TWENTY

LONDON

GEORGE NIMMO SAID, ‘YOU HAVEN’T BEEN KEEPING ME ABREAST OF things, Frank. You’ve been going along in your usual wayward fashion, which is precisely what I asked you not to do. Why wasn’t I told about this Harcourt chap? And now we have this business with Quarterman. Two US Embassy employees are dead. I have to face some hard questions, Frank. The Home Secretary is not happy. He’s under pressure to do something about the situation.’

Pagan sat in Nimmo’s pristine office. He’d summarized the events of the investigation, but what he’d given Nimmo was an edited version on the grounds that too many details might flood George’s brain. He folded his hands in his lap and remembered the way Quarterman had been shot. A gunman, a silenced pistol in a sedate hotel bar, the ridiculous chase through the streets of Mayfair. What had Quarterman known that had caused a gunman to undertake such a risky assassination? What had he been privy to? You didn’t shoot a man down in daylight in the heart of a city unless you were scared beyond reason of what he might reveal. You waited for a dark place. You waited for the right situation. Whoever wanted Quarterman dead didn’t want to take the chance that Al, in a moment of weakness, in a flash perhaps of self-preservation, might become a little too chummy with a couple of London cops.

Pagan felt exhausted, perplexed, harried by devils more important than George Nimmo’s exasperation and the Home Secretary’s unhappiness. He had the feeling of being locked in a box of tricks, or studying one of those join-the-dots puzzles whose ultimate solution would have all the coherence of an ink-blot.

‘Harcourt had been involved in some form of, yo, illegality,’ Nimmo said. ‘Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘Let’s just say the message on the answering-machine suggested such a possibility. I can’t be more explicit. Not yet.’

Nimmo had a sour expression, as if he’d found a dead cockroach in his sherry trifle. ‘And so you contacted Quarterman in the hope of assistance. And now Quarterman is also dead. Before he could tell you anything.’ He rubbed his jowls. ‘We will soon have the streets of London littered with our dead American friends, I don’t doubt. Charming. See London and die.’

‘Look, this is a bloody investigation into a calamity, I’m not working for the tourist board,’ Pagan said, his voice rising. Blood coursed to his head. ‘I go where the investigation takes me. I didn’t arrange for Quarterman to be shot, for Christ’s sake. It was the last damn thing I expected. I wanted some answers, I thought he might supply them, the next thing he’s a corpse.’

Nimmo stood up. ‘Don’t rage at me, Pagan. I will not have that.’

Pagan gazed at the windows. He was frazzled, his edges were unravelling, but he wasn’t going to apologize to Nimmo for the outburst. Such outbreaks served a useful psychological purpose. Balm to the troubled soul. In any case, Nimmo sounded like an overbearing schoolteacher chastising a guilty pupil. And Pagan didn’t feel guilty about anything.

‘Understand one thing,’ Nimmo said. ‘Your position is fragile here. You hang by the proverbial thread. At a snap of my fingers I can have it cut. Bear that in mind, Pagan.’

Nimmo sat down again, his face flushed. He had a gift, essential to all politicians, Pagan assumed, of easing from one mood to another, of readjusting his emotions without blinking. Quite a knack. It suggested shallowness, a lack of true substance in the heart.

‘The Home Secretary is going to meet the US Ambassador, Mr William J. Caan. I will be present, of course. There may be further questions you will have to answer to the satisfaction of both these eminent men.’

‘I’ll be only too happy,’ Pagan said.

‘Now. This woman. This Carlotta.’

‘We’re checking her,’ Pagan said ‘She’s presumably left the country. If she departed by any of the usual ways, there’s got to be some kind of record.’

‘She’s a nasty piece of goods,’ said Nimmo. ‘I’ve been reading her file. And you think she might be behind the attack?’

‘I can’t say that for certain. There’s always a chance.’ And that’s all you’re going to get out of me, George.

Nimmo was quiet a second. ‘One other thing. I don’t like the way you handled Gladstone and Wright. They’re experienced men, they could be very useful to you, but what do you do with them? Send them off to Cricklewood on some fool’s errand.’ He looked in his in-tray, fished out a slip of paper, stared at it. ‘This chap Dracowitz. He turns out to have been a harmless idiot who lived in some dreary basement filled with a mildewed paperback collection of Lenin and a score of mousetraps, which he seemed unwilling to empty.’

‘I thought he was worth looking into,’ Pagan said. So. Gladstone and Wright send their reports to Nimmo directly. I ought not to be utterly astonished.

‘When it comes to that kind of boring legwork, use a uniform, for God’s sake. Gladstone and Wright don’t need to be scurrying halfway across London for nothing.’

