Jigsaw (17 page)

The young woman dipped into the popcorn, stuck a few kernels in her mouth, and looked at the General. ‘So do I, General.'

‘This is what I call a happy coincidence.'

‘You're way too horny to be old,' she said. She set aside the bowl of popcorn and, in a manner unmistakably suggestive, licked her fingers. The General watched her undo the buttons of her shirt and regarded her delightful breasts with pleasure; her nipples were the colour of damsons. He wondered how much this lovely creature was reimbursed to keep him joyful. In his surge of excitement it was not a consideration that occupied him for long.

Some matters were beyond fiscal measure.

THIRTEEN

LONDON

I
N HIS APARTMENT
F
RANK
P
AGAN SPENT UNTIL ONE AM.
MAKING
telephone calls from numbers listed in a small notebook that Foxie had often referred to as Chairman Frank's Little Red Book. It contained the names of a variety of idiosyncratic characters connected with an assortment of causes, many of them lost ones, many pathetic, a few purely fictional. Frequently the kind of information Pagan extracted from these sources was worthless, but he worked on the principle that you left nothing to chance. Now and again – rarely – he'd uncover something bright in the general dross of things.

The list, which had taken him years to build up, was constantly being changed, when people died, left the country, or simply vanished. It took patience and a form of dogged optimism – call it frail hope, Pagan thought – to labour through the names. He asked the same questions he'd asked Freddie and Wilma Scarfe and had to listen to a reformed West German terrorist called Ingrida extol the merits of vegetarianism, breast-feeding and pacifism; a former Iranian diplomat who'd once allegedly tried to smuggle a hit-squad into the UK; an IRA insider called Charlie Locklin in Kilburn, but Charlie, slurring his words because he'd been ploughing through a bottle of Jameson's, swore the length of a hurling field and on the everlasting soul of his departed mother that there had been no IRA involvement in the explosion.

Pagan spoke to more than a dozen people before he concluded that it was going to be one of those fruitless nights. Weary, he closed his little red book and walked around his apartment. He went inside the bedroom, lay down, shut his eyes. The voices he'd listened to on the phone fused into an incoherent chorus, a kind of bleak lament.
Nothing, Mr Pagan. I know absolutely nothing
. He drifted into shallow sleep. He dreamed in a vague way of Brennan Carberry, a surreal bit of brain-theatre in which he was pursuing her through what appeared to be the opium dens of old Limehouse, although the Chinese clientele spoke pure Brooklyn. The madhouse of the unconscious: you bought your admission ticket, but you were never sure what you were going to get.

Still fully dressed, cramped from the angle of his body, he woke before dawn and made a cup of insufferably bad instant coffee which he drank black and strong. The apartment was chilly. Shivering, he showered quickly, put on a clean shirt and suit. From a shelf in his closet he took his handgun, a Bernardelli, which he stuck inside a holster located in the small of his back. He'd never found a truly comfortable place to carry the weapon, despite having tried a variety of holsters over the years. He wasn't even sure why he wanted to carry the gun; he supposed he felt a basic need for some form of reassurance.

Foxie, punctual as always, appeared in a Rover, banged the horn twice. Pagan got his coat and went downstairs. The street was treacherous with ice. A faint suggestion of fog hung around the lamps.

Pagan settled in the passenger seat. The gun pressed his spine. He rearranged his position.

‘Golden Square?' Foxie asked.

‘Of course.'

‘Like old times.'

Pagan wasn't sure how like old times the Square would be, but at least the return to his former offices meant physical distance from George Nimmo and an illusion of some independence. Illusion was the key word: Nimmo had made it clear that he was ultimately in charge of matters, the lord of all he surveyed. We'll see about that, Pagan thought. The possibility of a struggle with George, a clash of authority, was something he looked forward to with relish. He had fire in him now, and steel; a feeling he'd returned to the land of the living.

‘Anything new?' he asked.

Foxworth, who sensed Pagan's concentration, his focus, answered, ‘Nobody has called, Frank. Whoever did the business isn't talking.'

‘We should have McCluskey's report soon,' Foxie added. ‘Within an hour or two. So they tell me.'

