Thunder in the Blood

by Hurley, Graham

  Ruth ignored the toast. Plainly, she wanted to talk.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ she said, ‘I think it was a blessing. And long overdue.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Rory and I.’ She studied her glass a moment, her thin lips pursed. ‘If it hadn’t been you, I’m sure there’d have been someone else. You can tell. Some men. There’s a definite pattern. I realize that now.’ She looked up at me. ‘Do you know what I mean?’

  I nodded gamely. ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘So…’ She shrugged. ‘All things considered, maybe you did us both a favour.’

  ‘What about the kids?’ I said automatically.

  ‘They’re fine. Fine. There’s lots of things they probably miss, but I’m astounded how resilient they’ve been.’ She paused. ‘School helps, of course. It’s not as though they live at home any more.’

  ‘No.’ I nodded. ‘I suppose not.’

  We both fell silent for a moment. My mother had appeared at last across the room. She was carrying a plate of mince pies and she threw me a big smile, beginning to head my way. When she saw Ruth, she stopped and altered course, picking her way back towards the kitchen. I looked down, running my finger around the rim of my glass.

  ‘And how about Rory,’ I said quietly, ‘how is he?’

  ‘Rory?’ Ruth gave me a hard, bright smile. ‘He’s fine. As far as I’m aware.’

  ‘Have you …’ I glanced up, ‘parted?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And his leg?’

  ‘Better.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, ‘I thought he’d have more sense. In the mountains. Climber with his experience.’

  I looked up again, aware of Ruth staring at me.

  ‘Mountains?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘I thought he’d been with the Kurds. Up in the mountains.’ I paused, ‘No?’

  Ruth was smiling again.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘that was the mystery. It turns out he was never with the Kurds at all. He broke his leg in Cyprus. Some RAF base or other. He’d been out there in the summer. Went back in October.’ She looked down at her drink. ‘Couldn’t stay away from the place.’

  28

  I flew to Mexico City ten days later, a letter from Wesley in my pocket.

  I opened it an hour into the flight, the scene when we parted still fresh in my mind. Wesley was sick again, the symptoms obvious, all the more affecting because he tried so hard to disguise them. The dry cough I’d noticed earlier had developed into something worse, periodic spasms of coughing that shook his whole body, bending him double. He was permanently breathless, the slightest exertion making him pause and gasp for air, and the night sweats had come back, the sheets on his bed soaked through in the morning, the mattress wet to the touch. The day I called in Eileen, it had taken him nearly an hour to get dressed, refusing my help, moving slowly from task to task.

  Eileen, when she’d arrived, had understood at once how sick he was. Hospital had been an obvious option, but I knew Wesley would do anything to avoid that and if Eileen was the alternative, then so be it. I’d been careful to introduce her gradually, the idea of her, dropping her name over a period of weeks, saying she was a friend, no threat, with a big sunny room up the road, a limitless supply of drugs and a great sense of humour. The latter wasn’t entirely true, but by the time Eileen took over, Wesley was beyond noticing. If he had a choice, he wanted me to take care of him. But he understood why I had to spend a week or so away and insisted I should go, and when he said he’d see me later, I could see from the glint in his eye that he meant it. Virus or no virus, he was determined still to be there, waiting, for when I got back.

  The note was brief, three short lines from Robert Frost, a favourite poet of his. The handwriting was terrible, spidery capitals, the sort old people leave out for the milkman. It went as follows:

  No memory of having starred

  Atones for later disregard

  Or keeps the end from being hard

  I read it twice. It made me cry.

  Later, a little drunk, I took out the map again. Raoul had been explicit about the arrangements. I’d phoned him twice in the last three days. The first time, he’d told me we had to meet. I was to fly to Texas. He had detailed news. It wasn’t something he could mail, or talk about on the phone. Besides, I owed him one or two favours of my own. I’d said that all sounded fine but I was persona non grata with the FBI. My name was doubtless starred on all the airport computers and I’d never get beyond the queue for immigration. At this news, he’d grunted, telling me to call back in twenty-four hours, and when I did so he came up with another rendezvous, Plan B, a set of travel arrangements that took me as close as you can get to Texas without touching US soil.