Pagan nodded in a gesture that might have passed for agreement. He rose from his chair. Nimmo smiled; it was intended to be conciliatory. ‘This investigation is above personality, Frank. You’re a professional. You should know that. Conflicts of style and attitude have no place in any of this. We’re a team. I don’t have to remind you, do I?’

Pagan muttered something inaudible. There were times in his life when he truly couldn’t muster politeness, when he couldn’t force what he didn’t feel. Sometimes it cost too much to be falsely agreeable. Sometimes the price was too high in terms of what you valued, such as your integrity, your sense of self-worth.

‘Have we an understanding?’ Nimmo asked.

‘Yes,’ Pagan said in a dry way. ‘We have an understanding.’

‘Then I expect you to behave accordingly. When you have any news of this Carlotta, let me know at once. In the meantime, I think we should refrain from publicizing her name in any way. Keep it out of the Press. I don’t want any putative connection bruited about the place. Do you agree? I don’t want her forewarned, as it were.’

‘Fine,’ Pagan said.

‘By the way. Here’s McCluskey’s analysis for you.’ And Nimmo took from the surface of his desk a thin folder he handed to Pagan. Even McCluskey had been ordered to submit his reports here before they reached Pagan; Pagan couldn’t blame McCluskey, couldn’t accuse him of betrayal, he was only following Nimmo’s directions.

He left Nimmo’s office and went downstairs. Foxie was waiting outside in the car. The rain had ceased, but the day had the allure of a threadbare coat.

Pagan got in the car on the passenger side.

‘Well?’ Foxie asked. ‘Or shouldn’t I ask?’

‘You shouldn’t ask, Foxie.’

‘He was on his high horse.’

‘Saddled and bridled. The complete squire.’

Foxie started the car. ‘Golden Square?’

Pagan nodded. He gazed at the rainy streets as Foxie drove. Give me bright sunshine and explanations, he thought. Tell me why Quarterman was shot. Tell me what Bryce Harcourt was up to that Carlotta had killed him – if indeed it was Carlotta who’d done the business. Speak to me about Jake Streik.

His inspiration was as numb as the season.

He looked at Dick McCluskey’s folder, but didn’t have the urge to open it just then, almost as if the fact that Nimmo had perused it beforehand had contaminated whatever it might contain. Be forgiving, Frank, he thought. Try to like George Nimmo. Try to fit in. After all: We’re a team. My arse we’re a team. What we are is antagonists, George Nimmo. We don’t breath the same air.

He turned to look at Foxie. ‘You have a friend in MI6, don’t you?’

‘McLaren? I wouldn’t say he’s a friend exactly. We went to school together.’

‘Make a connection with him. Run this Jake Streik past him. See if he has anything on file. It’s worth a shot.’

‘That means I’ll have to take him out for drinks. He’s a fish. Hollow legs. He only opens up when he’s pissed as a newt.’

In Soho Foxie parked and both men went inside the building on Golden Square and rode in silence in the cranky elevator. They stepped from the lift and walked inside Pagan’s office.

‘Somebody didn’t like the kind of company Al Quarterman was keeping. So Al was a potential threat and had to be removed.’

‘And the grave, they say, is an awfully silent place,’ Foxworth observed.

‘So what did Al Quarterman know about Harcourt’s activities,’ Pagan said, thinking aloud. ‘One thing’s pretty clear. Harcourt was no innocent researcher. Whatever he was up to, Quarterman knew about it.’

‘Something is rotten in Grosvenor Square,’ Foxworth said.

‘Sure. But how do we find the source of the stench? There are boundaries here, Foxie. There are serious limitations to what we can do without causing a diplomatic incident.’ Pagan got up, wandered the room. He couldn’t get out of his mind the image of Quarterman’s death, the brute suddenness of it.

He picked up Dick McCluskey’s report, read it. It was highly technical. The material used was a plastique called C-4, Czech-made, triggered by a non-electric detonator. McCluskey described fragments of a spring discovered at the scene; he’d attached a drawing of the explosive to his report. It looked like a tampon inside which compartments had been constructed. One contained the spring, another a primer; acid had been used to erode a retaining device which freed the spring which in turn activated a plunger that provided the spark. Pagan studied McCluskey’s drawing, admired its meticulous quality, and wondered how anything so innocuous in appearance as this tampon-shaped object could cause such devastation.

He imagined hands shaping this device, fingers constructing it; he tried to picture Carlotta in a room somewhere, building this compact monster. Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she’d purchased it ready-made. But she knew her way around explosives. She had long experience of them. Why would she bother to buy one off the peg from a supplier?

