Thunder in the Blood (13 page)

‘What?’

‘Come with me. Real treat.’

He was already heading for the door. I followed him. At the end of the hall was a red velvet curtain. So far, I’d assumed it covered a window of some sort, but when Wesley pulled it back there was a map of the world underneath. He looked at it for a moment, speculative. There were holes in the map, all over, the kind you make with a drawing pin. He glanced over his shoulder at me, a sudden grin on his face, one hand reaching into an alcove beside the kitchen door.

‘Treat,’ he said again. ‘Guest of honour.’

‘He produced three darts and gave them to me. ‘Home rules?’

I nodded, none the wiser. ‘OK,’ I said.

‘You stand there.’ He pointed to a small rush mat at the other end of the hall. I did what he asked. ‘Now shut your eyes.’

‘OK.’

‘Throw the first dart.’

‘Where?’

‘At the map.’

‘I might miss.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

I threw the dart. I heard it hit the wall and clatter to the floor.

‘Terrible. Try the next one.’

I did so. The same thing happened again. My eyes were still closed. I felt Wesley beside me.

‘OK. One more. Last one. This time, be gentle. Otherwise, I’m buggered.’

I threw the dart. I heard it hitting the map. It stuck there. I opened my eyes. Wesley was already at the other end of the hall, peering at the dart. When he turned round, he was grinning.

‘Nice one,’ he said. ‘Definite improvement.’

‘Why? Where’s the dart?’

‘Here.’

‘Where’s here?’

‘Morocco.’ He paused, checking again. ‘Just south of Tangiers. Very promising.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means I’ll die there. It’s a game. I play it when I’m happy. It takes the wondering out of waiting.’ He turned back to the map. ‘Last week it was here.’ He indicated a hole off the bottom of South America, an inch or so from the Falklands. ‘Can you imagine anything worse? All those fucking penguins?’

Back in the living room, we started on the remains of a bottle of Bells. It was way past eleven. Stollmann would be out in the cold by now, sitting in the car, waiting for me. I looked across at Wesley. The cat was back on his lap, a deep throaty purr, staring down at the fire.

‘Are you frightened?’ I said.

‘Of what?’

‘Death.’

‘No. Not at all. I’m pissed off about one or two other things. But not death.’

‘What, then?’

He glanced up at me. ‘Is that a serious question?’

‘Yes.’

He nodded, saying nothing for a moment, the madness and the laughter quite gone. ‘Pain,’ he said. ‘I’m not crazy about pain. And blindness I can do without. That’s in the script, too, towards the end. A lot of guys go blind.’

‘I know.’ I paused. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yes.’

‘What?’ I glanced up.

‘Toxo,’ he said quietly. ‘No bullshit. I’m terrified of toxo.’

Toxo is AIDS shorthand for toxoplasmosis. It’s an infection
which affects the brain and nervous system. Two of the consequences are seizures and partial paralysis. Another is dementia, medical code for early senility. Your memory goes. You forget how to speak. You lose all physical control. You dribble your way to the grave.

‘Horrible,’ I agreed. ‘Ghastly.’

‘You’re right,’ he muttered, ‘but it might happen.’

I looked round for the bottle of whisky, sensing the cue for another shot of Bells. Wesley was on his feet again, bending over a small table beside his hi-fi stack.

‘Scotch?’ I asked, holding out the bottle.

Wesley didn’t say anything. He appeared not to have heard me. He turned round, an audio cassette in his hand.

‘How old are you?’ he said.

I blinked. ‘Twenty-nine.’

‘That’s young, isn’t it?’

‘What for?’

‘Your line of work.’

I began to answer him, some nonsense about voluntary agencies recruiting lots of young graduates, but he ignored what I was saying, slotting the cassette into the hi-fi stack and turning up the sound. He set the counter and pressed the fast forward button, watching the numbers spool by. After a while, he stopped the tape.

‘Another game,’ he said, ‘different rules.’

