“You think he’d have alerted them?”
“In a heartbeat. He was a flake. He’d have spilled everything, immediately.”
“I guess. Fat lot of good it did him, though.”
“Shame he couldn’t have kept it buttoned a little longer.”
“Shame you got him involved at all.”
“I didn’t. He got himself involved.”
“You could have let him go. He may not have asked for any of it. He may have been coerced.”
“How? Was someone threatening to bludgeon him with a sack of cash?”
Fothergill stood up slowly and moved over to the central window, keeping his back to me for a few moments.
“You should see the paperwork I’ll have to do on him,” he said. “Mountains of it. It’ll take weeks. And if we can avoid making his widow a millionaire, it’ll be a miracle.”
“She’s probably already a millionaire,” I said. “Forget about her. McIntyre’s the problem. I can’t deal with him if we don’t know where he is. So what are you doing about finding him?”
“Not much, right now. And certainly a lot less than if we could talk to either of those guys who raided the apartment. If you’d just shown a little restraint . . .”
“Interesting idea. I suppose I could have. I knew someone who showed some restraint, once. A policeman, in Holland. He was up against guys with MP5s, too. And do you know what he got for his trouble?”
“No. What?”
“A bronze star. Set into the wall in the foyer of their HQ.”
“Really?”
“Really. They put one there for every officer who buys the farm.”
Fothergill was silent for a moment, and then came back to the desk.
“OK,” he said. “We can’t talk to them. So let’s draw a line under that. But what else can we figure out about them? Every contact yields some kind of intelligence. And what we really need to know is, where did McIntyre go when he got out of the building?”
“No idea.”
“Was he hurt?”
“Not by me. And I’d say he wasn’t in too bad shape generally, by the way he dived through the gap between his mates. And he was on his feet again pretty quickly, too. He was out of the door before the others hit the ground.”
“Did anyone help him? Someone waiting outside?”
“I didn’t see anyone. But I can’t rule it out.”
“So he could be on his own again. Or being sheltered by others?”
“Right.”
“We don’t know which?”
“No.”
“Then we need to find out. That has to be our first priority.”
“Agreed.”
“What about the two you took care off Did you hear them say anything?”
“No.”
“What accents did they have?”
“Neither of them spoke at all.”
“We don’t even know what language?”
“No.”
“So we don’t know where they’re from? What country, even?”
“No.”
“Could you tell anything from their clothes?”
“Not without some work. Everything looked new. Jeans, trainers, hoodies. Innocuous stuff. Standard chain-store issue, probably bought specially. What you’d expect from people who know how to look anonymous.”
“That kind of thing is safe to ask the police to follow up. But it does make sense. Shows a level of professionalism. And it ties in with the arms-dealing angle. Just like the weapons. MP5s are expensive pieces of kit.”
“They are. But you can never be sure. I saw one on a council estate in Leeds, once.”
“You’re not being a lot of help here, David.”
“Then maybe the autopsies will reveal something.”
“How? You shot both guys. Multiple times. Pretty straightforward, no?”
“Forget cause of death. Think stomach contents. That might tell us where they’re from, if they followed McIntyre to the States in the last couple of days.”
“Oh. Good thinking. I’ll talk to the PD about that, too. Try to get the medical examiner to put a rush on it.”
“And what about their identities? If they entered the country legally, there should be a record somewhere.”
A muffled soprano started singing an aria from The Magic Flute somewhere inside Fothergill’s jacket. It was his phone. He pulled it out and placed it on the desk between us. Then he must have caught the look on my face.
“I love Mozart,” he said. “Don’t you?”
“Are you going to answer that?” I said.
“No. Whoever it is, they can wait. We need to get some kind of plan worked out, first. We should draw up a list of actions. Then we can decide what’s reasonable to pass on to the police, in terms of security and logistics. And whatever’s left, we’ll deal with ourselves.”
I heard a sharp knock behind me, the door swung open, and Fothergill’s assistant appeared. Sadly he wasn’t bringing refreshments.
“Did your mobile not ring?” he said, glancing down at the cell phone on the desk.
“It did, actually,” Fothergill said. “Didn’t quite manage to answer it in time, though. Anything important?”
“It was London,” he said. “Word has spread. They gave me two minutes to find you. Sounds like it’s time to break out the asbestos underwear.”
“Damn,” Fothergill said. “One minute they refuse the resources I need. The next, they’re moaning when the job goes pear-shaped. I can’t win.”
I began to think there was a little more field agent left in him than I’d given credit for. His assistant just shrugged.
“David, I’m sorry,” Fothergill said. “I’m going to have to make this call. How about you head back to your hotel? Catch your breath a little? And as soon as I can get anything concrete pulled together I’ll have it biked straight over to you. Then you can review it in peace.”
I figured that between fending off his bosses in London and calling in favors in the States, Fothergill was going to have his hands full for quite a while. My hotel was only twenty minutes from the consulate. There was no chance he’d have anything for me to see in that length of time. Which meant I could turn my attention to more important matters. Such as food. I hadn’t eaten a thing since breakfast. That was the best part of nine hours ago, and I was starving.
On the plane yesterday I heard a couple arguing about which was their favorite restaurant in Chicago. The debate was intense. It lasted nearly an hour. At first I thought a Spanish place was certain to come out on top. Then a Mexican, with a choice of bars. But ultimately, the winner was French. I remembered the name. And the location. It was convenient—on Hubbard, not much farther away than the clinic. The menu sounded good. The prices, reasonable. The service, not too intrusive. The decor, not too fussy. Which left me with only one problem. The restaurant where I was supposed to meet Tanya for our final, ill-fated dinner had been French. Part of me never wanted to go into one again. I was on the verge of heading for the Mexican instead, but I realized that was ridiculous. I couldn’t let my life be ruled by ghosts. So I decided to give it a try. The only thing I hadn’t considered was their hours of business. I arrived at the door on the stroke of four thirty. But they didn’t open till five. And that left me with a dilemma.
I decided to wait. Not on the doorstep, obviously. But in the general vicinity. In the nearby maze of backstreets and alleyways. Where you can get right under the skin of the city. Or lose yourself in the genuine, unadorned areas that the guidebooks don’t tell you about. Away from the shop windows and neon signs and office facades, and into the parts where real people get their hands dirty making deliveries and emptying Dumpsters and busying themselves with their ordinary, everyday lives.
Places that people like Fothergill might have gone to, once. But I couldn’t picture him there now.
Most of the buildings on that street seemed to be offices, but the place on the left of the restaurant looked like some sort of shop. I couldn’t tell what kind. It was closed. There were no signs, and the door and windows were obscured by heavy, gray blinds. A passageway led down the side, separating the two businesses. It was paved with cracked, square slabs. They were shiny and well worn. Obviously in frequent use. Almost calling for me to follow them. It seemed like an interesting enough place to start.