through her, and went up the pavement to the corner, for Stepanska. Danny Curnow was beside a man who wore a sandwich board advertising an Irish bar. She joined him. He didn’t ask her what she’d learned, which annoyed her.

‘It’s tomorrow night. The money’s been paid. I’m not sure where it’ll happen but I’ll get that from Exton. Anyway, it’s going ahead.’

Now Danny Curnow spoke: ‘You have a photograph? Of course you do.’

‘I got my phone out and asked them to pose. Don’t be bloody stupid.’

He tapped her arm, pointed to where Karol Pilar stood, and the crowd of tourists that had gathered for a wide shot of the statue to Wenceslas. Pilar’s camera was raised, and few would have noticed that its aim was away from the statue. They came out of the bank, the brigadier, then Malachy Riordan, Frankie McKinney and Ralph Exton.

‘There’s a difference between you and me,’ she snapped. ‘I have a future. You don’t. My future is that I can walk away when I want to. I’m not a doormat for Matthew Bentinick—’

He left her, like a date gone wrong. Danny Curnow trailed Exton, while she moved closer to the Czech policeman and would follow the Irish pair. Each time she thought she’d done well, it seemed the success of the moment was illusory. There was something in Curnow to admire: he was dogged and harboured loyalties she barely understood.

Danny Curnow told him to keep walking. It was a long tramp. Sometimes Danny led Ralph Exton, and sometimes he was behind him, goading him on. Occasionally he was alongside. When Danny was at Exton’s shoulder he made small-talk. It was a tactic to confuse the man, disorient him. It was where he himself had been taken in the night and he’d sufficient landmarks to guide him. They reached the gaol and the ring of walls, and across the road there were small businesses – a restaurant, a store selling industrial pipes and Erotic City. Opposite the gaol gates was the park, and he sat on a bench that faced the bronze bust of Milada Horáková. He told his man the story of the judge, her execution and how long it had taken to kill her. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Ralph. I’m not threatening you with strangulation, a guillotine or hanging. Nothing’s likely to come your way beyond a hug from Miss Davies and the opportunity to float away. Good enough? Of course. So, what I’m waiting for – without any threats – are the when and where of the transaction. But I’m not Miss Davies and not easily deflected. I’m tired, Ralph, so I haven’t much patience. Do I give a damn about your feelings and welfare? No. Some things annoy me quite considerably, Ralph, especially the ingratitude or arrogance that leads a paid informer to forget who puts money in his pocket. It annoyed me, Ralph, that you decided to slip off to your chums in Karlovy Vary and forgot to tell Miss Davies what you were doing. Let’s put it another way. The Russians, your best friends, have a certain reach, quite long but not infinite. The gang from up that hill in County Tyrone have a distinctly shorter reach and you’d have to be excessively careless for them to locate you. Which leaves us, Ralph. We have big computers and limitless resources. We can find you any time and any place. You remember the old saying, ‘You can run but you can’t hide’? Joe Louis used it when he was going to fight Max Schmeling. It was also used in the Balkans when the war criminals seemed to be beyond the reach of the International Criminal Court. Do you know where they are now, the ones who melted into the Bosnian mists? They’re in the penitentiary institution at Scheveningen in the Netherlands. That wouldn’t happen to you, Ralph. You’d be at the mercy of a telephone call – Russia or Ireland, when an address would be given. Fuck about with me, Ralph, and we’d let you run for a while, but the tension and the fear of shadows would kill you. When you were on your knees, swearing suicide, we’d make the call. You haven’t interrupted me, Ralph, with the answers to where and when.’