Thunder in the Blood

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘This needn’t take long,’ he mumbled, offering me the bag. ‘Want one?’

  I shook my head and put the rolls on a plate for him, soft white baps with curling sheets of orange cheddar and a smear of Branston, very Stollmann. He sat on the sofa, munching the rolls in total silence, trying to keep the crumbs off the carpet. I spared him the chore of conversation, half listening to the weather forecast on the radio from the kitchen. High winds and more rain. Welcome to winter.

  ‘We’re pulling you out of Registry,’ Stollmann said at last, ‘as of now.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I want you to work from here. There’ll be no need to go near the office. You’ll be reporting to me personally. If you need access to Records, give me a ring. I’ve got a couple of numbers for you.’ He reached inside his coat and produced a slip of paper. The way he held it suggested I’d won a prize in some raffle or other.

  I reached for the coffee pot. ‘Doing what?’ I said carefully.

  ‘Keogh. I want you alongside him. I want to know exactly what he’s up to, how far he’s got, what might happen next.’

  ‘That’s what you wanted yesterday.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But I told you. The man’s difficult. He’s no fool, either. So what am I supposed to do? Beat it out of him?’

  ‘You’ll have to find a way…’ Stollmann paused, the slip of paper still in his hand, ‘make a friend of the man, make him need you.’

  ‘But he doesn’t need me,’ I lied, watching him carefully now, determined to find out exactly what lay behind this visit. Apart from my brief liaison with Priddy, Stollmann had never before expressed a moment’s interest in my private life. Indeed, until this morning I wasn’t aware he even knew where I lived. Something must have happened, though God knows what.

  ‘You think he’s some kind of ferret?’ I said lightly. ‘You want me to bag him up and cart him around with me? Only it would help if you told me a bit more. Like which holes to pop him down. And why. Nothing difficult. Nothing ultra-classified. Just the odd clue.’

  Stollmann stared at me. The way I put things always made him uncomfortable. He hated directness, the straight question, though he himself was never less than blunt. Now he pushed his precious piece of paper towards me and picked up the other roll.

  ‘There’s a problem with time,’ he said, through a mouthful of cheese and pickle. ‘He’s going to America on Wednesday.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve been checking the passenger lists. He’s booked on American Airlines. To Dallas.’

  I remembered the Access chit on the mantelpiece with its pencilled note. DFW was airline code for Dallas/Fort Worth.

  ‘That’s tomorrow,’ I said. ‘What do you expect me to come up with by then?’

  ‘I told you. A relationship.’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘He’s got to need you,’ he said again. ‘Medically. Socially. Any bloody way you like.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re going with him.’

  ‘To America?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I stared at him for a moment, wondering whether he’d gone mad. As far as I knew, Stollmann was still swimming three times a week. Maybe the chlorine had got to him. Maybe he’d fallen in love with one of the lifeguards.

  ‘Listen,’ I said slowly, ‘there’s something I haven’t explained.’

  ‘Oh?’

  I told him about my afternoon visit to Wesley’s flat, the tape-machine running, our brief late-night confrontation about its contents. The man knew already. There was no way I could fool him. Agent Moreton. Counsellor turned spook. Stollmann was still demolishing the last of his roll. He wiped his mouth, reaching for the coffee.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘You still go.’

  ‘As me?’

  ‘As whoever you like.’

  ‘And do what?’

  ‘Keep an eye on him. Stay alongside him. Meet whoever he meets …’ he paused, ‘and keep me briefed.’

  ‘What happens if he says no?’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  Stollmann glanced up at me and for a moment his eyes strayed down my body. It’s tempting to think I misinterpreted this little piece of fantasy, but at the time I couldn’t believe the inference.

  ‘The man has AIDS,’ I said quietly. He’s gay. And infectious.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I understand that.’

  ‘So explain to me how I get him onside. Hypnosis? Heavy drugs?’

  Stollmann shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. Play it any way you like. You have carte blanche. As long as you make it to Dallas. And as long as you stay in touch.’ He nodded at the phone numbers, still on the table. ‘OK?’

