Ivoria Page 22
She began as a sort of PA. She, of all things in fact a quite talented occasional painter, helped organise the eccentric painting course Joss’s corporation had set up on the island.
This treat included invitations of the richest, or most influential, of the ‘students’ to favoured get-togethers as guests at the house in ‘Little Venice’. The idiocy of people, as she saw it, could tickle Qirri. She went along with the peculiar lunches and dinners. She was fairly sure that Joss was beginning to verge on some form of dementia. Which might be very beneficial. She also won over the fake steward, Stephanos. It turned out he too liked sex with a stir of spice, as he put it to Qirri, in Greek. They got on well. Lust without hang-ups, two handsome dogs waiting by the table for the Ten Million Dollar Bone to fall.
The way things were going with the world economy, they might need everything they could get. But they were only partners in crime, Stephanos and she. Dead Laurence remained her lover. Her only love.
Even now, sitting on the fake ruin-stone she herself had suggested be put here, above the olives and the sea, Qirri remembers the touch and taste of Laurence’s mouth on hers. She has only to think of Laurence-inflicted bruises on her body for the inner shudder to course through her centre, the playful little frisson of her waiting womb.
She does not tell Nick any of this.
Why should she?
On the other hand, the Roman ivory pin, what Laurence had called the Augusta Pin, and which he had told her about on the phone from Coreley, and about which (since) she had learned rather more, is now only a few feet away, held in the grasp of the little brother, Nick. Nick the Prick. Claudia’s one true look-alike.
Dress him, corset and contour him as a woman, a wig, or hair-extensions - make-up. Yes, Nick was Claudia’s double. If Qirri was incredibly like Claudia, beside Nick, Qirri was only the undeveloped film.
“That’s cute,” says Qirri. “What is it?” Although she knows.
“No idea. Laurence hid it at my flat.”
“Why?” she asks indolently. Some months ago she would also have known why. Laurence said he lied about the pin - for this object can only be that, exactly as described - in order to tease Qirri and so trigger the game-play.
But other knowledge has accumulated. Laurence, who did have the pin, hid it in Nick’s flat not only to tease Qirri. He had not told her that in true fact he hid it because he had sensed he was being tailed. Uneasy at having lifted a valuable find from the dig, he thought pursuit of some type might be likely. Though pursuit was, of course, not for that reason.
Laurence had been meant to see and pocket the pin. They had judged him well. It seemed he had, now and then, got away with the odd archaeological item before.
But now Nick, undeniably in ignorance, says, “I don’t know why he hid it. But presumably it’s worth something.”
“Nothing. It’s only a very good fake.”
How does she know it’s a fake so quickly? Is she an expert? Nick puts the pin on the grass, and only then Qirri says sharply, “Give it to me.”
“If it’s worthless, why do you want it?”
She has got up anyway. With a fluid grace very like Claudia’s, she bends and picks the pin out of the grass and straightens, holding it. Nick makes no move to stop her. As before, he does not care.
Qirri wants the pin because Laurence had held it. He had meant to give it to her for safekeeping. But unease, and then the game… She has kept the small fake ivory square he did give her, for the same reason - his absent touch. She still has the square. And now this. She utters a swift low murmur, then a laugh. Nick glances up at her. Her laugh has reminded him of Laurence’s, that time in Nick’s flat. Sexual and secretive, unsuited to anything that had or has been said and done.
Nick stands up too. Rather bizarrely, they both now stand there, gazing out at the water.
“I can only see four or five islands,” he says.
“There’s a haze,” she says, “You need a clear day to see them properly.”
He does not want to ask her anything at all. He travelled all this way, lugging the wounded lung, loitering, catching a boat with eyes. But he does not want to ask anything, nor be answered.
It goes without saying she is Claudia’s child. It goes without saying she has worked out on each of them some persistent, maybe well-founded spite. She has had each of them, one way or another. And now she works on Joss.
