The Untouchable
Page 12
and they bulldozed the cemeteries, poisoned the wells and blew up the mosques. They involved a lot of people in the cleansing and the killing so that the guilt was shared round. The guilt's collective, that was the skill of the leaders. The other part of the skill was the destruction of the heritage of those forced out. But remember, always remember, there were no saints among the warlords, whatever side we're talking about, only sinners. I don't suppose you feel hungry.
You can go off food here, easily.'
'I'm not hungry,' joey said.
She told him that outside Prijedor had been the worst of the camps, source of the skeletal human images on the television, where there had been the worst of the killings.
'Could we have done that?' Joey blurted. 'Could we have done those things in the camps, you and me?'
'Of course we could,' she drawled. 'It's about environment, a sense of survival and propaganda.
And it's about wanting to humiliate an enemy. Scratch anyone's skin and you'll find an abscess of beastliness hidden away. Where there's an obsession of hatred, where the loathing is targeted, where there's a desire to prove supremacy, any of us can get to act like that.
Go to Germany, stand in a queue with the pensioners, dear old folks, and ask them.'
He felt the growing sensation of an awesome helplessness, more acute than when they had first driven through the ravaged villages. On the road near to Banja Luka, high above the town, he saw a great metal-fabricated complex, which she said had been an old steel works. He could make out the tanks, armoured personnel carriers and troop-carrying twin-rotor helicopters, and she told him it was the headquarters of the British army contingent attached to SFOR in Bosnia, and explained that was Stabilization Force. She drove hard. Beyond Banja Luka the road deteriorated. It was hairpin and cut out of a rock wall beside a fast river. There were stones in the road that she swung the wheel to avoid, and crashed vehicles that teetered on the cliffs above the water torrent. He had thought there might be pride in rebuilding a country after war, but he saw none of that. There was a lake where the river was dammed and men fished among a debris of floating bottles and rubbish bags. He must have shaken his head, must have shown his bewilderment.
'You don't just pack up after a war, Joey, like nothing's happened. Nobody escapes, everyone is scarred. Because you don't read about it any more, that doesn't mean the scars have gone. All it means is that the rest of the world, which once cared, has got bloody bored .. . Can't actually say that I blame it.
God helps those who help themselves, if you're with me. They don't know how to help themselves.'
The light was slipping as they skirted Jajce. They bypassed the town, which was dominated by a medieval fortress perched on a rock crag, and she said
- with the casualness of a tour guide handing down morsels - that the place had been a Second World War headquarters for Tito's partisans, where the German forces had not been able to reach him. More history, as if she too thought history as important as the academic had the night before. They had the heater on in the car but the cold was creeping in. He had started to shiver, through tiredness, hunger and a bright sliver of fear. Headlights speared them. Out of the Serb territory, into Croat and Muslim-controlled land, the road climbed. It was a better surface, but there was ice on it. There were oases of light, which they sped through - Donji Vakuf, Travnik and Vitez, with shadow figures walking nowhere on dull pavements, the blocks of old socialist architecture and closed-down factories.
When she stopped at a roadside cafe there were foul toilets round the back. They were the only customers, but the atmosphere made them feel intruders. Three men and a woman lolled on the cafe counter, eyed them and never spoke or moved other than to agree the order, then bring them coffee and a Coca-Cola chaser. There was a broken ceiling fan above them, short of a spoke, and around them were faded pictures of Grand Prix cars. He noted that she didn't speak their language to them, but English.
Their eyes never left her. She smoked a long, dark-wrapped cigarette, and he muttered that she could have lit up in the car had she wanted and she said that it was to cut down that she hadn't smoked, not out of consideration to him. Did she want him to drive, and she'd laid her small precise hand on his and told him it was better for her to drive . . . The road away from the cafe ran towards a mountain pass. The ice glistened on it and there were snow heaps at the side.
