Ian Rankin - Westwind

‘Nothing serious, though?’

‘No, nothing serious. You just need to rest. Does your head hurt?’

No, his head didn’t hurt. He put his right hand to his forehead and felt a plaster there.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘a bit of a headache.’

‘We’ll get you something for that. I’ll be back to see you shortly. Meantime, if there’s anything you need, just ask Nurse...?’ The doctor had forgotten her name.

‘Carraway,’ she said. She smiled at Dreyfuss again, her hair the colour of honey. And he smiled back. By which time the doctor had left the room and the door was swinging shut. A voice was raised somewhere in the corridor. The goon, thought Dreyfuss, the one called General Ben Esterhazy.

‘Can I see a newspaper?’ he asked Nurse Carraway. She was sitting down with her book again, legs crossed. Were those silk stockings she was wearing? Since when were silk stockings regulation issue for nurses?

‘I’ll have to check on that, Mr Dreyfuss.’

‘Didn’t you hear? It’s Major .’

‘Of course it is. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s okay.’

She had risen to her feet, but instead of leaving to fetch a paper, she approached the bed.

‘Can I just ask one thing?’ she said.

He smiled. ‘How can I stop you?’

‘I was just wondering...’ Her fingers stretched towards him, stopping just short of his throat. ‘I was wondering how you got those bruises on your neck.’

Hes Adams’ fingers trying to wrench the life from him, when they were both already dead .

‘What bruises?’ he said, his eyes clear and honest.

She smiled, but uncertainly. Then walked to the door and opened it, turning back to look at him before leaving. Dreyfuss checked that there were no cameras trained on him from the corners of the room, no holes drilled in the wall. Seeing none, he allowed himself the luxury of a smile.

Parfit stared at the security room’s various screens as they relayed the passing parade outside the embassy. Most days now there was a demonstration of some kind. It might be the French embassy or the German embassy. But mostly, as today, it was the British embassy. Today’s crowd was small. Thank the unseasonal Washington drizzle for that perhaps. They were yelling something, but the cameras hadn’t been wired for sound, not outside the perimeter wall at any rate. It didn’t matter. He knew the gist of their chants. You don’t want us, we don’t want you — that sort of thing. And he took their point. Whether he agreed with it or not was irrelevant.

There had been some ugliness in other parts of the country. It was tempting to say the less civilised parts. A section of the USA would forever stay frontier country, and God help any unwary English tourist straying too far from the safety of their metropolitan hotel. So far this week, Parfit had had reports of two firebomb attacks on British businesses in Boston and New York, several broken windows, threats, casual violence, and sixteen muggings, one of which had taken place in a picnic area of Yosemite National Park.

Then there were those who were merely annoyed: the British businessmen who were losing contracts, the British immigrants who were being harassed at work. And all of it filtered back via the great brown fan to the Washington embassy, where some of it landed squarely on Parfit’s too-small desk.

‘Looks peaceable enough, Mr Parfit,’ said Tom Banks, one of the security team whose job it was to watch the screens, seeking breaches in the line of defence.

‘The rain will cool their tempers, Tom,’ said Parfit. ‘See you later.’

‘Bye, Mr Parfit.’

He was headed for Johnnie Gilchrist’s office, the inner sanctum. Towards Gilchrist’s door, the carpet pile seemed to grow discernibly deeper. It was said that this was because so few people dared disturb Gilchrist in his lair. Like many myths, there was a core of truth to it. But Parfit knocked anyway, his distinctive three short raps and one long.

‘Come in, Parfit.’ Seated behind his desk, half-moon glasses resting precariously on his aquiline nose, Gilchrist could look tame enough, more the retiring scholar than the shrewd — and vicious — career diplomat. He and Parfit had sharpened claws on one another in the past, but at least each understood the other’s territory. Gilchrist’s job was to get things done, no matter what. Parfit’s job was damage limitation. There could never be one without the other.

‘Sit down.’

Parfit sat, crossing his legs. The chair was as uncomfortable as it needed to be. It was not designed for long-stay visitors.

‘Another demo outside.’ It was a statement of fact.

Gilchrist removed his glasses and rubbed at the red indentations either side of his nose.

‘It seems quiet enough today,’ Parfit commented.

‘Thank Christ for that at least then.’ Gilchrist slipped the glasses on again, pushing them down firmly onto the bridge of his nose. ‘Now, what about Dreyfuss?’

‘What about him?’

‘Come on, Parfit. What’s your game?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Gilchrist waved the comment aside. ‘You should be there in Sacramento. Somebody should be there at least. Has he regained consciousness yet?’

‘We think so.’

‘Think?’

‘It’s not easy getting straight answers just at the moment. You should know that, or haven’t you noticed that our dealings with the cousins have become rather frosty? We keep in contact with the hospital authorities, who pass us on to somebody else, and that somebody else tries to sell us a call-back-tomorrow or an I’ll-check-and-call-you-back.’

‘All the more reason why somebody from the embassy should be there.’

‘I’m going.’

‘Yes, but when?’

‘Maybe tomorrow.’

Gilchrist stared hard at Parfit, who didn’t flinch. ‘Is that a maybe-maybe or a maybe-definitely?’

‘It’s a maybe-probably.’

Gilchrist smiled in defeat, then took off his glasses again to rub at his nose. He had been doing this ever since Parfit had known him, and it irritated him more than he could say.

‘So,’ Parfit began, ‘is there anything I should know about the state of play on the pull-out?’

‘No. NATO’s making its usual balls-up of the whole thing. Nobody seems able to agree with anybody else. Fallings-out left and right. If only we had the right bloody government in power...’

‘But we don’t.’

‘Quite. So instead it’s complete chaos, and what are the Soviets doing? Have you noticed?’

‘I wasn’t aware they were doing anything.’

‘Exactly. They’re just sitting back enjoying the bloody show. Oh, and speaking of bears, Ben Esterhazy’s back from Bonn. Not the happiest of soldiers, by all accounts. There’s talk that he’ll be heading for Sacramento.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, most of that shuttle crew were his men after all.’ Gilchrist sighed. ‘We really could have done without this on top of everything else.’ He pulled a newspaper from the drawer of his desk and began to read aloud. ‘“The Jonah Factor. Major Michael Dreyfuss, the Briton they did not want on the tragic shuttle mission, was still seriously ill in Sacramento General Hospital today. Ground observers report that the shuttle’s undercarriage appeared not to operate during its descent towards Edwards Air Force Base.”’ He looked up at Parfit. ‘Et cetera,’ he said, ‘until this at the end: “Whatever happened, one thing is clear. The people of the United States will long remember the dealings of the past few weeks with the British government, the British people, and one British subject in particular.”’ He threw the paper back into the drawer. ‘They’re talking about Dreyfuss, and yet you’re letting him lie there—’