6
He got out of the cab at the far end of the street where Esther lived, two identical rows of white Regency houses, Esther’s the second from the far end. He walked casually, taking in the other houses, the cars parked along both sides, checking for any activity.
The only thing standing out was a guy sitting in a car about halfway down, on the opposite side and facing Esther’s house. Short of sitting in a van with tinted windows, he couldn’t have made it more obvious, but JJ paid him no attention. At a guess he was probably one of Tom’s colleagues anyway.
JJ kept it relaxed, smooth, like he was just someone using the street as a shortcut, even giving the appearance of passing Esther’s house, waiting until he was on top of it before making a move. It would have taken the watcher in the car a moment or two to realize JJ had stepped up to the columned portico and rung the bell, and by that time he’d have been out of camera shot.
JJ waited there, listening, wondering how she’d react to someone being at her door. He’d have been cautious at the best of times and he’d already reckoned on the possibility of her not answering at all, but with almost no delay the door was suddenly open and she was standing there, like she’d been expecting flowers or a delivery.
It took a second for her to respond, a second in which they stood facing each other, her face registering his presence. She was still beautiful, her dark hair cut short, the light trace of freckles on her skin, full soft lips, but it had been a few years since he’d seen her and he could see now that perhaps she wouldn’t wear well, that age wouldn’t suit the youthful features.
She looked better when she smiled though, stepping back to let him in. Once he was inside she closed the door and turned to face him. He smiled a little at her expression, keeping eye contact, and then she said quietly, “Thank God,” and put her arms around him, pulling herself against him. It was the first real physical contact he’d had since holding the American kid’s ropy shoulders the previous afternoon, trying to stop him from vomiting. And it felt good, because he was tired and because she was warm and comfortable against him, an easy intimacy reawakened.
It was a reminder too that their brief relationship had never run its course, that practicalities had gotten in the way but that they’d both seen it as unfinished business, something they’d return to once they’d gotten themselves established. Even now, after too long an interval, there was still something unspoken there, a closeness on hold.
When she finally pulled away she looked at him and said as if to explain herself, “I heard you were one of the people in danger.”
“I am,” he said. “Or at least, I think I am. I was hoping you might shed some light on it.”
She smiled and said, “Come on through,” and took him by the arm into the living room.
He could hear water running as they passed the bottom of the stairs, and once they were sitting down he said, “Who else is in the house?”
“Just my boyfriend. Don’t worry, he’s taking a bath, he’ll be forever. Would you like a drink?” She was about to get up again, but he stopped her with a hand gesture, watched her relax back into the sofa.
“I don’t want to stay long. It’s not good for you to have me here.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She smiled knowingly. “I’m sure between the two of us we could fend off any attackers.” He eased back into the armchair, she lifted her bare feet under her on the sofa, and the two of them stared at each other for a while. It felt good to be sitting here with her, as if the problem was already fading.
She was wearing loose cotton cargo pants but a fitted T-shirt, an enticing relief map of her breasts and stomach, stirring his memory.
“You look great,” he said.
Esther returned the pointless compliment. “You’ve worn pretty well yourself.”
He nodded before gesturing upward with his eyes and saying, “What about him? Is it serious?”
“Not settling-down serious, if that’s what you mean. And you? Anyone on the go?”
He thought of Aurianne and thought better of mentioning her, but like she’d read his expression Esther’s face fell, showing she knew automatically what was hidden in his delayed response. “Oh God,” she said as if the realization made her sick. He smiled weakly in response because of how predictable it seemed now and the way he’d hoped against it being true the night before. It was what happened. Esther knew it, he knew it, they all did.
“I found her this morning, raped, interrogated, shot through the head. She didn’t even know what I did.” He felt torn up again suddenly, the slight distance already making him feel nauseated and bitter for having led her to that.
“Were you close?” Esther asked, avoiding the pat sympathy that anyone else might have offered.
“Not settling-down close,” he replied. “But she was a beautiful person. And if she hadn’t been involved with me she still would be.”
Esther nodded, not saying anything at first, and then, “How about that drink? I’ve got some Talisker.”
