The Rochefort artist’s retreat had been his father’s dream for many a year, long before he finally summoned up the courage to pack in his job at a small design and print company and transplant his family from a cold, grey Glasgow to the sun-dappled vineyards and wheat-fields of the Saintonge. And now the dream had died along with his father, as his father in his fading years knew all too well it would, many saying the money problems had in fact caused his illness: income dwindling, financial problems mounting and banks pressing in pace with the cancer eating him away; a race as to which would hit the tape first.
But it was difficult for Jac to get angry with his father for the financial fall-out after his death because, as his father’s good friend Archie Teale had said, unlike most people he’d actually lived his dream, and Jac’s abiding memory of that period was of an almost idyllic childhood: looking over his father’s shoulder as he’d bring to life with his paintbrush a patchwork quilt of vines, lavender and sunflower fields spread before them; Jac sitting on the hillside by the L-shaped farmhouse, the sun hot on his back, his father in the courtyard below sweeping one arm towards the same patchwork landscape as he instructed a group of eight by their easels — his father living his dream and the rest of the family happily riding along in the wake of that glow; powder-white sand slipping egg-timer slow through Jac’s fingers on an Isle de Rey beach, or chasing small fishes through its shallows, his father telling him if he ran fast enough and scooped down quick enough with his cupped hands, he might finally catch one. But, of course, he was never able to.
Those had been the overriding images in Jac’s mind from those years, rather than remembering his father tired and wasting away, his mother weeping and the court’s gavel and bailiffs’ knocks that had marked their final days in France.
Jac saw his father as some fallen-through-no-fault-of-his-own hero, rather than the failure that others, particularly his aunt, had labelled him.
And so as the months passed the brief shudders in the dead of night became less frequent, then finally one day stopped, and Jac was able to sleep easy.
So when that brief shudder hit Jac again, snapping him awake in the dead of night after he’d visited Larry Durrant for the first time, it caught him unawares.
He stared up at the ceiling long and hard, wondering what it could be: that one vital detail or clue he’d missed reading Durrant’s trial files? A hint at how to handle this fresh problem with the attempted break-out and the injured guards? But all that lifted from the muted streetlight orange-greys on his ceiling was the last image to hit him before he’d awoken: Durrant in his cell, lonely and afraid, sweat beads massed on his forehead with the crippling fear that he was about to die — the antithesis of the cool and distant, guarded front he’d shown to Jac — reaching out to say something, but the words never forming in his mouth.
But with the e-mail that was waiting on Jac’s computer when he switched it on early the next morning, Jac wondered if it was some kind of strange premonition.
Only two lines, his blood ran cold as he read it, a nervous tingle running down his spine.
Looked like he might have a breakthrough with Durrant before he’d hardly started.
4
‘Whadya call that, fuckhead? I could cue a better shot with my dick.’
‘I didn’t see you do so well with that last yellow.’
‘That’s ’cause there were two other fuckin’ balls in the way, Stevie Wonder. This one, you had a clear shot.’
Nel-M had arranged to meet Raoul Ferrer in a bar in Algiers.
Ten years ago it was a no-go area day or night, but now, with a string of new bars and restaurants nestling in the shadows of the dockside warehouses, according to local city guides it was now inadvisable to walk around only aftermidnight.
They’d been perched up at the bar only a few minutes when the argument erupted at the pool table a couple of yards to their side. As the insults picked up steam and the two opponents moved closer, one of them raising his cue stick threateningly, Nel-M shifted from his bar stool.
‘Let’s get outta here.’
‘No, no. Wait a minute,’ Raoul said. ‘This is just gettin’ interesting.’
One thing Nel-M hadn’t considered, looking at the warped leer on Raoul’s face. The excitement of the fight.
‘Look, I haven’t come here to watch a bunch of goons fight. We got business to discuss.’ Nel-M turned and took a pace away.
Raoul got up and lightly tugged at his arm. ‘Come on, man. Won’t take a minute to kick-off, by the looks of it.’
Nel-M noticed the man with the raised cue stick, a biker with wild red hair, flinch and fleetingly gaze their way. He hoped Raoul hadn’t read anything into it.
‘You wanna watch that wise mouth.’ Red-hair waved the cue stick more threateningly at his opponent. ‘Otherwise one day someone will bust it wide open.’
‘Yeah. Yeah.’ His opponent stepped forward, taunting, challenging. ‘Will probably be the best fuckin’ shot you’ve had all night, too.’
They were running out of script. One more minute and Raoul would guess that something was wrong, that it was all staged.
‘I’m outta here,’ Nel-M said. ‘You want to waste time watching these assholes, then do it on your own time, not mine.’ He paced purposefully away, and by the time his hand reached for the door, Raoul had shuffled up quickly behind him. ‘The sort of business we need to talk about can’t be done here.’
‘Okay, man. Okay. I understand. Business. Business.’
Nel-M waited until they were a good dozen paces from the bar before he spoke again. He took a deep breath of the warm night air and slowly let it out.
‘You probably guessed why the meeting at this particular time. Larry Durrant’s coming up for his big day, and Roche wants to know if there might be any more surprises waiting in the wings. You know, as in another big pay-off.’
‘No, man. No. Of course not. That was a one-off deal, never to be repeated…’
‘Except that there were two pay-offs.’
Raoul shrugged awkwardly. ‘The second was only ten-G — just a top-up on the main deal. And only, ya know,’ Raoul grimaced, ‘cause I was in such a jam at the time. I’m okay now. Doin’ fine. No troubles, no problems. I got a good deal runnin’ now with Carmen, ya know.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ Carmen Malastra, Louisiana’s leading racketeer. But at Raoul’s pecking level in Malastra’s empire, one call from Roche would easily smooth over any move they had to make against Raoul. Although that might all change once Raoul was a ‘made’ man. ‘But what we wanna make sure is if that’s always going to be the case. I mean, what happens if you hit hard times later, fall out with Carmen, or business goes bad? Or he changes your deal or territory, so you’re just not pulling in the same?’ Nel-M shrugged. ‘You know, it happens. It happens all the time.’
‘No, no. It won’ happen. Don’t worry.’
But there was a heavy pause before Raoul answered that told Nel-M that Raoul was far from sure.
‘Maybe not now, this year, or next. But who knows what can happen in five or ten years.’ Nel-M shrugged again. ‘And if that was going to be the case… or even if there was a slim possibility that it might be the case, then Roche would prefer to make that payment now rather than later.’ Nel-M shuffled to a stop and fixed Raoul with a stony gaze. ‘Because once Durrant’s gone for the chop, Roche doesn’t want to hear mention of his name again, or anyone or anything to do with Durrant. Once the chapter closes in forty-five days time, it closes for good. Understand. So if there was ever again to be money involved, as Elvis once said — it’s now or never.’