Waking Caliban

by Mike Cartlidge

  I looked back at the gunman. Another little detail I’d noticed about him was that, like the man who’d killed Roden and tried to redecorate the Stratford alleyway with my blood, he was left-handed. He retrieved Damage’s silenced pistol from where it had fallen and, pushing his own gun into the waist-band of his trousers, gripped it in both hands and leveled it on Damage.

  “The Jag,” he told me. “Go and get in the back seat.”

  I hesitated and then nodded towards Damage and the driver. “What are you going to do with this pair?”

  He grinned at me. “Fond of them, were you?”

  “Not ‘fond’, exactly,” I admitted.

  “Just as well.” Before I could stop him, he straightened his arm and shot both men through the head.

  Chapter 30

  A small lorry went past on the road but I guessed the driver wouldn’t be able to see anything of the drama playing out on the shaded track behind the parked cars. I walked slowly towards the Mercedes, pulled my traveling bag from the back and, on an impulse, wiped the car’s doors and seats to remove any fingerprints I might have left behind. For a moment, I gazed along the road but the truck that had taken Miranda away from me was well out of sight. I forced myself to compartmentalize my concern for her and walked across to the BMW. The car’s rear door opened and I bent to look inside at the full face with its fleshy lips and piggy eyes. “Hello, Bakst.”

  “Your tone is surprisingly ungrateful, Mr. Hastings,” he drawled. “I’d say our arrival here was rather well timed.”

  I looked at the laptop computer on the seat next to him. “How did you manage it? A tracking device on the Mercedes over there?”

  He treated me to one of his best how-dare-you-sass-me-boy stares but it just gave me time to think. “Which means,” I said, “that someone had to plant it. My money would be on that shifty chauffeur. How did you manage it?”

  “I have known Ghassan Salim for a long time.”

  “You and Salim are old friends, are you?”

  “Let’s say we have common interests. Occasionally we have found ourselves in competition with each other.”

  “So you took the precaution of turning some of his people?”

  “It seemed like a reasonable safeguard,” he said. “Sun Tzu said it in ‘The Art of War’, more than two millennia ago. ‘To defeat your enemy, defeat your enemy’s strategy’.”

  “Good old Sun Tzu.” I climbed into the seat next to him, balancing my bag on my knees. “So when you were following a few miles behind your tracking device, I imagine you were surprised to see our car had stopped.”

  He gave a humorless laugh. “We were even more surprised when we caught up and observed the predicament you’d got yourself into.”

  “I bet you wondered what side your little chauffeur-spy was playing,” I said. “Still, that won’t be a problem now you’ve had your pet assassin put a bullet through his head.”

  “A sad but necessary measure. You can only go so far with people you can’t trust.”

  While we had been talking, I’d watched the gunman walk to the front of the Mercedes and bend down to detach what I assumed was the electronic tracker from under the fender. He then walked around the front of Bakst’s car and got into the driver’s seat, apparently oblivious to my presence. He leaned forward and started the engine and, looking carefully over his shoulder, signaled and pulled the car out onto the road. In seconds, we had left the carnage of the lay-by behind and were driving westwards.

  Bakst looked at my traveling bag. “You are, I think, in possession of something which properly belongs to me, Mr. Hastings.”

  “And that would that be what, Mr. Bakst?”

  He raised his bushy eyebrows. “This ingenuous act does you no credit, sir. I am referring, of course, to the parcel of papers you obtained from the late Dr Stephen Marr.”

  “Papers that poor old Marr was killed for,” I pointed out.

  “Undoubtedly by Salim’s creatures.”

  “You think Salim was responsible for Marr’s death?”

  “I’m sure of it. His people clearly thought they had acquired the papers they were seeking and consequently had no further use for him.”

  “But the copy of the papers Marr was carrying had been modified...”

  “So that they were useless as a guide to the larger prize?” Bakst nodded. “I had assumed as much. It was the only reason Salim would still wish to deal with you.”

  “So what makes you think you have a claim to the papers?”

