The Passenger

by Chris Petit

  Collard pushed into the crowd, trying to imagine what Bauer looked like. People shouted to be heard. Most guests struck poses. A clique of elderly, immaculate patricians displayed an ease of manner that came from a lifetime of ordering people around. Otherwise a lot of winter suntans dressed with too much gold shouted wealth, no taste or class. Younger men tended to be bland and good-looking; the women more angular and interesting, feral even, in haute couture post-punk.

  Collard stood in the middle of the room, wondering how much more he could take, when a voice in his ear said, ‘It takes the Germans to make punk dreary.’

  Collard turned to find Stack grinning at him, champagne in hand. She looked reckless and drunk.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked, not pleased.

  ‘My question to you exactly.’

  He took her by the arm and drew her aside.

  ‘Why are you following me?’

  ‘Let go. That hurts.’

  He hadn’t realized he had been gripping so hard.

  ‘I’m not following you. I’m following a lead on Nazir.’

  ‘Through a man called Patrick Bauer?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  It crossed his mind again that she knew exactly why he was there because she had been sent to watch him.

  ‘Do we have a conflict of interests?’ she asked.

  He couldn’t stop her chasing her story. On the other hand, her presence as a journalist would hamper his chances.

  ‘I’ll give you the story if you go along with me. Whatever you do, do not let on that you are a reporter.’

  ‘What story will you give me?’

  He saw the gleam of ambition. It didn’t matter, really. He had already told Evelyn most of what he knew and she would get it off him anyway. Before he could answer a woman joined them and asked if he was Collard.

  She was the only other casually dressed person at the party, in a pressed white linen shirt, faded jeans and American boots. Even Stack had changed into a black suit.

  The woman said her name was Marisa. She knew he was there to meet Patrick Bauer. She spoke English with confidence and graced Stack with an enquiring look.

  ‘My wife,’ Collard said.

  Drunk or not, Stack was willing to go along with the charade, shook hands with Marisa and said, ‘Interesting party.’

  It was being given for a private screening of the next big Hollywood movie, she told them. Her ironic manner left them in no doubt what she thought of the film. ‘A lot of the people here have tax-shelter money in the picture.’

  Stack held her champagne glass in her left hand, the absence of any wedding ring very visible. Collard offered to get her another drink. Stack smirked and said she was old enough to fetch her own.

  Marisa chatted inconsequentially, telling him she had started out as an actress in Italian Westerns and English vampire pictures, then moved on to a degree in history of art and now did interior design.

  Stack returned with more champagne. Marisa went off to search for Patrick Bauer. Stack accused him of flirting.

  ‘I was being polite.’

  ‘Interior design! If that’s what you call choosing rich people’s wallpaper.’

  Collard wondered how long before they could get out. He thought of Nick with these people and wanted to scream the party to a standstill. He asked Stack what had got into her.

  ‘They remind me of my father.’

  ‘Meaning he’s German or disgustingly rich?’

  They were interrupted by Marisa’s return with a young man in evening dress who announced himself with what Collard swore was the faintest click of his heels. Patrick Bauer wore patent-leather pumps and was sustained by a frightening absence of humour. He declared a fortune that stemmed from investment in the early films of Steven Spielberg.

  A tanned, fit-looking man in his late thirties joined them, necessitating further introductions. His name was Bobby. He had once reached the quarter-finals at Wimbledon and now sold tennis to the Saudis. Bobby shared the same radar as Bauer: a constant sweep of the room that dismissed anyone not of immediate interest. Bobby made eyes at Stack while feigning indifference. He looked like he was cruel in bed and didn’t care who knew.

  ‘What was the film you saw?’ Stack asked Bauer.

  ‘The Abyss.’

  ‘By the man who made Terminator? I hear it’s no good.’

  Bauer looked pained.

  ‘Are we meeting Nazir?’ Stack asked recklessly.

  Collard wasn’t sure what he made of her commandeering the show but found he didn’t care.

