Into the fire, p.17
Into the Fire, page 17
Freyn kept quiet. At least Savage had said ‘we’, not ‘I’. Dick Breden was Freyn’s external rival, and Savage’s pet. An ex-spook, who now specialised in private investigations. Freyn took his cue, and stayed.
Breden answered the phone in his laconic drawl.
‘Dick, James Savage here. Something’s come up, urgent. Could you come around? Good. See you in an hour.’
Dick Breden arrived five minutes early. He had replaced his customary corduroys and blazer with a suit, in deference to Savage’s sartorial fastidiousness. His was off the peg, unlike Savage’s, but he had no need of a tailor skilled in the art of disguise. His suit hung to considerable advantage on his lean, muscled body. But he posed as a financier well enough to mask his true purpose in coming to Goldsteins. Only Savage and Freyn knew he was a private investigator. They had used him on a number of occasions to investigate prospective clients, colleagues, and rivals, both within and without the bank. Savage’s rare respect for his abilities, and their shared secrets, silenced the bully boy in him, and he greeted Breden with the smile of a fellow conspirator. Breden, in turn, liked Savage for his unconcealed ferocity, which Savile Row did nothing to disguise.
The two men shook hands and Breden turned to Freyn. Spook meets Army; they knew each other by type, long before they had met as individuals. Training and susceptibilities yielded grudgingly. There was still something in Breden which looked for surreptitious deference from Freyn, just a flicker of an eye would have done it. Freyn knew it and responded with thinly concealed hostility. But, sweetly for Freyn, he was now the man in charge. It was his department which hired Breden, but, in Breden’s favour, Savage was the man who wanted him, so the power lay delicately balanced. Savage could feel the tension between the two men, allowed the faintest trace of amusement to show. Competition and conflict were to the office what guano was to the roses in his garden. Savage spread it around liberally.
Evangeline, Savage’s secretary, handed her boss a buff-coloured file, poured coffee and retreated. All three men took their coffee black; Savage for the sake of his waistline, Freyn because he was allergic to milk, and Breden because he liked the harsh astringency of it.
‘I need you to find a woman who works here,’ said Savage. ‘She hasn’t turned up for work for two days. She doesn’t appear to be at home, and there’s a suspicion of wrongdoing. Her name is Helen Jencks.’ He slid him Helen’s personnel file.
‘You should know too that her father is Jack Jencks.’
‘The financier who disappeared?’
‘Amid rumours of fraud.’
‘Like father like daughter?’ asked Breden.
‘Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best.’
‘Or the most convenient. You want me to find out what she might have done?’
Savage shook his head. ‘Michael and I’ll be looking into that here. What I want you to do is find her.’
‘Tell me about her. Who is she?’
Savage laughed. ‘I asked her the same question one night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.’
Breden raised an eyebrow, sensed a good story, and sat back to draw it out with the easy smile of a man with all the time in the world. Freyn felt he was about to be let into a side of his boss he hadn’t known existed, and sat poised in silence.
Savage recounted his story with perfect recall. It was one of those occasions when, even at the time, you are aware of the permanence of a conversation, an encounter. Your brain relishes it with such yearning that it keeps a perfect copy in the memory to replay at will.
‘It was January, four years ago. I’d chartered a yacht called the Escape. We sailed for two weeks round the South Pacific. We stopped off at Rarotonga, Aitutaki, Atiu, in the Cook Islands; Mopelia, Bora Bora, Huahine and Moorea in the Society Islands. God, it was wonderful. Helen Jencks was ship’s cook. She cooked well, kept her distance. She seemed a very solitary person. We all noticed her. She was attractive physically, but it was more than that. You felt her presence. It wasn’t altogether comfortable, but something about it was riveting. Some nights she’d play the saxophone. She wasn’t playing for us, but we’d all go up on deck and sit by her to listen. She played in a trance like an angel crying. It was as if we weren’t there. Anyway, one night I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to take a walk around deck. I found Helen sitting cross-legged on the teak playing backgammon with the captain. I challenged her to a game.’ He smiled.
