by R J Bailey
‘So, did he hand you anything to touch?’
‘Touch?’
‘Yeah, like I said, a business card? Or maybe even a letter. An envelope? A map?’ Before I could answer he did it for me. ‘You don’t recall.’
‘No, I don’t. Look, I need to think. I feel like if I could just kick-start my brain it would all come flooding back. Go and have your shower. And drink more water.’
‘Is Mom in trouble?’
Well, that took its own sweet time to surface. ‘Honestly? I don’t know.’ But I did. She was in bad, bad trouble. I could only imagine that Konrad had been turned by the opposition. That’s the trouble with guns for hire. There’s always someone who can go higher on the wages front.
‘Right. But we’ll go and get her, huh?’
Time to play the wildly optimistic card. ‘Of course we will. Don’t worry.’
‘Cool.’
He gave a lopsided smile as he got up and went to find a shower. I told him he would have to re-dress in the clothes he had on but that we’d have to pick up some new clothes for him later. The ones he was wearing stank. I had the impression I had been a little hard on him when we first met and perhaps just a few moments ago. Irritated that he had come along in the first place, annoyed to find him here and pretty useless. Apart from filling me in on what might have happened to me.
Now, I reckoned, having another warm body along wouldn’t be so terrible. It was someone to talk to, someone who would recall more than I did about our time at the chateau. And, of course, it was possible he wasn’t such a bad kid after all.
He can be fun. Funny. Wasn’t that what his mother had said?
But I was left with the feeling that there was something else I should ask him. Or perhaps something else I should know about him. Something important. But it was just out of my grasp, somewhere below the surface of the deep pool of black, featureless oil that was my short-term memory.
I refixed my towel with a more secure knot and put the kettle on. I knew I had to try to stay calm. Looking into my immediate past was like standing on the ledge of a very tall building, where the ground was covered in mist. I had no idea how far I would fall if I stepped off. It wasn’t a bad analogy because I also had real head-spinning vertigo every time I moved too quickly. Even when I was at my most drink-sodden, in the wake of my husband’s murder, I had never felt this shit.
So, very gingerly indeed, I searched cupboards till I found some more cleaning cloths and bleach and scoured what was left of the vomit off the table, holding my breath as I did so. I knew that by now I would probably have done this several times for Jess. It was what teenage girls did. Test the boundaries. They drink fruit-flavoured cider and cheap, possibly counterfeit, corner-shop vodka and throw it back up over their parents’ dining tables or, if we are lucky, bathrooms. Oh Lord, give me Jess back and I promise I’ll never complain about clearing up her sick.
I made such deals with the deity on a daily basis. Apparently my offers hadn’t quite hit the spot yet. When I had finished and scrubbed my hands, I slumped back at the table with a black coffee in one of those French breakfast cups you could do laps in. The rust-spotted clock on the wall told me it wasn’t yet seven o’clock. I had a whole day ahead of me to sort this mess out.
Protect the Principal.
I didn’t need to be reminded by that admonishing little voice in my damaged head. I knew I had fucked up. Not just failed to protect – I’d lost her entirely.
I heard the thump of the boy’s feet on the stairs. He pushed his head in the door. ‘My backpack has gone.’
‘I told you. All my stuff has gone too.’
‘What about the phones? Mine and Mom’s?’
‘They were in the boot of the car.’
The boy’s face crumpled in despair. ‘Why didn’t he just kill us, the motherfucker?’
Interesting weighting of events, I thought. He could take possibly being drugged, certainly being drunk enough to vomit, me being roofied and stripped naked, all our gear stolen, but take away his phone? Now you’re really pissing me off, dude.
‘Do me a favour. Go and check the landline, it’s . . .’ I almost had it for a second, but the image danced away before it could solidify from its wraith-like state.
‘I know where it is.’
And I knew before he pounded up those stairs and returned, a little more slowly, what he would say. ‘Dead.’
