Old Enemies

by Michael Dobbs

  ‘But, Harry, you say you can’t be sure Chombo’s behind it.’

  ‘You’ll know within seconds if he isn’t. Just don’t directly accuse him of anything and if he’s got nothing to do with it there’s no harm done.’

  Yet it had been a pointless precaution. Ebinger could smell the guilt on Chombo, could see it emerging in little tears just below his hairline.

  ‘Three days, Mr Chombo.’

  ‘But the election isn’t for another seven weeks,’ Chombo persisted.

  ‘Let me explain it to you so you won’t misunderstand. The father’s not going to publish and take the risk that whoever has kidnapped the boy will try again. He won’t want his son staring over his shoulder in fear of retaliation for the rest of his life. There’s a deal to be done here, Mr Chombo. Neat. Simple. Three days. Otherwise this is all going to get like a muck yard in a monsoon.’

  Chombo’s mind was a sheet of newspaper being blown across the gutter in a storm. Files? Grandchildren? He had lost control of this situation, his own life was being held hostage along with the boy. He had no choice.

  ‘You have my word, Mr Ebinger, that I will do everything I can to resolve this most unfortunate situation.’

  ‘And you have my word, too.’ The American made his assurance sound very much like a threat.

  ‘I . . . I understand.’

  ‘Then we are one.’ Ebinger’s tone made it sound as if he’d just been handed an undercooked hamburger. The job was done, time to finish with this skunk. He pressed a button on the console in his armrest and soon the car was drawing to a halt, its door being held open by the Secret Service agent once again. Chombo was startled to discover that they were back at the airport. Ebinger had been driving him around in circles.

  No handshakes. And no dinner. In any event, Chombo was no longer in the mood. He had other things to digest. He watched bleakly from the pavement as the tail lights of the limousine disappeared into the African night.

  It had begun to snow across London, thick flakes of white that muffled the noise of the distant traffic as Harry hurried along one of the many paths crossing Hyde Park. It was already beginning to settle and his shoes left a trail, but one that would soon be covered over and lost. There were no other marks on the path; wiser heads had stayed at home. A night bird called out in distraction but quickly fell quiet. He picked up his pace as he neared the Serpentine, and the lights of a car flashed briefly in recognition before they died as the engine was switched off. Terri emerged through the falling flakes.

  ‘Hello, Harry.’

  They stood facing each other, only inches apart. Her head was wrapped in a scarf like a hijab, outlined against a pillow of snow, and she looked beautiful. They didn’t touch, didn’t embrace, didn’t even hold hands as they had done in their charge down Piccadilly towards the bookshop. They both knew their intimacy was dangerous, and were afraid.

  They took the path that led around the lake, their passage marked by the rustling of sheltering waterfowl. They walked in silence for a while, listening to the soft tramp of their feet in the thickening snow.

  ‘We haven’t heard from the kidnappers for four days now,’ she said as they passed a boathouse. ‘I’m worried, Harry. They haven’t been silent for this long before.’

  ‘Silence is a weapon. Meant to put pressure on you. Make you suffer.’

  ‘Then it’s working.’

  ‘But now it’s their turn. We’ve made contact with Chombo. Hit gold, I think. There’s no doubt Chombo knew about Ruari.’

  She stopped, swivelled towards him, gasped in anticipation, her breath crystallizing in the cold air.

  ‘We’ve made a little suggestion to him. If Ruari is released, Chombo’s problems with the diaries disappear.’

  ‘Released? But when? How soon?’

  ‘We’ve told him three days.’

  She began panting. ‘Three days! Can it be? Can it really be?’

  ‘It’s possible. Everyone might get what they want out of this.’

  A snowflake slid down her nose as she stared at him. ‘Except for you, Harry.’

  Damn, she could read him so well. She looked up into his eyes, saw pain, understood why. He had always been focused, almost driven, forever pushing on. It was Harry’s way. Yet now it was as though his feet were slipping in the snow, and all because of Terri. Her husband had been right, there was something between them still, would always be, but what was he supposed to do about it? Ruari had brought them together once more, but if he was released, this might even be their last time. And there was still unfinished business.

