Old Enemies (35 page)

‘We’ve cut, we’ve reorganized, we’ve reshaped and restructured . . .’

‘Sure. Things might be much better in six months’ time.’

‘I don’t have six months.’

The American sucked his teeth. ‘But right now, you’re offering furniture from a fire sale while the cushion’s still burning.’

‘You buy my share, you’ll as good as control the company.’

‘I buy your share, I buy your debt.’

‘Make me an offer. Or I’ll have to put the shares on the open market.’

‘OK.’ He held up a finger. ‘One.’

‘One million?’ The bastard was trying to screw him. They were worth more than that.

But Cutter was shaking his head. ‘One
pound
. That’s my offer, with all that debt hanging round its neck. One pound is what the Russian Lebedev paid for the
Standard
, and another pound for the
Independent
. Seems like the going rate for newspapers in trouble.’

‘You can’t—’

‘You know I have to put personal feeling aside on this.’

But the comparison with the
Standard
and the
Indy
is outrageous, you miserable chiselling bastard, my life’s work for a pound? J.J. wanted to scream, but didn’t. He couldn’t afford to show any sign of weakness. He was glad he’d kept on his jacket because he was sweating like a pig beneath it, his shirt drenched. Soon beads of perspiration would burst out beneath his hairline and betray him, reveal his fear. This couldn’t go on.

‘Very well, I’ll put the shares on the open market, see if that gets a better response.’

‘But you can’t do that for a month,’ Cutter replied softly.

Something inside J.J. died. He thought it might be the last flicker of the flame that had kept his hope alive. ‘Our Articles of Association require that I give you first refusal, which I’ve done.’

‘They also provide that we have twenty-eight days to think about it.’

‘You’ve thought about it.’

And now the circumcised soul leaked out of Cutter’s eyes. ‘I want to think about it some more. Maybe in a week or so, I could make you a different offer.’

But nothing like what the shares were worth. The man was feral, couldn’t see a wounded animal without attacking, taking advantage. It was his nature. He’d guessed that J.J. was coming to the end of his resources, couldn’t beg or borrow much more, so Cutter’s reaction had been immediate and instinctive. Leave the sucker twisting on the spit for a week or two, and he’d be even easier to tear apart.

J.J. stood up. He wanted to say something, words that might form a profound rebuke, some epitaph to carve on the stone above the grave they were digging for him. But nothing came. He walked away.

It was a tradition called
osmizze
that dated back to the emperors, a period of a week or so when officialdom turned a blind eye and allowed the Slovene farmers of the plateau to serve up their own food and wine on their premises without the usual suffocating blanket of permits and price regulation, even without taxation. All that was required was for the farmer to hang a wine flask above the door as a sign he should be left alone. The tradition had been fiercely defended and had survived, flourished even, a mark that even in a world of universal edicts those who lived on the Carso ran their affairs by a different set of rules.

D’Amato and Simona enjoyed the tradition to its full, nestled in a corner of the farmhouse beneath ancient smoke-stained beams, sampling the plates of ham and cheese and sauerkraut soup, followed by marinated pork covered in white flakes of the ubiquitous grated horseradish, and everything washed down with enough Terrano to put them both well over the limit. While he paid the bill in cash she tottered in the direction of his car, and after he had stuck his wallet away he ran after her, anxious not to be apart for even a moment, and marvelling yet again at his good fortune as the seat belt pulled her sweater tight against her body, leaving little to his overheated imagination.

The darkness, as in most places up on the plateau, was profound. They left the hamlet with only the headlights to pick out the crumbling stonework and the twisted shadows of the passing trees. There were no other cars; they were alone. It didn’t take long for his eager hand to find her knee. As they began to swing down the narrow, winding road, his hand crept higher, ever more urgent, stroking, searching, until with a gasp of exhilaration from them both it found its place between her thighs. There it stayed as the car rolled gently through every corner, swinging back and forth, one way, then the other. While she moaned, D’Amato screamed inside, he hadn’t felt like this for twenty years, perhaps ever. This woman made him feel an entirely changed, more potent creature. Oh, he loved his wife and children but he
lusted
after this girl, which right here and now meant so much more. And she responded, with every slow twist of the wheel along this dark, secretive road that was leading them to a wonderful place. And soon, he knew, it would be his turn.

At last, very gently, she removed his hand, whispering something in gratitude, he didn’t hear what, it didn’t matter, it wasn’t a moment for words. As the road emerged from the woods the view before them opened out and became spectacular – the dancing lights of Trieste, the ribbon of its seafront, and the gracious curve of the gulf marked out by varying degrees of shadow. He pulled over to a spot where they could spend a few moments more, lost in their private world. She lit them both a cigarette; as he took his from her lips, she kissed his fingers.

‘Are they still causing you trouble?’ she asked after a while.

‘Who?’

‘The two Englishmen.’

D’Amato, even at a moment like this, didn’t require much prompting. Like most policemen his mind kept snagging on his work. ‘They still insist the local Romanians are involved.’ He took down another lungful of nicotine. ‘What do you think, my little bird?’

‘My opinion is nothing. But it doesn’t make much sense to me. The boy was kidnapped in Switzerland, no? If they were local, why bring all that trouble to their own doorstep?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘But I’m worried. What will happen to you if the two Englishmen carry on like this?’

‘To me?’

