A Season in Hell, page 9
The sitting room of the house in Lord North Street was pleasant enough and furnished to suit the Regency period of the place. There was the correct wallpaper, the right silver, suitable carpeting and drapes. There was also a distinct impression of interior design that didn’t sit comfortably on Egan.
There was a library table standing by one bay window, piled with books. Eric’s Moroccan leather diary was on top where Sarah had left it. Egan opened it idly and was examining it when she entered the room with tea things on a tray.
“This is interesting,” he said. “A Cambridge diary in Latin.”
She put down the tray and took the book from him, closing it. “Yes, it was my stepson’s. You read Latin?”
“I did it at school, if that’s what you mean.”
“Oh, yes, you were at Dulwich College.” She poured the tea. “You intended to go to Cambridge yourself, didn’t you?”
He took the cup she offered but didn’t sit down. “How come you know so much about me?”
“It’s simple,” she said. “I told you I was a widow? Well, my husband was a colonel in the British Army, killed in the Falklands. His cousin is your old commanding officer, Tony Villiers.”
Egan smiled slowly and nodded. “Tony playing games again. I might have known.” He put down his cup. “Well, it won’t work. I’ve already told him I won’t join him at Group Four. Tell him I meant it.”
He made for the door and she said desperately,
“Please, Mr. Egan, just hear me out.” She extended a hand imploringly. “I honestly don’t know the first thing about this Group Four business.”
He stood looking at her searchingly for a moment, then walked to a wingback chair by the window and sat down. “All right, Mrs. Talbot. What’s it all about?”
She opened the drawer in the library table, took out the envelope containing the material Villiers had sent to New York. “Read that.”
She found that her hands were shaking, went to the sideboard and poured herself a brandy which she drank neat. She walked to the window and peered down into the rainy street, ignoring Egan. She felt more lonely than she had ever felt in her life and filled with a restless longing. She wanted to be able to whisper, “Where are you, my darling?” but there was no darling. No Edward, and now, no Eric.
Egan stood up behind her, his reflection plain in the dark glass. “Are you all right, Mrs. Talbot?”
“The telephone is only an echo in an empty room,” she said. “Especially if there isn’t anyone there any longer. Have you ever thought of that? It’s a profoundly philosophical statement. You were going to read philosophy yourself at Cambridge, weren’t you?”
“Sit down,” he said gently.
She did as she was told, and he sat on the edge of the table. “What are you trying to say to me? Your son is dead, I understand that, and how you feel, but …”
“Not dead, Mr. Egan, murdered, one of several similar cases reported in Paris in the last two or three years. If you read the small print in the postmortem report, you’ll notice they found evidence of heroin and cocaine in Eric’s body, but also traces of a rare drug from Colombia called burundanga. It totally destroys the individual’s will power.”
“So?” he said.
“There have also been four cases of IRA gunmen killed by Protestant paramilitaries during the past twelve months where the victims showed traces of the drug. I got that from Tony and his boss.”
“That old spider Ferguson?” Egan nodded. “But what does it all mean? What do you want from me?”
“Because of the security implications, there doesn’t seem to be much of a police investigation, and the French authorities are satisfied that Eric and the others all died accidentally.”
“Which could be true. It’s a bad habit drug addicts have.”
“Not true in this instance. The burundanga indicates that, and it’s a lead, don’t you see? In the whole of Western Europe, so few cases. The same individuals must be behind it.”
“And you want them?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Egan, I want them very badly indeed.”
“Revenge, Mrs. Talbot, is that it?” He shook his head. “There’s a Sicilian proverb: ‘Revenge is a season in Hell.’ I know, because I’ve been there, and you come away with nothing.”
She paced across the room, turned to face him. “I know why you joined the army. Can you deny you wanted revenge for the bomb that killed your mother and father?”
“Quite correct. I was seventeen. I needed to do it. To be honest, I think I’d have gone crazy if I hadn’t done something positive at the time.”
“Then can’t you see that’s how I feel?”