Four times he saw places where the crash-barriers had been pierced by skidding vehicles. Each time the wheels slipped momentarily on the ice he felt the further fraying of his nerves. They came round a corner, low gear and struggling, and ahead of them and far below a long finger was illuminated and laid out. She pulled into the side of the road, opened her door and stepped out. The blast of cold air jolted him and he followed her, his feet crunching in the drift.
'That's it,' she said. 'That's Sarajevo.'
The cold settled on his nose and lips, and the wind hit him. He felt far from home, ignorant and uncertain. She must have read him. She tucked her hand into his arm. 'I hope he's worth it, your man.'
He was tired, stressed, and the hand on his arm irritated him. 'Can I just say something? Please, and I'm asking you pleasantly, don't patronize me . . . I've never worked with your crowd, I don't know whether you're good or bad or indifferent at what you do, I have to take you on trust. Why did they send me?
Because they assess me as being inside the target's skin. I hope that's enough of an explanation.'
She squeezed his arm. 'I stand chastized. What's the immediate priority?'
'We work inside a legal system. I don't know about you, what you normally do, but for us the legal system is the Bible. As a Customs officer I can't just swan in here, without local authority, and poke about at what is called "intrusive surveillance". I need permission. If I don't have that permission then anything I discover - sorry, we discover - on Target One would be ruled as inadmissible in court, as would anything that leads from initial information gathered here.
Without authority, I would be bounced so hard when I get back that my feet won't touch before I'm standing at Dover, in uniform, poking into holiday suitcases. In addition, if I - that's we - show out and get lifted by the local police, and there's not a signature on a piece of paper, we're dead in the water.'
'Who's the "local authority"? Who signs?'
'A local judge, a magistrate . . . '
She was laughing at him, mocking. 'Don't you know anything about this place?'
'Bugger all,' Joey said.
'It's bent, corrupt. You're not telling me you believe judges and magistrates, here, are independent.
They're owned.'
He gazed down at the myriad dancing lights around which, confining them, were the darker expanses of towering snow-covered mountains.
'Then I have to find one who isn't. It's all I need -
just one . . . You asked if the target was worth it?' He could see the first photograph he had filed of Mister.
Mister wore brown shoes, fawn slacks and a blue polo shirt. He could hear the first tape he had transcribed of Mister's voice. Mister had been on his doorstep and had been going over, item for item, the shopping list for the supermarket given him by the Princess. And, the cruellest cut, the rest of them in the old Sierra Quebec Golf hadn't even thought to warn him that the case was going down and Mister would walk. 'He is - maybe not to you, but to me, yes, well worth it.'
Cruncher was cremated, gone. By now the few flowers would have been dumped or taken to a hospital. A hole had appeared and needed filling.
Would Abie Wilkes's boy slot into it? It was a big decision to make, but young Solomon was well spoken of. Even Cruncher had said good things of Sol Wilkes, and had used him.
A different man from Mister would have
floundered at the disruption of his business life. Men at the fringes had been discarded. But the inner circle had lasted the course. They were either family or from the estate where Mister had grown up, or they were trusted contacts from the
Pentonville experience.
They were all long-term on the team.
Before he went to a rendezvous with young Sol Wilkes, Mister travelled alone into central London to open up the safety deposit boxes, the contents of which had been known only to him and to Cruncher.
There were four locations for him to visit. Since he had heard of Cruncher's death, Mister had ordered a surveillance operation mounted on the four buildings where his boxes were lodged. He had been assured that none of the locations was watched, and he had also had the streets in which the buildings stood scanned for the type of radio communications watchers would have used. He was now convinced that Cruncher had left nothing behind in the home that investigators could find. The other set of keys, not Mister's, would have been placed in the care of a solicitor, not in the Eagle's safe.
It was a simple procedure. He visited each building, opened the boxes and cleared them, loaded the contents into his attache case, handed in the keys and discontinued the contracts.
