TWENTY-FIVE

LONDON

IN HIS OFFICE PAGAN FOUND A MEMO FROM NIMMO. FURTHER TO MY meeting with the American Ambassador, I demand that in future any aspect of the investigation that involves the American Embassy or its personnel must be cleared by me, personally, in advance. Under no circumstances will you disregard this. In addition, I await your progress report.

Pagan pushed the sheet aside.

He imagined Nimmo and the Home Secretary having a little chat with Caan. He thought of the undercurrents of such a conversation, the Ambassador talking in his most cordial manner, the Home Secretary listening with his customary doped expression, Nimmo into his appeasement mode.

Pagan wasn’t sure how to respond to the memo. He could report his conversation with Burr, but he reckoned that Nimmo would consider it the gossip of an old man who was either resentful or demented. Willie Caan involved in skulduggery? Unthinkable, out of the question. Caan was beyond reach, unassailable. He was a Good Guy, he took HIV-positive kids from the decrepit inner cities of England to Disneyland. He did Good Deeds. Besides, he represented a country from which, in ways too complex to unravel, the United Kingdom had come to expect patronage and support.

A shadow had been nagging Pagan ever since the meeting with Burr. If The Undertakers existed, and Caan knew about them, then the Ambassador was involved – however remotely – with the death of Bryce Harcourt; which meant there had to be some link, even at many very careful removes, between the Ambassador and Carlotta. And if Caan was being kept abreast of the investigation by Nimmo or the Home Secretary, what did that imply? Everything Pagan passed to George Nimmo would go ultimately to Grosvenor Square. Nothing was secret. Confidentiality was a joke.

And Caan had an inside track, a fast track.

Pagan wandered the room, worrying over this consideration. He could hardly go to George and tell him to give Caan absolutely nothing. Nimmo wouldn’t entertain such a notion. The alternative was simple. He’d be very selective about what he reported to Nimmo. And if George felt he was being ignored or sidetracked, screw it. It was no time to show George Nimmo, yo, a whole deck of cards.

Billy Ewing entered Pagan’s office. ‘This just came in.’ He laid a fax on Pagan’s desk. The message was from the Sûreté in Paris and had been signed by Claude Quistrebert. It was addressed to Pagan and stated that somebody using the name Karen Lamb had rented a car from Hertz in Paris. She’d given her destination as Marseille. The car had been found, seemingly abandoned, in the town of Chartres. Karen Lamb had apparently disappeared.

End of message, end of trail, Pagan thought.

‘She’s playing games,’ Ewing said. ‘Rents a car, informs the Hertz people where she’s going, then dumps it. At which point she either gets picked up by somebody else, probably by prearrangement, or she finds another means of transport out of Chartres. She’s making a maze, Frank. But it doesn’t tell us where the hell she is, does it?’

Pagan sat back in his chair. He thought about Carlotta and wondered if she’d changed her appearance. She might be unrecognizable. Plastic surgery. Disguises. Even if he were to issue a photograph of her to the Press, what good could come of it? There would be the usual series of false sightings and reports from cranks and crackpots. He didn’t need that clamour.

Pagan closed his eyes. He was thinking of the photograph that had been taken of Carlotta in Rio, the shadowy male figure in the background, that little stroke of familiarity he’d felt. But it led nowhere. It faded out in the dim recesses of memory. Who was the guy?

He looked at Ewing. ‘Is Foxie around?’

‘Told me to tell you he’d gone out hunting for somebody called McLaren. Said you’d know.’

Pagan massaged his eyelids in a weary way. ‘If he needs me, he can call me at home.’

He went back to Holland Park and sat for a time listening to the silences of the apartment. Familiar sounds – the buzz of the refrigerator, the click of the thermostat in the water-heater – struck him as strange for some reason. Perhaps he’d been gone too long; perhaps he needed a change in his life. He pondered the alleged existence of The Undertakers, considered the complicity of Ambassador Caan, thought about Jake Streik. He was restless, pacing the apartment. In the kitchen he unwrapped a ham sandwich he’d bought at the deli down the street. Bland. Brennan Carberry would probably have suggested mustard, Dijon or an exotic brand he’d never heard of. He chewed as he wandered through the rooms. He put the half-eaten sandwich down on the bedside table. He wasn’t in the mood for fodder. His head was buzzing. He was juggling names, possibilities, connections; gridlock in his skull.

The apartment was confining. He had to get out. He changed his clothes, put on a clean overcoat, and went downstairs. He got into the Camaro, and drove without any sense of direction, without conscious purpose. But he knew in his heart where he was headed. Why deny it? He passed the black windshaken expanse of Hyde Park, and then he was in Park Lane. He stopped the car outside the Hilton. He went into the lobby, approached the desk and asked for Brennan Carberry. He was directed to the house telephone. He dialled her room number. She picked up and said, ‘Hello, Frank.’

‘How did you know it was me? You psychic?’

‘Who else do I know in London? Where are you?’

‘In the lobby.’

‘Well? Come on up.’

He walked to the lifts, rode to the ninth floor, wondered what he was doing here. It was an easy question to answer on one level: the girl attracts you. You’re lonely. Perplexed. But other levels were more difficult to reach. Did he want involvement? Was he looking for something meaningful? God help me, he thought. No, this was surely something else: infatuation, say. Or simple need.

