The Untouchable (10 page)

There's no answer to it, is there? Can't get rid of the smell. Trust's gone . . . I'm sorry, Joey, believe me. I don't know what else I can say . . . '

She knew the way, from what he'd told her - no confidences but the basics - that the investigation had involved the National Crime Squad, the National Criminal Intelligence Service and, of course, the Crown Prosecution Service, and, the National Investigation Service.

Ferocity in her voice. 'Don't let anyone ever say it was you . . . Don't let anyone ever say the bastard bought you, or frightened you.'

She pushed herself up from the bed, stamped to the door, switched on the light, then went back across the room to the window where she ripped the curtains shut. She seemed to smack her hands together as if it were time to start afresh. She had her back to him as she crouched on the carpet and started to pull together the scattered papers and pack them away, haphazardly, any old order, into the file boxes, then dropped the lot of them beside the door. He didn't protest, had turned to face the wall. She went to the cupboard under the sink, retrieved a bin bag and stuffed the takeaway tinfoil boxes into it. She swept up the bottles and dumped them, too, into the bag.

The mugs went into the sink. The clothes from the floor, and the shoes, she threw headlong into the back of the wardrobe. She rinsed the mugs and his knife and fork, then banged them down on the draining-board. She took the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard beside the shelf on which his crockery was stacked, and ran it over the carpet, searching for rice grains, dust, purging the room. She went to the bed, caught at his T-shirt and spilled him off it, onto the floor. She made the bed, smacked the creases out of the blankets, sheets and pillows, then turned to face the picture on the wall. She reached up to it and carefully, so that Violet's wallpaper would not be damaged, freed it from the floral pattern. She held it in her hands and her fingers quivered.

'That bastard doesn't own you, Joey,' she hissed.

'You leave him there and the bastard dominates you, watches over you. Don't let him, Joey, or he'll destroy you. He may think, the fucking bastard, that he can buy anybody, frighten anybody - but not you, Joey.

He's a piece of shit.'

She was crying as she tore the picture into pieces and flung them into the rubbish bag.

'How is it that people like that can have such power?'

The tears streamed down her face. She shrugged into her coat. The telephone was ringing in the hall downstairs. She closed the door after her and stumbled down the stairs with the rubbish bag.

Joey's landlady, Violet, was speaking into the phone. 'His workplace, you say .. Right, I'll go and get him. It's two flights of stairs, so it'll be a moment.'

She should have done it herself, should have gone back up the stairs and saved the elderly lady the trudge, but she could not face the doom atmosphere of his room again. She went out into the street and dropped the bin bag into the dustbin. But she knew that the man's power remained in the room with Joey.

He sauntered a pace behind Atkins, his armourer. For a man hard to surprise it was an eye-opening experience. Mister had never before been to anything like the Defence Systems and Equipment International Exhibition. Outside, the spring morning tipped with rain. Atkins had picked him up at a service station on the north side of the motorway ringing London and brought him down in the four-wheel drive. They'd been clogged in traffic as they'd approached the site and had crawled past demonstrators at the gate, hemmed in by a police cordon, as they held up placards denouncing the 'Death Supermarket'. That he was there, that the arrangements had been put in place, was a reflection of his confidence in the Eagle's assurance that he would walk from the Old Bailey. He seldom spoke, but he listened. His armourer knew enough to initiate conversations that he thought Mister would be interested to hear, but not to involve or introduce him.

They went down the aisles between stands that displayed the pride of military hardware. Everything was on show from tanks and armoured cars to titanium-plated aircraft cockpits, rotating helicopter mounts for rapid-firing triple-barrel machine-guns, protective clothing for troops in a chemical-warfare environment, land-, air- and sea-launched missiles.

At the main door, as their entry passes were processed, Atkins had asked, 'What in particular, Mister?'

'Just what I'm getting,' had been the laconic reply.

'In how long?'

'No hurry.'

In the past he had taken the Princess to the Ideal Home Exhibition, and the Motor Show. Not a lot of difference. From behind the stands, salesmen, who hooked on to any interest, darted out and tried to pressure drinks into hands. But they stayed dry: Atkins knew enough of Mister to know that alcohol was frowned on. Mister had made a major financial commitment to what he was getting, but he regarded it as necessary if the deal were to go through - the deal had been Cruncher's concept.

