But though Brock went back and forth with this question, put it to Massingham in a dozen different ways, though he shoved the sixty-eight-page document at him and made him read in black and white the evidence of his villainy, and though Massingham, now churlishly, now pertly, answered a string of less pressing questions arising from Oliver’s visits to Dr. Conrad and the bank, Brock returned to his office in the Strand with a deeper sense of failure and frustration than before. The promised land is still out there and it’s unconquered, he told Tanby bitterly, and Tanby said maybe get some sleep. But Brock didn’t. He rang Bell and went over old ground with him. He rang a couple of his whisperers in far-off places. He rang his wife and listened gratefully to her insane opinions about what to do with the Northern Irish. None of these dialogues brought him nearer to breaking Massingham’s code. He dozed and woke abruptly with the telephone already to his ear.
“Open-line call from Derek in Zurich, sir,” Tanby was saying in his lugubrious West Country drawl. “The bridal pair have flown the coop. No forwarding address.”
17
The hilltop was an enchanted sea above the smog. Domes of mosques floated on it like basking tortoises. The minarets were stand-up targets on the shooting range at Swindon. Aggie switched off the engine of the rented Volkswagen and listened to the dying wheeze of the air-conditioning. Somewhere below her lay the Bosphorus but she couldn’t see it through the smog. She lowered her window for a bit of air. A wave of heat leapt at her from the tarmac, though it was by now early evening. The stench of smog mingled with scents of wet spring grass. She raised the window and resumed her vigil. Gray cumulus collected purposefully above her. Rain fell. She switched on the engine and ran the wipers. The rain stopped, the cumulus turned pink, the pine trees round her blackened until their fir cones resembled plump flies caught in the tracery of the foliage. Again she lowered the window and this time the car filled with the scents of lime and jasmine. She heard cicadas and the burping of a frog or toad. She saw crows with gray chests sitting to attention on an overhead cable. A celestial explosion blasted her out of her seat. Sparks burst above her and wandered into the valley before she realized that a nearby house was throwing a fireworks party. The sparks vanished and the dusk deepened.
She was wearing jeans and a leather jacket, which was what she had eloped in. She had no gun because she had made no contact with Brock’s family. No gift-wrapped parcel had been delivered to her hotel, no thick envelope shoved at her under the Visa Section grille with a gruff “Sign here, Mrs. West.” Nobody in the world except Oliver knew where she was, and the stillness up here on the hilltop was like the stillness that had descended on her life. She was unarmed and in love and in danger, and she was staring down a lovely Turkish hillside at a pair of iron gates set into a shellproof wall a hundred yards below her. Behind the wall lay the flat roof of Dr. Mirsky’s very modern brick fortress and to Aggie’s traveled eye it was just another dope lawyer’s pad, with bougainvillea and intruder lights and fountains and video cameras and Alsatian dogs and statues, and two burly men in black trousers and white shirts and black waistcoats who were doing nothing very particular in the forecourt. And somewhere inside the fortress was her lover.
They had arrived here after a fruitless visit to Dr. Mirsky’s very legal offices in the center of the city. “The doctor is not here today,” a beautiful girl informed them from behind a mauve reception desk. “Maybe you leave your name and come back tomorrow, please.” They left no name but once on the pavement Oliver hammered at his pockets till he found a bit of paper with Mirsky’s home address on it, memorized from a sneak view of the file he had stolen from Dr. Conrad’s office. Together they stopped a venerable gentleman who thought they were German and kept shouting, “Dahin, dahin,” while he pointed them in the general direction. On the hillside more venerable gentlemen directed them, till out of nowhere they were in the right private road and driving past the right fortress and drawing the attention of the right dogs, bodyguards and cameras.
Aggie would have given anything to go into the house with Oliver but it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a lawyers’ one-to-one, he said. He wanted her to park a hundred yards away and wait. He reminded her that it was his father they were looking for, not hers. And anyway, what use can you be, with or without a gun, sitting there like a wallflower? Much better to wait and see whether I come out, and if I don’t, holler. He’s taking over his own life, she thought. Mine too. She didn’t know whether she was alarmed or proud or both.