She was standing in the doorway of her room when he stepped out of the lift. She smiled, raised a hand; she was barefoot and wearing a black velvet robe, knee-length.

‘Enter,’ she said.

He stepped into the room, she shut the door.

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you,’ he said.

‘It depends on your definition. You can disturb people in different ways. It doesn’t always have to be unpleasant.’

He gazed at her face. There was an air of expectancy in her expression.

Pagan scanned the room, looked at the newspapers and magazines strewn across the bed, an open box of chocolates on the bedside table. A single lamp was lit; the shadows were calming, but he felt awkward and wondered why she kept having this effect on him. He recalled the egg salad sandwich, the shredded mess he’d made of his paper napkin. He had the feeling that if he were to embrace her he’d somehow manage to break her spine or bring about some kind of calamity.

‘I should go,’ he said. He looked at his watch.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve only just arrived. Sit. Relax. Get comfortable. Have a chocolate. Here.’

She held the box toward him.

‘I’m trying to give them up,’ he said.

Was his desire for her a means of dismissing the variety of problems that confronted him? Easy to deal with on that level: Brennan Carberry as a rocket leaving planet Earth. Up up and away. No more conundrums, perplexities. The desire was suddenly strong; it had intensified, opened out into other possibilities. A mysterious kind of flowering had gone on. He remembered the way she’d touched him in the sandwich shop in Soho. He recalled the feel of her skin. He wanted to touch her even now – so why was he restraining himself?

‘Look,’ he started to say. He didn’t know where the sentence was going. Probably into a series of self-imposed objections and excuses. I’m old enough to be your father. You’re going back to the States. I won’t see you again. On and on.

‘No. You look,’ she said, and her voice was firm. ‘There’s something between us. Or am I way off beam?’

‘There’s something. Yes.’

‘It happened almost from the start. In this very hotel. When you were leaving I shook your hand. But what I wanted to do was kiss you. Call it some kind of chemistry. No, that’s not the word I want. That’s too clinical.’

‘Attraction,’ he suggested.

She shook her head. ‘Uh-huh. Too shallow somehow.’ She reached out, laid her fingertips on his wrist, then let her hand fall away. ‘Whatever it is, here we are, Frank. You and me. This bedroom. What next? What do we do about this … thing?’

Pagan didn’t move. There were particles of energy shooting aimlessly around him. The longing he felt was overwhelming but he made no effort to reach for her. She took the first step, in a manner both bold and wary, raising his hand and drawing it toward her breasts and for a long time he left it there, as if this were enough, this contact of his hand against velvet. Then she slid his fingers under her robe, placed them against a naked breast. Her skin was delightful, silken; he could feel the beating of her heart. He thought of blood running in her veins, the flow of life rushing through her.

She was gazing at him in a questioning way.

He laid her slowly across the bed; she swept aside the newspapers and magazines. She looked into his eyes and smiled. She placed a fingertip against his lips. He was drawn down, mouth upon mouth, breath on breath, a mutual yielding. She shifted her body slightly, undid her robe, letting it fall away from her shoulders. Fair hair on black velvet, brown eyes, scent of flesh: Pagan imagined he could live in this moment for a long time.

She whispered his name in his ear. He remembered how seashells contained the sounds of tides. He heard that same oceanic murmur in his head. He placed his face between her breasts and for a time lay without moving. There was no hurry, clocks had collapsed. He was aware of an onslaught of perceptions – the hardening of her nipple against his lip, the veins running under the surface of her breasts, a tiny mole just beneath her ear, a blemish he found enchanting. He was conscious of the chocolates on the pillow and the way they glistened darkly in lamplight. She pushed his overcoat from his shoulders, then his jacket, and undid the buttons of his shirt, and ran her hands along his chest. He caught his breath as she reached for the buckle of his belt. Her palm was cool on his skin. He had a sense of being cut free from ancient shackles. This girl was his liberator.

‘Frank,’ she said. ‘Frank.’

Whispers, the hush of breath, the touch of her tongue upon his upper lip, his teeth. When had he last felt this alive? Just when you thought solitude was the condition of your life, something happens, something changes, and behold: a whole new panorama appears before you. He buried his face in her hair, tasted the blond strands in his mouth. He felt her hips pressed against his.

‘I want you inside me,’ she said.

Yes, he thought. There was no other destination. He looked into her eyes; she was gazing back at him. What passed between them in that contact was a moment of such truth and frankness Pagan had the feeling that all his life since Roxanne had been nothing more than treading water. He didn’t think of his marriage, old grief, past pains. He had a sense of resurrection. How easy it seemed, how natural. When he entered her he experienced, under the surface of his excitement, an unexpected tranquillity.

She held him tightly, raising her knees on either side of him. ‘Come for me, Frank. Come inside me.’

Pagan was stunned by the fusion, the passionate interlocking, and yet nothing was hurried. He had the sensation they might have been lovers for a long time, because of the ease, the mutual understanding of each other’s body, the concern. He was profoundly touched by this insight, by the gentle way she said his name when he came, how she drew him deeper into her and clasped him as if his satisfaction were the only event of importance in history. She came with him, took the same trip, shivering. Even then, when it was over, they were reluctant to move away from each other. They were silent for a long time, enclosed in a private sphere. They might have been two people seeking retreat from the indifferent world that existed beyond the window.

