Thunder in the Blood

by Hurley, Graham

I looked at him for a long moment, then away down the ward. First impressions were worst impressions. Wesley wasn’t better at all.

  ‘Jake,’ I whispered to him, turning back, ‘in Silver Spring.’

  Wesley peered up at me. I could see how hard he was trying to follow me. ‘Jake?’

  ‘McGrath.’

  ‘Ah …’ he nodded at last, ‘Washington.’

  I skipped on trying to pretend nothing had happened, taking the story back to Dallas and Grant’s death. I told him about getting in touch with Raoul Delahunty when things got really tricky. I passed lightly over the fact that Raoul was a fellow journalist, but Wesley caught the word and stopped me.

  ‘Journo?’ he whispered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you gave him the story?’

  ‘Not much of it.’

  ‘But some of it?’

  ‘A little,’ I nodded, ‘yes.’

  Wesley was silent for a moment, his head back on the pillow, his tongue moving slowly over his lips, moistening them. His lips were dry and cracked and a little swollen.

  ‘Scum,’ he said at last.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Journalists.’

  I reached out, patting his arm, trying to reassure him, telling him how clever I thought I’d been, explaining again how little I’d actually told the American and how much he’d given me in return. For the first time, Wesley’s face came alive, some nerve in perfect working order, some deep instinct, out of reach of the virus.

  ‘Mexicans?’ he asked, incredulous. ‘Killing each other? For citizenship?’

  ‘That’s what Raoul says.’

  ‘No bullshit? He can stand it up?’

  ‘So he says.’

  ‘Christ!’ He shook his head on the pillow, bright-eyed. ‘Unreal.’

  Encouraged, I began to tell him about Peter Devlin, the smiling young Englishman I’d met out at the ranch, the minister’s son. This, I said, was surely the heart of it, Peter Devlin, the conduit, the backstairs channel for all that embargoed hardware. People in the know said he was. Jake McGrath had told me so himself. I looked at Wesley. His eyes were closed again.

  ‘Old story,’ he whispered at last.

  I frowned, engaged now. ‘What’s an old story?’

  ‘Devlin. Peter. Polly. The Texcal consultancy. It’s been doing the rounds for ever, but no one’s had the bottle to see it into print. Old hat. Believe me …’

  ‘But if it’s true?’

  Wesley opened one eye, looking up at me.

  ‘So what?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Yeah, so what? These spivs have been at it since ’79. Fingers in the till. Everyone knows they have. The whole fucking world knows it…’ he paused, out of breath, ‘… and fuck all ever happens.’

  He closed his eyes again, shaking his head, and I reached for him, the way you do to someone you want to shake awake, the house on fire, something terrible about to happen.

  ‘Wesley,’ I hissed.

  A patient on the other side of the ward glanced our way. I gave him an uncertain smile, lowering my voice, withdrawing my hand. Wesley was looking at me once again. The expression on his face suggested he’d found another story, infinitely more personal, infinitely more important. I smiled at him. One last try, I thought. Just one.

  ‘Your friend gave me a name,’ I said, ‘but I’m not sure where it fits.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jake. Jake McGrath. He wasn’t keen on telling me but…’ I shrugged.

  Wesley was still looking at me. I think he was nearly asleep.

  ‘What name?’ he said.

  ‘François,’ I said, ‘François Ghattan.’

  Wesley frowned, a heroic effort of concentration.

  ‘Ghattan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Jake told you that?’

  ‘He told me that the two of them were close. This François and Beckermann. They were both into pit-bulls. In fact Ghattan used to own this Mogul creature I told you about.’

  Wesley nodded, and then gave a deep sigh, his eyes starting to close. I touched him lightly on the face, then got up and began to apologize for banging on so much. Wesley’s hand found mine.

  ‘Ghattan’s dead,’ he said. ‘Jake tell you that, too?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He died a couple of months back. In the summer.’ He frowned. ‘In Dallas, I think.’

  ‘Oh?’ I sat down again. ‘What was the matter with him?’