He took her hands gently. “Mrs. Talbot, I killed a lot of people over there in Ireland. On three occasions they were women. Oh, pretty violent women, I must admit, but it cuts a piece of you away each time. I killed again and again. Did I ever get the person responsible for that bomb? That’s highly unlikely. It didn’t bring my parents back, it didn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it made me feel worse, and you know something else, Mrs. Talbot? It destroyed everything for me because when I came home, I found it didn’t exist any more—I lost something back there. An ability to feel—to care about anything.”
“Perhaps you should stop trying to care or looking for reasons. Maybe you should just act,” she told him.
“What’s this, free therapy?”
“There was some trouble on the subway tonight. Four youths, you know the sort? They were intimidating a black girl. I told them to leave her alone and they started on me.”
“What happened?”
“It was incredible. There was a man sitting opposite. Very well dressed. Navy-blue Burberry, military tie.”
“What happened?”
“He didn’t say a word. Simply stood up and attacked. It was all very professional, elbows and things. Suddenly there were two on the floor. And he laughed about it. Apologized.” She shook her head. “He just didn’t seem the sort.”
“You mean he was a gentleman.”
“I suppose I do, but whatever he was, he acted. He didn’t enter into a dialectic. He went into action.”
“There’s a saying in the Koran that there’s more truth in one sword than in ten thousand words. I learned that a long time ago,” Egan told her.
“In Ireland?” Sarah asked.
“Good God, no. On the streets of Wapping, when I was a kid—the first time I tried to talk myself out of a fight and got beaten to a pulp instead by three other boys.” Egan grinned. “I must have been all of eight years old. It was a rough neighborhood. You grew up fast or went under. You had to have bottle—lots of bottle.”
“Bottle?” She frowned.
“Courage—nerve. No fear, that’s the big secret. Never ever be afraid, no matter what the odds. My uncle taught me that when he found me crying on the pavement, blood on my face. He kicked me up the backside and told me to go and find them and have another go. You die, he said, if that’s what it takes, but you don’t give in, ever.”
“That would be the famous Jack Shelley?” she said.
“You know about him?” Egan said. “Is there anything you don’t know?”
“I don’t think so. Tony’s briefing was very thorough. The boy from the streets who went to public school, won a scholarship to Cambridge and became a soldier instead.”
“An honorable profession. Somebody has to do it.”
“Somebody has to be the public hangman,” she said, “but I don’t see why it has to be you.”
He ran a hand over his face and smiled. “Look, give me one of those cigarettes of yours. I shouldn’t, it’s bad for my lungs these days, but what the hell. It’s the shank of the night and the rain is falling.”
She gave him the cigarette reluctantly and offered a light. He coughed a little almost at once, turned to the bay window, opened it and sat in the window seat, looking out at the rain. “I like cities at night, especially on this kind of night. Rain hissing down through the streets washing everything clean. It’s as if anything’s possible.”
“Don’t you normally feel like that?”
“Not for quite a while now. Something went from me a long time ago, Mrs. Talbot, and now I don’t care.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say.” She was genuinely shocked.
“No, not terrible, just different. You see, most men involved in crime or violence have one thing in common. They’re desperate to win. I’m not worried whether I win or not. Live or die. It doesn’t make any difference in the end.”
“I don’t agree,” she said, surprised at the strength in her own voice. “Dying is easy. It’s living that’s hard. Having the strength to carry on.”
“Like I said earlier, you do have a way with words.” He tossed the cigarette out into the rain. “Let’s get down to cases. Let’s see if I’ve got it right. You want revenge for the death of your stepson.”
“Justice,” she put in. “I just want justice.”
“There’s no such thing any more, and you’re not being honest. You want revenge. You want someone to pay the bill.”
He paused, gazing at her intently, and she finally nodded and turned away. “All right. Call it what you like.”
