Christopher Jones - The Jackal's Share

From the other side of the grave Webster saw all this. He saw Timur’s mother, the former Mrs. Qazai, standing apart from the family with her new husband, her blonde hair piled up on her head and her eyes masked by sunglasses. He saw Senechal, in his usual uniform, looking like an agent of the afterlife come to take stock. Ava, with her head bowed and eyes shut. And he saw Qazai, pale, gaunt, erect and proper in his suit, working hard to counter the new look of fear and haunting in his eyes.

It was a quiet ceremony. The celebrant’s soft voice was directed only to the family and Webster, standing far from the grave, couldn’t hear the prayers that were said over the body as it was lowered into the ground. The words over, Raisa reached down, took a handful of damp soil from a neat pile at the edge of the grave, and threw it onto the coffin, where it landed with a gentle patter. As each of her sons did the same she squatted down and when they were done held them in a long, still embrace. Then she stood, smiled at both, wiped her tears and led them away down a dark avenue of oaks toward the waiting cars.

Timur’s mother was next, then Ava, then Qazai, who stood for a long time—a full minute, perhaps two—staring at the coffin with the earth in his hand before letting it drop. His gaze was unblinking, intense, yet somehow absent. Webster wondered whether he was looking through the wood to send a last message, or making some inward search of his own soul. Behind and around him the other mourners started to disperse, and as the soil slipped from his hand an abrupt, silent sob shook him and he too moved away, making the procession back to the road on his own. Webster watched him go, sensing that he had just seen his first glimpse of an unadorned Darius Qazai, the raw essence of the man that investors and grandees and private detectives didn’t ordinarily meet. He could not comprehend his pain. Even his tireless imagination baulked at the task.

By the grand gates of the cemetery people had stopped and were saying goodbye to each other. Senechal, bleached out in the full sun, had taken himself to one side and now stood waiting. Webster saw him ahead and waited for him to stroll lightly toward them.

“Mr. Hammer. Mr. Webster. It is good of you to come.” He didn’t offer his hand and spoke with greater than usual earnestness. “I felt sure that you would wish to have the opportunity to say your last respects.”

“We’re grateful to be invited,” said Hammer. “It came as a terrible shock.”

“To all of us, Mr. Hammer. To all of us.” Senechal paused. He seemed at home here, almost relaxed. No smiling was required, no positivity. Just a meek, lawyerly deference to the likelihood that things will, after all, almost always go wrong.

“There is nothing worse,” said Hammer, “than seeing someone die young.”

Senechal inclined his head in a sort of bow.

“Our meeting tomorrow…”

“We will cancel,” said Hammer. “Of course. Or rearrange.”

“No, no. That will not be necessary. No, the meeting will proceed as before.” Sensing their perplexity he went on. “I’m afraid that the death of Mr. Qazai does nothing to solve our problems. Indeed, it makes them more acute. When we see each other I shall want to know exactly where we are with the report, and when we can expect its release. In all honesty,” he attempted a smile, “I think we have waited long enough.”

Hammer checked Webster with a discreet motion of his hand. “I understand. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

But Webster had stopped concentrating. He was looking over Senechal’s shoulder at Ava, who had broken away from the people still milling around the entrance to the cemetery and was now walking toward them with purpose in her stride. As she drew near, Senechal followed Webster’s look and turned to find her already by him and fixing his eyes with her own, tired and red as they were. She glanced at Webster before addressing Senechal.

“Did you ask these two?” Senechal hesitated, apparently surprised, but not discomfited, by the question. “Did you?”

“Mr. Qazai asked me to invite them, miss.”

Ava looked from one face to another, furious, shaking her head. Glancing behind her she leaned in slightly, lowering her voice. “This is not a business meeting. This is not a moneymaking exercise. Do you understand? For any of you. If he’s invited you to the wake, do the decent thing and go home. And you,” she turned to Senechal, jabbing a finger at him, “I don’t want you there. I don’t want you in my father’s home. Sucking the life from him. Doing whatever it is that you do.”

She glared at Senechal for a good two seconds, made to leave and then shook her head, as if remembering one last thing.

“Why did you come?” she said to Webster. “What is there to investigate here?”

“I came out of respect for your brother.”

“You didn’t know my brother.”

“Sadly, no.”

“I expected better from you.”

Her eyes were trying to impart some meaning that he couldn’t grasp; he felt baffled by her words, and awkward at having been singled out. Senechal, showing no signs of shock, looked intrigued, as if he had just heard something whose significance he couldn’t judge but whose importance he did not doubt.

TWO DAYS EARLIER,when Webster had first heard the news of Timur’s death, his response, after the shock, had been a strange, inappropriate lightness, almost peace: when he surveyed his thoughts the insistent muttering of his obsession had gone, and the switch was like moving from white noise to utter quiet. To continue his duel with Qazai now would be indecent and unnecessary. The man was already crushed, and though Webster wasn’t proud of it, beside his sympathy for Raisa, and her boys, and Ava, sat something like relief.

His first call that evening, after he had spoken to an excited Constance, had been to Ike. They talked about Qazai, and what this would mean for his plan, and agreed that without Timur it would at best have to be completely rethought; about Timur himself, the misfortune of being born the son of a rich man; and, with a certain amount of professional detachment, the difficulties of staging a car crash so that it might look like an accident. Hammer was of the opinion that it was more or less impossible, certainly a great deal harder than anyone might imagine, and Webster, though he disagreed, said little. Even before he had spoken to Constance, who was convinced, as ever, of a conspiracy (the car had been tampered with, no question; a mysterious Range Rover had been seen racing it shortly before the crash; the Dubai police were saying, unconvincingly, that crucial CCTV footage was missing) he couldn’t bring himself to believe that Timur’s death wasn’t the latest act in a sequence, a progression he could see but whose logic he couldn’t make out.

One day, perhaps, that story might be told, but he no longer had to be the one to tell it. In any case, he had nothing. Some strange payments through a dead man’s company and a hint of a conspiracy from, of all people, the Gulf’s most energetic conspiracy theorist.

“I’ve seen the light,” Webster said.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re right. We should end this.”

Hammer was quiet, waiting for more.

“As painlessly as possible. I’ve got no appetite left.”

Webster heard Hammer take in a long breath. “Good. It’s one thing you being ruled by your appetites. It’s another when we all are. Welcome back.”

His next call had been to Oliver, and just dialing the number had made him feel cleaner.

“Dean. It’s Ben.”

“This is late for you. Not for me, of course.”

“We need to stop work. Send me your bill. Make it healthy.”