by Adam Thorpe
A life change. Divorcees in their fifties had a right to be reckless. He went out for an evening jog through misty streets whose orange sodium lamps made him feel exposed, as though in a stadium. All he could think about was Leila’s breasts. He failed to understand why he hadn’t just sat it out in Dubai. Her solid, silky rump. Squeezing his juice, as she called it. Her laughter.
He texted her on his return, suggestively, and the response came within minutes: ‘Wot’s all thick and swollen? Your head? Then take an aspirin. L.’
The call came at seven in the morning. He’d not slept well, just managing to drop off again after a couple of hours of trying – at the very moment his unconsciousness unscotched itself with a sort of tearing noise that turned out to be his mobile.
It was Al. He sounded as if he’d been jogging, but he never jogged, scarcely took proper exercise, used a buggy for golf, yet passed his meds with flying colours. Bob assumed Al was in a different time zone because it was seven o’clock.
‘Bob? We need to talk, urgent.’
‘What’s up?’ He was groggy, taking a few too many seconds to recall where he was, heart sinking when he did. Crowthorne. Al could not say what the matter was, not over the phone. He wanted to meet up.
Bob croaked, ‘Tea and birthday cake your place, around four?’
‘It’s not my birthday.’
‘It’s mine.’
‘Christ. What timing.’
‘I had no say in the matter.’
‘How about I buy you a birthday meal in the D and D at CK, one o’clock? Just say yes or no.’
This was unofficial code: it took Bob a few seconds to work it out. ‘Boats, boats,’ Al added impatiently. The Dog and Duck at Cookham was Al’s favourite pub: they’d sloped off there through many a summer, admiring the passing craft from its pleasant Thameside lawn, but never in November.
‘Confirmed.’
‘Roger,’ Al said. ‘Don’t be late.’
‘My second name’s Ryanair,’ Bob joked. ‘Hope you’re checking they’ve put cones around the wings.’
Al had already gone. Bob was worried. The man didn’t usually do scared.
He was five minutes early, but Al had already downed his pint, sitting slumped and plump-looking in a corner of what, on a weekday late-autumn afternoon, was a mere shadow of its rumbustious summer self full of jolly boating types. The log fire was non-operational, the low-beamed place slightly chilly and smelling sourly of the previous night’s carousing. An artificial Christmas tree winked in the corner. It made Bob feel morose.
Al’s window looked out on the river sliding directly below, glumly tugging at a bare weeping willow on the opposite bank. The music was bog-standard country and western turned down low enough so any conversation could be heard by the shy little barmaid of uncertain nationality. There was no one else present to hear.
Bob ordered a couple of Murphy’s and a hotpot apiece, and brought the beers over. Al looked deathly pale under his frown. He got down to brass tacks directly.
‘Hans. Hans Schmitt. Bad news. He’s dead.’
‘How?’
‘Fell out of a seventy six.’
‘Pushed off the steps?’
‘It was airborne. To be precise, it was at 35,000 feet.’
‘They wouldn’t have opened the cargo doors at 35,000 feet.’
‘He fell out of the escape hatch.’
Bob pondered on this as the hotpots arrived, clearly thawed in a microwave, ornamented with garnishes of irrelevant onion rings and parsley.
He pointed out that the escape hatch in an Ilyushin 76 is up in the flight deck’s roof. ‘You need a ladder to open it.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Where did this unfortunate accident occur?’
They were speaking in low tones, but he still felt the barmaid was noting it all down. She was certainly talking into her mobile in some foreign lingo.
‘Over the Arabian peninsula. Last week. The crew were briefly arrested in Ras al Khaimah but released, no charge.’
‘Who were they?’
‘An assortment. One or two Russians. A Bulgarian. To be honest, I didnae fancy looking into this in any depth.’
‘Who told you?’
‘Max Freewest. Remember him? We’d call him Face West, because he went the wrong way on the apron at Frankfurt. Confirmed face east to Apron Control then passed on to the headset operator to push back the bird face west, saw a bloody great jumbo bearing down on him, started swearing and shouting. And it was all his fault.’
‘Oh, him.’