She ran her hand across the side of his face. ‘Frank,’ she said.

He thought he’d never heard his name pronounced in quite that way before. She uttered it as if it were precious, a form of code only they understood. Wasn’t that what lovers did? Recreated language to please themselves? Gave it new sounds, fresh descriptions? Lovers, he thought. Love, lovers.

‘I want to ask you a strange question. Promise you won’t laugh.’

‘I won’t laugh.’

‘Do you believe in … past lives?’

‘Past lives?’

‘I’m out of my mind. But I have a feeling I must have met you before.’

He smiled. ‘Maybe you did,’ he said.

Her expression was serious. ‘Really. I think I believe in reincarnation. Something weird and wonderful is going on, and I can’t explain it.’

‘Neither can I.’ And he couldn’t. Past lives, reincarnation, dead souls linked through eternities? He was in the mood to accept anything. He might have been dancing on the moon in defiance of gravity. Love! For God’s sake, what was he thinking? He wasn’t a kid any more, didn’t believe in lightning striking the heart, the old bolt from the blue. He was surely immune to all that.

She moved out from under him, propped herself up on one elbow. He lay on his back and she looked down into his face. ‘Explain it. How come it was like that. What’s going on between us, Frank?’

‘I don’t know. And I don’t want to analyse it either. Analysis is bad. It reduces things.’

‘Other men …’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve never known this … closeness with anyone else,’ she said. She looked puzzled, as if suddenly perplexed by a metaphysical problem.

Other men. The phrase created a shadow across his mind. Was it a sign of a new condition, this envy of other men? Adolescent of you, Frank. Of course there had been other men before you. What did you expect?

She said, ‘I didn’t plan on anything like this. It just seemed to blow in out of nowhere. I don’t know. I’ve never felt like this before. Are we crazy or what?’

He turned his face, looked up at the ceiling. He experienced an aftershock of orgasm. She reached out, clasped her hand around his penis, stroked it, and he was hard again. She took him inside her mouth for a few seconds, then raised her face, pushed hair from her forehead.

‘I wanted the taste of you,’ she said. He watched her: she had all that shining honesty, that astounding curiosity, of youth.

She straddled him, hair fell into her eyes, she tilted back her head, thrust herself against him. He was astonished by his own capacity. He watched the muscles in her neck strain, the motion of her small breasts, the mysterious little oval of her navel. Where did his reserves of desire come from? he wondered. Where this incomprehensible stamina? He couldn’t stop watching her, couldn’t refrain from marvelling at her, the closed eyelids, the slightly parted lips, the sculpted curve of hip. When he came again it was from a place far back inside himself. She fell flat against him, motionless, breathing hard. He enjoyed the feel of her face upon his shoulder.

She was silent for a long time.

‘Tell me about your world,’ she said. ‘Tell me how you live.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Anything. Everything. Just speak to me.’

He talked, as soon as he started he couldn’t stop, he talked in the way of a man making a confession many years too late, he spoke of his marriage, the emptiness of his life after, the various women who had drifted in and out, he spoke of his work, he travelled down with her into the Underground tunnel, described the devastation, he spoke of terrorism – a process of unburdening himself. And she listened. She looked into his face and listened with great concentration.

‘My life seems so dull by comparison,’ she said at one point. ‘I think of all the characters you’ve met, the people you’ve been involved with – and what have I done in my lifetime?’

‘Your lifetime has been considerably shorter than mine,’ he said. He heard this statement echo in his head, and it depressed him slightly. This lovely girl – why had she chosen him? Why give herself to him? Maybe it was something uncomplicated: she didn’t like men her own age, she found them immature, boring. But why me? he wondered. A cop in his mid-forties is no great catch, is it, Frank?

She ran a fingertip across his lips. ‘These people you hunt – are they always bad?’

Bad. The word struck Pagan as innocent in a fashion. ‘Most of them are psychotics you wouldn’t want to meet in an alley on a dark night. But some are just misguided zealots. Others are loners suckered into violence because they need to belong to a cause of some kind, any kind. It’s hard to categorize them.’

She continued to stroke his lips. ‘Have you ever met one you admired? One you liked?’

Pagan was quiet for a time. ‘Only Cairney.’

‘Cairney?’

‘Patrick Cairney. He called himself Jig. He was IRA.’

‘Why did you admire him?’

‘He was different from the others. Basically, I don’t believe he liked violence. He was above crude, unfocused terrorism. He was good at what he did – but he always went to great lengths to make sure nobody except the intended target was hurt. Discretionary terrorism, I suppose you’d call it. He had dignity. I think that’s the word. I spent months running him down. All the way to America.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘He was killed.’ Pagan didn’t want to elaborate on this clipped sentence. He didn’t want to dwell on Jig. He remembered the final confrontation in a mansion in upstate New York, the treachery of relationships in that great grey mausoleum of a house that Cairney’s father, a United States senator, an old IRA fund-raiser, had christened Roscommon out of nostalgia for his upbringing in Ireland.