Can it be she was even, in some way, responsible for Claudia’s death? Perhaps suddenly turning up, startling Claudia or somehow threatening her, scaring her, so that the bud of the aneurysm was rushed into full flower. Was it Kitty indirectly then who killed Claudia, all those years ago?
Look at her. Claudia’s double, doppelganger almost. And if you met yourself, just as the poet had prophesied, you died.
“Well,” he says, meaninglessly to the view.
“Will you stay to dinner?” asks Claudia’s daughter. Her - Claudia’s - blue eyes dance on with that dubious laughter.
Nick smiles.
“No. I don’t think I’ll stay for the painting course either. Have a good time. Enjoy yourself.”
Then she stares full at him, and inside her really quite breathtaking face, Nick sees, he thinks, nothing obscure, only a bottomless depth of the most mundane evil, an evil too brainless and trite even to be human, even to be evil - the expression of a minor demon thrown out of Hell for paucity.
“You too,” She says.
It is a sort of curse.
He knows this.
All the while he walks down the hill, and cuts aside through the olive trees to reach the outer gateway of the house, he feels - not her look - but her curse on his spine. There will be time, he thinks, to catch the bus back to the other village on the other shore.
That evening, Crang calls Qirri’s mobile. He is in another country, but expense is no problem.
“You might be pleased to hear,” says Crang, “there’s a chance we can get that holiday up for you next month.”
Qirri holds her breath. Then lets it go. “Yes…”
“Fine. I’ll be in touch then.” His accent is slight, she has never placed it.
“Just - is he…?”
“Our old dog’s doing very well. You’ll be thrilled to bits, Kit, when you see how healthy he is.”
She cannot speak. Crang pauses, used, no doubt, to interpreting such choked intervals. “OK then, babes. Talk to you later.”
“Thank you,” she humbly says, remembering her manners, and that it is always sensible to behave properly, even in extremis, with the powerful and the lawless.
Pera, going by through the red-tiled hall a moment later, says to Qirri in equivalent Greek, “You look like you saw a ghost.”
“Oh, no,” says Qirri. “Quite the opposite.” And then, again to be careful, she adds, “A girl I used to know in England. Haven’t seen her for a year.”
The girl, of course, (she is to have the name of Abbi) is going to invite Qirri over to one of the other islands. Qirri will explain to Joss how much she wants to go. He will agree - Qirri is more a clever, exhibitable pet, than indispensible. But certainly he is fond of her. She is, after all, the only one of Claudia’s children who has ever been nice to him. He may even pay her fare, not that she needs it paid. When she does not come back for a while, she will find some other yarn to tide Joss - and Stephanos - over. And inevitably, if she comes back a bit the worse for wear, she can blame everything on a fall. It is best to be ready for that. It has been a long time. They will be not only greedy now, but starving.
Crang had first contacted Qirri when she was already in Greece. As he informed her, it would not have been advisable before. But now she was not only due to be rewarded, she herself was part of the reward.
Things were moving on, and very soon there would be no barrier. Then they could make a move. After conveying this, Crang turned the call over to them, allowing them to speak for two minutes. The longest shortest time that Qirri had ever been aware of.
/> To start with, that whole first minute, she was not even sure she recognised his voice, though they had warned her about that. Then too it might be some weird cranky trick someone was playing. Qirri herself had played enough of those to suspect it of others. But in the end - the second and last minute - he seemed to have found his own voice and she identified it. She started to cry but was very aware she must not speak his name. Presumably neither he, nor she, could ever use that name again. He is called Blake Castle, now.
Secops had been after the murderer for quite a time. He too had gone by more than one name, a variety of them, or of nicknames. But by the turn of the century - 2000, 2001 - mostly his associates, and decidedly his paying petitioners, knew him only as The Man, capital T and M. Obliquely affiliated to the police service, and also, if somewhat more aslant, to MI6, Secops had never quite got close enough to stop, as someone put it, The Man’s party. But then, through a series of investigations and abutting events, they had become aware of a Mr Stewart Pond.