“But a nice well-brought-up lady like you who’s traveled first class all her life wouldn’t really know how to go about it, so what she wants is somebody like me, macho man with a gun in his hand, to hunt the bad guys down. Somebody who knows the ropes. Am I right?”
She nodded. “Yes, I suppose that just about sums it up.”
“Well, I won’t do it, Mrs. Talbot. I told you soldiering was an honorable profession. When I killed there was a reason. What you’re looking for is some kind of assassin. I’m sorry about Eric, but it isn’t a good enough reason from my point of view.”
He turned as if to make for the door. She said quickly, “Maybe not, but Sally should be reason enough.”
He went very still, then turned slowly. “What about Sally?”
“I’m sorry, Sean,” she whispered. “Her postmortem indicated death by drowning under the influence of drugs.”
“I know that.”
“There were traces of the scopolamine there as well.”
“That burundanga stuff?”
“I’m afraid so. Tony’s people have been making a computer search. Sally’s case has been the only one to come up in England so far.” She moved close and gripped his arms. “Don’t you see, Sean? There must be a link with Paris, with Ulster….”
He shook her off, went to the bay window and opened the door to the right that gave access to the balcony. He stood there, face up to the rain, and she lit a cigarette nervously and waited.
Jago on the other side of the street moved to the window with a pair of Zeiss night glasses and focused them. Egan had his eyes closed, face still raised. “Oh, dear,” Jago whispered, “Mr. Smith’s not going to like this one little bit.”
SIX
In the bathroom, Egan toweled his head, damp from the rain, then carefully combed his hair. He examined his face in the mirror. It was reasonably composed, the only sign of stress a muscle twitching slightly on the left side of his mouth. But he was in control and that was all that mattered. He went back into the sitting room and found Sarah by the window.
“I’m sorry, Sean,” she said. “Sorry I had to be the one to tell you.”
“As they used to say in Crossmaglen when I was a wee boy, God forgive you for lying. Jesus, Mrs. Talbot, you’re a nice enough lady, but you’ve got what you wanted, so why pretend?”
He helped himself to Scotch at the sideboard. She said, “Listen, I’m Sarah, not Mrs. Talbot. Now, what will you do?”
“Check the facts with Villiers.”
“What if he won’t help?”
“Oh, there are ways around that.” He sipped some of the whiskey. “I’ve been playing rough games for some years now. It leaves one with a wide circle of entirely the wrong set of acquaintances.”
“Like your uncle?” she suggested.
“One possibility. I’ll probably have a word with him, but Villiers first.”
“And what about me?”
He laughed harshly. “You don’t give up, do you? The kind of people I’m looking for are like nothing you’ve ever known in your privileged life. Creatures from another planet. They’d kill you without thinking about it, and that would probably be after you’d kept them amused for the weekend. Believe me, you’re well out of it.”
“But I’m not out, I’m in,” she said. “From the moment Eric died I was in.”
He stood looking at her, frowning slightly, then swallowed the rest of his whiskey. “All right, have it your way. I want a word with my Aunt Ida first so we’ll call at The Bargee. Afterwards I’ll take you to meet my uncle. It should prove to be a significant stage in your education. And bring that envelope with you.”
From his window, Jago watched them drive away while he waited for Smith to return his call. The phone rang. He lifted the receiver.
“What’s happening?” Smith demanded.
Jago recounted the events of the evening and the substance of the conversation at the house in Lord North Street. “She’s got him annoyed,” Jago said. “Which could mean trouble.”
“The interfering bitch,” Smith said viciously.
“I know, old stick, can’t women be the devil?”
“Everything’s a joke to you, isn’t it?” Smith said, anger in his voice.
“Only way to get by in this miserable life,” Jago told him brightly. “What do you want me to do? Knock ’em off?”
“No, that’s no good. Jack Shelley may be a respectable businessman these days, but underneath the Savile Row suit he’s still the villain he always was, and to the London underworld he’s still the governor. Knock his nephew off and he’d turn London upside down. The Talbot woman is just as bad. She’s a friend of the President of the United States, for Christ’s sake. Anything happened to her, there’d be hell to pay.”
