‘That’s right. A beautiful piece. One of your dad’s favourites. But I guess you wouldn’t know that?’ Bone settled a hand on Ben’s shoulder. ‘It’s too bad, son. Really, it’s just too bad.’
A bird flew low over their heads and Ben followed it across the sky.
‘How did you know my father?’ he asked.
The American paused momentarily and seemed quickly to sweep aside considerations of tact or secrecy.
‘I used to work for the Central Intelligence Agency,’ he said. ‘Your father and I did time together in Afghanistan. I’m just sorry I didn’t catch up with you back there.’ He nodded towards McCreery’s house, the light winter drizzle now obliterating all colour in the garden. ‘I spoke to your brother quite a bit, and to your wife, Alice, about her journalism career and so forth. She seems a fine, ambitious person. She’s obviously gonna be very successful. But every time I looked over towards you, you seemed busy talking to somebody else.’
‘Yeah, it was hard getting away.’
‘No problem. Listen, I got a plane to catch back to the States. My wife hasn’t been well and…’
‘I’m sorry to hear that…’
‘But I’m gonna write you…’
Ben shook his head. ‘Please, there’s no need.’
‘No, not that kind of letter.’ Bone’s hand was still resting on his shoulder, as if by leaving it there he was fulfilling a promise to Keen. ‘There are things I need to tell you. Things your dad would have wanted you and Mark and Alice to know. He talked about you kids the whole time. I know that’s gotta be hard for you to hear right now, but Christopher always had a hard time’ — he paused — ‘ communicating. He was a stubborn sonofabitch, a goddam snob, too. But your old man was my best friend, Benjamin, and I wanna make sure you boys are OK.’
The American’s plain-speaking, unironic good-naturedness appealed to Ben in his despondent mood. Bone was simply a good man wounded by a friend’s violent death; he was trying to reach out, trying to do the right thing. The opposite, in fact, to all those refined, carefully worded Foreign Office snakes who took the world for idiots and betrayed everything but their own good name.
‘Do you have any idea who could have done this?’ Ben asked. He had trusted Bone immediately, fallen straight into his decency.
‘Later, son,’ the American replied, ‘Later.’ And finally he took his hand from Ben’s shoulder. A car had pulled up behind them. ‘I better go, not block these people in. Mark gave me your address in London. I’ll be sure to write you both just as soon as I get back home.’
21
‘I know what’s needed, Keeno. We need to get you out, mate. A night on the tiles. Something to relax you.’
Thomas Macklin was hunched forward at his desk, rubbing his hands vigorously together. His cheeks were puffy and flushed red, eyes like sockets of concentrated ambition. Roth’s lawyer, his confidant and right-hand man, was wearing a dark, single-breasted moleskin suit, a blue silk shirt and an off-gold cashmere tie. Enough money invested in designer clothes to make an unattractive man look passably stylish.
‘I don’t mean to sound insensitive, mate, but fuck it, where’s the harm? It’s good to see you backin the office. What’s it been, three weeks? Everyone admires the way you’ve handled this thing. But I wanna see a smile backon Keeno’s face. There’s this new place we’ve been going, lap-dancers that can’t get enough of you. Cocktails, music, stage acts, the lot. Couple of birds there you wouldn’t believe. Tits like freeze-dried mangoes and Happy New Year. We can take one of the Russian crowd along, write it off on expenses. Mr-Sebastian-Roth-does-not-have-to-know. If Seb wants to spend his nights hob-nobbing in art galleries with New Labour while his mates are out having a good time, well that’s his prerogative. You and me are gonna have some fun.’
Mark smiled. There was something touching about Macklin’s fantastic insensitivity. The last time they had been to a lap-dancing club was in New York two years before, while overseeing the opening of the club’s site in Manhattan. Five executives on the company credit card and Mark the only one not drunk and groping girls. One of the dancers, a Costa Rican, had kept giving him the eye; she had asked Mark more than once if he wanted her to dance for him and, even when he had said no, stayed beside him at the table, just talking. Meanwhile Macklin and his friends had stuffed fifty-dollar bills into her G-string and begged her to come back to their hotel. At the end of the night she had slipped Mark her number and they had got together a couple of times before he flew back to London.
‘Sure,’ Mark said. ‘It’s a nice idea.’
‘Fuckin’ right it’s a nice idea.’ Macklin stood up, backing away from his desk. He was heavily built and in the grip of a big idea. ‘Tell you what, we should get your brother along. How does young Benjamin feel about topless birds nibbling his earlobes?’
‘Not really his cuppa tea,’ Mark replied. His accent had assumed the work Cockney.
‘No,’ Macklin muttered quickly, ‘no.’ Against the grey London sky visible through the closed window of his office, he looked colourful, even vibrant. ‘I suppose he wouldn’t go in for that, would he? Can’t imagine his wife being all that chuffed. Tends to make herself heard, doesn’t she? What’s her name again?’
‘Alice,’ Mark said quietly.
‘That’s right. Alice. Lovely looking girl. He’s done well there, your bro. Real ballbreaker, though, isn’t she? They always are, the fit ones.’
Mark nodded awkwardly and looked down on to the street. A Bangkok cycle-taxi was passing below the window, ringing its bell. ‘Yeah, I suppose Alice can be a bit tricky,’ he conceded, talking into the glass so that it steamed up with his breath.
He might have added that he felt Ben had settled for the first girl that had fallen in love with him, out of an understandable desire for the stability of marriage. He might have said that he feared Alice would one day up and leave, lured by the connections and money of a less troubled man. He might have said that Ben had not spoken to him since the reading of the will, in which it had been revealed that Keen had left everything to Mark: the flat, the money, the car. But he was not a person given to discussing family issues at work. Instead he hummed a tune under his breath until Macklin said, ‘What was that?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Right.’ Macklin stretched until a bone cracked in his arm. ‘Anyway, it was just an idea. I’ll give Vladimir a call, see if he wants to join in.’
‘Who’s Vladimir?’
Very quickly Macklin said, ‘One of the crew from Moscow. Vlad Tamarov. Big fucker. Rolex and leather. He’s handling a few things for Seb on the legal side.’
‘He’s a lawyer?’
‘You could say that, yeah. More of a specialist in our line of work. Helping out with contracts, security, that kind of thing. He’s come over for a few days, see how we operate.’
‘Is he mafia?’
Macklin made a loud snorting noise and dismissed the question with a shrug.
‘Well, who is and who isn’t out there, eh, Keeno? Half the time I don’t even know myself.’
‘So how come you didn’t mention it?’
‘Well, you’ve been out of the loop, haven’t you, mate? Had a shite few weeks. Didn’t think it was necessary to fill you in.’ Macklin had slapped his hand on to Mark’s back and was rubbing it in abrupt circles. ‘Now old Tom wants to help you out, see? Wants to put a smile back on his mate’s face. So are you on for this thing or you after doing something else?’
‘It all sounds fine.’ Mark picked up a copy of GQ from a low, glass-surfaced table at the edge of the room. He began flicking backwards through the pages, male models and sports cars, taking none of it in. ‘There’s just something I have to do beforehand. Some stuff I have to collect from Dad’s flat.’
‘Course you have,’ Macklin told him. ‘Course you gotta do stuff like that. So when will you want to leave?’
‘Just tell me where it is and I’ll meet you there.’ Mark put the magazine down. ‘I don’t know how long I’m going to be.’