Keeping tabs on Pond proved far more straightforward than attempting to unearth The Man himself. And Pond, as indicated, and without undue delay, unwittingly led them back towards The Man. Mr Pond had another client for The Man. She was the wife of a TV personality, a kind of People’s Easy Archaeologist, Laurence Lewis. They had, at least the police had had, half an eye on Lewis already, since a couple of occasions in the past. Never proved, yet he seemed to be rather on the (petty) illegal side himself. He also drank too much even to breathe on, let alone drive, the car he constantly roared around London in. More to the point however, it turned out Pond had arranged that Lewis was to be The Man’s next target.
By far the simplest plan was to get a tracker, either in the car or - better - on to Lewis’s person. As he was prone to check out the sites he worked on when others were away, now and then picking up a handy bit of treasure-trove, thereafter undeclared and profited by, a tasty and extremely expertly faked titbit was provided at the Coreley dig. Conceivably Laurence might eventually have had doubts about the veracity of this piece, but providing it fooled him for those special days and nights, it would do its work. It contained a homing device that anyone with a quarter ounce of training could lock on to and follow.
Unfortunately the redoubtable Lewis took it into London, and then dumped it, (as it transpired), in the flat of his brother, a Mr Nicolas Lewis. Beeping away from the flat’s interior, it was about as much use as a turd on a bicycle.
Nevertheless, when Laurence took off from the flats and the beeping did not go with him, (nor Pond) the Secops driver, code-named Grey, used his initiative and followed after Laurence’s Volvo. This was fine amid the dense evening traffic. But as Laurence Lewis sailed his car, too fast over seas of vodka, on to the quieter back streets, Grey had to go more cautiously and avoid being seen. Initially Laurence went to Marylebone. At another group of flats, these less modern and more gracious, according to Grey, Laurence was let in, and stayed in for a reasonable while.
When he came out Grey was impressed to see Laurence had changed some - most - of his garments, including his wedding ring, again. It was now once more the platinum version.
Grey let Laurence get back in the Volvo, then followed self-effacingly as they headed up towards South Ken.
And here it was that Grey became in grave peril of losing the quarry through caution.
And then did lose him.
The road was too open, and next a gush of other vehicles dashed between.
Grey must work on the premise that Laurence was, probably, now going home to his death-minded Mrs. Grey took the risk, and presently, driving into one of the side streets of big, tree-hung houses, saw beneath the exclusive yellow lamplight another car, not Laurence’s, slewed partially across the road. At the road’s far end the tail lights of the Volvo burned a clear moving red.
After this Grey tried to keep up with Laurence. Grey had noted there was another person now in the passenger seat. He could be anyone, or he could be The Man. Whoever he was, Laurence had now changed tack. He was heading in quite another direction than that of his expensive house.
Somewhere along the way Grey made space to call in to HQ. They had thought tonight might be the night, and it seemed this was now almost certain. Aware at last that the tracker was no longer with Laurence, Secops would next coordinate their actions to tally with Grey’s outline. But they too must be on guard.
It was no use to arrest The Man on any sort of suspicion, Evidence of his attempt to kill or, last gambit, his success in doing so, was the only hope. He had already eluded them too long.
Near Barnes, Grey had to take extra care. The Man had not got the reputation he had by missing details.
Grey dropped back as much as he could, and trusted The Man was mostly centred on his own main task - presumably hijacking and death. As with any true genius, that would inevitably, at this late stage of climax, be absorbing the bulk of his concentration.
Again, Grey nearly missed the turn off up the bleak and scutty by-road. It led to a derelict, unpublicised car park, and the stretch of broken fence below Richmond Park.
They were out and gone by the time he spotted the now stationary Volvo.
Even so, Grey parked his own vehicle some distance down and off the road. He sprinted the rest of the way.
Negotiating the fence, and on the edge of the slope, Grey could make out the two men’s progress. Or rather the progress of one man, for The Man had followed virtually in his victim’s footprints, hiding or smearing his own. But Grey had a good eye himself.
