E.V. Seymour - The Mephisto Threat

‘You’re beginning to sound like my family liaison officer,’ Gayle snorted. ‘Like I already explained to her, my mother wasn’t that keen on my marriage to Garry, my sister lives in Canada and most of my friends are hard out at work.’

Now that she’d reminded him, Tallis remembered Gayle once talking about her mother’s opposition to the marriage. ‘You shouldn’t be alone,’ he said, thinking, What do I know about such things? After Belle’s death the thought of spending time with people had quietly appalled him. Still did.

‘I’m not. I get regular visits from the police.’

‘Are they keeping you informed?’

‘They’ve been brilliant.’

‘You’re not flying out?’

‘I don’t need to. Someone from the MET’s gone on my behalf.’

‘But surely…’ Tallis began.

‘Unfortunately, my passport’s expired.’

‘I’m sure, in the circumstances, someone could rush one through.’

Gayle gave a morbid shrug. ‘What difference will it make? Garry’s gone. Doesn’t matter whether I see him here or in Turkey.’

Neither of them spoke for a moment. Tallis was first to break. ‘Do the police have a line on the killers?’

Gayle took another sip of coffee. ‘To be honest, it all sounds fairly confused. A bike matching the description was found in a back street.’

‘They say where exactly?’ Tallis chipped in. ‘I visited Istanbul a few years ago. Know it pretty well.’

Gayle frowned. ‘Strange-sounding name, Beyoglu.’ North of the Golden Horn, Tallis remembered. ‘According to the Turkish police, they want to trace a man Garry was having coffee with before he was killed. Ever heard Garry mention David Miller?’

Tallis frowned, stroked his jaw, shook his head. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell.’

‘With me neither. They seem to be fairly worked up about him, mainly because he’s disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Gone missing, although I suppose it’s possible he could have been injured in the earthquake.’

‘Or killed,’ Tallis said, warming to the idea. Gayle asked if he’d like a refill.

‘That would be great,’ he said, watching as Gayle went through the coffee routine once more. ‘You don’t think the police are connecting this Miller guy with Garry’s murder, do you?’

‘I don’t think so. I mean, it’s got to be some mad Turkish nutter, hasn’t it?’

‘You reckon? The guy or guys who ordered the contract could be any nationality at all.’ Like British, for instance.

‘You think so?’

She looked a bit perturbed, he thought. ‘Gayle, I know this is an obvious question, but do you know of anyone who’d want Garry dead?’

She let out a mournful sigh. ‘Honestly?’

‘Sure,’ he replied.

‘In Garry’s line of work he was always being threatened. He didn’t speak much about it because he knew it frightened me, but it stands to reason that you can’t rattle cages as much as Garry did and always expect to get away with it.’

So whose cage had he rattled this time? ‘Anyone threaten him recently?’

‘Not specifically.’

Tallis arched an eyebrow.

‘He got a bit roughed up the third time he went to Turkey, had his wallet stolen.’

‘Did he report it?’

‘Are you kidding?’

Tallis threw her another quizzical look.

‘Ever spent any time in a Turkish police station? They take hours simply to fill out a form.’

Yeah, he remembered. ‘Did he speak to you about what he was currently working on?’

Gayle glanced away. ‘Not really.’

Tallis leant towards her, adopting his most persuasive tone. ‘Gayle, this is me you’re talking to.’

She looked up, swallowed. ‘Like I said, I knew nothing of specifics but the general theme of the book he’d mapped out was an exploration of links between organised crime and terrorism.’

Right. Tallis felt something snatch inside. Now they were getting somewhere.

Gayle was still speaking. ‘He was very preoccupied. It was his fourth trip to Turkey this year. Every time he came back, he seemed more distant.’

‘Do you remember when he went exactly?’

‘Easy enough to find out,’ she said, twisting round, reaching up and swiping a calendar from the wall behind. ‘Here,’ she said, showing it to Tallis, pointing with a finger. ‘January 13th for a week, back in April, 17th to the 28th, then more recently early August and then this last final time.’ She folded the calendar over, hooked it back onto the wall, let out a deep sigh.

‘Mind if I take a look in his study?’ Tallis already knew that Garry had used the spare bedroom as his base. It doubled as a guest room. Tallis had slept in it when he’d last visited.

‘Help yourself. Warn you, police have already been through it with a fine-tooth comb.’

‘Take much away?’

‘Garry’s diary, containing an audit trail of contacts, his files and computer.’

‘Find anything?’

‘If they have, they haven’t told me.’

Probably a waste of time, but he thought he’d take a peek anyway.

The room was neater than he remembered. It had recently received a fresh coat of paint. Sofa bed up against one wall, Garry’s desk, an IKEA self-assembly job, against the other. It looked sad and pathetic with only the keyboard lying there on its own. A rummage through the drawers yielded nothing of startling import, mainly because the police had probably already removed anything of significance. He found a couple of building-society books, one in Gayle’s old married name, which he quickly flicked through, pausing over one of the entries before moving on to a sheaf of receipts that proved Garry had recently visited Birmingham. Tallis looked up, a snatch of conversation whistling through his head. It felt as if Garry was in the room right next to him.

‘Thing is, Birmingham’s your patch, right?’

‘Used to be.’

‘But you still know the movers and shakers in the criminal world?’

Tallis closed the drawer, aware that Gayle was standing in the doorway. He didn’t know for how long. ‘Find anything?’

‘No.’ Tallis thanked her, said he ought to be making a move. ‘All right if I use your loo before I head off?’

‘You know where it is.’ She flashed a sudden, tight smile. Probably thinking of happier times, Tallis thought as he went into the main bathroom to take a leak. Afterwards, glancing in the mirror over the washbasin, an offbeat thought hovered and began to take flight in the outer reaches of his mind. He blinked, grabbed a towel, drying his hands, and ambled back towards the lavatory, staring out of the open window for a few seconds then squashing the offending idea dead before it had a chance to fly.

Gayle was waiting for him outside. She’d removed her sunglasses. The skin around her grey-blue eyes looked dark and tired. ‘Thanks for coming.’

‘You’ll take care?’

‘Sure.’

‘Remember what I said.’ He squeezed her arm. ‘Don’t be alone.’

HE TOOK the train from Marylebone to Birmingham, Snow Hill. The closer to home, the more his thoughts centred on family, or what was left of it. His father, with whom he had an appalling relationship, was dying of cancer. Dan, his elder brother, was banged up in jail and would remain so for many years to come. How his mum continued with such courage and good humour was a source of constant inspiration to him. And then there was Hannah, his much younger sister, falling in love with a geography teacher when still in her teens, married, two kids, happy and settled. She rarely returned home.

Tallis idly looked out of the window. They were pulling into Solihull. A middle-aged man carrying a large suitcase was walking towards a woman of similar age, the look of delight on both their faces the most uplifting sight. As soon as they were within arm’s length of each other, the man put his case down in the same momentous way an explorer marks his triumph by sticking a flag in the ground, and took the woman in his arms. Tallis watched enchanted, glad that life continued joyously for the vast majority of people, while also feeling an overwhelming sense of something precious lost.