People Die

A fleeting moment of mental placing and Tom said, “Jesus, JJ. Where are you?”

He noted that final either but let it go for now and answered straight. “Oh, people are after me. Can we meet?”

“Stupid enough to be in London, Tom, not stupid enough to come skipping across Grosvenor Square.” Tom laughed and JJ added, “If you come up North Audley there’s a Waterstone’s bookshop.”

“I know it.”

“Meet me in there in about fifteen minutes. I’ll be looking through the thrillers.”

“Where else? See you there.”

JJ put the phone down and walked along the final fifty yards to the bookshop, the street brimming with people walking slowly, the air fume-sodden but warm and comfortable, like summer was getting a foothold rather than fading out.

In the bookstore he wandered around for a bit, checking where the exits were, making a quick survey of the handful of people browsing. He went over to a large table display of thrillers then and picked one up, pretending to read it while keeping an eye on the two ways Tom might come toward him.

When he noticed him approaching the main doors though, he lowered his eyes to the text and kept them there, sending out the message that there was no question of him not trusting the American. And only as Tom got close did JJ look up, smiling genuinely at the sight of him, the fresh preppy face, neat hair, the East Coast casual clothes.

“See anything you like?”

JJ shook his hand and said, “I’m looking at last pages.”

Tom picked a book up too, idly flicked through it. “I’ve read a lot of these,” he said. “They all try to be different, but the good guys usually live, bad guys usually die.”

“It’s knowing who’s who is the problem.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Tom smiled, looking pleased with himself. “If you die you’re bad, if you live you must be good—it’s the cat in the box thing.”

JJ nodded appreciatively and said, “Quantum physics, I like it.” He paused then and added, “So anyway, do you have any idea what’s going on?”

Tom frowned slightly, like they really had started talking quantum physics. “We’re in the dark,” he said, suddenly speaking as an organization. “We know something’s going on, but we’re basically in the position of sitting on our hands and watching it unfold.” A blue pinstripe approached and started leafing through the array of thrillers. Tom looked around and said, “There’s a café in here, isn’t there?”

“Upstairs.” JJ led the way, again making a point of being unguarded, of letting Tom out of his sight line.

The café was crowded, a lunchtime crowd, office and shop workers on their own or in pairs, more noise coming from the service and kitchen area than was coming from the room itself. They found a small table over to one side which hadn’t been cleared. Tom moved the empty glass and a plate with remnants of a salad and baked potato on it. “You hungry?”

JJ shook his head.

“I’ll get the coffee then. No, you don’t drink coffee. Mint tea or lemon or something like that, right?”

“Yeah, whatever they have.” He watched as Tom went over and got a tray and stood in the line, still something of the Ivy League student about him, a lightness of mood that gave nothing away of the information swimming around inside his head.

When he got to the head of the line he said something to tease the surly woman behind the counter into a smile, and kept at the banter while she loaded the tray with cups and pots of hot water and so on, leaving her with a glow, bashful and flattered. It was the way he was. Middle-aged women probably would have thrown themselves in the path of bullets to protect Tom Furst, JJ uncertain only as to whether he’d have let them.

He came back smiling and sat down, unloading the tray as he spoke. “Peppermint for you.”

“Thanks.”

“So, you didn’t come into the lion’s den for chitchat and wordplay. What can I do for you, JJ?”

“I had a call from someone called Ed Holden. He seems to think you might know him.” Tom looked impressed, either by the name or by the fact that Holden had referred JJ to him.

“Known him since I was a kid,” he said, “friend of my dad’s; they worked together in Berlin. He’s an art history professor at Yale now, officially retired years back but, you know, he’s been active in one capacity or another. Very well connected.”

The final words were weighted with meaning, but if he was so well connected JJ wondered why he wasn’t using those connections rather than enlisting the help of a stranger, unless of course he no longer trusted them, or unless JJ unwittingly had more to offer. He didn’t think for a moment there was any altruism involved. “Well this friend of yours thinks the same person’s trying to kill him and me. He says this present business is cover for a settling of scores.”

Tom nodded thoughtfully and sipped at his coffee, spurring JJ to try the tea, the peppermint vapor almost overpowering.

“He could be onto something there. Some of the people being taken down are minor players. I mean, some of them don’t even register. So it could be smoke and mirrors to cover something else.”

“What though?”

“Beats me.” Tom looked around then before adding in a lower voice, “Did Ed tell you who he thought wanted you dead?”

“Philip Berg.”

That was met with raised eyebrows, another sip of coffee, Tom thinking it over before he replied. “I heard he was killed two days ago. Not that what I heard means very much. And it wouldn’t be without precedent.”

“What do you mean?”

Tom looked around again. JJ was amused by the way it looked, like they were discussing some kind of office gossip—where the next demotion was coming, who was sleeping with whom.