He pressed the play button and wound up the volume still more. I heard a key turning in a lock. Then the creak of a door opening. After a while, there were footsteps on bare lino. Then, very distinct, the sound of a woman’s voice. My voice.

‘Scourge,’ it said, ‘Scourge.’

I felt the blood rising to my scalp. I lay back in the chair. I closed my eyes. Wesley stopped the tape. There was absolute silence. After a long time, I heard him stirring. He obviously put the tape machine on record when he went out. Or maybe it was wired to the front-door catch. Either way, I should have checked.

‘Who gave you the key?’

‘Aldridge.’

‘When did you meet him?’

‘Today. Lunchtime.’

‘Have you met him before?’

‘Never.’

There was another silence.

‘How did you get here tonight?’

‘By car.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Up the road.’

‘Who else is with you?’

I opened my eyes. Wesley was standing beside the hi-fi. The cat was winding itself around his ankles. He repeated the question. I ignored it.

‘You knew,’ I said. ‘You knew it all. From the moment I walked in. Tonight.’

‘Of course.’

‘Is that why…’ I looked at him, gesturing round at the empty cans of Guinness, the overflowing ashtray. ‘All this? Everything we’ve talked about?’

He said nothing for a moment. Then he reached for my glass. There was an inch of Scotch left in the bottle. He gave me all of it.

‘Who do you work for?’ he said.

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Special Branch?’

‘No comment.’

‘MI5?’

‘I said no comment.’

‘I heard you.’

‘Then you’ll understand.’

Wesley nodded, the empty bottle still upturned over my glass. ‘How much freedom do they give you?’

‘Who?’

‘Whoever it is. Those bosses of yours. The big guys upstairs?’

Despite everything, I began to laugh. The situation had gone beyond embarrassment to something close to farce.

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘You’ve been very clever and very amusing, and if it matters at all I’ve liked all this a lot, but you can’t expect me—’

‘All what?’ he said.

‘All this. Tonight. Talking to you. Being here.’

‘That matter? Any of that?’

‘Of course. But—’

‘You
do
know about AIDS?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re telling me there’s some kind of other problem? Some kind of career thing? Loyalty thing? Moves you don’t want to make? Something you don’t want to put on the line?’ He paused. ‘You think any of that shit
matters?
You think I care about any of that? You think you should?’

I put the glass down, uncertain now, hazy with drink, unsure whether this was more playacting or the real thing. Wesley had baited the trap, skewered me beautifully and spent most of the evening watching me make a fool of myself. Now, it seemed, the games were over.

‘Listen,’ I said quietly, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘
Sorry?
What does that fucking mean?’

‘I didn’t want to …’I shrugged. ‘You weren’t supposed to …’

‘Yeah. But I did. So what happens now? Have you searched the place? Taken stuff away?’

‘No…’ I hesitated.

‘Why not?’

‘I didn’t have time.’

‘Pathetic.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Pleasure. Here,’ he picked up the glass of whisky, ‘drink it, shit.’

He turned away, shaking his head, bending to the cat, lifting it up. When he turned round again, his eyes were moist.

‘You know what’s really hard?’ he said.

I shook my head. ‘No.’

‘Tonight. I really enjoyed it. Liked your company. Doesn’t happen too often. You know that? God’s truth.’

I looked at him for a long time. Then I lifted my glass. ‘Cheers,’ I said softly. ‘Your health.’

13

Next morning, Stollmann rang at half past seven. I answered the phone, still wet from the shower. Six hours earlier, driving back from Guildford, I’d told him very little. Keogh, I’d said, was probably close to full-blown AIDS. The man was difficult and wild and probably brilliant, just the way the brief had phrased it, but he had no special affection for people like me, and – as yet – the disease hadn’t left him helpless. He’d indicated no great urge to meet me again and as far as I could see our brief relationship was over. Of the evening’s final conversation – the tape, the anger, the hint of tears – I’d made no mention.

In the Rover, coming back, Stollmann had said virtually nothing. Now, he asked me whether I was dressed.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘I’m sitting in a car outside your flat. I thought I might come up.’ He paused. ‘I’ve bought a couple of rolls. Cheese…’ he paused again, ‘and pickle.’

