‘I don’t know.’
Telemann reached for the envelope and opened it. Inside was a single sheet of paper, and a small flower. Laura pressed them between the pages of the kids’ encyclopaedias. She was always doing them. They were never less than beautiful. Telemann looked at the flower for a moment. It was tiny, with purple leaves. He’d seen one before but he didn’t know the name for it. He put it carefully to one side and unfolded the sheet of paper. A black porter had appeared with a trolley. His shadow fell over the car. Telemann bent to the paper, two brief sentences. ‘I love you,’ it went, ‘and so do the kids. Which is why I don’t think we can go on like this much longer.’
Telemann blinked and read the note again. Then he looked across at Emery. Emery was leaning against the door, one hand on the wheel, watching a Grey Line bus. He might have been a million miles away. Telemann gestured at the letter. ‘You know about this?’
Emery’s eyes left the bus. He looked at the letter. He didn’t try to read it. Then he looked at Telemann. Telemann bent towards him, urgent now, his plane waiting, the Israelis waiting, God knows what in store. ‘Do you?’ he said. ‘Do you?’
Emery looked pensive for a moment, and Telemann had a sudden glimpse of it, the sailboat, the wide gleaming spaces of Chesapeake Bay, the photos the kids had taken, the whole family aboard, the picnic hamper, the half-empty bottles of wine, the wet towels draped over the boom, Bree naked, summer-brown, Emery at the tiller, inscrutable, his wife beside him, her smile. The older man was gazing out of the window again, his fingers softly tapping on the steering-wheel. The Grey Line bus had disappeared.
‘Your plane goes at seven,’ he said softly, ‘and it’s six already.’
*
Billy phoned McVeigh with the news. He’d been dialling the flat since four. He sounded pleased with himself, a little breathless, real excitement. ‘Dad,’ he began, ‘I got it. I did it.’
McVeigh threw his leather jacket on to the sofa. He’d just come in himself. He hadn’t seen Billy for two days, hadn’t even spoken to him, and now he was going away.
‘What, son? What’ve you got?’
‘Picked. I got picked.’
‘What for?’
‘Hornsey Schools. They’re training pre-season. We get shirts and socks and everything …’ He paused, gulping with excitement. ‘I’m the only one ever from our team. Ever, Dad. Isn’t that brilliant?’
‘Yeah. Wazza.’
‘What?’
‘Wazza. It means the same thing. It means brilliant.’ McVeigh grinned. He hadn’t used the old Marine term for years. Wazza. Billy was telling him about the training, who they’d be playing in the first game, how he’d been promised the centre-forward spot. ‘Promised, Dad. They promised me. Striker.’ He paused. ‘What do you think?’
‘Wazza,’ McVeigh said again, checking his watch. It was ten past seven. He told Billy well done and asked to speak to his mum. There was a bang as Billy dropped the phone and then a brief conversation in the background. When McVeigh’s ex-wife came on, she sounded surprised. They rarely talked.
‘It’s me,’ McVeigh said.
‘I gathered.’
‘Great news. About the boy.’
‘Yes, it is. It’s done him the world of good. He’s almost normal again.’ She paused, awkward. ‘Was there anything else?’
McVeigh hesitated for a moment, then said that he was away for a while, on a job. He’d quite like to see the boy. It was seven. Why didn’t they go out for a meal?
‘He’s eaten,’ she said at once.
‘I meant all of us.’
‘Ah …’ There was another silence, longer this time, and McVeigh pictured her standing by the phone amongst the Habitat furniture and the Afghan rugs and the heavy velvet curtains she’d inherited from her mother, trying to work out how to say no.
She returned to the phone. ‘He’s quite keen,’ she said, reluctant.
McVeigh grinned again. ‘La Dolce Vita,’ he said, naming an Italian restaurant he knew she liked, ‘I’ll see you there in half an hour.’
McVeigh got to the restaurant first. He knew the owner, a small, talkative Italian from Naples. Like Billy, he was football-mad. They discussed the talents of Maradona for a minute or two, McVeigh pretending a knowledge he didn’t possess, and the owner was still bodychecking around a line of empty chairs when Sarah appeared at the door. She was tall, a year older than McVeigh, with long blond hair. She spoke Knightsbridge English and wore expensive clothes with a practised languor. In the early days, transfixed by appearances, McVeigh had worshipped her.
