by Jeff Gulvin
‘Stabbed,’ Mrs Simpson said quietly. ‘With a knife.’
‘We think so. We haven’t been able to recover the murder weapon as yet.’ Webb sat forward and looked at each of them in turn. ‘Do either of you have any idea who might have had a grudge against your daughter?’
Mr Simpson frowned. ‘Here in England? It coulda been anybody breaking in.’
Webb made a face. ‘It could’ve been, but we don’t think so.’ He explained that nothing in the flat had been disturbed, nothing had been stolen and that there had been no sign of forced entry.
Mrs Simpson sat with both hands holding her handbag across her knees and looked round at her husband. ‘We didn’t even know she had an apartment,’ she said. ‘We always used to write to her at the base.’
‘She never told you?’
‘No, sir.’
Weir looked up at the RSO. ‘Is it normal for a gunnery sergeant to have a flat?’
‘Depends what you call normal. Some people prefer to live off base. It’s not a problem for us, if that’s what you mean.’
The five of them went to Southwick Street, so that the parents could look at her belongings and perhaps give them some clue. Webb and Weir drove separately. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, George?’ Weir asked him.
‘Yeah. Southwick Street is a bloody expensive place to have a flat.’
Weir looked sideways at him. ‘It is, isn’t it? I wonder what a gunnery sergeant takes home a month.’
Later, after the parents had looked over the flat, Weir and Webb drove along Ealing Road, which was like a mini-India, with Muslim, Hindu and Sikh living in varying states of tension. Webb liked the area. The atmosphere was always buzzing, with shops selling all kinds of different things at any time of day and night, and some of the best curry houses south of Bradford. He had spent quite a lot of time in Bradford, undercover as a cab driver during his time with the Antiterrorist Branch, and he could never decide whether northern or southern curries were best. He parked the car on the side of the road, stuck the green Met police book against the windscreen and led Weir into the Taj Mahal.
‘Not a very original name,’ he said, ‘but the food’s bloody good.’
Weir sat down, ordered a Bacardi with ice but no coke, and kneaded his eyes with his thumbs. ‘That was a long day, Webby.’
‘And not a very fruitful one, to boot.’ Webb ordered a beer and looked out across the road to the new halal butcher’s shop that had recently opened up. Two men were serving the ritually slaughtered lamb, in time for the weekend’s ceremonies. He yawned and stretched, and noticed a tall bearded man, in traditional baggy pants and long shirt, come out and go into the shop next door. Webb looked across the table at Weir, who was swirling his drink round the bottom of the glass. ‘How much shit’s come down from on high, then, Guv?’ he said. ‘I’m sure the Home Office love this one.’
Weir shrugged. ‘I don’t give a fuck about the Home Office, George. After twenty-seven years in this job, the politics wash over me. Besides, we’ve got an area superintendent to take all the flak. I’m just a lowly inspector who gets to play SIO now and again.’
‘Seriously, though,’ Webb went on. ‘I hate to be negative, but I get the feeling we’re going to struggle on this one.’
‘I always ignore those feelings, George. Feelings don’t come into it. Stick to the facts.’
‘Which are, we’ve got a seemingly motiveless murder and a thousand people to interview.’
Weir leaned across the table. ‘How hungry are you?’
‘What?’
Weir stood up. ‘Let’s get a drink in the Foxhole. That’s where the marines hang out. Maybe we’ll pick up some gossip.’
Webb stared at him as he got up, a pained expression in his eyes. ‘What about my curry?’
Weir patted the weight of his belly. ‘I think you can do without it.’
They got back in the car and, as they did so, a very tall, very black man watched them from the halal butcher’s window. His features were smooth and sharp, and his eyes dull and cold. He watched them drive away, then went behind the counter where two young men were cutting meat. The black man brushed aside the bead curtain and went down the steps to the basement. The other man, the man with the long beard and hooked nose, was seated at a table with an array of computer screens in front of him. Intermittently, he would tap at the keys of one, then switch his attention to another. He looked up as the black man filled the doorway. ‘You look a little bored, my friend,’ he said. ‘How can you be bored when there is so much going on in the world?’
