poster adverts for Coke and Fanta. There were metal tables and lightweight chairs, all taken. Eyes peered at him. Where it had started? Did they own the contract? Had they hired him? Better clarity on the faces, and most were men’s but a few were women’s. Only one was young and smooth-skinned. Robbie held tight to the Charlton Athletic bag, and in it was the tool of his trade: not a fucking hammer or a plumber’s wrench or a spirit level or pliers or a spanner, but a Jericho handgun. He was in the back end of nowhere.
‘Right. So what happens?’ he called, defiant. ‘What happens now that I’m here?’
He heard the scrape of the chairs, then the hissed breathing of those with smokers’ chests. There was the flash of a match as a cigarette was lit and the faces seemed old, worn and weathered. They made a circle about him. They moved, he moved.
The young one said, ‘They think you are shit. They have been told they wasted money in buying you. They believe, now that Gillot is coming, they could do the job for which they paid you. They say that this is when they see whether you are shit or whether you will earn their money. They are veterans of war. The money paid to you was from loans advanced against disability pensions. They are poor people. If you fail again they will kill you and they will kill Gillot, and they will bury the two of you together. It is not far that we have to walk.’
He was alone. The young one had slipped away from his side and seemed, seamlessly, to rejoin the cordon ring around Robbie. They had only the moon’s light to guide them. They left the village and went by a high wall. There was a gate in it and above the gate, in silhouette, a cross. He assumed it to be a cemetery. Would they bury him there or in the fucking fields that closed in on them, big crops rising to above their heads? They walked, men, women and Robbie Cairns, in the watery light, along a path that led through the cornfields and, far ahead, an owl screamed.
She wrote her message, finished it, revised it, was satisfied and read it back for a last time.
To:
Dermot, Team Leader Alpha.
From:
Penny Laing.
Location:
Vukovar, Croatia.
Subject:
Harvey Gillot.
Message: I find no evidence of criminal wrongdoing on the part of Harvey Gillot, arms dealer, in connection with alleged sale of weapons to a village community near Vukovar. The events of 1991 remain confused and few opinions can be considered objective; also the passage of time has dulled memories. The only individuals other than Gillot who were party to a deal – if, indeed, there was one – were killed that autumn and neither left a written record. I recommend that I observe matters here for the next twenty-four hours, in accordance with Gold Group requirements, then pull out and return to London. Regards etc.
She pressed Send.
The bar beckoned. She’d noted that refugees from HMRC turned to alcohol when a career went turnip, the same when a police officer realised his job might be crap, and she had seen it with a diplomat at the embassy in Kinshasa who had lost faith in finding anything worth nailing a flag to.
The thought of hunting down Harvey Gillot, turning up at his door at dawn and the guys having the battering ram to break it down, a dog barking, a woman screaming and the power of stripping away dignity, had thrilled her. The experience of lying under a teenage boy, or on him, letting his tongue and fingers roam free, had been as brilliant as anything she had known. They were gone. Sod it. Nothing special about her, not blessed, and drink beckoned.
She snapped off the laptop and let it power down, touched her hair, applied a light coat of lipstick, switched off the light, locked the door and went down the hotel’s stairs. Penny Laing heard, ‘I fancy I see another recruit. This rate, if we’re to stay exclusive, we’ll need to blackball a few…’
*
He saw her look at him, wouldn’t have known who she was, had not the hippie-style girl, little Miss Megs, murmured the name and then a limited biographical sketch – God, her, from Revenue and Customs, Alpha team and hunting bloody Gillot. Penny Laing. Be standing room only to watch the bastard show himself… Benjie grinned. He ruled. He had before they’d adjourned to eat, when he had taken the central chair at the long table in the dining room, Bill Anders on one side of him and the truculently amusing Steyn on the other. Back in the bar, he still held his audience, enjoyed himself and kept the staff busy. Arbuthnot thought her a woman in need of humouring – she looked as though she had just walked into a bloody great brick wall.
‘Don’t think we’re going to have room for many more. I understand you’re Miss Laing. Please, join us. Come along, and I’ll take your application for membership.’
He would have appeared – he knew it and rejoiced – a buffoon who had drunk too much, but he had extracted from each of them everything concerning their presence at the ground-floor bar of the Lav Hotel in Vukovar, which was in the far northwest of eastern Slavonia. A glass was brought for her, local wine was poured – she wasn’t offered a choice and didn’t seem to resent it. He thought she looked ready to do damage to the bottle and to anyone who interrupted, contradicted, challenged her.
Did she know everybody? She shrugged.
Did she know Miss Megs Behan, campaigner extraordinary against the evils of the arms trade and representing Planet Protection? Did she know Detective Sergeant Mark Roscoe of the Metropolitan Police, a firearms officer without a weapon and an investigator without authority? Did she know Professor William Anders, forensic pathologist from California, and did she know Dr Daniel Steyn, general practitioner, dabbler in psychology and resident in this town? And himself? ‘I’m Benjie Arbuthnot, long put out to grass. I just happened to be passing through these parts and was able to give a lift in a hire car to… Cheers, Miss Laing.’
Could have been Aussie lager on a hot day, barely tickled her throat, and the waiter was back with the bottle. He sensed the enormity of her failure.
‘I understand that Harvey Gillot is the cement that binds us and what happens tomorrow. I have all these excellent people signed up, Miss Laing, for membership of the Vulture Club. Probably we’ll have a tie designed for Sergeant Roscoe and myself, Bill and Daniel, and maybe a square silk scarf for you and Miss Behan. Does that appeal?’
There was chemistry now, and volatility. The links were known to him: Roscoe, Behan, Laing, Anders and Steyn. All were tied to Harvey Gillot, who had been not only his asset but something more than a friend.
‘I thought the Vulture Club, with an emblem of the griffon type, would be appropriate. You see, Miss Laing, the vultures hang around and wait for a corpse to feed from. They don’t have much of a life if there are no corpses available. They spend a fair part of their lives sitting perched, or flying high, waiting for a killing. I think they have a sense that tells them where to be, when to be there, what sort of dish might get served up. Fascinating, isn’t it, to be waiting and watching for a death so that one is on hand while the meal is still warm? You must give me your address, Miss Laing, so that when we’re back in London I can send you a scarf. When they’re really hungry and the corpse is big enough, they get right inside the carcass, and feed there… We don’t need that. We all had an excellent dinner. Well, that’s enough about that. So, welcome, Miss Laing, to the Vulture Club and I’ll consider your subscription paid.’
He took her hand, shook it with a certain formality, then gave her the floor.
Another bottle was brought.
She knew them all and he was the only stranger among them. She said that two attempts had already been made on the life of Harvey Gillot, that he had survived an attack that morning because he had worn a bulletproof vest, that a final attack was planned for the morning and… Benjie Arbuthnot saw in her eyes that his image of a griffon vulture perched in a dead tree or wheeling high on the thermals had struck home.
‘It’ll be a good show,’ he said. ‘Better than a hanging or a stoning in Iran because of the unpredictability.’ He chuckled, thought he knifed them. He chaired the club and had the right to: his responsibility was the greatest of all. He laughed again, brayed.
The voice came from far back in the lobby. Last time he’d heard the man there had been a stammering whine in it. Not now. ‘Good evening… You have a reservation for me. The name is Gillot. Harvey Gillot. Just one night. No, thank you, I don’t need help with any bags. Please can I book a call for six?’
Benjie Arbuthnot did not twist in his seat and stare. Opposite him, Megs Behan – God, there was fire, rank