Of course it was. No phones. No car. No luggage. No gear. No money. No hope.
‘At least you have the clothes on your back. Go and wash your hair, I can smell you from here.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to think,’ I promised.
The trick was to start this from the beginning. Trying to remember recent events was only going to cause anguish and frustration, as I had already discovered. I put Myles out of my mind, drank some more coffee and went back to the time when I first met Konrad. The obvious conclusion came quickly.
Konrad hadn’t defected for money. He hadn’t been turned by the opposition. Konrad was the opposition.
He had always been the opposition.
And now he had my client. The Euribor charge against her was probably his doing. The idea of people trying to . . . Re-wind. I needed to go further back, to before I met Konrad.
The NOP account. The one in Luxembourg, where all this started. The man who held all Mrs Irwin’s dirty-money secrets in his head had been the victim of a hit-and-run driver. That triggered the crisis that brought her over. What if the driver of the car had been Konrad? Or, possibly, a hired associate? Then made sure that Mrs Irwin’s security missed the boat. She would need cover in Europe. Chances are she would go to a certain outfit in Zürich. There aren’t that many trustworthy guns-for-hire in Europe. Konrad could easily have got himself to the top of the Colonel’s go-to list. Well, not easily, but it was certainly possible.
So who’d killed the delivery driver and put him in the boot?
Konrad had.
Why? There were two possible answers. One was that the driver had rumbled him. Perhaps knew him of old. Realised there was something else going on. The second scenario was that Konrad had to throw me off-balance, wrong-foot me. If I thought that the opposition was right behind us, and had killed one of our own, I was more likely to panic. No, not panic, but not think as straight or as logically as I might. Certainly, I was more likely to listen to what Konrad suggested. After all, gunplay was his thing.
But wait. What about the gunmen on the square at the village? There had been an exchange of gunfire.
I took a sip of my by-now lukewarm coffee.
Or had there?
Konrad had been shot. That much couldn’t be faked. It was a clean wound but for some powder burns. No material in the trough along his side. Lucky, I had thought. And he had said the perp was close, that he’d managed to knock the gun aside.
Bullshit.
He had shot himself. He had enough spare flesh around his middle to take a shot. Yes, it would hurt. But what better way to sell a story that there are bad men after you?
And the tyre punctures? That could easily have been him too. All ploys designed to get us to this house, this place, and to separate us from Mrs Irwin. How much was pre-planned and how much was improvised, I couldn’t be sure. But all this didn’t answer one important question.
Why?
Why did he want Mrs Irwin, and what was he going to do with her?
I heard the voice of my old sergeant in my head. Rough, unpitying, practical: Just get it sorted.
The answers would come later. Right now I had to take charge of the situation. I had to find my Principal. I stood up and gripped the table as the room did its Tower of Terror impression. I still had that shit in my bloodstream. I wondered how long it would take to clear completely. I would be below par until then. Who was I kidding? I’d been outfoxed all the way.
I waited until everything steadied and headed for the stairs. I could look for answers whil
e I searched for clothes. There was one very big question that needed addressing.
Who was George Konrad?
PART FIVE
TWENTY-ONE
I found a dress in a wardrobe in a dusty under-the-eaves bedroom at the far end of the top floor. It was clearly a forgotten prop, thick yellow brocade with a tightly cinched waist, puffed shoulders and massive skirts. It had a squared-off neckline low enough to need better breasts – or a better bra – than I could supply.
Nevertheless, beggars and choosers came to mind. I took it down to the kitchen, found a blunt pair of scissors and began to hack at the skirts and petticoats. By the time I had finished and put it on I looked like a punk version of Marie Antoinette. With no knickers. Although that was probably true of the real Marie Antoinette as well.
I heard Myles shout my name and went back into the hallway and up to the ground floor. He was standing by the front door, his hands behind his back, a very-pleased-with-himself grin across his face. It got wider when he saw me and the result of my attempt at dressmaking.
