While I got dressed, I thought about Stollmann again. By now, he’d be waiting for a call. Given the photo of Priddy still looking at me from the top of Wallace’s attaché case, that might not be a bad idea. I dialled the 071 number, presumably his new office, from memory. He answered on the second ring, someone else talking in the background.
‘Sarah Moreton,’ I said briskly, ‘phoning from the States.’
He grunted something down the phone, then I heard him terminating the conversation in progress. There was a scrape of a chair and the sound of a door opening and closing. Then Stollmann was back on the phone. For the first time ever, he sounded flustered.
‘Where are you?’ he said.
‘Texas.’
‘I know that. Whereabouts?’
I gave him the number of the airport hotel. He was still reading it back to me, careful as ever, when I cut him short. ‘They knew about Keogh already,’ I said.
‘Who?’
‘The FBI. They were waiting for him.’ I paused. ‘They’re deporting him later today. Did you know about that?’
‘No.’
‘But they’ve been on?’
Stollmann hesitated a moment, as reluctant as ever to share the script with me. ‘Yes,’ he said finally. ‘This morning.’
‘Checking me out?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you obliged? Vouched for me?’
‘Yes. Of course.’
‘Thank Christ for that.’
There was a long, transatlantic silence. Sitting on the bed, I could see myself in the mirror over the dressing table. Lately, I’d been experimenting with a new make-up, an Elizabeth Arden confection. In certain lights, I’d almost convinced myself that the scar was invisible. I reached up, touching it.
‘Priddy’s here, too,’ I said, ‘according to yesterday’s paper.’
‘Is he?’ Stollmann sounded less than surprised.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Doing what?’
I glanced down at the paper. ‘Drumming up trade,’ I said.
I read him the piece beside the photograph, a report on the reception organized for Priddy’s visit. When I came to the two individuals responsible for sponsoring the hospitality, he told me to repeat the names. I did so, pleased to have stirred a little interest at last.
‘Harold Beckermann, double “N”,’ I said, ‘and a Daniel J. Curtis.’
‘What do they do?’
‘Doesn’t say.’
Stollmann grunted, and I tried to imagine him adding my tiny dollop of intelligence to whatever mosaic he was trying to make sense of. For a while there was silence, and I found myself looking in the mirror again, having second thoughts about Elizabeth Arden. Maybe I should go back to the Aqueous Cream. Maybe the consultant had been wrong. Abruptly, Stollmann was back.
‘Where are you going now?’ he said.
‘Back to the airport.’
‘You’re leaving? Coming back?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m staying. That OK?’
‘That’s fine.’
I eyed the open attaché case, the unread files, the butt of the Beretta tucked neatly into one corner. Then Stollmann was back on the phone again, checking the airport hotel number for the second time. I told him I’d be there mid-afternoon.
‘I’ll phone,’ he said, hanging up.
It was half past two before I left Fort Worth and returned to Dallas. I’d spent the morning sorting myself out. A cab had taken me to a downtown shopping mall, and I’d bought a shoulder bag, heavy embroidery, an Aztec design of some kind, reds and blacks against a sand background. The bag was strong enough to carry the contents of Wallace’s attaché case, and small enough to keep with me. Further down the mall, at a bookshop, I bought a Rand McNally Road Atlas, the big three-dollar version, one state per page plus city blow-ups, and a nearby Radio Shack sold me a tiny cassette recorder, with a facility for taping phone conversations.
Back at the hotel, late morning, I spent half an hour at reception with a young assistant manager called Karl. I needed a car, plus a $10,000 extension to my American Express card. The latter, for now, I was prepared to raise via my own bank, back in Devon, where my Irish compensation was still lodged in a deposit account. Now, at the reception desk, Karl confirmed the car. It would be a mid-range Chrysler. The rental firm would deliver at two p.m. He’d ring me in my room when it arrived.