It was all about 'peace', Mister noted. Peace-keeping, peace enforcement, peace maintenance were the slogans of the day. He didn't hear the word
kill,
or read it. He hung back when Atkins met a general he'd served under, and who knew his father.

'Hello, hello, how are things going, now that you're out?'

'Struggling along, sir, but not too bad, sir, can't complain - it's an eye-opener, sir, but I haven't seen a bayonet.'

'It's all so damned sophisticated. Easy to forget that fighting is done by men. The better the equipment you give your men, the bigger the chance that it'll crash. If it crashes he's lost. In real combat it's man against man - but all the foreign people want is the best, so they can drool over it and hope to God they never have to use it. Must be getting along. Jolly good to see you . . . '

They came to a mock-up of a 'frontier post' where the British army were 'fighting for peace'. He looked over the Land-Rover with the machine-gun mounted, a sniper in a gillie suit, and a mortar team. In front of him were a cluster of tiny Asians, Chinese and Thais, and towering over them were their escort officers.

They were looking down. Mister's eyes ducked, and Atkins eased the small-built men a little to the side, did it with care so that no offence was given. Prone on the ground in front of the 'frontier post' were two camouflaged soldiers who made a tableau with a squat, thuggish piece of gear mounted on a shallow tripod. The dull light reflected from the launcher's lens. A sergeant was telling the Asians the qualities of the anti-tank weapon system: ' . . . destroys tanks, helicopters and bunkers. Can fire up to three per minute. Aim point is hit point, and it's effective up to 2,500 yards. You can change target during the missile's flight, and because of its low-launch velocity the chance of detection and counter-measures is minimal. It has a double-charge warhead for penetration, packs a hell of a punch . ..'

Mister's question was whispered: 'Is that what I'm getting?'

'The medium-range Trigat - MR Trigat - that's what you're getting. Sorry, that's what you've got. It's an excellent weapon, Mister, the best of its kind.'

He had absorbed everything he had heard.
En route
to Bosnia was a weapon that could not be afforded locally, that was sophisticated and would be a prized symbol of superiority. On one of his rare visits to Brixton, Cruncher had told him that he should take with him gear that would turn heads. The gear was an offering, a gift - so Cruncher had explained it - to convince doubters that Mister was top league. When Mister came, bearing gifts, he would be listened to. He was going to ride on the back of the MR Trigat. It was heavy stuff, new to anything he had had before.

Atkins, the armourer, had provided him in the past with Uzis and Glocks, Skorpions, Hecklers and a Kalashnikov, and with two-ounce measures of Semtex explosive to blow a reinforced warehouse door for a
protege.
He liked Atkins, nine years in the Royal Green Jackets with a final rank of captain; the man's leaving his regiment in the wake of a scandal - impregnating a brigadier's daughter and running from the consequences - then setting up as a freelance military consultant had slotted in well with Mister's plans.

Atkins had a mannered drawl, offhand, but he took no liberties, and he delivered. Atkins had also done time in Bosnia. Mister had no complaints. Atkins had suggested the way to acquire four MR Trigat launchers, and twenty missiles, as well as seven hand-sets and the control unit for an ITT-built Advanced Tactical Communications System, combining data and voice-network capability, and security. When Mister travelled, he would be well laden with gifts. He did not understand how the anti-tank weapon or the communications system worked, but that didn't leave him with any feeling of inferiority. The gifts guaranteed that he would win a hearing and respect

. . . Cruncher had been laying the ground.

'What about lunch, Mister? You've seen about everything other than the open-air displays, but there's no call for you to get soaked. I expect it'll be a salmon steak in the VIP restaurant.'

'Why not?'

He could beat the legal system, and he could buy into supplies of the latest, most restricted military equipment, and they could not touch him.

'Tell me, all this stuff here, who are the customers?'

'Other than you, Mister, they're governments.

That's the level this place is at.'