‘How was he killed?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Not really.’ She pushed hair from her forehead. ‘I’m just curious.’

‘He was shot by his stepmother, a nasty character playing too many roles for her own good. She professed sympathy for the IRA because her husband was a misguided old Republican who raised funds in the States for the Cause. In reality, she was an Ulster Loyalist of a particularly vicious kind.’

‘I get confused about the different sides in the Irish conflict,’ she said, frowning.

‘You’re not alone in that.’

She was quiet for a time. ‘What became of Jig’s father?’

‘The stepmother took a gun to him. Father and son – she shot them both.’

‘Classy lady.’

‘Definitely.’

She moved her hand from his face. ‘Tell me about some of the others.’

‘Do you really want to hear all this?’

‘I want to know you,’ she said. ‘I want to know all there is to know.’

All there is to know. How was that possible? It was seven in the morning when he finally fell into silence; how could he have been in this room so long? Time had evaporated. He was dry, talked-out, light-hearted. He hadn’t shared his life like this in years.

‘I’m tired. Don’t leave me until I fall asleep,’ she said.

‘I won’t.’

She drew back the bed covers and he lay alongside her, holding her hand in a possessive way. She closed her eyes. He watched her, wondered about her life – about which he knew so very little – listened to the rhythms of her breathing, and then moved very quietly when he was convinced she’d fallen asleep. He dressed, scribbled a note on hotel stationery: I’ll be in touch. Love, Frank.

Then he slipped out of the room.

Outside it was cold and rain blew raggedly across Hyde Park. But he didn’t notice the weather. He walked to his dented Camaro and drove in the direction of Soho and Golden Square. Back to reality, he thought. But reality, in inscrutable ways, had changed.

On Piccadilly he passed the Tube station. It was still strung with scene-of-the-crime tape. A couple of uniformed cops stood idly in the entrance. He turned the car into the back streets of Mayfair with the intention of avoiding any early morning traffic around Piccadilly Circus.

He felt energetic, wired. Brennan Carberry filled his thoughts and he had a fierce longing to turn his car around and go back to the Hilton, crawl into bed with her, live with her the rest of his days in mutual bliss. Here, George Nimmo, this is my resignation. Thank you and good night. But he knew he wouldn’t do it, couldn’t do it. He had never walked away from unfinished business; on the other hand, he’d never been this tempted before. Temptation at your age, Pagan, he thought. You ought to know better.

So why couldn’t he just ascribe the incident with Brennan Carberry to the category of good sex and let it go at that? What was preventing him? You reach a point in your life when you’re closer to the end than the beginning and you want something deeper – was that it? He tried to imagine a future that included Brennan Carberry, but he couldn’t, and the failure troubled him.

He found himself in the vicinity of Grosvenor Square. He saw the US flag hang limp from rain. The great eagle overlooking the Embassy gleamed above streetlamps that were still burning even though dawn was in the sky. A few windows inside the Embassy were lit.

He parked the car, got out, wandered toward the building. A man carrying a briefcase emerged from a car and went inside, passing the marine on security duty. Pagan strolled to the foot of the steps. The marine looked out at him from behind the glass doors. Pagan thought about Bryce Harcourt and Al Quarterman, visualizing them as they must have entered the building in the past. He gazed at the marine, whose expression was one of cheerless vigilance. Pagan walked to the corner, turned back the way he had come.

Why not, he thought. Why the hell not?

He went up the steps. The marine remained motionless. It was only when Pagan reached the glass door that the marine finally moved, allowing his white-gloved hands to fall to his sides. His black face was impassive. Pagan pushed the door open and the marine said, ‘Is there something I can do for you.’ It wasn’t a question.

Pagan took out his wallet. The marine studied the Special Branch ID, checking Pagan’s face against the photograph. ‘I want to see the Ambassador,’ Pagan said, a little surprised by his own nerve. But you needed gall at times. You needed brass.

‘You have an appointment?’ The marine handed back the wallet.

‘No, I don’t. But I think he’ll see me.’

‘Yeah?’

Pagan looked beyond the marine. There was a photograph on the wall of the President. Various signs indicated the location of offices. Visa Applications. Permanent Resident Applications. General Enquiries. US Citizens Advisory Office. Somewhere a vacuum cleaner was running.

‘Generally speaking,’ said the marine, ‘you need an appointment to see the Ambassador.’

‘Do me a favour,’ Pagan said. ‘Just get a message to him that I’m here. Then we’ll see what happens.’

The marine looked reluctant, but ushered Pagan to a chair and told him to wait. Pagan sat. The marine, walking crisply, vanished behind a door. While he was gone Pagan leafed through some tourist brochures. Visit Florida. See the Everglades. Wonder at the Grand Canyon. The Embassy was in the business of vigorously promoting tourism.

His thoughts ticked over into romantic fantasies in the course of which he and Brennan Carberry held hands in sight of Mount Rushmore or made love in a sailboat on some lonesome Minnesota lake as geese flew across the setting sun. While he leafed these glossy pages and amused himself, various office workers entered the building, secretaries, receptionists, men in raincoats whose functions you couldn’t guess. The place was coming to life.

‘Mr Pagan?’

