Adrian Magson - No Tears for the Lost

‘Kind of them. And this affects me how?’

‘Ah. Yes.’ Another crunch echoed down the line. ‘Among his various personal bits and pieces was a piece of paper with your name on it. Now why would that be?’

Riley was astonished. ‘I’ve no idea. I’ve never heard of the man. Did you ask him?’

‘Of course. He wouldn’t say. Said it was just a name he’d picked up out of professional interest. Must be nice having fans out there.’

Riley ignored the dig. ‘Where is he now?’

‘No idea. The Yanks finally admitted they didn’t have any objection to him being here, and he was found to be carrying his legitimate passport, anyway. In the interests of the so-called special relationship, we slapped his wrist and let him go. Personally, I’d have slung him on the next flight home. The man’s clearly unhinged. Still, what can you do, eh?’

‘Well, thanks for telling me. I’ll look out for him.’

‘Do that. You might also warn your friend Palmer when you see him next.’

‘Why?’

‘Henzigger had another piece of paper in his wallet. It had Palmer’s name and the name of someone we’ve all heard of.’

‘Who?’

‘Sir Kenneth Myburghe.’

The phone clicked off, leaving Riley with a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Myburghe again?

The more she heard from Weller, the more uneasy she began to feel about his tactics. Why had he chosen to call her, a member of the press? Why not one of his other contacts — of which he must have many? Was it really just to check Henzigger’s story? Or had he decided to set some cats loose and see what came scurrying out of the wood pile?

*******

Next morning, Riley forced herself out of bed and into a brisk walk through Holland Park. She needed the exercise to blow the kinks out of her system after the previous day’s drive, and the fresh air to get her brain into some sense of order. She collected a croissant and coffee on the way and chewed as she strolled, sharing space with mothers and strollers, joggers and children.

So far, she told herself, she had a man hinting at some sort of scandal surrounding a senior British diplomat with a service record in Colombia; Frank Palmer guarding the very same diplomat; a senior cop from the Met taking an interest in Palmer, and now a disgraced American journalist with a background in South America taking an interest in all of them.

Whatever was going on involved too many people she couldn’t get to. Palmer because he was…well, Palmer, although that might be less of a problem if she could collar him long enough to wear him down; Myburghe because he was out of bounds; Weller because he was playing puppet-master; and Tristram AKA Jacob Worth, who claimed to know something, if only he would part with the information.

She threw the remainder of her croissant to a couple of pigeons, then strolled on, sipping her coffee, until she found herself at the southern edge of the park on Kensington High Street. She was about to turn back when a man fell in alongside her, matching her pace.

‘You’re Gavin, right?’ said the man genially. He was tall and solid, with tired eyes set in a swarthy face beneath short-cut grey-flecked hair. He could have been a businessman looking for directions, but not too many businessmen sidle up to women on the street and use their name.

Riley readied herself for a seedy proposition and checked her coffee mug, but there wasn’t enough to do more than stain his shirt.

‘You’re Riley Gavin,’ he repeated quickly, sensing her wariness. He had an American accent, although with some of the edges smoothed off, as if he’d been out of his home country a lot. ‘I know it’s you because I got your picture from a piece you did a while back. And I’ve already seen you with your pal, Palmer. I need to talk with you.’

Riley stopped and turned to face the man. ‘Where did you see us?’ There were plenty of pedestrians about, so she wasn’t alarmed. But one thing she didn’t want was to have this stranger following her back to her flat.

‘You were at that hunt near Colebrooke. I saw you watching. Palmer was off killing stuff.’ He grinned without humour. ‘I had to leave in a hurry, remember?’

Then she realised: the man in the woods. He looked bigger here, somehow, as if being surrounded by trees and undergrowth had diminished him.

Seeing that she had placed him, he said, ‘Yeah, that was me. What do we get for trespassing on private land in this country — slammed in the stocks or hung from a tree?’

‘You’re out of date,’ she told him. ‘We stopped hanging people when you lot started lynching cattle rustlers. It got so tacky. Who are you and what do you want?’

‘My name’s Toby Henzigger,’ he said neutrally. ‘I’m in the same line of business as you.’ He held out his hand.

Riley ignored it, her thoughts flashing back to Weller’s phone call of the previous day. This was getting spooky.

Henzigger shrugged and stuck his hand back in his pocket. ‘Can we go somewhere and talk? This is a bit public for my tastes.’

Riley was concerned about how he’d found her. She wasn’t in the phone book and she didn’t give out her home address, having learned from colleagues long ago that unhappy subjects of the criminal kind had a knack of finding out where journalists lived, and might choose to make late calls to protest their innocence or anger.

‘Here’s fine,’ she said. ‘Talk about what?’

‘I’ve been looking for you. I know you’re an investigative reporter — I’ve read some of your stuff. You heard what they said about me?’ His right eye flickered slightly as he spoke. It was an almost imperceptible movement, which Riley guessed wouldn’t have been visible if he hadn’t been standing so close.

Riley didn’t want to spoil his day by telling him that he hadn’t been nationwide news, but said anyway, ‘Well, I heard you were almost a guest of Her Majesty. False passport, wasn’t it? Bit unwise, in view of the current state of things.’

Henzigger looked sour. ‘It was a mistake,’ he muttered. ‘It was all a mistake. Did you know I’ve never been charged? They let me sweat it out for over a year, then dropped the case.’ She had to think hard about that, before guessing that he wasn’t talking about being pulled in by Immigration, but his problems before that.

‘Isn’t that a relief?’

‘Oh, sure.’ It came out with a hint of sarcasm, and he wiped a hand across his face. It was a big hand and looked as if it could do a lot of damage. The nails were clean, but the skin was rough and deeply tanned, suggesting Henzigger spent a lot of time outdoors. ‘Look, I know you don’t have any reason to trust me or nothing. But I need to talk. Can we get a coffee somewhere? Somewhere public — you choose.’

Riley nodded. In spite of herself, how could she not be intrigued? Part of it was professional, wanting to know Henzigger’s story. The other part was a growing sense that this man might know something important about Sir Kenneth Myburghe. Otherwise, why had he been there?

‘This way,’ she said, and led him along the street to a café where they could talk safely without being isolated. She let him place the order and sat down at a corner table. When he joined her, she didn’t waste time in small talk. ‘What do you want from me?’

He tasted his coffee, then reached for more sugars, tearing off the paper ends with a jerk and pouring the contents into his cup. He flicked the paper fragments away. ‘I was set up, you know? That stuff about unauthorised contacts and me being too close to the cartel was pure crap.’ He looked sour, as if he was bubbling with suppressed rage. ‘You know how it is. Over the years I could’ve taken back-handers to kill stories, and cut into some deals big enough to pay off the Bolivian national debt. And nobody would’ve known. Not Washington, not Congress, not the Department of Justice — nobody. But I didn’t. You wanna know why? Because it didn’t interest me. I didn’t become a newsman because I liked the retirement plan or I figured the industry had a good ethics programme. I did it because I knew a college buddy killed himself on coke — and that was before it got fashionable. He fell in with a bad crowd on campus who liked to ‘experiment’. Only they didn’t know what they were getting into and they got sold some shit cut with face powder. His first shot and he dies in agony. And he wasn’t the only one. I figured right then that it was going to get worse and maybe I could help make a difference by working my way up and exposing some of the underbelly of the drugs market.’ A little bubble had formed on his lip with this impassioned claim, and it popped when he clamped his mouth shut.