Jigsaw (27 page)

‘That's to his credit,' Pagan said.

Foxie looked at the bookshelves, removed a copy of
Lady Chatterley's Lover
, skimmed the pages, then returned the book. ‘He obviously preferred books to telly.'

Pagan strolled inside the kitchen. Pots and pans hung on the walls. The tiled work surfaces were spotless. The cabinets contained an array of Baxter's soups. Scotch broth. Cream of pheasant. The refrigerator was practically empty; a carton of milk, an apple shrivelled to the size of a walnut, two jars of spaghetti sauce, a single brown egg to which a fleck of feather adhered. There were no notes pinned to walls or magnetized to the refrigerator. No reminders, no shopping lists, no telephone numbers. Inside a closet Pagan found a half-drunk bottle of Rémy Martin and a couple of prescription bottles. One contained sleeping pills, the other antibiotics. The antibiotics hadn't been used, but the sleeping pills had. So Bryce needed a little help dozing off at night.

Pagan went back into the living-room. Foxie was standing at the desk, gazing at the answering-machine, whose red light was blinking.

‘Let's hear the messages,' Pagan said.

Foxie pushed the playback button, the tape whirred a second. A woman's voice said
Bryce, sweetheart, why don't you give me a call? You know my number. Have you made any decision about Robin's party?
The message ended. The voice hadn't been Mrs Canningsby's. The next message was from another woman.
Bryce? This is DeeDee Gauge. Are you interested in making up the numbers at a dinner party next Friday night? It's at Daxen's place and I suppose it will be a bit of a bloody bore because they always are but a promise is a promise is a promise. Anyway. Do let me know, will you? Love and kisses
. There was a sucking sound and then the message ended.

‘He had women coming out the woodwork,' Foxie said. ‘Maybe he suffered from satyriasis.'

The machine was silent a second before the third and final message played. This time it was a man's voice.
Bryce. This is Jake Streik. Listen. Listen. If you're there, pick up. OK. I need to talk with you. How are things holding up at your end? I got problems. Listen. I'll get back to you later tonight if I can. You want my advice, get the fuck outta London. Get away from The Undertakers, unnerstand? Walk away from all that shit. If you don't you're a dead man
…
Bryce? You there? Bryce?

Pagan listened attentively. ‘Play that one again, Foxie.'

Foxie rewound the tape, turned up the volume because the sound was faint, distant, as if the call had originated in another country. Pagan listened to the message a second time. When it was over, he walked to the window and looked out at the rainswept heath. He remembered Victoria Canningsby's words.
I believe I'm correct in saying Bryce feared for his life
. And now this Streik:
if you don't you're a dead man
.

‘He sounds desperate,' Foxie said.

‘Panic-stricken. I wonder what his problems are and how they're connected to Bryce Harcourt. Why was he urging Harcourt to get out of London?'

‘And who are The Undertakers?' Foxie asked. ‘Is Streik using a euphemism along the lines of Grim Reaper?'

Pagan turned from the window. Something was shifting in his head, a gear changing, as if all at once this investigation was drawing him in directions he didn't want to go. Foxie's suggestion that Harcourt's presence on the train was the only reason for the bomb – this suddenly shed its outer skin of implausibility. He wasn't prepared to accept it completely just yet, but it had taken shape at the back of his mind as a possibility, a small fungus in a cellar. What the hell was there in Harcourt's life that had made him a victim, that had Jake Streik so worried about him? Why had he lived in fear?
Get away from The Undertakers
.

Pagan didn't like how his thoughts were becoming fractured, webby little strands that billowed this way and that.

‘OK. Let's say Carlotta planted the device. Let's imagine Bryce was the only target. What the hell did he do to deserve to be killed? Why would somebody hire Carlotta to kill him?' He sat on the sofa and looked round the room in a stricken manner. ‘What I want to know is the connection between Streik and Harcourt. I want to know what kind of trouble Harcourt and Streik were in.'

‘Exactly how do you propose to achieve that?'

Pagan rose, picked up the telephone directory, looked up the number for the American Embassy. ‘The logical place to start would be with a certain Al Quarterman. Maybe he can throw some light on the matter.'