I went to the window and peered round the curtain. Stollmann was gazing up at me through the windscreen of a blue Metro. A brief flutter of his right hand was the closest he got to a wave.

‘Give me five minutes,’ I said. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

By the time Stollmann appeared, I had the coffee brewed and ready. He stood in the hall holding a small white paper bag. He looked tired and a little hesitant. When I offered to hang up his coat, he shook his head. Out of his element, away from the office, he was incredibly shy.

‘This needn’t take long,’ he mumbled, offering me the bag. ‘Want one?’

I shook my head and put the rolls on a plate for him, soft white baps with curling sheets of orange cheddar and a smear of
Branston, very Stollmann. He sat on the sofa, munching the rolls in total silence, trying to keep the crumbs off the carpet. I spared him the chore of conversation, half listening to the weather forecast on the radio from the kitchen. High winds and more rain. Welcome to winter.

‘We’re pulling you out of Registry,’ Stollmann said at last, ‘as of now.’

‘We?’

‘Me.’

‘Why?’

‘I want you to work from here. There’ll be no need to go near the office. You’ll be reporting to me personally. If you need access to Records, give me a ring. I’ve got a couple of numbers for you.’ He reached inside his coat and produced a slip of paper. The way he held it suggested I’d won a prize in some raffle or other.

I reached for the coffee pot. ‘Doing what?’ I said carefully.

‘Keogh. I want you alongside him. I want to know exactly what he’s up to, how far he’s got, what might happen next.’

‘That’s what you wanted yesterday.’

‘I know.’

‘But I told you. The man’s difficult. He’s no fool, either. So what am I supposed to do? Beat it out of him?’

‘You’ll have to find a way…’ Stollmann paused, the slip of paper still in his hand, ‘make a friend of the man, make him need you.’

‘But he doesn’t need me,’ I lied, watching him carefully now, determined to find out exactly what lay behind this visit. Apart from my brief liaison with Priddy, Stollmann had never before expressed a moment’s interest in my private life. Indeed, until this morning I wasn’t aware he even knew where I lived. Something must have happened, though God knows what.

‘You think he’s some kind of ferret?’ I said lightly. ‘You want me to bag him up and cart him around with me? Only it would help if you told me a bit more. Like which holes to pop him down. And why. Nothing difficult. Nothing ultra-classified. Just the odd clue.’

Stollmann stared at me. The way I put things always made him uncomfortable. He hated directness, the straight question, though he himself was never less than blunt. Now he pushed his precious
piece of paper towards me and picked up the other roll.

‘There’s a problem with time,’ he said, through a mouthful of cheese and pickle. ‘He’s going to America on Wednesday.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’ve been checking the passenger lists. He’s booked on American Airlines. To Dallas.’

I remembered the Access chit on the mantelpiece with its pencilled note. DFW was airline code for Dallas/Fort Worth.

‘That’s tomorrow,’ I said. ‘What do you expect me to come up with by then?’

‘I told you. A relationship.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘He’s got to need you,’ he said again. ‘Medically. Socially. Any bloody way you like.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you’re going with him.’

‘To America?’

‘Yes.’

I stared at him for a moment, wondering whether he’d gone mad. As far as I knew, Stollmann was still swimming three times a week. Maybe the chlorine had got to him. Maybe he’d fallen in love with one of the lifeguards.

‘Listen,’ I said slowly, ‘there’s something I haven’t explained.’

‘Oh?’

I told him about my afternoon visit to Wesley’s flat, the tape-machine running, our brief late-night confrontation about its contents. The man knew already. There was no way I could fool him. Agent Moreton. Counsellor turned spook. Stollmann was still demolishing the last of his roll. He wiped his mouth, reaching for the coffee.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘You still go.’

‘As me?’

‘As whoever you like.’

‘And do what?’

‘Keep an eye on him. Stay alongside him. Meet whoever he meets …’ he paused, ‘and keep me briefed.’