‘The more noise they make, the more it will . . .’ she hesitated, stretching for the appropriate words – ‘remind people that you lost the boy. When he was at the farmhouse. It all went wrong. That isn’t good for you, is it?’

He raised his cigarette to his lips, could still smell her on his fingers. He gazed out at an anonymous light that was blinking somewhere out to sea. He had to admit she had a point.

‘And if they keep making their accusations, it will do nothing but stir up trouble in the community. You know how sensitive we immigrants can be.’ She laughed, but he didn’t join in. Trieste had a reputation for welcoming immigrants, it was a long-established port, an international highway, had two official languages, Italian and Slovene, and a dozen different religions represented in its churches. It was a melting pot that had been formed slowly and been stirred successfully over many centuries. Yet that reputation was under strain. In recent years, too many immigrants had arrived too quickly, resentment was growing on both sides, the pot was beginning to boil and bubble, and God help whoever was on watch when it overflowed. Not him, not Francesco D’Amato, he wasn’t going to allow two bastard Englishmen to start a stampede that would trample across his reputation. If that happened, he would lose everything, including his little bird, and he did not want that, wouldn’t allow it. He reached for her hand.

‘An English boy, South Africans, strange Romanians – to hell with them all. Nothing to do with you and me, eh?’

She rested her head on his shoulders. ‘I would hate anything to come between us, Francesco.’

He kissed her. ‘Don’t worry, my little bird, it won’t.’

No, jumping into that particular cesspit was the last thing on his mind. Even if the Romanian gang was still here, he guessed it wouldn’t be hanging around for long, would move on and take its troubles with it. Sometimes, for the greater good, it was better to use a deaf ear.

He started the car once more, driving away with considerably more impatience than they had arrived; it was his turn now, he wanted to get back to the hotel. As the lights of the city flashed past, so much more brilliant than anything she had ever known in her small town in Romania, Simona thanked the gods of good fortune that she had been brought to this place and to this man. They were the answer to her every dream. She had told her cousin, Nelu, that if he wanted any further help then he and the other members of his gang would have to pay for it. She had told him very bluntly; she wanted her cut.

Nelu had begun by expressing gratitude but also marked reluctance, until she had reminded him that without her every member of the gang would have been caught and would be facing a lifetime in some scumbag prison, unless, of course, they’d already been shot. It was, he admitted, a strong point, and what remained of his reluctance vanished when she reminded him of what her cooperation would mean. It was nothing less than a guarantee that they would never be caught, not in Trieste, not on D’Amato’s patch. Not while she was at his side.

Nelu was not an unreasonable man. As Simona set out her case, what she suggested began to seem an excellent idea to him. And after a brief but heated discussion it had also come to recommend itself to Cosmin and the others. So now they were six. The gang had just got larger, and far more powerful.

J.J. returned to his home in Notting Hill. Unlike previous nights since his son’s kidnap, he didn’t go straight to the decanter, instead he sought out Terri, who was sitting, gazing listlessly at a book, with one eye fixed on her candle. He stood in the doorway; he didn’t need to say anything, she could see it in his tortured face, but he said it anyhow.

‘I’ve failed.’ The voice was no more than a whisper, like the rustling of scorched paper. ‘I can’t raise the money, not that quickly.’ On feet of lead he came to sit beside her, the closest they had been in days. She stared at him, knew he was breaking.

‘How far short are we?’

‘I don’t know – around two million.’

‘Your father . . .’

He nodded. ‘But it’s not enough.’

She hesitated, wondering whether the moment had come, whether he was desperate enough for what was coming next. But she had little choice, she had to take the gamble. ‘I had a call today. A man named Sopwith-Dane.’

J.J.’s head came up. ‘Know the name – something in the City, I think.’

‘He said he had a client, a business colleague, who had heard about Ruari.’

‘But how? Who?’

‘He said his client would be ready to lend us as much as we needed, until we had things sorted.’

‘But who the hell—?’ Yet already J.J. had answered his own question, and his face twisted. ‘It’s Jones, I know it is. Your fucking friend.’

‘He wouldn’t say, J.J.’

But they both knew.

‘Does it matter?’ she whispered.

‘Of course it does!’ His face was like a clown’s mask, struggling to hide what was inside, but too much pain and fear had been building up over recent days, and now it overflowed. ‘There was that film, wasn’t there? The one that posed the question, would a man let his wife screw another man for a million? What do you think the going rate is, Terri?’

‘Don’t, J.J.,’ she pleaded, her eyes filling with tears.

‘Damn him! Damn him!’ her husband sobbed as he buried his head in his hands.

Harry lay alone on the soft, supportive contours of his bed, listening to the sounds of the city at night. He’d barely slept in seventy-two hours and knew he would get precious little sleep tonight while he struggled to calm his fears – not for himself, but for a kid he didn’t even know.

Sounds of late-night revelry crept through his open window from a distant corner of the piazza, yet even as the young Triestines stumbled and caroused their way along, Harry reckoned that by most standards the disturbance was modest, subdued, like so much of this city. A poet had once written that when Trieste had lost its pre-eminence as a port its prostitutes had disappeared, and with them they had taken the city’s soul, yet the suspicion was growing inside Harry that the Triestines took their professed modesty altogether too seriously; this was still a port, after all, with its swirling mixture of races and humanities, a road to nowhere, perhaps, but also a road to everywhere, and if its solid citizens failed to see any sign of trouble it was only because they preferred to bury their heads in a plateful of cake rather than look out for it as it passed by the shutters.