  Bauer said, ‘Let me give him a call.’

  He produced a portable phone and waited for it to be admired. It was small for a start instead of the size of a brick, the prototype for the next generation, he explained, proud of his toy.

  Collard was glad it still had technical hitches. Unable to get a signal in the room, Bauer excused himself, leaving them to more deadly small talk. Marisa said the house she was decorating was an original design by a young architect from Damascus who had studied in Germany. She showed no interest in their business.

  Bobby went off and returned, sniffing ostentatiously, to concentrate on Stack. He told her tennis was a mental game. Collard asked if Marisa knew Nazir. The effect was like he had livened up a dull conversation. Marisa’s version came as a surprise: Nazir, like Bauer, had made a fortune in tax-shelter investment and was now an investor and philanthropist. Looking at the room, Collard thought Nazir didn’t stint when it came to fraternizing with the enemy.

  Bobby had his hands on Stack, the better to show how to improve her serve, with a snap of the wrist.

  On such moments evenings turned, thought Collard as Marisa told him the young architect from Damascus was sponsored by Nazir. The house had won prizes.

  ‘He is attracted by talent.’

  Collard wanted to announce loud enough for everyone to hear that Nazir blew up planes for a living and how did that strike her as an act of philanthropy.

  Stack disentangled herself from Bobby. Bauer returned, fed up. Collard was pleased, thinking his phone hadn’t worked.

  Bauer said, ‘If you give me the number where you are staying Nazir will contact you.’

  Stack said, ‘We’re at the Sheraton.’

  They took a taxi back to the hotel. Out of politeness Collard suggested a drink in the bar. Stack had yet to get a room and he left her at the desk.

  The bar was full of international businessmen.

  Stack joined him and said, ‘It looks like you’re putting me up.’

  He thought she was joking but the hotel was full. A flight had been cancelled. There was also a big trade fair. Collard offered her his room, saying the desk could find him another hotel and a taxi.

  ‘You’ve an extra bed. It wouldn’t do much for our cover if it turned out we were staying in different hotels. We’ll manage for one night.’

  She gave him an ironic look and he couldn’t say if she was amused or embarrassed. Everyone at the party had been playing games and now it seemed they were too. He was too tense to feel comfortable about sharing.

  He let her go up first while he had another drink and contemplated spending the night with a woman he hardly knew in the same room Nick had shared with someone he hadn’t known at all. He couldn’t put it any better than that; tiredness made his thinking clumsy.

  She was asleep when he got upstairs. He got into the other bed and listened to her breathing, thinking how accustomed he had grown to nights alone. There was a vanity to dispossession as there was vanity to everything.

  The telephone rang in the middle of the night. Stack answered before Collard was fully awake.

  ‘Oh, Bobby,’ she said.

  The fluorescent numerals of a digital alarm on the bedside table showed 2.30. Bobby was downstairs. Stack tapped her nose to say that Bobby was on a cocaine rush.

  ‘You don’t have to come upstairs to tell me.’

  He droned on.

  ‘No
, Bobby, I’m not coming downstairs. Tell me what we need to know then say goodnight like a good boy.’

  After he had finished she hung up with a groan and said, ‘The car’s at eight in the morning.’

  He lay awake, listening to her sleep, then fell into a series of ragged, alien dreams, an endless European road movie following mysterious patterns of migration in which he was fleeing oppression or financial deprivation for locations like the ones they had visited that day, where he was consigned to dreary, demeaning jobs and subjected to the lumpen humour of the natives. He was aware of suspense, without being able to locate it, his moves determined by others. In one part of the dream he drove across Europe to exchange a left-hand-drive automobile for a right-hand one. In another he imported clothes from Malta and in another he was an educated man reduced to running video rentals from the back of a van, in the hope the video boom would turn into the next gold rush.

  Côte d’Azur

  Nazir’s car arrived promptly at eight for Collard and Stack and drove them to the smart Nord-West section, near the Botanical Gardens and embassies. Zeppellinallee began unpromisingly as a four-lane highway before turning into an exclusive residential street offering prestigious real estate five minutes from the centre of town.