He dialled the number. The phone rang for a long time before it was picked up by a woman who said, ‘United States Embassy.'

Pagan asked to speak with Quarterman.

‘Can I say who's calling?'

‘Frank Pagan.'

Pagan waited. There was a certain amount of clicking on the line. Then he heard Al Quarterman's voice.

‘Frank. What can I do for you?'

‘I'd like a meeting.'

‘Has something come up?'

‘You might say that.'

‘I don't have anything on this afternoon so far as I can see.'

‘You know Brown's Hotel?'

‘I can find it.'

‘Meet me there in an hour.'

‘Fine.' Quarterman hung up.

Pagan looked a moment at the answering-machine. He slipped the cassette out of the machine and put it in his pocket.

Traffic in Mayfair was congested. Buses slugged through heavy rain, taxis idled in eclipses of their own pollution. Foxie travelled side streets, but even these were clogged with delivery vans and cars. He managed to find a parking space a block from Brown's. Al Quarterman was already waiting for them in the lobby.

‘I suggest the bar,' Pagan said. He introduced Foxie, who shook Quarterman's rather clammy hand with his usual good-natured vigour.

The bar was empty. Quarterman sniffed the air of the hotel, as if he thought old English authenticity might have a scent all its own. Pagan had found that most Americans were afflicted by an exaggerated affection for anything that suggested antiquity. They were like rather amiable vultures feasting with great fascination on old bones. He found this trait touching at times.

Pagan ordered three lagers, which the waiter brought to a corner table. Quarterman sipped his, then smacked his thin lips. His jaundiced complexion seemed even more pronounced than it had before.

‘So, Frank. What's on your mind?'

‘Bryce Harcourt.'

Quarterman looked into his lager. ‘Poor Bryce. What a way to die.'

‘I need some information. Such as – what did he actually do at the Embassy?'

‘I thought I'd covered that ground before.'

‘Look. I don't want to trespass on anything remotely sensitive—'

‘Sensitive?'

‘But Harcourt was in some kind of trouble, and I want to know if it was connected with anything he might have done at the Embassy. If it's within your authority to tell me—'

‘He was a researcher. That's it. I'm not sure what direction you're taking, Frank. I don't know anything about deep trouble. He seemed OK to me. If he had problems, I would have known about them. Here's a guy I knew socially, a guy I saw every working day of my life.'

‘Does the name Jake Streik mean anything to you?'

‘You come out of left field, don't you?' Quarterman looked thoughtful.

‘Streik left a bizarre message on Harcourt's answering-machine. A warning.'

‘Why this flurry of interest in Harcourt anyhow? Where did all this suddenly come from? What led you to Harcourt's apartment? The guy died in the goddam explosion, Frank. He was the unfortunate victim of some kind of terrorist attack. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why are you probing into his life?'

‘Because it's my job.'

Quarterman smiled his sombre smile, and set down his lager. ‘You're not saying, right?'

‘Let's get back to Streik. Does it ring any bells?'

‘I can't say it does, Frank. Sorry.'

Pagan sat back. ‘Streik mentioned something about undertakers, which was presumably a reference Harcourt would have understood. What does that mean to you?'

‘Undertakers,' Quarterman said. ‘Doesn't mean a thing.' He reached for his glass. As he did so, an expression of pained surprise crossed his face. His features contorted, his mouth dropped open, and he slumped back in his chair, his arms dangling at his sides. For a second Pagan thought the man had suffered a sudden heart attack but then he saw blood flow from Quarterman's chest and he got up, kicking aside his chair and turning to the door in time to see a man in a dark-green overcoat hurry toward the street exit.

Pagan dashed across the bar, reached the lobby, saw the man rush into the street. He charged after him, mindless of pedestrians in his way, scattering aside two fur-coated old women who swore viciously at him from under their shared umbrella. The man was swift, swifter than Pagan, younger, fitter, but Pagan kept going anyway, pushing hard as he could even as he realized that the man who'd shot Quarterman was drawing away from him. Breathing heavily, lungs aching, he sprinted up the street, thinking of his own gun stuck uselessly in his office desk.