He looked up. The man was young, bright-eyed, fresh-shaved, smelled of cologne. He wore a lapel badge that identified him as a vice-consul, Butterworth, Peter.

‘May I see your ID, please?’

Pagan offered the young man his wallet. Butterworth looked at the photograph. ‘You understand the need for caution, Mr Pagan. We get all kinds of strange people asking to see the Ambassador.’

‘I’m sure you do,’ said Pagan, smiling in an understanding way.

Butterworth produced a lapel badge which he clipped to Pagan’s coat and identified him as an Authorized Visitor. ‘Follow me,’ he said.

Pagan rose, followed Butterworth along a corridor carpeted in dark blue; the walls were decorated with photographs of presidents past. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Ford: these hung in neat alignment. This was unmistakably American territory. Pagan had the feeling he’d been whisked directly from London into the United States. He wondered what would happen if he suddenly took a wrong turning, slipped away from Butterworth and roamed the hallways, opening closed doors, peering into rooms, looking for visible evidence of The Undertakers. Panic stations. Alarm bells. Armed marines.

Butterworth said, ‘This way,’ and escorted him inside a lift. The American pushed a button. He said nothing as they travelled up; he looked once at Pagan and smiled in a kindly way. When they got out of the lift they walked another corridor, Butterworth opened a door, a middle-aged woman at a typewriter raised her face and regarded Pagan without any interest, and then, this time in a manner that was almost reverent, Butterworth opened another door.

Finally. The inner sanctum.

‘Frank Pagan, Mr Ambassador,’ Butterworth said, and withdrew.

William Caan got up from behind his large desk. He held out his hand for Pagan to shake; the grasp was solid and friendly, the contact prolonged.

‘I’ve heard about you, of course,’ the Ambassador said. He had the kind of accent Pagan associated with Harvard: flattened vowels, a certain crispness to the way he bit off words.

Pagan looked at Caan’s impeccable hair, the unblemished skin. He was glossy. You had the feeling rainwater would simply slide off him. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t make an appointment,’ Pagan said, and glanced round the office, which was decorated with framed photographs of more American landscapes. The Blue Ridge Mountains. A vast empty prairie. The red rocks of northern Arizona.

‘No problem.’ Caan went back to his chair. ‘Have a seat.’

Pagan sat down facing the Ambassador. ‘I wanted to say how sorry I was about Al Quarterman,’ he remarked. ‘It was the last thing I expected. I feel responsible.’ He was winging it, he knew, trying to exploit this encounter for anything it was worth.

‘I hardly think you can blame yourself,’ Caan said. ‘You were doing your duty. Pursuing a line of inquiry.’

‘I thought Al might have some information.’ Pagan gave a little shrug. He needed an opening here, he needed to make a reference of some muted kind to the possibility of odd activities inside the Embassy because what he wanted was to see Caan’s reactions.

‘I’ve already discussed this with your Home Secretary. And with your Mr Nimmo. The meeting was cordial, Frank.’

First name. Nice touch. Pagan looked into the Ambassador’s blue eyes. He had a sudden image of Bill Caan in shirtsleeves and bermuda shorts, presiding over a barbecue, forking burgers and turning them, while happy families played Softball on the lawn.

The Ambassador reached for a paperweight on his desk, an onyx oval he stroked as if it were an oversized worry bead. ‘I understand the name of Carlotta has entered the frame.’

Pagan nodded. Nimmo must have chatted freely with Caan. Sharing confidences. Caan was the kind of man with whom Nimmo would want to ingratiate himself. Yes, Mr Ambassador. No, Mr Ambassador.

Caan said, ‘I was surprised. I thought she’d gone to ground. Are you sure your information is valid?’

‘I have good reason to believe it is.’

‘But you can’t go into it.’

‘Not now.’

‘I understand,’ said Caan. He pulled his hand back from the paperweight. ‘If you locate Carlotta, there might be a tug of war. She’s a fugitive, Frank. I’m sure our own authorities would like to put her back where she belongs.’

‘I’m sure,’ Pagan said. ‘It’s a bridge we’ll have to cross when we come to it.’ He changed the subject. He didn’t want to be steered in the direction of Carlotta, although he was intrigued by the fact Caan had raised her name in the first place and was laying some kind of mild claim to the woman – if she were captured. Perhaps Caan was concerned that Carlotta might have too much to reveal. ‘What kind of work did Bryce Harcourt do here?’

‘He was a researcher, but I’m sure you already know that,’ Caan said. ‘A good one too. I understand you had some cockamamie idea he was involved in other activities.’

‘It was a line of inquiry, nothing else,’ Pagan said.

‘Lines of inquiry can go off at misleading tangents, Frank. They can lead to such things as doors being kicked down, for example,’ Caan said, and smiled. Christ, it was a great smile, Pagan thought. It was confident, open, charming. Caan could make a miser break free his lifetime hoard of coins from under the floorboards. Here, Mr Caan, take it all. Give it to the poor.

‘Frank, I run a complex organization here. There is a variety of departments. Immigration. Security. Commerce. I pride myself on knowing exactly what goes on in every room of this building.’