  ‘Why, Terri? Tell me. Why Paris? Did I order the wrong wine or something?’

  ‘It still matters?’

  ‘Of course.’ His tone had hardened, like scar tissue.

  Her lips trembled in hesitation, trying to find the right words, but they were elusive. She began walking again, head down as her mind cast back all those years, yet now her arm was linked through his, touching once more.

  ‘You were already married, Harry,’ she said finally. ‘I heard you got back together with Julia. I was happy for you.’ A pause. ‘I cried for a month when I heard she had died.’

  ‘You didn’t know her.’

  ‘I cried for you, Harry. I was going to get in touch, but . . .’

  ‘But?’

  ‘I didn’t think it would help you.’

  They walked on, counting snowflakes, lost in their maybes. It was a while before he spoke again.

  ‘And if I hadn’t been married?’

  She stopped yet again beneath the leafless branches of a plane tree, where the pale light of a pavement lamp allowed them to see into each other’s faces. ‘You were married, Harry.’

  ‘But if . . .’

  She sighed. ‘It would still have been the same, Harry.’

  ‘Why?’ He couldn’t help it, but anger crept into his voice.

  ‘Because . . . !’ She almost shouted, protesting at his dumb persistence in making her relive it all, but she pulled herself back. She owed him. ‘Because, Harry, I could never have kept up with you. You were a knight in shining armour, always charging off in search of dragons. That’s not what I wanted, what I needed. Anyway, I always knew that Julia would reclaim you and even if she didn’t, you’d be away doing all those things you do.’

  ‘I would have changed.’

  ‘But I didn’t want you to change, don’t you see that? You’re Harry Jones, one of the most special men in all the world. That’s why I fell for you.’ A sob. ‘And why I could never live with you.’

  ‘I could have done anything for you.’

  ‘If you had ever been tempted away from Julia you would have drowned yourself in guilt, and I would never have been able to forgive myself for that.’

  ‘So you went off with J.J.’

  ‘Yes, J.J.’ The way she pronounced his name, it seemed to have come as something of a surprise. ‘He was never going to be the greatest passion of my life but in his own tightly buttoned way he’s solid, he’s sincere, kind and dependable – so far as any man can be. And a wonderful father. Don’t try to make me regret what I did, Harry.’

  ‘Why? Do you?’

  ‘You bastard!’ she sobbed, the snowflakes melting into tears on her face as her fists beat against his chest in protest at being taken to places she didn’t want to go.

  Then she was in his arms, and their lips met. They were two people wrapped in a cocoon of snow, cut off from their other world, turning back the clock on their lives. Her breath, her skin, the smell of her hair, the sweetness of her tongue, the pressure of her body that he could feel even through the thickness of their clothes. Yet beyond the silence and the snow there was, still, that other world out there, one that was solid and real, filled with obligation, and it wouldn’t disappear. Suddenly Harry felt her beginning to shake, and when she opened her eyes once more they were pouring with misery. With a stifled gasp of despair she pushed herself away. Their eyes tangled, but only for a moment, and once
again she was running away from him, leaving a trail of footprints behind her, until she was lost in the whiteness and the darkness of the night.

  Inspector D’Amato stroked the file that was open in front of him, as if hoping that by touch alone he could bring it bursting into life. As it was, the report made pitifully thin gruel, no more than a single page with a photo clipped to its corner. Not much to show for the life of a sixteen-year-old boy and the misery his parents must be going through. He thought about his own son, Vincenzo, who was now eight. He imagined his boy skipping across the cobbles as he emerged from school, with that huge smile of expectation on his face and his satchel covered in football stickers swinging from his shoulder, running innocent and unsuspecting into the arms of a stranger. As a father such thoughts tormented him, yet as a policeman he had to try to take a more detached view.