She was parked on a deserted building lot alongside a pink lorry with a lemonade bottle painted on it, and half a dozen Volkswagen Beetles, all empty. It would take a pretty sophisticated surveillance camera, she reckoned, or a very smart bodyguard, to spot her at that distance. Anyway, who was interested in one woman in a small brown car without aerials, talking on a cell phone in the twilight? Not that she was talking, absolutely not. She was listening to Brock’s messages one by one. Nat, steady as a good Merseyside sea captain in a storm, no reproaches, no fuss—“Charmian, this is your dad again, we’d like you to give us a call as soon as you receive this message, please . . . Charmian, we need to hear from you, please . . . Charmian, if you can’t get through to us for some reason, then please contact your uncle . . . Charmian, we want you both to come home as soon as possible, please.” For uncle, read British representative.
While she listened, her quick gaze scanned the iron gates and trees and hedges of the surrounding gardens, and the lights pricking through the blue-gray smog. And when she had stopped listening to Brock, she listened to the conflicting voices of her complexity while she tried to fathom what she owed to him and what she owed to Oliver and to herself, though the last two were in reality a single debt, because every time she thought of Oliver he was back in her arms laughing, and shaking his head in disbelief, with the sweat running off him from the overheated sleeping car, and looking altogether so lighthearted and enthusiastic that she felt her entire life had been spent trying to get him out of prison, and to rat on him was to put him back inside with no remission. The Service had an operational message desk and Aggie had the number in her head. The compromiser in her considered ringing it and saying that Oliver and Aggie were alive and well and not to worry. A stronger side of her knew that the smallest message was betrayal.
The night was gathering in earnest, the smog was lifting, the intruder lights were casting a white cone over the fortress and the car lights on the bridges over the Bosphorus were like moving necklaces against the blackness of the water. Aggie discovered she was praying, and that prayer did not affect her powers of observation. She braced herself. The gates were parting, one black waistcoat to each. A pair of headlights was coming up the hill at her. She saw them dip and heard a distant fanfare of a car horn. The car turned into the gateway and she identified a silver Mercedes before the gates closed on it. It was chauffeur driven. One bulky man sat in the back, but he was too far away, and the sight of him too brief, for her to recognize Mirsky from the photographs she had been shown in London a million miles away.
Oliver pressed the bell and to his confusion heard a woman’s voice, which reminded him that when you are obsessed by one woman, all other women become unconscious ducts to her. She spoke to him first in Turkish, but as soon as he spoke English, she switched to Euro-American and said her husband was out right now but why not try him down at the office? To which Oliver replied that he had tried the office without success, it had taken him more than an hour to find the house, he was a friend of Dr. Conrad’s, he had confidential messages for Dr. Mirsky, his chauffeur had run out of petrol and could Mrs. Mirsky perhaps suggest a time when her husband might return? And he reckoned that something in his voice as he said all this must have communicated itself to her, some blend of authority and flirtation left over from his lovemaking with Aggie, because her next question was “Are you American or English?” spoken in a relaxed, almost postcoital purr.
“English to the core. Does that disqualify me?”
“And you are a client of my husband?”
“Not yet, but I intend to be, just as soon as he’ll have me,” he replied heartily, at which she went off the air for a few seconds.
“So why don’t you come on in and have a lemon juice till Adam shows up?” she suggested.
And soon a man in a black waistcoat was rolling back an iron gate far enough to admit one pedestrian, while a second man bellowed in Turkish at the two Alsatian dogs to shut up. And to judge by the men’s expressions Oliver might have landed from outer space, for they first scowled up and down the road in puzzlement, then at his dust-free shoes. So Oliver jabbed his thumb down the hill and laughed and said, “Driver’s gone to get petrol,” hoping that if they didn’t understand him they would at least accept that an explanation had been given. The front door was open by the time he reached it. A prizefighter in a full black suit was guarding it. He was glossy and unfriendly and Oliver’s height, and he kept his hands curled at his sides while he frisked Oliver with his eyes.