  “As I believe you’re aware, I had contracted to purchase them before Professor Roden turned traitor.”

  I glanced back at the man in the driver’s seat. “This, presumably, was before you fell out and had your mate here splatter him over half of Stratford?”

  He waved his hand. “I have not introduced you. How remiss of me. Mr. Hastings, this is Mr. Ablett. Mr. Ablett here was under orders to keep you under observation and, should you lead him to Roden, to take steps to discourage the unreliable professor from further treachery.”

  “I suppose remodeling his head with a large-caliber bullet would count as pretty effective discouragement. I seem to remember that Mr. Ablett’s attitude towards me wasn’t exactly agreeable.”

  By the time, the BMW was traveling at speed down the narrow country road but I saw Ablett glance at me in the mirror, his expression bland.

  “Ablett had to use his initiative,” Bakst said. “I may have instructed him differently had I been there…”

  “But it didn’t really matter because, at that stage, you still thought you could get what you wanted from Marr.”

  “The best-laid schemes…” He leaned across the seat and pressed a chubby index finger against my chest. “We need to put these little disagreements behind us, sir. I am aware that you have been dealing with Mr. Ghassan Salim.”

  “And how did you know that?”

  “As we discussed previously, it has always struck me as a wise precaution to have some insight into Mr. Salim’s activities. I knew about your activities from the moment you arrived at his little hideaway in New York. Talking to Mr. Salim was an error on your part, I’m obliged to say. He is a man possessed of very few scruples.”

  “Maybe you should give him a few tips on business ethics.”

  He gave me another of his stares. “If you were dealing with Salim, it’s clear that you acquired the Stratford papers from the unfortunate Marr. And as, just as clearly, our Lebanese friend has betrayed you, I assume you were you foolish enough to give them to him?”

  “Even I’m not that dumb.” I explained about the essential last page that I’d left off the bundle I took to America and then about the break-in at Madame George’s and my assumption that my computer would have disappeared.

  “Ah.” He pushed his bulk back into the seat and thought for a moment. “So we must assume that Salim was behind the break-in and is now in possession of the information that you’d denied him.”

  “It’s one explanation for what happened back there in the lay-by,” I agreed.

  “Yes indeed, sir. The only explanation.”

  I paused while Ablett slammed the BMW forward and overtook a juggernaut lorry, swerving back into his lane seconds before a van traveling the other way occupied the space we’d been in. “Salim believed I was going to let him have the last page anyway,” I said. “Why would he risk everything pulling a stunt like this?”

  “Who knows what motivates a Byzantine creature like Salim? I wouldn’t put it past him to double-cross you simply as a matter of principle. In reality, though, I suspect his motives were more mundane.”

  “You mean, he couldn’t get the last page without handing over a lot of money and he may not be quite as wealthy as he likes to make out?”

  A smile creased the meaty lips. “You are well informed, sir. Salim, indeed, portrays himself as a rich man. In reality, he lost a sizable portion of his wealth in the NASDAQ crash and much of what was left in the so-called 2008 credit crunch. As a
result, he has had to sell the major part of his collection of antiquities in order to preserve his life style and escape the unwelcome attention of antagonistic militant factions from Libya to Iran.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Unbeknownst to Salim, my buying agents have acquired a number of his pieces for my own collection. No, Mr. Hastings, Ghassan Salim has big debts, expensive tastes and a surpassing sense of greed. Make no mistake, he might have offered to reward you handsomely for your cooperation but the sad reality is that he has no money with which to pay you.”

  “So, you’re assuming that Salim now has a copy of the last page from my computer...”

  “Which still leaves the original, and which I trust I’m correct in thinking is still in your possession.”

  If it wasn’t, I thought, my usefulness to him, along with my chances of celebrating my next birthday, would be much reduced. Still, I ignored the question: I was trying to fit this jigsaw puzzle together in my mind and there were still some pieces that didn’t quite fit.

  Or, maybe, it was that I didn’t want them to fit. “You say you knew I was dealing with Salim,” I said, “because you had someone watching me.”

