He closed his eyes for a second, as if the very thought of such a thing gave him pain, which, perhaps, it did. If so, it wasn’t for long.
‘As I said, Mr Lang, I don’t believe I have to justify myself to you. I am not concerned with the use to which this merchandise is eventually put. My concern, for the sake of my friends, and for myself, is that the merchandise should find customers.’ He clasped his hands together and waited. As if the whole thing was now my problem.
‘So advertise,’ I said, after a while. ‘Back pages ofWoman’s Own.’
‘ Hm,’he said. Like I was an idiot. ‘You are not a businessman, Mr Lang.’
I shrugged.
‘I am, you see,’ he continued. ‘So I think you must trust me to know my own market-place.’ A thought seemed to strike him. ‘After all, I wouldn’t presume to advise you on the best way…’And then he realised he was in a jam, because there was nothing on my CV to indicate that I knew the best way to do anything.
‘To ride a motorcycle?’ I offered, gallantly. He smiled.
‘As you say.’ He sat down on the sofa again. Further away, this time. ‘The product I am dealing with requires a more sophisticated approach, I think, than the pages ofWoman’s Own.If you are making a new mousetrap, then, as you say, you advertise it as a new mousetrap. If, on the other hand,’ he held out his other hand, to show me what another hand looked like, ‘you are trying to sell a snake trap, then your first task is to demonstrate why snakes are bad things. Why they need to be trapped. Do you follow me? Then, much, much later, you come along with your product. Does that make sense to you?’ He smiled patiently.
‘So,’ I said, ‘you’re going to sponsor a terrorist act, and let your little toy do its business on thenine o’clock news. I know all this. Rusty knows that I know all this.’ I glanced at my watch, trying to make it look as if I had another arms dealer to see in ten minutes. But Murdah was not a man to be hurried, or slowed down.
‘That, in essence, is precisely what I intend to do,’ he said. ‘And I come into this where, exactly? I mean, now that you’ve told me, what am I supposed to do with the information? Put it in my diary? Write a song about it? What?’
Murdahlooked at me for a moment, then took in a deep breath and pushed it out gently and carefully through his nose, as if he’d had lessons in how to breathe.
‘You, Mr Lang, are going to carry out this terrorist act for us.’
Pause. Long pause. A feeling of horizontal vertigo. The walls of this massive room shooting inwards, then out again, making me feeling smaller, and punier, than I’ve ever felt. ‘Aha,’ I said.
Another pause. The smell of fishfingers was stronger than ever.
‘Do I have a say in this, by any chance?’ I croaked. My throat was giving me trouble, for some reason. ‘I mean, if I were to say, for example, fuck you and all your relatives, roughly what could I expect to happen, at today’s prices?’
It was Murdah’s turn to do the glancing-at-the-watch bit. He seemed to have grown suddenly bored, and wasn’t smiling at all any more.
‘That, Mr Lang, is not an option that I think you should waste any time considering.’
I felt cooler air on my neck, and twisted round to see that Barnes and Lucas were standing by the door. Barnes looked relaxed. Lucas didn’t. Murdah nodded, and the two Americans stepped forward, coming each side of the sofa to join him. Facing me. Murdah held out a hand, palm up, in front of Lucas, without looking at him.
Lucas slid back the flap of his jacket and pulled out an automatic. A Steyr, I think. 9mm. Not that it matters. He placed the gun gently in Murdah’s hand, then turned towards me, his eyes widened by the pressure of some message that I couldn’t decipher.
‘Mr Lang,’ said Murdah, ‘you have the safety of two people to think about. Your own, of course, and Miss Woolf’s. I don’t know what value you place on your own safety, but I think it would be only gallant if you were to consider hers. And I want you to consider hers very deeply.’ He beamed suddenly, as if the worst was over. ‘But, of course, I don’t expect you to do it without good reason.’
As he spoke, he cocked the hammer, and lifted his chin towards me, the gun loose in his hand. Sweat spurted from the palms of my hands and my throat wouldn’t work. I waited. Because that was all I could do.
Murdahconsidered me for a moment. Then he reached out, pressed the muzzle of the gun to the side of Lucas’s neck, and fired twice.
It happened so fast, was so unexpected, was so absurd, that for a tenth of a second I wanted to laugh. There were three men standing there, then there was a bang bang, and then there were two. It was actually funny.
I realised that I’d wet myself. Not much. But enough.
I blinked once, and saw that Murdah had handed the gun to Barnes, who was signalling towards the door behind my head.
‘Why did he do that? Why would anyone do such a terrible thing?’
It should have been my voice, but it wasn’t. It was Murdah’s. Soft and calm, utterly in control. ‘It was a terrible thing, Mr Lang,’ he said. ‘Terrible. Terrible, because it had no reason. And we must always try and find a reason for death. Don’t you agree?’
I looked up at his face, but couldn’t focus on it. It came and went, like his voice, which was in my ear and miles away at the same time.
‘Well, let us say that although he had no reason to die, I had a reason to kill him. That is better, I think. I killed him, Mr Lang, to show you one thing. And one thing only.’ He paused. ‘To show you that I could.’
He looked down at Lucas’s body, and I followed his gaze. It was a foul sight. The muzzle had been so close to the flesh that the expanding gases had chased the bullet in, swelling and blackening the wound horribly. I couldn’t look at it for long.
‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’
He was leaning forward, with his head on one side.
‘This man,’ said Murdah, was an accredited American diplomat, an employee of the US State Department. He had, I’m sure, many friends, a wife, perhaps even children. So it would not be possible, surely, for such a man to disappear, just like that? To vanish?’
Men were stooping in front of me, their jackets rustling as they strained to move Lucas’s body. I forced myself to listen to Murdah.
‘I want you to see the truth, Mr Lang. And the truth is that if I wish him to disappear, then it is so. I shoot a man here, in my own house, I let him bleed on my own carpet, because it is my wish. And no one will stop me. No police, no secret agents, no friends of Mr Lucas’s. And certainly not you. Do you hear me?’
I looked up at him again, and saw his face more clearly.
The dark eyes. The sheen. He straightened his tie.
‘Mr Lang,’ he said, ‘have I given you a reason to think about Miss Woolf’s safety?’
I nodded.
They drove me back toLondon, pressed into the carpet of the Diplomat, and chucked me out somewhere south of the river. I went over Waterloo Bridge and along the Strand, stopping every now and then for no reason, occasionally dropping coins into the hands of eighteen-year-old beggars, and wanting this piece of reality to be a dream more than I’ve ever wanted any dream to become reality.
Mike Lucas had told me to be careful. He’d taken a risk, telling me to be careful. I didn’t know the man, and I hadn’t asked him to take the risk for me, but he’d done it anyway because he was a decent professional who didn’t like the places his work was taking him, and didn’t want me to be taken there too.