Peter Temple - In the Evil Day

And he was a target now. Two men sent to kill him. They would have killed Alex too, killed anyone who happened to be there, also collateral damage.

They would come for him again. Tonight. Tomorrow. He couldn’t go home. He couldn’t go anywhere.

At the annexe entrance, Baader rang the bell for Wolfgang to let them in. They were in Baader’s office, both of them standing, when Inskip came to the door.

‘Could I have a word?’ he said to Anselm.

They went to Inskip’s workstation. Inskip pointed at a screen.

‘The Lafarge file. The woman, Thomas, she’s used a card. Twice in the same place.’

‘Where’s that place?’ Constantine Niemand and Jess Thomas. The film, Eleven Seventy.

‘Some godforsaken Welsh hamlet.’

He needed to tell Caroline Wishart.

‘There’s something else,’ said Inskip. He pressed a button on one of the recorders. A monitor came alive, a man in a military overcoat walking across tarmac. He wasn’t smiling for the cameras.

The voiceover said:

General David Carbone, commander in chief of US Special Operations Command today denied the existence of a special unit of the US Special Forces’ super-secret Delta Force called Sudden Death.

A woman was on screen, long grey hair, haggard, talking soundlessly, wiping her eyes with a tissue.

The voiceover said:

The mother of an ex-Delta Force soldier, Benjamin Galuska, found dead yesterday in Montana, has alleged that her son was haunted by things the Sudden Death unit had done but would never have taken his own life.

Soundbite from the woman:

Ben said they’d kill him, he said they’d killed the others. But we didn’t believe him.

Cut to the man in the overcoat. He was shaking his head.

I’d like to say that I share Mrs Galuska’s grief over the death of her son and I put out my hand to her. And I’d like to say that Benjamin Galuska served his country with courage and honour and pride. But I must also state categorically that the unit she speaks of did not and does not exist. Why Staff Sergeant Galuska invented this story we will never know. He seems to have been a troubled person.God rest his soul. Thank you.

‘Galuska’s one of the two I couldn’t find,’ said Inskip. ‘Are we dealing with supernatural coincidence or what?’

‘What,’ said Anselm. ‘Don’t tell Lafarge anything. Even if they ask.’

He went to his office and rang Caroline Wishart’s number. She picked up on the first ring.

‘John Anselm. I’ve got something on Jessica Thomas.’

He heard her breathe in. ‘Yes?’

He spelled out the name of the place, the business.

Breathe out, a sigh.

‘Any use?’

‘Yes. I think I know where she is.’

Anselm heard himself sigh in return. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I’ll come to England tonight. We might make sense of this if we find them.’

He went back to Baader’s office and told him. Baader looked at him for a long time, a finger tracing the line of his upper lip.

‘What the hell,’ he said. ‘Nothing to lose. Kill you here, kill you there. Not a fucking thing to lose.’

Anselm rang Alex.

‘I wasn’t pleased at being got off the premises as fast as possible,’ she said. ‘I have a small interest in whether you live or die.’

‘He meant well. I have to go away for a day or two.’

‘You’re not going to tell me?’

‘No. Would you like to go away for a while when I get back?’

‘To do what?’

‘Exercise in the morning, philosophise in the afternoon.’

‘Leaving the nights free for…?’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’

‘I need to think about it. I’ve been behaving impulsively. It’s a dangerous time.’

‘I’m a dangerous man.’

‘Much more than I thought. The answer is yes, call me.’

‘I’ll call you.’

‘Be careful. Please.’

Baader made the arrangements. Anselm rang Caroline again. An hour later, tired, chest hurting, he walked across the tarmac at Fuhlsbuttel to the executive jet.

78

…WALES…

NIEMAND SAT against the stone building in the last light, feeling the wall’s warmth. He heard the car change gear to climb the hill, and he took the machine pistol and ran for the barn. He climbed the ladder into the loft and stood beside the dormer window looking down the hill at the twisting road. A hawk in the darkening sky rose and fell, planed sideways, watching for any small movement below.

The car came into view at the small stone bridge. It was the dark-green Audi. Jess coming back.

The gate was open. She drove up past the house and into the barn and he waited until she was out of the car and he was sure she was alone, no one crouching in the back, before he spoke.

She looked up, alarmed, then she smiled, the smile that changed her face. He climbed down and went to her and kissed her, took her head in his hands, ate her mouth, felt her hands on his back, on his buttocks, pressing him into her, pulling him.

When their mouths came apart, she said, thickly, ‘Christ, is this allowed before lunch?’

They got as far as the sitting room. He had made a fire, the room was warm, and they fell on the sofa. He was underneath. They kissed, rolled, changed places. He found the button, the zip. She pulled her jeans off, he undid his button, she pulled the zip, dragged the jeans down, they lay and rubbed skin, making throat and nose sounds. She moved and sat on him, she was weightless. She put her right hand behind her and took him, held him, squeezed him, raised herself and came down on him. In that moment, he could have died of pleasure, he wanted to be as deep in her as was humanly impossible. She pulled her heavy jumper off, threw it away, the spencer gone too, ripped off, discarded. His hands went under her bra and it loosened, he had her breasts in his hands, the inexpressibly lovely weight and feel, and his face was on them, rubbing, a nipple in his lips, a small nipple, sucking it, the other one, back and forth between them. She was riding him, her head back, making sounds, a hand behind his head, a hand behind her scratching him, short nails scratching him.

The fire’s light lay yellow and gentle and unstable on the things in the room, the room was smaller now, shrunk to the reach of the flames.

…LONDON…

Palmer sat behind the desk, hands together, fingers steepled.

‘Come in,’ he said.

The man came in, looked at Palmer and Charlie Price and Martie and Carrick, looked around with an air of distaste, like a First Class traveller allocated a seat in Economy by mistake.

‘Couldn’t we have done this another way?’ he said. ‘I’m not ecstatic about coming here.’

‘I don’t have time for the cloak-and-dagger,’ said Palmer. ‘And I wanted to impress on you this business has been fucked up to high hell. There’s shit flying, there’s no error margin left.’

‘You may consider me impressed,’ said the man. His eyes panned over the three other men. ‘The committee may also consider me impressed.’

Palmer thought he would like to kick the man’s arsehole north of his eyebrows. He said, ‘There are possible complications.’

‘Life’s a vale of possible complications.’

Palmer looked at his reflection in the glass door behind the man. He could just make out the furrows on his forehead and the deep folds flanking his mouth. When the kick urge had subsided, he told him about the problem.

‘Well,’ said the man, ‘that’s a pity. And it’ll make the laundry work troublesome. Where are we talking about?’

‘Right here,’ said Carrick.

He had the maps out on the table. ‘It’s difficult country,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk you through the…’