Old Enemies (22 page)

And that was when he bumped into what he was looking for. Suggestive coincidence rather than conclusive proof, but many men had been stood against a wall and shot on less evidence than this, so the kidnapping of a child fell easily within its compass. His excitement pushed the last of his aches and bruises from his bones, and he stretched for the phone.

It had been impressed upon the Breslin family by Hiley that they should try to lead a normal life. Not possible, of course, but there was no point in staying at home waiting, worrying, allowing their fears to grind them down. And J.J. in particular had business to attend to. He was passing through his outer office, the area where his secretary held sway, when he heard her fielding a call for him.

‘Yes, sir. I’ll see if he’s available.’ She placed her hand over the receiver and raised an eyebrow.

‘Who is it?’

‘A personal call, he says. A Mr Harry Jones?’ Her voice rose in enquiry.

Breslin hesitated for a heartbeat before he took the phone, holding it at arm’s length.

Then he dropped it back into its cradle.

She had agreed to meet him in the old red-brick Wren church of St James in Piccadilly, on the wooden pew in the corner where the faithful lit candles and left their messages on the prayer board.

‘I’m surprised,’ Harry admitted. ‘A church.’

‘Neutral territory,’ Terri said. ‘With what my husband thinks about you, I thought we needed somewhere which wouldn’t encourage the more lurid edges of his imagination. Perhaps we shouldn’t be meeting at all.’

‘And yet?’

‘For old times’ sake, I suppose, Harry.’ But her eyes said differently.

He watched as she lit a candle and stood in silent prayer, staring at its flame as the wax began to drip into the tray. ‘I love it here,’ she whispered. ‘My friends and I, we come to restaurants nearby to do lunch – you know, silly, indulgent girls’ stuff, big frocks, big wines, ridiculously big bills. Then afterwards I creep in here, all on my own, just to say thank you. I’ve never taken what I’ve been given for granted, Harry.’

‘I never knew you were religious.’

‘Do you have to be, just to be grateful?’

For a moment the candles guttered in a draught. A grizzled man in a tattered raincoat came into the church and stopped as he passed, staring at them in the slow, timeless fashion of the homeless. Then he shuffled off to sit in the warmth of a pew closer to the altar.

‘I tried to talk to J.J.,’ Harry said. ‘I think he put the phone down on me.’

‘I’m sure he did. He suspects you and I are having an affair again, or even if we’re not that we soon will be. Silly man.’

‘I told him that was nonsense.’

‘And you expected him to believe you?’

Of course not. And why should he? Harry didn’t even believe himself.

‘I’ve been reading the diaries, Terri. It’s possible I may have found who’s behind all this.’ They were sitting at opposite ends of the bench, as though determined to keep a proper distance between themselves, but now she stirred, moved closer.

‘It’s only speculation,’ he continued, ‘but six months. That’s what the kidnappers are demanding.’

‘And sticking to.’

‘So what’s in those diaries that in six months won’t matter?’

‘J.J.’s had a team of journalists poring over them. Found nothing.’

‘But you have to reckon there’s a fair chunk of a safety margin within that – let’s say a whole three months. So what’s going to happen between now and the end of February that’s so damned important it could be changed by the diaries and someone thinks is worth killing for?’

She shook her head, the end of her nose bobbing in anxiety. Just as it had in Paris.

‘Try power. And Zimbabwe. There’s an election coming up there which Moses Chombo is expected to win. But the diaries might blow a hole in all that, destroy his dreams. He’s not the man he claims to be, you see. The idea that he’s a hero of the struggle is a total sham.’

Her hand reached towards him, as though trying to haul in the rest of what he knew.

‘I think Mandela wrote something like this . . .’ Harry frowned as he tried to drag the words from the creases of his memory. ‘
I offer no profound objection to the fact that Moses Chombo preferred to spend his youth in the company of young white girls rather than with his brothers fighting in the bush. It is a choice that many young men would have made. It is not given to every man to be a hero
.’ Harry broke off from his recitation. ‘Chombo claims to be a veteran of the bush war, you see, and says he has the scars to prove it.’

Terri had shuffled right across the bench and was now sitting close beside him, not wanting to miss a word. From his pew, the tramp turned to gaze at them in suspicion.

Harry steepled his hands in concentration as he tried to recite more of Mandela’s script. ‘
Yet Chombo chose to watch his brothers die, and at a distance. To return to his homeland and claim their legacy, as he did, is nothing less than to steal their spirit. He has gone down a route that has dishonoured Africa ever since the white man arrived. He is unworthy.
’ Harry snorted like a horse after a canter. ‘That’s the word he used. Unworthy. Can you imagine the damage that verdict would do if it was put about before the election?’

‘It’s motive, for sure, but scarcely proof.’

‘This is a game played in the shadows, Terri. Oh, there are plenty of others who’d happily give their right testicle to stop those diaries being dragged out into the sunshine, but it’s the timing, you see. No one has a more pressing motive than Chombo.’

‘But we can’t prove it,’ she insisted once more.

‘You don’t have to. Perhaps all you need is to whisper what you know, or simply suspect, into the right ear and suddenly you’ve got a hell of an advantage. Leverage. Negotiating muscle.’

‘Whose ear?’

‘Chombo’s, of course.’

Yet she showed no excitement. Her head fell. ‘They cut off his finger, Harry.’ She began to sob gently. The exhaustion and anxiety had drained away her spirit, she needed a shoulder to lean on, a hand to grasp, and it was now Harry’s she clutched.

