by Adam Thorpe
‘Then all five of you are wrong.’
He’d return home most times swinging a bag of fresh scallops – for your sins, Angus would joke. They were always peculiarly large: plump and fleshy. Not like the wee ones scraped up by the industrial clear-cutters, Angus told him – ‘along with aye else in the way’. From this we grew, he’d think, breathing their smell of the seabed. And they were scrumptious.
There was white clover along the path, but the springtime weather had turned Calvinist. It was cold again. After ten minutes jogging on the road’s verge, he could have filled a glass from each shoe. An elderly woman sped past him way above the speed limit, sending an arc of water over his entire body. That was unsupportive, he thought.
He was in no-man’s-land. Old rope. He hiked until it hurt.
Nothing from Tim Sightly. He avoided phoning Al, but he did send him a postcard, chosen at the Tinker’s Arms, to allay any suspicion of suspicion.
‘I’ve got one of your hooded gulls, here,’ Murray had said.
‘The beach one is fine.’
‘Or a selkie, here.’ A cartoon drawing, red-lipped, breasts like balloons. ‘Have you seen her again?’
The bar trio were watching: their night’s entertainment. A youngish customer in a leather jacket, bony-faced and dark-eyed and silent in the corner, made no attempt to hide his interest.
‘I’ve barely scratched the surface,’ Bob said, which went down very well, although the stranger looked bemused.
Bob drank up quickly and left, looking over his shoulder along the road, feeling about as safe as a clay pigeon. He’d filled two notebooks with bird observations, he didn’t have a girlfriend, he was beginning to sense the jizz thing, he was totally harmless. This was how he now spent his days, the lack of electricity somehow slowing them down, softening their edges, making him wince at the glare of places still wired to the real world. He didn’t spell trouble for anyone. Not even Olivia.
Right on cue a police car, minus flashing light but careering around the bend in the Ardcorry direction, had him jumping onto the verge near the MacLeans. Carol was out front, scattering ash from a bucket onto her roses. In the dim light, she might have been eighteen.
He waved and she came up to the barbed-wire fence.
Bob said, ‘Did you see that police car appreciating the view? Something exciting?’
‘Visiting the old ladies. Aleck is a lovely man. He likes his tea and a wee chat.’
‘Why does everyone round here drive like a maniac?’
She smiled, a crooked incisor catching the dusk under her full upper lip. ‘It’s the tarmac, Mr Webb. We’ve nae got over the novelty.’
‘And wind farms? They’re pretty novel.’
Her face tightened. ‘Don’t disappoint me.’
‘In what way?’
‘I’m the only one who doesnae believe you’re working for them.’
‘I’m not. Thank you for that. But I’m afraid the landlord is all for it.’
She nodded. ‘That bruiser.’
‘You know him?’
‘Hughie McAllister? He’d come our way a few times to fish, with his no-good cousin, Robbie. Who’d use the place to store cannabis.’
‘Really?’ He checked himself, lowering his level of interest. ‘Yet more smugglers, then.’
‘Oh, you know what youth is. A lot worse now. But that McAllister was a bit of a brute, a loud-mouth. Keen on the drink. Laid into Angus one time. A bridge too far.’
‘Rivals?’
She avoided his eye, studying the point where the road curved out of sight. ‘McAllister never came back, so we never knew whether his broken jaw mended right. No doubt he’s now saying how backward we islanders are. They all say that, these business types, each time we say no to some new horror.’
Bob touched his own jaw through its thin beard, thinking of Angus on the tiller, the open sea, those big hands. Scallops prised free in a billow of sand as the oxygen roared. Not many had ever taken on McAl and won: they generally finished under a litter of chairs and glasses and beer mats, like something washed up.
‘Perhaps you’re all way ahead,’ he said, unconvincingly.
* * *
A long parcel arrived at Marcie’s, as planned.
‘I hope it’s not actually a gun, Kit.’
‘Marcie, would I ever order a gun?’ It was deep in bubble wrap, a tripod nestling beside it. ‘See? A spotter’s telescope.’
‘Oh yes. Ewan up at the Centre’s got a few of those.’
The times he saw Ewan, passing in the Land Rover, there was no wave, no smile. One morning he was sitting in the café. Bob greeted him; Ewan nodded, avoiding his eye.
‘How’s the fan, Ewan?’