Now he stepped forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Billy ran in from the car, tripping on the mat at the door. They sat at a table in the window, McVeigh on one side, Billy and Sarah on the other. Sarah sipped a Perrier water, looking wary. ‘Nice surprise,’ she said, without obvious enthusiasm.
They ordered seafood and a modest salad, pizza for Billy. A bottle of champagne arrived, and a huge glass of Coke. McVeigh poured the champagne and toasted Billy’s news. The boy raised his glass of Coke, his eyes shiny. He said he thought he might play for England one day. Then he got up and excused himself, and disappeared towards the loo.
Sarah put her glass down. ‘Who’s Yakov?’ she said carefully.
McVeigh explained. He said he’d been a coach with the football team. He’d taken the team to the top of their league, and he’d got on especially well with Billy. This season they might have done even better, only Yakov wasn’t around any more.
Sarah was looking at him. ‘Why not?’ she said.
McVeigh took a last mouthful of squid and put his knife and fork down. ‘He went away,’ he said, not wanting to explain.
Sarah eyed him, cold, appraising. Then she frowned. ‘It’s funny,’ she said, ‘Billy’s mentioned him a couple of times and …’ She shrugged.
McVeigh was watching her carefully. He knew the signs. He knew when she was holding back.
‘What?’ he said.
‘Nothing.’
‘Yes, there is.’
She looked up at him quickly. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ she said, ‘you’re not at work. I’m not some bloody suspect.’
McVeigh ignored the sarcasm. Sarah had never accepted the job he did. She thought it was grubby, demeaning, an excuse to mix with riff-raff. She’d married a Royal Marine, a tall, good-looking sergeant with real prospects, an NCO tipped – unusually – for a commission. It had been an unlikely pairing – her friends had called it quaint – but she’d had her reasons, and in the early days it had been fun. But then he’d fallen off a mountain and broken his leg, and the soldiering had disappeared, and the promotion with it. The marriage had survived another eight years, growing increasingly bitter. The night he’d left, she’d told him he was lazy and dull, no prospects, no guts, no ambition. He was totally selfish and had never cared less about anyone else in the world. McVeigh had remembered the description ever since, wondering whether it was true. Sarah’s father had been a brigadier. She had a real problem with expectations.
McVeigh reached for his glass and emptied it. They’d been having a conversation. She owed him an answer. ‘This guy Yakov,’ he said, ‘you were going to tell me something.’
Sarah shook her head, composed again. ‘No,’ she said, not bothering to hide a yawn. ‘I was just thinking what a lovely name it was.’
Afterwards, the meal cut short, Billy came back to the flat with McVeigh. They’d had a brief conversation on the pavement outside the restaurant, the boy hopping up and down, pleading with his mother to let him spend the night at his dad’s. He’s going away, he kept saying. He won’t be here for a bit. He can drop me off at school tomorrow morning. Reluctant, but boxed in, Sarah had finally consented, making McVeigh promise Billy would be in bed and asleep by ten o’clock. His school uniform he’d have to pick up in the morning. She left them with a nod and an icy thank-you for the meal, and McVeigh watched her getting into the white Citroën GTI, a good-looking woman in her mid-
thirties, a total stranger.
Billy and McVeigh drove back to the flat. On the way, the boy burbled happily about the new season, the goals he’d score. As they joined the thin stream of traffic winding through Crouch End, he abruptly changed the subject, looking across at McVeigh, running his fingers up and down the empty champagne bottle the restaurant owner had given him as a souvenir.
‘Where are you going, Dad?’
‘Israel.’ McVeigh glanced down at him. ‘It’s in the Middle East. It’s where God came from.’
‘Why? Why are you going?’
‘On a job.’ McVeigh smiled. ‘For a man who’s paying me lots of money.’
Billy nodded, absorbing the information. The car turned left. In twenty seconds, they’d be home. Billy looked thoughtful. ‘Is it to do with Yakov?’
‘Yes.’
Billy nodded and said nothing for a moment. ‘He really is dead, isn’t he?’ he mumbled at last.