“They’d probably send in the Sixth Fleet,” Jago observed.
“Very funny.”
“So what do I do?”
“Stay close to them. In fact, make sure nothing happens to them. If any leaks appear, you plug them. Just make sure they never get close to anyone who can be helpful.”
“I see. What you really mean is I make sure that if they do get close to anyone, nobody talks.”
“That’s it exactly,” Smith said. “Now get moving. You know where they’ve gone.”
Sean and Ida were in the kitchen; Sarah waited in the small sitting room. There were several photos on the sideboard, most featuring Egan. As a boy, stiff and awkward in a school tie and blazer, with a couple who were obviously his parents, and then in uniform, very handsome with the SAS cap badge on the beret, the pilot’s wings, the medal ribbons. There was one outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, presumably after an investiture, Egan in dress uniform, Ida on one side in hat and best coat, and on the other a man who could only be Jack Shelley.
He wasn’t particularly large, but his power was unmistakable. The face was amiable enough, full of an animal vitality, but there was a kind of mocking contempt in the smile. It occurred to Sarah that it was the smile of a man who didn’t care for other people very much.
She opened a door and found herself in the main bar. As it was after closing time, there was only a small security light on, and she stood there breathing in the stale smell of beer and smoke and was aware of Ida’s voice crying out, the sounds of muffled sobbing through the kitchen door.
Sarah went back into the sitting room and saw another photo on the mantelpiece—Egan, once again in uniform, and a pretty young girl, obviously Sally. Small, dark-haired, a good face, turned slightly profile, gazing up at Egan, all the love in the world on her face.
The kitchen door opened and Egan and Ida came in. The old woman’s face was swollen with weeping. When she saw Sarah holding the photo, she took it from her.
“Sally, love,” she moaned and she looked at Sarah. “I never knew what happened, what went wrong. One minute she was still at school, seventeen and life before her. She changed overnight. Became a different person. Drinks, drugs, then the police pulling her in for walking the pavement. The shame of it. Even Jack couldn’t seem to control her any more.”
“Don’t upset yourself, Ida,” Egan told her. “Make yourself a cup of tea and go to bed. We’ll be off. ”
“Not that Jack really cared, except for appearances,” Ida continued, and said to Sarah, “She wasn’t family, you see.”
She sat down, holding the photo to her, and Egan took Sarah by the arm. “Let’s go,” he said, and they left, closing the door quietly.
They got into the Mini Cooper and he drove away quickly, keeping to the river, turning into a narrow street lined with old Victorian warehouses a couple of minutes later. Egan braked to a halt at the end on a pier overlooking an old boat basin and the river.
“Hangman’s Wharf. This is where he lives. He has an apartment on the top floor of the warehouse there.”
“Are you sure he’ll be in?”
“If he isn’t, we’ll try his club. ‘Jack’s Place,’ it’s called. Very low-life. Another stage in your education. Have you got the envelope?”
“Yes.” She passed it across.
“Good. Saves time. You stay here. I’ll need to speak to him first.”
Egan got out and walked away. She locked the car doors and sat there, a little nervous, painfully aware of the quiet. A hooter sounded mournfully as a ship moved down the river. Behind her, Jago walked up the street and moved into the darkness of a doorway, watching, feeling strangely protective.
Egan went up in the old freight elevator, floor by floor, no cage, just the open platform. As it reached the top, a man in his mid-forties stood watching, arms folded. He was at least six feet tall, wore a loose-fitting suit, had a hard, raw-boned face and big hands. He was obviously ready for anything, face set, but now a look of incredulity appeared. “It’s you, Sean. You’re a sight for sore eyes.” The lift jolted to a halt. “Hello, Tully, how’s every little thing?” “Great, Sean, just great.” His big arms went around Egan in a bear hug. “It’s been too long. Jack goes on about you all the time. You hurt him going to the palace for the D.C.M., just you and Ida.”
