The younger detective appeared first, followed by Senechal. The older colleague wasn’t in sight.
“I have talked to your lawyer, Signore Webster,” he said, standing with his hands behind his back, his belly out, and rocking slightly on his heels. “He assures me that you will return to Italy in three weeks. This is an informal arrangement. It is unusual but we are happy to do it because Mr. Qazai testifies to your character. You are fortunate to have friends like this.”
Webster, still sitting, looked from the detective to Senechal and back again. He’s not my lawyer, he wanted to say, and neither of them is my friend.
“Come, Mr. Webster,” said Senechal. “Let me drive you to the airport. We should be able to get you on a flight back to London tonight.”
Webster tried to imagine what had just passed between them. With a short sigh and a shake of his head he stood, stiff from a day’s sitting, and as he followed Senechal, his uninvited savior, out of the room, he turned to the detective.
“Don’t think I won’t find out what happened here today.”
The detective smiled, his full cheeks sweating and dimpled.
IN THE BACK OF Senechal’s car on the way to the airport conversation was sparse. His host didn’t seem to expect any thanks and Webster expressed none. He called Elsa and Hammer, but his mind was turning on the question that Senechal had left unanswered. It made no sense.
In the end he repeated it, his eyes straight ahead, watching the road past the driver’s ear.
“How did you know where I was?”
“We had a call. From the police. They wanted to know if you were indeed working for us.”
“I never mentioned Qazai.”
“Well, they knew. It is good that they did.”
As the car slowed onto the slip road to Linate Senechal turned to him.
“I do not believe you will hear from them again, Mr. Webster. They are interested in those private detectives, not you. Not for now. But it would be well for you to express your thanks to Mr. Qazai. In any way you believe appropriate. I do not need your gratitude but he is a man of honor and likes his acts of kindness to be recognized.”
Webster blinked slowly. Now he understood. He turned his head to look at Senechal, frail but energized beside him, and found nothing to say.
“So,” said Senechal, “I am not sure that the police will pursue the matter. But if they do I am quite certain that Mr. Qazai would be happy to offer the same assistance again. For the good of our project.”
Our project. Now there really was no such thing.
12.
KENSAL GREEN, after a day in the cells, felt almost comically sheltered and still under its dull summer clouds. The first rain in weeks was falling and through the open window of the taxi came the stony smell of hot pavements being washed of their dust. Webster paid the driver early so that he could walk the last few streets to his house, turning his face up to the sky and stretching some of the stiffness from his neck, and as he turned off the Harrow Road the city noise dropped until all he could hear was the magpies chatting at each other across the rooftops.
In that brief interval he breathed deeply and tried to clear the day from his head, but it sat there, obstinately refusing to quiet down. He regretted phoning Elsa. It would have been better to have kept the whole incident from her, but of course he hadn’t known at the time that it would be over so soon. As it was, the thing that he feared most—puncturing the perfect safety of their home—he had already half done, and he knew that no matter how much he made light of it and no matter how much she acquiesced, unease would now be sitting in the house like a canker.
If Elsa was downstairs that meant the children had gone to bed, and he found himself wishing keenly that bath time and stories had taken a little longer than usual so that he could properly wish them goodnight. He badly wanted to see them. With luck, he could slip into bed beside Nancy and read her one last story. But even as his key turned in the lock he could hear cooking noises coming from the kitchen and knew that he was too late. Putting his bag down in the hall he gave a matter-of-fact “hello” to the house, conscious that this was what normal people do when they get home from work and, threading his way past the bicycles and over the children’s shoes, he joined Elsa, who was drying her hands on a tea towel and looking at him like a mother whose son has been in a fight.
“Come here,” she said, setting the towel aside and drawing him into a close hug. Holding him around the waist she leaned back, looked at him and smiled. “You don’t look too bad.”
He snorted. “It was a bit like a day in the office. One big long meeting.” But he knew she was being kind. Tiredness sat across his shoulders and he could sense the bags under his eyes.
“Do you want a drink?”
“God, yes.”
She took a bottle of whisky from one cupboard and two tumblers from another and poured an inch into each.
“Water?”
He shook his head, took a glass and leaning back against the kitchen counter raised it to her and drank. Neither said anything for a moment.
“So you’re free,” said Elsa, a hesitant question in her voice.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t come.” He tried a smile. “It was nothing in the end.”
She took a drink. “It wasn’t nothing earlier.”
“No. I’m sorry. They were putting the wind up me.”
She raised her eyebrows and looked at him.
“Some Italian policemen enjoy it,” he said.
“Just a game?”
“Something like that.”
She pushed her lips out and nodded. “What did they want from you?”
“I don’t know.” With his free hand he rubbed his brow from temple to temple. “They were fucking about. I got caught up in their latest project. You’d have to be an Italian to understand the rules.”
A pause.
“Why drag it all up again?” Her eyes were guarded, screening off some pressing anxiety. GIC had sacked Webster three months before he and Elsa had been due to marry, and that unforeseen reverse, he knew, had played on her mind ever since as something that might one day be repeated; but despite this he felt a flash of resentment that his problems couldn’t simply be his own.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Really. Because they can, I suppose.”
Elsa turned away and checked a pan on the stove, stirring its contents before replacing the lid.
“Can I do anything?” he said, watching her turn down the heat. She shook her head. “I might look in on the children.”
“Don’t, Ben.” She turned to look at him. “They’re asleep.”
“I’m just going to look around the door.”
“You’ll wake them.”
“I won’t.” He put down his drink and walked toward the kitchen door.
“Ben. Leave them. Please. It took an age to settle them. I know you’ve had a bad day but so have I. They’re not a comfort blanket. They need their sleep.”
He stopped short of the door, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.
“They’ll be there in the morning,” she said softly. “In the meantime you can tell me how worried I should be by all this. Because I just don’t know.”