Christopher Jones - The Jackal's Share

Webster lit a cigarette—four left now—closed his eyes and took a deep drag, letting the smoke hit the back of his throat like a small act of self-mortification. For a while he just sat in the heat, head back and one elbow out of the car’s open window, keeping the smoke in his lungs a moment before letting it out, forcing himself to relax into its rhythm until slowly the storm in his head began to abate. When he finally opened his eyes he knew three things. One, that he should be at home to protect his family. Two, that this man had to get his money. Three, that Qazai was the key to both.

He took the pay-as-you-go phone that Kamila had given him that morning and dialed Qazai’s cell. It was switched off, but his next call established that he had not yet checked out of his hotel, and he asked Driss to drive him there as fast as he could.

“Is that a good idea?” said Driss.

“Why?”

“The police.”

“When will you hear from your friends?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could we ring the hospitals?”

“If the Frenchman is dead he will not be in hospital.”

“But if he isn’t he will.”

Driss shrugged. “My mother and Youssef are following your man. I am here.”

“I know. It’s OK. Then I have no choice. Let’s go.”

There was every chance, of course, that the police would be wanting to speak to Qazai, or were speaking to him already, but he had to see him; there was no other way.

He and Driss made a plan. They would drive past the hotel, make sure there were no police cars in the area, and then Driss would go in to make his reconnaissance. If all was clear, Webster would find Qazai while Driss, having tea in the lobby, would call him the moment anything happened.

THERE WERE NO POLICEin the hotel, Driss called from the lobby to report, and as far as anyone knew Mr. Qazai was in his room—at least it had not yet been made up. Webster thanked him, locked the car, left the keys in the exhaust, and crossed the street to the hotel gates, looking about him at every car, every driver, every passerby. The heat was so strong he could feel it bouncing back off the sticky tarmac.

Feeling sweaty and thoroughly conspicuous, with his trouser legs flapping above his shoes, Webster limped through the lobby and tried to look like he belonged. A few people were sitting here, drinking tea, leaning forward to have quiet conversations. Despite the loud clack of his leather soles none of the receptionists looked up as he passed, and soon he was in the garden, walking through the shade of the cedars, barely noticing that the racket of the city had given way to the swish of sprinklers and the chattering whistles of unseen birds. To his right, fat orange fish played in the apple-green water of a shallow pond and for a moment Webster longed to join them, to feel the cold on his face and on his side.

He passed half-a-dozen villas before he reached Qazai’s. He unlatched the low gate marked Sultan’s Villa and followed a brick path bordered with flowers until he reached a large private lawn, and standing in it a modern stone structure that was at least three times the size of his house. A portico the width of the building jutted into its own swimming pool; palm trees and cypresses shaded the water and the entrance, which was by way of a tall glass double door. Curtains inside were drawn across it.

Webster paused for a moment, then knocked. Nothing. He knocked again. After half a minute he took off his jacket, draped it over one of the sunloungers, unbuttoned the cuff of Youssef’s shirt and pulled his arm up the sleeve so that his hand was covered. Then he tried the door handle, and found it locked. Once upon a time his favorite private detective back in London had shown him how to open certain locks with a credit card, but he didn’t have his cards anymore. He made a circuit of the building. All the windows were closed and the door he had tried was the only one. There were no small panes of glass to break, no way up to the roof, no obvious way in.

He knocked, harder this time, using the metal of his lighter against the glass, then the heel of his hand, banging as hard as he could.

“Open the door,” he said, leaning in to the glass. “Open the fucking door.” He banged again, and shouted now. “Darius, open this fucking door.”

Behind the glass the curtains parted an inch. Webster couldn’t see in. Then a hand reached through them, the lock turned, and the hand withdrew.

Webster opened the door and slipped through the curtains. It was like walking into a crypt: almost completely dark, its air stale and so cool he felt he must be hundreds of feet underground. He could just make out a low table surrounded by armchairs but otherwise all was in gloom, and as he shut the door behind him he opened the curtains, filling the room with sun.

The light showed Qazai sitting with his hands on his knees, staring straight ahead of him like a drunk in a station waiting room. In front of him was an empty bottle of brandy, a bottle of whisky nearly half gone, and an ashtray full of cigar ends and long ash trails that gave off a decaying, dead smell. He was still in yesterday’s clothes, still wearing his shoes and his crumpled jacket, as if he had made it back here from the desert, sat down with his bottles and not moved since. Occasionally his eyelids drooped and his head lolled before jerking back into place. Christ, thought Webster. What a pair we make.

He looked around the room, at the freshly plastered walls distressed to look centuries old, and saw in one corner a cabinet with glasses arranged on it. Inside it was a fridge full of bottles. Webster took two of them, and a glass, and went to sit by Qazai, watching him for a moment before he spoke and wondering what, if anything, was going on in his head.

He opened one of the bottles and poured.

“Here. Drink this. You need water.”

Qazai looked at him as if seeing him for the first time and reached for the glass, taking only a sip before putting it back on the table. As he sat back a shiver ran through him. His eyes were bloodshot and his forehead was creased in an expression of perpetual pain.

“Have you heard from Senechal?” Webster shook him, desperately hoping that he had. But Qazai simply looked blank. “From Yves? Have you heard from Yves?”

Qazai glanced at him, failing to meet his eye, then looked down at the ground as if considering something, and shook his head. Webster passed him the glass and he drank.

“Are you.” Qazai paused and frowned, as if remembering. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

Qazai nodded slowly and reaching up began to scratch his jawline, absently at first and then with more and more energy, like a dog finding a flea.

“And Yves? What did they do to Yves?”

“We need to leave,” said Webster. “Marrakech. We need to go and make a plan. We’ve been given a week. Do you understand? One week. We have to move.” Webster put his hand under Qazai’s arm and started to pull. “And then you can tell me what the fuck you’ve done to my life.”

Qazai turned to look at him, as if for the first time.

“He took my son.” He shook his head again and tears started in his eyes. “He took my son.” Qazai brought his hands up to cover his face, shaking his head harder and harder, pushing his palms into his eyes and clawing at his scalp. “My son,” he moaned, and his voice was thick from crying.

Webster had to get him out of here. The police might turn up at any minute; might already be drawing up outside the hotel.

He reached out and put his hand on Qazai’s shoulder, finding from somewhere a final reserve of patience. “Look at me. Please.” Slowly Qazai took his hands away from his eyes, then drew his sleeve across his face to wipe them. “Very soon I won’t be able to leave here. You need to fly me back to London, and together we need to deal with this. Do you understand? If we do, there’s no reason for anyone else to get hurt. Not Ava. Not your grandchildren. But we have to go. Right now.”