‘She accepted and the captain went belowdecks, leaving us alone.’ As quickly as he said it, his mind cast him back on deck, to a sleek yacht moored under tropical skies, and to a beautiful woman sitting under the starlight.
‘What shall we play for?’ Helen asked with a smile. ‘Be careful what you say, because I don’t renege.’
‘Good, neither do I. What would you like to play for?’
‘You’re the head of a bank, yes?’
‘I am.’
‘If I win, I’d like a job. On the trading floor. As a trader.’
He laughed, and studied her for a while. It was an interesting wager, academic, he felt, but revealing nonetheless.
‘All right. I can arrange that.’
‘And what would you like from me?’ She gave him a lazy, wide-lipped smile, her eyes on his all the time.
His eyes travelled down her face, over her lips, down her throat to her breasts, to her crossed legs, brown, smooth and supple.
‘I’d like to make love to you.’
She smiled.
‘Failing that, I’d like to spend the rest of my life eating your cooking and listening to you play the saxophone.’
She gave a quiet chuckle. ‘It’s not going to happen.’
He turned to Breden. ‘She was so sure of herself. I thought I was quite safe. I won the British Championship eight years ago when I still had time for things other than work.’ He smiled abruptly. ‘She thrashed me. This pretty little ship’s cook thrashed me. I couldn’t believe it. We stayed up all night, drinking and playing, backgammon and blackjack, and talking. She seemed so much more than what she was, so I asked her: ‘Who are you really, Helen Jencks?”
His mind went back again to the two of them, alone on deck.
‘It would be easier,’ she said, ‘to tell you what I’ve done.’
‘All right then. If I’m to give you a job, it’s as well to know something about you.’
‘I was born twenty-six years ago in the Welsh valleys, in my grandmother’s house. I grew up in London. When I was seven, my father left home and never came back. I lived with my mother till I was sixteen. She moved to Devon to live with a man, and have his children. I stayed in London, alone. I left school, a local comprehensive, when she moved away. She sold the house and gave me money for rent. I moved into a cheaper place and spent the extra money on clothes and drinking and dancing. I got ten O-levels before I left school, all A grades, then I did a six-month cookery course ‘cos it was what my mother wanted. After I finished the course, I moved in with a man, he was a saxophonist, ten years older than me. He played the club circuit, not very well, but I thought he was great, for a while. It ended up that I was sort of trapped. He didn’t want me to go out unless it was with him. He didn’t want me to dress nicely in case other men looked at me. It sometimes seemed as if he didn’t want me to live, and he used to hit me.’
‘What did you do?’
‘I ran away to sea.’
‘And you want to leave all this for a job on the trading floor?’
‘I want to try something new.’
‘Your life is everyone’s dream.’
‘I might say the same of yours.’
‘We all want our illusions.’
‘So indulge mine, or let me discover I’m wrong.’
‘Tell me first. I’ve never seen anyone play like you, and I’ve never been beaten so resoundingly. Where on earth did you learn to play like that?’
‘Here, on board ship. Word always gets around that I can play. One season, the Escape was chartered by an old man. He taught me how to win.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Sandy Goldsmith.’
Savage gave an incredulous laugh. ‘Ex-world champion.’
‘That’s him.’
‘Did he teach you to count cards too, or was that a bit of private larceny?’
‘I prefer to think of it as skill.’
‘Useful on the trading floor, I have to admit. But could you squeeze yourself into a regular working day after all this freedom?’
‘I can do whatever I choose to. And you don’t understand. Freedom can be a curse to those who don’t know how to use it.’
‘And you don’t?’
‘I do, but I want a change. I want to earn enough money to be able to set my own agenda, to be able to tell creeps to bugger off.’
She had other reasons besides, he could feel them, but she didn’t elaborate.
‘It sounds so nice and safe, doesn’t it? But perhaps it’s just another type of siren call.’
‘No. It’s the Golden Fleece, and I want it.’
He laughed when he remembered her words. Subconscious truth in the pun?
Breden’s voice drew him back.
