And another thing she liked about Luke Davies was that he didn’t flinch when she went through the gears and stamped on the accelerator. Twice, she’d shivered as she’d come past a truck’s cab, then had to swerve hard because the big bastard coming at her wasn’t about to give way. More than twice she’d felt the rush of blood as she’d done the overtaking on a bend and across the brow of a hill. She was trained and categorized as an advanced-level driver, she had been on roads at home to speeds in excess of a hundred and forty miles per hour. He hadn’t gasped, gulped. He hadn’t reached for the dashboard to steady himself. It was as if, she thought, he reckoned her dependable, not just the bloody token in a man’s world — SCD10 was that, male territory. There was quite a lot about him that she liked.
He took her off the flyover, did navigation, dumped the maps and used his palm job for the final run-in. He didn’t have to call them. He took her right up to and alongside the minibus, which was in a car park beside a church and had a view of the front area of the glass and concrete edifice of the hotel.
He said quietly, ‘Great ride, thanks.’
She pulled a face. He had attractive hands, thin, sensitive fingers. His accent appealed. Not smart and not trying to be what he was not. She’d enjoyed it, the drive, and she’d seen his quality at the apartment of Reuven Weissberg when he’d talked them in.
He went to the minibus and the side door was dragged open. From behind him, she saw Christopher Lawson on the back seat. Heard Lawson, ‘Well, what did you learn?’
And heard Luke Davies, ‘Not enough to tell it all over the mobile.’
‘Wouldn’t have expected you to.’
‘I gained access.’
‘Did you, now?’
‘I spoke with Anna Weissberg. She was in a camp, freed from it. She had a child in the forest, and was already white-haired. She’s a powerhouse, not physically but there’s an extraordinary strength about her, difficult to describe it. I saw the photograph of her, and the painting.’
‘Describe the painting.’
Katie heard Luke Davies stutter in his answer. ‘Not easy … It’s dark, like the light doesn’t get there … pines and birches. Has depth, like infinity. I don’t know, a place of hate, a frightening place. She didn’t tell me where it was.’
‘Where else? Sobibor.’
Lawson threw back his head and his eyes were closed, but his lips moved as if he repeated the word, Sobibor, again and again.
Luke Davies said he was going to find a sandwich, and Katie Jennings said she was going to find a toilet, and the side door of the minibus was pulled shut on them. Was it like, in her mind, she’d kicked Johnny Carrick when he was down? Didn’t know, and wasn’t going to agonize over it.
Carrick sensed the new atmosphere grow in intensity. He was at the heart of it, knew it, but was not included.
Another anteroom, another deep, comfortable easy chair, another bedroom beyond a closed door. Josef Goldmann had come to the anteroom but had avoided Carrick’s glance and gone inside. There had been a murmur of voices from the bedroom, his Bossman’s and Reuven Weissberg’s, but they had talked Russian and he had not understood. On coming out, Goldmann had walked past him, then stolen a quick, secretive look at Carrick; it told Carrick that Josef Goldmann had made another concession … It was the look he had given, but with more sadness tingeing it, before they had gone to the warehouse, and before Carrick had been ordered to Reuven Weissberg’s car. Their eyes had met and Carrick had tried to hold his glance steady, but Josef Goldmann had scuttled out of the anteroom.
Without knocking, as if Carrick’s territory had no more importance than a damned corridor, Viktor had come in. Carrick had been on his feet. It was his bloody job to be on his feet as soon as there were footsteps outside the main door of the suite and as soon as the handle moved. He had stood and half blocked the way across the anteroom. Viktor had skirted him, all the time seeming to mock him with the sneer at his mouth, and gone through the inner door.
Carrick could not judge the extent of the crisis. Then Mikhail came, no warning. For a big man he moved well, without sound. First that Carrick knew of him was the door handle turning sharply. Carrick was half up, hands on the chair arms, pushing himself to his feet, and Mikhail had paused in front of him, then pushed him back down. Not a sneer but pure malevolence. The fist that pushed him held a street map of the city.
The new atmosphere corroded Carrick’s confidence. Where to put faith? There was no Transit round the corner with a half-dozen uniforms and the familiar Heckler & Koch machine pistols, magazine on and one in the breech. Once, voices were raised, could have been Mikhail’s and Viktor’s but he didn’t think the argument was between them. Sensed they attacked Reuven Weissberg.
Where to put faith? He thought his faith should lie with Reuven Weissberg. The inner door of the bedroom opened.
In Mikhail’s hand was a black box, the size of a fat paperback book. It had a dial on it, and a short, stubbed aerial protruded. Mikhail did not speak but went round the anteroom and aimed the aerial at every floor plug, held it close to them, and the telephone plug, then ran it across the television screen. He paused under the smoke detector set in the ceiling, reached up and held the thing there. There was a constant hum from the machine but no bleep. He walked close to Carrick, stood in front of him, then leaned forward with it. The machine was inches from Carrick’s chest and stomach. He knew what was expected of him, what he had to do. His fists unlocked and his fingers snaked forward. Maybe it was surprise he achieved. He snatched the machine, felt the blood rush, then thrust it right up against Mikhail’s jacket and over his crotch. He looked into Mikhail’s face and his gaze never meandered from Mikhail’s eyes. He gave him back the bug detector.
Now Carrick looked away, the gesture made. He should have been Mikhail’s friend or at least tolerated by him, but he had reinforced the enmity.
Reuven Weissberg was at the inner door and Viktor hovered at his shoulder. Carrick thought a grin was on Weissberg’s lips, as if the spectacle of rats fighting was better if the vermin were half starved.
‘Tonight we move out, go on.’ Then, as if it was an afterthought, ‘Do you know Warsaw, Johnny?’
‘I’ve never been to Warsaw before, sir.’
‘Then I will show it to you. Later we will go to the Stare Miasto, the Old City, and I will be your guide.’
‘I’ll enjoy that, sir. Thank you.’
Why? He didn’t know. Carrick couldn’t comprehend why the major player — level three in organized crime — wished to walk him round the streets of a city and do tourist junk with him. Why? Had no idea.
Chapter 13
Carrick came out of the hotel. He carried his bag from the swing doors, and there was a siren in the air — might have been fire, ambulance or police answering an emergency, might have been for a politician’s convoy. He looked up. Had there not been that distant sound of a siren and had he not done that everyday thing of trying to identify where it came from and where it went, he wouldn’t have seen her.
She was sitting on a low wall. It ran along the front of a schoolyard, which was beside an ornate church façade, and kids were screaming and chasing behind her. She had a magazine on her lap but had glanced up from it. She was, perhaps, a hundred yards from him and they had visual contact but it was as though she looked right through him and focused on nothing. Two days ago, or three, it would have given him a lift to see Katie, would have raised his morale, spirits, motivation, whatever he ran on. But Johnny Carrick was a changed man, accepted that.