Christopher Jones - The Jackal's Share

Parviz volunteered that the men in the car hadn’t hurt him; they had just left him to cry. He hadn’t been tied or blindfolded. There were two of them: the man who had put him in the car, and a driver. They hadn’t said anything to each other. Not a word. For a long time they had just driven, Parviz wasn’t sure where. Around and around, it had felt like. Then the car had gone into the parking lot of a big shopping center and stopped. The man in sunglasses had calmly taken Parviz by the hand into a supermarket and told him he was to wait by the fruit, count to three hundred, and let one of the cashiers know who he was and that he wanted to go home. Before walking away he had given Parviz a piece of paper with Timur’s phone number printed on it.

Throughout, Webster and Constance said nothing. The captain was thorough, but no longer urgent, and though it was almost dark by the time he left and no question had gone unasked Webster sensed that this odd episode was no longer a priority.

Timur, though, continued to look both relieved and haunted. Webster liked him. He was less slick than his father, with a quiet sadness about him, as if this strange world had been forced upon him and he was dutifully living someone else’s life. More than once he had said that such a thing wouldn’t have happened if they had been able to remain in London, and nothing in his manner suggested that he relished the prospect of inheriting the Qazai empire. Webster was reminded of Ava’s word for him: enslaved.

When the captain had gone, he offered his guests drinks, for form’s sake, it seemed. Webster declined, and glared at Constance when he replied that a large whisky with lots of ice would go down very well.

“Do you have to?” he said, as Timur went inside.

“Hair of the dog, my friend. Better late than never.”

It was so calm here. The pool water swirled, sprinklers swept the lawn, under the garden lights the grass was a pristine, uniform green, and for the first time Webster felt at one with the heat. Looking over his shoulder he could see Timur crouching down to say goodnight to Parviz, closing him in a tight hug.

A maid appeared with three tumblers full of whisky and ice. Constance took his, swallowed it in a draft, put the glass back on the tray and beamed up at her.

“Another would be lovely. Thank you so much.”

Timur returned and raised his glass an inch to Webster before he drank, and for a while no one said anything.

“What do you think they wanted?” Webster said at last.

By the pale glow of the pool Webster saw Timur frown.

“Money. It must be.”

“A ransom?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“So why didn’t they go through with it?”

“Because they got cold feet.”

“But they said nothing in the car.”

Timur frowned again. “I don’t follow you.”

“They stuck to their plan. They didn’t panic.”

“They don’t sound like the panicking kind,” said Constance, with meaning.

“Can you think,” said Webster, watching Timur closely, “who might want to send you a message?”

Timur shook his head. “No.” And after a pause, “That’s ridiculous.”

“Why? You’re feeling vulnerable. Your family doesn’t feel safe. Maybe that’s all they wanted.”

Timur held Webster’s eye, and in that moment he seemed both resolute and scared.

“Is there anyone who might want you to leave Dubai? Run you out of town?” Constance asked, sipping at his new drink.

“All I want,” Timur said, “is to know that my family is protected.”

“That’s difficult,” said Webster. “Without knowing what the threat is.”

Timur shook his head. His eyes seemed focused elsewhere, and in that moment Webster sensed that he was feeling acutely alone. But he rallied, and when he spoke again he was cool, businesslike.

“Do you have any advice for me?”

Webster waited for a moment before answering, his silence punctuating the change in tone. “Practically speaking, you should talk to a professional. I know a good man. His name’s George Black. He’ll call you tomorrow morning.”

Timur nodded. “Thank you.”

“But I’d have a good think about who it might have been. We should talk about it. When you have some idea.”

Timur chewed his bottom lip and watched the eddying waters of the pool, his eyes full of quiet fear.

WEBSTER’S PARENTS LIVED IN CORNWALL,on the Helford estuary, and at the end of the steep slope of their garden was a small cove, overhung by oaks, where at high tide a rowing boat could negotiate a course over the rocks to a mossy stone quay. In the early morning, whenever he was staying, Webster would walk through the garden down to the water’s edge, the grass cold and alive under his bare feet, drape his towel over the same dead branch and swim. Today the water was high with a spring tide and he was able to dive, carefully leaping off the slippery stone, his body a straight line piercing the surface. The water here wasn’t like other water; it was salty and fresh at once, of a green so dark it looked black, quickly deep and always, even in autumn after a good summer, icy. There was no place he liked to swim more.

In the drizzle and the early half-light the oaks’ new leaves seemed lit up against the darkness on the banks. He swam to a buoy about thirty yards out and from there turned down sharply through new layers of cold and dark, tried with powerful strokes to reach the bottom, failed, and rising burst finally into the air again, taking as much breath into his lungs as he could, the fine rain soft on his face. The boats moored beside him hardly bobbed, it was so calm.

It was still enough to swim across the estuary but he wanted to be by the woods today, so turning back from the buoy he headed upriver past his parents’ house toward Frenchman’s Creek, keeping about five yards from the bank, his stroke a steady crawl. Here the oaks stood so close to the water that they seemed to grow out of it, their branches reaching down and brushing the surface, the roots exposed in the red earth where the land had fallen away, so that all the elements of the place—the river, the sea, the damp earth and the misty sky—seemed joined in an ancient, watery union. Webster was always revived here. Like a penitent to the confessional he would bring his doubts and his sins to the water and, addressing each in turn, find them washed away.

He had plenty today. Dubai had left him feeling dried out and restive. Three days switching between the solid heat and the air-conditioned cold, drinking too much with Fletcher: that would have been enough, even without the grim flight back that had left at three in the morning and dumped him in a gray, tired-looking London at six. But none of this was the cause. He had caught the train with Elsa and the children at noon, and though delighted to be with them had been tetchy throughout the journey, having to field e-mails and calls about the case, and beyond that preoccupied with something he couldn’t clearly grasp. Part of it was having to deal with Dean Oliver, a private detective—for want of a better word—of Webster’s faint acquaintance. There was nothing wrong with Dean. He was resourceful, slick, even charming in his own way, but his trade was grubby, and Webster would rather have kept his distance. As it was, he had called him with Shokhor’s numbers that morning, and Oliver had said, in his most reassuring tones, that he would see what he could do, and suggested they meet in a week. Webster knew all too well what he could do, and what sort of trouble it might lead to—though on this case, he told himself, there was little risk.

No, there was something else. Elsa had given him a short period of grace and then let him know that he was going to have to rally, and for the rest of the trip he had done his best to give a convincing impression of cheer and disguise the fact that something continued to scratch at his nerves.