Billy Ewing came inside the room, closing the door behind him. He made a grunt of exasperation. ‘Frank. For Christ’s sake, I can’t blow my nose without Gladstone and Wright watching me. Can’t you do something about them?’

‘They’re with us for the duration, Billy. Nimmo’s directive. What we know, they know. What they know, Nimmo knows. They’re in-house spies.’

‘Can’t you send them on a bloody mission?’ Ewing asked. ‘Don’t we have leads they can follow in North Wales or somewhere bracing like that?’

‘I’ll see what I can come up with.’ He’d plunge them into the tunnel, he thought. They could liaise between the tunnel and Golden Square, although Pagan wasn’t sure what that might involve. But it would sound good to Wright and Gladstone: liaison officers. It had a ring of importance to it. Consign them underground, cast them into the depths.

‘In the meantime,’ Ewing said, ‘you might be interested to know that a certain Karen Lamb, carrying a US passport, left Heathrow on the night the prostitute was murdered in Mayfair. She caught a late Air France flight to Paris. Does she sound like your woman?’

Karen Lamb. Carlotta Starling. Charlotte Pike. Pagan considered the permutations of aliases. Karen Lamb was a strong contender.

‘According to Air France, she had an ongoing ticket to Nice. For some reason she never made that plane. It could be the usual diversionary tactic. She might have stayed in Paris. Or hired a car and gone on elsewhere. None of the other airlines operating out of Paris have a record of a passenger under that name. But she could have changed it anyway, assuming she carries a set of passports, which I’d say is a given. I’ve got a call into the French police. But I’m not optimistic, Frank. They’re helpful, but only up to a point. And if they get an inkling they have Carlotta on their territory, they’d like nothing better than to nab her. Consider the kudos.’

Pagan had a connection in the Sûreté, Claude Quistrebert, who’d been mildly helpful a few years ago in the search for a German terrorist known as Gunther Ruhr, but he wasn’t about to ask the rather unapproachable Quistrebert for help – at least not unless it became absolutely essential.

‘Effectively she’s disappeared,’ Ewing remarked. ‘Unless our French friends can come up with something.’

Quarterman dead. Carlotta vanished. Blind alleys. ‘Did you turn up anything on Jake Streik?’ Pagan asked.

‘Zero,’ Ewing answered.

Pagan envisaged the embassy on Grosvenor Square, the US flag, the great stone eagle that hovered over the building, the lines of would-be emigrants seeking visas that would enable them to exchange one kind of recession for another. The doorway to Democracy and two hundred million handguns. Here’s your green card, sir. Do remember to buy yourself a pistol first chance you get. We generally recommend a Colt for newcomers.

How to get inside the mysterious fortress? he wondered. In the unlikely event of gaining access to the place, where would you look? Where would you even begin? What he needed was somebody with knowledge. On an impulse, he picked up his telephone and dialled Martin Burr’s number in Knightsbridge. Burr answered on the second ring.

‘Frank Pagan,’ he said. ‘Heard you were back in harness. Working you hard, are they?’

‘Hard enough,’ Pagan replied.

‘It’s good for you, Frank. What can I do for you?’

‘I need a few minutes of your time.’

‘Come over in an hour.’

‘Perfect.’

Pagan hung up the phone. An hour. That gave him time to grab a sandwich somewhere; he was hungry, couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten. He put on his coat and as he moved toward the hallway, Foxie asked, ‘If I need to reach you, where will you be?’

‘I’m going to the oracle,’ Pagan answered. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

Foxworth frowned. Pagan could be infuriatingly mystifying at times. How were you supposed to keep up with him? He was too fond of wandering labyrinths alone.

Pagan stepped out into Golden Square, where he turned up the collar of his coat against the wind. He walked in the direction of a nearby sandwich bar. He was unaware of the girl approaching until she came within inches.

‘Miles away, were you?’ Brennan Carberry asked.

Surprised, he looked into her face.

‘Well, I called the number you gave me, didn’t get an answer. So I used some of that famed Yankee initiative and called Scotland Yard, and after some persistence on my part they told me where you could be found.’ She smiled at him, touched his sleeve.

She linked her arm through his, a gesture that pleased and surprised him. He walked with her to the end of the square, where it flowed into a narrow street leading down to Piccadilly Circus. He had the feeling that some of the chill had just been sucked out of the afternoon; behind the barren density of cloud cover a sun was surely shining somewhere.

He bit into an egg mayonnaise sandwich. The girl sipped coffee and watched him, seemingly amused by the speed at which he ate.

‘You don’t waste much time on food, do you?’ she asked.

‘I don’t have time to waste,’ Pagan said. ‘Anyway, my attitude to food’s pathetically basic. It’s fuel. Keeps the body going. That would be sacrilege to somebody in your occupation, I suppose.’

