He had forgotten now about deals, the buying and selling of weapons, ammunition and communications equipment. He no longer considered whether the Mercedes or the Jaguar was better value as an armoured car. Harvey Gillot sat in his seat, the sun beating against the tinted window, in the bulletproof vest and the holed shirt. If he came through this,
if …
He had not done games at school unless he had been subject to a three-line whip, and it was only by an accident that he had once strayed into a sports pavilion and seen faded shirts in display cases, worn by kids who had been picked for a national schoolboys’ rugby team and donated them …
If
he was still standing, walking, hadn’t had his head holed, his guts torn open, his lungs sliced and his bones splintered, he would take that shirt, a sort of soft lavender blue, to one of those trophy places off Piccadilly and ask for a case of polished wood to be made with a velvet background and his shirt pinned inside so that the bullet holes were on view. He’d have a little silver plaque screwed to the woodwork:
Herbert (Harvey) Gillot, pupil 1974–80, later arms dealer and survivor.
Might take the thing, swathed in bubble-wrap, down there himself and dump it at the head teacher’s door so that the cocky little buggers, who thought a rugger pitch was big-time, could marvel at it and wonder where the blood was. But he didn’t know whether the old boy would return to the Royal Grammar School. Then again there might be another message on the little strip of silver,
Herbert (Harvey) Gillot, pupil 1974-80, later arms dealer and loser,
and there would be blood on the shirt, which would make it more interesting. He had no music to listen to, he had read the magazine and the
Herald Tribune,
and he never did crosswords or brain teasers.
He could gaze through the window, see the sights and rush past people who waited at level crossings, worked in fields, were
in cars on country roads or waited on platforms where there was no stop, and know that nothing and nobody was relevant to him. He was separated from them and had a rendezvous to keep.
Did it hurt?
Might find out, and might not.
He didn’t know if it would hurt to be shot.
Might learn and might not. He was more frightened of the pain than of the black emptiness, supposed, of death. The option had been to live in the hole, to shudder at each shadow moving, each footfall behind his back, and never be free of it. Some things were clear in his mind. He wasn’t going to hide for the rest of his days. He would try to offload the issue of the cornfields. He would beg and plead. If the hair shirt had to be worn then it was for costume necessities, and if he had to show ‘penance’ it would be laid on with thick greasepaint. He was good on the big picture but, as a man had once said, the devil was in the detail. This was the only way he could think of to rid himself of the problem.
The train carried him on, and its wheels made a drumbeat, relentless, as they went over the joins in each section of rail, as if the end of the journey was inescapable.
A bus dropped him close to the railway station. The sun beat down on him, but he didn’t notice it. The girls walking past him were slim, wearing halter tops and shorts, but he didn’t see them. He went inside the station and found a phone booth.
Robbie Cairns had the scrap of paper in front of him. The number he had rung in Munich was scratched out. He dialled the one that remained and waited, dragging air into his lungs when he was answered. He gave his name and said where he was. He was told, English language, crisp and accented, that he should come out of the station, cross the road, go into the park, and where he should stand.
He walked. He was never alone in Rotherhithe. Anywhere between Albion Street and the disused docks of Canada Water he felt comfortable – not alone. No one would have caught his
eye and smiled at him. It was his familiarity with the fabric of the place that meant he didn’t feel isolated there. Almost, he yearned to hear voices. Not the bloody automatic ones at the airport in Germany, not women’s voices barking at him in talk he didn’t understand. Like a hole in him he couldn’t fill – no Leanne, no Granddad Cairns, no Vern, whom he’d always treated as wet shit but who now he would have grovelled for, and no Barbie … It might be that the hole was Barbie, not to be called back. He walked the length of a path with lawns and trees flanking it. The buildings beyond were old and fine, had been renovated and had flowers on the balconies. He walked because he had been instructed to. If a wasp had not gone up his nose, if Barbie was on her bloody counter, and if the fucking target hadn’t worn a vest, he would have told anyone where
they
should meet
him.
Robbie Cairns didn’t know how he might find a friend.
He was in gardens now. Carved heads sat on squares of stone or pillars. He couldn’t have named a famous sculpture or sculptor. Birds sang from the trees.