‘Wow. That’s quite the party piece. Little Bo Peep?’
‘That is the last we shall speak of it,’ I said with all the menace I could muster. ‘What is it?’
‘I found something.’
‘What?’
‘A gun.’
I’d rather have a phone than a gun. ‘Let me see.’
‘Left or right?’ he asked, a lopsided grin skewered across his face.
‘What?’
‘Left hand or right hand.’
I took a step towards him and he got the picture. I was in no mood for guessing games. From behind his back he whipped out what might have been what they called a gun once, but to my mind was something you put on the wall in a glass case.
I took it off him. It was fine if you wanted to play highwaymen – ‘Stand and deliver!’ – but would be more practical as a club.
‘I don’t suppose there was any powder or bullets?’ I asked.
‘I think they used balls in those days.’
‘All right – any balls?’
If he’d come back with a smart answer I think I might have beaten him to death with the butt, just as a lesson in good manners. I took a breath, which wasn’t easy in that bodice, and told myself to calm down.
‘No balls.’ It was most likely just another film prop, not intended for inflicting serious injury.
‘Where did you find it?’
‘There are some buildings out back. Stables, I guess.’
‘Anything else in there?’ I asked.
‘Nah.’ He thought for a second. ‘Well, there’s some kinda old car.’
I pulled the tarpaulin off and stepped outside, waiting for the dust to settle and the grumpy moths and other insects to flutter away. A platoon of spiders scuttled over the cement floor, looking for some replacement peace and quiet.
We were about 100 metres from the back of the chateau. It was a lawn that sloped uphill to the stable compound. Once, judging by the low walls and pediments that intersected it, this had been a formal garden similar to the one out front, but it was dotted with explosions of unruly wildflowers. The stable block was brick-built, topped with rococo plasterwork that had once been as ornate as any on the main building, but was now crumbling and split. Two cherubs who looked like they had been the victims of acid attacks stared down at me dolefully, only a few years away from toppling headfirst onto the brick apron that fronted the block.
Myles was still holding the useless flintlock pistol, thumbing back the hammer, aiming it and pulling the trigger to produce a loud snapping sound.
‘Stop that.’
He did it again and I snatched it from him. He bunched his fists and snarled as if he wanted to make something of it and I squared off against him. I would almost welcome a physical attack. I felt like I needed something to release the fury that had built up inside me. But it was probably better to wait until I found someone who really deserved my full rage. George Konrad for one. Still, I think my come-on-if-you-think-you’re-hard-enough expression was clear enough, and he took a step back, letting some of the puff out of his chest.
‘You don’t seem too upset,’ I said.
‘About what?’
‘Your mother.’
It was another shrug, but this one had a strange sinuous, serpentine movement that rippled from head to toe. ‘My mom can look after herself. Look, we’re not that close. I don’t even have the same name. I was brought up by an aunt in Boston. My dad died when I was just a kid. A baby. She’s kept her distance, really. It was only when . . .’
I waited.
‘I got into a little trouble. In college.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
There was a lengthy pause, as if he was summoning up the courage for confession. ‘You know, I dealt a little weed. No big deal. But everyone acted like I was something out of Narcos. Mom decided she’d been a bad parent. So she thought it was a good idea for me to come along, so we’d get to know each other.’
And also give the kid a few million from the Luxembourg account? It didn’t seem like totally bad parenting to me. ‘And did you? Get to know each other?’
‘Not so much. God, it was boring. All that fuckin’ sea, day in, day out. I mostly played on the computers. And the fuckin’ boat is owned by a Mormon friend of hers. It was a dry ship. I had to smuggle Coca-Cola on board. She spent much of the time on the sat phone to her bank. So, it wasn’t the full mother-and-son bonding experience.’
Child cruelty. ‘This fear of flying. It’s genuine?’