‘Worse,’ she said. ‘Do you know you’re supposed to chew each morsel of food at least fifteen times?’

‘Christ, I’d be here forever,’ he said. ‘I’d never get anything done.’

She propped an elbow on the table, placed her chin in the palm of her hand. She had, Pagan thought, a way of looking at him that was just a little unsettling. The brown eyes probed, certainly, but it was the small light of mischief behind them he found the unnervingly attractive factor. He was pleased to be in her unexpected company; he kept receiving tiny waves of enjoyment – the old-time word ‘vibes’ came into his head – but under her gaze he was conscious of a strange awkwardness in himself, a clumsiness. A glob of egg salad slid from his sandwich and dropped in the middle of his plate, and he was embarrassed. He made flurries with his paper napkin, which tore between his fingers. He wasn’t doing very well and he wasn’t sure why.

He looked at his watch. He still had thirty minutes before he was due to meet Martin Burr.

‘I’m keeping you from something,’ she said.

‘I have an appointment.’

‘You sound apologetic. Don’t. You don’t have to drop everything just because I’m here. And that includes your egg salad.’

She pushed a lock of hair from her forehead. Pagan thought this gesture endearing. Endearing: now there was a fresh discovery for him. All of a sudden. He looked at her face. She had a fine mouth which, when she smiled, created an impression of honesty and directness. He could detect nothing false or hidden in her and wondered why he even took the trouble to think about quarrying faults out of her. Old habits. He had a turn of mind, stoked by years of seeking concealed motives and foraging in the darker territories of the human heart, that led him into foggy areas. He sometimes found it impossible to accept things at their face value. It was cop mentality. After years, it was a tough habit to break.

He pushed aside his plate, covering the stray dab of egg salad with the ruin of his napkin.

She said, ‘I saw your name in the morning paper. I read you’re working on this explosion business in the Underground. I couldn’t cope with anything like that, Frank. I guess you need a shield around you when that kind of shit happens.’

‘I’m not sure how good my shield is,’ Pagan replied. ‘You get older, death gets harder to take. Funny. I always thought the opposite would happen.’ He looked down at the napkin, seeing how moisture from the salad had seeped through the paper. He raised his face and thought: You could look into her eyes and believe no such thing as the tunnel existed, nobody had died, there were no mysteries, like Quarterman, Bryce Harcourt, Streik, Carlotta. These were unconnected shadows from another dimension.

Brennan Carberry represented a simpler world, a sunny place where birds sang and every night brought a magical full-blown moon, awesome in a starry sky. Jesus Christ. Get real, Frank. Next thing you’ll be thinking nightingales in Berkeley Square. He withdrew into silence. You couldn’t make the world go away just because you found a good-looking young woman attractive and sympathetic.

‘Have you any idea who planted the bomb?’ she asked. Then she shook her head, held up one hand. ‘No. Forget I asked that. It’s none of my business. And you’ve had it up to here anyhow. I can tell. You don’t look so good. Stressed-out.’

‘It must be the light. I never look my best under fluorescence.’

‘Sure. And I bet you don’t get enough sleep. I bet you don’t look after yourself properly. You don’t eat what’s good for you.’

‘Yes, mother,’ he said.

‘You’ve got circles under your eyes. You’re pale.’

Pagan wanted a cigarette, a jolt of nicotine. Instead he tapped his fingertips on the formica table. He noticed the half-moons of his nails were practically invisible. Wasn’t that a sign of poor nutrition and vitamin deficiency? He said, ‘I probably need freshly squeezed orange juice. Raw carrots. Some of that posh lettuce you mentioned.’

‘You need more than posh lettuce,’ she said. She drank some coffee, gazing at him over the rim of her cup.

Was there a hint of flirtation in her manner? It was nothing so blatant as a fluttering of eyelashes: it was the clarity of her look, the way she focused on him.

‘And what would you recommend?’ he asked.

‘A week in a health spa. Daily workouts. Massages. Sleep. All the stuff you don’t have time for right now.’

‘It sounds like bloody torture anyway.’ He was not overweight – in fact his weight hadn’t changed in years and he still looked lean – but under the surface was another matter. Under the surface was some slight deterioration. He’d been sedentary for too long, weeks behind the wheel of a car, too many cigarettes smoked on dreary highways.

The girl reached across the table and momentarily touched his hand. He was abruptly shuttled back to the Hilton, the expectation of her kiss, the electricity of the moment.

‘How long are you staying in London?’ he asked.

‘It depends.’

‘Depends on what?’

