And they did. In his first meeting with Webster he had volunteered—unusually, it turned out, because he rarely offered information—that he had never been “compromised,” in his word: never had a single call that had gone awry, never had a single mark suspect that they were being duped. Webster could believe it. For all his flatness there was something about Oliver that made you want to tell him things. Perhaps it was some hidden trickery; perhaps it was as simple as needing to banish a silence. Whatever it was, it hadn’t changed, and Webster found himself once again giving too much away.
He had meant to leave the details vague: his purpose for looking, what he was expecting to find. But in the end he told Oliver everything except the identity of his client: the looted sculpture, the death of Mehr, the utter conviction he now had that the two were linked and that the only way to find the connection was to go to the heart of it all, where the money was.
When Webster had finished his brief, Oliver nodded several times to show that they were now in harmony, part of a secret team.
“And what do you need, Ben?” His voice was warm, gently coaxing.
Webster took a last look at Oliver before committing. His calculation was this: Qazai was blackmailing him, and in order to make him stop he had to blackmail him back. That was the argument, and it was logical enough. But logic wasn’t what had brought him here.
Finding out who Shokhor phoned was one thing: he was a crook, without question, and in any case no one in Dubai or Cyprus cared much about privacy laws. But this was London, and the targets were UK citizens, and one of them was only recently dead. What was worse, it was conspicuous. Ten years before, few journalists or investigators had stopped to think about what they were doing; there had been safety in numbers and so little interest in the activity that the crimes had barely seemed crimes. Then there had been Dean Olivers everywhere, stealing secrets from celebrities, checking spouses’ finances, tracing fleeing debtors; but now, as the world finally objected to having its privacy ravaged, his kind was dying out, and it was difficult to see how even Oliver himself, such a subtle, devious operator, could avoid his fate. Hammer, early on, had outlawed any contact with him or his kind.
Looking at him now, Webster felt a certain sadness—part of the man’s spell, possibly—that one day soon such people might simply not exist, and that men like Qazai could relax a little more. Because occasionally, and certainly now, what Oliver did, however unsavory, felt not merely necessary, but right.
“I need you to look at Qazai. His calls. His credit cards. Don’t worry about the banks—they’ll be too complicated. But I want to know what he’s spending, where and when. So credit cards. Any hotels he’s stayed at, I want to see the bills. Any calls made from the room. Flights. He has a jet. He keeps it at Farnborough. I want to know exactly where it’s been for the last two years.”
Oliver made some notes, and Webster went on.
“Have a look at Mehr, too. His company. His private accounts—any you can find. Money in and out. And his telephone calls. Everything you can think of. You have free rein.”
“How long ago did he die?”
“Two months.”
Oliver wrote it all down, and Webster had a sudden vision of his notebook in a barrister’s hand being introduced as evidence. He would have a word about destroying it at the end of the case.
“And his lawyer.” He went on. “What the hell. His name’s Yves Senechal. It’s a French cell phone. Just his calls.” He paused. “How are you in France?”
“I have a good man in France.”
Webster wondered whether he really had good men stationed across the world or whether they were all, in fact, just Dean himself, seducing unwitting bank clerks wherever they happened to pick up their phone. He wouldn’t have been surprised.
“I think that’s it.”
“It’s a lot. I have quite a lot of other work at the moment, Ben.”
“I’ll pay you a hundred percent bonus if you find something useful.”
“How long have I got?”
“Two weeks.”
“Are you serious?”
Webster ignored him, and Oliver, adjusting his glasses, went through his notes, ticking each item as he went. When he was done he looked up.
“Have you done his bins?”
“He’s too savvy for bins. He’s a shredder.”
“It’s worth doing. He may not realize what’s important.”
“Maybe. But the house is a nightmare. Right on Mount Street. Hundreds of eyes.”
“I know all the binmen in W1. They’ll do it for me.”
Webster shrugged. It seemed silly to refuse, like refusing a brandy at the end of a rich dinner. “All right,” he said. “Go ahead. Report to me. No one else at Ikertu. And only call me on my cell.”
Oliver smiled. “You gone rogue, Ben?”
13.
THREE DAYS AFTER HIS MEETING WITH OLIVER, Webster received an e-mail from Ava Qazai.
Dear Mr. Webster,
I fear that I ended our conversation by the lake too abruptly. If you think it worth continuing, I’d like to apologize in person. Can I buy you a drink one evening soon?
HE WROTE BACK SUGGESTING they meet the following night at the bar of the Connaught, opposite her father’s house, and she, as he had hoped, agreed the time but changed the venue—to the Mandarin Oriental in Knightsbridge, which was far enough away to be discreet. Clearly she preferred her father not to know.
That day and the next he speculated on her motives. He thought back to her fury at her father during lunch in Como and to their talk by the lake. What might she know? She knew Iran, she knew her father. She seemed exercised by what had happened to Parviz. Perhaps she knew something about that, or about Mehr, or about Shiraz’s troubles. He hadn’t heard anything from Qazai since Como; perhaps he had sent her to gauge his mood. It could be anything, Webster realized, and tried to concentrate on the other work that was making a feeble claim on his attention.
The next evening, a Wednesday, he finished at Ikertu, took the tube to Marble Arch and walked across the park. A strong wind was gusting from the west, churning dust into the air, and when the sun moved behind the clouds any summer warmth dropped suddenly to a chill. Webster buttoned his jacket, rubbed some grit from his eye and struck out for the hotel.
The bar—low leather seats, mirrored walls—was busy with expensive shoppers and the odd tourist, but a pair of stools were free. Webster took one, waited for a group of American businessmen in high spirits to be served and ordered a whisky. The businessmen were toasting a success with champagne, and Webster tried to pick out the subtle signs that told you at a glance they weren’t English: the monogrammed shirts, the pleated trousers, the boxy jackets, the straightforward enthusiasm. To his left a young woman, dark, with thick eyebrows, Lebanese perhaps, listened patiently to the level monologue of an older, barrel-chested man wearing sunglasses and a bright yellow shirt under his blazer. Webster wondered at the possible connection between them and when Ava arrived he was so lost to his daydreams that she had to touch him on the arm before he noticed her.