The pathologist had few illusions as to the technical knowledge of those who would read his reports, so he doubled up: one report for men and women with a medical and forensic background, and a second for policemen, Security Service officers, civil servants from the Home Office and Customs & Excise. The second report, for laypersons, explained the finding of a narrow bruised contusion at an upper position at the back of the cadaver's - Dubbs's - neck. The blow causing the contusion would have been sufficient, in the pathologist's opinion, to cause death or, at least, total disablement. It followed that the cadaver could not, in the pathologist's opinion, have then mounted a railing or a wall and pitched himself into the river. An intervening paragraph stated that the injury had not been sustained during the cadaver's journey down the river. The half-page report concluded: 'The blow was probably effected with the heel of a hand by a man of considerable strength and with a knowledge of where to strike. Assume he is trained or has familiarized himself with the techniques of unarmed combat, as taught to Special Forces. Conclusion: Murder.'

After anxiously telephoning the chief investigation officer, a civil servant agreed to follow the unusual and possibly illegal road of withholding the post-mortem's findings
sine die.
Rank was pulled. The civil servant was left in no doubt as to the importance of the connections of the CIO, and his Whitehall influence, and took a sensible course. The pathologist's conclusion would not enter the public domain.

Hardly a month went by without the CIO telling colleagues: 'There's no point having authority if you're not prepared to exercise it.' The final twisting of the civil servant's arm, close to verbal breaking-point, was the CIO's clear message that the findings represented a matter of national security.

Both reports, technical and layperson's, were locked away.

'You come with a backpack of recommendations.'

'I didn't put them there.'

The chief investigation officer, Dennis Cork, poured tea from a silver pot into a bone-china cup. He held up the milk jug, an invitation, but across the desk there was a shake of the head. He pointed to the lemon slices, but there was a hand-gestured refusal. He passed the black tea to his guest. It was passed back.

' I'll take three sugars, please.'

Three sugar cubes went into the cup. It was returned, then stirred vigorously. 'Thank you - it's the way my father always took it.'

'The recommendations wrap round, and protect, a considerable reputation.'

'That's for others to say . . . and I don't believe compliments, sincere or otherwise, ever contributed much.'

The CIO liked him. His office was temperature-controlled: a new system he'd had put in when the suite was refurbished - at expense - enabled him to be shirt-sleeved and comfortable. He thought it displayed eccentricity and character that the guest still wore the heavy tweed jacket and the buttoned waistcoat with its watch-chain. They were bright eyes facing him, a little rheumy with age, but they were hard, and when they were fastened on him he found them difficult to meet.

'You've read yourself in?'

'I've read as much as I can in two and a half days of a three-year investigation.'

'It's wounded us.'

'When a man like that walks it's always hurtful, particularly if you have to account for the expenditure.'

If the CIO had been looking to be rewarded with sympathy he would have been disappointed. He doubted this man was big on commiseration. It was hardness he wanted, and chilling coldness - and leadership. He pressed on. 'You are fifty-nine years old, facing retirement. You have done us the kindness of travelling south at short notice, personal inconvenience, and now I am asking you - it is a request to spend a few weeks, maybe a month, of your last year with us, to squat down here. A last tilt at Packer while the iron's still moderately warm, if you know what I mean. If it all goes cold then it might be years before I can justify the same level of resources to target him - a final throw. Will you?'

It was a plea for help. He was offering the best and most responsible job in the Service, and the most difficult. Short of getting down on bended bloody knee he could hardly have gilded that particular lily further. The guest pondered, took his time. It seemed an age. The CIO drummed carelessly at his desk top with a pencil. A frown had cut the man's forehead; his fingers were locked together and creaked as he opened and closed the palms of his hands. Then he sipped the tea, and made up his mind.

'My way, without let or hindrance.'

'Any way you want, within the law. I don't know how often you'll get back-up there . . . '

'They'll still be there when I've finished.'

The CIO imagined mountains and sea cliffs that were as remote and inhospitable as the eyes that were again locked on him. The file told him this dour man spent his weekends away on a peninsula up the north-west coast from Glasgow. He supposed, a flight of fancy, that the terrain and the seascape, harsh and without charity, had moulded the character of the man. The response was a challenge.