She shrugged. ‘This and that. If I like the place … I’m getting kinda attached to the Hilton. You keep running into nice old folks from Idaho who want to show you photographs of their grandkids. It’s all very American. Like a club. We Americans don’t travel too well, Frank. One foot is always back in the States.’ She had a nice form of self-mockery he enjoyed.

‘I suppose you want to see Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard and the Houses of Parliament and all the rest of this great city’s sights.’

She was quiet a moment. ‘Actually, I was kind of hoping to take you up on your offer of showing me around. Obviously I could have picked a better time.’

Pagan had the sudden urge to take the girl by the hand and walk her through those parts of the city that still had elements of enchantment for him: Pall Mall, Regent’s Park. He had a lingering fondness for the Serpentine, parts of Chelsea, the leafy walks of Harrow-on-the-Hill, Kew.

‘You’re right about your timing,’ he said. He looked at his watch again. He had fifteen minutes to get to Martin Burr, and the old man liked punctuality. ‘Look. I’ll call you at the Hilton. I can’t say when. I wish I could, but I just don’t know.’

‘Frank, you don’t have to feel any obligation. I mean that. I don’t want to get in your way.’

‘You’re not in my way.’

‘Next time you’re hungry and want to take time out to eat, get in touch with me. If I’m not there, leave a message. I mean that.’ She touched his hand again. She let her palm rest against his knuckles. He was reluctant to get up and go. What was happening here? What was going on between himself and this girl he barely knew? The perplexities of feeling. The quicksands of emotions. He wanted her; a quick shadow of desire stirred inside him.

He gazed a second at the window of the sandwich bar where slanting rain struck glass and created intricate rivulets. How much easier it would be to sit here with Brennan Carberry than go into the world. He sighed and stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I hate to leave you so abruptly.’

Pagan moved away from her. He turned, looked back at her as he went toward the door. ‘I’ll be really disappointed if you don’t call, Frank. And I mean that.’

The smile, he thought. Something in the smile: a suggestion of joy. He went out into the drab wet street in search of a taxi. When he found one he settled in the back seat, head inclined, thinking about the girl. She’s too young for you, he thought. She’s a generation removed from yours. What common element could bind you? Her apparent affection was undeniably flattering. It stroked the dormant beast of his ego. But his mind, that murmuring insomniac nuisance in his head, raised a question of its own: What can she possibly see in you, Frank? The question bothered him all the way to Knightsbridge.

Martin Burr’s flat was located in a quiet square. It was a gracious nineteenth-century place: high ceilings, marble fireplaces, but the sense of space had been diminished by the amazing clutter of furniture. Too many chairs, tables, couches: there was a kind of obstacle course in each of the rooms. Burr, who walked with a walnut cane and wore a dark green eyepatch over his missing right eye – a consequence of the Second World War, when he’d served in the Navy – greeted Pagan effusively, a prolonged tight handshake, a smile, a slap across the shoulder.

‘Herself,’ he said, and frowned as he waved his cane at the furnishings. ‘Marcia considers this a storage unit. Sell some of the bloody stuff, I tell her. Get rid of it. Says she doesn’t know what she needs down in the country cottage. Hasn’t decided yet. Meanwhile, everything stays here until that strange entity known as a woman’s mind goes through the decision-making business. Like a bloody auction room in here.’

Pagan had a moment in which he realized how much he missed Burr, even if in the past they’d had their differences. But Burr, unlike George Nimmo, had understood police work and stayed as far away from politics as any commissioner could. Burr wasn’t a control freak. He allowed his men to get on with their work. He rarely interfered unless he found it essential.

‘Step into my office. If you can.’ Burr hobbled ahead of Pagan along the hallway. They went inside a long narrow room stuffed with books; a word-processor hummed on a desk strewn with sheets of paper. Burr, who used his cane as a means of expression, waved it toward the desk. ‘Predictably, I’m writing the old memoirs, Frank. Publisher chap called me up when I retired. Had a bit of a chat. Next thing I know I’m signing a contract. I was never one for putting words on paper. Damned hard. Don’t know how those writer fellows do it, frankly.’

Pagan walked toward the window, which overlooked a barren back garden, a greenhouse against which rain hammered. It was a desolate scene: the crux of winter, decay, corruption. Spring might have been a thousand seasons away.

‘Find a pew,’ Burr said. ‘Just toss the papers on the floor.’

Pagan moved some papers from a chair and sat down. He regarded Burr a moment, thinking how retirement had diminished him. The grey wool cardigan, the baggy old flannels, carpet slippers. He also needed a shave. During his term of office, Martin Burr had always dressed in immaculate conservative suits.

‘I know what’s on your mind, Frank. I don’t look like my old self. Right?’