So alone.
There was a narrow inner pathway between the mown grass and the hoed beds, and he walked round it. The first time: would they have found her? The second time: would she be on a slab in the mortuary at Guy’s? The third time: would the paper trail have dug up that the apartment where she lived was in the name of Robert Cairns? The fourth time: because of her was he now subject to a manhunt? The fifth time: because of her, was he now fucked, finished … and isolated?
‘It is Mr Cairns? Yes?’
He turned, saw a heavy-built man who wore a suit, had good hair and a tie. He thought himself tired and dirty. He nodded, could hardly speak.
The stranger – a friend – said, ‘Follow me, please, Mr Cairns.’
The journalist, Ivo, gathered his papers into his laptop bag, picked up his son, little more than a babe in arms, and kissed the small, almost hairless head, then hugged his wife.
‘You’ll be all right? You’ll be careful?’
Always, at these times, she asked the same questions when he went to work and always he gave the same answers.
‘I’ll be all right, and I’ll be careful.’
Better than her, he knew of the bombs, the shootings and the beatings that had targeted the Zagreb media, who didn’t write about the breast implants of wannabe movie stars, the girlfriends of TV game-show presenters or the Croatian footballers playing abroad but specialised in investigative reporting. He knew of the danger associated with exposing corruption in the political élite and the scale of organised crime in the capital city. Twice he had received a single bullet through the post at his magazine’s offices. The police, the special unit the prime minister had created, had assured him that discreet undercover protection would watch over him. He knew of no other life.
He said at what time he’d be home. They would eat together because he couldn’t afford restaurant meals – he couldn’t resign, go elsewhere, because no openings existed to a writer familiar only with corruption and criminality. A last kiss and a last hug at the door. Ivo went to work, a busy day because that evening the weekly magazine went to print. Twice he looked behind him and neither time did he see anything that threatened or evidence of ‘discreet’ police protection.
It was a good landing and they were quickly off. Mark Roscoe presumed that the speed of disembarkation was due to lack of traffic. No other plane just in or about to get up and go. He paused at the top of the steps. The sun came up off the apron and reflected into his face and he blinked, almost blinded. He groped for the dark glasses in his shoulder bag and squinted around him. A new airport, no passengers to speak of and no visible trade. He assumed some government from old Europe – or the IMF, the OECD or the World Bank – had dumped down a packet of cash, regarding an airport at Osijek as a valid investment. It was shiny new, like a shoe that had yet to be scuffed. There had been a map on the plane, in the pouch in
front of him, and without it he would have had trouble in working out where he was.
He walked into the arrivals hall. His ignorance was like a blister on his heel, and he cursed quietly that he hadn’t made time to learn about the region, and Vukovar, which was down the road from here, the river and … Megs Behan was close behind him. He had told her Harvey Gillot’s travel plans but the breaking of an official confidence had seemed a small matter on an overnight vigil outside a high gate on the Dorset coast. Fun being with her there. Here, it was different. He turned. She was shuffling towards him – shuffling because her footwear was lightweight holiday gear. A floral print skirt flowed from her hips, the cheesecloth blouse was thick enough to hide what lay beneath. The hair was a mess. He thought her a great-looking woman and about as different from his Chrissie as chalk was from … The older man was behind her and came slowly, as if his feet, knees or hips gave him trouble – he had no idea why two minuscule nips of whisky had been planted on him, just enough to savour and enjoy a taste. Right, ‘there’ was not ‘here’, and he had not expected that Megs Behan would buy the ticket. Her presence undercut his professionalism a little. He let her reach him.
‘I just wanted you to know, Miss Behan, that this is a serious investigation. We’re at a difficult stage in the inquiry. Any degree of interference would be regarded with …’ She had that gaze, mirth and a degree of – like him being pompous was a let-down. He ploughed on: ‘What happened in England – completely different picture to now. I want to stress, most important, that I won’t tolerate any stunts you may be considering. Try anything and I’ll get the locals to throw the book at you. A Croat cell is rather less friendly than one in West End Central. As I go about my business, I don’t want to see or hear you.’