‘Oh, yes. Scared shitless. When her brother died in a crash, it freaked her out. Me, I still think it’s the safest way to travel.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Way better than fuckin’ boats.’
A flurry of cackling crows took to the air from the woods beyond the stable. I waited to see what had spooked them, but after a minute they began to return to their perches. It reminded me I had business other than the Irwin family’s history.
‘OK, we haven’t got a boat or a plane. But let’s take a look at this car.’
The stable was a single large space, more garage than home to horses. The stalls had been ripped out and workbenches and cupboards put along the rear wall. This was where Myles had found the pistol. An inspection showed a few rusted tools, but little of practical use. And definitely no ammunition or powder for an antique flintlock. A cement floor had been laid at some point and, judging from the Rorschach assortment of oil stains on it, work had been done on a variety of vehicles over the years. As well as the car there was a four-wheeled carriage, down on its luck. It had even lost its traces and the interior was covered in what looked like mouse droppings. I turned my attention to its rather classier neighbour.
‘Handsome’, I would guess was the right word for the car. There had been one for sale in Monaco, at the official auction, and there had been a lot of interest in it. A Facel Vega. The car, so the brochure had said, that killed Albert Camus. Well, not the actual one, but the same type. It seemed a somewhat morbid boast to me. But then I guess Porsche had the same sort of relationship with James Dean.
The model before me had a European elegance coupled with design cues that suggested the brashness of old Detroit – a hint of fins, an oversized grimacing front grill – but also Motor City power: as I recalled there was a big thumping V8 under the bonnet. Yet it was very much made in France, albeit a France in thrall to the USA.
And author Albert Camus really had died in one, although it was being driven by his publisher at the time. I was thankful for my time at the Historique GP in Monaco and for Keegan’s thorough briefing documents. I thought going through all the old cars being sold off was overengineering the whole deal. But how was I to know I would come up against a Facel Vega? Thank God I hadn’t skipped the Historic Car Market folder.
I walked around the vehicle, sizing it up. The bodywork had been subject to some restoration, but the wire wheels were in need of care and attention. The tyres, too, were
perished around the walls, judging by the capillary bed of fissures over the word ‘Dunlop’. I opened the door on the driver’s side. The once-opulent red leather interior was scuffed and split, the windscreen had a crack in one corner. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling. The dash was a painted burr-walnut effect over metal, although it was chipped and peeling in parts.
I tucked myself in behind the huge ivory-coloured steering wheel, careful not to give Myles too much of a view up my dress, and gripped the circumference.
‘You don’t think this thing will go?’ Myles asked.
‘It only has to go as far as the nearest village,’ I said. I wasn’t sure how far that was. It was just on the border of my memory, at the point where my mind lost focus. It was quite a few kilometres, of that much I was sure. And the prospect of walking that distance barefoot dressed – as Myles would have it – as Little Bo Peep didn’t appeal.
I looked down at the dash. There was the slot for the key. What I didn’t have was the key to go in it. I yanked down the sun visors, scaring a few more spiders, but there was no sign.
I pulled the bonnet lever and said to Myles, ‘See if there is a spare key taped under there.’
He got the bonnet up and came back. ‘No key.’
‘No worries, I can hot-wire it.’
For once he looked impressed. ‘Can you?’
‘On a car of this age?’ I said, possibly smugly. ‘Easy.’
Then, a sneer of a smile. ‘Even without a battery?’
I spent a long time looking for a car battery in those stables. I spent almost as long glaring at the rusty tray where it should have stood, as if I could will it to teleport in. It remained stubbornly empty.
Everything else on the electrical system looked OK. There were plugs, plug leads that hadn’t cracked or perished, a distributor, a big generator the size of a turbine, the fan belt was OK, the points seemed in reasonable nick and . . .
A generator.
Why was that important? It had a generator, not an alternator. I knew that was significant, but couldn’t recall why. It was a throwaway remark from someone. One-Eyed Jack, my car guru.
