The Silent Pool (29 page)

He came around the desk and to Erasmus’ amazement he embraced him.

‘Everything will be fine, my son, and you will help me, yes, help me to find my enemies?’ he whispered.

Erasmus got to his feet mumbling that he would help. His chest was tight and the air seemed thin and impossible. Bovind patted him on the back and guided him from the room.

CHAPTER 34

Outside the Pastor was waiting for Erasmus. He appraised Erasmus with cold eyes for a moment and then held out his hand.

‘I knew we would meet again. We have a story to tell, you and I. But we weren't formally introduced last time. I am Thomas Canch, Mr Bovind's spiritual adviser. Here is my card. Please call me the moment you have anything to report, anything at all. We are both working to protect Mr Bovind now.’

Erasmus looked at the card. It described Mr Canch as a Pastor. He looked him directly in the eye.

‘Tell me something, did you put a pig's head in my apartment?’

The Pastor gave Erasmus the coldest of smiles. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about?’

Erasmus noticed the Pastor's flint grey eyes flick slightly to the left: he was lying.

The Pastor leaned in close, his lips almost touching Erasmus’ cheek. ‘If I wanted to frighten you, Mr Jones, I wouldn't use a pig's head, I would use your daughter.’

Erasmus wanted to react but his vision narrowed, darkness appearing at the periphery: he was panicking. The Pastor and Bovind had hit home and he needed to get out of here as quickly as possible.

‘Are you all right, Mr Jones?’ asked the Pastor with a flat voice.

Erasmus felt his lungs were not taking in any air. ‘I'll, I need the lift.’

‘It's coming. Are you sure you're quite well?’ The Pastor was smiling.

‘If you ever threaten my daughter again I will kill you,’ snarled Erasmus. But it was though the words were spoken by someone else, someone far below Erasmus’ consciousness which seemed to have departed his body and was floating somewhere above him.

‘“For he knows the plans that he has for you,”’ drawled the Pastor.

‘What?’

‘Jeremiah 29:11.’

‘Of course, see you around, like a ball, Jones 42.’

The Pastor grabbed the top of his arm and squeezed tightly. ‘You mock me and that is fine, but if you mock the Lord then you will be judged.’

Erasmus looked down at the Pastor's hand and prepared to strike.

The Pastor relaxed his grip. ‘You may leave now,’ he said.

Erasmus turned his back on the Pastor and hit the call button for the lift again. As he waited for the lift to arrive he resisted the urge to face the Pastor who he could hear breathing softly a yard behind him. As he turned around in the lift he came face to face again with the Pastor. The Pastor's eyes, cold as steel, bore into him. Erasmus felt a strange desire to lower his eyes but he returned his gaze. It was like looking into the night and he was relieved when the doors of the lift closed.

Barry was seated in the lobby reading a copy of
Guns and Ammo
.

‘Your boyfriend left without waiting for you,’ said Barry without looking up from his magazine.

‘
Guns and Ammo
, you know what Freud would say about your interest in long metal projectile ejaculators?’

‘Eh?’ said Barry.

Erasmus smiled but inside his muscles felt like jelly. Pins and needles were shooting up and down his arms and legs.

‘Nothing, be seeing you around, we're working together now. You should get some ice for your nose.’

‘What?’ said Barry.

‘Ask your boss,’ said Erasmus.

As soon as he stepped outside Erasmus began to shake. It was a cold day but he began to sweat. His breath became short and the world shrank to the few yards immediately in front of him. He needed booze quickly.

Back in his suite Bovind picked up his phone. ‘Follow him,’ he said into the receiver.

CHAPTER 35

In the midst of his panic attack some sense did remain. Erasmus had been through this before and he knew he wouldn't die, probably. It always felt this way, a suffocating blanket of anxiety and physical responses from his unreliable, treacherous body. He just had to ride it out and he would be fine despite the physiological feeling of impending doom.

Erasmus tried calling Pete but all he got was his answering service. No matter, Erasmus knew where he would be found.

The Grapes was Pete's favourite watering hole. But his second favourite in the city, the Philharmonic, was only five minutes’ walk away from the hotel and there was no way that Pete would pass up an opportunity to have a pint there while at this end of town. The Philharmonic sat at the corner of Hope Street and Mount Pleasant and was almost directly opposite the Philharmonic concert hall from whence it garnered its name.