I thanked him with a smile, squeezed his proffered hand and headed for the lift with my atlas and my new shoulder bag. I’d paid the bill for the hotel, and still had $1600 from the float I’d been given by Stollmann. With my rental car, my newly blessed Amex card and the deepening promise of Grant Wallace’s still unopened files, I realized how free I suddenly felt. For the first time in a couple of years, I had no obligations, no awkward relationships, no hole-in-the-corner assignations, no frustration, no anger. I had questions to ask, answers to piece together and money to make it all possible. None of it would be easy, but the responsibility was entirely mine, and if I screwed up then I had no one else to blame. I felt safe. I felt busy. And above all, I felt strangely content. I was, in the exact sense of the word, a free agent.
My father, ten minutes later, did his best to prick the bubble.
‘What’s going on?’ he said coldly, when he heard my voice.
‘I’m in America. I’ve phoned to say hello.’
‘Ruth’s been round. A couple of times. Your mother’s worried sick.’ He paused. ‘About you and Rory…’
He let the phrase expire, leaving me to pick up the conversation, put his mind at rest, tell him everything was fine, no problems, nothing to worry about. Instead, I lay back on the bed, my head against the wall, my eyes closed. Rory. Bloody Rory. Even that name, at four thousand miles, was enough to throw me.
‘He’s in Iraq,’ I said carefully, ‘isn’t he?’
‘No. He’s back.’
‘Have you seen him?’
‘Yes. Last night, as a matter of fact.’
‘How is he?’
‘Not well. He had an accident. As you probably know.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I know nothing.’
‘Oh.’ My father hesitated. ‘Well, he did.’
‘What happened?’
‘He fell off a mountain. He’s broken his leg. He’s over in Topsham at the moment. Ruth’s looking after him,’ he sighed, ‘when she’s not up here with your mother.’
I nodded, permitting myself a small, ill-intentioned smile. My pulse had returned to normal now, and I was looking down at the contents of Wallace’s attaché case. The sight of the bundle of files gave me a curious strength. I wondered for a second or two about playing the innocent, but decided there was no point. My father had survived the Falklands, for God’s sake. A helping or two of the truth wouldn’t hurt him.
‘Rory and I were lovers,’ I said, ‘for quite a while.’
‘That’s what Ruth says.’
‘It’s true.’ I paused. ‘After Christmas, I broke it off. I told him he should stay with his wife. I said we had no future. He agreed.’
‘Oh?’
‘But he came back. Last month. For about a week.’
‘And?’
‘We went to Scotland together.’ I hesitated. Even now, even here, the memory of that trip made my stomach churn. However bumpy the landing, I knew those few grey days in the gloom of a Hebridean autumn were the closest I’d ever come to heaven. Room 7. The Cuillin View Hotel. My very own taste of paradise.
My father was back on the phone. Something else about Ruth. ‘She’s thinking of leaving him,’ he said. ‘She says she’s had enough.’
‘She’s what?’
‘Leaving him. Going off with the kids somewhere. New start. New life.’ He paused, angry now. ‘I told her not to be so bloody silly.’
‘What about Rory?’
‘I told him, too. Yesterday. The man’s losing control. He says he wants to marry you. I told him you wouldn’t dream of it.’
�
��You’re right,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Oh?’
I laughed out loud, hearing a new note in my father’s voice, genuine surprise, the noise a child might make, wandering into some conversational ambush. He was confused, now, and slightly embarrassed.
‘Sarah? Do I understand you correctly? You wouldn’t marry him?’
‘Marry him?’ I grinned at myself in the mirror. ‘I wouldn’t share a bus ride with him. And you can tell him that from me.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘About me telling him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank God for that.’
My father rang off several minutes later. I’d explained about the money, and the bank manager, and he’d promised to contact the man first thing. He asked me, en passant, about Dallas, what I was doing there, but he picked up the reluctance in my voice and sealed the conversation with a brisk ‘good luck’. Before he rang off, I asked him again about Rory’s accident.
‘Seriously,’ I said, ‘how bad’s his leg?’
‘Seen worse. Simple fracture. Man’s making a fuss. It’s his head he should worry about, not his damn leg.’