Pagan began to dispute this, but Burr jabbed him gently in the stomach with the walnut stick. ‘Don’t deny it, Frank. One thing about you. You were always a bloody poor liar. Good policeman. If too headstrong. But damn awful liar. You’re looking at me and you’re thinking: Poor old sod’s gone to seed. Writing his memoirs like some superannuated general or something.’

Pagan smiled. ‘I’ve never seen you in anything but a suit,’ he remarked quietly.

‘Suits. Not much use to me these days.’ Burr sighed, glanced at the word-processor as if it had materialized on his desk from another galaxy, an object of unknown function. ‘Still. Retirement has its advantages. Provided you keep in touch. That’s the secret, Frank. Be informed. Don’t hibernate. What’s the term the Americans use? Get with it?’

Pagan wasn’t going to comment on Burr’s archaic slang. He watched Burr adjust his eyepatch, which he did periodically.

‘I keep an ear to the old wall,’ Burr said. ‘I hear about our man Nimmo. Not my style. George always strikes me as the sort of fellow who’d be better off doing something nasty in the City. Shark at heart. Doesn’t have a way with people. Look how he treated you. Banishment. No tact.’ Burr shook his head in a sorrowful way. ‘Still. He’s got the job and that’s it. No good moaning and bitching about the old fait accompli. Place has changed, I would say.’

‘That would be an understatement,’ Pagan said.

‘They brought you back for this appalling Underground business, correct? Ghastly all round. Any progress?’

‘The name of Carlotta has cropped up.’

‘Carlotta?’ The old man rubbed his chin. ‘Well, now there’s a sharp echo. Is there evidence?’

‘Not yet. She killed a young prostitute the night of the explosion. Not far from the Tube station. We know that much.’

‘Carlotta, Carlotta,’ Burr said, as if to himself. ‘I always had the sense she was the sort who liked the limelight. She had to work in the dark, naturally, but I always had the impression she wanted more somehow. She wanted … how shall I say it? Recognition? Admiration for her destructive abilities? A round of applause? That’s the feeling she gave me. I do however recall being more than a touch staggered by her audacious beauty … as you were, Frank.’

Nothing escaped Martin Burr, Pagan thought.

‘I thought she’d retired,’ Burr said.

‘Didn’t we all?’

‘They never really retire, do they?’ Burr said, looking thoughtful. ‘Something keeps bringing them back. In the blood, I dare say. Inactivity makes them restless. Bored. They need a high.’

A hell of a high, Pagan thought. He gazed at Martin Burr a moment, noticing how the elbows of his cardigan were frayed. He rose from his chair, gazed down at the greenhouse in the rain. His thoughts strayed momentarily toward Brennan Carberry. Why had she chosen such a godawful time to come to London? Why hadn’t she come when he was free?

‘There’s a complication. Which is why I’m here.’ He turned to look at Martin Burr.

‘Good. Love complications. Speak.’

‘I need information on the American Embassy.’

‘Ah. And I assume it isn’t entirely the kind of information you can just pop in and get from any old consular official, Frank, is it?’

‘Right.’

‘You want inside the machine, so to speak.’

‘Right again.’

‘And this is connected to the explosion?’

‘It appears so.’

Martin Burr juggled his cane from one hand to the other in a deft little movement. ‘Speak to me, Frank. Tell me what you have and what you want.’

Pagan quickly related the story of Bryce Harcourt, the death of Quarterman, Streik’s message. In his pocket he had the cassette he’d purloined from Harcourt’s answering-machine, but decided against playing it for the moment, as if it might slow down his hurried narrative.

Burr looked suddenly cheerful, animated, as if Pagan’s request were a passage of high excitement in a retirement more dreary than Burr was prepared to admit. He hobbled round the narrow room, humming to himself, avoiding boxes and chairs and an empty old-fashioned birdcage on an iron stand. ‘The American Embassy,’ he remarked. ‘That font of mystery.’

‘I was hoping you might know something,’ Pagan said.

Burr leaned on his cane. ‘The names you mentioned. Streik doesn’t mean anything to me. Nor Harcourt. Sorry. Quarterman, though. He was one of William Caan’s boys.’

‘One of his boys in what way?’

‘What do you know about Caan?’

‘I’m not famous for mixing in ambassadorial circles,’ Pagan said drily.

