The Jackal's Share

by Christopher Morgan Jones

  ALSO BY CHRIS MORGAN JONES

  The Silent Oligarch

  THE PENGUIN PRESS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  First published in 2013 by The Penguin Press,

  a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Copyright © Christopher Morgan Jones, 2013.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Morgan Jones, Chris, 1971–

  The jackal’s share / Chris Morgan Jones.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-1-101-60589-9

  1. Art dealers—England—Fiction. 2. Murder victims—Iran—Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6113.O7483J33 2013

  823'.92—dc23

  201203951

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For David and Carolyn

  Contents

  Also by Chris Morgan Jones

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  PART TWO

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  PART THREE

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  “If you do not understand a man,

  you cannot crush him.

  And if you do understand him,

  very probably you will not.”

  G. K. Chesterton

  1.

  FOR SOMEBODY SO ELEGANT, in such harmony with the world, Darius Qazai wasn’t difficult to spot. In a slow, stately progress he made his way through the church, shaking hands, stooping to offer his condolences, every word heartfelt, every gesture correct, until one by one the congregation settled and Qazai, his face set between solemnity and quiet grief, took his seat in the first pew. It was an immaculate performance and Webster, watching closely from the back, wondered whether it was sincere or merely smooth, and whether he really welcomed the opportunity to find out. In the still air around them Bach softly rose and fell.

  A somber rumble as everyone stood, then a pair of hymns: “The King of Love My Shepherd Is,” “Thine Be the Glory.” Webster sang serviceably now, if a little low, but the church was full and his uneven bass lost inside the swell of sound; above the multitude soared the pure, clear chords of the choir, and beside him he could just make out Hammer’s reedy tenor. He sang, paying little heed to the familiar words, and as he looked about him at the inclined heads, dappled with evening light from the stained glass, wondered who all the disparate mourners were. Near Qazai stood the dead man’s clients, glossed with the unmistakable sheen of the truly rich: light tans, pristine shirt collars, distant gazes, discreet black hats on the women’s heads; across the aisle, the dead man’s family, his widow, his two teenage sons, all in black; and the rest—an irregular group of English, Americans and Iranians in tweed jackets and patterned shawls and corduroy suits, a little unpressed—these, Webster guessed, were antiques people. There must have been three hundred mourners altogether.

  The priest said some words, another hymn was sung, and the time came for the first address. As Qazai crossed to the pulpit and climbed its dozen wooden steps Webster noticed how fluently he moved and how carefully his expression suggested respect, as if to calm any fears that his presence might overwhelm the occasion. Standing ten feet above the nave he paused for a long time, his arms locked on the lectern, drawing his audience in, his hair and beard pure white and cropped short, his eyes sky blue and alight with confidence. Webster had seen that light before, in those who had achieved everything they had set out to achieve, who were satisfied that they had few, if any, peers. In another it might have looked like arrogance but in Qazai it sat easily as fact.

  He spoke only when he sensed that he had everyone, and when he did his voice, though deep, carried effortlessly to the last pew, where Webster crossed his hands over his order of service and listened.

  “‘In death’s dark vale I fear no ill, with thee, dear Lord, beside me.’”A moment’s pause. “Stirring words. In death’s dark vale.”

  He took a long breath, as if to steady himself.

  “Cyrus Mehr was a great man. A great man and a great Iranian. A man of courage, honor, and fine sensibility. A man who has left behind him a legacy that will outlive us all. I am honored to have known him.” Qazai continued in this vein for a little while, full of fine words, before turning down the rhetoric and sketching his relationship with his friend. They had met at a sale of pre-Islamic art over twenty years earlier, at the tail end of that foul war between Iran and Iraq, and had talked about “the twin perils of war and ideology” that then endangered the most precious artifacts of ancient Persia. “A mutually beneficial professional bond” had resulted, by which Qazai seemed to mean that Mehr, through his dealership, had sourced antiques for him throughout the Middle East, so that over time the two men had grown closer, dealer and client had become friends, and when Qazai had set up his foundation Mehr had been the natural choice to be its head. For a decade now, under his courageous leadership, the Qazai Foundation for the Preservation of Persian Art had been a source of hope for all those who would see truth and beauty triumph over violence and oppression.

  Webster was half impressed, half wary. For all its sentimentality and the odd moment of bombast, this was an elegant speech, as effortless and steady as the man’s promenade through the church half an hour earlier. But Qazai had the statesman’s assumption of authority, and to Webster looked like his least favorite kind of client—the kind that wholly believes what he says.

