The Jackal's Share (2 page)

2.

A
S A BOY WEBSTER
had been a chorister, until his voice had broken, and he still felt the pull of the church’s rituals even if its teachings had long ago lost their hold. Some of the stories had stayed with him, the narratives shaky but the mood—the sunlit, rock-like clarity of both Testaments—still clear, and with little effort he could recall how they had once made him feel: pained, guilty, compassionate, at one with sinners everywhere. When he was twelve he had been asked to serve on Good Friday, a great honor, and following the priest in his procession from one Station of the Cross to the next he had had to pinch the soft flesh on his upper arm to hold back the tears.

There were twenty-five years now between him and that devout, perhaps better incarnation. A full ten years, even, since he had left Russia, all traces of his faith trodden out, and in that time he had built, with his wife Elsa, a happy, blessed life that he gave thanks for every day. The thanks were undirected now, but he gave them nonetheless, and until this year had rarely stopped to wonder where he meant them to go. But ever since Lock’s funeral, scenes from distant childhood had been breaking in on his thoughts and causing him to wonder whether they were a message or an indulgence; whether they were trying to tell him something or merely offer some obscure comfort to his subconscious.

Lock had died just before Christmas; the funeral, which Webster had attended discreetly, had been held on Christmas Eve; and for the rest of winter and all of the spring his death had occupied Webster without let-up. The Germans had wanted him back for further questioning, and then to give evidence to the inquest—whose predictable verdict, finally, was that Lock had been murdered in Berlin by sinister forces (
finsteren Mächte
in German) who had meant to assassinate his client, Konstantin Malin. The report hadn’t said so, of course, but Webster knew that one of the few clear conclusions to be made from the whole episode was that without his meddling Lock would be alive.

So perhaps it wasn’t surprising if his mind was searching around for solace. Let it; he couldn’t control it. But for himself, he didn’t want to be soothed. All he wanted was to work, concentrate, be a good father—and let time and fate decide whether he was doing the right thing.

Three days before Mehr’s memorial service, then, on a dark, wet afternoon in early May that was more like winter than the end of spring, Webster had found himself in a boardroom by St. Paul’s delivering findings to a firm of private equity investors. Through the glass that covered one side of the building he could see a few tourists scattered over the cathedral steps, the freshly cleaned stone of the facade shining in the rain, the great dome above, and across the river, the dull brown of Bankside tower cutting across the gray line of the Sydenham Hills ten miles beyond. It was a grand view, even in the half-light, and a grand backdrop for two young men in suits, one of them taking notes, the other playing with a hand press (which, he had explained, was part of the therapy for a boxing injury). They seemed as keen to be there as he was.

Four weeks earlier they had given him a routine piece of work: to find out whether there was anything about a man called Richard Clifford that might embarrass them when they came to sell his fashion business on the Stock Exchange. It was due to list the following month, and because the market was quiet, and the company prominent, the world, Webster had been told, would be watching.

Clifford’s reputation was good, his visible profile, in the accepted phrase, spotless: no scandal, no litigation, no bankruptcies. But a particularly voluble former client had mentioned “that business in the newspapers”—lightheartedly almost, joking that such things would be viewed rather more seriously now—and when pressed had tightened up, saying it had been a long time ago and that was all he was prepared to say. After a day in the library, Webster’s researcher had found two articles, both from the late 1980s, that set out with typical clarity how the
News of the World
had caught Clifford in a sting operation handing over money in exchange for sex with an underage prostitute. A picture showed him bearded and young, all of thirty-one, shielding his face from the photographer he had found on his doorstep one morning.

“You’re kidding,” said the man with the injured hand, leaning forward on the table between them, his shoulders massive under a shirt that seemed too small for him. He had a taut, blockish face framed with thinning fair hair and set in the constant frown of the important man. His colleague, making notes, merely shook his head and exhaled slowly.

“I’m not,” said Webster.

“How could he have kept that quiet?”

