A Conflict of Interests (15 page)

"When did this happen?" he asked.

"Ten weeks ago. Casual work is all I can get now. I'm a month behind with the rent and I'm feeling pretty low."

"I'm not surprised." He owed Janice nothing, but for some reason he couldn't even begin to explain, his every instinct was to help her. "Tell you what," Coghill said impulsively, "we'll have lunch somewhere, talk things over and see if we can't come up with something."

"Are you sure, Tom? I don't want to monopolize your time."

"You won't be. This is my rest day and I haven't got anything planned. Give me twenty minutes to make myself presentable, then we'll drive out to The Angler's Inn at Marlow on Thames. What do you say?"

"Sounds marvelous." Another smile appeared, bright and eager this time. "I'll do the washing up and tidy the kitchen while you get changed. How's that for a bargain?"

"You're on."

Coghill left her to it, went into the bathroom and ran the electric shaver over his beard. That done, he stripped, stepped into the bath, drew the plastic curtain and turned on the shower attachment. He was still soaping himself down when she joined him in the shower. Her arms went round his neck, her mouth fastened on his and she moved against him.

Vaudrey's flat in Cheney Walk lacked a woman's touch and was just as impersonal as his office in Leconfield House. Although the sitting room was tastefully furnished, all the family photographs, curios, mementos and porcelain ornaments that reminded him of his wife had been removed and put into storage within a fortnight of her death from cancer in 1970. His needs were now allegedly seen to by an elderly live-in housekeeper, but the demands he made on her were hardly taxing since Vaudrey ate at his club every night of the week except Sundays, when the dining room was closed. A canny Scot, his housekeeper nevertheless insisted on observing the sabbath and, after preparing a light lunch for him, it was her accepted practice to take the rest of the day off. As far as Caroline Brooke could see, her only contribution toward organizing the party were the salted nuts she'd put out before leaving.

It was, however, a very intimate party; the only other guest was Walter J. Zellick III, a tall, very lean, very distinguished-looking American whose age was difficult to assess; although his dark hair was flecked with gray around the temples, his face was unlined and there was no sign of any flabbiness about the waist. Sizing him up, Caroline figured he was somewhere between thirty-eight and forty-two. She also thought Zellick held on to her hand longer than was strictly necessary while they were being introduced. A smile that was intended to show he found her attractive faded a little when a large gin and tonic was pressed into his free hand, and disappeared altogether when Vaudrey promptly got down to business.

"No need to tell you what all this is in aid of, Walt," he said cheerfully. "You want Orville Patterson and we think we're on to him."

"Right." Zellick frowned at his glass and decided he'd better down the gin and tonic before the single ice cube melted away.

"What Caroline needs," Vaudrey continued, "is some background information."

"Sure." Zellick grinned at her. "I'm forty-two and unattached. I haven't seen my ex since we were divorced in Los Angeles five years ago."

"I was referring to Orville Patterson," Vaudrey said frostily.

"Yeah? Well, he's a real bad number; if the money's right, there isn't anything he wouldn't do. I doubt Patterson was always like that, but Vietnam corrupted a lot of our soldiers and it seems he was no exception. Anyway, some of the CIA people in Saigon must have known exactly what kind of man they were getting when they recruited him into the Company. I tell you those guys damn nearly put the Mafia out of business the way they cornered the market in heroin."

"Am I right in assuming Patterson ran the distribution network from Langley?" Caroline asked.

"You catch on fast," Zellick said, in a voice which suggested he was suitably impressed.

"Not really. We already have that information on file."

"Quite so." Vaudrey removed the American's empty glass and fixed him another gin and tonic. "What Caroline would like is a detailed briefing about the man. You know the kind of thing — what makes him tick? Does he have any close associates? What are his habits, strengths and weaknesses?"