Cyrus Birch watched the news on CNN in the Director’s office, in the Old Executive building close to the White House. Randall was not in the room, having gone down the hall a few minutes previously, and Birch was watching all the speculation and considering the implications. Nobody at the FBI was saying that they knew who it was, only that they had received a warning, which was why the only damage was to buildings. As yet, they had not said what the make-up of the devices was, but Birch’s sources told him that C-4 had been hinted at. Where the hell had he got C-4, and with his background, did he actually need it? He looked at the phone and considered giving Kovalski a call to see if there was any update. But that would only get his back up. The DCI came back, face flushed, the tension of hours in front of the oversight committees showing round his eyes. ‘You know, Cyrus,’ he said. ‘When I was the presidential campaign manager, I wanted Defense or State.’
Birch laughed lightly. ‘They all want State, sir. What they get is the DCI’s post.’
‘You mean the congressmen’s whipping boy.’
‘Exactly.’ Birch sat forward. ‘Helluva reward for getting the old man back in the White House, isn’t it?’ Getting up, he went to the window and looked out across the square. The DCI’s office was in the corner of the building and you got a good view in more than one direction. The area was just about getting back to normal, although there were still dozens of uniformed secret service agents running around the place. He sighed and looked at Randall. ‘Sir,’ he said. ‘I have to tell you. We’ve got a bit of a problem.’
‘What problem?’ Randall was back at his desk, half-moon spectacles suspended on the bridge of his nose. Birch sat down in the chair directly opposite him.
‘Those three bombs yesterday, and the grenade at the Kennedy memorial.’
‘What about them? That’s an FBI problem, Cyrus. We’ve got enough of our own.’
Birch nodded. ‘Yes, sir. I know. The thing is, I think I know who planted them.’
Jean Carey drove Harrison’s Chevy pick-up truck with the three-speed manual gearshift on the steering column, and felt like a latter-day Calamity Jane. For the first time since she got the news in February, she felt active and alive. She drove the truck at a steady fifty-five, keeping her eyes open for state troopers. The mobile phone Harrison had given her was plugged into the dashboard cigarette lighter and lay permanently charged on the bench seat beside her. This morning, Harrison had phoned her from somewhere called Como, which he said was in Cherokee County, and asked her to meet him in Henderson, south of Kilgore, the following evening. Jean had been in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and had been driving ever since. She was excited—excited about seeing him again, about finding out what had happened. She had been four days on the road alone, aimlessly driving, or sitting around in cramped motel rooms with poor-quality television and beds that were way too soft for her. She had been eating junk food, except for the bits and pieces of fruit she had been able to buy, and had not gone into any bars on her own. She had Agent Penny’s phone number to hand and Harrison’s gun in the glove compartment. She wore jeans, T-shirts and open-toed sandals, and her hair was piled on her head, hidden beneath a baseball hat.
She looked at her watch, then checked the road map and worked out there were still fifty or so miles before she got to Henderson and booked into the motel. Once she was checked in, she was to drive out of town on Highway 135 to the junction with 323. There she
would find Harrison waiting for her. In the truck box behind her she had clean clothes for him, and he could dump all his hobo gear in the box out there on the highway. They would drive back to the motel together and stay the night. Jean felt a strange tingle of excitement when she thought about that. There would be two beds in the room, but she had not spent the night in the same room as a man for over five years. There had only been one relationship since Tom’s father had gone back to South Africa. Her work had completely taken her over, that and bringing up Tom. But now Tom was gone and here she was driving an FBI agent’s truck across the Texas plains.
Harrison had left the train at Sulphur Springs. It had been a difficult decision: he was still not totally sure of Hooch or Carlsbad the Bad. The conversation after the incident with the gun had been amiable, as if something had passed between them, and Harrison knew that the point at which they might have killed him for fun was gone. About an hour out from Sulphur Springs, they asked if he wanted to ride along with them. He took a chance and declined, telling them he was not going to ride the rails for the rest of his life, but would try to get some kind of work and lodging in Texas. They laughed and said they’d see him again, and he laughed with them and asked where they were heading, just in case. They told him Oklahoma territory.
