Christopher Jones - The Jackal's Share

“Are you going to be able to give him what he wants?” She moved to the edge of the seat and turned to him as she said it.

“I don’t know yet.”

She hesitated. “What have you found?”

“I can’t say.”

She nodded to herself. In the half-light her eyes were intensely on his. “Something bad?”

“Not obviously.”

“So you think there’s something?”

“I didn’t say that. Do you?”

“No. Of course not.” She shook her head, a tiny movement, and looked down at her hands in her lap. “It’s just… He needs this work. He needs you.”

“Are you sure?”

“He’s not a vain man. He’s not what you think. He’s practical. Always practical. Everything he does is for profit or power. You’re here because he needs you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I thought you might have found out.”

“And if I had?” Webster was finding it hard to tell whether Ava had come out here to grill him or warn him. Or to seek comfort.

“You wouldn’t tell me.”

“I shouldn’t.”

She nodded gently, sat up straight on the bench, collecting herself. He thought she was going to leave but instead she turned to him.

“My father is a very arrogant man. He thinks he’s better than everyone else. At everything that matters to him. It’s that simple. The best trader, the best businessman, the best collector. I’ve never seen him depend on someone before. First Yves. And now you, here.” She shook her head. “He would never have had someone like you here before. This is his special place. It was never for business.”

Her voice, which had been calm, was now uneven, and Webster thought he could sense unexplored anxieties there, close to the surface.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Is there something else?”

“No. I’m just worried about him.”

“Are you worried about Parviz?”

She bit her bottom lip but said nothing.

“Anything you tell me can stay with me. I’m not a policeman.”

She shook her head, suddenly resolute, and stood. As she looked down at him her face was set again, the trust gone. “Nothing I know will be of any use to you. Goodnight, Mr. Webster. Tread carefully.”

As he watched her walking back to the house through bands of floodlit grass Webster shook his head; how he wished Elsa could have heard this conversation. She might have understood it. She might have known whether Ava was desperate to say something or terrified to let it slip.

TO KNOW THAT HEwas more or less an impostor in the house lent the rest of Webster’s short stay a certain piquancy. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or put out that the room he had been given, he had assumed on merit, had in fact been intended for grand acquaintances—diplomats, colorful entrepreneurs, heads of minor states, dignitaries of the Iranian diaspora—and not for English detectives, if that’s what he was, who billed by the hour and spent their time rooting around in other people’s affairs. But of all the hints and signs that Ava had given him the night before, by design or not, one thing was really striking: he had assumed since they had first met that Qazai found their work necessary, but not critical—serious, but not grave—and the growing realization that it was for some reason essential to him began to cast everything in a different light. Webster had gone to sleep feeling that the many and conflicting pieces of this project, not least his own feelings toward it, were beginning to align.

He slept well, in the vast white bed, and woke early to find the lake overcast with low cloud. As he came downstairs he was shown by one of the servants into a yellow breakfast room where eight settings had been laid on a long table, at one of which sat Senechal, neatly pressed in black suit, white shirt and gray tie, reading a document in a plastic binding and drinking a cup of black coffee. He didn’t appear to have had anything to eat.

Webster wished him good morning and sat down opposite, cursing the fact that he hadn’t brought his book. He ordered coffee and two poached eggs and taking his BlackBerry from his jacket pocket started looking at his e-mails, all of which he had already seen, while Senechal, for his part, returned the good morning without cheer and continued to read, every now and then raising his cup to his lips to take a tiny drink but never taking his eyes from his work. Webster did his best to decipher the document from across the table but managed only to work out that it was in French.

His coffee, when it came, was good. As he drank he watched the lawyer and tried to imagine the array of secrets stored up within him. Were they simply dry, legalistic, of little interest to anyone but himself and his client, the papery trappings of mortgages, incorporations, transactions and financings, impenetrable only by virtue of their complexity? Or in among them were there dark stories that explained Qazai and threatened to undo him?

Senechal closed his document and spoke, breaking Webster’s sleepy reverie and making him start.

“I understand you had a useful session with Mr. Qazai.”

Webster was amused by the lack of small talk, and grateful for it. “Yes, thank you. We’re getting there.”

Senechal paused for a second. He had an unsettling habit of leaving a short delay before he spoke, as if calculating precisely how to couch what he needed to say in the most efficient and anonymous terms, his gaze blank and always steady. “When do you think you will be finished?”

“Two weeks. Three. It depends how neatly everything stacks up.”

The idiom seemed to puzzle Senechal; he frowned, then let it go.

“The first draft of the report—send it to me. I will respond.”

“Of course.”

“Mr. Webster, I think you understand how important it is that this case is successful.”

Webster looked up. “I have some idea. But I don’t decide whether it’s successful or not.”

Senechal frowned again, the merest movement of his brow.

“I can only report what I find,” said Webster in response.

“I appreciate that,” Senechal said, placing his cup on its saucer with great care and considering it for a moment before looking up and going on. “But the presentation is important too. The order of items. The level of detail. It is difficult for you to be completely neutral.”

“Of course. You have to trust us.”

Senechal smiled blankly. “And we do. We appreciate your work, Mr. Webster. If you complete the project to our satisfaction we would be happy to show that appreciation.”

Webster frowned now. “What do you mean?”

“Only that we hope your good work will not go unrewarded.”

“You’re offering me a bribe?”

“Of course not.”

“So when I write this conversation up in my report you won’t mind?”

Senechal’s expression didn’t change. “I’m not sure what you think you heard, Mr. Webster. I was merely discussing our wishes for the project.”

Webster held his gray, cold eye. He had never been offered a bribe before. He wondered how much he was worth.

If he played along, of course, he could find out, and a proven bribe would be enough to walk away from the case and leave this unhealthy pair to their problems. But he found himself too furious for games, and strangely riled by the prospect of his own corruption even while he knew it wasn’t real and wouldn’t happen. And besides, he had no desire to finish this now. Not when he was about to be proved right.

“I know what I heard,” he said at last. “You hired us for our integrity. That’s what you’ll get.”

If Senechal detected the trace of threat he didn’t show it. He took the napkin from his lap, folded it neatly into two and then four, and placed it on the table.