‘It doesn’t matter who told me,’ said Sarah.
‘On the contrary, I think it matters a lot. If a salesman tells you that a washing machine’s great, that’s one thing. But if the Archbishop of Canterbury tells you it’s great, and that it removes dirt even at low temperatures, that’s quite different.’
‘What are you…’
She heard them when they were only a couple of feet away, and as she turned, the younger one grabbed her wrist and turned it down and outwards in a highly competent manner. She gave out a short yelp, and the gun slid from her hand.
I picked it up and passed it, butt first, to the older follower. Keen to show what a good boy I was really, if only the world would understand.
By the time O’Neal and Solomon arrived, Sarah and I were comfortably plugged into the sofa, with the two followers arranged round the door, and none of us making much in the way of conversation. With O’Neal bustling about the place, there suddenly seemed to be an awful lot of people in the flat. I offered to nip out and get a cake, but O’Neal showed me his fiercest ‘the defence of the Western world is on my shoulders’ expression, so we all went quiet and stared at our hands.
After some whispering with the followers, who then quietly withdrew, O’Neal paced this way and that, picking things up and curling his lip at them. He was obviously waiting for something, and it wasn’t in the room or about to come through the door, so I got up and walked across to the phone. It rang as I reached it. Very occasionally, life’s like that.
I picked up the receiver.
‘Graduate Studies,’ said a harsh, American voice. ‘Who is this?’
‘That O’Neal?’ There was a spot of anger in the voice now. Not a man you’d ask for a cup of sugar.
‘No, but Mr O’Neal is here,’ I said. ‘Who’s speaking?’
‘Put O’Neal on the goddamn phone, will you?’ said the voice. I turned and saw O’Neal striding towards me, hand outstretched.
‘Go and get some manners somewhere,’ I said, and hung up.
There was a brief silence, and then lots of things seemed to happen at once. Solomon was leading me back to the sofa, not very roughly but not very gently either, O’Neal was shouting to the followers, the followers were shouting at each other, and the phone was ringing again.
O’Neal grabbed it and immediately started fiddling with the flex, which didn’t sit well with his previous attempts to convey masterly composure. It was obvious that, in O’Neal’s world, there were many smaller cheeses than the harsh American on the other end of the line.
Solomon shoved me back down next to Sarah, who shrank away in disgust. It really is quite something to be hated by so many people in your own home.
O’Neal nodded and yessed for a minute or so, then delicately replaced the receiver. He looked at Sarah.
‘Miss Woolf,’ he said, as politely as he could manage, ‘you are to present yourself to a Mr Russell Barnes at the American Embassy as soon as you can. One of these gentlemen will drive you.’ O’Neal looked away, as if expecting her immediately to jump to her feet and be gone. Sarah stayed where she was.
‘Screw you in the ass with an anglepoise lamp,’ she said. I laughed.
As it happens, I was the only one who did, and O’Neal fired off one of his increasingly famous looks in my direction. But Sarah was still glaring at him.
‘I want to know what’s being done about this guy,’ she said. She jerked her head at me, so I thought it best to stop laughing.
‘Mr Lang is our concern, Miss Woolf,’ said O’Neal. ‘You yourself have a responsibility to your State Department, by…’
‘You’re not the police, are you?’ she said. O’Neal looked uneasy.
‘No, we are not the police,’ he said, carefully.
‘Well I want the police here, and I want this guy arrested for attempted homicide. He tried to kill my father, and for all I know he’s going to try again.’
O’Neal looked at her, then at me, then at Solomon. He seemed to want help from one of us, but I don’t believe he got any.
‘Miss Woolf, I have been authorised to inform you…’ He stopped, as if unable to remember whether he really had been authorised, and if he had, whether the author had really meant it. He wrinkled his nose for a moment, and decided to press on after all.
‘I have been authorised to inform you that your father is, at this moment, the subject of an investigation by agencies of theUnited States government, assisted by my own department of the Ministry of Defence.’ This clanged to the floor, and we all just sat there. O’Neal flicked a glance at me. ‘It is in our joint discretion as to whether we charge Mr Lang, or indeed take any other action affecting your father or his activities.’
I’m no great reader of the human face, but even I could see that all of this was coming as something of a shock to Sarah. Her face had gone from grey to white.
‘What activities?’ she said. ‘Investigated for what?’ Her voice was strained. O’Neal looked uncomfortable, and I knew he was terrified that she was going to cry.
‘We suspect your father,’ he said eventually, ‘of importing Class A prohibited substances into Europe andNorth America.’
The room went very quiet, and everybody was watching Sarah. O’Neal cleared his throat.
‘Your father is trafficking in drugs, Miss Woolf.’ It was her turn to laugh.
Four
There’s a snake hidden in the grass.
VIRGIL
Like all good things, and like all bad things too, it came to an end. The replica Solomons swept Sarah off towardsGrosvenor Square in one of their Rovers, and O’Neal ordered a taxi, which took far too long to arrive and gave him more time to sneer at my belongings. The real Solomon stayed behind to wash up the mugs, and then suggested that the two of us put ourselves outside a quantity of warm, nourishing beer.
It was only five-thirty, but the pubs were already groaning with young men in suits and misjudged moustaches, sounding off on the state of the world. We managed to find a table in the lounge bar of The Swan With Two Necks, where Solomon made a lavish production out of rootling for change in his pockets. I told him to put it on expenses, and he told me to take it out of my thirty thousand pounds. We tossed a coin, and I lost.
‘Obliged to you for your kindness, master.’
‘Cheers, David.’ We both took a long suck, and I lit a cigarette.
I was expecting Solomon to kick off with some observation about the events of the last twenty-four hours, but he seemed happy to just sit and listen while a nearby gang of estate agents discussed car alarm systems. He’d managed to make me feel as if our sitting there was my idea, and I wasn’t having that.
‘David.’
‘Sir.’
‘Is this social?’
‘Social?’
‘You were asked to take me out, weren’t you? Slap me on the back, get me drunk, find out whether I’m sleeping with Princess Margaret?’
It annoyed Solomon to hear the Royal family being taken in vain, which was why I’d done it.
‘I’m supposed to stay close, sir,’ he said eventually. ‘I thought it might be more fun if we sat at the same table, that’s all.’ He seemed to think that answered my question.
‘So what’s going on?’ I said. ‘Going on?’
‘David, if you’re going to just sit there, wide-eyed, repeating everything I say as if you’ve lived your whole life in a Wendy house, it’s going to be a pretty dull evening.’