‘I’ve got to go back,’ he said.
‘I know,’ Tingley said.
‘On the next ferry.’
Tingley waited.
‘My father’s housekeeper has just telephoned. My father has had a stroke.’
Tingley reached out and squeezed his friend’s arm.
‘I’m sorry, Bob.’
Watts nodded.
‘You got the papers you needed?’ Tingley said.
Watts indicated boxes of files beside a long table.
They went to a bar on the waterfront. Windows fogged, rain sluicing the streets.
‘Your dad is a fine man,’ Tingley said.
‘I don’t know what my father is,’ Watts said.
They parted at the ferry terminal in Dieppe. A clap of thunder sounded like artillery fire.
‘You going to be OK?’ Watts said.
‘I’m loaded for bear,’ Tingley said, patting the boot of the car.
‘You’re loaded for World War Three,’ Watts said. ‘God knows what Hathaway intended to do with rocket launchers.’ He put his hand on Tingley’s shoulder. ‘God knows what you’re going to do with them.’
‘Radislav is long overdue.’
‘But first Kadire?’ Watts said.
‘But first Kadire.’ Tingley held out his hand. ‘Once everything is sorted about your dad, you’re going after Charlie Laker?’
‘Him and others.’
They shook hands, then Watts turned and walked to where his own car was parked. He looked back and Tingley was watching him go. Thunder rolled. Neither man waved.
TWENTY-ONE
Crespo di Bocci had pale, papery skin and black eyes that glittered in the gloom of his drawing room. He was sitting behind a broad desk in an ornate chair when Tingley was ushered in by Guiseppe di Bocci. Federico was already stationed inside the door.
The old Di Bocci was thin within his suit, narrow-shouldered. He watched Tingley walk over to take the chair in front of the desk and saw Tingley’s eyes flicker to the large tapestry hanging on the wall behind him.
‘My ancestors were merchant explorers. That is a scene of their ships departing from Genoa — or returning. I have never been sure.’
Tingley sat and fingered the pendant at his neck. St George slaying the dragon, represented as a winged serpent. When Tingley was young, he believed you only had to slay the dragon once.
How wrong he was. He soon learned that the dragon’s teeth, falling to the earth, seeded it with evil yet again.
Over the years, he had killed the serpent many times. He saw that it would never die but he also recognized something else. Somewhere in the struggle he had ingested the serpent. Now it writhed within him.
He looked back at Di Bocci.
‘
Di Bocci’s English was good.
‘Kadire betrayed a trust some years ago,’ he said. ‘He lied to me. His lie had consequences.’ He spread his small hands. ‘It is in the nature of our work that we are not always able to respond to provocation as we might wish.’
‘I could respond to that provocation for you and only he would know it was repayment for your slight.’
Di Bocci looked at Tingley for a long moment. Tingley looked beyond him to the tapestry. He saw how the colours had faded. He looked back at Di Bocci, who had an intense expression on his face. Tingley tilted his head.
‘You should visit my cousin in Chiusi,’ Di Bocci said. ‘It is only twenty, twenty-five miles away. He will have something for you.’
‘What will he have for me?’ Tingley said.
‘Kadire is away, in Ravenna, but in a few days he will be in Chiusi. Go to my cousin. We must not be seen to be implicated but he will help.’
Tingley took his time on the short drive to Chiusi. The road was dusty, narrow and empty. He was thinking about Kadire and a long, long day when John Hathaway’s men were beating the bejesus out of the sniper to get him to give up his colleagues. Hathaway stretched out on a recliner on the balcony of his mansion in Brighton, nursing a rum and pep in honour of Tingley, who drank nothing but. Clearly hating the drink but saying:
‘Not bad. Not bad at all. Maybe we can do something with it at cocktail hour in my bar.’ He grimaced. ‘My former bar.’
The bar in the Marina that had been blown to smithereens by Kadire’s comrades.
‘You know, Jimmy, I look out over my kingdom — damn near forty years I’ve been ruling Brighton — and all I can taste in my mouth is ash. It’s all I’ve tasted for years. Every decade I’ve moved into legit stuff. And every decade I’ve got drawn back in to keep others off me. And I’ve been bad.’
Tingley grudgingly liked Hathaway, even though he knew he had done terrible things. But then Tingley had done terrible things. The difference was that Tingley had done them for good reasons. He hoped.
‘Do you ever wonder what might have been?’ he said.
Hathaway put his drink down.
‘What might have been was what was. I don’t think in any other terms. I don’t know how to think in any other terms. But the thing I’ve wondered about over the years is whether I genuinely care about all the shit that has happened in my life. The shit that happened to other people in my life.’
‘And what do you conclude?’ Tingley said.
‘That I don’t. Which begs the bigger question — when did I stop caring? Sean Reilly asked me once, straight out: “Whose death from the early days do you regret most?” I guessed he was wondering about my girlfriend, Elaine, or my father or anyone from that early roster. What he didn’t know was the truly terrible thing I did when I was a kid — a thing I can’t explain even to myself.’
‘The only true account is the thing itself,’ Tingley said. Hathaway looked across at him. Tingley shrugged. ‘Words to live by.’
Hathaway picked up his drink again, took a sip. He couldn’t quite conceal his distaste, but whether for the drink or the sentiment Tingley couldn’t be sure.
Tingley was jolted from his thoughts. Something long and thin was stretched across the curving road. By the time he realized it was a snake, sunning itself, he had already driven over it. Glancing in the mirror he saw the snake thrashing, frenzied, trying to bite its own tail. He lost sight of it as he rounded the next bend. He smiled grimly. Was this some kind of sign? He felt the stirring in his belly.
He settled back into his drive.
Hathaway had been in a gabby mood that night. Maybe it was the rum and pep.
‘I was a right tearaway when I was a teenager and I liked the idea of setting fire to one of the Lewes bonfires, up the road from here, before Guy Fawkes Night. Just for the crack.’ He saw Tingley’s look. ‘Bonfire night was big in Lewes. Still is big — burning the Pope in effigy remains the town’s idea of a good time.
‘I’d gone up on the train doing a recce a few times. I’d settled on a bonfire erected by a bunch of Teddy boys calling themselves the Bonfire Boys. I hated Teds.
‘So I go up there with petrol in a little bottle. Two Teds are standing beside this huge pile of wood, shielding cigarettes in their cupped hands. Both wore jeans with big cuffs and fake leather jackets. Very James Dean. I remember they were hunched against the wind off the Downs. It was biting.