“He was charged with procuring but it never went to court.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I suspect his lawyer claimed it was entrapment and the CPS got nervous.”

“Bullshit.”

Webster raised an eyebrow.

“He can’t have known she was underage.”

“He knew.” From the wallet of documents in front of him Webster picked a large, folded piece of paper and slid it across the table. “They printed the advertisement they used.”

The boxer opened the article, studied it for perhaps ten seconds, and as he passed it to his friend stared at Webster for a long moment as if that might force him to stop this nonsense and finally tell the truth. There was sweat on his brow and the frown had turned from grave to incredulous. Webster knew what he was thinking: there goes my fucking deal.

“Is that your only source? The
News of the World
?”

Webster nodded.

“Well it’s not surprising it never went to court, is it?”

“The
News of the World
didn’t make things up. Not like that. Not then.”

“Of course not.”

“They had more lawyers than any other newspaper in London. I talked to the journalist. There were two, one died. It was part of a series of stings. They advertised in a Dutch contact magazine and reeled them in. Clifford’s was the first letter they received.”

“For fuck’s sake. Are you making this up?” He shook his head, took his phone from his pocket and left the room.

For a moment Webster and the boxer’s colleague looked at each other.

“How bad is this?” said the colleague, finally.

“What he did or what it means?” Webster was losing patience.

“You know.”

“It means your man used to be repugnant. He may still be. And if I know, others know.”

The client nodded once and sighed. “Christ.” He wrote something in his notebook. “Who else?”

“The journalist. She’s retired. Her editor, if he remembers. And then you tell me. Circulation was about three million at the time.”

The boxer came back into the room, finishing his call, and stood at one end of the conference table.

“No . . . no. I’ll tell him . . . Fuck, I don’t know.” He hung up and looked at Webster. “Have you written this down?”

His colleague stopped writing. Webster sighed. “This,” he took a thin document from the plastic wallet in front of him, “is a draft report. Of all the things I made up.”

“Take it home. Shred it. And if this appears in the fucking papers I’ll know how it got there.”

Webster stared at him. “Excuse me?”

He held Webster’s eye. “You’re loving this. Do you have any idea how much work we’ve done?”

Webster gathered his papers and stood up.

“You’ll have my bill in the morning. If I were you I’d think seriously about quietly retiring Mr. Clifford. At the very least.”

He made to leave, but the boxer blocked his way, standing at the end of the table by the door.

“Two years,” he said. “Two years of my time, his time. Half this office has worked on this.”

Webster studied him for a moment; there was sweat along his hairline and his neck was tight against his collar. He was giving another of his deliberate stares, and tilting his head forward slightly, presumably for menace.

“Perhaps you should have come to me earlier,” Webster said.

The boxer put his good hand on Webster’s chest. Webster left it there and looked him in the eye, wondering for a moment what would happen if he were to bring his head down hard on that stubby, flattened nose.

“I’m leaving now.”

“If this deal doesn’t go through, you don’t get paid.”

“If I don’t get paid, you break our contract, and I tell everyone about the company you keep. Now take your hand off, and move.”

“You’d do that, wouldn’t you?”

“If it was up to me I’d have done it already.”

The boxer finally stepped back a full pace and Webster passed him, nodding to his colleague and thanking him politely for his time.

•   •   •

A
FINE,
cold spring rain fell as Webster walked back to Ikertu through old streets toward the Inner Temple, where warm squares of light glowed in the dusk. This whole block of London, half a square mile to the west of the City, was given over to the service of clients. The lawyers had been here for hundreds of years, and after them had come accountants and advisers and consultants of every stripe. And a certain sort of detective, Webster thought.

