The Devil's Breath (13 page)

‘It’s a bug,’ McVeigh said, ‘I found it in the telephone.’ He paused. ‘My telephone.’

‘You think these … men … put it there?’

‘I know they did.’

‘How?’

‘The phone was still in pieces. When I had a good look round, there it was, on the floor, under the window.’

‘Ah …’ The Arab nodded. ‘Telephone engineers.’

McVeigh said nothing, looking at him, the accusation plain in his face. He and Billy had spent hours putting the flat back together again. They’d finally got to bed past midnight, McVeigh swearing the boy to secrecy, all too aware of what might have happened had they both walked in together. Alone, he could cope with most of life’s surprises. Having Billy around, it was very different. He was vulnerable.

McVeigh leaned forward, making his point, still angry. ‘Checking up on me, were you? Making sure you get your money’s worth?’

The Arab frowned, an expression of genuine pain. ‘For £500 a day,’ he said, ‘I don’t expect to be cheated.’

‘Then why do it?’

‘I didn’t do it. Neither would I do it. My friend, we have a contract. You’ve agreed to find out certain facts, ask certain questions. A wise man makes his choice and then stands back. I expect results, Mr McVeigh. Not abuse.’

McVeigh looked at him for a long time. He was a good judge of character, of when someone was lying, and now he knew that he’d got it wrong, badly wrong. He sat back in the chair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I had to be sure.’

The Arab shrugged. ‘It’s OK,’ he said, ‘you made a mistake. Nothing worse.’ He paused. ‘I thought you were flying to Tel Aviv?’

McVeigh nodded. ‘I am,’ he said. ‘Tonight.’

‘Then shouldn’t you be packing?’ the Arab said mildly.
‘Making your phone calls? Earning your money?’ He paused again, his voice soft, the subtlest of reprimands.

McVeigh nodded again, getting up. He’d dropped Billy off at his mother’s at eight, waiting in the car outside while the boy ran upstairs and looked through the drawer where he kept his secrets. He’d found the piece of paper in less than a minute, Yakov’s writing, the address in Tel Aviv, the place where Yakov told him he could write. They had an apartment, he and his wife, an oldish place with a distant view of the sea.

McVeigh stood at the table for a moment. The Arab raised his glass.

‘
Shalom
…’ he said drily. ‘And good luck.’

*

The first time she phoned, Emery said it was impossible. The second time, an hour later, she was in tears. He listened to her for perhaps a minute, and checked his watch. His car had been fitted with a secure mobile. He could work en route. He’d be out there within the half-hour. She wasn’t to worry about lunch.

He drove fast, against the last of the late morning traffic, out through the lush acres of Chevvy Chase, out towards Rockville. Telemann had a house on the eastern edge of the town, modest white clapboard, big shuttered windows, extended out the back. It stood in half an acre of ground, mostly grass that Laura cropped weekly with an ancient power-mower. There was a barbecue pit, and a couple of apple trees, and a swing for Bree.

Bree met him in the drive, hearing the burble from the Chrysler’s holed exhaust when Emery was still a hundred yards away, turning into Dixie Street. She ran out of the house and jumped up at him as he got out of the car. She was slightly retarded, and it showed in her eyes, a look of total trust, almost doglike. At ten, she could barely read or write.

‘Peter,’ she said, ‘Uncle Peter.’

Emery kissed her, taking her hand and following her into the house. The house was cooler after the heat of the street. All the windows were open, and the curtains stirred in the breeze.

Laura emerged from the kitchen. She was wearing an old pair of Telemann’s shorts and a singlet. Her legs were bare, and the
strap had broken on one of her sandals. Every time she moved, the metal buckle banged on the wooden floor. She was carrying a tall glass, something golden topped with ice cubes. She gave it to him, kissing him as she did so. ‘Apple and soda,’ she said, ‘no booze.’

Emery sipped at the drink and put his mobile phone on the window-sill. Bree clattered downstairs with a drawing book. She had two pens in her other hand, and she began to pull Emery towards the table. Laura shooed her away, promising a treat later. Then she glanced at the phone. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly, ‘I know you’re busy.’

