Confessor (40 page)

“Yes, indeed, and, by God, you’re going to need it. First, these
Yussif
people. I want confirmation of the telephone number you’ve been contacting, and I want it now.”

Hisham looked stunned at what was an exhibition of violence—for Herbie had banged the table, almost shattering it, and kicked at one of the stand chairs, sending it skittering across the room. “I want that telephone number now. This minute.”

Hisham reeled off the number. Twice, then a third time, very fast just for good measure. “I said I would do anything.”

“Good, then let me tell you what you
are
going to do. You are going to get onto an airplane and fly to New York, just as
Yussif
told you to do. Then you are going to telephone the number he gave you. After that, you’re going to telephone one of
our
people in New York and he’ll advise you. I’ll get you on a flight late today, and you’ll have
my
people on your back all the way. Understand? Hisham, you sonofabitch child of a syphilitic whore, you dense, cretinous coward, you pig-faced, evil, murdering, unholy low-life bastard. You understand?”

In a very small voice, with his head nodding like one of those appalling toy dogs people put in the back of their cars, Hisham whispered, “Yes, Mr. Kruger. I will do all you ask.”

“Damn right you will. If you don’t then we’ll pick you up, tie a label onto you, pack you in a crate with a recording of this conversation and everything the Security Service has on you, then send you sea mail to your pissant little country.”

“That was impressive,” Bex Olesker said, sounding happy, as they made their way back to the Dower House.

“I’m great when I’m roused, Bex.” The goofy grin as he looked down at her, his hand resting on the small of her back. He noticed that she did not try to remove it.

“Oh, good. You’ve just got back in time. I have a nice soup and some smoked salmon and salad ready for you,” Bitsy greeted them as they came through the door.

“Couple of things to do.” Herbie picked up the pile of Gus’s mail that lay on the table in the hall. Every day since it had begun, his practice was to go through the mail, sort what required, diverting to Carole and give the rest a quick onceover.

Bex went upstairs to wash and tidy herself up for lunch, while Herbie sat at Gus’s desk and went through the day’s bills, circulars, junk mail and magazines.

Not much today. Then his eye caught one of the magazines. It was simply titled
Magic
and it had come from the United States. He removed the wrapper and began to flick through it. He had already seen copies in Gus’s secret Merlin’s Cave, so he turned to an article by someone called Max Maven, who, he thought, wrote a fairly erudite column. While trying to find it, his eye caught a double-spread advertisement. He looked at it with some kind of bewilderment. Then grabbed the telephone and dialed a number in Virginia.

“Collector’s Workshop,” said a friendly female at the distant end.

“I am calling about your convention.” Herb tried to keep his voice level.

“The World Magic Summit, yes? You want to register?”

“Only if your ad in the current edition of
Magic
is correct.”

“Yes, it’s quite correct.”

“You say that among those appearing in the Grand Show is Claudius Damautus. Is this true?”

“Yes, he’s definitely going to be there. I spoke to him only yesterday. He’s doing a new act called The History of Magic in Twenty Minutes. Paul Daniels is going to be there
and
The Pendragons. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, Mr. …”

“Kruger. Eberhardt Kruger, but I answer to Herbie.”

“I’m sure you’ll love it, Herbie. Where’re you calling from, Germany?”

“No, I’m in London,” he lied. “But you can put me down for two registrations.” He gave her his name again and a credit card number.

“Don’t forget to book the hotel accommodations yourself.” She gave him a number. Then: “I’ll need an address.”

“Can I pick the tickets up at the hotel?”

“When you come in to register, of course. And I’ll need the name for the other registration.”

“Olesker, I’ll spell it, O-L-E-S-K-E-R. Rebecca Olesker.”

“We’ll see you at the World Magic Summit, then, Mr. Kruger. Look out for me—Jane Smith Ruggiero.”

“Look forward to it.”

He went through to the dining room, beaming and looking generally as though he were a cat who had just licked all the cream.

“Bex,” he said quietly, leaning over to whisper in her ear. “I know who killed Gus.”

“You do? Who?”

“Not now. Later. We’re going to the States.”

“Both of us?”

“Very necessary. We can book tickets when we deal with Hisham’s bookings after lunch. Also we have to talk to Carole.”