Pagan knew that such reports were frequently skeletons. They gave you bone structure but no idea of the flesh that had hung on it. Sometimes the skeleton was all you had. He mentioned the visit of Quarterman from the American Embassy and the man, Harcourt, who might have been killed on the Tube.

‘I didn't want to give Quarterman your address, Frank. He pulled rank on me somewhat. Said he'd have the Ambassador call Nimmo, et cetera.' Foxie looked bleakly apologetic, and shrugged.

‘It's not important,' Pagan said.

‘Could the death of this Harcourt have any significance?' Foxie asked.

‘Doubt it,' Pagan said. ‘He was some kind of researcher. I get the impression he wasn't important. Did Billy Ewing run the list of names?'

‘He's at Golden Square right now, Frank. Complaining about overtime, of course.'

‘Good. Then he's in fine form. I'd worry if he wasn't grumbling.'

Pagan thought of the tunnel, the way it bored into his imagination, as if it were a passageway through his own brain, something he himself had created and in which he was now imprisoned. Maybe that's what all investigations came down to in the end, the pursuit of yourself, the hunt for your own identity, your liberty. Heavy stuff, Frank, he thought. Too heavy on an empty stomach.

Foxie drove into Golden Square. The sky was still dark. Streetlamps burned. The square, small and undistinguished, was located at the edge of Soho. One end carried you into narrow thoroughfares, the other led you down into the sleazy neon of Piccadilly Circus, streets awash with discarded fastfood containers and newspapers.

Foxie parked outside a building with no nameplate. Once it had been the offices of a company that manufactured bow ties. Before that, it had housed the London branch of a New York literary agency that had gone under in a scandal of unpaid royalties and creative accounting. It amused Pagan to envisage a group of authors laying siege to the building as they'd done, carrying placards and posters.
Down With Literary Agents
and other such subversive slogans.

Inside, Pagan and Foxworth rode the shaky iron cage of the elevator to the second floor, where it was clear that Nimmo had ordered some activity during the last few hours. Technicians were arranging computer consoles, men wired telephones, electricians installed fluorescent strips of light. An electric drill was being driven into plaster. Pagan tried to move along a narrow corridor to what had been his old office, but his way was blocked by cardboard cartons that contained files and folders.

‘I understand this was being used as a storage facility,' Foxworth said. ‘It has the icy charm of a bureaucrat's graveyard.'

Pagan opened a carton, took out a folder, blew dust from it. The file contained yellowed case notes in the matter of the Crown
versus
one James Sixsmith, who had apparently been charged with murder in 1934.

‘Prehistoric,' Pagan said. He replaced the folder, clambered over the pile of cartons, made his way into his former office. The floor was covered with more boxes stuffed with files. His old desk was jammed back against the wall.

‘An obstacle course,' said Foxie.

‘It smells like shit in here.' Pagan sniffed the air, the stench of mildewed paper and damp cardboard. Under the window an old-fashioned iron radiator clanked and hissed. ‘Nimmo hasn't gone too far out of his way to accommodate us, has he? Obstructive bastard. He's had more than a few hours to get this place ready.'

‘It could be worse,' Foxie suggested.

‘Right. I suppose he might have forgotten to have the electricity turned on.' Pagan made it to his desk eventually. In another incarnation, a huge silk-screen of Buddy Holly had hung on the wall. Now there was a blank space, a sorry rectangle of faded beige paint.

He sat down, noticing he had two telephones on his desk and nothing else, no in-tray, no notepad, no pencils or pens. It was almost as if Nimmo had deliberately peeled the operation down to a minimum. Which wouldn't make sense in the circumstances, unless you took into account Nimmo's sense of empire. Pagan could have his own facility, sure, but only up to a point. If he wanted any of life's luxuries – like pencil and paper – he'd probably have to requisition them through the Führer.

Hunched in his overcoat, scarf still round his neck, Pagan saw his own breath cloud the air. He rubbed his cold hands together, then undid the holstered gun and shoved it in a drawer of his desk. He made a small sound of relief.

‘Armed, I see,' Foxie commented.

‘Do I detect disapproval, Foxie?'

‘Not from me you don't. It's an uncertain world we inhabit.'

Billy Ewing appeared in the doorway, sniffing, the tip of his nose scarlet. ‘Good to see you back, Frank.'