  Their destination was the house designed by Nazir’s protégé architect. The board outside announced in German and English a luxury development of six apartments, an expensive-looking modification of the Bauhaus style, with pitched roof and glass penthouse.

  Collard expected an armed minder to frisk them, but Marisa answered with the benefit of her artificially white smile. They stood in the marbled hall while she explained about the house at sufficient length for him to think she had mistaken them for buyers.

  ‘Would you like me to show you around? The penthouse has its own lift.’

  She told them that Nazir had personally supervised the details of the development. Everything was understated and in the best of taste. The units were all in the process of being sold, she said, and Nazir used the penthouse when he was in town. Collard imagined him waiting upstairs, the mastermind in his tasteful lair, prepared to be charming, frank and endlessly deflecting. He was certain the opulence of the party was part of the man’s ploy. A setting more distant from the devastation of Scotland was harder to imagine.

  Marisa took so long showing them around that Collard decided Nazir was giving them the runaround. Decorators were already in despite the earliness of the hour and it being Sunday. Marisa spoke sharply to one, criticizing his work in a language Collard didn’t recognize, Turkish perhaps. Collard wondered if the young man had trouble shaving such a prominent Adam’s apple. He hung his head while Marisa pointed to his mistakes.

  A phone rang, trimly and discreetly – even it sounded expensive – and Marisa answered and handed the receiver to Collard. It was Patrick Bauer.

  Twenty minutes later a black Mercedes collected them and drove them to the airport away from the main terminals to an area used by private aircraft.

  Nazir had flown to Nice on impulse early that morning with Bobby and Patrick Bauer to play tennis at Bauer’s villa. They had taken his Lear jet leaving Stack and Collard to follow in Bauer’s plane.

  Bauer had sounded offhand, like he took his luxuries for granted, leaving Collard to consider the absurdity of chauffeured limousines and a private plane taking them to Nice for the day. He felt compromised by Nazir’s insistence on bouncing them around Europe. He had no wish to be beholden.

  Before hanging up, Bauer had pointedly told him that it was all right to bring his wife.

  The South of France was sunny and springlike. Stack had said little on the flight other than to admit she was nervous. Collard spent the time looking out of the window at the ground below, making a conscious effort not to think of the crash. It was a clear day. He tried not to dwell on the casual way in which Churton had insinuated him into whatever play he had in mind. He hoped they would be safe.

  Their new driver looked more like a bodyguard. He took them west along the coast. White hotels and bright holiday apartments made Frankfurt look like a hard financial town.

  Stack wore dark glasses, which made her enigmatic. She sat next to the driver, saying nothing. Collard’s nerves were stretched tight. He knew that Parker had been right, that he was out of his depth.

  Bauer’s villa was twenty minutes from the airport, situated between the road and the sea, protected by iron gates, a high fence and security cameras. The size of the grounds was not apparent from the entrance.

  A manservant in a white jacket collected them and took them through the house. The hall smelled of expensive polish. The living room was furnished in a conservative English manner with floral prints and nineteenth-century maritime paintings. As they stepped onto a terrace Collard heard the thwack of tennis balls. The view belonged to a very wealthy man. The grounds fell away to the sea, with a swimming pool built into the rocks. It had been emptied for the winter. To the right were guesthouses.

  Nazir was as usual conspicuous by his absence.

  The manservant took them to a terrace on a mezzanine level. It was unseasonably warm. A breeze moved the tops of the pines and the sun burned. Cushioned wooden chairs reminded Collard of his colonial childhood. The noise of tennis balls was louder. They were being hit with aggression and venom, accompanied by feet sliding on a clay surface.

  The manservant brought bread, coffee and scrambled eggs, which came without asking. They hadn’t eaten the previous day and Collard’s hunger got the better of him.