“And someone else, I think,” she said pointedly as Bitsy came in carrying a tray with three bowls and a tureen of what looked like pea soup.

“
Potage Longchamp
.” Bitsy smiled, serving them.

“Pea soup.” Herb grinned. “Nothing like a good pea soup, eh, Bits?”

“I like it. Made it from the ham stock. That piece of ham we had the other evening.”

“I like a good slice of ham as well.” Herbie continued to grin at her. “You like a little cut off the joint, Bits?”

“Oh, I …What do you mean?”

“Question time, Bits.”

“Question ti—?”

“Don’t worry Bitsy. No names, no pack drill, as we Brits say. Just need the truth, whole truth, nothing but truth. We won’t say a word if we get the truth.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Questions. Bitsy, you ever work with Gus?”

“I did safe houses. Did some for him, of course. I also handled visiting firemen from time to time.”

“What you mean by ‘handled’?”

“Just the usual. Made sure the cars were at the airport. Booked the rooms, if that was necessary.”

“Ever keep any of them happy, Bits?”

“Keep any of them …? what do you mean, exactly, Mr. Kruger.”

“What I mean is, did old Gus come to you one day—1983, maybe ’84, but who’s counting? Did he ever come to you and say, ‘Look, Bitsy, I’ve got this Arab asset in that safe house in New Cavendish Street, just off Marylebone High Street. He needs a bit of classy nooky. Will you provide?’ Gus ever say that to you, Bits?”

“
THAT’S ONE OF THE
most insulting suggestions I’ve …” Bitsy Williams could not seem to find the right words, her face turned beet red, and her eyes had that glint of rage one can just catch in the eye of a doomed bull ready to charge during a corrida.

“Not as insulting as hearing it in an open court of law, Bitsy.” A stillness came over Herbie, and his voice, while not unfriendly, assumed a hard, rocky quality—the voice of a man with whom you did not trifle. “That’s where it’ll all come out if you don’t cooperate. Understand?”

Kruger the unstoppable, Bex thought. She also realized why this big, seemingly uncoordinated man was so attractive. It was not his looks or manner, but his dependability; his gift of being able to focus on a situation, cut though the dross and lance straight to the heart of the business in hand.

When she had first met him, Bex Olesker had little idea of how the man operated. The brass at Vauxhall Cross had painted a picture of a man who was a legend, a cerebral giant.

“If Herbie can’t solve the problem, nobody can,” one of the senior members of the SIS had told her. “He works, like God, in mysterious ways. This business is one of ninety percent boredom and ten percent action and fear. Don’t believe what you’ve read in the novels, because it just isn’t true. Most of the time you’re a laboratory assistant, working to rule. Don’t blame the novelists, they have to spice it up a little. They have to please their readers. Old Herb may be almost over the hill, but he has the ability to see through the jumble of life’s follies and cut straight to the center. That brain may seem slow, but it’s blessed with a kind of logic that’s ideal for this sort of job. He also has incredible intuition, which is, of course, born of experience.”

She had detected none of this when she first met him, but slowly it had dawned on her that Kruger had a tenaciousness coupled with a comprehension unrivaled in this kind of work.

“Come on, Bits,” he said now. “No harm’s done, except one terrorist girl got herself killed. I’m trying to help. Look, I knew from the start that you wanted to be in on the Gus investigation, that you were desperate to stay attached to the op. I guessed you had some reason, maybe—I thought—you were a shade concerned that you might figure as a walk-on in Gus’s book. Well, you don’t appear in the book, Bitsy. I be honest, I don’t think old Gus ever wanted the book published. I couldn’t work out why you’d take a job like chief cook and bottle washer here. Then I got it. You needed to be on hand. You …” He stopped.

Bitsy was hunched in her chair, miserable, tears just visible. “He talked me into it. I was between boyfriends, needed some kind of reassurance, so I whored for Gus. The bastard could charm snakes from baskets and birds off trees. I whored for him, Herb.”

“No, you did something that was needed.”

“It wasn’t even a honey trap. I could feel better if I had done it for my country …”

“You did, Bits. Did it for country and helped keep an asset sane. Now I need you to identify him. Sorry, but is necessary.”

She nodded, sniffed and then nodded again.