“In that case ...” He smiled, brushing off the air of melancholy, and she got up and left the room, returning a minute later with the bottle and two glasses. “Still like it neat?”
“Of course.”
“Good,” she said, pouring out two hefty measures. “Richard likes it with ice and water, the heathen.”
“The lightweight,” JJ added, guessing Richard was the boyfriend in the bath.
“Exactly.” She raised her glass. “To us.”
“Sounds good to me.” He took a swig of the whisky, the heat spreading down his gullet and settling into his stomach, a healing warmth, like its absence had been the only thing wrong with him. He looked at her then, curled up on the sofa again, nursing the tumbler in both hands, relaxed. “So tell me, how come you haven’t gone to ground?”
She shrugged in response and said, “I wasn’t aware I needed to. We were told the threat was to Viner and everyone connected with him. Philip knew he might be a target by association. You have heard about Philip?” JJ nodded, and she continued as if it didn’t really concern her that much. “They got him two days ago apparently.”
“Who?”
“The Russians,” she said like it was an unnecessary clarification.
“But who? It would have to be someone major,”
She shrugged again and said, “It’s not really my area of expertise.” She sipped at her whisky and added, “I’m sorry, J, I’m not being much use, am I?”
“It’s not your fault.” It had crossed his mind a moment before that she knew the truth about Berg, the way she was so casual about him being dead, but the more he thought about it, if she’d been lying she’d have laid it on thick. She simply didn’t know anything, which left him wondering what he’d hoped to get from her, other than to escape the sense of being isolated for a while, to spend some time with her, someone he had a real history with, someone in whose company there seemed to be other futures.
“What will you do?”
He shook his head, still lost in thought.
“Stay alive,” he offered finally. “I don’t know. Kill the people trying to kill me.”
“But you don’t know who it is.”
“Not yet, but it’s not the Russians.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t want to mention Berg, mainly because he was certain now she didn’t know anything. He wouldn’t have mentioned it anyway though, a professional veneer of suspicion and doubt that was common to everyone in the business, a corrective to set against his own intuition, just as, no matter what she felt about him, a part of her would still be treating him as a potential adversary.
“You should take a holiday,” she said, echoing Danny. “A couple of weeks in some resort. It might have blown over by then, and even if it hasn’t, at least we’ll have a better idea of what’s going on.” He wondered whether the we referred to the two of them or whether more likely it was collective. After all, she was an employee, not freelance, and like all employees had a tendency to slip into the comfort blanket of the organization, forgetting that it was just as likely to smother as to protect.
“No, I know I should take a holiday, but I have some leads and I’d rather follow them while they’re still alive.” He didn’t really have any leads though, apart from the one he wanted to avoid, Holden, the Bostridge connection.
It had been that wish to avoid the trip to Vermont that had brought him to Esther, convincing himself that she’d be able to help in some way. But maybe she couldn’t, and if she couldn’t there was no one else he could think of, certainly no one he could trust as much as her.
As if reading his thoughts then she said helpfully, “I could make some inquiries, low-key, see if I turn anything up.”
“Do you think you’ll get anything? I got the impression things had shut down tight.”
“For the most part,” she said. “There are people I can contact though. Janet Dyson’s an old Russian hand; she might be able to tell me something.” He nodded though he didn’t recognize the name, then felt his thoughts stumble and pile up into each other as he heard Esther ask, “Where are you staying?”
“What?” He’d heard her but had automatically stalled, deciphering what it meant for her to have asked that simple question, where was he staying? She would never have asked it normally, would never have expected an answer either unless she thought she’d caught him unawares, particularly at a time like this.
“In case I find anything out,” she said, “where can I reach you?”
He was stunned, stunned that she’d fooled him, that perhaps his thoughts were muddled enough to have been lulled by her familiarity and warmth. He played on the air of confusion, on her supposition that he wasn’t thinking clearly, answering absentmindedly, “Of course. I’m at the Halkin, for the next couple of days anyway.”
“I love the Halkin,” she said, smiling, the familiar Esther again, the possibility there that she’d simply made a mistake, not thought of the implications. It seemed unlikely though. “A great place to eat too.”