On the pavement outside the pub stood three smokers.
Grey faced and yellow toothed they may be
, thought Erasmus,
but they seem happy
. He inhaled as he passed them on the way into the pub and felt some bitter, magical secondhand smoke filter into his lungs.

The pub was dark, a darkness borne of expensive mahogany wall panelling and stain glass windows. The bar on the left was lined with shiny brass pumps each advertising a real ale. The pub was busy and the clientele a mixture of students, bohemian artist types – probably accountants or middle managers weekending – and old timers who looked like they never left the place. His panic was still coming on in rolling waves of adrenaline and he tried to ignore the physical warning signs from his body. Erasmus thought of it as a pilot ignoring a faulty cockpit warning light. Everything will be all right, he told himself, but booze would undoubtedly help.

To his right were snugs, one called the Brahms, the other the Liszt, and then a corridor that ran to a larger seating area. Erasmus poked his head round the doorframe into Brahms and there was Pete sitting in a green chesterfield that had seen better days. He was nursing a pint and looking at his iPhone.

He didn't look up from the screen but he pointed at the bar. ‘Get a pint first, this is thirsty work and we need all the brain juice we can. I recommend the Devil's Squire, it's got a spicy finish, perfect for autumn.’

Erasmus didn't bother responding, instead he turned on his heels and went and ordered a pint. When it came he decided it wouldn't touch the panic so he ordered a large scotch to go with it, which he sank quickly before walking back to see Pete.

The plan had been to confront Bovind and see how he reacted to hearing that he may be being hunted. His response was to admit being blackmailed and sending men to deal with it. It seemed too easy, but Bovind mentioning the pig's carcass had made him realise two things. Firstly, that Bovind had wanted him scared off. Secondly it had made him realise that he was not over what had happened in Helmand, that he would never be over what had happened.

When he returned Pete had pulled up a chair next to his and was holding out his iPhone for Erasmus to get a closer look. The screen showed the BBC website, the third story on the homepage was ‘Third Wavers Won't Turn the Other Cheek in Liverpool’.

‘I can't be bothered reading that, what's the gist?’

The truth was that in the midst of his panic his eyes were refusing to behave in their normal fashion and focus on things. He took a deep swig of his pint.

‘The skinny, my legal friend, is that Professor Cannon is leading a march for rationality on Saturday and that Father Michael has issued a call to all Third Wavers to join him on a counter march to show support for the Mayor's education policies. He wants to lead a march from the Third Wave Cathedral, the old Catholic Cathedral as I still think of it, back there at the end of Hope Street along to the old Anglican Cathedral. The march coincidentally cuts directly across the route of Professor Cannon's march right on the corner here. If we were here on Saturday we would have a front row seat to the mayhem.’

Erasmus felt the first calming caress of the alcohol on his jacked up nervous system. ‘Lovely, so the city gets a religious punch up.’

‘Civilization breeds chaos. It's nature's way of balancing things out,’ said Pete.

‘Bollocks, it's just bald men arguing over a comb. I better ring Miranda and tell her to take Abby out of town on Saturday.’

‘So what was the secret squirrel stuff with Bovind? He wasn't very grateful we saved his life, was he?’

‘I think he may have murdered Stephen, Miles and the others.’

Pete nodded nonchalantly. ‘He seems like the best suspect.’

‘And I'm now acting for him in a professional capacity. As are you. We've agreed to find out who's blackmailing him. He thinks it was Stephen and that's why his gone missing.’

Erasmus told Pete everything.

‘Question. If we think Bovind has had Stephen killed why did he pay off Stephen and then kill him? Why not just kill him straightaway?’ asked Pete.

‘I think something else happened. Maybe Stephen went back for more or the others got involved and saw a payday. I think that once the ball started rolling Bovind decided to take decisive action and maybe there was an accident, who knows? But once one had gone the others had to follow.’

‘Petersen didn't seem the blackmailing type. You don't buy Bovind's claim that he was set up?’