  I studied the map, wondering whether to risk another gin. In six hours or so, we’d be landing in Mexico City. From there, I was booked on to an Aeromexico internal flight to a city called Matamoros. Matamoros is up in the north of the country. It sits on the Mexican bank of the Rio Grande, within sight of the USA. For Raoul, it would mean an hour’s flight south from Dallas/Fort Worth to Brownsville. From there, he could take a cab across the bridge and into Matamoros. He’d given me the name of a place to stay, the Hotel Jardín. He said it had only just opened. It was cheerful, air-conditioned and discreet. I was to book in and await his arrival. He might be a day or two late, but whatever happened, he promised to be there. Something in his voice, a tone I hadn’t heard before, prompted me to ask what the matter was, but he’d dismissed the question with a grunt, repeating the name of the hotel, and sealing the conversation with a murmured ‘Hasta la vista’.

  Now, sleepy, I pushed my seat back, and turned my face to the window. The sun was pleasantly warm through the perspex, and I stared out at the tumble of clouds below. In my heart, I think I knew I’d pursued the trail as far as I could. What happened over the next day or so would determine everything. Either Wesley had stumbled on the story of the century, or we’d been sidetracked into a series of blind alleys, colliding with nothing more sensational than the normal consequences of grown men falling out over big money. Either way, remembering Wesley’s face when I left him, I wasn’t even sure if it mattered any more. The knowledge of his coming death had aged him. What he cared about now, in his own phrase, was getting the pay-off more or less right. The pay-off was something journalists evidently did to stories they wanted to file. It often made the difference between publication and the shredder, though when I pursued the conversation with Wesley, he no longer appeared to know the difference. Still preoccupied by the thought, I drifted off to sleep. Words in print meant nothing any more. Shouldn’t I be there? With him? Instead of here? En route, once again, to God knows what?

  We landed at Mexico City in a warm, airless dusk. I waited three hours for the connecting flight. By midnight, I was booking into the Hotel Jardín, exchanging my pesos for a pleasant, spacious room on the first floor. I put a call through the hotel switchboard to Eileen, knowing she was up all night at the nursing home, but when the switchboard finally made the connection, I was fast asleep. Hearing the phone, I lifted it and muttered something incomprehensible about leaving me alone, and Eileen must have taken the hint because she hung up.

  Next morning, I tried again. It was Pete this time.

  ‘How’s Wesley?’

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘Is he sleeping OK?’

  ‘Most of the time, yeah.’

  ‘Have you had the doctor in?’

  ‘Yeah. We’ve got drugs. A nurse. Everything.’ He paused. ‘But I don’t think it’s going to be long.’

  ‘Is that you I’m hearing? Or the doctor?’

  ‘Neither. It’s Eileen. She has a nose for these things.’

  I thanked Pete and hung up. When I tried Raoul at the office in Dallas, they said he was on vacation. When I tried his home, I got number unobtainable. Puzzled, I gave up, ordering breakfast from room service and wondering quite what I’d do until he arrived.

 
The wait turned out to be infinitely longer than I’d anticipated. The first two days, I sat around the hotel in almost hourly expectation of Raoul showing up. Every now and then, I’d check in the lobby, making sure Raoul hadn’t arrived, but as the days went by it dawned on me that something must have gone badly wrong.

  Day five, at last, I got through to his home number. A male voice answered, not Raoul. Carefully, I explained I was an English friend. Over for a flying visit. We’d fixed to meet. Where was he? There was a long pause. Then the voice came back. It sounded, if anything, Mexican.

  ‘You’re Sarah Moreton? The lady from England?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My name is Luis. We met before.’

  I nodded. Luis was Raoul’s bodyguard, the short, squat, powerful little Latino who’d patrolled the motel car park the night Raoul had paid me a visit.

  ‘I remember,’ I said, ‘so where’s Raoul?’

  ‘He’s away just now.’ He paused. ‘With you.’

  ‘Wrong.’

  ‘He’s not there?’

  I paused, hearing the surprise in his voice, and another, harder edge. ‘No,’ I said, ‘he’s not.’