In the rooms all around him lawsuits were being compiled, audits made, presentations pored over, efficiencies mooted, debts rationalized, strategies dreamed up by a legion of associates and directors and partners, all recording their hours, some their minutes, all billing at a healthy rate. It was its own world with its own etiquette, rituals, dress, but Webster, in his tenth year of this, still struggled to feel like he belonged. When he sent out a bill to a client and saw that they were paying thousands of pounds a day for him, he wondered first how it could be so much, then how any client could possibly afford to pay, then what possible value his work might have. He didn’t doubt himself; he knew that he was good at what he did. Rather, he watched the hours being worked and noted and charged and found it hard to believe that any of them were contributing much to the well-being of the world.

There was a message for him from the office. Waiting at Ikertu was a new client who had dropped in unannounced, asked to speak to Hammer, and in his absence said that he was happy to wait for Webster’s return. The ones who didn’t make appointments were usually flakes, and Webster found himself hoping that it wouldn’t take long.

His first thought, on seeing the strange figure across the Ikertu lobby, was that he must have been raised in the dark—forced, perhaps, in an unlit shed, and not yet colored in. He was rigidly monochrome: black hair, precisely parted against the palest skin; a white shirt framed by a black tie and suit; black socks, black shoes and beside him a briefcase, also black, which had folded over it a dark-gray macintosh. He read a newspaper at arm’s length and sat so still that he might have been set from a mold. An hour had passed since he had called but he seemed unconcerned, as if time, like color, was something worldly that he scorned.

Sensing that someone was approaching he looked up and stood. He was a head shorter than Webster, insubstantial inside his well-cut clothes, and gave a strange, confusing impression of lifelessness competing with great energy. Webster couldn’t tell how old he was: forty, perhaps, or fifty.

“Ben Webster,” said Webster. “Sorry to have kept you. I had a meeting.”

The man’s hand was cool as Webster shook it, but dry, the bony grip weak. He held Webster’s for a moment and smiled an empty smile. Up close his skin was like wax, tight against his cheekbones and faintly translucent, and his eyes were a deep petrol gray, the fine red lines in the whites the only color in his face. But what was most striking as he talked were his teeth, which were little and sharp like a badger’s and discolored almost to blackness.

“Delighted, Mr. Webster.” The voice was thin and slightly hoarse. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a wallet and drew from it a business card which he handed to Webster. On the thick cream card were the words
Yves Senechal. Avocat à la Cour, Paris
. No address, no telephone number. Webster had not expected him to be a lawyer. Lawyers tended to try harder to make a first impression benign.

“Mr. Hammer, he is not here?”

“I’m afraid not. Did you have an appointment?”

“I prefer to see you as I find you. You are his partner?”

“I’m his associate.”

Senechal thought for a moment, the smile gone.

“Very well. Can we talk in private?”

Webster nodded and led him down a dark corridor past several closed doors to a meeting room, Senechal following with a slow, light step. When Ikertu had taken this office, a floor in a tall glass-lined box, Hammer had named each of these rooms after his favorite fictional detectives: Marlowe, Maigret, Beck. This, the largest of them all, was the Wolfe room. Through the window that made up one wall it looked west across Lincoln’s Inn, today a dull green square in the spring gloom.

Senechal declined coffee, took a glass of water, sipped it almost imperceptibly through his thin lips and began. He sat upright, tucked in close to the table, perfectly still.

“I am not here on my own behalf. I have a client who needs your assistance, perhaps.”

Webster let him go on.

“He is a very significant man.” He spoke slowly, his accent heavily French, and his eyes never left Webster’s. “Very significant.”

Webster waited again, struggling to maintain Senechal’s gaze and finding his ghostly face difficult to address. There was something unfinished about it.

“Before I begin,” said Senechal, showing no signs of losing his self-possession, “can I ask you who you are? What is your career? I like to know who people are.”

So do I, thought Webster, but let it go. “I’ve worked here for six years, more or less. Before that for a large American company doing much the same thing.”

“You have always done this work?”

“I used to be a journalist. In Russia.”

Senechal nodded. “So you know about lies. That is good.” He looked at Webster for a moment, as if assessing him dispassionately. “Why did you move companies?”

“Why did I come here? For the chance to work with Ike. With Mr. Hammer.”