Blood Hunt

of saying too much. In case Joan worried. In case someone was listening. In case they got to her and wanted to know how much she knew…

“I love you,” she said quietly.

“Same goes,” he managed, finishing the call. Halliday was standing by the bookcases, a large red volume in his hand. It was an encyclopedia. Reeve walked over and saw he had it open at Art History, a section about abstract expressionism. Reeve hoped he hadn’t set Halliday off on some new tangent of exploration.

He touched Halliday’s shoulder. “The birdy,” he said.

Halliday closed the book. “The birdy,” he agreed.

Birdy was their name for burundanga, a drug popular with the Colombian underworld. It used to be manufactured from scopol-amine extracted from the flowers of the borrachero tree, Datura arborea, but these days it was either mixed with benzodiazepine, or else it was 100 percent benzodiazepine, this being safer than scopolamine, with fewer, less harmful side effects.

Reeve followed Halliday’s car. Tommy Halliday was as cautious as they came. He’d already taken Reeve’s money and left it at the house. Reeve had made a large withdrawal in a London branch of his bank. They’d had to phone his branch in Edinburgh for confirmation, and even then Reeve had taken the receiver and spoken to the manager himself. They knew each other pretty well. The manager had come on one of Reeve’s tamer weekends.

“I won’t ask what it’s for,” the manager said, “just don’t spend it all in London.”

They’d had a laugh at that. It was a large amount of money, but then Reeve kept a lot of money in his “sleeper” account; an account he kept hidden from Joan and from everyone else, even his accountant. It wasn’t that the sleeper money was dirty, it was just that he liked to have it as a fallback, the way SAS men often took money with them when they went on missions behind enemy lines-gold sovereigns usually. Money for bribes, money for times of desperate trouble. That’s what Reeve’s sleeper fund was, and he judged this to be exactly the sort of time and occasion it was meant for.

He hadn’t been expecting the birdy to cost quite so much. It would put a big dent in his bankroll. The rest of the money was for contingencies.

It would give the police something else to mull over, too, once they’d connected him to the mess in France. They might well find the account-his bank manager wouldn’t lie about it-and they’d wonder about this large withdrawal, so soon after the killings. They’d be even more suspicious. They’d most definitely be “anxious” to talk to him, as they put it in their press releases.

Well, Tommy Halliday had some of that money now. And once he’d handed over the powder, that would be good-bye. Reeve wouldn’t be allowed to return to Halliday’s house, not carrying drugs. So Reeve had asked his questions beforehand. Like, was it scopo, benzo, or a mix?

“How the fuck do I know?” Halliday had replied. “It’s tough to get scopo these days, so my guess is pure benzo.” He considered. “Mind, these Colombians have good stuff, so maybe it’s ten, fifteen percent scopo.”

“Enough to put someone in a psychiatric ward?”

“No way.”

The problem with scopolamine was, there was just the one antidote-physostigmine-and neither man knew how readily available it was to hospitals and emergency departments, supposing they were able to diagnose burundanga poisoning in the first place. The drug was little known and little used outside Colombia; and even when it was used outside that country, it was normally used by native Colombians. No one in the British Army would admit to ever having used it as an interrogation aid. No, no one would ever admit that. But Reeve knew about the drug from his days in the SAS. He’d seen it used once, deep undercover in Northern Ireland, and he’d heard of its use in the Gulf War.

“Is there any physostigmine with it?”

“Course not.”

Tommy Halliday drove into the hills. He drove for half an hour, maybe a little more, until he signaled to pull into the half-full parking lot of a hotel. It was a nice-looking place, well lit, inviting. The parking lot was dark, though, and Halliday pulled into the farthest, gloomiest corner. Reeve pulled up alongside him. They wound their windows down so they could talk without leaving their cars.

“Let’s give it a couple of minutes,” Halliday said, “just to be on the safe side.” So they waited in silence, headlights off, waiting to see if anyone would follow them into the lot. No one did. Eventually, Halliday turned his engine on again and leaned out of his window. “Go into the bar, stay there one hour. Leave your boot slightly open when you go. Does it lock automatically?”

“Yes.”

“Right, that’s where the stuff will be. Okay?

“One hour?” Reeve checked the time.

“Synchronize watches,” Halliday said with a grin. “See you next time, Reeve.”

He backed out of the space and drove sedately out of the lot.

Reeve had half a mind to follow. He’d like to know where the cache was. But Halliday was too careful; it would be hard work. An hour. He’d guess the stuff was only ten minutes away. Halliday would take his time getting there though, and he’d take his time coming back. A very careful man; a man with a lot to lose.

Reeve locked the car, opened the trunk, and walked in through the back door of the hotel, into warmth, thick red carpeting, and wood-paneled walls. There was a reception area immediately ahead, but the bar was to his right. He could hear laughter. The place wasn’t busy, but the regulars were noisy as only regulars are allowed to be. Reeve prepared smiles and nods, and ordered a half of Theakston’s Best. There was a newspaper on the bar, an evening edition. He took it with his drink to a corner table.

He was thinking about the long drive ahead, back to Heathrow, not much relishing the idea. It would be good to stay put for a night, tucked between clean sheets in a hotel room. Good, but dangerous. He checked the newspaper. On one of the inside pages there was a “News Digest” column, seven or eight single-paragraph stories. The story he’d been dreading was halfway down.

FRENCH FARMHOUSE MURDER MYSTERY

French police confirmed today that a burned-out car found at the scene of a murder had UK license plates. Three bodies were discovered near a farmhouse in a densely wooded area of Limousin. One unidentified victim had been savaged by a dog, which belonged to one of the remaining two victims, a local journalist. The journalist was killed by a single bullet to the head, while the third victim was stabbed to death.

Reeve read the story through again. So they hadn’t taken Marie-or if they had, they hadn’t taken her far. The first thing the police would have done was shoot the dog. Reeve felt bad: Foucault had saved his life. And Marie… well, maybe she’d have died anyway. She was almost certainly on somebody’s list. Police would have linked the deaths to the Land Rover. Maybe they’d think one of the other bodies was that of the owner. It depended on the other car, the one Reeve had backed into. He doubted they’d be able to track it down. It had probably been stolen. But they could track his car down.

He went into the lobby and found a telephone. There were three of them, each in its own booth with stool, ledge, writing pad and pen. Reeve phoned Joan again.

“What is it?” she said.

“Something I’ve got to tell you. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to so soon.”

“What?”

“The police may come asking questions. The thing is, I had to leave the Land Rover in France.”

“France?”

“Yes. Now listen, there were some bodies at the scene.” He heard her inhale. “The police are going to come looking for me.”

“Oh, Gordon…”

“It may take them a few more days to get to you. Here’s the thing: you don’t know where I was going, you only know I said I had to go away on business. You don’t know what I’d be doing in France.”

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” She wasn’t crying; crying wasn’t her style. Angry was her style- angry and let down.