Adrian Magson: Tracers

‘What’s this one done?’ he asked, putting down the photo. ‘Run off with his firm’s piggy bank?’

Jennings gave him a cool look. ‘That’s not your problem. Somebody wants him found. It’s all you need to know.’

‘It may not be an issue,’ Harry explained reasonably. ‘But it helps to know if he’s bent or not. Or has a contract on his head.’ Jennings didn’t appear to understand, so Harry explained, ‘Crooks behave in a different way to those who’ve just gone AWOL for other reasons, like stress. They might turn nasty when I show up on their doorstep and ruin their day. Some might even have cosied up with a heavy to watch their backs.’

Jennings opened his mouth, then gave a half-nod. ‘Fair enough. I can see that.’ He appeared to give it some thought, then shifted in his chair. ‘He’s not. . bent, as you so quaintly put it. His name is Samuel Silverman. Professor. You’ll find what we have in the briefing document. He’s gone missing from his home in Haifa. Simply left his house and disappeared without warning. Three days later, he was seen by an acquaintance arriving at Heathrow, coming off a Lufthansa flight. That was on the twenty-seventh, two weeks ago. Since then, nothing. His family is very worried and thinks he may have suffered some kind of trauma.’

‘From what?’ In Harry’s opinion, living in Israel must be enough to traumatize anyone, all that danger and tension. Small wonder if some found it too stressful and wanted to jump the reservation.

Jennings studied his fingernails. ‘His daughter was killed by a car bomb, along with a grandchild. He took it badly. He stopped going anywhere socially without explanation some time ago, and they think it may have been a precursor to walking away. That’s all I can tell you.’ He looked up as if daring any further questions.

‘Was he travelling solo?’ The majority of runners travel alone, prisoners of their circumstances, trusting no one. But occasionally they pick up company along the way. That it sometimes turns out to have been planned beforehand is usually one of the reasons for their vanishing act in the first place. If Silverman had hooked up with someone, it would leave a bigger footprint and might make tracing him a little easier.

‘Yes.’ Jennings made no further comment.

‘Did they try the police? Immigration?’

‘No. It was considered a waste of time.’

Harry frowned. There was something Jennings wasn’t telling him. Whatever Silverman’s reasons for running, surely it seemed unlikely the family would hire his kind of private expertise without trying the conventional agencies first.

Unless there was something in his background they didn’t want made public.

He picked up the briefing paper and scanned it. It told him almost nothing. No address, no family details or names, no work history. Someone had written ‘LH4736 T2 27th’ in the margin. A brief note saying he’d suffered a cut to his right hand. The item might have been useful had the person they were looking for been a one-legged asthmatic with a dodgy foot, but Silverman seemed to possess no such characteristics other than a bandage. ‘What was he a professor of? And how did he come by the injury?’

‘He is — was — a professor of theology, I’m told. But that’s irrelevant. The cut was believed to be a domestic accident. I’ve included it only because he might need to visit a hospital to change the bandages.’

‘It’s not much to go on,’ said Harry. Actually, it was bugger all. He was beginning to feel depressed. ‘Are you sure this is it?’

‘I’m certain. Everything we have is in there. I’m reliably informed there was nothing worth considering in his home.’

‘But he’s a professor. The last academic’s office I saw was a mess of paper. They ooze the stuff. Confiscate their pads and pencils and they start biting the furniture.’

Jennings remained unmoved. ‘As I said, it’s all we have.’

Harry picked up the brown envelope. He tipped it up and a single piece of lined paper slid into his hand. It was brittle to the touch and brown along one edge. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed. It smelled charred. ‘Where did this come from?’

‘His office. A metal waste-bin. There was no explanation, but. . they thought it might be helpful because they couldn’t explain it.’

‘They?’

Jennings leaned forward, easing his neck clear of his shirt collar. ‘Silverman has certain connections. I cannot go any further.’

‘Connections,’ Harry echoed. ‘Israeli government connections?’ He studied the scrap of paper, which had a faint line of writing on one side.

‘That’s right.’

‘If he’s one of theirs,’ said Harry, ‘I’m surprised they haven’t provided more information. I’d have thought they’d be pleased to have help.’ As he was speaking, he heard a small click from a door at the rear of the office, behind Jennings’ shoulder. He’d assumed it led to an executive toilet, the kind of personal ego attachment a man like Jennings would value. But maybe not. The door was open a fraction, and he was sure he caught a small movement through the crack.

Jennings was looking impatient and shifted in his chair. ‘There’s a condition attached to this job,’ he added seriously.

‘Go on.’

‘Silverman is not to be approached. You find him, you tell me where he is, you get paid, you don’t ask questions. End of job.’ He raised his eyebrows to invite understanding. ‘You don’t go near him. Merely report in as soon as you locate him.’

‘Because of his connections?’ Harry wondered what was going on. With no information other than a photo and the barest of details, he was on the back foot before he started. And any mention of Israeli government ‘connections’ automatically implied banging his head against a brick wall if he tried probing into Silverman’s background. ‘If he’s such a sensitive target,’ he pointed out, ‘why don’t the Israelis find him? They’re good enough at hunting down Nazi war criminals years after the event; they can pinpoint Hamas and Al Fatah targets whenever they feel like it. Tracking down a runaway university professor should be a doddle.’

‘Are you saying you don’t want this assignment?’ Jennings’ voice was cool with an edge of tension. ‘If so, I can always find someone else.’ He glanced at his watch as if indicating that doing so wouldn’t take more than a few minutes and a phone call.

Harry reached for the folder and closed it with a slap. The door behind Jennings had now closed. ‘I can do it. Crossing the tees, that’s all.’

‘Good. Get on to it right away. Keep me informed.’

‘And Param?’

‘He’ll keep.’

‘If you say so.’ The lawyer had still asked no questions about Matuq’s location, nor made any reference to his murder. There had been nothing in the morning news, either. It was as if none of it had ever happened. ‘There’s a problem about Matuq.’

‘What kind of problem?’

‘I was the last to see him alive. Second to last. I might have been spotted in the area. It’s not a thriving metropolis and I wasn’t exactly keeping a low profile. Nor,’ he added grimly, ‘was I expecting him to get popped.’

Jennings looked unconcerned and Harry wondered if the man had even considered the situation. The local police might have heard of a stranger seen driving up to the cottage and leaving. A water company van in the area would be common enough; they come and go all the time. Part of the street furniture almost. But a stranger in a high performance car late at night wasn’t that easy to miss — especially when a local visitor gets drilled by a professional hit.

Yet Jennings wasn’t buying it. ‘A sleepy place like Norfolk? I doubt you were even noticed.’