The gunman had already turned a corner and was probably more than a hundred yards away by this time. But Pagan kept at it, blood thundering in his head. He saw the gunman turn another corner and still he chased. The man was pulling further away with every step: he gave the impression of a dark-green blur. His long sandy hair bounced against his collar as he fled. Puffing, Pagan forced himself through space, conscious of his blurred reflection in the windows of shops. He looked crazed, coat flying, face flushed, a halfwit in the rain.

The gunman turned yet another corner.

Why doesn't somebody stop him, whatever happened to citizen's arrests, doesn't anybody have a conscience these days?

Pagan reached the corner – but there was no sight of the man, who might have gone in one of several directions or even into one of the buildings. How could you tell? He collapsed against a wall: a monstrous pressure rose in his throat. Fireflies buzzed in his eyes. This isn't good enough, Frank. This is ignominious. It will say on your epitaph:
Ran Himself Into The Ground
. He was sweating heavily.

He remained motionless for a long time and when he'd recovered his strength he walked slowly back to the hotel. Inside the bar Foxworth was standing over Quarterman. He'd unbuttoned the American's shirt. He raised his face, looked at Pagan, shook his head.

An assortment of hotel staff was fussing around, clucking. ‘Clear the room,' Pagan said. ‘Everybody out. Now!'

‘I don't think he knew what hit him,' Foxworth said when the room was empty.

Pagan looked down at the dead man. Then he sagged into a chair and shook his head. He drew a hand wearily across his damp face.

‘What are we not supposed to find out about Bryce Harcourt and Jake Streik?' Foxie asked. A muscle in his neck strained. ‘What is so bloody important that a gunman takes the risk of shooting a man in the middle of Mayfair in broad bloody daylight, for God's sake?'

Pagan licked his dry lips.

He had a sensation of being lost in the Underground tunnel, that he'd taken a wrong turning somewhere and wandered into abandoned passageways where trains no longer ran and rails had rusted long ago, secret shafts where the air was unbreathable and no light ever fell and everything was shrouded by the dank bloom of mystery.

NINETEEN

VENICE

T
OBIAS
B
ARRON HAD SCHEDULED A BRIEF MEETING BEFORE HIS EVENING
meal. His visitor was an Afrikaner named Rolfe Van den Kamp, a leather-faced man with hard blue eyes who looked uncomfortable in the wintry climate of Venice. Barron offered sherry; the Afrikaner said he'd prefer something with a kick, and accepted a Wild Turkey straight. The two men sat facing each other in the drawing-room and Van den Kamp threw the drink back in one swallow. He emitted an air of quiet nervousness. ‘I'm glad you could see me at such short notice,' he said.

Barron shrugged. ‘I'm just sorry we didn't have more time together in South Africa.' He'd met Van den Kamp briefly at a cocktail reception held in a Durban hotel, one of those affairs that by their very nature limit conversation to the most superficial level. They had briefly discussed the political situation in South Africa, which Van den Kamp of course thought calamitous. Though he hadn't said so, Barron was of the opinion that the final ascendancy of the blacks was a matter of historical inevitability, and people such as Van den Kamp were struggling to hold back an impossible tide. You could build dykes, stash sandbags against the swell, but in the end Rolfe and those like him were going to be swept away like so many twigs.

Barron said, ‘You know how those receptions are, Rolfe. In and out. Sign a couple of documents, talk to bankers, see a few government officials, make a speech, fly out.'

Rolfe Van den Kamp looked sympathetic. ‘Course, course. I know how busy it gets. I'll help myself to another drink, you don't mind?' He filled his glass to the brim with Wild Turkey. ‘You're not the only one spreading a little light on the Dark Continent, Tobias. Christ,
we
do it all the time. Been doing it for years. Some of our blacks have gone on to vocational schools. Colleges. Course, we footed the bills when necessary.'

Some of our blacks
, Barron thought. Van den Kamp couldn't help the proprietorial note in his voice. His was a world of ownership and patronage; the lords of creation. It was easy to imagine him, a descendant of the Dutch who'd made the Great Trek, standing feet apart and hands on hips and surveying a vast expanse of veld his family owned and that was now menaced by black nationalism. He was a relic of another age, an endangered species.