“Yeah, it’s my first time back there in a few years. I’d forgotten how nice it is.” He looked at the whisky in his glass and drained it, sitting forward, more businesslike. “Speaking of which, I should go. Like I said, it’s not a good idea for you to have me here.” He stood and added, “Try your Russian contact though.”
“I’ll do it right now.” She leaned forward and picked up the phone.
“I’ll see myself out then.” She raised her hand, taking his in it and holding it against her lips for a second, what looked like real affection again. And maybe it was real affection, heightened because she knew she was about to betray him. He knew how it was, nothing personal, never anything personal when it came to business. For whatever reason, because she was involved with the true process or because she’d been fed some alternative truth, she was willing to conspire now to have him killed, an enemy to be eradicated.
“Be careful,” she said as she let his hand go, another genuine sentiment from the past, like all the others she’d used to conceal the reality that was there between them. And he’d fallen for it, till she’d slipped and made that one mistake, asking him where he was staying, leaving him disappointed, and insulted that she’d thought him capable of missing it.
He smiled at her and walked out as she began to punch the numbers on the phone. Opening the front door and closing it again without leaving, he stepped into the small recess for coats to one side of it. Esther was already speaking a little too cheerily to the imaginary Janet in the background. He listened as he stood among the coats, one of them full of the stale stench of cigarettes, another giving off a trace of some fragrance, a man’s aftershave perhaps.
Esther’s voice grew louder as she stepped out of the living room to check that he’d gone and then, once she was satisfied, stopped altogether. He eased his hand inside his jacket and pulled his gun. When he heard her speak again she was back in the living room, talking quietly. He stepped into the open, a couple of paces on his toes across the black-and-white mosaic floor, stopping near the bottom of the stairs once she was in earshot.
“I don’t know,” she was saying. “If it wasn’t Danny, maybe he has someone who’s better informed.” A pause and then, “It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s staying at the Halkin.” The obvious question from the person at the other end. “Yes, I’m certain. Of course, it’s possible he was bluffing but I can’t see it; I know him too well. And anyway, why would he suspect me?” There was the insult put into words, leaving him not so much hurt as baffled that she could have come to think so little of him, that he could have thought he’d known her so well.
He listened in again but was distracted by some movement on the landing at the top of the stairs, the boyfriend she’d said would take forever in the bath. He was probably moving from the bathroom to the bedroom, but JJ began to ease backward just in case.
He was almost back to the door when the guy appeared at the top of the stairs, wearing a short white dressing gown, towel-drying long black hair, bits of it straggling across his face. He was unshaven, swarthy, for some reason suggesting someone who worked in some branch of the media, advertising or music or something like that.
JJ responded to the sight of him by stopping his retreat and standing casually with the gun out of view at his side, like he was meant to be there, biding his time. And as the guy saw him JJ smiled and nodded, the passing nod men give to each other, and gestured silently with his free hand to show that Esther was on the phone. The guy acknowledged silently that he understood but he stayed where he was for a second, JJ mentally urging him to continue on his way to the bedroom.
He started down the stairs though, saying in a hushed voice when he was halfway down, “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Richard.” It was a voice that didn’t fit with the way he looked, a cleric’s voice.
In the other room he heard Esther say urgently, “I’ll call you back.” JJ shot the guy in the middle of the chest, knocking him backward, sliding down the stairs on his back then, like he’d missed a step and lost his footing. JJ moved quickly to the living room, firing a couple of shots blind as he walked in, a third as he got her in his sights, straight into the back of her head, sending her crashing to the floor and against one of the armchairs, where she lay immediately motionless, contorted like her neck was broken, her blood like oil stains on the blue fabric of the chair cover.
The guy was still gurgling on the stairs behind him, but JJ left him and walked in to take a closer look at Esther. Her face was bloodied, and one of his blind shots had caught her in the shoulder, a piece of luck that had probably given him the edge. Her gun was in her hand, pretty impressive considering how quickly she’d had to move, pretty impressive, period.
They’d had a conversation once in a pub not far from here, about who’d win out if they both had contracts on each other. He couldn’t remember what conclusion they’d come to, if any, but it had seemed hypothetical enough back then to keep them entertained over a couple of drinks.