Emery shrugged and said nothing. He took her by the arm and led her to the sofa. She was a big woman, broad, well made. Kids suited her, and so did this house of theirs, the vessel that contained their lives. It was spacious, and chaotic, and friendly, a house without pretence or formality. It had resilience, and warmth, and character, so different to the neat, charmless apartment he and his wife tried to call their own. It was a big place, bigger than it seemed from the road, and Laura filled it all with her smile, and her laughter, and her limitless patience.

They sat together on the sofa, Emery sprawled against one arm, instantly at home. Laura sat beside him, her legs drawn up under her chin, the redness under her eyes barely visible beneath the summer tan.

‘It’s terrible,’ she said, ‘horrible.’

‘What is?’

‘Lying to him.’

Emery looked at her. The glasses he wore always made his eyes seem bigger. She’d noticed that. When they were off, he could look quite handsome. She reached forward and took the glasses off. Bree, watching from the stairs, yelped with pleasure and skidded across the floor and seized them. She put them on, circling the room, her hands out in front of her, feigning blindness.

Laura was still looking at Emery. ‘So what do I do?’ she said. ‘Only it’s driving me nuts.’

Emery yawned, apologizing at once. Laura took his hand.

‘You’re tired,’ she said automatically.

‘I am.’

‘You working hard?’

‘Yes.’

‘Same job as Ron?’

‘Yes.’

She nodded, knowing better than to push the questions. All that mattered were the symptoms, the fatigue, the lost tempers, the sleepless nights, the Tuinol in a neat pile on the locker beside the bed. She, above all, knew about those. How to mend empty bodies, broken minds.

‘I love him,’ she said absently. ‘You know that.’

‘Yes.’

She looked at him again, reaching for him, wanting the simple comfort of a hug, her head on his shoulder, her arms around his neck. Bree was still circling the room. She was singing now. She had a remarkable voice, high and soft and pure. It was the one thing in life she did really well, and she sang often. Emery had awakened to her sometimes in the early morning, sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed in the spare room, the door carefully shut behind her, his own infant Buddha. ‘
It’s a little bit funny,
’ she sang, ‘
this feeling inside
…’

Laura stirred. Her eyes were closed. The vein in her neck pulsed slowly, the morning’s storm blown out, the tears quite gone.

‘I nearly told him in New York,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s why I went. I thought it was time.’

‘And?’

‘We made love.’

Emery looked down at her, stroking her hair. Her hair was thick, a rich auburn. She dyed it when she remembered to. It was greying gently underneath.

‘Not a bad trade-in,’ Emery said, ‘under the circumstances.’

Laura said nothing for a moment. Bree had disappeared into the kitchen.

‘Was I right?’ she said at last, ‘not to tell him?’

‘You asking me?’

‘Yes.’

‘How should I know?’

‘Because you know him and you know me. You know the kind of people we are. So—’ she looked up at him ‘—you’ll have a view. That’s not a sentimental thing. It’s not copping out. It’s just the truth. You know the man. You’re a good judge. So—’ she reached up for him again ‘—help me. Tell me what you think.’

Emery nodded and said nothing, staring across the room at the open kitchen door. Bree’s shadow lay across the white linoleum. She was trying to spell her own name on the fridge, a pile of red magnetic letters by her side.

‘How sure are you?’ he said at last.

‘Very.’

‘No grounds for doubt? No second thoughts?’ He paused. ‘Second opinions?’

She shook her head. ‘None. We’ve been that way. You know we have.’

‘So this is really it?’

‘Yep.’

‘Thought it all through?’

‘Yep.’

‘Do or die?’

She looked up at him and risked a small smile.

‘Sure,’ she said. ‘You know the man. Do or die.’

*

Telemann was back at Brussels Airport by early evening. It was Friday evening, and the check-in desks were thick with Eurocrats commuting back to their weekend homes in London and Paris and Rome. Telemann returned the hire car and bought a Lufthansa ticket to Hamburg. The flight didn’t leave for an hour and a half. He checked his bag and crossed the concourse to a bank of telephones. He checked his watch. In Washington, it was half-past twelve.

He dailled the operator and gave her the number and asked for a collect call, scanning the big overhead departures board. Thirty seconds later, Juanita was on the line.

‘Hi,’ he said, ‘it’s me.’

‘I know. The operator told me.’

‘This is a public booth. She tell you that, too?’

‘No. But I figured it out just the same.’