‘What happens if he says no?’

‘He won’t.’

‘How do you know?’

Stollmann glanced up at me and for a moment his eyes strayed down my body. It’s tempting to think I misinterpreted this little piece of fantasy, but at the time I couldn’t believe the inference.

‘The man has AIDS,’ I said quietly. He’s gay. And infectious.’

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I understand that.’

‘So explain to me how I get him onside. Hypnosis? Heavy drugs?’

Stollmann shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. Play it any way you like. You have
carte blanche.
As long as you make it to Dallas. And as long as you stay in touch.’ He nodded at the phone numbers, still on the table. ‘OK?’

I shrugged, picking up the piece of paper, checking the scribbled digits, noticing that they weren’t the phones on Stollmann’s desk. I glanced up. Stollmann was studying his hands, not saying anything. He looked exhausted, even a little lost, an orphan from some storm he refused even to acknowledge. I’d never seen him so deflated, so careworn. He looked as if he needed a good cuddle.

‘These numbers,’ I began, ‘they’re new. They’re not even Curzon House.’

Stollmann nodded, still not looking at me, stifling a yawn, glancing at his watch. ‘You’re right,’ he said at last. ‘They’re not.’

Stollmann left ten minutes later. We’d agreed that I’d report to him on a daily basis and to no one else. My work in Registry had already been reassigned and word was being circulated that I’d been released on indefinite leave. He’d send round a ticket for the Dallas trip, plus a substantial float in dollar traveller’s cheques. The way he put the latter detail left me in no doubt that the operational budget was, for once, no problem. I was to empty Wesley Keogh of everything he knew. If money was the price, then so be it. Watching Stollmann from the window as he stooped to get into his Metro, I wondered yet again why Wesley’s thesis should have rung quite so many bells. Maybe Aldridge had been right after all. Maybe there was some conflict of interest over arms sales. Too many American snouts in the trough. Precious little left for the likes of us.

A few minutes later, I phoned Wesley. He took an age to answer, and for a second or two I wondered whether I was talking to the same man. He seemed to be having trouble getting the words in the right order. He sounded about seventy.

‘It’s your friend from last night,’ I said carefully. ‘The one who left in disgrace.’

He tried to laugh, but ran out of puff.

‘Who do you work for today?’ he said finally. ‘Or haven’t you decided yet?’

I smiled. A conversation I’d been dreading seemed more natural than I could ever have hoped.

‘You sound terrible,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

‘I found a bottle of schnapps. After you left.’

‘And?’

‘Most of it’s gone.’

I tut-tutted on the phone.

‘You should be careful,’ I said, ‘drinking neat spirits like that.’

‘Bad for me?’

‘Terrible. Shorten your life.’

He laughed then, a mini-cackle, and when I asked whether he’d be in if I drove down, he said to come anyway, regardless.

‘But you need to be in,’ I said patiently, ‘to answer the door.’

‘Why,’ he said, ‘when you’ve already got the key?’

I got to Guildford around noon. When I pulled up outside the house, two men in the front garden were taking down the ‘For Sale’ board. One of them looked like an estate agent. The other was doing the work. I let myself in at the side door and climbed the stairs to Wesley’s flat. I had two tins of designer cat food for Scourge and a huge bunch of freesias I’d bought at a lay-by on the A3. I was still bewildered by Stollmann’s brief, but I thought I might as well start with a peace offering. When I opened the door at the top of the stairs, I found Wesley on his hands and knees with a pair of rubber gloves and a bucket of bleach.

‘Heavy night,’ he confirmed, scrubbing hard at the lino, working his way slowly towards the kitchen.

I made coffee for both of us. Afterwards, we sat in the living room. The curtains were still drawn and the gas fire was still on. Apart from the change of clothes, it was almost as though I’d never left. Wesley sat in the armchair, his knees to his chin, surrounded by pillows. He looked terrible.

‘Self-abuse,’ I said after a while, ‘or something nastier?’