  The Italians knew well about such crimes because not so long ago their country had been the kidnap centre of the world. Even one of their prime ministers, Aldo Moro, had been taken, and countless others were reported to the police – more than a case every week, with many others that never came to official notice. It had been a national disease, until the authorities had got wise to its ways, and the criminals had discovered it was easier to make their millions from drugs and online fraud. A kidnap might drag on for many months and involve considerable personal hardship, while fortunes nowadays could be made with little more than the touch of an Internet button. No contest. So kidnapping had died down, but it hadn’t disappeared. And along with the bad memories, it had left men like D’Amato with a wealth of experience. The Italian police had won many more cases than they had lost, but that didn’t mean that all the victims survived. Things sometimes went wrong, someone panicked or lost patience, the families played the game badly, or the kidnappers not at all. They had found the body of Prime Minister Moro dumped in the boot of a car, with eleven bullets in his chest. Yes, sometimes these things went terrifyingly wrong. A family might pay out millions and be left with nothing but a lifetime of pain.

  His fingers traced across the page once again, like a blind man reading Braille, searching for clues, but he found none. It was typed as thinly as a politician’s promise. It was no more than supposition that the boy was even in Italy, mere guesswork that he might be holed up somewhere on the Carso. This wasn’t evidence, it was a wish list. As a policeman he found so little promise in it, yet as a father he was determined not to ignore it, just in case. The Carso was desperately difficult territory for his men, its inhabitants mostly Slovenes, insular and suspicious, and the police presence stretched thin on the ground, yet the people of the Carso weren’t uncivilized, they wouldn’t welcome foreigners arriving to dump trouble on their doorsteps, so it would be worth pushing his men around the place, looking for any fresh trails of dust.

  He closed the file and cast it carelessly onto the top of a pile of paperwork that was already threatening to overwhelm a substantial part of his desk, but he had no worries that the file would be lost. Simona would take care of that, just as she took care of everything else around this place. Her talents stretched so much farther than simply getting laid on his desk but it was, he had to admit, in a manner that was more than a little smug, perhaps an added reason for her to keep the desktop from being overwhelmed with paper. The inspector smiled. He was indeed a fortunate man.

  Three days, less a few hours already. The clock was ticking. Chombo had been taken by surprise and overwhelmed by the assault Ebinger had unleashed on him. He knew he’d been butchered, made to bleed, yet he was an adaptable man. By the time he could see the lights of Harare beneath the undercarriage he’d recovered his wits and almost persuaded himself that he was returning in triumph. After all, he’d got what he wanted, hadn’t he?

  It was gone midnight when he arrived back at the presidential palace, but he insisted that Takere be summoned to join him, although he knew the security man was almost certainly already in his bed. Even so, when he appeared he was immaculately dressed in uniform; Chombo suddenly realized that he had never seen Takere out of it. He was always on duty, even when he slept, it seemed.

  They stepped out into the private garden attached to the residence, behind high walls topped with razor wire, which ensured they were on their own. The night was humid, heavy, filled with the sickly-sweet fragrance of frangipani and ylang-ylang, while the ice in Chombo’s bourbon chinked lazily against the glass. It wasn’t his first, but he offered Takere neither apology nor drink.

  ‘How is the boy?’ Chombo demanded.

  ‘I believe he is well,’ Takere replied cautiously.

  ‘You believe?’

  Takere couldn’t mistake the sarcasm in the emphasis and was immediately on his guard. ‘I have not spoken to them for a couple of days. If it is important, I will check.’

  ‘Make sure he is well. We are going to release him.’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Make the arrangements.’

  ‘I do not understand.’

  ‘It is not important that you understand. What is important is that you do as I instruct.’ It was heavy-handed and Chombo knew it, but he had had a difficult day and someone had to suffer. Takere had to learn his place.

  ‘If that is what you want,’ the security man said softly.

  ‘I, Chombo, have taken care of matters that you, Takere, said would take months!’ He was being boastful, his ill humour swept along on an excess of bourbon. ‘You told me there was no other way.’