‘Yes, son. Yes, he is.’
‘I thought so.’ He paused, solemn. ‘It’s a shame, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘He could have come and watched me play.’ He frowned. ‘What do you think he’d say? If he knew about it?’
McVeigh shrugged, turning into his road and coasting the Escort to a halt outside the flat. He reached for the ignition key and switched off the engine. Talking to Sarah again, sharing an hour or so with his ex-wife, had made him realize what a loveless adventure the marriage had been. The long winter nights when there was nothing left to say. The endless attempts to rekindle some kind of sex life. The drinking. It had all been so pointless, such a total waste of time, yet he’d go through it all again, every second of it, just for this, his son beside him, Billy, the world’s best centre-forward, newly chosen for the Hornsey Schools Representative XI. He bent towards the boy, trying to find a word or two to express how he felt, how proud he was, but Billy’s hand came out, stopping him, a caution. He was looking out of the window. He was looking up. ‘Dad,’ he said quietly, ‘someone’s in the flat.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw them.’
‘Them?’
‘Two people. Men. I saw them. I did.’
McVeigh looked at him for a moment, then told him to stay where he was, not move an inch, lock the doors. Billy nodded, still gazing up at the flat. McVeigh got quickly out of the car, checking for himself. His flat was on the first floor. There were three windows at the front. Two belonged to the living-room. The other one was the kitchen. The curtains were half-drawn in the living-room, the way he’d left them. The blind was down in the kitchen, nothing wrong there. He crossed the road and pushed in at the gate, wondering whether success had gone to Billy’s head. Then he saw the front door. The front door was shared with the girls in the flat beneath. House rules, and the local crime rate, meant that it was always locked. Now, by an inch, it was open. The jamb around the lock was splintered.
McVeigh hesitated for a moment, then bent for an empty milk bottle on the step. Halfway up the staircase there was a right-angled turn. He took the turn quickly, on the balls of his feet, perfectly balanced, feeling the blood pumping, the old excitement. At the top of the stairs was his door. It was open. He hesitated again, listening for movement inside, hearing nothing but the tick of the water-heater and the steady drip of the kitchen tap he’d been meaning to fix. They’re waiting, he thought. They’ve seen the car. They’ve seen me. And they’re tooled up. And they’re waiting. He looked at the bottle. Courage, he knew, had a great deal to do with calculation. You worked out the odds. You worked out the geography. You worked out what kind of shape you were in after a plateful of calamari and four glasses of champagne. And if you still did it, went for it, then you were either very brave or very stupid.
McVeigh grinned in the half-darkness. He could feel it coming, and in a curious way he was looking forward to it. He moved slightly to the left, bent slightly at the shoulders, then he was inside the tiny hall, pivoting right, sensing the figure behind the kitchen door, the long French chef’s knife he’d bought only last week raised in readiness. He kicked at the door, a serious kick, smashing it back against the fridge. He heard a gasp of pain, and then there was a second shadow on the wall opposite, and the sound of splintering glass as he smashed the milk bottle against the door-frame and dug the jagged end into the face that lunged at him out of the darkness.
The man screamed with pain, clawing at the bottle, and McVeigh felt a rush of air as something heavy smacked into the wall beside his head. He ducked low, avoiding a second blow, and then drove hard, belly-height, head and shoulders, hoping to God the man didn’t side-step, leaving him nowhere to go. The man didn’t, and McVeigh hit him squarely in the gut, hearing the air whistling out through his broken mouth. The man folded briefly, then bolted for the open door.
McVeigh turned, still holding the bottle. Then he was into the kitchen, tearing the door back, pulling at the figure behind, seeing the eyes, big, and smelling the sour prison smell of roll-ups and stale sweat. He raised the bottle, then hesitated a fraction of a second, long enough for the man to lunge for the stairs. He was black. He was young. He was medium-height. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He clattered down the stairs, cursing, a flat London accent. His buddy was in the hall. They ran out into the last of the evening light, footsteps on the pavement, receding fast.