‘But he’s in pain?’
‘So he says.’
‘Hmmm.’ I nodded. ‘Listen, give him a kiss from me as well, eh? Tell him…’I frowned, searching for a form of words, something to return us all to planet earth, ‘tell him good game, no bad feelings.’ I hesitated. ‘Know what I mean?’
‘No,’ my father said grimly. ‘I don’t. And neither would you, my girl, if you had to sit and listen to bloody Ruth all day.’
He hung up at this point, telling me to look after myself, and I was left on the bed listening to the AT&T operator asking me whether I wanted any other numbers in the UK. For a moment or two, I thought seriously about phoning Rory. I had the Topsham number, and there were clearly no secrets to hide from Ruth any more, but in the end I shook my head and said I’d finished. She told me to hang up and I did so, reaching for the first of the files, making myself comfortable on the huge expanse of bed.
I was back at the airport by four o’clock. I parked the Chrysler half a mile from the hotel and walked to the nearest of the airport terminals. Inside, I wandered around until I found a bank of left-luggage compartments. I stowed my new bag and Grant Wallace’s attaché case in one of them, locked it and ducked into a washroom across the concourse. I taped the key to the inside of my knickers and then set off for the hotel. At reception, I paid my overnight bill and asked for the room key to collect my luggage. When the receptionist reached for my key, I saw a note beside it. She gave it to me. It was a telephone message. It read: ‘Contact me soonest, Eric Stollmann’. I pocketed the message. The phrasing made me smile. Eric Stollmann, I thought. Not a man to waste words.
Up on the eighth floor, I found Wesley’s room guarded by a tall, wiry-looking man in a lightweight Stayprest suit. He was heavily tanned, with an enormous Burt Reynolds moustache and I sensed at once that he knew who I was. I paused outside my room, inserting the key in the lock.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Yes?’
‘Miss Moreton?’
‘Yes.’
‘A word?’
‘Of course.’
I unlocked the door and began to turn the handle, but the man in the suit stepped in front of me, flipping open a small leather wallet. Inside the wallet was an FBI photocard and I paused briefly on the way past him, inspecting it. His name was Pedernales. I glanced up at him, managing a brief, cold smile, and went on into the room.
The room was a shambles. The bed had been stripped and the sheets were still bundled roughly on the floor where they’d fallen. The drawers in the vanity unit were all out and the inside of the closet, where I’d hung my handful of dresses, looked like a battlefield. Only my case, oddly enough, appeared to be untouched. I walked across and began to unlock it. I pack in a particular way, very methodically, bulky stuff like woollens at the bottom, knick-knacks on top. I opened the case and found myself looking at my one and only pullover, the one I’d brought over in case it got chilly.
‘Who’s been through this?’ I said. ‘You?’
‘Ma’am?’
‘This.’ I nodded at the case. ‘Your work? Friends of yours?’
I looked at him. Agent Pedernales had no intention of answering the question. Instead, he’d produced a clear polythene bag, the kind the scenes-of-crime people use. It was sealed at the open end, and he held it out between two fingers for my inspection. Inside, plainly visible, was a green book of matches. On the matches, embossed in gold letters, it said ‘El Mesón’.
‘We understand you’re with one of those UK intelligence services, ma’am.’
‘That’s right, MI5.’
‘Good.’ The smile did nothing for the coldness in his eyes. ‘Then you’ll understand the rules of evidence.’
‘Evidence?’
He nodded. ‘Arson, ma’am. A Federal offence.’
He hesitated a moment, not bothering to qualify the phrase, then he turned on his heel and began to leave. When he got to the door, I broke the silence.
‘You get what you wanted?’ I said. ‘From the case?’
Pedernales paused in the doorway, scarcely bothering to glance back. ‘Only prints,’ he said. ‘But that’s plenty enough.’
