Christopher Jones - The Jackal's Share

So his first questions for the lawyer would be simple: is this a real investigation or an exercise in manipulation? Has something happened to prompt real interest in this ancient dead end of a case or is it being picked over to unsettle someone close to it? Am I that someone and if so, why?

A client had once given him a single piece of advice for surviving spells in prison: bring a book. Here he had nothing to fool time into speeding up. His phone and bag had now been taken from him, and all he could do was think, and overthink. An hour passed, and another.

At last the door to the cell opened and he was asked in Italian by a uniformed policeman to follow him. Who had Ike contacted, he wondered. The first time around, GIC had found him an excellent lawyer, by repute, a Signore Lucca, but before they could meet, or speak, Webster had been sacked, his job the price of wild coverage in the Italian press and a nervous legal department back in New York. This, then, would be his first meeting with an Italian defense lawyer—or with a defense lawyer of any kind, for that matter.

The cells were in the basement, the interrogation rooms upstairs. He was shown into one of them and told to wait, for the first time that day unguarded. He thought it was where he had been brought from the airport but couldn’t be sure. After only a minute the door opened and Senechal, still as pressed and neat as he had been at breakfast, came lightly into the room, closing the door silently behind him. Webster frowned involuntarily and gave his head a shake. It was an apparition that made no sense.

Senechal set his briefcase carefully on the floor and sat down, his near-black eyes on Webster the whole time. Neither said anything; neither looked away.

At last Senechal smiled, even less convincingly than usual, the sides of his mouth lifting perhaps an eighth of an inch.

“It was lucky for you that I am in Italy, Mr. Webster,” he said, his reedy voice high and cold.

“If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be in Italy at all.”

Senechal nodded. “That is true. But when we set up the meeting we had no idea you had these problems.”

“Neither did I.”

Another curt nod. “And now of course the problem is ours.”

Webster raised his eyebrows and cocked his head. “Yours?”

“Naturally. When we hired you we did not know that your reputation was compromised.”

“My reputation is fine.”

Senechal gave an awkward snorting laugh that was clearly not commonly part of his repertoire. “Mr. Webster, you have been charged with serious crimes. Very serious. I ask myself who would believe the Ikertu report if the man who wrote it was in an Italian prison.”

“Then you should find someone else.”

“It’s too late for that.” He smiled again, his eyes empty. “And it may not be necessary.” He took a crisply folded white handkerchief from the top pocket of his jacket and dabbed at the corners of his mouth. “I hope not.”

Webster waited for him to explain.

“I understand how things work in Italy, Mr. Webster. You, you know Russia. I am sure that you have done nothing wrong. The law in these places is not about justice. It is about power. We know this. Everyone knows this, even the British and the Americans. This does not make things any less grave for you, of course. But it does mean that perhaps I can help. On Mr. Qazai’s behalf.”

Webster studied his flat gray eyes like old coins and tried to divine their intention. They revealed nothing.

“I have only one question for you, Mr. Webster. Can I assume that the charges against you have no merit?”

How Webster wished he liked this man and his client, or felt that he could trust him at all. He began to understand what Senechal had in mind. “You can assume what you like.” He paused. “How did you know I was here?”

Senechal, ignoring the question, made a last, brisk nod and stood up. “I shall be a moment only,” he said, and left the room.

He was gone for ten minutes, no more, and in that time Webster tried to imagine what he was saying and to whom. His body registered his unease: for the first time that day the restlessness that he had been carefully controlling got the better of him, and as his leg jigged and his fingers tapped he had the strong urge simply to leave, to get out into the air and walk and walk until this strange production and its bizarre cast felt far away. But he needed to get home. And he needed Senechal’s help. The realization sat unpalatably at the base of his throat.

The younger detective appeared first, followed by Senechal. The older colleague wasn’t in sight.

“I have talked to your lawyer, Signore Webster,” he said, standing with his hands behind his back, his belly out, and rocking slightly on his heels. “He assures me that you will return to Italy in three weeks. This is an informal arrangement. It is unusual but we are happy to do it because Mr. Qazai testifies to your character. You are fortunate to have friends like this.”

Webster, still sitting, looked from the detective to Senechal and back again. He’s not my lawyer, he wanted to say, and neither of them is my friend.

“Come, Mr. Webster,” said Senechal. “Let me drive you to the airport. We should be able to get you on a flight back to London tonight.”

Webster tried to imagine what had just passed between them. With a short sigh and a shake of his head he stood, stiff from a day’s sitting, and as he followed Senechal, his uninvited savior, out of the room, he turned to the detective.

“Don’t think I won’t find out what happened here today.”

The detective smiled, his full cheeks sweating and dimpled.

IN THE BACK OFSenechal’s car on the way to the airport conversation was sparse. His host didn’t seem to expect any thanks and Webster expressed none. He called Elsa and Hammer, but his mind was turning on the question that Senechal had left unanswered. It made no sense.

In the end he repeated it, his eyes straight ahead, watching the road past the driver’s ear.

“How did you know where I was?”

“We had a call. From the police. They wanted to know if you were indeed working for us.”

“I never mentioned Qazai.”

“Well, they knew. It is good that they did.”

As the car slowed onto the slip road to Linate Senechal turned to him.

“I do not believe you will hear from them again, Mr. Webster. They are interested in those private detectives, not you. Not for now. But it would be well for you to express your thanks to Mr. Qazai. In any way you believe appropriate. I do not need your gratitude but he is a man of honor and likes his acts of kindness to be recognized.”

Webster blinked slowly. Now he understood. He turned his head to look at Senechal, frail but energized beside him, and found nothing to say.

“So,” said Senechal, “I am not sure that the police will pursue the matter. But if they do I am quite certain that Mr. Qazai would be happy to offer the same assistance again. For the good of our project.”

Our project. Now there really was no such thing.

KENSAL GREEN,after a day in the cells, felt almost comically sheltered and still under its dull summer clouds. The first rain in weeks was falling and through the open window of the taxi came the stony smell of hot pavements being washed of their dust. Webster paid the driver early so that he could walk the last few streets to his house, turning his face up to the sky and stretching some of the stiffness from his neck, and as he turned off the Harrow Road the city noise dropped until all he could hear was the magpies chatting at each other across the rooftops.

In that brief interval he breathed deeply and tried to clear the day from his head, but it sat there, obstinately refusing to quiet down. He regretted phoning Elsa. It would have been better to have kept the whole incident from her, but of course he hadn’t known at the time that it would be over so soon. As it was, the thing that he feared most—puncturing the perfect safety of their home—he had already half done, and he knew that no matter how much he made light of it and no matter how much she acquiesced, unease would now be sitting in the house like a canker.