  I shrugged, picking up the piece of paper, checking the scribbled digits, noticing that they weren’t the phones on Stollmann’s desk. I glanced up. Stollmann was studying his hands, not saying anything. He looked exhausted, even a little lost, an orphan from some storm he refused even to acknowledge. I’d never seen him so deflated, so careworn. He looked as if he needed a good cuddle.

  ‘These numbers,’ I began, ‘they’re new. They’re not even Curzon House.’

  Stollmann nodded, still not looking at me, stifling a yawn, glancing at his watch. ‘You’re right,’ he said at last. ‘They’re not.’

  Stollmann left ten minutes later. We’d agreed that I’d report to him on a daily basis and to no one else. My work in Registry had already been reassigned and word was being circulated that I’d been released on indefinite leave. He’d send round a ticket for the Dallas trip, plus a substantial float in dollar traveller’s cheques. The way he put the latter detail left me in no doubt that the operational budget was, for once, no problem. I was to empty Wesley Keogh of everything he knew. If money was the price, then so be it. Watching Stollmann from the window as he stooped to get into his Metro, I wondered yet again why Wesley’s thesis should have rung quite so many bells. Maybe Aldridge had been right after all. Maybe there was some conflict of interest over arms sales. Too many American snouts in the trough. Precious little left for the likes of us.

  A few minutes later, I phoned Wesley. He took an age to answer, and for a second or two I wondered whether I was talking to the same man. He seemed to be having trouble getting the words in the right order. He sounded about seventy.

  ‘It’s your friend from last night,’ I said carefully. ‘The one who left in disgrace.’

  He tried to laugh, but ran out of puff.

  ‘Who do you work for today?’ he said finally. ‘Or haven’t you decided yet?’

  I smiled. A conversation I’d been dreading seemed more natural than I could ever have hoped.

  ‘You sound terrible,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I found a bottle of schnapps. After you left.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Most of it’s gone.’

  I tut-tutted on the phone.

  ‘You should be careful,’ I said, ‘drinking neat spirits like that.’

  ‘Bad for me?’

  ‘Terrible. Shorten your life.’

  He laughed then, a mini-cackle, and when I asked whether he’d be in if I drove down, he said to come anyway, regardless.

  ‘But you need to be in,’ I said patiently, ‘to answer the door.’

  ‘Why,’ he said, ‘when you’ve already got the key?’

  I got to Guildford around noon. When I pulled up outside the house, two men in the front garden were taking down the ‘For Sale’ board. One of them looked like an estate agent. The other was doing the work. I let myself in at the side door and climbed the stairs to Wesley’s flat. I had two tins of designer cat food for Scourge and a huge bunch of freesias I’d bought at a lay-by on the A3. I was still bewildered by Stollmann’s brief, but I thought I might as well start with a peace offering. When I opened the door at the top of the stairs, I
found Wesley on his hands and knees with a pair of rubber gloves and a bucket of bleach.

  ‘Heavy night,’ he confirmed, scrubbing hard at the lino, working his way slowly towards the kitchen.

  I made coffee for both of us. Afterwards, we sat in the living room. The curtains were still drawn and the gas fire was still on. Apart from the change of clothes, it was almost as though I’d never left. Wesley sat in the armchair, his knees to his chin, surrounded by pillows. He looked terrible.

  ‘Self-abuse,’ I said after a while, ‘or something nastier?’

  ‘Self-abuse.’ He nursed the hot mug between his hands and nodded at the video remote-control unit on the table between us. ‘Press the button marked play,’ he said thickly. ‘I don’t know how much they’ve told you, but there’s something I want you to see.’

  I did what he asked. A shape appeared on the screen, a big blue ‘E’ that whirled into focus from nowhere, accompanied by a series of self-important chords on a synthesizer. The ‘E’ fattened and elongated. More letters appeared, the chords building and building until finally the company’s logo settled centre-stage. ‘THE EXTEC CORPORATION’, it read, ‘EXCELLENCE IN TECHNOLOGY’.