Al leaned forward over his pint. ‘I was making enquiries, you know, after our knees-up. Got a bit worried when Hans wouldn’t answer the phone. Max worked with him a bit out in South America. Poor old Hans. I quite liked him. Though the last thing I said to him was, “You’re a double-crossing arsehole.” It’s always the same when folk die without warning. Usually you’ve just been rude to them or talked behind their back. So you’d better be nice to me, Bob.’
‘You’re not about to die, Al.’
‘Wanna bet on it? Maidenhead’s suddenly full o’ types with ski shades in smart black Audis, kerb-crawling just behind me. I feel better talking about it. Jane has no idea.’
‘This isn’t like you. Hans was in with the ski-shades guys from Naples. Counterfeit chainsaws made in China. Cocaine, even. The dodgier stuff, anyway.’
Al glared at him. ‘How do you know?’
‘The price of three lagers and a chicken and chips in the Streep. No head for the booze, despite his Swiss banker’s look.’
‘You know more about him than I thought.’
Bob chuckled. ‘Oh, c’mon, Al. We all knew it. He double-crossed everything in sight. His crooked friends have caught up with him, that’s all.’
‘You always looked so dreamy,’ Al remarked dreamily. ‘Another? Christ, happy birthday.’
‘Thank you. No, we’re both driving.’
‘Here’s a present, skipper. No time to wrap it, I’m afraid.’
A pair of large sky-blue cufflinks with tiny white streaks like clouds. Bob hardly ever wore cufflinks, especially not this size.
‘Topaz,’ said Al. ‘Your birth stone, according to Jane.’
‘That was very clever of you. Will I see a rainbow when it’s wet?’
‘Maidenhead has its good points,’ Al sighed, slumped back in his seat. He was wearing a suede coat with a furry collar, very 60s, that clashed with his sandy hair. He caught Bob’s appraising glance.
‘Anniversary present from Jane.’
‘Very nice,’ Bob fibbed.
He’d always dreaded his birthdays, but they were soon over.
He had also fibbed about poor old ex-Swissair, their one-time cockpit colleague and actually a reliable team member, if prone to lining his own pocket at the expense of others through his ability to speak French, Italian and German fluently. In fact, Bob was as convinced as Al that Schmitt was another green bottle, nudged off the wall by whoever had hired his own balcony operatives. Twenty-five floors up, 35,000 feet up: same difference, even if you landed on your feet. But he needed time to think; he needed to give Al a respite from his own panic.
‘Come back to my place,’ Bob said. ‘Borrow the sofa. We need a private confab before headless-chicken syndrome sets in.’
He stopped. The music had been turned off and the barmaid’s phone call was over. Their voices seemed very loud and clear in the silence.
‘Great place to meet, Al. They say safety’s in numbers, usually. Costa at Luton Airport, for example.’
‘Ach, I thought you were an art lover,’ Al said drily. ‘Stanley Spencer. Great investment, these days. Art.’ He waved a hand towards some framed watercolours of yachts.
Bob leaned forward, arms crossed on the table, and continued in a near-murmur: ‘There’s something that doesn’t add up, Al. A few toys for the Taliban to play with, whoever the supplier, even an Israeli businessman, even the bloody Pope, whoever, they’re not worth the nud
ging of a whole crew off the shelf, let alone a journalist. There’s something else. We know what it is.’
Thankfully, the waitress was out the back, doing something loud with bottles.
‘It’s the drugs, Al. The snow that blew into the hold. You know my latest theory? Bensoussan can’t have known about it. So now maybe he’s cross. Off the gauge. You know what makes a control freak very cross? Being lied to. Hidden stuff. Business going on behind his back. I mean, let’s face it, you yourself were cross about it, the subterfuge. Being used. Probably by Posh Boy Lennart. He looked like a junkie.’
Al pushed his plate away; he wasn’t listening. ‘There’s always the croft house,’ he said softly.
‘The croft house?’
‘The Hebridean bolt-hole. On Scourlay. I showed it you. You seemed interested. But it’s not ideal for Jane, not in her current condition. Otherwise I’d be tempted, I can tell you.’
Bob settled back in his seat, drained his glass, wiped his mouth, sighed. ‘Six months max. Rental. Olivia has a new man. I have need of a quiet corner to sulk in.’