‘The which?’
‘The wind turbine.’
Ewan now looked at him as a falcon does a field mouse before diving and taking off its head. ‘You smell of smoke, Mr Webb. No smoke without flame.’
With that, he paid up and left. He was perfectly friendly to Marcie, who had heard the exchange.
‘He’s Taurus,’ she said. ‘Incompatible. But he has climbed Annapurna.’
‘Do I smell of smoke?’
She wrinkled her small nose. ‘The shower’s always there if you need it.’
What’s the definition of a freight dog? A man who only changes his shirt once a week.
Once, when he was screen-gazing, Marcie put her hand on his back and leaned forward, her blue butterfly earrings fluttering, her armpits winning over the natural deodorant.
‘You know, the first time I saw you, you looked really familiar? Did you ever hear about Angus MacLean’s diving partner?’
‘He drowned.’
‘I’d seen him the previous evening. Standing at the door, looking in, all wet and pale. Except that it wasn’t raining, and he never came into Bargrennan that day.’
‘Oo-er.’
‘It was a taish. Gaelic for someone’s spirit appearing just before they actually die. Second sight.’
Bob pulled a face. ‘So you’re in two places at once. Hey, you must think I’m about to die a lot, Marcie.’
‘Oh no, you always look really, I dunno …’
‘Packed to the doors with life.’
He slumped, playing dead, and she laughed, ruffled up his hair. ‘You’re dead honest, y’ know?’
He pointed to one of her framed posters: a picture of a loch and Water is modest and humble because it always takes the lowest ground. Lao Tzu. ‘That’s humble me,’ said Bob. ‘I’m water.’
‘That’s the one thing you’re not, Kit. Fire, plus air and earth as seasonal qualities.’
Banter, like cockpit banter. Nothing in it.
In return for the shower and endless free coffee and so on, he’d give Astra an hour or two of his undivided attention in the living room. They’d build farms out of bricks, for the plastic animals. Despite Bob’s protests, Astra would dive-bomb them with various sci-fi hardware, reducing them to rubble that he’d inspect for victims with squeaky relish, bouncing on his knees. Bob’s efforts to introduce other games got nowhere.
Then he was dive-bombed himself by the most surprising news since Olivia had filed for divorce.
He was writing a quick note to David when there was a ping and the pop-up announced another email. Tim Sightly. At last! Astra also popped up – for real. Marcie was busy with a group of French OAPs in wasp-like cycling gear near the door. The little lad leaned on Bob’s thigh and attacked it with what looked like an F/A-18 Super Hornet showing characteristically carefree flying qualities and unlimited angle of attack, just as the thigh’s owner received confirmation that Keith Price, the director of Swallowtail Trading Ltd, did not exist under that name, although his address appeared to be High Ridge Drive, Tortola, BVI.
Al’s luxury house was also on High Ridge Drive.
For all Bob knew, High Ridge Drive trundled along for several miles, with its villas and its pools and its sea-view. Or maybe this was just a brass plate, an empty gara
ge, a shed with nothing inside. A tax dodge with a roof.
Or it was Hugh McAllister’s address.
He felt bad, he felt worse, depending on the way his thoughts blew.
There was also an office in Liverpool. The number two director was ‘a certain Alfredo Rivera Morales living in Madrid, who also does not exist, according to the Spanish authorities’. A certain ‘equally untraceable’ Jane Tutt – presumably Jane’s maiden name – was allotted ninety-nine per cent of its shares last year, when it incorporated a company called Universal Executive Ltd, registered in Hong Kong. Tutt also owned significant shares in various other companies, ‘list still being compiled’.
Astra’s bombing of his thigh was growing more intense, as bombing tends to when the results are disappointing. Universal Executive Ltd dealt with recruitment, quality control and wet-leasing contracts for a string of further companies, some linked with Evron Bensoussan, others to hair-raising guys known to have connections with drugs cartels like Juarez, which ‘operates transportation routes out of Chihuahua’.
The kind of routes, Bob thought, that the late Mexican skipper with the eyebags, Pedro Diez, had flown.
‘Is any of this of interest?’ asked Tim.
‘Nah,’ Bob muttered, chewing on his thumping heart.
Astra paused. ‘Whassat you says?’
‘Astra, go to your mum.’
‘Cos you didnae want it.’