He could see Sulphur Springs coming up against the flat of the horizon and he jumped off the train just south of the town. He hitched a ride on a farm track to a place called Como and called Jean from a payphone. Then he jumped a train going south through Tyler, leapt off it near Jacksonville and hitched a ride to Black Jack. He knew he was being overcautious, but that was a habit he had developed the very first time he went undercover.
He squatted by the side of the highway on his backpack, hat pushed up so the sun warmed his face, smoking yet another hand-rolled cigarette. He had asked Jean to stop at a gas station and buy him a carton each of Marlboro and Merit menthols for when they hooked up. He was sick of spitting threads from his teeth and longed for that tang of menthol hitting the back of his throat. He sat, smoked and drank water, and thought about what he had discovered in the few days he had been out. He had discovered the Southern Blacks and he had discovered he liked life on the road. His mind wandered then and he thought about going back and fishing in Lake Superior, but he figured his Upper Michigan days had disappeared with his youth. Instead, there was the possibility of the cabin in McCall. He might settle there or he might buy a camper top for his pick-up and just drive. He looked at the height of the sun and figured out the time, deciding he had at least a couple of hours before Jean got there. So he lay back, tipped the battered cowboy hat down over his eyes and went to sleep.
He was woken by a shadow across the sun and instinctively reached for his boot. Then he smelled her scent and, shading his eyes, he saw the strands of black hair flying loose about her face. ‘Hello, Miss Lady Mam,’ he said.
He stood for what seemed like hours under the needlepoints of water, only too aware of what he must have smelled like when Jean first got to him. She had stood guard on the road, while he changed into better-looking clothes and stowed all his gear in the truck box. Then she had driven him into Henderson and the motel. The railroad tracks ran through Kilgore and he wanted to avoid them. The shower water plastered his hair against his shoulder blades, and it chilled when he turned off the water. He wrapped a towel round his middle and stepped into the bedroom. The motel was small and built on one level, and Jean was sitting on the stoop with a bottle of beer in her hand, taking in the afternoon sunshine. Harrison stood a moment and watched her: petite, with back bent as she hugged her knees, the jeans clinging to her flesh. The skin of her arms was smooth and her hair was loose now to her shoulders. He fished in his shirt pocket for a Marlboro and she looked round at the snap of the lighter.
‘Better?’ she asked.
‘Oh, yeah. Loads better.’ Harrison sucked smoke and wandered to the door. A couple of other trucks were parked in the motel lot and every so often they would hear one rattle down the blacktop, but apart from that, there was nothing but Texas stillness. He had a report to write for his case agents before he went back to the tracks, but that could wait for now. He had no idea how long he was going to spend here with Jean. He might get her to drive him north and dump him somewhere near the Oklahoma State line. But that, too, could wait for a while. Right now, he wanted some food, a few beers and some sleep.
They ate dinner at a small, family-run diner on the edge of town. Harrison had chicken enchiladas and bottles of cold beer, and Jean had peppers stuffed with chilli. He told her what had happened so far, making light of the incident with the gun.
‘Get Matt Penny to check the names with Spinelli up in Spokane,’ he said. ‘Van Horn Hooch and Carlsbad the Bad.’
Jean squinted at him across the table. ‘Weird names.’
‘Aren’t they?’ Harrison smiled then. ‘They christened me Four-String.’
‘Why?’
‘That old banjo I took with me has only got the four strings.’ He pushed away his plate, sat back in the booth and lit a cigarette. He watched her sipping at the glass of red wine and sighed. ‘I think I’m getting too old for this,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘Really. My bones don’t take kindly to jarring on the floors of boxcars.’ He sat forward then. ‘Apart from that, though, I like it. Being on the road, I mean. Just travelling.’
Jean looked at his cigarette, and he fished in his pocket and handed one to her.