  The screen went abruptly black, the music fading. Then we were airborne over a stretch of desert, the urgent American commentary voice underscored by the steady ‘whump-whump’ of helicopter rotor blades. It was 26 February 1991. One of the biggest armoured battles in history had just come to an end. Allied tanks had smashed through Saddam’s defences, rolled north and thrown a noose around tens of thousands of retreating Iraqi troops. Allied deception plans had been a complete success. Saddam’s army had blundered into the killing zone and American technology had done the rest. The Iraqi rout was, the voice-over assured us, a triumph for leading-edge companies like Extec.

  I glanced at Wesley. His eyes were half closed.

  ‘Watch this,’ he said softly. ‘If you can.’

  I went back to the screen. We were still airborne, the music back again, a driving bass note, the kind of stuff you normally associate with certain kinds of car commercial. Objects began to appear in the desert, unrecognizable bits of machinery, blasted apart, the sand scorched and blackened around each one. The chopper flew on, more and more wreckage appearing. From several hundred feet up, it was slightly abstract, shapes and colours, totally devoid of human content, but as the music slipped into the minor chord we came down to earth, the camera moving slowly amongst the charred bodies and the shattered tank hulls, the roadside littered with unimaginable horrors.

  ‘There’s a button beneath play,’ Wesley said. ‘I’ll tell you when to hit it.’

  I looked down, finding the button. It said freeze frame. I looked up. On screen, there was an upside-down truck. The wheels had gone and there was a hole where the driver’s door had once been. The American voice on the soundtrack returned, telling us about Extec’s laser-designation skills. The shot changed. We were looking at the truck from a different angle. Two Iraqi soldiers were lying in the sand. One of them had no head.

  ‘Now.’

  I fingered the button. The image glued itself to the screen, shuddering slightly. Wesley was sitting forward now, one thin arm pointing at the television set. I wondered how many times he’d viewed the sequence, how many times he’d stopped the tape.

  ‘Guess,’ he said.

  ‘Guess what?’

  ‘Guess how many there were. Guys like that.’

  I shook my head, sickened already. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Thousands. No one knows for sure. Tens of thousands …’ He paused, looking across at me. ‘… movie fucking extras.’

  I nodded, pressing the play button again, and the video wound on, mile after mile of wrecked Iraqi hardware, intercut with lengthy technical asides on the miracles of something called ‘multi-targeting’. After the fourth close-up of a shattered Iraqi face, Wesley told me to turn it off.

  I did so, glancing across at him. ‘That’s it?’ I said.

  ‘No. It gets worse.’

  ‘You want me to see the rest?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You want to see the rest?’

  ‘No.’

  He shook his head, his knees up to his chin again, the mug of coffee empty. After a moment or two, it occurred to me that he was shaking. I got up and took his arm. It felt freezing. I left the room. There was a spare blanket on his bed and a big duvet. When I got back to the living room, he hadn’t moved. I tucked the duvet around him, aware of the huge eyes following my every movement.

  At length, he stirred. ‘Was the AIDS stuff bullshit, or did you mean it?’

  ‘What AIDS stuff?’

  ‘Last night. You telling me you knew all about it. Counselling. The medicals. All that.’

  ‘Oh,’ I nodded. ‘All that.’ I looked down at him for a moment or two, taking my time.

  ‘Well?’ he said, suddenly tetchy.

  ‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘No bullshit. I’m certainly no doctor but… yes, I know enough.’

  Wesley gazed up at me for a moment, then looked down at the video. ‘Thank Christ for that,’ he muttered.

  I took him to lunch in a pub in a village near Dorking. He ordered scampi and chips in a basket, but left the scampi and picked at the chips, dipping them into a pond of Brown Sauce he’d poured on to the middle of his plate. In the weak autumn sunlight, the first for nearly ten days, he looked gaunt and preoccupied and as I listened to him I tried to imagine what he must have been like before the virus. Aldridge had said he’d been big – physically commanding, thirteen stone, well over six feet – but the only evidence left of this earlier Wesley were the bony bits. His feet were still large and his hands, too, and that enormous head, perpetually lowered, the eyes looking at you through a thin curtain of hair. His face was slightly lopsided and it was only now that I realized why. His nose, prominent and rather fleshy, was crooked. He was telling me about the American he’d met, the design engineer from Extec, Grant Wallace.