Wesley let me in on the first knock. Pedernales, his message delivered, had disappeared. I shut the door behind me and locked it. When I turned round, Wesley was standing on the carpet in his bare feet semaphoring a message about hidden microphones. He was wearing a pair of silk boxer shorts and a T-shirt. He looked like something out of Ethiopia. He was incredibly thin. I nodded, an indication that I understood about the microphones, and followed him into the bathroom. He turned on both taps in the handbasin, then the shower. When he was happy with the noise level, he shut the door. Through the steam, he looked paler than ever.
‘You get Grant’s case?’ he mouthed.
I nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘What’s in it?’
‘Dunno.’
‘What?’ he peered at me.
I beckoned him closer, up on tiptoes, my mouth to his ear. ‘Haven’t read it,’ I hissed, ‘not all of it. Not yet.’
Wesley stared down at me, shaking his head. Then he opened a cupboard over the handbasin and took something off the top shelf. He gave it to me. It was grey, about three inches long, studded with push buttons. You use it in conjunction with a telephone answering machine, phoning your own number from wherever, and sending a special tone via a tiny speaker down the line. The tone does something magic to the recorded tape and the tape plays back to you. I have one myself, though I’ve never used it.
Wesley was still looking at me. ‘You know what it is?’
‘Yes.’
‘You good on numbers? Remembering them?’
I nodded. ‘Terrific,’ I whispered. ‘Years of practice.’
Wesley looked at me again, then grinned, wetting a finger, very theatrical, and writing a number in the condensation on the mirror.
‘Got it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. I’ll leave a message. As soon as I get back. Stuff you should know about. Names. Some more numbers.’
‘Why not write them down? Give them to me now?’
‘Too risky.’ He shook his head, emphatic. ‘These bastards’ll search you. They’ve turned me over already. Twice. Grant, too, before they took him away.’ He paused, frowning. ‘Try and find him. Tomorrow.’
‘OK.’ Grant’s address was in the attaché case, neatly typed on the Sun Valley Arms Corp invoice. I looked at Wesley. ‘What else?’
‘Nothing. Until I get back.’
His eyes returned to the mirror, and I took a final look, making sure I’d got it right, before reaching for the tiny wafer of soap in the basin. Wesley watched me working the lather carefully round the numbers. When they’d quite disappeared, he frowned.
‘I wa
s going to wipe it off,’ he said crossly. ‘I’m not that fucking ill.’
I smiled at him, reaching up again, kissing him on the cheek, genuine affection. There was still lots of condensation on the bottom of the mirror, more than enough for my brief message. ‘I need to use your phone,’ I wrote carefully. ‘Yes or no?’
Stollmann, as ever, was brief. He gave me the name of a hotel in downtown Dallas and a room number. He told me to stay in the States as long as I thought it worthwhile and confirmed he’d cover my costs. Only at the end of the conversation did we return to the subject of the Dallas hotel.
‘Room 891,’ I mused. ‘Who would that be?’
‘What?’
‘This hotel. The Statler.’
There was a brief pause. Then Stollmann was back. ‘Your friend, of course,’ he said. ‘Our Mr Priddy.’
I stayed with Wesley until the time came to check in for the flight back. I laid him on the bed, coaxed him out of his T-shirt and retrieved my case from the room next door. In my wash bag, I keep a small selection of body oils, stuff I’ve picked up from here and there. I use them occasionally at Charlie’s, trying to apply what little I’ve learned about physiotherapy and other hands-on treatments. There’s a school of thought that says that body massage can sometimes help people like Wesley, toning flabby muscles, helping circulation, giving a little lift to the immune system. I explained the theory as best I could, ignoring his protests, reminding him that the journey back would be no joke.
‘Got to get you into shape,’ I said, kneeling over him. ‘Got to get you fit again.’
Wesley looked up at me, one huge eye, his face flat on the pillow, shivering with cold despite the columns of hot air ducting up from the radiators. His flesh tone was awful, one shade off grey, and bones protruded everywhere.
‘I was never beautiful,’ he muttered, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘No?’
‘No. Fucking active. But nothing to look at.’
I bent over him, hands flat on his back, the tips of my fingers working the muscle paths away from his long spinal column.
Thunder in the Blood Page 20