‘Freedom,’ she said. ‘I’ve quite enjoyed it myself, well, the driving part anyway, not so much the hanging around in motels.’
‘You like that old pick-up, huh?’ Harrison watched her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and tap the end of the cigarette against the ashtray. She looked at him again.
‘Why didn’t you stay on the train with them?’
Harrison made a face. ‘It’s a hard one to call, Miss Lady Mam. I’ve played it real tough so far, which is gonna do one of two things, either get me in a fight or get me respect. Either way, I’ve made it look as if I don’t give a damn, that I go my own way. They think I’ve just been sprung from Angola, which is fine, and they know I’ve got a knife. I figure I can find them again if I need to and the word’ll spread across the tracks. Spinelli figured there were something like six hundred of these guys in the South. I’ll bump into some more, or possibly the same ones again. I’m gonna head up to Oklahoma, and I want you to get the report back to the field office for me.’ He sucked on the cigarette. ‘Is anybody keeping in contact with you?’
‘Not officially, no. But Matt phones all the time.’
‘He’s a good boy. Talk to him. In fact, send the stuff via him at his house. Let him get it to the office.’ He took a napkin from the pile and wrote down Penny’s address. As he passed it to her, their fingers brushed and she looked him in the eyes for a moment.
They had a beer in a small tavern where a couple of cowboys were shooting nine-ball pool. They sat side by side in a booth, where Harrison could see everybody in the room. His hair was washed and brushed, and hung against his shoulders. He had grown a partial beard and had left it unshaven. He hadn’t met a hobo yet who took a razorblade to his face. He could feel Jean sitting close to him and could smell the scent of her hair. Every now and again he would glance sideways and catch her face in profile—the fine line of her cheekbones, like porcelain in this light.
All at once, she looked at him. ‘Matt told me you were about to leave the FBI. Before this blew up, I mean.’
Harrison blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘I was, Miss Lady Mam, but after we visited Spinelli, I figured somebody had to find out what was going on.’
She touched the back of his hand, just brushing his skin with hers. ‘This has given me back some purpose, John. I was wandering around like a blind woman. Nothing seemed to be going anywhere, until I bumped into you.’
Back in the hotel, he lay in the other bed with the sheet up to his chest. The moonlight filtered through
the curtains and he watched Jean’s face as she lay sleeping, her hair very black against the pillow. In the morning, he rose early, showered and dressed in his old clothes before she was even awake. He had written his report and left it in a plastic file for her. Shouldering his pack, he wrote her a brief note, then left the motel with the dawn and hitched a ride to Kilgore, where he hopped a train heading north.
Just south of the Oklahoma line, two hobos wearing black bandanas got on. One was thicker set with tattoos crowding the flesh of his arms. He rolled a cigarette one-handed, and when he opened his mouth to lick the gummed edge of the paper, Harrison noticed that the overlong canine tooth on the right side of his mouth dominated his features. The other man was skinny, with lank hair and one lazy eyelid. Harrison had seen him before, dealing drugs in New Orleans. Spinelli had told him his name was Limpet.
The man with the tooth stared coldly at him and Harrison stared back. Two other hobos were in the boxcar, both of them old and neither of them wearing the black bandanas of the FTRA. They moved closer together when the two Southern Blacks jumped aboard and Harrison knew they would be gone just as soon as the train slowed down.
It slowed to almost a stop just north of the Oklahoma line, taking a curve round the base of a hillside with a silver-topped lake glinting in the brilliance of the sun. The two old-timers gathered their belongings together and scraped their way across the dusty boards to the open door. As the train rattled and clanked to a stop, they jumped off. The two Southern Blacks, neither of whom had said anything since joining the train, looked at one another and smiled with no laughter. Harrison squatted on his haunches and placed a pinch of Copenhagen under his bottom lip. He sucked the tobacco threads and spat a stream of dark juice on to the wooden floor. The two men stared at him and he stared right back, elbows resting on his knees, fingers splayed just above his boot top, inside of which the butt of the snub-nosed .38 was concealed.