  Collard was positioned looking back at the house. A French window was partly open and inside a man walked up and down like he was on the phone. He was dressed in yellow slacks and a cream top that made him look like a Riviera playboy.

  ‘I think we’ve just had our first sighting of Nazir.’

  Stack got up and stood admiring the view then turned and looked back up the path, arching her back like she was stiff. Nazir made his entrance, moving lightly on the balls of his feet as he came down the path. He sat down without shaking hands. It was a performance of studied informality.

  He was the man in Schäfer’s surveillance shot and the picture shown him by Churton. Collard was surprised the word likeable came to mind. Nazir had none of Bauer’s unpleasant front. He appeared open and agreeable, with the candid eyes of a man who didn’t look like he condoned or ordered mass murder.

  ‘I must apologize for the inconvenience of dragging you down here. Are you being properly looked after?’ His Oxford English was quaint for being perfect. ‘It’s not my taste, this business with butlers. Patrick is very German in his admiration of the English.’

  The manservant appeared on cue to remove their plates.

  Nazir’s easy laugh showed no signs of being dutiful. Still smiling, he turned to Collard.

  ‘Forgive my asking, but may I see your passport.’

  Collard didn’t mind. He was more worried about Stack’s.

  Nazir flipped the passport open and checked the photograph against Collard.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, handing it back. He asked for Stack’s. Collard watched her bowed head as she fiddled in her bag, stalling, caught out before they had started. Stack’s passport would state her profession.

  Nazir sat back looking relaxed and amused.

  Stack at last produced her passport and said, ‘I can explain.’

  Nazir held out his hand. His expression didn’t change as he turned the pages. He checked her picture and handed it back.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said, turning to Collard. ‘I understand Nigel Churton is godfather to your son.’

  Nazir appeared well briefed. Collard was curious to know how Churton had communicated this information.

  ‘He says you can help me find him.’

  ‘I don’t think I have met your son.’

  Collard sensed he was being played with.

  ‘You were in the same photograph as Nick and Sandy Beech.’

  ‘I doubt it somehow.�
��

  ‘It was taken in Frankfurt last December 16.’

  ‘I would have to ask my secretary where I was that day. I know Sandy, but your son, I don’t think so.’

  Collard showed him a photo of Nick. Nazir shook his head and said he had a good memory for faces. Collard glanced at Stack, who was still smarting.

  ‘Tell me what you know about me,’ Nazir said equably.

  Collard thought there was no point in standing on ceremony.

  ‘You pump drugs through Frankfurt airport and used that connection to blow up the plane, maybe with the help of your old friend Sandy Beech, who once trained terrorists sponsored by you. You financed the Palestinian cell that made the bomb.’

  Nazir stared back, his expression veiled. The moment passed and he relaxed, opening his hands to show he had nothing to hide.

  ‘Do I look like a fanatic?’

  ‘Your name comes up a lot,’ Collard said. ‘Fanatic or not. You may even have had a personal motive. Three American agents died in the explosion. One theory is they had enough evidence to bring you down. The fourth agent, who didn’t die, is a man named Quinn, who was in contact with my son. I’m here because I doubt if there is anyone in a better position to tell me what my son was involved in. Perhaps Quinn worked for you too.’

  ‘A rogue agent? I congratulate you on your candour. And where do you think your son fits in this?’

  ‘I believe he was used by your organization to smuggle drugs. He should have been on that flight but changed his mind at the last minute.’

  Nazir interrupted. ‘Permit me to be cynical for a moment. Times are too good for me to indulge in mass destruction. I don’t deal in drugs. You assume I am involved in things that have nothing to do with me – drugs and blowing up that plane. I am an arms dealer. I trade in weapons, very successfully. It’s not the most ethical world – then neither is most business. It gives us something in common. We are both in the business of security.’ He regarded Collard levelly. ‘You are going to tell me you don’t go around blowing up aeroplanes, but I dare say your business has already benefited from the disaster in terms of increased orders. Soon these cameras you sell will be everywhere.’