“Welcome,” he said finally, and led Oliver through an outer bailey to a second door, which in turn led to a courtyard with an illuminated swimming pool and a fairy-lit paved patio with trumpet flowers growing over it and, in the patio, rattan swing chairs suspended from rafters. In one chair sat a small girl who looked as Carmen might when she attained the ripe age of six, with plaits, and a double gap where her top teeth should be. Squeezed in beside her was a sloe-eyed Romeo two years her senior, whose features were mysteriously known to him. The little girl was spooning ice cream from a common plate. Drawing books, paper scissors, crayons and bits of pop-together warriors were strewn round the tiled floor. Opposite the children sat a blonde, long-legged woman in the last weeks of pregnancy. And Dr. Conrad was right, she was beautiful. A volume of Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit in English lay open at her side.
“Children, this is Mr. West from England,” she announced with mock portent while she shook his hand. “Meet Friedi and Paul. Friedi is our daughter, Paul is our friend. We have just discovered that lettuces are soporific, haven’t we, children? And I am Mrs. Mirsky— Paul, what does soporific mean?”
Oliver guessed she was Swedish and bored, and he remembered how Heather had flirted with any male over the age of ten from her fifth month onward. Friedi who was Carmen aged six grinned and spooned her ice cream while Paul stared at Oliver and the stare continued to accuse him. But of what crime? Against whom? Where? The black-suited prizefighter brought iced lemon juice.
“Sleepy,” Paul replied at long last, when everyone had forgotten the question, and too late the penny dropped: Paul, for God’s sake! Zoya’s Paul! That Paul!
“You arrived today?” Mrs. Mirsky asked.
“From Vienna.”
“You had business there?”
“Sort of.”
“Paul’s father also has a business in Vienna,” she said, articulating slowly and clearly for the children’s benefit, but keeping her large eyes appreciatively on Oliver. “He lives in Istanbul but he works in Vienna, yes, Paul? He is a big trader. Today everybody is a trader. Alix is our great friend, isn’t he, Paul? We admire him very much. Are you also a trader, Mr. West?”—languidly drawing her wrap across her bosom.
“That kind of thing.”
“In any particular commodity, Mr. West?”
“Money mostly.”
“Mr. West trades in money. Now Paul, tell Mr. West what languages you speak—Russian, naturally, Turkish, a bit of Georgian, English? The ice cream does not make you soporific, Paul?”
Paul the party’s clouded child, Oliver thought empathetically as the recognition took wing. Inconsolable like his mother. Paul the bereaved one, the divorced one, the eternal stepchild, the one you want to beg a smile from, the one whose smudged eyes brighten when you walk into the room, and stay on you reproachfully when it’s time to pack up your tricks and leave. Paul the troubled eight-year-old memory, trying to retrieve a misty encounter with a mad monster called Post Boy, from the days when Grandpa and Grandma lived in a leafy castle outside Moscow and had a motorbike which the Post Boy rode while Mummy hugged me to her breast and kept her hand over my ear.
Bending abruptly double in his chair, Oliver swooped and grabbed a drawing book and a pair of paper scissors from the floor and—when he had secured Paul’s nodded consent—whipped a double page from the drawing book. Having swiftly folded and refolded it, he cut and fretted with the scissors until he had produced a string of happy rabbits nose-to-tail.
“But that’s fantastic!” cried Mrs. Mirsky, the first to speak. “You have children, Mr. West? But if you have no children how can you be so expert? You are a genius! Paul and Friedi, what do you say to Mr. West?”
But it was what Mr. West would say to Dr. Mirsky that was causing Oliver the greater concern. And what he would say to Zoya and Hoban when they called by to pick up their little boy. He made aeroplanes and to the common delight they really flew. One landed on the water, so they sent a rescue plane to fetch it, then fished them both to dry land with a pole. He made a bird and Friedi refused to let it fly because it was too precious. He magicked a Swiss five-franc piece out of Friedi’s ear and was about to produce another from Paul’s mouth when a two-toned view-halloo of a car horn and a joyous yell of “Papa!” from Friedi announced that the good doctor had come home.
Commotion in the forecourt, a clatter of running servants, a slamming of car doors, a throaty howl of happy dogs and a soothing roar of Polish greeting, as a bustling, boisterous, black-haired man with a widow’s peak bursts into the courtyard, wrenches off his necktie, jacket, shoes, then everything, and with a bellow of relief dives hairy naked into the pool and swims two lengths underwater. Emerging like a half-shaven bear to seize a multicolored robe from the prizefighter, he wraps it round himself, embraces first his wife, then his daughter, calls, “Hi, Pauli!” and bestows a friendly scrabble on Paul’s hair before inclining once more to his wife, and only then, with visible displeasure, to Oliver.