He walked to a West End of London hotel, no reservation made, and booked into a room. He emptied out onto the bed coverlet the legal proof of his great wealth. There were bank statements, bonds, title deeds for five hotels and three aircraft, more deeds for residential property in France, Greece, the Bahamas, the Caymans and Gibraltar, and a stack of computer disks. He could not, in the hotel room, enter the disks, but he speed-read the documents as if he needed to remind himself of the resources available to him. The fact that he did not spend the wealth on himself and the Princess, that he hoarded it and seldom released it other than to underwrite further ventures, did not in any way detract from the pleasure he took in glancing over the figures and the property descriptions with the income generated. Wealth was power - power, although he would not have recognized this, was the drug that sustained him.
He used the hotel room for fifteen minutes, then checked out. He paid two hundred and sixty-five pounds for it, cash to the cashier, and slipped anonymously into the street.
He walked across central London. It was his city.
His wealth gave him the power he craved. Hundreds of people, the huge majority of whom had never heard of him, worked in that city to multiply his wealth. In the evenings and at night, thousands of the city's seething, moving, stirring population bought the product that he purchased after importation and sidled away into dark, private, hidden corners to inject themselves or to inhale. He was buffeted by the home-going office workers, shop women and the tourists, and he felt contempt for them because they would never, none of them, approach the power and wealth that were his.
He saw the young man sitting at the back of the cafe in the new piazza square of Covent Garden.
Sol Wilkes stood up as he approached. Mister wove a way between the tables. He'd checked outside for watchers and not seen any. Inside he took a zigzag route to the table in the rear recess of the cafe. It gave him the chance to observe most of its clients, and look into their ears. Any of the Church watchers, men or women, would have moulded clear plastic earpieces.
It was an old routine, but useful. He liked the cut of the young man. The suit was good, new and quiet, the shirt was a gentle cream, the tie wasn't loud, and the haircut was tidy. The Financial Times on the table was folded beside the half-empty glass of orange juice; it was a good first impression.
'Evening, Mister Packer.'
'Evening, Sol - you don't mind if I call you that?'
'Not at all, what can I get you?'
'Cappuccino, please.'
The coffee was ordered. There was an attraction in going for new blood. Mister thought it spoke of his personal virility if he went after youth. Wouldn't have considered it, of course not, if the Cruncher hadn't ended up in the river. But he had . . . And maybe, as the operation into the Balkans expanded and came alive, it was the right time to think the unthinkable.
The Eagle was old. The Fixer might just be past his best years. New people and new ideas, it was something to chew and think on, but carefully. Everything must be done carefully.
'I've known your family a long time, Sol.'
'So my lather told me.'
Trusted your family, Sol, for many years.'
As my father's trusted you.'
'Always had respect for your father.'
'And him for you.'
'And now I'm short of someone I can trust and respect, and who'll show the same to me, and who will handle various of my affairs.'
'Look after your investments, Mr Packer, and see them grow.'
'That sort of thing, Sol .'
'Move in where the Cruncher was.'
'With discretion.'
'My father would walk on hot coals for you, Mr Packer. I'd work for someone, with someone, if I knew I'd have the same loyalty back that my father's shown you.'
'Of course.'
'But my father was surprised that you weren't at the Cruncher's funeral.'
There had been no change of inflection in Sol Wilkes's quiet conversational tone, but the statement smacked the air separating them. Mister would have gone, and taken the clan, but the Eagle had counselled against it. The Eagle had said it would be a photo-graphic jamboree for the Crime Squad and the Church, and he'd taken the advice. He thought the young man had balls - questioned whether it demonstrated due loyalty to an old and trusted colleague if a cold shoulder was turned at the end, the funeral. He was jolted . . . The young man wasn't frightened of him, not in the way the Eagle was. He couldn't say to Sol Wilkes that he'd stayed away because the Eagle had told him to, that he wasn't his own man when it came to a last farewell to a friend. Perhaps he should not have listened to the Eagle, but he had . . . There was no fear in the young face as there had been terror last night in an older face. His reputation created fear, but Sol Wilkes was holding his eye, not wavering, and waiting for an answer.
