The Jackal's Share (23 page)

21.

I
N
H
AMMER’S OFFICE,
hanging on the wall behind his desk among the other trophies of his career, was a framed quotation in Chinese that he had received from a Mexican client on successfully completing some particularly difficult job. The Mexican, to hear Hammer tell it, was somewhere between eccentric and dangerous: he kept Samurai swords on the wall of his office, tigers for pets at his country home, and a vast library of texts on the nature of combat and war.
The Art of War
was his favorite, and the quotation, in just four characters, said that to know your enemy you must become your enemy. Hammer, intellectually sympathetic to that sort of thing, liked to refer to it often—not least, Webster knew from his own experience, because it was true. But what Webster wanted to know was what Sun Tzu would have to say when you had no idea who you were fighting.

His thoughts were scattered. What he needed more than anything else was to collect them, rank them, lock some away as dangerous or irrelevant, but they tore around his head, ungovernable. But in among them, most insistent of all, were those words: you do not even know my name. And that made his enemy not only impossible to defeat, but impossible to defend against.

Back in the car he played Driss the recording of the meeting and silently prayed that Kamila might track the man down; it seemed unimaginable, however, that he would leave any trace. Driss listened, but couldn’t make out what the man had said to his friend on reading Webster’s report. It wasn’t Arabic, he was sure; it sounded like Farsi.

Webster lit a cigarette—four left now—closed his eyes and took a deep drag, letting the smoke hit the back of his throat like a small act of self-mortification. For a while he just sat in the heat, head back and one elbow out of the car’s open window, keeping the smoke in his lungs a moment before letting it out, forcing himself to relax into its rhythm until slowly the storm in his head began to abate. When he finally opened his eyes he knew three things. One, that he should be at home to protect his family. Two, that this man had to get his money. Three, that Qazai was the key to both.

He took the pay-as-you-go phone that Kamila had given him that morning and dialed Qazai’s cell. It was switched off, but his next call established that he had not yet checked out of his hotel, and he asked Driss to drive him there as fast as he could.

“Is that a good idea?” said Driss.

“Why?”

“The police.”

“When will you hear from your friends?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could we ring the hospitals?”

“If the Frenchman is dead he will not be in hospital.”

“But if he isn’t he will.”

Driss shrugged. “My mother and Youssef are following your man. I am here.”

“I know. It’s OK. Then I have no choice. Let’s go.”

There was every chance, of course, that the police would be wanting to speak to Qazai, or were speaking to him already, but he had to see him; there was no other way.

He and Driss made a plan. They would drive past the hotel, make sure there were no police cars in the area, and then Driss would go in to make his reconnaissance. If all was clear, Webster would find Qazai while Driss, having tea in the lobby, would call him the moment anything happened.

•   •   •

T
HERE WERE NO POLICE
in the hotel, Driss called from the lobby to report, and as far as anyone knew Mr. Qazai was in his room—at least it had not yet been made up. Webster thanked him, locked the car, left the keys in the exhaust, and crossed the street to the hotel gates, looking about him at every car, every driver, every passerby. The heat was so strong he could feel it bouncing back off the sticky tarmac.

Feeling sweaty and thoroughly conspicuous, with his trouser legs flapping above his shoes, Webster limped through the lobby and tried to look like he belonged. A few people were sitting here, drinking tea, leaning forward to have quiet conversations. Despite the loud clack of his leather soles none of the receptionists looked up as he passed, and soon he was in the garden, walking through the shade of the cedars, barely noticing that the racket of the city had given way to the swish of sprinklers and the chattering whistles of unseen birds. To his right, fat orange fish played in the apple-green water of a shallow pond and for a moment Webster longed to join them, to feel the cold on his face and on his side.

He passed half-a-dozen villas before he reached Qazai’s. He unlatched the low gate marked Sultan’s Villa and followed a brick path bordered with flowers until he reached a large private lawn, and standing in it a modern stone structure that was at least three times the size of his house. A portico the width of the building jutted into its own swimming pool; palm trees and cypresses shaded the water and the entrance, which was by way of a tall glass double door. Curtains inside were drawn across it.