Pedro Diez, the legendary character with the adult reading material. Not good company. Maybe that’s why Al had suffered a convenient case of memory loss on being asked about him.
Tim reckoned that UE Ltd effectively owned a trio of other outfits – Dorsay Ltd, Takao Ltd and Fairhope Ltd – suspected of ‘laundering Mexican drug money as well as arms dollars, via accounts with Wachovia and Bank of America’. Tim added that these three names were varieties of roses. He was certainly thorough.
Al and Jane were rose breeders. They were also top-end crooks.
Nowhere in Tim Sightly’s email was there any indication that he knew the true identity of either Keith Price or Alfredo Rivera Morales – or for that matter Ms Tutt. In fact, he ended by saying:
Hope this is of help. It looks to me like a grey-market outfit shading to black where it touches drugs. It would take a large budget and a team of experts months, maybe years, to unravel it all and make a case. Obviously if any of this rings louder bells, do let me know. Take care. Tim.
The Super Hornet had shifted its target to Bob’s face; fortunately, its climbing capacity was severely limited – until its pilot bailed out and it flew through the air without a controlling hand. It struck just above his eye. Bob yelled an adults-only swear word and ordered Astra to ‘Get!’ so effectively that he took fright and ran straight into his mother’s arms.
It was as much the email as the pain. Blood welled and snaked into his eyebrow, which helped his case. The OAPs buzzed away conspiratorially in French as Marcie led him into the kitchen, with Astra clinging like a shipwrecked sailor to her knee and sobbing uncontrollably. Bob guessed it would be on all their travel blogs by the next morning.
As Marcie dabbed, wondering whether it needed stitches, her musky scent wreathing his face, Bob was regretting contacting Tim Sightly, who knew nothing of the link between the heap of stinking garbage he’d summarised and Flight Engineer Hugh McAllister.
It was disappointing. Bob didn’t do drugs. He didn’t like them. Or rather, he didn’t like the people who peddled them, from the billionaires flitting about on their luxury yachts to the little guys on the street, from the coke-fuelled crazies running the world’s economy to the souped-up kid who runs his car into a wall, killing his friends.
David had once pointed out to him that alcohol was a drug.
‘Alcohol’s legal,’ Bob had replied, ‘and drugs are illicit.’
‘Exactly, Dad. And weapons that kill millions? Blow children’s limbs off? Send shrapnel into a woman’s unborn baby? Cluster bombs with their little bomblets hanging around like really interesting toys?’
Of course, you could legalise drugs tomorrow and the entire crooked caboodle would collapse in a cloud of dollars. He was already aware that above-board outfits like investment banks allowed clients to launder drugs money, but that in itself was no great recommendation. The fact was, Al was making big-time cash in a totally illicit business. That bothered Bob a lot. All roses have thorns. A bit of a brute, a loud-mouth.
‘I don’t think you’ll need stitches,’ Marcie murmured, her breath on his cheek. ‘Astra’s not usually a violent kid.’
‘All roses have thorns,’ Bob said.
The bar trio plus stranger had been replaced by several wet campers, which suited Bob. He sat thinking about things in the pub’s corner where the smaller electric fire looked lonely.
He was struggling to picture Al as Mr Sort-It, aiding and abetting, trustworthy, discreet, getting the heroin or whatever safely off the hill, dissolving it into lucre.
Sharing the transport infrastructure: just the odd packet at first. Maybe when the Taliban had come on board in their flared suits, they’d made him an offer. Just a small parcel, tuck it under your seat. Turkmenbashi’s stink of crude wafting up the fuselage: anything’s possible. This wasn’t Maidenhead.
Or perhaps Al was in on it before: he’d been pretty keen to carry on in Istanbul. Maybe Lennart, Schmitt and Al had simply used their captain as a cover. The man hates drugs, won’t touch them for fame or money. But they’d not anticipated him pulling out of the extra arms run. He remembered Lennart sweating with fear in the airport shed. Never walk away from a deal. Never cross Evron Bensoussan.
If the man with testicular knees had ever got a whiff of the heroin deal, he’d have flipped. Arms to the Taliban was already stretching the business envelope; buying their heroin was tearing it.
And Evron would have heard the noise, once Sharansky started walking his dog in the cattery. All participants to be eliminated. Except for McAllister? Al hadn’t really taken flight: he’d gone to his own burrow. The man you can’t do without. Scary friends. A burst of laughter from the campers made him jump.