‘I don’t dispute it,’ Pagan said. ‘But you can see the complexity of my own problems, I’m sure. Somebody killed Quarterman, and I don’t know why, I don’t know who. People don’t get assassinated for no reason, Mr Ambassador.’

‘I can’t help you with that one,’ Caan answered. ‘I’m no cop.’

‘My only intention was to ask Quarterman what he knew of Bryce Harcourt’s life,’ Pagan said. ‘Is that reason enough for somebody to kill the man?’

The Ambassador said, ‘We live in a complicated time, Frank. Something you know only too well yourself. We Americans are often blamed for events in which we were not involved. There are people in the world with grievances against us. There are grudges, and perhaps some of these are justified. I won’t debate that matter here and now. But some people are resentful of us. Sometimes in foreign countries we’re targets of animosity. Diplomats are kidnapped. Killed. I’m sure you know all this. Who can say what grudge somebody bore against Quarterman? He was an American. And in this world, Frank, that alone is often reason enough for murder.’

‘Maybe,’ Pagan said. ‘But it’s the timing that bothers me. The fact he was shot in my company. The fact I had certain questions to ask. This worries me, Mr Ambassador.’

Caan surveyed his office, as if he suspected something were out of place, something moved by a cleaner. ‘I’m as perplexed as you are, Frank. Let me assure you – as I’ve already assured your Home Secretary – that I intend to make a thorough examination of Harcourt’s background, and his relationship with Quarterman. And if I find anything that gives me cause for concern, you will be informed through channels.’

Through channels, Pagan thought. That meant nothing. Channels were places where paperwork clogged like shit in narrow pipes. No. Channels weren’t good enough. He studied the Ambassador a second: the man was glib, you had to give him that. And he had the old pro’s knack of making you feel you were the only important person in his world.

Pagan decided on a headlong approach, a lunge – what did he have to lose anyway? ‘I found a message on Harcourt’s answering-machine.’

Caan smiled again. ‘This was after you’d kicked the door down, of course.’

Pagan decided to let this one ride and go straight to the heart of the matter. ‘The message was a warning to Harcourt from a man called Streik.’

The Ambassador’s expression didn’t change. ‘What was the nature of the warning?’

OK. Throw the ball up, see how Caan plays it. ‘Streik told Harcourt to get away from The Undertakers.’ There. Done. The ball hung in the air.

‘The Undertakers?’

Pagan sat back in his chair and watched Caan, who stood up – perhaps a shade too briskly – and came round the front of his desk. He perched himself on the edge of the desk, swinging one leg back and forth. Pagan thought he detected a very slight alteration in Caan’s expression, nothing he could quite describe; maybe he only imagined the change because he wanted to, but he had a sense he’d somehow touched a nerve. And then this small feeling of discovery passed because Caan was suddenly grinning.

‘I think you’ve been kidded, Frank,’ he said.

‘How?’

‘The Undertakers,’ and Caan shook his head in exasperation. ‘Goddam. I thought I’d scotched that nonsense a long time ago.’

‘Oh?’ Pagan had the feeling that the situation was about to be turned around on him, that any tiny initiative he might have seized was going to be proven illusory.

Caan said, ‘I used to hear whispers constantly about some rogue outfit operating from this place. It was said they pulled some dirty stunts. They allegedly called themselves The Undertakers. When I first got here I ran a fine-tooth comb through the Embassy, Frank. Now, it’s no great secret to say that some of the people here …’ Caan leaned forward, drawing Pagan into his confidence. He reached out, touched Pagan’s shoulder. ‘Well, let’s just say their connection with diplomacy is minimal and leave it at that. But they’re not breaking laws, Frank. They look after certain US interests that don’t strictly fall into the category of diplomacy. But there sure as hell isn’t any group in this building that goes by the name of The Undertakers, Frank. I can assure you of that.’

He was good, Pagan thought. In one deft stroke, he’d admitted that a semi-clandestine element did indeed work in the Embassy, and he’d eliminated The Undertakers, relegating them to the category of groundless rumour. Pagan felt as if he’d just witnessed a nifty piece of sleight of hand.

‘So Streik’s message to Harcourt was what – some kind of bad joke?’

‘A bad joke. A bit of malice. The perpetuation of gossip. I don’t know this Streik, so I couldn’t possibly impute a motive to the man.’

Pagan looked into the Ambassador’s face. Caan’s legerdemain was impressive, but after every trick there was always a moment when you tried to figure out how it was done, a moment when the smoke cleared. And this trickery was too pat, too slick; it was a lacquered cabinet with false doors and concealed exits. Pagan longed to take an axe to it.

‘I suppose I better scratch that lead,’ Pagan said. He got to his feet. ‘Well. Thanks for your time.’

‘The Undertakers,’ Caan said, and shook his head. ‘I can’t believe that one’s still doing the rounds.’

He walked Pagan to the door, where he grasped his hand. ‘You need to ask me anything else, Frank, my door is always open to you.’

‘I appreciate that.’

Butterworth appeared to escort Pagan out of the building. In Grosvenor Square, Pagan got inside his car and with one last glance at the Embassy drove away. A pigeon flew into his windshield after he’d gone half a block, thumping the glass, sliding over the bonnet in a flurry of feathers. He wondered if this were an omen and, if so, of what kind.