  “Cyrus Mehr, then,” Qazai went on, “was a great man. A man of principles in a world that has eroded them. A man who stood for something.” He paused. “Something important.” Looking around the church and up at the vaulted ceiling, as if drawing inspiration from the gods, he took another long breath, and when he spoke again there was a new intensity in his face.

  “It has been two months since my friend Cyrus was murdered. Since he was brutally taken in the count
ry of his birth, which, despite everything, he continued to love. As many here still love it. As I still love it. And still we do not know who killed him; still we do not know why it was done. The Iranian government will not tell us, though I believe they know only too well, for they have long ago forgotten the value of a human life.

  “They say that he was smuggling, that he was murdered by his criminal friends. This, everyone here knows, is nonsense. Cyrus was a defender of beauty, and of truth, and in today’s Iran, to defend those things will get you killed. A land of ancient poetry has been destroyed, and its rulers become mere peddlers of terror, and hatred, and above all fear.

  “But I will tell you this, friends of Cyrus, friends of mine.” He paused once more, and in that moment the zeal in his eyes seemed to glow through the mask. “Cyrus Mehr did not die in vain. Cyrus Mehr stood for something, and his life meant something. Something beautiful, and true, and, yes, worth dying for. For Cyrus, the vale of death will not be dark.”

  Qazai bowed his head for a second, and when he looked up again Webster thought he could make out a tear glistening in his eye. If this was all performance, he was some performer.

  • • •

  OUTSIDE, London was warm and bright with evening sun and the noise of Trafalgar Square an assault after the peace of the church. Webster and Hammer were among the last to emerge into the crowd gathered on the great broad steps and stood to one side, awaiting their instructions, while Qazai moved smoothly from group to group like the host at a party.

  “What do you think?” said Hammer.

  “Like I said. You can have him.”

  “Tell me you’re not intrigued.”

  Webster squinted against the low sun. “That was quite a speech.”

  Hammer smiled. “If he didn’t have an ego he wouldn’t be a great man.”

  “I don’t trust great men,” said Webster as a small, precise-looking figure broke away from a cluster of people and walked toward them. He was slight, and so pale that the sun seemed to shine through him. He shook Webster’s hand, exchanged nods with him and turned to Hammer.

  “Mr. Hammer? Yves Senechal. Mr. Qazai’s personal representative.” His accent was softly French, his voice scratchy, insubstantial.

  “Delighted, Mr. Senechal. Ben’s told me a lot about you.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Senechal, “the car is around the corner. Mr. Qazai sends his apologies—he cannot break away. He will join us shortly.”

  And with that Senechal turned and headed north, toward Charing Cross Road, at no great speed and with a curious, weightless walk.

  Hammer leaned in to Webster and whispered, mischief on his face: “So this is your spooky friend.”

  2.

  AS A BOY WEBSTER had been a chorister, until his voice had broken, and he still felt the pull of the church’s rituals even if its teachings had long ago lost their hold. Some of the stories had stayed with him, the narratives shaky but the mood—the sunlit, rock-like clarity of both Testaments—still clear, and with little effort he could recall how they had once made him feel: pained, guilty, compassionate, at one with sinners everywhere. When he was twelve he had been asked to serve on Good Friday, a great honor, and following the priest in his procession from one Station of the Cross to the next he had had to pinch the soft flesh on his upper arm to hold back the tears.

  There were twenty-five years now between him and that devout, perhaps better incarnation. A full ten years, even, since he had left Russia, all traces of his faith trodden out, and in that time he had built, with his wife Elsa, a happy, blessed life that he gave thanks for every day. The thanks were undirected now, but he gave them nonetheless, and until this year had rarely stopped to wonder where he meant them to go. But ever since Lock’s funeral, scenes from distant childhood had been breaking in on his thoughts and causing him to wonder whether they were a message or an indulgence; whether they were trying to tell him something or merely offer some obscure comfort to his subconscious.

  Lock had died just before Christmas; the funeral, which Webster had attended discreetly, had been held on Christmas Eve; and for the rest of winter and all of the spring his death had occupied Webster without let-up. The Germans had wanted him back for further questioning, and then to give evidence to the inquest—whose predictable verdict, finally, was that Lock had been murdered in Berlin by sinister forces (finsteren Mächte in German) who had meant to assassinate his client, Konstantin Malin. The report hadn’t said so, of course, but Webster knew that one of the few clear conclusions to be made from the whole episode was that without his meddling Lock would be alive.