And the croft-house? Al must have felt it was the safest bet: keeping an eye on his errant captain. Had Bob pushed him into it? He couldn’t quite remember. Al had blown hot and cold about Scourlay. Maybe he’d just given Bob the illusion that it was his decision. Like the illusion that you’re flying a plane, when it’s the avionics.
Bob could see it beginning to get a bit cross-wired for Al. Twitch a thread in Israel, Russia, Afghanistan, and it pulls something in Mexico, Spain, Addis Ababa. Wherever. EasyDrugs. Heroin Air. Nîmes to Liverpool. Accra to Minsk. Dnepropetrovsk to Bangkok. You name it, the spider spins it.
And somewhere in all this, the squeak of a wheelchair: Evron Bensoussan’s paralysed daughter, and her raging father in his flowery shirt. Bob pictured Al growing anxious by the pool: checking the amber lights, the green lights, the critical alerts, and not quite managing. And now there’s bloody Bob, bothering me from the old country, moaning from the fog about the propellers. I’m no joking, Jane. The fucking giant propellers.
Bob felt the weight of the pistol in its holster. It reassured him. He mustn’t drink too much, but on contemplating his half-full, half-empty pint glass, he wondered about having another chaser. Its pure flush.
Never mix arms and drugs, they say; but Al was being commissioned to do just that. So why did he ever accept? Easy money, in hallucinogenic quantities. He had all the contacts, the expertise. He may simply have slipped deeper and deeper into the bog to a point where, if he tried to extract himself, he’d leave his wellies. Like the entire human race, Bob thought.
We should all have stuck to roses.
Back in the cottage, he poked at the fire: sparks raced up the chimney. Al McAllister had always struck him as the most honest guy he knew. He’d have assumed Einstein was not that bright, probably.
I get people wrong, that’s all.
Around 2005, Bob freight
ed some 300 army personnel – rebels or regular, he was too confused by the changing alliances to work it out – from Kigali to a bush airstrip just inside the Central African Republic. They smoked in the hold, they were drunk or stoned, they laughed and sang and yelled, and he was happy to get shot of them.
A few days later he chewed on a cola nut and agreed to deliver another batch from a different group. They were politer, calmer, quieter, led by a willowy youth with Bambi eyes who told him through the seven-oh’s cockpit door all about his plans to change the world. How refreshing, Bob thought: this guy talked peace and love, he read English poets like Wordsworth, he had a soft voice and long, elegant fingers. Bob had apparently freighted quite a tonnage of equipment for Bambi’s group, and Bambi was grateful: freight dogs are never thanked, usually. The weather was rough and knocked them about a bit and Bob asked after the lads in the back.
‘They’re healthy,’ the doe-eyed youth joked.
Then all the dials on the number two engine wound anticlockwise and they felt a shuddering. As the plane was heavily loaded, fifteen tonnes over the maximums, he’d used additional thrust on take-off. Up to then, he had kept to reduced thrust for this particular beast, lessening wear on engines that he knew were near their sell-by date and getting far from tip-top maintenance. Now they had a problem.
Bambi noticed nothing, he was too busy telling Bob about poetry and the Bible until the co-pilot – not McAl, but a scar-faced Belgian called Jean-Luc – bawled the man out in French. Anyway, the two of them concentrated and despite melted turbine blades in the starboard engine, lashings of rain, a ten-knot tailwind and mist swirling in the treetops, they landed with no more than a bit of a bump.
Bambi shook Bob’s hand, none the wiser, and he and his hundreds of lads melted likewise into the trees. Bob even gave them a wave, before gauging the chances of an engine replacement by next year.
‘Bless you,’ Bambi had said.
A week after that, in another overworked and ageing plane, he and McAl landed some mixed cargo in the same spot in Central African Republic, burst a couple of tyres when they pressed the worn brakes a touch hard, blowing the thermal plugs, and were forced to stay put a couple of days. A colonel – paunchy, jolly, vaguely reminiscent of Idi Amin – drove them out in a jeep down a track redder than Worcestershire to visit the nearest big village deeper into the country. A nasty smell blew towards them as they alighted, much worse than copper-mine sludge, and there was a deeper buzzing on the bush soundtrack. The smell seemed to use up all the air. It seemed solid.