It was ten a.m. when Foxworth met Alistair McLaren in a Victorian pub near Trafalgar Square. He’d waited for an hour the night before in a Soho pub, but McLaren, whose sense of time was as poor as his grip on reality, hadn’t shown up, and now he was awfully apologetic about it, plunging into a rambling drunken story concerning a party in Greek Street that had led mysteriously to another party in Wimbledon, and you know, good Lord, how these things can get out of hand … It was clear McLaren had been up all night drinking. He was a benign drunk with a gentle manner; he had a blood-red face and enormous uncontrollable eyebrows, a bear of a man. He clutched the brass rail that ran around the bar and often closed his eyes in mid-sentence as if seeking some tiny sober part of himself.

McLaren’s drinking career had been a long one, involving hospitalizations, treatment centres, detox units, AA, the whole thing. The only reason he managed to cling to his job was because of his solid connections and the fact that people, for reasons of misplaced compassion, usually indulged him; he was just being himself, good old Alistair, basically a sound chap. He wasn’t allowed to wander into any sensitive areas; his job description was strictly limited. He’d been demoted gradually over the years but was probably too addled to realize it. When you stripped him of any official titles he might have had, he was, Foxie thought, a filing clerk.

‘So Foxie, old devil, what have you been up to? Still slaving for Pagan, are we?’

‘Still slaving.’ Foxworth ordered a brandy for himself and a scotch for McLaren.

‘Can’t abide Pagan,’ McLaren said.

‘He’s not from your side of the tracks,’ Foxie said.

McLaren shook his large rugged head. ‘My dear fellow, class isn’t involved in this. No, no, no, class is passe. Haven’t you heard? All that bullshit has gone out of the window.’ He made a gesture with his hand suggestive of a bird taking flight. ‘Pagan rubs me the wrong way. I like a man who knows how to enjoy himself. Have a bit of fun.’

‘I’m sure Pagan has his own definition of fun, Alistair.’

McLaren slapped his glass down, picked up the new one. ‘I wouldn’t want him as a drinking buddy, that’s what I’m saying.’

‘I don’t know. I’ve had a few good times with him.’

‘I can’t quite imagine Pagan having a good time,’ McLaren said. ‘They say he’s mad about vintage rock and roll. That tells you something right there. Stuck in the past. Glued to an old groove. Doesn’t move with the times. Get with it.’ He clicked his fingers, as if to suggest he was with it himself: a man of the moment, the cutting edge.

Foxie, resisting the urge to defend Pagan because he wanted to be in and out of the pub quickly, said nothing. He tasted his brandy, then set his glass aside. McLaren was quiet for a while, searching the pockets of his old tweed suit for cigarettes. He found a broken one, lit it, couldn’t get it going properly even though he puffed at it furiously.

‘Cheers,’ he said, when he’d given up on the cigarette. ‘So you’ve come seeking favours.’

‘I need them,’ Foxie said.

‘All this in-fighting’s a bit of a cock-up, don’t you think? One department pitted against the other. You on one side, me on another, this branch of Intelligence snubbing that branch, and on and on. If we had more co-operation, Robbie, we’d all be better off. What’s wrong with a bit of bloody sharing anyway? We’re on the same damn side, correct?’

‘Correct.’

‘Under one flag, old son. It might be slightly tattered these days, but it’s still one flag.’

McLaren fished through his cavernous pockets, bringing forth all manner of items – streaks of cellophane, coins, matches, flakes of tobacco. ‘When you phoned I went to the files. I think I found something for you. Took a bit of searching, all the same. You mind doing the honours while I rummage?’ He nudged his empty glass toward Foxworth who bought him a second shot, a double, even as he wondered about the shambles of McLaren’s life.

‘Thanks. Got it here somewhere for you.’ McLaren tasted his drink then poked at the articles he’d stretched out on the counter. Foxie surveyed with some dismay the collection of garbage McLaren produced. Now McLaren was going through another pocket, fishing out more trash, more shreds and scraps and bits and pieces, a few creased baseball cards.

‘What in God’s name are you doing with baseball cards?’ Foxie asked.

‘Old hobby of mine. When the father shipped me off to Yale for a year after I flunked Cambridge, I fell under the spell of the summer game. Hot dogs and coke and blue afternoons. Ah.’ McLaren smacked his lips. ‘Miss all that in a funny way. Miss the lazy humidity. America’s a bit of a dream, really.’

Now McLaren was going through the trouser pockets, the two front, the hip.

‘Ah-hah. Got it.’ McLaren produced a crumpled sheet of paper and smiled triumphantly. ‘Here’s what you’re after.’ He pushed the sheet toward Foxie, who picked it up.

‘This Streik,’ McLaren said. ‘Beats me why you’re interested in him.’ He belched quietly, trying to suppress it at the last moment by tucking his chin into his neck. ‘Strictly small-time. Delivered the occasional message for CIA. Usually Prague, sometimes Warsaw. We used him once or twice on joint operations. Elusive bugger, though. No fixed abode. Last known address Manhattan.’

Foxie looked at the paper, on which was scribbled an address on East 23rd Street. Useless, if Streik had vanished. Under the New York address was written a name he could barely read because McLaren’s handwriting suggested the tremors of a hangover.