Webster paused for a moment, then knocked. Nothing. He knocked again. After half a minute he took off his jacket, draped it over one of the sunloungers, unbuttoned the cuff of Youssef’s shirt and pulled his arm up the sleeve so that his hand was covered. Then he tried the door handle, and found it locked. Once upon a time his favorite private detective back in London had shown him how to open certain locks with a credit card, but he didn’t have his cards anymore. He made a circuit of the building. All the windows were closed and the door he had tried was the only one. There were no small panes of glass to break, no way up to the roof, no obvious way in.

He knocked, harder this time, using the metal of his lighter against the glass, then the heel of his hand, banging as hard as he could.

“Open the door,” he said, leaning in to the glass. “Open the fucking door.” He banged again, and shouted now. “Darius, open this fucking door.”

Behind the glass the curtains parted an inch. Webster couldn’t see in. Then a hand reached through them, the lock turned, and the hand withdrew.

Webster opened the door and slipped through the curtains. It was like walking into a crypt: almost completely dark, its air stale and so cool he felt he must be hundreds of feet underground. He could just make out a low table surrounded by armchairs but otherwise all was in gloom, and as he shut the door behind him he opened the curtains, filling the room with sun.

The light showed Qazai sitting with his hands on his knees, staring straight ahead of him like a drunk in a station waiting room. In front of him was an empty bottle of brandy, a bottle of whisky nearly half gone, and an ashtray full of cigar ends and long ash trails that gave off a decaying, dead smell. He was still in yesterday’s clothes, still wearing his shoes and his crumpled jacket, as if he had made it back here from the desert, sat down with his bottles and not moved since. Occasionally his eyelids drooped and his head lolled before jerking back into place. Christ, thought Webster. What a pair we make.

He looked around the room, at the freshly plastered walls distressed to look centuries old, and saw in one corner a cabinet with glasses arranged on it. Inside it was a fridge full of bottles. Webster took two of them, and a glass, and went to sit by Qazai, watching him for a moment before he spoke and wondering what, if anything, was going on in his head.

He opened one of the bottles and poured.

“Here. Drink this. You need water.”

Qazai looked at him as if seeing him for the first time and reached for the glass, taking only a sip before putting it back on the table. As he sat back a shiver ran through him. His eyes were bloodshot and his forehead was creased in an expression of perpetual pain.

“Have you heard from Senechal?” Webster shook him, desperately hoping that he had. But Qazai simply looked blank. “From Yves? Have you heard from Yves?”

Qazai glanced at him, failing to meet his eye, then looked down at the ground as if considering something, and shook his head. Webster passed him the glass and he drank.

“Are you.” Qazai paused and frowned, as if remembering. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Qazai nodded slowly and reaching up began to scratch his jawline, absently at first and then with more and more energy, like a dog finding a flea.

“And Yves? What did they do to Yves?”

“We need to leave,” said Webster. “Marrakech. We need to go and make a plan. We’ve been given a week. Do you understand? One week. We have to move.” Webster put his hand under Qazai’s arm and started to pull. “And then you can tell me what the fuck you’ve done to my life.”

Qazai turned to look at him, as if for the first time.

“He took my son.” He shook his head again and tears started in his eyes. “He took my son.” Qazai brought his hands up to cover his face, shaking his head harder and harder, pushing his palms into his eyes and clawing at his scalp. “My son,” he moaned, and his voice was thick from crying.

Webster had to get him out of here. The police might turn up at any minute; might already be drawing up outside the hotel.

He reached out and put his hand on Qazai’s shoulder, finding from somewhere a final reserve of patience. “Look at me. Please.” Slowly Qazai took his hands away from his eyes, then drew his sleeve across his face to wipe them. “Very soon I won’t be able to leave here. You need to fly me back to London, and together we need to deal with this. Do you understand? If we do, there’s no reason for anyone else to get hurt. Not Ava. Not your grandchildren. But we have to go. Right now.”

Qazai turned his head to look at him, glanced away and nodded. Under Webster’s hand his shoulder twitched.