  There was a long silence. Then the eyes flickered open. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said vaguely, ‘but I think he had a heart problem.’

  I left ten minutes later, Wesley asleep. I took another cab back to the flat, exhausted myself, and was on the point of getting into bed when the phone rang. I went back into the living room. It was Stollmann.

  ‘Good flight?’

  ‘Fine …’ I yawned, ‘thanks.’

  ‘Eddie phoned. Said you were safely away. We need to meet.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes.’ He paused. ‘Please.’

  I said nothing for a moment, remembering the call I’d made to Curzon House, the news that Stollmann had, in the office parlance, been ‘reassigned’.

  ‘Where are you?’ I said. ‘As a matter of interest?’

  ‘At home.’

  I nodded. According to rumour, Stollmann lived out in the sprawl of suburbs around New Maiden. No one had ever been to his house, invited or otherwise, and no one had a clue whether he shared his life with anyone else. I stifled another yawn. According to the digital clock on the video recorder, it was half past five, though it felt closer to midnight.

  ‘Where?’ I said numbly. ‘And when?’

  I met Stollmann at a café at the bottom of Kingsway an hour and a half later. He was sitting at a table at the back. He was hunched over a cup of black coffee and he still had his coat on. His face, when he glanced up, was grey. He looked terrible.

  I sat down without saying anything. For the first time in our relationship, I realized I felt sorry for him. Something had been taken away from him, something had gone and the evidence was there in every movement he made. Whether or not I managed to type up the source report, I suspected, was now academic.

  At length, he sat back, examining me across the table.

  ‘You’ve been reassigned,’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  He looked at me a moment longer, then shrugged. ‘It means they’ve moved me. Physically, I no longer work at Curzon House.’ He paused. ‘The job’s gone, too. As of yesterday. My decision. Not theirs.’

  I nodded, saying nothing. Exactly where Stollmann figured in the pecking order, I’d never quite worked out. He’d certainly been my boss for a while, but his other responsibilities seemed to have cut across some of the more traditional boundaries. In MI5 terms, that made him inter-departmental, a hybrid, an object of instant suspicion.

  ‘Why?’ I said at last. ‘Why did they do it?’

  ‘Is that a serious question?’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded, ‘if you don’t mind me asking.’

  ‘Not at all.’ He offered me a thin smile. ‘It’s your head, too, as it happens.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. They’ll get round to writing to you sooner or later.’ He paused. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘before I forget.’

  He took a buff envelope from his pocket and gave it to me. I opened it. Inside, made out in my name, was a cheque for £4516.98.

  ‘What’s that for?’ I said.

  ‘Your American expenses. It’s a guess, I’m afraid, but it should help.’

  ‘It’s more than enough,’ I said. ‘What about the receipts?’

  ‘Submit them as usual.’

  ‘And what about the difference?’

  I looked at him. Mentally, I’d calculated my American expenses at just under four thousand pounds. That included hotels, hire car, air tickets and one or two extras.

  Stollmann shrugged again.
‘Put it down to wear and tear,’ he said grimly. ‘Call it combat fatigue.’

  He signalled the waiter and ordered beans on toast. When they arrived he dribbled a large X of Brown Sauce across the top while I finished telling him most of what had happened in the States. In between mouthfuls, he drank more coffee, listening in silence while I described events in Dallas. When I got to the bit about Peter Devlin, he nodded, mopping his plate with a slice of white bread.

  ‘You talk to him at all?’

  ‘No. Not really.’

  ‘Priddy mention him?’

  ‘No. Refused to discuss it.’

  ‘But you tried?’

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘Of course.’

  I hesitated, awaiting more questions, but Stollmann pushed his plate carefully to one side and told me to go on. When I finally got to the end of it, he was studying the menu.

  I looked at him a moment. A great deal of stress and a bad case of jet lag weren’t doing much for my temper.

  ‘So you’re out on your own?’ I said drily. ‘Free agent?’

  ‘Hardly.’

  ‘No?’

  He gazed at me a moment, not answering. Then he glanced round, signalling the waiter for the bill, reaching for his wallet.

