took that to mean he was running tobacco and I didn’t want him to tell me any more. He would have told me because my being a cop did not inhibit him in any way. ‘Cops should have a moral sense,’ he said one day, back to me, fishing on the greasy bay. ‘It should be a calling. Even stupid people can have a calling. You should be able to respect cops. People like you, you’re only cops because otherwise they’d have to lock you away. They. We.’
I gave him the address. ‘Around eleven. There’s an entrance at the back to an underground garage. Tell the voicebox you’re Mr Calder’s associate.’
‘Mr Calder’s associate,’ he said. ‘That’s nice. It’s like a title.’
I felt someone’s presence. Noyce was at the door. He had less hair in front every time I looked.
‘Bring clothes,’ I said to Orlovsky. ‘Could be hours, could be a while. Clean clothes. Least dirty clothes.’
I put the receiver down and stood up. Tiredness was settling into my lower back, the feeling of grip, of compression.
‘I don’t need to stay now,’ I said. ‘I’ll come back in the morning.’
Noyce put his head to one side. ‘I think Pat’d be happier if you slept here,’ he said. ‘I’ve arranged clothes. Okay?’
‘I’ll pick up clothes and come back.’ I didn’t mind the idea of wearing expensive clothes. I minded the idea of wearing clothes I didn’t own.
‘Pat doesn’t show much,’ said Noyce, ‘but he’s shaken by this. He’d like to talk to you.’ His hands went to his tie, one at the knot, one below, made a minute adjustment, an unconscious gesture, reassuring himself, like touching a gun under your arm, feeling the cold comfort of the fit in your hand.
Pat Carson was where I’d left him, behind the huge desk, glass of whisky now beside his right hand. He seemed smaller, lower in his chair, his hair less galvanised, less electric.
‘Sit,’ he said.
I chose the chair directly across from him. Noyce was moving to sit at my left when Pat said, ‘Graham, go home. Eat and sleep like a normal person. Tomorrow, tomorrow is its own bloody day.’
I looked at Noyce. He wasn’t happy, spread his hands, long fingers for a stubby person.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘In the morning. Early. Pat. Frank.’ He backed out reluctantly. At the door, eyes on Pat Carson, he said, ‘Any development…’
‘Yes, Graham. Thank you. Goodnight. Sleep well.’
Noyce closed the door behind him, a precise, solid click. ‘The more he’s paid, the more he worries,’ Pat said. He pointed at an open drinks cabinet against the wall to his right. ‘Help yourself.’
I went over and poured two fingers from a whisky decanter, water from a beaded silver jug, sat down again.
For a moment, Pat and I sat in silence in the comfortable room, calm yellow light around the table lamps, whisky glowing in the heavy crystal glasses. We looked at each other, the hirer and the hired.
‘Two hundred, not much money,’ Pat said. ‘For the trouble.’
‘No.’
‘Why, do you think?’
‘Could be they’re not too clever, don’t know what the market will bear. Could be that, could be they just want a quick and easy deal, off they go, spend it on drugs in a few weeks. Two hundred thousand, that’s four bundles, briefcase, sports bag, shopping bag, doesn’t weigh too much.’
Pat studied me. ‘What else?’
‘It’s just a trial to see how we behave.’
‘A trial.’ He picked up his glass, swilled the liquid. I could see the high-water mark it left. ‘A trial you can do with half a million, more.’
I had concerns about things other than the amount of money but I didn’t express them, tasted the whisky, just bathed the gums in the anonymous liquid from the decanter. Single malt. Fire in it, and peat smoke and tears. The Carsons probably owned the distillery, the spring, the heather, the whole freezing spray-blasted gull-screaming granite Scottish outcrop.
‘They don’t know what your pain threshold is,’ I said.
‘Pain threshold,’ he said. ‘That’s when we scream, is it?’
‘Yes. Two hundred thousand it’s not likely to be. If they ask for half a million, you might say, that’s too much, get the cops in.’
He thought about this, studying me, eyes just slits, took a sip of whisky, said musingly, ‘What is our pain threshold? A million? Two million? Ten million?’
‘I wish it were two hundred thousand,’ I said. ‘It’s not too late.’
Pat shook his head. ‘No. We give the bastards what they want and we hope. Get Anne back, then we look for them, Frank. To the ends of the bloody earth.’
But I couldn’t leave it. ‘Anne,’ I said. ‘She’s always lived here?’
‘Just about. Since Alice’s kidnappin. That’s when we bought up around us, bought four places, made the owners and the bloody real-estate jackals rich.’
‘And the whole family came to live here?’
‘Tom and his wife and Barry and Kathy and their two. Mark and Christine and the little ones, and Stephanie and her fuckin husband, don’t like to say the bastard’s name, Jonathan fuckin Chadwick.’
‘Mark’s got other children?’
‘Little ones. Michael and Vicky.’
‘And their mother’s not well?’
‘Their mother…’ Pat hesitated. ‘Had a breakdown. She’s in…a place, some kind of place.’
I said nothing, kept my eyes on him, didn’t nod. Sometimes it works.
Pat drank some whisky, took a red handkerchief out of the top pocket of his jacket, wiped his lips. ‘Drugs,’ he said. ‘No point in beatin around the fuckin bush. Lovely girl, Christine, but she’ll stick anythin in her body. Christ knows why, had everythin a woman could want. We sent her to Israel, Tom’s idea. Got this clinic there, they put em to sleep and they flush em out. Buy a decent house for what they charge. Waste of money, comes home, back on the bloody drugs in six weeks.’
‘And Mark’s in Europe?’
‘A lawyer, Mark,’ Pat said. ‘He was. Bright spark. First grandchild’s cleverest, the wife used to say. Some bloody Hungarian sayin. That’s what she was, Hungarian. Lots of sayins, the Hungarians. Sayin for every bloody occasion. Could’ve used Mark in the business. But, doesn’t help to push em. Come to it themselves, that’s the way. He didn’t. Didn’t do anythin anyone bloody wanted. Married at twenty, girl three years older, shotgun, still at the uni. That’s Anne, scraped in under the wire. Anyway, Christine’s from a decent family, couldn’t see what Carol was gettin hysterical about.’
‘Carol?’
He didn’t understand the question for an instant. ‘Carol?’
‘Who’s Carol?’
‘Oh. Forget who you’re talkin to. Carol. Mark’s mother. Tom’s wife. Carol Wright she was. Fancied themselves, the family, the father anyway. Stockbroker. There’s a bloody amazin job for you, all care and no responsibility, buyin, sellin, makin or losin, the bastards get a cut. I shoulda gone into that, snowball’s bloody chance I’d a had, boy left school at twelve.’
He sipped the malt, went far away.
‘So Tom married Carol Wright,’ I said. For the moment, he didn’t mind talking about the family.
Pat came back, hesitantly. ‘That’s it. Tom went to school with the brother, name escapes me. Mind you, the fella did a bit of escapin himself. Director of companies, that was his occupation. I ask you. Barry tells me the bugger’s livin in some banana republic where the warrants can’t get to him.’
‘And Barry’s wife?’
‘Married into the English aristocracy, Barry. Katherine, met her on a skiing holiday, that’s upper bloody crust for you. Some place in America. Don’t know what my old dad would’ve said. Know he’d a liked the bit where the bloody chinless prick of a father tapped me for six thousand quid to pay for his girl’s weddin. Then Louise, that’s my daughter, she goes and marries into the local silver-tails, the Western District mob. They play polo, know that?’
‘I’ve heard that.’