‘He’s been ambassador for – what – two years now? Made his fortune in electronics, weapons systems, computer support for long-range missiles, that sort of thing. He gave liberally to the President’s election campaign and was consequently rewarded with a nice diplomatic posting. A peach.’ Burr wandered to his desk, leaned against it. ‘Politics being what, the President – haunted by the horror of the budget deficit – decides to slash away at the Pentagon’s profligate spending, no easy matter for any president. Consider the vested interests pitted against him. Consider the fellows in the Pentagon who’re accustomed to a continuing supply of new toys. Suddenly, Santa’s a skinflint. The stockings aren’t filled quite so liberally. A whole industry suffers. And all the sub-industries, all the sub-contractors, all the research-and-development boys start to hurt as well. The old domino effect. Scrap a new missile, you also scrap everything that goes with it.’ Burr shrugged. ‘I’m not saying Caan is hurting personally. But the future for that whole industry isn’t quite so rose-coloured these days … Anyway, that’s a little background for you on William J. Caan. I’ve met him a few times socially. He’s big on law and order, but he’s no cowboy. Quite the contrary, he’s as smooth as they come. A little flashy, perhaps, from my staid English point of view. But civilized with it. Spent a year at Cambridge. Some time at the Sorbonne.’

Pagan wondered where this portrait of Caan was leading. But he knew better than to interrupt Martin Burr, who said, ‘An ambassador always sets the tone for his embassy. Or so they say. In Caan’s case, it seems to be true enough.’ Burr raised an index finger, in the manner of a man testing the direction of the wind. ‘It’s been common knowledge for ages that the Embassy has, shall we say, a darker aspect?’

‘Spooks,’ Pagan said.

Burr looked at the tip of his finger, engrossed in a callus. ‘If you like. Now. Under the supervision of Caan, more electronic equipment has come in, more sophisticated stuff than Grosvenor Square had before. Her Majesty’s Government can only look the other way. If the Americans want to haul state-of-the-art spook equipment into their own Embassy, that’s nobody’s business but their own. But these weren’t the only changes. Out went most of the old staff and in came a new brigade. Maybe that’s par for the course. The Ambassador’s new broom, so to speak …’

Burr hesitated, turned his good eye toward Pagan, who experienced a moment of slight tension, even if he wasn’t sure why. His mouth was dry and he was tapping the surface of Martin’s desk with his fingertips. ‘You’re trying to tell me something,’ he said.

Burr smiled in a slightly secretive manner. ‘We’re not supposed to know the inner business of the US Embassy, Frank. That’s the protocol. The Embassy might lie in the heart of London and all, but it’s American territory as surely as Kentucky – with this significant difference: you can wander around Kentucky. Just the same … You hear things. You pick things up. It’s unavoidable. There’s a rumour-mill. Only human nature.’

‘And what are these rumour-mills grinding out?’ Pagan asked.

‘Some of the new people … how do I phrase this? Caan’s gone outside the usual pool of young career diplomats to fish in strange waters. And he’s landed some oddities altogether.’

‘Such as?’

‘Quarterman for one. He was a career officer in the US Army. Did a couple of tours of duty in Vietnam. A hard man, as I understand it. Not what you’d call ideal background for a diplomatic posting. But Caan – or quite possibly somebody acting on his behalf, I don’t discount the idea he may not have made the appointment directly – plucks him out of limbo and gives him the wonderfully nebulous title of Special Projects Officer.’

‘Special Projects. That can mean anything,’ Pagan said.

‘The Americans have raised job titles to an art form. Now. As I understand it, Caan also brought on board a couple of retired colonels, also old Vietnam hands, career officers whose careers since that unfortunate war have been less than exemplary. Political chicanery, as I hear it. Dirty tricks, that kind of thing. These are men with blood on their hands. Figuratively, for sure. Perhaps even literally. They weren’t in Vietnam playing croquet, we may be sure of that.’

‘Special Projects officers, like Quarterman?’

‘I dare say. In addition, Caan’s added a few characters with past experience in a variety of financial transactions. Money markets. Wall Street, et cetera. Don’t ask me their job titles, because I don’t know.’

Pagan pondered this information a moment. ‘The Vietnam veterans – they could just be part of the spook pool.’

‘That’s a possibility.’

‘And the financial people …’ Pagan shrugged. ‘Maybe they’re here to drum up business investors. Who knows?’

‘Who indeed.’ Burr moved across the room, edging forward with his cane. ‘All I can say is that some odd bods are gathered under the roof of Grosvenor Square. What you might call a rough crew. Makes you wonder.’ The old man smiled and turned to Pagan. ‘I don’t have the names of these people, Frank. Quarterman I knew, because I met him at some function in the company of Caan. The rest is rumour, and it’s fuzzy round the edges, because that’s the nature of the beast.’

Pagan was silent, turning over in his mind this assembly of characters Martin had called a rough crew. He had the feeling of being caught up in a maelstrom of gossip and fable. He slipped his hand in his pocket and took out Harcourt’s cassette. ‘I’d like you to listen to this,’ he said.