‘Perhaps that’s what she did do? Perhaps she did fleece you?’
‘Perhaps. Find her and we’ll find out.’
‘Did you try to change your mind then, back on the boat, knowing who she was?’
‘No. I’d given her my word.’
‘Would you give it again?’
Savage didn’t speak, but Breden could see the answer in the rare softness of the other man’s eyes.
CHAPTER 38
Helen awoke early, filled with a sense of illicit thrill. If all had gone according to plan, just under one and a half million dollars would be speeding her way. Her plan for the day was to go into the Olivar hotel, ring Dai, find out if the money, and her first strike at revenge on Wallace and Rankin, were hers.
She started the morning with a long session of yoga, strengthening exercises and swimming. There was no sign of Maldonado, so she breakfasted alone on the sun-warmed terrace. She finished up, chatted with the dogs, slipped them some bacon, then rang for a taxi, which arrived ten minutes later, another crumpled Volkswagen. She jumped into the back and asked for the Olivar. She didn’t notice a battered Toyota estate car start up and swing into the traffic four cars behind her, nor the black Ford Bronco which pulled out three cars in front.
Helen’s taxi sped through La Molina and crested the hill topped by the satellite dish five minutes later. Below them, Lima shimmered in the heat haze, stretching out before them until it seemed to disappear into the Pacific. At the Olivar, the friendly desk clerk, Carlos, was on duty again, and the conference room was free. Helen rang Dai.
‘Good news, Cariad. You’re rich.’
She gave a wild laugh. ‘Brilliant. That’ll teach those buggers. You’re a genius, Dai. Thank you.’
‘Oh, I enjoyed myself, don’t you worry. I still think we’re mad, mind, but there you go.’
They spoke of Wiltshire and the dogs and the coming spring, and Helen said goodbye before she talked for too long and had a chance to miss him too much, then went downstairs to reception to pay for her phone call. She handed Carlos twenty dollars; one of her better investments, she thought. She walked out into the brilliant sunshine, shielding her eyes against the glare. She didn’t notice the two men, lounging at the edge of the park across the road, didn’t see their eyes following her progress, nor hear their muttered comments into their high-powered walkie-talkies. She flagged down a taxi, and headed back to La Molina, pursued discreetly by the black Ford Bronco.
One of the park loungers put away his walkie-talkie and sauntered into the Olivar. Carlos looked up at him nervously. The casual arrogance of the man and the bulge under his jacket that ill concealed a pistol told Carlos the man was trouble before he flashed his identity card.
‘Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional. A moment of your time, por favor,’ said the man.
Carlos walked quickly into the back office. The man from SIN nodded at a secretary sitting at a desk typing letters.
‘Why don’t you take a coffee break, Juanita?’ suggested Carlos. Juanita glanced quickly at the stranger, and disappeared.
The man sat down at the vacant desk, and lit one of the secretary’s cigarettes.
‘That woman who walked out five minutes ago, the gringa with the blonde hair. What did she want?’
Carlos stared at the man’s shoulder, feeling for him a fear and dislike as strong as the sudden loyalty he felt towards the blonde foreigner.
‘And don’t tell me she came in here to ask directions,’ said the man as if reading Carlos’s mind. ‘That would hardly take ten minutes, even from someone as pig-shit ignorant as you.’
Carlos knew too well the stories of what happened to those who resisted SIN: the torture chambers, the hospital wards. The morgue.
‘She came in to use the phone.’
‘And what did she say, on the phone?’
‘I don’t know. She called from the conference room.’
‘For nothing?’
‘No. I charged her.’
‘How did she pay?’
‘Cash.’
‘Let me see the receipt, or did you plan to line your own stinking pocket?’
Carlos walked back to reception, and took out the receipt with the computer imprint stapled to the back. He handed it to the man, and stepped out of range. The man read the imprint and pocketed it.
‘Has she been here before?’
‘One time before, to phone.’
‘The receipt…’ The man held out his hand, palm open.
Carlos looked through his files and brought out the slip.