"Weaknesses?" Zellick shook his head. "I don't know of any, apart from the fact that he's totally corrupt. As for what makes him tick, I guess you could say the acquisition of money is his prime objective in life. We can't prove it, but we hear Patterson has acquired a tract of land in a fashionable part of Rio de Janeiro and is building himself a mansion that will make Buckingham Palace seem modest. Once it's completed, he'll retire and live like a king, the poor boy from Moorfield, West Virginia, who made good. He'd certainly enjoy giving the finger to the rest of us, knowing we couldn't touch him. No extradition treaty; that's the beauty of Brazil. And you can bet your bottom dollar Patterson has been cute enough to arrange a little double indemnity on the side."

"What sort of double indemnity?"

"The best there is, Caroline. He'll have married some local girl and made her pregnant."

"A careful man," Vaudrey observed acidly.

It transpired Patterson was all of that. The heroin connection had made him comparatively wealthy, and long before he'd left the CIA and ducked out of the States, he'd established several bank accounts in Switzerland and West Germany under various aliases. Along the way, he'd also acquired a collection of passports.

"He's very thorough," Zellick continued. "Doesn't make a move without preparing a fallback position. You may think you're on to him, but the chances are he's already two jumps ahead of you people."

"You're forgetting Raschid al Jalud," Vaudrey reminded him.

"Yeah, he could be the ace up your sleeve." Zellick carried his drink over to the window and stood there gazing out at the Albert Bridge and the Battersea Park and Festival Pleasure Gardens across the river. "Patterson would like to be Qadhafi's top adviser on clandestine operations and only Jalud can make it happen. Somehow you've got to drive a wedge between those two, Nicholas."

"We're working on it," Vaudrey assured him. "It's just a question of finding the right man for the job."

"You got anybody in mind?"

"I think so. The question is, can you deliver your side of the bargain?"

"Let's see if I've got it right." Zellick slowly turned about. "You want Noraid. The boys in that outfit are one big pain in the ass as far as you British are concerned. They keep the Irish question alive in the States and thanks to their fund-raising activities, the IRA can buy all the weapons they need?"

Vaudrey nodded. "That is our assessment," he said.

"Well then, you give us Patterson and I guarantee to put Noraid out of business."

"May one ask how?" Caroline inquired.

"That's our little secret, honey." Zellick finished his drink and left the empty glass on the mantelpiece. "I'll tell you one thing, though. We sure as hell won't be taking them to court."

Patterson got off the Central Line train at Roding Valley station and started walking. Denise Rousell had told him to turn right at the end of the approach road, but as he neared the T-junction, he spotted a narrow lane behind the row of bungalows backing onto the railway and decided to follow it. The alley was crescent-shaped, conforming to the sweep of Cherry Tree Road, with a head-high wooden fence on one side marking the boundary line of the private residences and a wire-mesh fence on the other which had obviously been erected by London Transport.

There were the usual sounds of a Sunday morning in suburbia — a car radio tuned to London Broadcasting Company while the owner put a hose over the family car, two lawn mowers were at work, one electric, the other gas-driven. Through a broken slat in the wooden fence, Patterson caught a brief glimpse of a girl in a bikini sunbathing, and next door but one, an elderly man in a deck chair engrossed in the
News of the World
. Beyond the bend, the alley sloped downhill, the gradient sufficient to afford him an unobstructed view of the bungalows.

There was no mistaking Cherry Tree Kennels where Denise Rousell lived; the entire back lawn had been concreted over and subdivided into a dozen pens, the maximum number that could be crammed into a plot measuring sixty feet by forty. In the rear of the garage adjoining the bungalow, there was a large garden shed which, according to the signboard on the roof, was supposed to be a cattery. As far as Patterson could see, every pen appeared to be occupied, but the inmates seemed very docile and he assumed they'd recently been fed; then a poodle heard him coming and started to yap and was rapidly joined by every other dog in kennels. Quickening his stride, he reached the end of the lane and turned right on Cherry Tree Road to make a wide detour through the adjacent streets before returning to the Underground station.