  I leaned forward, touching him lightly on the arm. ‘Your nose,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

  He looked at me in astonishment. There was a small comma of brown sauce at one corner of his mouth. ‘What?’ he said blankly.

  ‘Your nose.’ I touched my own. ‘It’s a funny shape.’

  ‘Oh, that…’ He frowned, fingering it. ‘It got broken.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Years ago.’

  ‘Rugby?’

  He looked at me. Then laughed, derisive. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Guy bottled me in a pub. Said I’d propositioned him.’

  ‘And had you?’

  ‘Yes. Of course I had.’

  ‘Was that wise?’

  ‘Wise? What’s that supposed to fucking mean?’

  I shrugged. ‘Some stranger in a bar. It’s just…’ I reached for a chip. ‘Some people can’t take a joke.’

  ‘It wasn’t funny. Not at the time. He wasn’t a stranger, either. I’d been sleeping with him for a month. I even knew his name.’

  ‘And he hit you? Broke your nose?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He paused. ‘I don’t blame him. He was making a point, that’s all. It just got out of hand.’

  He looked at me a moment longer, then dismissed the episode with a shrug, returning to the subject of Grant Wallace. He too had been gay. That’s why they’d got on so well. That’s why, even now, they were still talking.

  ‘You met him in Geneva?’

  ‘Yeah. Last month.’ He frowned. ‘Aldridge sent me to cover the conference. I think he wanted me out of the office. Me and Grant got smashed on the first night. Some club. Down by the lake.’ He was smiling, mischievous. ‘You ever try Tequila Slammers?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Don’t. We had six each. Grant’s idea. Some Texan trick you play on strangers.’

  ‘Potent?’

  ‘Lethal. And incredibly expensive. Twenty Swiss francs a throw. That’s ten quid each in real money. Aldridge went bananas
when he saw the exes. He added them up on his calculator, right there in the office, demanded to know what I’d got to show for it—’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I told him.’ He shrugged. ‘Seemed quite reasonable to me. Hundred and twenty quid for the best story he’ll ever get his hands on—’ He broke off, suddenly angry, shaking his head, and I smiled, sympathetic.

  ‘But he doesn’t want stories any more.’

  ‘Who said?’

  ‘He did.’

  Wesley looked up, startled. ‘When? When did he say that?’

  ‘Yesterday. Over lunch. He said it’s all changed. He told me it’s the advertising that matters now, the revenue, not the rest of it, your bits and pieces.’

  ‘He told you that? Admitted it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shit.’ Wesley turned away, disgusted, shaking his head again, and I leaned forward across the table, helping myself to one of his chips.

  ‘This conference,’ I said, ‘last month.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘How were you? Physically?’

  ‘Brilliant. No problems. You know the way it goes. Up and down …’ He paused. ‘I was up, way up. That’s partly why I got so …’ he shrugged, ‘so hectic. My state of health, you don’t waste stories like that. Guy tells you the war never really happened, you go for it, give it everything you’ve got. You’ve talked to Aldridge, you’ve listened to him banging on, you know the way he operates, all that stuff about moderation and responsibility and seeing it from every angle. That’s great when you’re sitting in fucking Guildford with a family and a pension and some prospect of being around to spend it. But people like me, that’s all fantasy. Pensions? Jesus …’ He laughed. ‘I should be so fucking lucky.’

  ‘So who did you upset?’

  Wesley peered at me, not understanding the question. ‘You want a list?’

  ‘I meant about Wallace. This story of his. Of yours. About Extec.’ I paused. ‘I want to know who you upset. Why,’ I shrugged, ‘they sent me down.’