Burr indicated an answering-machine stuffed behind the word-processor on his cluttered desk, where there was a knot of wires. ‘Try that.’

Pagan inserted the cassette, pressed the play button. He turned up the volume and Streik’s demented voice filled the narrow room. 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?

The message ended. Burr stood looking directly down at the machine. He pressed rewind, and replayed the tape. When it ended, he turned to look at Pagan. ‘Get away from The Undertakers,’ he said rather quietly. ‘That’s interesting. That’s very interesting indeed.’

‘Tell me why,’ Pagan said.

‘Some years back, two, three, there was some talk about a group inside the Embassy that called itself The Undertakers. Upper-case U, Frank. They apparently specialized in such jolly pastimes as character assassination. Blackmail. They laundered money when it needed to be done. They were not above dipping their fingers in the waters of British politics either, when it served their purpose. I heard of one government minister – and perhaps this is apocryphal – whose taste for small boys led to him being coerced by The Undertakers into seeking certain highly favourable tax concessions for American corporations doing business on these shores. There were said to be rather delicate photographs.’ Burr paused, coughed into his hand. ‘There’s more, of course. Rumours have a way of spawning themselves and multiplying. The Undertakers, when necessary, would arrange accidents. They would make people disappear. They were reported to be very good at this kind of thing. Distance no obstacle. Anti-American radicals in Europe, fugitives from US justice and so forth.’

Pagan was jolted into the realization he’d been thinking wrongly, he’d gone along with Foxie’s quite reasonable assumption that ‘the undertakers’ was Streik’s euphemism for people intent on killing Harcourt. But Burr’s information had turned this supposition upside-down. ‘Do you believe such a group existed?’ Pagan asked. ‘That it still exists?’

‘Frank, it was never more than one of those whispers that just breeze across your desk and pass on into oblivion. Nobody really knew how the story got started, but it went the rounds, then faded away, and I hadn’t even thought about it until I heard this tape. Never take scuttlebutt as gospel, Frank. You know better.’

‘But if they exist, it’s possible that the oddball Embassy personnel you mentioned are part of them.’

‘Possible, of course. In the sense that anything’s possible. But even if they exist, what in the world can you do about it? What can anyone do? The Embassy isn’t going to come out and admit it. Caan certainly isn’t going to sit you down and say, Well, Frank, what do you want to know about The Undertakers?’ Burr shook his head emphatically from side to side. ‘Besides, Caan’s position would certainly be one of official ignorance. There might be dirty work going on inside the Embassy – but it’s down in the basement, so to speak. Caan breathes a more rarefied air, I’m sure. It’s even possible that he doesn’t know what’s happening in his own cellar. Or he turns a blind eye to it. He’s the Ambassador, after all. How can he possibly be associated with illicit activity? You see the problem, Frank. Where do you point the finger? Where do you place culpability? You don’t, because you can’t.’

Pagan let an echo of Streik’s message play inside his head. The only conclusion he could draw from it was that Harcourt and Streik had somehow crossed The Undertakers. Really useful. True progress.

‘Here’s what I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘If The Undertakers wanted Harcourt out of the way, how does Carlotta fit into the scheme of things? Did they hire her on a freelance basis to blow up the train?’

Burr emitted a long sigh. ‘Frank. I couldn’t even begin to answer that one. I couldn’t begin to fathom the connections involved. For starters, you’d have to prove The Undertakers exist …’

Burr was correct, of course. The Undertakers were eminently deniable, a fiction, a myth created by those people – and there were more than a few in the world – whose principal occupation was to disparage all things American. Where did this leave him? Fistfuls of sand, grainy particles of information that seeped through his fingers. Frustration, sheer and bloody.

‘Herself wants us to hie off to bloody Tangiers for a holiday,’ Burr said. The subject had been changed. The old man clapped his hand on Pagan’s shoulder. ‘Wants sunlight. Do the bazaars. Eat kebabs or whatever. I’m disinclined.’

‘Why?’

Burr smiled. ‘Because I’m a funny old codger, Frank. I actually like England in the winter. It touches something in my heart. An expectation of spring. Renewal.’ He laughed, then tapped his cane on the floor with a gesture of finality. ‘Well. Come and see me again when it isn’t business.’

‘I will,’ Pagan said.

‘And tread carefully, Frank. Do you hear me?’

‘I hear you.’

Outside it was already dark. Pagan walked almost as far as Harrods before he found a taxi to return him to Golden Square. He was lost in contemplation, and the more he thought the more his reckonings diminished. When he stepped inside the taxi, his brain felt like an airless chamber.