‘Be nice to her, next time she comes in to phone. Make sure there’s always a phone available to her. Say nothing of our little chat.’
CHAPTER 39
Angel handed Maldonado two slips of yellow paper.
‘One of our men got these from the desk clerk at the Olivar. Seňorita Jencks went in there to make two telephone calls, one yesterday, one today. Both to the same number, in the United Kingdom.’
Maldonado studied the papers, then passed them back to Angel.
‘Why would she go all the way into San Isidro to make a telephone call?’
Angel pulled a packet of Marlboros from his pocket and lit one.
‘Perhaps she’s being considerate,’ he suggested, his cynical smile belying his words. ‘Doesn’t want to load up your telephone bill.’
Maldonado opened his desk drawer and took out a navy-blue address book. He flicked through until he came to ‘M’, then he gave a slight smile and closed the book.
‘She rang her godfather. My friend, the one who asked me to have her stay.’
‘Would have been perfectly normal to ask you if she could call him,’ mused Angel. ‘What is she up to, this Helen Jencks?’
‘We’ll find out, won’t we? Perhaps it’s time I rang Tess Carlyle. Ask for some intel on Miss Jencks. Call SIS’s bluff, if they’re behind her arrival here. See what I can find out from their reaction.’
‘Maybe she’s just come to look for her father, if he disappeared like you say.’
‘Then why not be open about it, huh? Why conceal her identity, why not just ask for my help? No, she’s up to something. Sometimes I can’t decide who’s trying to work out whom more intensely, her or me. And, like I said, the timing of her arrival’s just too coincidental to be innocent.’
‘So you think SIS are behind it?’
‘That’s what we have to find out. If they are, we have to play this one extremely carefully, get me? No mistakes.’
‘We continue the surveillance?’ asked Angel.
Maldonado nodded.
‘Expensive. Shall I use the special budget?’
‘What’s left of it after those fucking norteamericanos put in the radar at Iquitos. What with that and lookdown I can hardly take a shit without them knowing.’ Maldonado got to his feet and began to pace slowly around his study, pausing to touch the face of a Moche figure.
‘Why can’t they concentrate on weaning their addicts and leave off molesting us? No demand, no supply.’
‘Because some, in their government and ours, want to kill off the droguistas,’ answered Angel.
‘So the gringos should buy Peruvian cotton then, and bid up the price. Give the farmers a real alternative.’
‘I don’t think the voters in Louisiana would like that very much, do you?’
Maldonado held up his hand as he caught sight of Helen crossing the lawn, her way illuminated by the faint light cast from his study.
‘Disappear. I’m having dinner with her in a minute.’
Angel studied the approaching woman.
‘Look at her. Look at the way she walks, like a cat, prowling. That blonde hair. I can see her eyes glittering from here.’
‘You don’t like her.’
‘I’d like her, very much.’ Angel’s tongue flicked out round his lips. He watched Helen approach closer, crushed out his cigarette, and slipped from the house.
CHAPTER 40
Helen cast shadows on the white walls as she walked through Maldonado’s house. The air smelled of cigarette smoke and a pungent aftershave. She followed Carmen through the long hall towards the drawing room. Save for the rhythm of their footsteps, hers like the padding of a giant cat on soft paws, Carmen’s harsh on hard heels, there was no sound. They passed the dark wood doors leading off the hall. They were all closed. Somehow Helen had the feeling that despite the silence, the rooms were not empty.
Carmen left her alone in the drawing room. Ornate silver vases filled with drooling white lilies dripped scent into the night air. Helen bent over them, breathed in their perfume and slowly scanned the room. She’d been in so many strange places over the years, but always moving, invisible, just a ship’s cook, not part of anything more than a boat of dreams. Here she was in this house with a man she knew nothing about. It suddenly struck her that there were no photographs anywhere. There was no history save that of the tortured wood carved by hands long since dead. Every piece in that room was antique, spoke of a past that in the absence of photographs seemed dead. Where were the sepia prints of ancestors ? Where were the black and white photographs of parents, or the glossy colour shots of siblings, wife, children?