Erasmus shook his head. ‘It's possible but I'm an Ockham's Razor type of guy – the simplest theory is usually the most likely. He wanted the blackmail to stop, he had the means to do that and he did. If Stephen did send the letter then it's pretty conclusive.’

‘I agree. So, what are we going to do?’

‘I need you to make some calls and get hold of the police report on Tomas Radzinski. Bovind said he just punched him but I wonder whether there was more to it than that, maybe he gave him a beating that left him vulnerable to Frank Burns? Can you do that?’

Pete nodded. ‘On one condition though,’ he said.

‘What's that?’

‘That in preparation for this mission you join me in getting a little bit wasted in this fine old pub.’

Self-medication seemed like a perfect solution to Erasmus. His nerves were still taut. Mention of the pig's carcass had caused him to come apart like a kite in a hurricane. Before putting things back together he needed to take those feelings and drown them like cats in a sack.

‘I guess it's my round then?’

Erasmus stood up and made his way to the bar. The barmaid, a pretty brunette in her late twenties, gave him a welcoming smile. He felt himself unwind a little, the second pint would take the edge off and from then on things might just be OK.

He took the pints back to the table and as he walked into the room where Pete was sitting a memory hit him like a mortar round. It was a memory from this pub, a drunken night six months ago when him and Pete had swapped their war stories after many drinks.

On that night he had told Pete about the children and the pig's heads. Pete had known, he was the only person who had known, and Pete had betrayed him. It explained why Pete had vanished at the church. He hadn't gone for a drink, he had set the fire.

Pete looked up at him from his phone and waved him over. Erasmus felt his heart harden and the soldier in him take over.

He had a job to do.

CHAPTER 36

The Mayor exhaled and for the first time in weeks felt a sense of something approaching calm settle over him.

He was in Elena's apartment in the Mann Island building, a glassy black pyramid that stood on the waterfront. The apartment was one of the better, river facing ones. Elena never took money from him but when she needed an apartment the Mayor had spoken with the developer, who happened to be one of the Mayor's largest campaign contributors. Elena had been delighted when she was told by the building agent of a newly announced special offer on the one remaining penthouse.

The Mayor liked it here and not just because of Elena. He liked to lie on the bed and look out on the river that was the heart of the city. Here he could let his mind wander and imagine the liners of a hundred years ago setting sail for the New World and dreams of freedom.

Elena was in the kitchen fixing him a drink, whisky, his third, and he had only been here an hour. He was too uptight to respond to Elena's advances and he just wanted to lay here and hide. He had insisted that she turn the television off, and his BlackBerry® remained switched off in his mayoral Mercedes parked below.

The Mayor watched a ferry strike out for the Wirral. The sky was a smudged purple and for a moment he was taken by the beauty of it all.

He remembered the first time his father had taken him to the Pier Head and they had caught the ferry across the Mersey. He had been so excited to go on an outing with his father who so rarely had time away from work. They had bought hot dogs from the kiosk and then walked across the precarious tunnel that linked the shore to the floating jetty in the Mersey. The ferry had approached at what seemed to be far too fast a speed to avoid a serious collision with the jetty.

‘Look at the tyres, son, see them there on the boat and on the jetty. They act as buffers against any damages, they protect the ship.’

Sure enough the biggest tyres that he had ever seen, as big as cars, were strung on the side of the ferry and on the jetty and the ferry's impact was dampened by the tyres.

‘Stand back, son.’

Clattering and banging of wood, rope and metal had led to the gangplank being lowered and commuters from the Wirral disgorging. When they had cleared they had walked across the gangplank and then up some stairs before taking a seat on the upper deck next to a lifeboat.

‘What if we sink?’ he had asked his father.

‘Rarely happens and even if it does, these ferries are special boats, they right themselves should they capsize. They are the only boats in the world that can do that. My father told me that and now I'm telling you. It's because this city.’ He had gestured at the three graces. ‘This city is unique. Carl Jung called it the pool of life and he wasn't wrong. It's more American than English. It looks west, son, to new ideas, new ways of thinking, new life. But there is a price for that, son, this city was the hub of the slave trade, that river brings trade, prosperity but also blood. It's a red river, son.’ And with that he squeezed his son's arm.