“How quickly can you get your plane ready?”

Qazai scratched his jaw. “When . . . when did you see Rad? Did you see him?”

“Is Rad his name?”

Qazai nodded.

“Who is he?” Qazai said nothing, and Webster felt his anger rise. “Who the fuck is he?”

“One of the worst of them. One of the worst.” He looked up at Webster, and his eyes, for the very first time, showed humility. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

•   •   •

W
EBSTER BEGAN TO LOOK
around for Qazai’s things. A suitcase stood outside the bedroom door, clearly unopened since he had arrived.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re going. Do you have anything else? Do you have your passport?”

Qazai didn’t hear; he was staring straight ahead and slowly shaking his head. Webster fitted his hand under his arm and helped him up.

“Do you have your passport?”

Qazai felt inside his jacket and nodded.

“How do we get the plane ready? Where’s the pilot?”

“It’s ready.”

“What time were you due to fly?”

Qazai looked puzzled.

“When were you flying back to London? What time?”

“What . . . what time is it?”

Webster sighed sharply and checked his watch. “Eleven thirty. It’s Saturday.”

Qazai screwed his eyes up, rubbed them with the heel of his hand. “Today. Lunchtime. I was going to call.”

“Do you have your phone?”

Qazai nodded.

“Then call.”

Qazai fished around in his jacket pockets, searching for his phone, and as he did so it rang, an unfamiliar tone. It took Webster a moment to realize that in fact it was his own, the new one Kamila had given him.

“Yes.”

“Two policeman are here.” It was Driss, speaking just above a whisper. “Not in uniform.”

“How can you tell?”

“I know. And they are asking for your friend.”

Shit. Webster closed his eyes and thought. “Bring the car around to the front. Twenty meters to the left of the gates.”

He carried the suitcase into the bedroom, opened it and as quickly as he could put the clothes in drawers and the suitcase, now empty, on a stand in the corner. The wash-bag he took into the bathroom, removing the toothbrush and the toothpaste and laying them out on the basin. Back in the bedroom he pulled back the covers on the bed and messed up the pillows. It would have to do.

Qazai was standing now, hardly steadily, and trying to negotiate his phone.

“Leave that,” said Webster, and ushered him toward the door. “Later.”

“My case.”

“Some people are coming. You don’t want to talk to them.” He started pulling Qazai toward the door at a quick walk but he resisted, trying to go back for his suitcase.

“Leave it. I want them to think you haven’t left. Come on,” he moved behind Qazai and shepherded him through the door. “Out. We’ve got to hurry.”

“What about Yves?”

“You don’t need to worry about Yves.”

He took the key from the lock as they left, put it in his pocket and shut the door quietly. With his finger to his lips he looked at Qazai. “Not a sound. We’re going this way,” and instead of going left down the path he led Qazai to the right of the villa in among the shrubs and trees by the pool. Qazai followed meekly enough, but his tread was heavy and the dry needles from the cypresses crunched loudly under his feet.

Webster kept him close and moved as stealthily as he could away from the villa, checking over his shoulder for signs of the police and avoiding the patches of sunlight that cut through the canopy overhead. Over their own footsteps he heard a metallic clink—the latch, he thought, opening or closing on the gate—and he stopped, one finger on his lips, touching Qazai on the arm and gesturing for him to do the same. Looking back toward the light he saw two men in brown suits walking in no particular hurry along the path to the Sultan’s Villa. Beside him Qazai tottered. As one of the policeman knocked on the door, Webster put his arm around Qazai, who was now leaning heavily against him, and started walking him carefully toward the next villa, which was coming into view between the trees. The policemen knocked again, stood back, looked up at the building’s facade, tried the door handle, found it open, and went in.

“Come on,” said Webster. “Quick.”

Half pushing, half dragging Qazai, he came out by another swimming pool, thankfully empty, and noticed too late the middle-aged couple on their sunloungers in the shade of the villa’s porch.

“Security,” he said, reasoning that English was the language they were most likely to understand and praying that they didn’t start talking to him in French. “We had report of an intruder. I’m afraid he’s drunk. Forgive me.”