He chose a divergent path, and moved in virtually noiseless ascents sidelong up the hill - spry on his feet, too.
He was all the time waiting, braced for the soft noise of a blow, a smothered cry, a silencer-smothered shot. But nothing came.
And then everything changed. Something went plunging across the upper side of the hill…
It sounded to Grey like the Charge of the bloody Light Brigade, thunder of hoofs and crack of bullets - or sticks? -and a moaning background sort of booming, like cannon perhaps, miles off. Above him he saw moonlight fracturing and breaking and then the darkness flooding back like falling masonry. And a frantic fox bolted down through the undergrowth and leapt across his path.
When the pandemonium ceased - as abruptly and entirely as it had started - Grey decided that whatever had been going to be done - was seen to.
The Man would be gone. Laurence Lewis would be dead. And not a single sodding witness.
Any of the back-up a functioning tracker would have facilitated had been out of the question. It was too late.
Grey had not even been near enough to get a look at The Man.
Nevertheless Grey pushed on up the hill to check for any possible leads. After that tumult - surely there must be something. But he knew The Man was already far off. There was no last window of opportunity. It was over.
Except – it was not.
Laurence Adrian Lewis was lying on the ground. He sprawled on his back, motionless. Just as The Man had already done, (had Grey been up here to see it) Grey took Laurence for what he anticipated - a corpse. But, also as The Man had, Grey went forward to make sure of it.
And this was when the prone figure shuddered. Its eyes opened. “What?” said Laurence to the moon. Then he retched and Grey sprang to assist him.
The Secops team, attended by an anonymous medical vehicle, were on the scene in less than ten minutes more. By then the living cadaver of Laurence Lewis was propped bewildered, staring at Grey and mumbling over and over, “Herne… Hern…”
“What does he say?”
“Something about Herne the Hunter, whoever he is, jumping on his chest, kicking him. Seems to have forgotten the rest.”
“Let’s hope not.”
“Cheer up, Grey. He’s in a bad way but I’ve seen a lot worse. We’re in with a chance.”
They were. Laurence recovered surprisingly quickly, considering that he had suffered a cardiac arrest. Though the after-effects wer
e at first very noticeable, some of them would lessen through the succeeding months. (The idea that a deer, jumping on to his body at the correct area, had kick-started the stalled heart seemed insane. But Laurence insisted it must have been so. While a trio of broken ribs seemed to bear this out. He remembered blacking out, thinking he had been shot - a memory of pain and then of nothingness. And then a terrific blow to the chest and the deer, moon-silvered, stinking and magnificent, leaping free of him, as horrified, it had seemed, as he was at its life-giving social gaff. “Herne the Hunter,” he had said, “lord of the forests.”
Laurence, cowed by his experiences, and in awe of what might have been the intervention of gods or fate or epic coincidence - the historico-mythological viewpoint of a commercially-minded archaeologist - was obedient under the treatment he received in a private Secops clinic. He was also more than vengefully eager to provide the vital witness and testifier they required.
Their problem in the past had always been that no one who ever dealt with The Man would agree to describe or identify him. Let alone inform against him. This despite many sophisticated methods of persuasion. Their fear of, their respect for The Man ruled betrayal out. Some died, too, of being fruitlessly persuaded. Additionally there was currently a kind of moratorium on all such activities. It was not even really worth trying to bug suspect accomplices to listen in. Dictates of the EU, it seemed, would be likely to scupper not only any evidence so gained, but all follow-up plans based on it. In the end, Secops had let The Man’s adjuncts roam free. In turn keeping close watch on them.
The peculiar Pond was now one of these. Himself so keen on a flat-footed imitation of the police, and so pedantically law-abiding in all else, Pond was immaculately comfortable in his private detective role, and almost casual in his recourse to hired murder. Pond and The Man went back, they found, quite some way. Three or four deaths were already, probably, attributable to The Man’s enlistment by Pond. But all unprovable.
Until Laurence.