  So perhaps it wasn’t surprising if his mind was searching around for solace. Let it; he couldn’t control it. But for himself, he didn’t want to be soothed. All he wanted was to work, concentrate, be a good father—and let time and fate decide whether he was doing the right thing.

  Three days before Mehr’s memorial service, then, on a dark, wet afternoon in early May that was more like winter than the end of spring, Webster had found himself in a boardroom by St. Paul’s delivering findings to a firm of private equity investors. Through the glass that covered one side of the building he could see a few tourists scattered over the cathedral steps, the freshly cleaned stone of the facade shining in the rain, the great dome above, and across the river, the dull brown of Bankside tower cutting across the gray line of the Sydenham Hills ten miles beyond. It was a grand view, even in the half-light, and a grand backdrop for two young men in suits, one of them taking notes, the other playing with a hand press (which, he had explained, was part of the therapy for a boxing injury). They seemed as keen to be there as he was.

  Four weeks earlier they had given him a routine piece of work: to find out whether there was anything about a man called Richard Clifford that might embarrass them when they came to sell his fashion business on the Stock Exchange. It was due to list the following month, and because the market was quiet, and the company prominent, the world, Webster had been told, would be watching.

  Clifford’s reputation was good, his visible profile, in the accepted phrase, spotless: no scandal, no litigation, no bankruptcies. But a particularly voluble former client had mentioned “that business in the newspapers”—lightheartedly almost, joking that such things would be viewed rather more seriously now—and when pressed had tightened up, saying it had been a long time ago and that was all he was prepared to say. After a day in the library, Webster’s researcher had found two articles, both from the late 1980s, that set out with typical clarity how the News of the World had caught Clifford in a sting operation handing over money in exchange for sex with an underage prostitute. A picture showed him bearded and young, all of thirty-one, shielding his face from the photographer he had found on his doorstep one morning.

  “You’re kidding,” said the man with the injured hand, leaning forward on the table between them, his shoulders massive under a shirt that seemed too small for him. He had a taut, blockish face framed with thinning fair hair and set in the constant frown of the important man. His colleague, making notes, merely shook his head and exhaled slowly.

  “I’m not,” said Webster.

  “How could he have kept that quiet?”

  “He was charged with procuring but it never went to court.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I suspect his lawyer claimed it was entrapment and the CPS got nervous.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Webster raised an eyebrow.

  “He can’t have known she was underage.”

  “He knew.” From the wallet of documents in front of him Webster picked a large, folded piece of paper and slid it across the table. “They printed the advertisement they used.”

  The boxer opened the article, studied it for perhaps ten seconds, and as he passed it to his friend stared at Webster for a long moment as if that might force him to stop this nonsense and finally
tell the truth. There was sweat on his brow and the frown had turned from grave to incredulous. Webster knew what he was thinking: there goes my fucking deal.

  “Is that your only source? The News of the World?”

  Webster nodded.

  “Well it’s not surprising it never went to court, is it?”

  “The News of the World didn’t make things up. Not like that. Not then.”

  “Of course not.”

  “They had more lawyers than any other newspaper in London. I talked to the journalist. There were two, one died. It was part of a series of stings. They advertised in a Dutch contact magazine and reeled them in. Clifford’s was the first letter they received.”

  “For fuck’s sake. Are you making this up?” He shook his head, took his phone from his pocket and left the room.

  For a moment Webster and the boxer’s colleague looked at each other.

  “How bad is this?” said the colleague, finally.

  “What he did or what it means?” Webster was losing patience.

  “You know.”

  “It means your man used to be repugnant. He may still be. And if I know, others know.”

  The client nodded once and sighed. “Christ.” He wrote something in his notebook. “Who else?”

  “The journalist. She’s retired. Her editor, if he remembers. And then you tell me. Circulation was about three million at the time.”

  The boxer came back into the room, finishing his call, and stood at one end of the conference table.

  “No . . . no. I’ll tell him . . . Fuck, I don’t know.” He hung up and looked at Webster. “Have you written this down?”

  His colleague stopped writing. Webster sighed. “This,” he took a thin document from the plastic wallet in front of him, “is a draft report. Of all the things I made up.”

  “Take it home. Shred it. And if this appears in the fucking papers I’ll know how it got there.”

  Webster stared at him. “Excuse me?”

  He held Webster’s eye. “You’re loving this. Do you have any idea how much work we’ve done?”