  ‘OK.’ He hesitated. ‘You’re still at the hotel? In Matamoros?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You stay there. OK?’

  I nodded, another question on my lips, but he rang off. Worried now, I put the phone down, wondering quite what had happened to Raoul. He was a man with few illusions. If there were risks, he’d doubtless try and avoid them. So where had he got to? Why wasn’t he here?

  That afternoon, I wandered down through the plaza and along the wide promenade that ran beside the Rio Grande. The river was wide and sluggish, a sickly grey/brown colour, and on the other side lay Texas. I found a bench under a tree and sat there for more than an hour, trying to work out what to do. Already, I’d been waiting for nearly a week. Clearly, I couldn’t hang on for ever.

  Neither Raoul nor Luis showed up that day. Next morning, I decided to give it another twenty-four hours. Keen now to make the most of my time, I hired a car and drove east, out of the city, towards the Gulf of Mexico. A local map showed a beach called the Playa General Lauro Villa, and when the woman at the hotel reception said it was good for swimming, a favourite with the locals, I bought a costume from the little kiosk next door. The weather was wonderful, like a pleasant English summer’s day, still and warm, and I bumped along in the little Ford, trying to avoid the worst of the ruts.

  The beach, when I found it, was a disappointment, dark, hard-packed, granular sand overlooked by a military base and an enormous water slide. The area was dotted with parasols and sun-bleached wooden shacks, and after I’d changed under my hotel towel and tried the water, that was a disappointment too. It felt strangely viscous, with a light sheen on the surface, and when I got some in my mouth, it tasted faintly of oil. There was the smell of oil, too, chemical, sickly, sweet.

  Back on the beach, I began to dry myself, towelling hard, aware of a small, squat figure tramping over the sand towards me. Late now, the sun low, the beach was almost deserted, a couple of families playing football, a man in a shellsuit walking a huge dog. The figure got closer. I pulled on my shorts and sweatshirt. It was Luis.

  He stopped where my costume and towel lay on the sand. He seemed, if anything, embarrassed.

  ‘They told me at the hotel,’ he said simply. ‘They said you’d come here.’

  We walked back to his car. He had a wide, flat, pock-marked face and longish hair, combed straight back. He walked like a boxer or a rugby player, the movement coming from his upper body, the steady tramp-tramp leaving deep footprints in the firm sand. When we got to the car, a newish Oldsmobile, he opened the door and took out two large envelopes. Across from the parking lot was a small café. There were tables outside. We sat down.

  ‘Raoul?’ I said.

  Luis shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You haven’t seen him?’

  ‘No.’ He looked at me a moment, not bothering to elaborate, and then he picked up the thickest of the two envelopes. ‘This is for you,’ he said. ‘Raoul had it ready for you at the house.’

  I looked at the envelope. It had my Christian name on it, careless capital letters, a man in a hurry. I mimed opening it, looking at Luis.

  He shrugged, producing a pack of cigarettes. ‘Go ahead,’ he said.

  I slid a nail beneath the flap of the envelope. Inside was a sheaf of A4 paper. The typing was double spaced, the punctuation erratic, more evidence that time had been short. I waved away the offer of a cigarette, reading quickly through the first few pages, hearing Raoul’s laconic voice behind the terse journalese.

  What Luis had brought me was a report on the name I’d given Raoul, François Ghattan. It confirmed that Ghattan had been an arms dealer, with offices in Switzerland and Miami. In the process of making his fortune, he’d evidently acquired friends in high places. One of them was Harold Beckermann, who’d retained him over a period of years for deals with Iraq.

  Ghattan, as Wesley had already told me, knew Iraq inside out. His first million dollars had come in commissions, from deals struck during the Iran-Iraq war. He knew, and liked, the Iraqi leadership, Saddam’s extended family, the Baathist bandits from upriver Tikriti. I hesitated over the phrase, reading it again, recognizing Raoul’s style. An old man had appeared from the café, jeans and grubby white shirt. Luis barely looked at him, ordering coffee in Spanish, still watching me. I returned to the report, reading on.