“Berg was involved in a joint operation in the Middle East in the late eighties. It went wrong—spectacularly wrong if you know what I mean—and Berg was in it up to his neck. Then people started to have accidents, couple of people got taken down conventionally. This was before my time, but apparently we were pretty certain Berg was responsible. London was having none of it though, so it was allowed to drop. But within a year there was no one left who could point the finger at Berg.”

JJ knew Berg had been in the Middle East, but it was the first time he’d heard anything like that about him, the man recast now as someone who looked after his people. Maybe the only unusual thing in retrospect was that Viner had never really spoken about him, perhaps knowing where it was best for his indiscretions to end. As of the previous afternoon though, discretion had stopped being enough.

“I think Berg’s alive,” JJ said, telling himself as much as Tom. “Even with what you’ve just told me though, one part of the equation doesn’t fit.”

“And what’s that?”

“I’ve never worked for him, never crossed his path. I don’t even really know anything about him.”

“As far as you’re aware, but clearly Ed thinks otherwise. Doesn’t anything spring to mind?”

He shook his head but thought of the Bostridge job, a hit which as far as he knew had come through the normal channels. Yet Holden had used it as a way of checking who he was on the phone, which meant that he knew the details, and maybe that the connection was there too.

Reminding himself again that Holden’s agenda was as much a mystery to him as Berg’s, he said, “I know he’s your friend, Tom, but what about me? Can I trust this guy Holden?”

“Definitely,” he said without hesitation, backing it up then. “He’s one of us, you know, whatever we are.” JJ liked the touch of unquestioning inclusiveness, based on only rapport and a couple of favors exchanged. Tom’s opinion was probably skewed anyway; Holden was a senior family friend he obviously revered, JJ merely a contact he valued, maybe respected.

“He told me you’d know where I could find him, that he’d gone to ground and there was nowhere to swim.”

Tom smiled at the riddle. “The Copley Inn,” he said immediately, “a guesthouse in Vermont, family friends.”

“Do you have the number?”

“Not on me but we’re in the right place to find it. There’s a book of New England inns; it’s in there. It’s a great place by the way. You could get a flight to Boston ...”

“No, I’ll have to go in through New York, pick some things up. I’ll take the train from there maybe, hire a car.”

“The perfect cover,” Tom said, laughing. “An English tourist in Vermont, September. You’ll fit right in.” He was obviously amused by the thought of JJ going there, like the two things didn’t fit together in his mind.

“I can’t wait,” said JJ, humoring him. “Shall we find the travel section?”

Tom nodded and stood, looking at the table, and then like he’d remembered something important he walked over to the counter and put some change in the tip jar, exchanging a few more words with the woman there.

There was only one other person browsing in the travel section, a girl who looked like she’d just come back from India, all batik and bangles and henna. Tom searched for a while before saying, “We’re in luck,” pulling a slim glossy paperback from the shelf. He leafed through the pages before handing the open book to JJ, pointing with his other hand. “There it is, the Copley Inn.”

He looked at the color picture, taken in the autumn, a large white clapboard house, an image familiar enough to seem artificially picturesque. He looked at the text below but stopped immediately at the name of the proprietor, alarm bells ringing.

Without looking up he said, “Mrs. Susan Bostridge.” Just saying the name gave him a small kick of adrenaline.

“Yeah, her husband and Ed were business partners, friends from way back, at Dartmouth together. Bostridge was killed a couple of years ago.”

“In Moscow, I know.” JJ closed the book and looked at Tom. “I don’t know what Holden’s playing at, but I can’t go there.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve never met the family of a hit before and I don’t intend to start now. It’s baggage I can do without.”

Tom stared at him, taking a few seconds to work out what JJ was getting at.

“You killed David Bostridge?” he said finally. “We thought the Russians did it.”

“That’s how it was meant to look. I’m still surprised you didn’t know.”

“Well, we didn’t. Beats me why not.”

JJ said, “Holden knows, and he knows I did it too. And now it turns out he wants me to go to the house of his lifelong friend and business partner.” It seemed obvious now, the explanation for this stranger calling out of nowhere, perhaps aiming to settle his own score during the wider crisis.

“No, hold up,” Tom said, looking concerned, eager to iron things out. “You’re forgetting something. Ed’s been in the business a long time; he knows you’re just a gun. It’s not his style.”

“You can hardly blame me for being suspicious.”

“Maybe not. But I’ll tell you something, JJ. if he says Berg wants you dead, believe him, and if he says he can help you—well believe that too. I mean, I can understand you not wanting to go there, for lots of reasons, but it could be all there is.”

He had a point, but even with Tom vouching for Holden there was an instinctive recoil from the thought of going there, whether it was safe or not, a heady mix of queasiness and fascination at the thought of being among a victim’s family. JJ said, “I’ll buy the book and I’ll consider it. But I might just see what I can do for myself first.”

“He’s a good man, JJ, trust me.” Tom could see though that his opinion would count for only so much, that JJ operated further to the edges than he’d ever need to go and that he’d find his own way. And Tom had never killed anyone either, an absence of knowledge that was visible in his face, leaving him with only half the story. Seeing that perhaps and deferring, he said, “But if you do decide not to go, you know you always have my number.”