‘It's almost nice to be back.'

‘Is there any chance of getting the heat turned on?' Ewing asked. ‘My office upstairs is like a bloody morgue. I'm sitting there like a slab of meat.' Ewing took from the pocket of his coat an inhaler and shoved it into his left nostril, sniffed, repeated the process on the right.

‘Sinuses still playing up?' Pagan asked.

‘They have a life of their own. I'm thinking of leaving them to science.'

‘Got anything for me?'

‘Bumph.' Ewing stepped as far into the room as he could before the cartons impeded his progress. He had dolorous eyes and a downcast mouth. He invariably reminded Pagan of a comedian whose stage persona is that of a man dominated by a harridan of a wife. He carried a hefty computer printout under his arm.

‘So far eighty-two have been positively I-D'd, Frank. I've spent the last four hours running the names. No small chore.'

‘We're thankful, Billy. Believe me.'

Billy Ewing glanced at Pagan and frowned. He sometimes had moments when he couldn't assess Pagan's tone of voice. The man had a kind of deadpan manner. You were never sure with Pagan.

‘So. What's turned up?'

‘Out of the total so far, twelve had some kind of police record.'

Pagan beat his hands together for warmth. The radiator stuttered. Faraway in the building pipes could be heard knocking. The electric drill kept buzzing. ‘Twelve out of eighty-two,' he said.

‘Aye,' said Ewing. ‘Look for yourself,' and he made to toss the computer-generated sheets on to Pagan's desk.

‘Why don't you hold on to that, Billy? Just give me a summary.'

‘A summary,' Ewing said, as if the word had the dead weight of a chore too terrible to contemplate. He fished inside his pocket, brought out the nasal inhaler, two handkerchiefs and a small notebook, everything jumbled together.

‘You're organized, I see,' Foxworth said.

‘You'd be bloody organized if you were up all bloody night tapping a keyboard and staring at a screen. I didn't join the force to be a glorified typist. I could have stayed in Glasgow and gone to secretarial college for that, Christ.' Ewing opened the notebook. ‘Right. Six had speeding violations. Two of the six hadn't paid up.'

‘Proper villains,' Pagan said.

‘Another two had forgery convictions.'

‘Two forgers on one train?'

‘Maybe they were travelling together,' Ewing said. ‘Maybe they were on their way to a forgers' convention or something.'

‘Keep going,' Pagan said.

‘Another had been tried for the theft of a car and acquitted.'

‘That leaves one more.'

‘The last one's a nutter. A chap called Joseph Dracowitz, who'd done time for firing a water pistol at Margaret Thatcher.'

‘One wonders why that was considered a crime,' Pagan said.

‘A dim view was taken by Her Ladyship. Dracowitz got thirty days for his little jest. He was a radical of sorts. You know the type. Fighting at demonstrations. Scuffling with cops. The Thatcher incident was the last straw.'

Pagan stood up. He felt a small admiration for the late Dracowitz, wondering if the water pistol had struck Maggie in the eye. ‘And that's it.'

Ewing said, ‘That's it so far.'

‘Did Dracowitz belong to any odd political organizations that we know about?' Foxie asked. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed. Pagan found it easy to imagine Robbie Foxworth lounging insouciantly in the drawing-room of a country house, surrounded by men in pink hunting coats, ladies in jodhpurs, glasses of hot whisky going the rounds. How had Foxworth survived his very genteel background intact? Depth of character, Pagan supposed. An element of iconoclasm.

Billy Ewing touched the tip of his nose and appeared on the edge of a mighty sneeze he fought back. ‘Dracowitz was something of a drifter. He went from one fringe outfit to another. Mostly harmless groups, the kind that tend to attract a membership of five and have the life span of an aphid. Squabblers. Ranters. Dunderheads.'

Pagan pressed his fingertips against his eyelids. ‘Not the kind to make a kamikaze of himself in the London Underground?'

‘I'd think not,' Ewing said. ‘But you never know. There are some right daft people about.'

‘Do you have an address for him?'

‘Right here. Cricklewood.' Ewing tore a page from the notebook, then clambered over cartons to give the page to Pagan, who looked at Ewing's scribble. Joseph Dracowitz's address was listed as number 38 Shoot-Up Hill.