‘Yes,’ said Anselm. ‘Let’s hear it.’
Serrano: …didn’t get excited. He’s very reasonable.
Kaeclass="underline" That’s a bad sign. They’re looking for this…
Serrano: He says they’ve called in a few favours…Shawn had been…the British possibly.
Kaeclass="underline" Well, the prick…anything for…
Serrano: …ever mentioned the film.
Kaeclass="underline" Did he?
Serrano: I can’t recall. I used to turn off…say…when he was like that, on drugs, drinking. He said…Bill Casey when he was…the CIA, that kind of thing. Knew everyone. North. Sharon…when he was a soldier. Fucking Gadaffi even…
Kaeclass="underline" What else does Richler say?
Serrano: The worrying thing, he says he hopes fucking Shawn did a good clear out…this special office, the Sud-Afs, they’re looking for assets…target now.
Kaeclass="underline" Shit. Still, he could be lying. Second nature to them.
Serrano: Also fucking Bruynzeel, he says that’s a priority. They want to know what we have.
Kaeclass="underline" He can wait.
Serrano: I was thinking last…
Kaeclass="underline" Glad to hear there is thinking.
Serrano: I’m getting really annoyed…
Kaeclass="underline" Thinking what?
Serrano: He talked about buying property, a house in England I think, other places…there might be something there.
Bumping and scratching noises.
‘We thought the thing had fallen out,’ said Tilders.
The sounds went on for at least fifteen seconds. Then Serrano was heard.
Serrano: Possibly.
Kaeclass="underline" This is your business, you understand. I’m too old to have to deal with shit… Serrano: My business? Excuse me, Werner, excuse me, who benefited most from this? I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you… Kaeclass="underline" …down. We’re expendable, do you fully understand that?
Serrano: What about your friends? Your friends won’t… Kaeclass="underline" The world changes. Your friends get old, they forget, they die.
Anselm made the gesture, Tilders touched the button. Anselm gave him the slip of paper. ‘Put it in his hands. I’ll ring him now.’
Tilders rose, gathered up his possessions.
‘You’re tired,’ said Anselm. ‘How many jobs do you have?’
Tilders smiled, a wan thing without humour or pleasure. ‘Only as many as it takes,’ he said.
36
…LONDON…
Caroline Wishart knew what to do. Charcoal-suited Dennis McClatchie had taught her, sixty-five years old, pinstriped cotton shirts with frayed collars, full head of slicked-back hair, breath of whisky and cigarette smoke and antacid tablets. She should have thought more about Dennis before going to Colley.
Early on, someone told her McClatchie had been a famous reporter, sacked from every Fleet Street paper.
‘What happened, Dennis?’ she asked him one day, shivering in the cold, shabby office, grey northern light coming through the bird-crapped window panes.
‘Bad habits, darling. For one, the horses, bless ’em, blameless creatures, innocent, with these ruthless, terrible blood-sucking humans around them.’
He drew on his cigarette, pulled in his cheeks, let the smoke dragon out of his nostrils. ‘Punching editors, that was of little career assistance. But. No regrets there. Well, perhaps. One or two I should have nailed more thoroughly. Just laziness really. And I didn’t like hurting my hands. I had nice hands once.’
He’d lit a new cigarette from his stub, stifled a cough.
‘Married a lot too,’ he said. ‘Can’t recall some of ’em. Women I hope. Damn lawyers sent me demands from people I’d never heard of. Had to get a death certificate forged in the end.’ He looked at her, turned the head, the skull, she thought she heard his spine creak. ‘All of it drink-related, I should say in my defence,’ he said. ‘All my crimes have been drink-related. All my life has for that matter. I’ll call my autobiography A Drink-Related Offence.
’ One day in her first week, she felt the eyes of Dennis on her when she was sitting frozen with anxiety. She had been expelled from school, sacked from Sothebys, asked to leave Leith’s cooking school, told lies to get this job. Now the slovenly Carmody, class-hate written all over him, had given her an assignment, spat a few words from the side of his mottled mouth.
‘What’s the cheerless cretin want, darling?’ said McClatchie.
‘A story on community services. I’m not quite sure where to start.’
McClatchie looked at her, looked at his hands for a while, the nails, the palms. A plain cigarette burned between two long fingers the colour of old bananas. She knew that he knew that she’d lied about her experience.
‘I always start with a proposition,’ he said. ‘A headline. Gets you going. Pope Hid Nazi War Criminals. Moon Landing Fake.’
She hadn’t grasped the point. Her eyes showed it.
‘Community Leaders Slam Burnley Services,’ said McClatchie.
‘Do they?’
‘No idea. Probably. There’s no gratitude in the world. Get on the blower and ask ’em.’
‘Who?’
‘Start with that Tory prat. He’d like to cull the poor but he’ll give you the compassionate bullshit. Tell him you’re hearing a lot of complaints about services. Baby clinic, that sort of thing?’
‘Is there one?’
‘Not the foggiest. The phone book, darling. Peek at that. Under Council. Something sexy like that.’
Start with a proposition. She sat in her cubicle office far away from Birmingham, McClatchie mouldering in the wet ground now, thought about what she’d seen and what Mackie had said in their first conversation.
‘A massacre in Africa.’
‘A lot of that goes on.’
‘Soldiers killing civilians.’
‘What, the Congo? Burundi?’
‘No. White soldiers. Americans.’
‘American soldiers killing civilians in Africa? Somalia?’
‘No. This is…it’s like an execution.’
So, the proposition, the headline:
US troops in Africa massacre.
That would do to go on with. It would help explain why Mackie thought the film was worth twenty grand and why other people thought it was worth killing him. She knew that for a fact. Just looked odd. Then I saw his hand up to the chest, blood comin out between the fingers.
She thought about Colley, how she was tricked. She wanted to kill him.
Colley’s time would come, that wasn’t important for now.
Africa. Where in Africa?
Southern Africa? Mackie was South African.
American troops in Southern Africa?
Had there ever been? Where? When?
She logged on, put the words US troops southern africa into the search engine. Hundreds of references came up, fifty at a time. She rejected, read, printed, the morning went by, she ate a sandwich, the afternoon advanced, her eyes hurt.
The phone. Halligan.
‘Marcia’s upset. She’s got some right to know what you’re working on. In her new position.’
Caroline tried to compose the right response. She was tired.
‘I’m sorry she’s upset. Such a nice person. I simply explained to her the terms of my contract.’
‘Yes. Entered into under the gun. Leaving fucking Marcia aside, what the hell are you doing? You report to me, remember? So please report. ASAP.’
Caroline took her career in her hands. ‘Bigger than Brechan,’ she said. ‘Just an estimate, mark you.’