  He smiled at me but said nothing.

  “It doesn’t feel right. I had no sense that anyone was watching me and, anyway, you thought I was off the case.”

  “Is that what you think?” he murmured.

  I stared at him. “She called you from the rest room in Heathrow, didn’t she?”

  He hesitated and then smiled again.

  ***

  On Bakst’s orders, Ablett turned the BMW off the road and brought it to a stop on a patch of land between an arable field and a stretch of woodland. As the three of us stepped out of the car, the country air was still under a partly-cloudy sky. I could hear the sound of bird-song and, further away, the lowing of cows. The sickly-sweet stench of silage wafted from a nearby barn.

  I looked at Ablett as he walked past me and leant on a farm gate. He had, at least, concealed the gun but everything about the way he held himself struck familiar notes.

  “You’re ex-military?” I asked him.

  He turned to me and nodded, a supercilious smile touching the edges of his mouth. “SAS. Eight years.”

  I was aware of Bakst glancing between us like a matador sizing up two prize bulls.

  “I finished up as a sergeant, though,” Ablett continued, “not a fucking officer like you.”

  “Know something about me, do you?”

  “Oh, yeah. You were Maroon Mafia.” His accent was vaguely northern, most likely from Lancashire, but I guessed it had been a long time since he had lived there. He stared hard at me. “I always thought the Paras were a bunch of pansies.”

  “By the look of you, I’d say that was probably wishful thinking.”

  He pushed himself away from the gate but Bakst moved between us and he smiled again. He bent down and plucked a stem of wild grass which he stuck between his lips.

  I turned towards Bakst. “Tell me about Miranda. She’s been working for you all along?”

  “Actually, she’s been working for Salim for some time. She was acting as his agent when he started selling off his collection of antiquities.”

  “And you bought some of them off her?”

  “Quite so. I suspect it was she who first told him about the rumors that something significant had been unearthed during the archaeological excavation in Stratford. But, while Salim was turning Professor Roden into his creature, I was courting the delightful Ms Smart. She’s a very ambitious young lady, Miranda. I suspect she plans to be seriously rich. Fortunately, I can oblige her.”

  “How generous of you.”

  He moved next to Ablett, placing a fat hand on top of the gate. “I can do the same for you, too, Mr. Hastings.”

  If, I thought, I can stop your man Ablett putting a bullet in my gut once you’ve got what you want. “So your interest in the Shakespeare papers is rather more than academic?”

  “I have a deep affection for the works of Shakespeare and I desire nothing more than to see his legacy revealed in all its glory. But man cannot live on starry-eyed idealism alone. I am a businessman as well as a collector. Do you have any idea of the value of the full cache of Shakespearean papers?”

  “Upwards of a billion?”

  “So Salim has, at least, been that honest with you.”

  “Actually, it was someone who works for him who came up with the estimate.”

  “Ah?” he said. “That will be Mr. Rashid al-Ahmad. A clever, if misguided, little man.”

  “Why? Couldn’t you bribe him?”

  “I find it easy to ignore your crude gibes, Mr. Hastings. You see, I am not an unduly vengeful or avaricious man. I offer you the opportunity to work with me. In return I am prepared to award you the same percentage I intend to give to Miranda Smart and to Mr. Ablett, here. Five percent each. You understand what I’m saying, I’m sure. Your share could be a consideration of fifty million pounds. Perhaps more.”

  “So you weren’t entirely serious when you mentioned handing the documents over to the authorities?”

  “The Treasure Trove Reviewing Committee?” He smiled. “I said I wasn’t an avaricious man. But do you really think I’d be content to settle for a tiny percentage of what these papers could fetch on the open market? Think about what I said, sir. If we execute this business according to my strategy, you will count your reward in tens of millions.”

  The figures were telephone numbers. I didn’t even try to take them in. I glanced at Ablett, who was still leaning on the gate, gazing out over the fields and chewing at the straw in his mouth.