The kennels had a lot going for it: the local residents were used to people coming and going and nobody was likely to pay much attention to a stranger. It was the sort of place the KGB would use as a safe house and, considering what was at stake, Patterson thought they might well be prepared to jeopardize the cover Denise Rousell had established for herself. Assuming they intended to play it rough, Orlov's associates would undoubtedly prolong the negotiations until nightfall before they made their move. The neighbors were a problem, but provided they backed a transit van up to the garage, there was a good chance nobody would see them as they bundled him into the vehicle. If he was lucky, they would dump him somewhere on the outskirts of London, minus the cassette and still unconscious from a shot of Pentothal. If they were feeling really mean, he might wake up to find himself in a prison cell.

He would need to be one jump ahead of them to stay in the game, and that brought him back to Denise Rousell. In his own mind, Patterson was convinced that she was the key figure, the adjudicator whom the KGB was counting on to assess the value of the material on offer. Knowing this was one thing; proving it was quite a different proposition. However, there were ways and means of discovering her real identity and background, and first thing tomorrow morning, he would drive over to Woodford and check the electoral roll.

11.

Coghill felt a hand brush against his chest and slowly opened both eyes. The sun was well down on the horizon and the fading light in the bedroom suggested the night was rapidly drawing in. He couldn't see the alarm clock on the bedside table without disturbing Janice, but all the signs indicated the time had to be somewhere between nine-thirty and ten.

It had been one hell of a rest day, he thought, lunch at the Angler's Inn, a lazy afternoon punting on the river, then back to the flat to fall into bed. From first to last, Janice had avoided the subject of her future plans, and whenever he'd tried to discuss them with her, she had promptly steered the conversation in a totally different direction. Long before they'd left Marlow on the return journey, he'd realized Janice simply regarded him as a rock to which she was determined to cling while the storm raged. On reflection, it was obvious he should have kept her at arm's length, but that was easier said than done; Janice had always known just how to arouse him and he lacked the self-denying ordinance of a monk.

"It's a shame to waste it," Janice had said, looking at the single bed, and it wasn't only sex she'd had in mind. That was only the means to an end, a none-too-subtle reminder of what he'd been missing since they'd split up. Unless he did something about it, she would gradually worm her way into his life again and he'd be back where he started, with all the heartache to come. The diagnosis was clear, the cure wasn't, and he wondered if his reluctance to hurt her was a sign of weakness.

You're not a moral coward, he reasoned with himself; tell her gently but firmly that there can be no going back, and do it now. Acting on his own advice, Coghill placed a hand on Jan's shoulder to wake her; then the phone trilled and did it for him.

"Let it ring," Janice told him. "Pretend you're not at home."

Her voice was drowsy, but she hadn't flinched at the sudden noise and he knew she had just been lying there on her stomach, feigning sleep.

"You know I can't do that," he said.

"Why not? It's your rest day, isn't it?" She raised herself up and tried to lie across him, her mouth seeking his.

"For God's sake, Jan," he said angrily, "it could be important."

"So's this," she murmured huskily.

"Like hell it is."

Easing Janice aside, Coghill scrambled out of the divan, padded around to the bedside table and snatched the receiver off the cradle to find he had Trevor Whitfield on the line. He sounded distant and withdrawn, his voice a dull monotone as though he were in a state of traumatic shock.

"Are you all right?" Coghill asked him quietly.

"All right?" Whitfield mumbled something under his breath, laughed inanely, then said, "Why are you so determined to get me? I've never done you any harm."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Trevor."

"That chief superintendent, the one they call Fucker Tucker behind his back. He kept asking me about Lisa, said it was beginning to look as if I might have hired somebody to murder Karen because I wanted her money."

"Lisa?" Coghill said, frowning. "Who's she?"

"A girl I know in Vienna. Two days and nights nonstop."

"What?"

"Questions, nothing but questions. Stanley was there part of the time but he was no help."

Coghill reached for the pack of cigarettes on the bedside table, shook one loose and lit it. Quainton had obviously run true to form, his client's interests coming a poor second to his own when the chips were down.

"Tucker said he knew I was sleeping with Lisa and showering her with gifts."

Whitfield rambled on, becoming more and more incoherent, so that it was impossible to follow his train of thought. The girl in Vienna, the arrangements for Karen's funeral on Monday and Tucker; he switched from one subject to the next with all the agility of a grasshopper and nothing he said made any sense to Coghill.