‘Self-abuse.’ He nursed the hot mug between his hands and nodded at the video remote-control unit on the table between us.
‘Press the button marked play,’ he said thickly. ‘I don’t know how much they’ve told you, but there’s something I want you to see.’

I did what he asked. A shape appeared on the screen, a big blue ‘E’ that whirled into focus from nowhere, accompanied by a series of self-important chords on a synthesizer. The ‘E’ fattened and elongated. More letters appeared, the chords building and building until finally the company’s logo settled centre-stage.
‘THE EXTEC CORPORATION’,
it read,
‘EXCELLENCE IN TECHNOLOGY’.

The screen went abruptly black, the music fading. Then we were airborne over a stretch of desert, the urgent American commentary voice underscored by the steady ‘whump-whump’ of helicopter rotor blades. It was 26 February 1991. One of the biggest armoured battles in history had just come to an end. Allied tanks had smashed through Saddam’s defences, rolled north and thrown a noose around tens of thousands of retreating Iraqi troops. Allied deception plans had been a complete success. Saddam’s army had blundered into the killing zone and American technology had done the rest. The Iraqi rout was, the voice-over assured us, a triumph for leading-edge companies like Extec.

I glanced at Wesley. His eyes were half closed.

‘Watch this,’ he said softly. ‘If you can.’

I went back to the screen. We were still airborne, the music back again, a driving bass note, the kind of stuff you normally associate with certain kinds of car commercial. Objects began to appear in the desert, unrecognizable bits of machinery, blasted apart, the sand scorched and blackened around each one. The chopper flew on, more and more wreckage appearing. From several hundred feet up, it was slightly abstract, shapes and colours, totally devoid of human content, but as the music slipped into the minor chord we came down to earth, the camera moving slowly amongst the charred bodies and the shattered tank hulls, the roadside littered with unimaginable horrors.

‘There’s a button beneath play,’ Wesley said. ‘I’ll tell you when to hit it.’

I looked down, finding the button. It said freeze frame. I looked up. On screen, there was an upside-down truck. The wheels had gone and there was a hole where the driver’s door had once been. The American voice on the soundtrack returned, telling us about Extec’s laser-designation skills. The shot changed. We were looking
at the truck from a different angle. Two Iraqi soldiers were lying in the sand. One of them had no head.

‘Now.’

I fingered the button. The image glued itself to the screen, shuddering slightly. Wesley was sitting forward now, one thin arm pointing at the television set. I wondered how many times he’d viewed the sequence, how many times he’d stopped the tape.

‘Guess,’ he said.

‘Guess what?’

‘Guess how many there were. Guys like that.’

I shook my head, sickened already. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Thousands. No one knows for sure. Tens of thousands …’ He paused, looking across at me. ‘… movie fucking extras.’

I nodded, pressing the play button again, and the video wound on, mile after mile of wrecked Iraqi hardware, intercut with lengthy technical asides on the miracles of something called ‘multi-targeting’. After the fourth close-up of a shattered Iraqi face, Wesley told me to turn it off.

I did so, glancing across at him. ‘That’s it?’ I said.

‘No. It gets worse.’

‘You want me to see the rest?’

‘No.’

‘You want to see the rest?’

‘No.’

He shook his head, his knees up to his chin again, the mug of coffee empty. After a moment or two, it occurred to me that he was shaking. I got up and took his arm. It felt freezing. I left the room. There was a spare blanket on his bed and a big duvet. When I got back to the living room, he hadn’t moved. I tucked the duvet around him, aware of the huge eyes following my every movement.

At length, he stirred. ‘Was the AIDS stuff bullshit, or did you mean it?’

‘What AIDS stuff?’

‘Last night. You telling me you knew all about it. Counselling. The medicals. All that.’

‘Oh,’ I nodded. ‘All that.’ I looked down at him for a moment or two, taking my time.

‘Well?’ he said, suddenly tetchy.

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘No bullshit. I’m certainly no doctor but… yes, I know enough.’

Wesley gazed up at me for a moment, then looked down at the video. ‘Thank Christ for that,’ he muttered.