  ‘Let’s walk,’ he said.

  We left the café and stood at the kerbside a moment. The last of the weekend traffic was swirling down Kingsway and there were little squads of cinema-goers bustling towards Leicester Square and the Tottenham Court Road. I glanced at Stollmann. He was hunched inside his thin, black raincoat. One corner of his mouth was still smudged with brown sauce.

  We walked south, along the Strand, then down by Charing Cross Station. On the Embankment, the shadows hid a ragged line of cardboard boxes. There were bodies inside, already asleep, huddled in newspapers. We climbed the steps to the pedestrian bridge beside the railway line that crosses the Thames. The water was black beneath us, the trains clattering past.

  Half-way across the bridge, Stollmann stopped. Turning his back on the railway, he leaned against the parapet, his elbows on the top, gazing out at the lights downstream. A tramp asked for money. Stollmann gave him a pound. The man lurched off, muttering to himself. It was a cold, raw night, the cloud mostly gone, a bitter wind off the river.

  ‘You’ll have gathered most of it,’ Stollmann said at last, ‘if I’m any judge.’

  ‘You mean Priddy?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded. It all seemed logical enough. Priddy had doubtless been encouraging exports into Iraq. Stuff that should never have got through. Thus the Dallas links with Peter Devlin and Beckermann.

  ‘We’re on to him?’ I said. ‘Priddy’s under investigation? Is that what we’re saying?’

  Stollmann looked at me a moment. ‘We?’ he said bleakly.

  I gazed at him, beginning at last to understand. MI5 had been off-limits to the politicians for years, one of the few government agencies they couldn’t control. Now, it seemed, they were putting the record straight. Starting with Stollmann.

  ‘Is that why they’ve sacked you,’ I said, ‘for going after Priddy?’

  ‘Effectively,’ he nodded, ‘yes.’

  ‘For asking the wrong questions? Upsetting our masters?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No backing? No authority?’

  Stollmann said nothing for a moment. A woman with a cello case walked past.

  ‘I come from Customs and Excise,’ he said at length. ‘Wrong pedigree. No chums. In this game, it pays to have chums.’

  I nodded again, remembering the day I’d trailed Stollmann to the Westminster Baths, the image of him still fresh in my mind, the stiff, driven figure, forcing his way up and down the pool. Stollmann had made no friends at Curzon House. He was too serious, too diligent, too stern. He was looking at me now. His eyes were very black.

  ‘As a matter of interest,’ I said, ‘what do you think about the other thing?’

  ‘Other thing?’

  ‘Wesley Keogh’s little theory. The war that never was. All that.’

  Stollmann frowned. ‘I think it’s a fantasy,’ he said at last, ‘and I think it’s irrelevant.’

  ‘So why did you give me the file in the first place?’

  ‘To get you to Dallas. Alongside Priddy.’

  ‘You knew he’d be there?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And you knew Wesley was going?’

  ‘Yes. I’d seen the brief from Aldridge. I knew Wallace was the prime source. Wallace lived in Dallas. Sooner or later, Keogh would meet him. All I had to do was check the bookings.’

  ‘The airline bookings?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Knowing you could send me, too? Using Wesley as cover? When Priddy was there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I stared down at the water. A tug had appeared beneath us, pushing hard against the flood tide. Behind, one by one, a string of barges.

  I turned back to Stollmann. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you simply tell me? I could have gone to Dallas in any case, just for Priddy. I could have done the whole number on the man. No Wesley. No Gulf War. Just me and him.’ I paused. ‘So why dress it up?’

  For the first time, Stollmann smiled. ‘You think that was for your benefit,’ he said grimly, ‘all the games about Keogh? You think that’s why they’ve—’

  He broke off, his rage for once running away with him. He turned on his heel, beginning to walk again. I caught up with him, angry myself now, my head full of questions I should have asked far earlier. I grabbed his arm, a clumsy gesture, but effective. He stopped, shaking me off.

  ‘They?’ I said. ‘Who’re they?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘We talking about Five? Curzon House?’