Wider opinion had it different, but he’d always thought her the better all-around operator, even up to the way she’d caught him out there, but by the only absolute measure she was the one who was dead. If she hadn’t asked about the hotel, hadn’t raised his suspicions, she could have put a bullet in his back as he’d walked up the hallway, an error of judgment inexcusable for someone of her caliber, no matter what the basis.
He picked up the phone and pressed to redial the last number. As soon as it rang a woman answered, efficient sounding but giving just a simple “Hello?” It wasn’t a voice he recognized.
“This is Hoffman. I have a message for Philip Berg.” There was silence for a while at the other end, like she was consulting with someone or weighing how to respond. Finally she said, “Go on,” no discernible tone in her voice.
“Okay. There’s no charge for the one who raped my girlfriend, but he owes me the regular fee for Wilson and Sanderton. Tell him I’ll collect in person.” He hung up then and threw the phone on the sofa, looking once more at Esther, feeling coldly triumphant, surprising considering it was someone he’d thought he cared about, surprising too that he felt nothing else. He checked the boyfriend on the stairs as he passed, dead now, his dressing gown up around his shoulders where he’d slid down away from it; he was a hairy guy.
And then he left, stunned that he could have been so wrong, that she could so easily have turned against him, questioning whether he could ever have turned like that himself, against someone he’d known that well. He doubted it, but then he wasn’t an organization player, the same factor that had helped him stay alive, the factor that allowed him his own thoughts, that meant he didn’t always take the recommended path, the plus side of his isolated existence.
He crossed the street right outside the house and stood on the other side for a moment, making like he wasn’t sure which way to go, giving the impression that he was preoccupied. And he maintained that expression as he walked up the street, waiting until he was right alongside the car, betting that the guy inside would be averting his eyes too as JJ passed.
It was the second dummy he’d thrown the guy in no time at all, but it still worked well enough. Within seconds JJ was sitting in the passenger seat with the gun pressed into the guy’s ribs, the barrel tugging at the white cotton of his shirt, the guy shocked and reacting like most people did to the bruising up-close presence of a gun, holding his breath, like he wanted nothing to move, like stillness was his only hope.
He was young, probably even younger than Tom, which explained why he was on a detail like that, sitting in some quiet London street taking pictures of people coming and going at a particular house.
“Okay,” said JJ, once he was happy the situation was stable. “I have a question for you. Which state does Tom Furst come from?” The guy turned his head slightly, still tense, like he had an injured neck. He looked puzzled. “Just answer the question.”
He still looked uneasy, like it was a trick question, answering slowly, “I believe, sir, that Tom Furst comes from New Hampshire.” His own accent was southern, the Carolinas or somewhere like that.
“How do you know that?”
“Because he’s my colleague,” he said, and like he suddenly understood what JJ was doing added, “At the embassy.”
“Good. As long as you don’t try anything stupid, those answers just saved your life.” With his free hand JJ leaned over and picked up the camera, checking the number of shots taken. He put the camera back in his lap then and said, “Very carefully, and I mean very carefully, wind off the film and hand it to me.” The guy did as he said, his hands steady, no sign of the way he had to be feeling.
JJ slipped the film into his pocket.
“Now give me the roll you completed before this, just that roll; you can keep the others.” The American moved his hand slowly to the door compartment and lifted out a small black film container, holding it between his thumb and finger like it was something dangerous that had to be handled with care. JJ took it and asked, “Where’s your gun?” The guy gestured toward the glove compartment. JJ opened it and took out the gun, still in its shoulder holster. “Mobile?” The guy reached again into the door compartment, handing the phone over with the same precision movements. “And keys?” The guy allowed himself a little smile this time as he handed over the keys, perhaps again because he understood what JJ was doing or because he realized no one was ever that cautious with an imminent corpse.
The operation complete, JJ relaxed a little, even easing the pressure of the silencer against the guy’s body. “What’s your name?”
“Randal, sir,” he answered automatically, adding a little hesitantly, “Lucas Randal.”
JJ nodded.