McVeigh stood at the top of the stairs, getting his breath back, making sure they’d gone. Then he turned back into the flat, circling the rooms, noting the usual damage, the drawers out, the wardrobe overturned, the cupboards emptied. Coming out of the bedroom, he heard footsteps on the stairs. He tensed and stepped back into the hall. He still had the bottle, the broken end slippery and wet with blood. He took a half-step forward, his arm raised, watching the angle in the stairs. Getting caught was foolish. Coming back was very silly indeed. This time he’d do the job properly.
The footsteps paused for a moment on the stairs. Then Billy was there, standing in the half-darkness. His eyes were wide and his arms was raised. He cast a long shadow for the single bulb in the hall downstairs. McVeigh stared at him, then started to laugh. In Billy’s hand was the champagne bottle, the neck tightly gripped, the knuckles white.
McVeigh clattered down and lifted him up, aware, for the first time, of the blood on his own face. He held the boy the way he’d always done, from the early days, up close to him, cheek to cheek, nuzzling.
‘Wazza,’ he said softly. ‘Bloody wazza.’
*
The old man, Abu Yussuf, looked at the boy across the garage.
‘How do you know?’ he said again. ‘How do you know it’s not a trap?’
The boy shrugged and turned away, a gesture of dismissal. Lately, he hadn’t bothered to disguise his contempt. The old man was typical samadin, one of the passive ones, debris washed up from the tides that flowed back and forth across the Middle East, a Palestinian, coming from nowhere, destined for nowhere, an old man on whom it was pointless even wasting breath.
‘It’s not a trap,’ he said.
The old man frowned. The boy had only just arrived, the usual three taps at the door. He’d brought a message from the Syrian. The stuff for the car was here, ready for collection. There was a rendezvous they had to keep, a car park to find, a big shopping mall up in Paterson. A guy with a white Pontiac had the stuff in his trunk. It was heavy. They’d need two of them to lift it. He’d only wait fifteen minutes. Maybe less. They’d have to go now.
The boy looked at his watch, then leaned back against the car. The air in the garage smelled funny. The old man must have been running the pump again, he thought. It’s a toy. He’s obsessed with it. He never leaves it alone. Typical samud. Brains made of jelly.
‘So let’s go,’ he said. ‘Now.’
The old man circled the car, watching him. The resentment showed in his face, his distrust of the boy, how uncomfortable he felt having him in his garage. Lately, the last day or so, he’d become convinced
that the boy was watching him. He never talked about himself, where he’d come from. He never talked about his family, his mother, his brothers. He never discussed the struggle back home, how bad it was, how terrible to be driven to lengths like these. He never mentioned the Israelis, except to call them scum. In fact the only conversation they’d ever had revolved around the boy’s job. He’d worked in a big hotel over in Manhattan somewhere. He’d earned hundreds of dollars a week. He’d done well.
Now the boy was opening the garage doors. The heat bubbled in from the street outside bringing with it the smell of garbage and bad drains. The old man followed him on to the sidewalk, blinking in the harsh sunlight.
‘How far is Paterson?’ he muttered.
‘Half an hour.’
‘When will we be back?’
The boy shrugged. ‘Five,’ he said. ‘Six. I don’t know. Why?’
The old man glanced back into the garage, the hot dark box that had become a kind of home. ‘We’ll need to test it,’ he said. ‘Make sure it works.’
The boy frowned. ‘Test what?’
‘The gas. The tear gas. We can do it with the door open. Later the better.’
The boy stared at him a moment, then began to laugh, remembering the stuff in the aerosol, what they’d told him it could do. ‘Tear gas?’ he queried.
The old man nodded, and looked at his watch. ‘You’re right,’ he said gruffly. ‘We ought to go.’
5
The 5-gallon drum from Ramsgate arrived at the Newbury Waste Transfer Station on Friday 26 August. The analyst, as it happened, was abroad on leave. He reappeared two days later, tired and badly hung-over after an overnight flight back from Athens. There was a pile of paperwork on his desk and it was mid-afternoon before he got round to the Ramsgate drum.
The drum, still sealed inside a fire brigade container, was stored in a section of the warehouse reserved for suspected poisons. The shift leader had seen the death’s-head symbol when the van arrived from Ramsgate, and had drawn the appropriate conclusions. The storage area, in a corner of the warehouse, was well lit, with windows on two sides.
The Devil's Breath Page 11