‘What’s this?’ Foxie asked.

McLaren screwed up his eyes and looked at the paper. ‘Ah, yes. Audrey Roczak.’

‘Who?’

‘Former small-time operative in Prague. Warsaw. Very long association with Jacob Streik. Best of pals. Maybe even more than that if you listen to gossip. If you’re looking for Streik, you might try through her. Lives in Lyon.’

‘You don’t have an address for her?’

‘Sorry and all that. Just Lyon. Shouldn’t be too hard, though.’

Foxie nodded, moved away from the bar, most of his brandy untouched.

‘I say, you’re not leaving, are you?’ McLaren seemed shattered at the prospect of drinking alone.

‘Got to, Alistair.’

‘Is there no charity in that heart of yours?’

Foxie shrugged. He called to the bartender and set up another double scotch for McLaren and then he left the pub.

In his office, Pagan stood at the window and stared down at the square. Daylight, grey and scummy, caused the place to look neglected, like something imported from a dreary East European city. The only thing missing, he reflected, was a dismantled statue of Lenin. He was thinking of Caan, trying to suppress a small admiration for the way the Ambassador had attempted to manipulate him. Yes, we have some dubious characters in the Embassy. No, there’s no such thing as The Undertakers. The first statement was a confidential admission designed to give the imprimatur of validity to the second. A rhetorical trick, and Caan had worked it as well as it could be worked.

But Pagan wasn’t buying. The strident, panicky tone in Streik’s recorded voice impressed him more than Caan’s silvery manner. Nor did Caan’s weak explanations of Streik’s message convince him.

He pressed his forehead against the glass: his thoughts drifted away from Caan, back to Brennan Carberry, back to the first meeting on the Embankment, the collision. She had caused more than a dent in his Camaro; she was doing a number on his emotions as well. She was fogging his brain, eroding his concentration, and he felt curiously destabilized. Somebody blows in out of nowhere and snags your heart and suddenly you’re losing the thread of things and you don’t really know why, you don’t know your own mind, you don’t know her, or whether in her scheme of things you’re just some holiday recreation, the old shipboard romance that enhances a long cruise, a diversion …

He moved back from the window, ran a hand across his face, frowned, picked up the telephone, and even as he began to dial he experienced a feeling of resentment against himself, and a certain sadness, because he’d lost something essential from his life: he’d forgotten how to trust. He stopped dialling, put the phone back down. Don’t do this, Frank, he thought. Leave it alone and see where it goes. But his hand strayed to the receiver again and he picked it up and this time dialled the number without stopping. It rang for a long time before it was answered. Pagan spoke his name.

He heard Artie Zuboric’s voice, the bearlike growl of a man disturbed from sleep. ‘You any idea what time it is here, Pagan?’

‘About five a.m.,’ Pagan said.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ Zuboric said. ‘I don’t hear from you in what – five, six years, and you wake me in the middle of the goddam night? This better be good, Pagan.’

Pagan hesitated. You can still hang up, he thought. Apologize to Zuboric and put down the phone and forget you ever considered this.

Zuboric, who had no acquaintance with charm at the best of times, snarled. ‘I’m waiting, Pagan.’

Pagan said, ‘I need a favour.’

‘Big or small?’

‘Small,’ Pagan replied.

‘Let’s hear it.’

Pagan made his request and Zuboric asked, ‘That’s it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Fuck you. You wake me for that? I’ll get back to you.’ The line went dead abruptly and Pagan set the receiver down. Dogged by doubt, he wandered back to the window. OK. It was done. Zuboric would get back to him. But he felt bad, sneaky, as if he’d done something underhand. He could call Zuboric again and tell him to forget it.

He looked down from the window.

A man in a dark green overcoat stood in the middle of the square, gazing up at the office. There was a moment of eye contact with Pagan and then the man drew from the folds of his overcoat a gun and raised it quickly, arm stretched, aiming at the window. Shocked, Pagan barely heard the two shots. Before he could react he was aware of glass breaking all around him, chips of wood flying from the rotted old frame, fragments of plaster clouding the air about his skull – and then the man was rushing across the square in the direction of Lower James Street.

Pagan went to the drawer of his desk, took out his Bernardelli and hurried from his office, striding quickly toward the stairs, rushing out into the street and heading in the same direction as the gunman. But there was no sign of him; already the figure in the green overcoat had vanished towards Piccadilly Circus.

Pagan kept moving anyway, looking this and that way through the crowds trudging up from the Circus, unaware of the startled expressions of those who saw him with the gun in his hand and shrank away, expecting the worst, a madman on the loose, a massacre in the making.

When he came to Piccadilly Circus, he gave up. Taxicabs, buses, cars, pedestrians, the place was choked. You could never find anyone here. He walked to the corner of Regent Street where a vendor had on display an array of the morning’s newspapers, one of which carried the lurid headline TERROR IN BERLIN, a proclamation that registered only slightly in Pagan’s head – because he was thinking of the man in the green coat, he was remembering the chase through the streets of Mayfair, the gunman who had shot Quarterman.

He gazed toward the statue of Eros, which seemed to fade into the threadbare morning light.