“I’m terribly sorry to barge in like this,” Oliver said in his most disarming upper-class voice. “I’m an old friend of Yevgeny’s and I bring greetings from Dr. Conrad.” No answer but the straight stare, older than Paul’s by several centuries, and cushioned between plump eyelids. “If I could talk to you alone,” Oliver said.
Oliver followed Dr. Mirsky’s multicolored backside and bare heels. The black-suited prizefighter followed Oliver. They crossed a corridor, climbed a few steps, entered a low study with scenic Polaroid windows looking at dusky hilltops prickling with restless lights. The prizefighter closed the door and leaned against it, one hand tucked against his heart.
“Okay,” said Mirsky. “What the fuck do you want?” His voice beat on one bass level, like a salvo of artillery.
“I’m Oliver, Tiger Single’s son. I’m the junior partner of the House of Single & Single of Curzon Street and I’m looking for my father.”
Mirsky growled something in Polish. The prizefighter put his hands affectionately under Oliver’s armpits, explored them, then his breasts and waistband. He turned Oliver round and, instead of kissing him, or wrestling him to the bed like Zoya, felt his crotch like Kat, and continued the caress all the way to his ankles. He removed Oliver’s wallet and handed it to Mirsky, then the passport in the name of West, then the junk from Oliver’s pockets, which as usual would have disgraced a twelve-year-old schoolboy. Cupping his hands, Mirsky took the whole lot to the desk and put on a pair of dainty spectacles. A couple of thousand Swiss francs—he had left the rest of his money in the suitcase—some loose coins, a photograph of Carmen sitting on a beach donkey, a cutting, still unread, from a weekly magazine called Abracadabra, offering “tricks new and newly slanted,” one freshly laundered handkerchief forced on him by Aggie. Mirsky was holding the passport to the light.
“Where the fuck you get this?”
“Massingham,” Oliver said, remembering Nadia at Nightingales and wishing for a moment he was there. “You a friend
of Massingham?”
“We’re colleagues.”
“Massingham send you here?”
“No.”
“British police send you?”
“I came for myself, to find my father.”
Mirsky spoke in Polish again. The prizefighter replied. A staccato conversation followed in which the manner of Oliver’s arrival appeared to be discussed, and the prizefighter was rebuked and sent from the room.
“You’re a danger to my wife and family, you understand? You got no business coming here. You understand?”
“I hear you.”
“I want you out of my house. Now. You ever come back, God help you. Take this shit. I don’t want it. Who brought you here?”
“A taxi.”
“A fucking woman drives a taxi in Istanbul?”
They spotted her, Oliver thought, impressed. “I got her from the car hire people at the airport. We took an hour to find the house. She had another job and she was out of petrol.” Mirsky watched with distaste as Oliver loaded his junk back into his pockets. “I’ve got to find him,” Oliver said, stuffing his wallet into his jacket. “If you don’t know where he is, tell me someone who does. He’s in over his head. I need to help him. He’s my father.”
From across the courtyard they heard the jolly chatter of Mrs. Mirsky and the children as she turned them over to a maid to be put to bed. The prizefighter returned and seemed to be reporting that what was ordered had been done. Reluctantly, Mirsky appeared to give him a different order. The prizefighter demurred and Mirsky roared at him. The prizefighter departed and returned with jeans, a checked shirt and sandals. Mirsky threw off his bathrobe, stood naked, pulled on the trousers and shirt, stepped into the sandals, said, “Jesus H. Christ,” and, with the prizefighter bringing up the tail, marched ahead of Oliver down a back corridor to the forecourt. A silver Mercedes stood facing the closed gates, chauffeur at the wheel. Mirsky opened the chauffeur’s door, yanked him out and barked another order. The prizefighter pulled a pistol from his left armpit and handed it to Mirsky, who with a disapproving shake of his head jammed it butt forward into his waistband. The prizefighter escorted Oliver to the passenger door, one hand on his arm, and sat him smartly in the passenger seat. The gates opened. Mirsky drove into the road and slewed left down the hill toward the city lights. Oliver wanted to turn round and look for Aggie but didn’t dare.
Single & Single Page 29