Telemann hesitated for a moment. Using open lines and plain English was strictly left field. Nobody did it. Not unless you wanted to feature in an NSA intercepts digest, your name underlined for further action.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I need to speak with Emery.’

‘He’s not here.’

‘Where is he?’

‘I dunno. But he has the mobile with him. You got the number?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Then I guess you phone it.’

She paused long enough to let him come up with a better idea, then Telemann heard the trill of another phone in the background and a smooth apology from Juanita as she put the caller on hold. Back on the line, she asked him if he was OK. He said he was, and hung up. He waited for a moment in the phone booth, lacking the strength, or perhaps the courage, to make the call. He was out of the office somewhere. It could be a million places. It could be Langley. It could be the attorney’s place over on ‘K’ Street. It might even be the White House, Sullivan’s real office, right up there in the dress-circle. It could be any of these places, but deep in his heart Telemann knew that it wasn’t. Emery was where Laura was. Emery was with his wife.

Bree was back in the room when Emery’s mobile began to ring. She was sitting on the floor in a puddle of sunshine, singing one of her favourite hymns, a Christmas carol she sang year-long, whenever she felt especially happy. She was singing it now. ‘
O come all ye faithful
,’ she crooned, ‘
joyful and triumphant
.’

Emery reached over the back of the sofa and retrieved the mobile from the window-sill. Laura sat back, respectful, considerate. ‘You want me to leave?’

Emery shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Stay.’ He lifted the receiver. He listened to the operator, 3000 miles away. He smiled. He said yes, he’d take the call. There was a brief pause.
Laura was watching him carefully, half-aware of what was happening, who was at the other end.

‘Ron,’ Emery said at last. ‘Buddy.’

Hearing her father’s name, Bree’s smile widened even further.

‘
Come and behold him
,’ she sang. ‘
Born the King of angels
,

O come let us adore him

O come, let us adore him

O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord
.’

Standing in the booth at Brussels Airport, Telemann held the phone away from his ear, blinking, unable to believe it. Bree. His daughter. Her song. On Emery’s mobile phone. He shook his head, trying to dislodge the sound, hearing in the background another chord, deeper, a rumbling noise, the blood sucking noisily around his own body. This is madness, he told himself. Madness. I’m going mad. He lifted the phone again, hearing Emery’s voice, hesitant, worried.

‘Ron?’

Telemann looked out at the concourse, up at the departures board, anywhere, anything to empty his mind of that one overpowering image, Emery, Pete Emery, out in the little house on Dixie. He stared at the departures board, blinking again. For some reason, quite suddenly, he could see two of everything. Two destinations. Two flight numbers. Two take-off times. He rubbed his eyes. Double vision, he thought. Madness made real.

‘Pete?’ he mumbled.

‘Yeah?’

‘Where the hell are you?’

‘Your place. With Laura. And Bree. You wanna word?’

The singing had stopped. Telemann swallowed hard. The balls on the man. No sign of panic, or guilt, or remorse. Not a single missed beat in that deep, slow voice of his. Straight buddy talk. Like he was in some bar in Georgetown, and Telemann had happened by, and Emery had called him in from the sidewalk, summoned the bartender and ordered up the usual pitcher.

‘Some party,’ Telemann muttered.

‘What?’

‘I said, some fucking party.’

‘You OK? Tired? Hey—’

Telemann heard the noise of the phone changing hands. Then a new voice, softer, slightly wary, Laura. Telemann closed his eyes, letting his body sag against the corner of the booth. New York, he thought suddenly. That’s why she came to New York. She meant to tell me. Only she didn’t. Couldn’t. Hadn’t.

‘Ron?’

Telemann looked at the phone. The man in the next booth was having a bad time in some other conversation. Telemann could hear him shouting in German, his finger jabbing at some imaginary assailant. His wife, Telemann thought. Another whore.

‘Ron?’

‘Yeah?’

‘You OK?’

‘Yeah.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Not much. You got Pete there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK. I need to speak with him.’

Telemann listened to the dialogue, his own voice, cold, and he marvelled at the control, the way this strange man in the booth had got himself in and out of such a difficult conversation.

Emery returned, laconic as ever. ‘What gives?’

Telemann ignored the question, unfolding the piece of paper he’d got from Vlaedders. He read the name and telephone number down the phone. He was too far gone to worry about open lines. Open lines were for the birds.