“Thanks.” JJ remembered the phone conversation they’d had a short while before and added, “Speaking of which, one more thing. When I called earlier you said no one was trying to kill me either. What did you mean by that?”

“Of course, I should have mentioned it sooner.” Tom paused, thinking about it like he was only just seeing himself how it tied in with what they’d been discussing. “I told you we’d noticed that some very minor people had been taken down. Well, by the same token, we’ve been surprised to see some pretty major people acting like there’s nothing to worry about.”

“Like who?”

“Esther Sanderton, Nick Hooper, Elliot. The rumor mill has everyone diving for cover, but that’s not what’s happening on the ground, not that we can see anyway.”

JJ made to reply, but the girl in the ethnic mix suddenly walked over and spoke to Tom. “Excuse me, do you work here?”

“No, I don’t,” he said, smiling, looking charmed by the mistake.

She looked put out by his response and like she hadn’t quite understood said anyway, “Only I’m looking for a particular book on India, by somebody Fox.”

“I know the one you mean. Louisa Fox. It came out quite recently.” The girl smiled and followed Tom back to the shelf, where he started searching for the book with her, chattering away, another of his desert-flower friendships springing up over a few minutes.

JJ looked on, bemused again by Tom, too big a personality to be in that line of work. And while he waited he turned over the implications of what he’d just been told. The system wasn’t out of control, it was still working fine, but for some unknown reason he’d been cut out of it, along with all those minor players Tom had talked about and a few selected others, Viner among them.

But the mention of Esther’s name in particular made him think there might be some other way out. If he could trust anyone it was Esther; she knew the ropes and would at least lay it down for him how it was, let him know how real his options were. If the past was anything to go by she’d probably help him too, use her own connections with Berg as much as she could. Suddenly she was looking like his strongest contact, saving him from the mind tricks of Holden and Bostridge’s family.

Tom came back over, having found the book for the girl.

“You missed your vocation,” JJ said, smiling.

Tom beamed back. “Can’t help myself. I just love these eccentric English girls.”

“The people you mentioned ...”

“All still in London.”

“So they know they’re okay,” he said, the fact sinking in properly for the first time that he was in danger, just as Holden had said, a contract on him as real and immutable as those he carried out himself. It didn’t seem to mean anything though, especially now, chinks of daylight appearing. “I’ll give it some thought,” he added, almost to himself.

Tom smiled but said, “Maybe you should get some sleep first. You look beat.”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll do that. And thanks, Tom. Drinks are on me next time.”

He nodded, a tacit acknowledgment of their strange relationship, said, “Take care, JJ,” and turned and breezed out of the shop, back into the September sunlight.

JJ bought the book and, once outside, ripped out the page he needed and dropped the rest into a trash can, folding up the details of the Copley Inn and putting them in his inside jacket pocket. He hailed a cab and asked for his hotel, settling back in the seat, looking at the crowded streets full of beautiful girls brought out by the sunshine.

He needed to sleep, reminded of it only by Tom’s comment about looking tired. A night had passed without sleep since he’d been at Viner’s, but he hadn’t noticed it until now, the sensation of life draining away from his muscles, a mental state that was like the beginning of lucid dreaming.

So he needed to sleep, and then according to Tom he needed to see Holden. And maybe Tom had a point. Holden was the only one who’d come up with anything for him so far, and if Tom was right, he was the one who’d be best placed to help. JJ still balked at the idea though, partly unnerved because of the way Holden had contacted him, mainly because of Bostridge’s family.

He thought back to the hit itself, to the strange girl in Bostridge’s room, to the troubled flight on which he’d met Aurianne again. And there’d been a picture of his family in Bostridge’s wallet, though JJ couldn’t remember now what they’d looked like, a blank that made it worse.

Because in there among the deeply buried superstition and the desire not to make connections was an impulse just as strong, a ghoulish curiosity to see them, to see what their lives had become because of him. He was just a gun, but beneath the surface the temptation to see what he’d wrought by being that gun was ever present, a temptation that he felt in his bones it was wrong to yield to, wrong for everyone but particularly for them, real people, a woman who’d lost her husband, kids who’d lost their father.

And despite what Tom had said, there was no need for it either, because there were people in London, people who could help him whether they liked it or not, help him in what mattered: getting to Berg. Most of all, there was Esther, the beautiful Esther as Danny liked to call her, the only constant he had left, perhaps the person who could help him most, give him the right pointers.

But if he wanted Esther’s help he knew he’d be better off moving quickly, going there straight away, putting the sleep on hold for just a little while longer. And if it turned out she couldn’t help him after all, then he’d still have that page in his pocket, which was where he wanted to keep it given the choice, folded away, unexploited.

He leaned forward and said, “I’ve changed my mind.” He gave Esther’s address then, the cabbie shrugging in response and cutting south and west on a series of side streets.