  “Who killed Thorpe and Young?” I asked Bakst.

  “Your colleagues from the agency? Why it was the same people who killed Marr. Agents in the pay of Mr. Salim, of course. It is my understanding that the actual slaying was perpetrated by the man who met his end just now in the lay-by, working with his associate, the strange blond man.”

  “Damage and Havoc.”

  “I understand it amuses them to so style themselves. They are Salim’s creatures. They killed your friends when they all stumbled on the house where Roden had been hiding himself at roughly the same time. Just as they killed Marr because they believed that by doing so they could obtain the papers that are the key to all this, without paying for them.” He stretched, his stomach straining at his shirt, as if he was bored with the telling. “That’s Salim for you. Even before he fell on hard times, I never knew that man to pay for a damn thing if he could avoid it.”

  I leaned on the gate and rubbed my hand over the partly-healed wound on my arm. Off in the distance, a hawk hovered above a hedgerow and, as if responding to a secret signal, tucked its wings and plummeted towards the ground. I figured I could trust Bakst and his ex-SAS assassin about as far as the local chapter of Fieldmice Anonymous could trust that bird, but what he’d told me did seem to fit. I had no doubt he’d try to double-cross me, as soon as he had what he wanted, but in the meantime he was the best chance I had of getting to Thorpe’s killers. He also represented my best chance of getting to Miranda, which was still of concern to me, for reasons I didn’t even propose to consider. I watched as the hawk climbed back into the sky, something small and squirming clasped in its talons, before turning to Bakst. “All right. I’ll work with you.”

  He didn’t offer to shake my hand: perhaps he guessed that I wouldn’t have accepted if he had. Instead, he rubbed his palms together, his manner suddenly brisk. “I suspect we have some time up our sleeves. Assuming Salim knows the whereabouts of the Shakespearean trove, he can scarcely excavate large tracts of Warwickshire in broad daylight. It is my expectation that he will wait until the middle of the night and then have at it when he’s unlikely to be troubled by witnesses. We shall, however, still need to act with some alacrity.”

  “What we’ll actually need first,” I said, “is to work out where he intends to excavate.”

  The sun came out fr
om behind a cloud and he squinted into my eyes. “You do still have the original copy of the map, then?”

  “I do. But it’s in London.”

  “Then we must return to the city.”

  “No need. There’s another version of it somewhere in the ether.”

  He looked at me blankly and I told him about the scanned images that I’d copied onto the secure Internet site.

  “So,” he said, “when you want the map, you simply have to find an online computer and download it.”

  “That’s about it.”

  “I knew I shouldn’t underestimate you, sir.” He stared at me for a moment and then, rubbing his hands together, turned to Ablett. “We should, I believe, continue on our way poste haste.”

  Chapter 31

  I finally managed to get Madame George on the phone as we continued to drive westward. She sounded almost as agitated as when she’d recorded the voicemail message but the news wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. Chantelle would be coming home from hospital the next morning, George told me, although it would be some weeks before she’d be properly recovered. Brabant’s condition was more serious: the bullet he’d taken had broken several of his ribs but, miraculously, missed major organs. The doctors prescribed a longer hospital stay but, given his physical strength and fitness, expected a full recovery.

  After George rang off, I sat back on the BMW’s leather seat. Bakst glanced at me but I ignored him and watched the road as Ablett negotiated the traffic.

  We diverted to Oxford and, after driving around for a quarter of an hour, found an Internet café on Woodstock Road. Ablett dropped Bakst and me in a loading zone and circled the block as we went inside. Once I’d paid my couple of pounds and sat myself down in front of a screen, it was the matter of a few minutes to find my scanned documents on the web site and, for another small consideration to the proprietor, print the ones I needed. All the time, I was conscious of Bakst hovering behind me and took some childish amusement from keeping my body positioned between him and the printer.

  Once we were back in the car, I waited until Ablett had accelerated back out into the traffic before handing the printout to Bakst. His fleshy lips worked as he scanned the will and then did his best to read the ‘testament’.