“Well, Lucas, my name’s William Hoffman. People call me JJ. And at the moment people are trying to kill me, but if I survive, as I intend to, then consider me as owing you a favor.” Randal looked at him, that puzzled expression back on his face. JJ smiled and said, “I appreciate this leaves you with some explaining to do, so maybe one day I’ll make it up to you. Ask Tom: he’ll explain how useful my favors can be.”
“Thank you, sir, I’ll do that.”
JJ smiled again, amused and impressed by Randal’s southern manners, thanking the man who’d just robbed him at gunpoint. He opened the door, easing himself carefully from the car, keeping the gun on Randal, holding the three items against his stomach with the other hand.
“I’ll leave these on the street corner. Don’t get out of the car until I’m out of sight.” Randal nodded in response. “Oh, when you call in, you might earn some brownie points if you tell them the two people in the house are dead.”
“Should I mention your name?”
“Doesn’t matter to me. Probably better for you if you don’t. Except to Tom of course.” He closed the door and walked away, leaving the gun, mobile phone, and keys on the street corner, walking further before hailing a cab on a busier street.
With the afternoon passing but still warm, he left the films to develop at an express photo shop and crossed the street to a coffee bar, sitting in the window with a cup of lemon and ginger, watching the mix of tourists and businesspeople moving along at conflicting speeds.
He’d been tempted to go back to the hotel for an hour but had decided against the sleeping draft of a comfortable room, silence, a bed. He still felt okay, but he knew the need for sleep had to be building up inside him, ready to catch him off guard if he gave it a chance, and he couldn’t afford to do that, couldn’t afford to let the momentum go.
As it was, they were as much in the dark about him as he was about them. Perhaps his speed and the steady attrition would begin to get to them, draw Berg into mistakes, even out in the open.
And even if it wasn’t Berg’s game, he felt that if he could get to Berg he’d at least have some chance of freeing himself up. If it was the whole organization out to get him it would be harder, but except in the minds of the paranoid it was never the whole organization, only factions, and factions could be dealt with.
So for now at least, on a strangely aggressive high after killing Esther, he felt almost like he had the upper hand, that if he kept going there wouldn’t be much they could do to take him down. He felt more the hunter than the hunted, fighting in his own anonymous environment, as far away as it was possible to be from the place where Holden wanted him, and no need for his help either.
He was back at the photo shop early, hyped on the low-level exhilaration that was creeping through him, eager to see what information the films yielded. He waited surrounded by a group of Japanese girls who spoke to each other in quiet tones, talking like they were trying to make sense of all the minor mysteries they were encountering there.
They got their photographs first and looked through them straight away, enthusiastic, talking in rapid bursts punctuated by gasps of enlightenment, like the key to understanding the city was hidden in those pictures.
When JJ got his photographs, he too looked through them in the shop and was struck after half a dozen or so by how mystified the Japanese tourists would have been by the sight of them, all of the same nondescript house, the people caught in them equally hard to differentiate.
There were quite a few people in suits, himself included, a smaller number in casual clothes, the long-haired boyfriend going out for the paper, none of Esther herself. Most of the suits he recognized as other people who worked for Berg, people like Hooper, Elliot, Parker-Hall, a skinny Kiwi guy whose name he couldn’t remember.
In among them though was a bigger fish, Stuart Pearson, someone who was at least on a level with Berg and maybe farther up the food chain still. It was unmistakably him, the cropped sandy hair, bald on top, the small silver-rimmed glasses, the look about him of a doctor or lawyer, of someone working within some tightly defined professional structure.
JJ had never spoken to him, but he’d seen him a couple of times, knew where he lived too. And he knew that out of all the people in the pictures, Pearson would be the one with answers, about how far it all went, whether he could stop it by getting to Berg, maybe even where Berg was hiding out.
He didn’t know enough about the guy to know whether it would be easy to get that information, but he was in the mood now to get it whatever it took, angered, feeling full of poison. And he seemed to remember Pearson had kids too; so as long as he got him at home it was just a matter of finding his threshold, JJ free to operate without restraint, answerable to no one but himself, to a conscience which had long been reduced to the role of passive observer.