Al nodded. ‘It’ll certainly be quiet. Make a decent offer for the rent, and I legally can’t refuse you, being my cousin’s peace of mind. It’ll have to be the Virgin Islands for us, heads right down. Dearie me. But Jane will be happier with the warmth. No offence, but I’m not sure she’d want to stare out at all those howling gales with you wandering about the house, whingeing.’
‘I never whinge.’
‘You will do up there,’ said Al, strangely happy about it.
Bob glanced out at the river soaking up the rain, wondered if bumming on a palm-fringed beach might not be a better solution. No, that would be sad. The Outer Hebrides would be bracing. Bracing is good. Right out on the edge. It would beat Shropshire hollow.
‘Anyway,’ Al went on, ‘she’s a bad sailor, and the only way to and from the island is a leaky boat full of sacks and lambs rowed by an old whisky-rotted feller in a bobble hat.’
‘No beach airport?’
‘You’re thinking of the bigger islands, like Barra. Barra is big compared to Scourlay. So you won’t likely have a car. The island is full of unlicensed wrecks with no tax discs, some of them moving.’
‘Sounds good. Get a new livery, grow a beard, dip down out of sight till it all blows over.’
‘Wrong expression. Up there, Bob, it never stops blowing. And make sure you take your wellies. Anyway, you’ve no idea how hard it is to hide these days, once you’ve knocked over the hive. Even getting a damn PO box. I’ve looked into it. You can’t just vanish. And the swarm has nae respect for fucking fences.’
‘We can at least make it harder for the swarm, Al. Not worth their bother. Lie low for a bit. Pretend to be a rock.’
‘Christ, what a pain. I don’t want to lie low. And Jane’s got her book club, her tenpin bowling. She never stops.’
Bob leaned closer again. ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘my money’s on Pedro Diez. The Mexican connection. It can’t just have been Lennart, or Bensoussan would’ve stopped at him. Maybe it was just Diez, grabbing an opportunity. A nice big empty bird, all paid for.’
Al looked straight at him, sandy eyebrows awry above the bleached lashes, his pale blue gaze on a scheduled flight straight into Bob’s brain.
‘Bob,’ he said, ‘for Chrissake let it go. Diez was a nobody. It was clearly that little Swiss sub-mafioso bastard.’
‘May he rest in peace.’
‘Let it go. What’s come over you, skipper? You’ve been let off the hook. I haven’t. This is the first day of the fucking Somme and you’re out there with your clipboard and pencil, taking fucking notes. I’m crouched below the parapet and I’m still wetting myself.’
Bob nodded, raising a mock fist in agreement. Al was always right. Commonsensical.
The music was now slow and sleepy pap: nursing-home dance music. Perhaps the bargirl thought it suited them. She came over and cleared their plates, giving Bob a nice crooked-teeth smile as he agreed to coffee.
‘Let me guess,’ he added, scanning her fair tumble of hair. ‘Poland.’
‘No. Ukraine.’
His heart gave a little jump. ‘Ah, don’t know it.’
‘Is very special,’ she sighed.
Once she’d left, following an attractive rundown of Ukraine’s good points, Al leaned forward and said, ‘You bloody liar. And she had eyes only for you. As ever.’
‘I’m a cautious feller, remember?’
‘That’s what I miss, doing freight. Lissom beauties bringing your tea to the front office, all that banter. All that pleated skirt. I get lonely in my hotel rooms, these days, Bob. Not that I even fly much, now,’ he added melancholically.
The little veins over his nose, his sagging cheeks, his thinning hair: Bob looked at Al and reckoned the lack of stewardesses wasn’t the problem. When he first knew McAllister, they’d cluster round his copper-haired lankiness like bees.
‘C’mon, they weren’t all lissom. And the tea was watered-down diesel.’
‘Certainly lissom no longer. Pencil-thin when I started. Take Jane, for instance. Now they’re more like Russian shot-putters in drag. Hey, you’re not really leaving our one big aviation family, are you?’
‘Possibly, even probably. Kicking the habit. It’s bad for me, being a mercenary pilot.’
‘Being a what pilot?’
‘That’s what someone called me, once,’ Bob said vaguely.
The waitress brought the coffee. She smelt faintly of lily of the valley and seemed to rustle as she leaned by his shoulder. ‘Anything else?’
‘A boat trip on the Thames?’
She laughed and said, with an ironic lilt, ‘How really nice,’ and left them.