  ‘Then I congratulate you, Mr President.’

  ‘You will see to it, Takere,’ Chombo instructed. He perched his large frame on the surround of an ornamental pond; Takere was not invited to join him, and was forced to stand disconsolately like a whipped schoolboy.

  ‘And you will be sure to reclaim a good proportion of the money we have invested,’ Chombo continued.

  Takere shifted uneasily, stubbing at the ground with his toe. ‘I’m not sure that will be possible.’

  ‘And why not? We paid for an operation you said would last months. It has lasted only days.’

  ‘You will remember that you agreed to their demands for their fee to be paid up front. I do not believe they are the type of people who will dig into their pockets to give us anything back.’

  ‘Then you must persuade them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘That is your concern, not mine.’

  ‘I can ask. But I cannot promise.’

  Chombo swilled the ice around his glass. ‘Tell me, Takere, what was your cut from these people?’

  ‘My . . . cut?’ The other man struggled to get his tongue around the word.

  ‘Yes, your cut. Your commission, your consultant’s fee, however it is described in the small print of the papers which have been signed.’

  Takere hesitated only a fraction. ‘There were no papers. There is no small print. As you will remember, you never met those people. That is what we agreed. In any event, I am a security man, not a secretary. My only concern is your safety, Mr President.’

  ‘If you dodge bullets as well as you duck my questions, Takere, you will live a long life.’

  ‘It is your life that is my concern, Mr President.’

  ‘I trust you will remember that. So make the arrangements. About the boy.’ He finished the last of the bourbon with one final swallow. ‘And get me back my money.’

  There was never a chance that de Vries would agree to hand back any of the money. He even demanded payment of an additional ten per cent completion fee, but that was never going to happen. Nevertheless, he found the argument for a radically reduced fee intriguing, full of unexplored potential, so much so that he decided to try it out on his own group of Romanians.

  ‘So you get half,’ he told them, kicking a log on the fire and raising a storm of sparks. ‘Not bad for a couple of weeks’ work. Best payday most of you have ever had.’

  That was accurate, but not persuasive. ‘Is not what we agreed,’ Cosmin, the spokesman, said.

  ‘I kn
ow, I know. It’s tough on us all. I promise, I have done my best, argued our case, but you know what those black bastards are like. They’d screw your mother then demand payment for her pleasure.’

  ‘Is not what we agreed,’ Cosmin repeated. There was a dull, dogged tone to his words that began to test de Vries’s patience.

  ‘How do you think I feel?’ he snapped, poking a finger into his own chest. ‘I lose more than anyone.’

  It was a lie, and a grotesque one. When he had got them to take their half, he and Grobelaar would pocket the rest. It threatened to be the biggest handout they’d ever enjoyed. But Cosmin, stubborn mule, was still shaking his head. ‘No, not what we agreed. We don’t accept.’

  ‘Really? You don’t accept? A pity,’ the South African replied. ‘Because you don’t have any bloody choice.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  D’Amato often likened his job to his occasional hobby of fishing. A combination of experience and patience, and sometimes grabbing a little luck when it passed by, and good fortune arrived in the form of a burglary, in the hamlet of Rupinpiccolo up on the Carso. Crimes weren’t always reported there, the Slovenes did things their own way, had no time for authority, preferred to sort out their own problems without calling in the police. After all, who knew what the hell the wretched carabinieri might uncover once they started poking into barns and kicking over hayricks? But the elderly woman lived on her own, the thieves had taken all her family heirlooms and cash, and what enabled the investigation to float to the top of the slurry pond was the old woman’s claim that foreigners were to blame. There wasn’t a shred of evidence for this, her views were built on nothing but prejudice and her abject failure to realize what a thieving toe-rag her grandson had become, but a couple of foreigners had been reported in the neighbourhood and on the Carso such people stood out. She didn’t know what type of foreigner, or precisely where they might be found, but that was the job of the police to sort out and not let an old woman suffer.