'If you worked for me, Sol, you'd get to see the bigger picture. You'd know more. You'd find it easier to make judgements.' He smiled. 'Whether that's good enough for you or not, that's what you're getting.'
'What are you offering me, Mr Packer?'
'To come on the payroll.'
'With a percentage of profits, as the Cruncher was?'
'Are we running before we can walk?' There was menace in his voice. He was not in control of the talk.
His fist was clenched on the table as if in threat.
'If I'm inside, Mr Packer, then there's no going back.
I understand that. It's not short-term, it's as far as I can see, for ever . . . Five per cent comes with my guarantee of loyalty, of respect.'
Their hands met. Mister took the smaller fist of Sol Wilkes in his and the deal was sealed. He squeezed the hand until the blood had drained from it and he heard the crack of the bone knuckles, but the young man did not flinch.
He took the papers and the disks from the attache case and passed them across the table. They were read fast, and there was no expression of either surprise or admiration on Sol's face, just as there had been no fear.
A twenty-eight-year-old, trained investment broker, the son of a friend of forty years, was invited into the inner circle. When the papers were read they were returned, with the disks, to the case. Rules of engagement were discussed, then Mister launched into his description of the future and of trade through Bosnia. He didn't think it necessary to spell out that, should he be double-crossed, ripped-off, then all of the Wilkes family would suffer, wish they had never been born, the father and mother, the sisters and brothers, and especially young Solomon; it wasn't necessary to say it because Albie would have made it clear in one-syllable words to his favourite boy. The arrangements were agreed for new safety-deposit boxes. They would meet again when Mister was back from abroad.
He walked out into the evening crowds. He felt good, lifted by Sol's youth - and he knew that the attraction of the Eagle's worried fussiness was waning: he was the big man, and supreme.
Pitching up there had not been Joey's idea. The crush of bodies was all round him, and the s
moke and the loud laughter, and the big voice boomed at him,
'You're Joey? That right, Joey?'
'I'm Joey Cann, yes.'
'With Maggie? You're Maggie's bag-carrier?'
'Something like t h a t . . . and you are?'
'Francis. We weren't introduced. Francis. I'm your host here, this is my pad, I'm HM's man in Sarajevo. She's a great girl. Why'd you make her drive the whole way? She says she's driven from Zagreb. Couldn't you have done a bit at the wheel?'
'It's what she seemed to want.'
'Terrific girl, wheelbarrows of fun. Your first time here, Joey?'
'Yes.'
'Let me mark your card, explain the ground you're on.'
'I'd be very grateful.'
He would have preferred his bed. Something to eat, a slow bath, and bed. The message at the hotel had been for her. The party at the Residence was to celebrate Commonwealth Day. He thought she would have despised him if he'd pleaded exhaustion and the need of food, a bath and bed. She'd driven for eight hours, and she was still up for a party. He could see her on the far side of the room. She must have sluiced herself under a shower, slipped into that little black dress and done her face. She had a cluster of older men round her, was honeypotting again as she had done at the Customs post at Bosanski Novi. It was a brief little black dress. The men leered at her, and Joey thought each of them believed himself to be the centre of her attention, in with a chance. She must have told the Ambassador - cheerful, noisy Francis - that Joey Cann was her burden of the day and wasn't up to driving across Bosnia. He readied himself for the lecture, and snatched a drink off the waiter's tray.
'I'm not going to ask what you're doing here, because I don't want to know. What I usually do when Maggie's people are in town is take the phone off the hook and head off up country. Do not embarrass me, there's a good fellow. What I mean is, don't step on any toes. Last thing I want is muddy water . . . We may, that's the foreign community, run this horrible little place and bankroll it, but they are extraordinarily sensitive to overt interference . . . The local talent is for obstruction. We tell them how to live, we send them our best and our brightest, we shovel money at them, but it isn't working, nothing's moving. Right now they're seeing the signs of what we tell them is