His ear began to burn, as though the knife was cutting through it once again. ‘I’m sorry. But he’ll get over that.’

‘I sometimes wonder if any of us will get over this.’

Harry sensed she was talking about much more than just the kidnap.

‘They said that if we don’t cooperate, do what they insist, they’ll carve him up and drop him down a hole in the ground so deep we’ll never find him.’

‘They said that?’

But for the moment she was unable to say more. She buried her head in his chest, and soon the sounds of sobbing could be heard, echoing back from the marble floor and the high vaulted ceiling.

Slowly, screaming at himself to stop, with his ear burning in warning, Harry put his arm around her. The memories came flooding back. He knew he wasn’t over her.

Suddenly Harry found himself staring into the face of the curious tramp. The grizzled old man was smiling mischievously, eyeing the woman in Harry’s arms, tapping the end of his nose, joining in the conspiracy. Then he nodded his battered head in approval and was gone.

Once her tears had dried they left the church. It wasn’t an appropriate place for some of the thoughts that raced through Harry’s mind as Terri nestled in his arms and her perfume set siege to his senses. They walked out into the small courtyard that faced Piccadilly, and there they found a Christmas market in full swing, with ruddy-cheeked stallholders wrapped in gloves and colourful scarves, serving out good humour and mulled wine as they tried to entice the passers-by. The bustle of the crowd was intense, forcing Harry and Terri distractingly close. They stopped beside a stall where a small girl with raised voice and stamping foot was begging her mother for a trinket, a glass globe with a primitive model of the towers of Venice inside. As the girl shook the globe, flakes of imitation snow cascaded over the city.

Venice. They’d been there, as well, not just Paris. He knew from the look in Terri’s eyes that she was back there, too, and he wondered what memories she clung to, and whether they were the same as his own.

Venice – that was the direction the helicopter had been heading. But something told Harry the gang wasn’t there, couldn’t be, not on the water, yet if not Venice . . . ?

He took Terri’s arm, swung her round. ‘What did they say again – drop him down a hole so deep we’d never be able to find him?’

She nodded: ‘Almost exactly that.’ And suddenly he had grabbed her hand and was running, forcing their way though the crowd.

A little further along the pavements of Piccadilly stood Hatchards, purveyors of books to many members of the Royal Family and the oldest bookshop in London. When Harry dragged Terri through the doors they found themselves surrounded by a sea of bodies, elbows nudging, tills clattering, telephones ringing. This was its busiest time of year.

‘Hello there, Harry. Where have they been hiding you this time?’ a voice called out above the throng. A man with short-cropped silver hair and a recent yachting tan waved from behind the cash desk. Roger Katz came close to being as much of an institution as the shop itself, a man who loved books and people to the point that he’d retired several times yet somehow could still be found behind his beloved counter. His enthusiasms bubbled forth, his eyes danced in fascination over Terri and he was about to launch upon a detailed interrogation when Harry raised his hand and brought him to a halt, like a traffic cop.

‘Roger – Italy. Geography. Now!’

Terri was naked, in her bathroom, bent over and smoothing skin lotion onto her legs when J.J. arrived home. It was late, gone nine, he reeked of tobacco smoke and was exhausted after a day spent fighting with the money men. No women, not this time, not now the Bitch of Blackheath had retired to her lair. As he walked into their bedroom he found the bathroom door open, framing Terri’s body like a scene by Degas, misty with steam, her body glistening, one slender leg extended, her breasts falling forward, towels discarded in rumpled piles at her feet.

She looked up. ‘Hello, darling.’

The time she had spent in the bathroom had been not just for herself but for J.J., too. Ruari’s plight had become their only focus, understandably so, but it had made their lives dangerously unbalanced. Even before their son’s disappearance a drift had set in to their relationship that was slowly pulling them apart, but not until she had sat so close to Harry and felt his breath on her cheek once again had she realized how much peril her marriage was in. Her family meant far too much to her to let it slip away without a fight, so she had spent her lonely evening trying to wash any trace of bitterness away, hoping to revive old feelings. He’d been sleeping too long upstairs in the guest room, it was becoming a habit rather than a necessity, it was time to bring his heart and his mind back home. Yet as she greeted him he didn’t even bother looking up but slumped wearily on the edge of the bed.

Not the start she’d been hoping for. He was upset with her, that she knew, ludicrously suspicious about Harry, his suspicions far more ludicrous than those she’d been harbouring about him. She wasn’t blind. J.J. had been ‘distracted’ in recent months, and she guessed with another woman. It happened, it hurt, but she could live with it while he got over it, so why was he being so childish about . . . about nothing? Not yet, at least. They had to deal with the Harry thing, better to drag it out into the open where it would shrivel and disappear, wouldn’t it? At least, that’s what she hoped.

‘I’ve been waiting for you,’ she said, trying to sound welcoming as he pulled off his tie and cast it into a corner. ‘Harry Jones called, had something to pass on.’ She tried to make it impersonal, innocent, as she wrapped a towel around her and came to sit near him on the end of the bed.

J.J. responded by moving away to his wardrobe and rifling through his shirts to select one for the morning. ‘He’s persistent, I’ll give him that,’ he grunted.

‘He thinks he knows where Ruari might be,’ she said, pressing on.

J.J. turned, scowled, said nothing.

‘The helicopter’s flight path was to the north-east of Italy. In fact, if they’d kept going they’d have ended up in Venice, but Harry doesn’t think they’re there, or anywhere on the coast.’