“And while we’re at it, Bitsy, I suggest you give us the full story. Sure, you opened your legs for an asset Gus was burning. Then it became a little more than that.”

Bitsy looked down. Looked at her plate. A lock of hair fell across her forehead. When she spoke, her voice was so soft that they both had to strain to hear her. “Yes. It became something more.”

“Like what?” Herb’s question cracked like a revolver shot. She stayed silent. “Like what, I asked, you dumb bitch?”

“Herbie, I—”

“Cut the Herbie. I’m Mr. Kruger to you. Strictly, you’re a fucking traitor, Bitsy Williams.”

“But he was working for us. On our side. I didn’t think—”

“You didn’t think nothing, you silly, stupid, limp-brained idiot.”

“He
did
work for us. I was there. Was there when Gus was turning him. I heard so much of it.”

Kruger let out a long sigh, as though he were somehow deflating. “Look, Bitsy,” his voice kinder now. “Look, tell you what I’ll do. I’ll bury the evidence.”

“What evidence?”

“The telephone logs.”

“I only used the house phone twice. Two calls, lasted about a minute each.”

“I know that, but you should’ve known better. They’re logged and we’ve got the number you called. I’ll bury it for you. Keep you out of court.”

“Why would you do that?”

“You’ve been led by the charms between your legs. You know what they say about the guys we sprang honey traps on? They say that they get led by their gentiles—”

“Genitals, Herb.”

“Sure, Bex. I know. Only they don’t use such a polite term.” He leaned towards Bitsy. “You were also led in the same way. I don’t for a minute think you meant to betray, get me killed, get anyone killed; but you very nearly did. How did you work it? That damn telephone box down on the corner, near the army camp?”

She nodded, lips quivering.

“Okay. Just tell me, true or false. You gave sexual comfort a long time ago to someone Gus turned. Then things got out of hand. Right?”

“Yes.”

“You told him you loved him. He said he loved you. Right?”

“Yes.”

“You pleaded with him to come back to London as often as he could. Right?”

“Yes.”

“And every time he came back, you saw him, met him, screwed him and talked to him on the telephone. Right?”

“Yes.”

“How often did he come back?”

“Couple of times a year. Sometimes for two months. One year he came back for three months. Summer of ’88.”

“Then, bingo, he came back and said you must be quiet. Only telephone him at certain times. You realized it had something to do with Gus. That it?”

“I didn’t think he had killed Gus, but I wanted to be around the investigation. Just to keep an eye on things.”

“He ask you to do this?”

“Yes.”

“And you knew his crypto.”

She nodded. “
Ishmael
.”

Herbie nodded. “Bitsy, is
this
true? Were you in so deep with him that you gave him information about the comings and goings here because you thought, with Gus dead, he might not have a friend in the world—
our
world?”

“That’s it exactly.”

“So you let him know when I was going somewhere, or when Young Worboys was coming down here. You gave him a chart, a flight plan, every time anyone moved. That it?”

“It’s what I did, yes.”

“Because you thought he might be out on a limb?”

“That, and the fact that I loved him.” Then, quickly: “Not anymore, Herb. I couldn’t care less. In fact, I’m mixed up. Can hate be so close to love?”

“Hate is
very
close to love, Bitsy. I know. I’ve been through all that.”

“Will they charge me with …?”

“I don’t think they’ll charge you with anything, Bits. I think you should leave the Service. Early retirement. I’ll put in a good word, even though you nearly got me killed. Okay?”

“Whatever you say, Her—Mr. Kruger.”

“Good, we’ll get it over with, then you can get on with your life. Let me make a call, set it up …”

“He won’t see me?”

“’Course he won’t. We do a through-the-looking-glass game, which is good because the guy still really doesn’t know which side he’s on.” He bit down on a piece of French bread, took two large spoonfuls of soup and was away, lurching out of the room.

In Gus’s study he called the main house and just caught Worboys as he was about to leave. Five minutes later, they were both behind Gus’s locked door and Herbie was laying out a plan of campaign.

Worboys listened to the theory, asked a couple of questions, tested two of Herb’s statements, then listened again as Kruger outlined all that needed doing immediately.

“Need it all now, Tony. Have to move like a force ten gale. Lot to do.”

“And I carry the can if anything goes wrong. You realize that?”