He cringed at his tone. Chrissie would have yawned. The woman, Megs Behan, looked at him and winked – bloody
winked
– so that half of one side of her face was crinkled, then stepped aside to permit him to go before her to the immigration check.
He showed his passport. No smile. He assumed that the tanks
had advanced this close to the city of Osijek. He had never seen one on the move, only in newspaper photographs, on television or in a cinema. He had been thirteen when the tanks
might
have come this close and he remembered nothing of it. His father hadn’t talked about it and there had been no mention of it at school. It would have been worse in Vukovar of which, then, he had known nothing. That ignorance, Roscoe reckoned, had made him pompous. He was given his passport and waved through.
A man advanced on him, balding, in a short-sleeved shirt with a tie, drill khaki slacks and burnished shoes – had to be embassy.
Could place him, but not the old beggar who had given him the whisky. Turned once, fast, and raked the queue of passengers behind. He saw Megs Behan and the old guy, their desultory conversation, and couldn’t make the links.
A hand was held out. Another man stood a dozen paces behind the embassy guy. ‘Mark Roscoe?’
‘Yes.’
He was given a name, didn’t catch it, then a card was offered, but his attention was on the one who had held back and watched.
An envelope was produced from a briefcase and handed to him. It had come through, he was told, on secure communications. He should open it. He saw a face, plate or portrait size, of a teenager photographed in a police station, then the same face but in marginally different levels of artificial light. The back of the second picture carried the stamp of Feltham Young Offenders. There was an email printout. He read:
Hi Mark. We believe contract for our Tango given to Robert (Robbie) Cairns of Rotherhithe. He is also wanted for questioning re murder of woman, believed mistress, found strangled in Cairns’s property. Talk soon. Cheers, Guv’nor.
Life had a kick-back: no more crap about where tanks might have been or about him being the complete new-age prig. Real stuff, real talk.
He shook the hand. ‘Thanks very much for coming this far, appreciated … The local police – when do I get to liaise?’
A slow, tired grin. ‘Welcome, Mr Roscoe, to eastern Slavonia.’
Confused: ‘I’m sorry, I came to liaise with local forces and to …’
‘Let’s go and have a cup of coffee, Mr Roscoe.’
It was explained. The coffee was passable. He, Mark Roscoe, was coming into the territory of the famous few. ‘It’s where the defence in 1991 was epic. It’s where untrained and inexperienced men and women of the war, which enabled a free state to be born, fought and died. At any level of public life in Croatia it is political suicide to take on the veterans of Vukovar. They are sacred. A man, as I understand from my brief, cheated a village of just about its entire wealth, and for nearly twenty years remained anonymous to the living. He has now been identified, has a contract on his life. For reasons beyond my comprehension that individual is now travelling here. God knows what his intentions are. The police locally will not protect him, or co-operate with you. Are you following me, Mr Roscoe? If he intended to make a somewhat melodramatic gesture behind a cordon of policemen and be safe in their protection, he has made a total error of judgement. He is on his own, should he be daft enough to come here, and there will be no shield to hide behind. I would also remind you, Mr Roscoe, that you have no jurisdiction on this territory. To believe otherwise would be to invite comprehensive embarrassment to yourself, me, my colleagues and our government. Well, as you understand, I’m sure, it’s a long drive back to Zagreb and I’d like to get on. Good luck to you, Mr Roscoe. A final thing – if this man Gillot should show up, I wouldn’t stand too close to him. Life still comes quite cheap here.’
The diplomat grimaced and shrugged, as if imparting disappointing news was a necessary role of his life, then backed away. He stopped beside the other man who had shadowed them when they met, and Roscoe realised that the whisky dispenser from the aircraft was with them and seemed to share a joke, and that Megs Behan was close to them.
*
‘He was on the job, going at it hammer and tongs, and the Hereford Gun Club charged in through the front door and up the stairs, and the joker went out from under her, over the windowsill and straight into the air. He landed in the garden, and she was left there, gagging for it, and a dwarf Glaswegian corporal who’d reached the bedroom said in his best vernacular Serbo-Croat, “Madam, would you like the benefit of any help I can give in finishing off what that shit-face started?” She chucked a chamber pot at him and knocked him stone cold. Wonderful days.’