  The Iraqis, over the years, had showered gifts on Ghattan. One of them was evidently a villa beside the lake at Lausanne. There was a photograph of it attached to the report, a handsome place with huge picture windows and an acre or so of grass sloping down to the water. It was an ideal nerve centre for Ghattan’s European operations, discreet, monied, with ready access to the comforts of the Swiss banking system and to Iraq’s many friends in nearby France. Jake McGrath, I remember, had mentioned the importance of the French connection, how close the two countries had been, the deals they’d done, the deals still to come. I studied the photo a moment or two longer, impressed now by Raoul’s diligence, by his contacts, wondering just where he’d picked up all the information. Paper-clipped to the next page of text was another photograph, smaller, fuzzier, a head and shoulders shot, someone young, dark, swarthy, someone I’d seen only a week or so ago, in the photo from Aldridge’s precious library. I turned it over, knowing already who it was, reading Raoul’s scrawl on the back. Another of Baghdad’s little gifts for François Ghattan: Rahman Khalil, his bodyguard.

  The old man returned with cups of café de olla, thick, dark, brewed coffee, delicious. I picked mine up, sipping it, curious to know what Raoul had to say about Rahman Khalil. The man had, it seemed, served a number of purposes. By far the most important, from the Iraqi point of view, was the guarantee that Ghattan would remain under their control. Khalil would be with him day and night, an ever-present companion, charming, highly trained, multi-lingual, a social asset as well as armed protection. This arrangement had apparently worked well until very recently, when Khalil had abruptly gone missing, leaving Ghattan undefended and unchaperoned. Next thing anyone knew, Khalil had reappeared in Beirut, Ghattan’s old stamping ground, joining an Extec party booked to travel by chartered plane to Sana’a in the Yemen. The rest of the story I thought I knew already – the plane disappearing from Lebanese radar screens, the wreckage falling earthwards, everyone on board killed – but Raoul had a different version. According to him, Khalil may not have been on the plane after all. There were rumours out of the Middle East that he’d been seen since. One source claimed to have spotted him in Cyprus, in a small bar in Akrotiri. Cyprus?

  I glanced up. Luis was smoking again. ‘You know about any of this?’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘A little.’

  ‘What happened to Ghattan?’ I said. ‘Isn’t he supposed to be dead, too?’

  Luis said nothing, indicating the pages of typescript on
the table with a brief movement of his hand, and I wondered whether or not he’d read it, been part of this impressive piece of research. The temperature was falling fast now, a breeze from the Gulf stirring the dust at our feet. I pulled on a sweatshirt over my vest, reaching for the last two sheets of paper.

  The headline, in capitals, read: ‘FRANÇOIS GHATTAN: THE CORONARY THAT NEVER WAS?’ Intrigued, I read further. This material wasn’t as well-sourced as the stuff I’d read earlier and there was a handwritten note of apology at the end, promising more collateral, but the drift of the story was very obvious. Ghattan had been suffering for a number of years from a condition similar to angina. The blood vessels of his heart had narrowed to the point where any exertion or excitement could become life-threatening. Drugs had kept the problem more or less under control, but in June he’d finally submitted to a heart bypass, a perfectly routine piece of surgery which replaced the worst-affected blood vessels with lengths of healthy vein from the inside of his leg. This procedure, naturally enough, had been carried out at the Harold J. Beckermann Cardiothoracic Center, in Dallas, the hi-tech facility funded by his friend and business partner. The operation itself, according to the surgeons, had gone well. Yet within a week, under puzzling circumstances, Ghattan had died.

  I read the final paragraph again. On 10 June, just four days after the Extec plane crash, Ghattan had been found dead in a private room at the Cardiothoracic Center. He was out of intensive care. His vital signs had all been excellent. His convalescence was utterly routine. Yet there he was, dead.

  The hospital, at Beckermann’s insistence, had opened an enquiry and the post-mortem had revealed evidence of a massive heart attack, yet Ghattan’s abrupt exit was still – according to Raoul – a talking point amongst the Dallas medical set. Raoul was too good a journalist to build conclusions on speculation, but after the scribbled apology, at the very end of the piece, there was a final line. I peered at it in the fading light. It read: ‘Injection? Thalium?’