Al drew his big red hand over his face and popped out again half the size. ‘Ach, we just get on with it,’ he said. ‘Keep our heads down and get on with it. Or take the consequences, in certain situations. Do you think that’s what’s happening now, that we’re taking the consequences – with a two-year delay for coffee and snacks?’
‘Possibly. I was fitted with four engines. Marriage, home, job, kids. I’ve lost three. I’m gliding on one, now.’
Al nodded. ‘I would’ve had kids,’ he murmured. There was a silence: long-time cockpit brethren, they’d had this out already. Incompatibility between Jane and himself, Jane not wanting to adopt, afraid that some dark gene would resurface at puberty. Then he said, ‘Hey, listen, there’s something you ought to know.’
Bob was convinced his old friend was about to reveal some intimate, unappetising fact – that he’d had his balls dropped at eighteen or whatever, that Jane was a lesbian, that she’d not after all been Miss Gatwick 1979, but only Miss Mildenhall.
Al pondered; Bob waited. In normal circumstances they’d have covered a fair number of nautical miles. Then Al shifted in his chair, as if he’d changed his mind, and said, ‘Listen, I had this God-awful dream last night. I was in the cockpit, checking over the notification, when I saw “HUM”, circled in red. So I said to the ramp guy, who was an old mate of mine from Fife, died years ago – you know how it is in dreams – I says to him, like we always do, for a laugh, “Fergus, I see we’ve got some human remains. What d’you think this is, a hearse?” And he looks at me and he says, “It’s your own corpse back there, McAllister, so handle it carefully.” And it was, it was. I went back into the rear and saw it, staring up white as a sheet, all on its own in this dim and chilly hold, lashed to a PMC pallet by five tie-down points, it was that bloody detailed. Imagine, Bob, I was carrying my own damn body!’
Bob nodded. ‘Dreams go by opposites, my stepmother would always tell me.’
Al stirred his coffee. ‘I know this guy who does close protection work. Ex-marine. Security consultant. Lives on a farm in Devon. If you’re interested.’
‘Are you?’
‘You bet.’
‘I can’t afford stuff like that, Al.’
‘You’ve got your nice big shoulders, I suppos
e. No choice, in my case.’ He looked out of the window at the river. ‘There’s Jane to think about.’
Bob shrugged; his shoulders would be of minimal use against a spray of bullets. He didn’t mention the Makarov. Cut-price close protection.
‘Randomise, randomise, randomise,’ muttered Al. ‘That’s this guy’s advice.’
10
AL DIDN’T BEAT about the bush: he and Jane moved out to a secret location in deepest west Berkshire – a farmhouse B & B with blazing log fire, friendly Labrador, views of the downs – accompanied by ‘Andrew’, their protective membrane. Why not further afield? Because among Al’s many accessories was a thoroughbred racehorse called Safety Fuse; he could discreetly watch his investment race along the gallops above Lambourn, Andrew eyeing the empty horizons through a stiff breeze at £600 a day.
Meanwhile, his client was negotiating the purchase of a second property on the British Virgin Islands under a false name: Felix Newton. Al knew a Polish couple in a large flat off the King’s Road who processed false passports, driving licences and ancillary documents made in Thailand; Al and Jane had theirs already, which surprised Bob. He was persuaded to part with a small fortune to do likewise, a name decided over the phone on a crackly line. It was as hard as choosing a password.
Christopher ‘Kit’ Webb.
Christopher being his middle name, Webb being a lack of imagination.
‘Please, Mr Webb, to spell this. Like Internet?’
A week passed. The solicitors exchanged crisp letters concerning the Worcestershire house. Several people came to look at the Crowthorne flat. Al informed the Scottish estate agents in Inverness that he had a potential tenant for the croft cottage.
Otherwise, it was all eerily quiet. Bob went out once a day to the gym, at apparently random times, and shopped likewise, changing his route and always accompanied by the pistol in its holster. He practised whipping it out and firing with an empty chamber at the flat’s mirror, and improved his reaction time by several seconds. If he hadn’t texted Sharansky, he wouldn’t be bothering with paranoia. But he’d betrayed Gold Teeth’s order to keep mum: his only hope was that Sharansky had been eliminated by another set of scary bods with a taste for mobiles.