  He looked at me, saying nothing, a silence that affirmed my every word. He began to walk again, but I stood in front of him, knowing he’d have to stop, knowing that the very awkwardness of the scene would force him, in the end, to talk.

  ‘Why they’ve what?’ I said. ‘Tell me.’

  He shook his head, his elbows back on the parapet. At the end of the bridge, where the steps dropped down to the South Bank, I could see another tramp heading our way. News of Stollmann’s largesse must have got around. Time was short.

  ‘You’re after Priddy,’ I said, ‘and they’ve stopped you. They’ve stopped you because they’re the masters now, they’re in charge.’ I paused. ‘Am I right?’

  ‘Masters?’ he asked. ‘Who?’

  ‘The politicians. HMG. People like Priddy.’ I bent close to him. ‘The spivs. Just tell me, am I right?’

  Stollmann looked at me for a second or two. ‘Yes,’ he said softly.

  I nodded, determined not to lose the initiative, determined to squeeze Stollmann dry while time and his own resentments allowed.

  ‘So they’ve seen through Wesley and Aldridge and Extec and all the rest of it. They’ve seen through all the smoke and mirrors, all your little alibis, and now they’ve dragged you off.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Before it gets too awkward?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘For Priddy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Devlin senior?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And one or two others?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Because now even Five does their bidding?’

  Stollmann nodded, looking away again. There was a long silence. Another train was on the way.

  ‘Exports,’ he said at last. ‘They think we’re part of the export drive. That’s the rationale. That’s the line they take. Every shoulder to the wheel. Including ours.’ He gazed downriver, towards St Paul’s and the fairy lights of the City of London. ‘There’s no one left in this country who isn’t trying to sell something,’ he said bitterly. ‘You know that?’

  We walked to Waterloo Station. The bars were still open and I suggested a drink. Stollmann shook his head, his hands plunged deep inside his coat pockets, his
eyes already scanning the departures board, looking for the next train home.

  ‘I’ve got a couple of interviews tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Pays to have a clear head.’

  ‘Interviews?’ I stared at him. ‘Already?’

  ‘Yes.’ He offered me his thin smile. ‘I was once an accountant, believe it or not. I think I might go back to it. There’s still lots of work around …’ the smile widened, ‘mainly in liquidations.’

  I nodded, thinking again about the contents of the file this strange, solitary man had handed me, all those busy weeks ago.

  ‘You really think all the Gulf War stuff’s a fantasy?’ I said. ‘You really think that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you’re blind,’ I said quietly. ‘All you see is Priddy and Devlin. The little guys. Trees in the wood.’

  Stollmann stared at me. His voice was sharp again, a brief gust of anger. ‘Little guys?’

  ‘Yes. Wesley started the other end, with the big picture. That’s the way journalists work. Go for the big theory. The headline. Then set about proving it.’ I smiled, my hand on his arm. ‘Don’t believe me?’

  Stollmann looked at me a moment longer, back under control. Then he shook his head, turning away, one eye on the big overhead clock.

  ‘Not a word,’ he said. ‘But good luck.’

  24

  Wesley stayed in hospital for the next month. I visited most days, spending an hour or so at his bedside, expecting always to find him better, the old Wesley, that extra-special mixture of earnestness, outrage and high camp.

  His moods swung wildly. Sometimes, he’d barely bother to stay awake, just a face on the pillow, the ghost of a smile at this story or that, a grunted request for a different station on the bedside radio, or a cup of tea from the passing trolley. Other times, he’d be sitting up in bed, alert again, engaged, passing on bits and pieces of ward gossip, asking me questions about the States, what I’d made of Jake McGrath, of Grant Wallace, of Raoul Delahunty, whom he now referred to, in his brighter moments, as ‘my Dallas screw’. All this I ended up telling him three or four times, simple repetition, nothing added or embellished, and after a week or two I’d begun to suspect the worst.

  I put the thought to Mark, his faithful boyfriend. We’d worked out a rota between us for visiting times. Sometimes we overlapped, sharing a table at the Towpath Coffee Shop in the new part of the hospital across the bridge, comparing notes.