Blind Spot Page 10

  ‘Mum says she’s a big-time doctor.’

  Jamie nodded. ‘A psychiatrist.’

  ‘Why would she settle for you?’ George asked. ‘You’re just police.’

  Grace shot Jamie a sharp glance, but Jamie was already saying, ‘I’m not with the Met anymore, Dad. I quit the force some time ago.’

  George blinked.

  ‘I hadn’t told him,’ Grace said under her breath.

  ‘You quit?’ George said.

  Jamie shrugged. ‘I was never a very good police officer.’

  George considered this. ‘You take money?’ he asked suddenly.

  ‘Nothing like that,’ Jamie reassured him. He slid across the sofa towards the wheelchair and took his father’s hand. It lay in his palm unresponsive; he kept hold of it anyway. ‘I just wanted to do other things.’

  ‘Yeah?’ George said dubiously. ‘Like what?’

  ‘He’s gone back to university, George,’ Grace said. ‘In London this time. He’s training to be a lawyer.’

  George looked at his wife with suspicion. ‘That true?’ he said to Jamie.

  ‘It’s true, Dad,’ Jamie said. ‘A lawyer – like you always wanted me to be.’

  George looked up at Grace with incredulous irritation. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’

  Jamie decided it was best to leave out the details. No doubt his father wanted to imagine him as a tough, blustering barrister, defending high-ranking criminals before the High Court. Or maybe as a corporate attorney, surveying the City from the floor-to-ceiling window of a thirtieth-floor boardroom. George Harding might have been less sympathetic towards the notion of human rights law, if he could even comprehend what that phrase –

  Jamie’s thoughts were disturbed by his mother leaning past him, looming over his father. She was close enough for Jamie to smell her perfume – it was Jean-Paul Gaultier. Sometimes Sara wore it too.

  ‘Quiet now, you big old baby,’ Grace murmured softly.

  Jamie looked up to see her dabbing her handkerchief against her husband’s cheeks.

  George Harding was crying.

  NINE

  Jamie stepped out of the lift that had whisked him up fifteen flights to the top-floor café of a central London hotel. Its windows boasted wonderful sights. One side overlooked the pointed spire of All Souls church and the Portland stone prow of BBC Broadcasting House; beyond that, the panorama stretched from Hampstead Heath to South-West London. The other side took in the BT Tower and the cluster of high-rise offices that made up the City. The morning had turned out sunny, and from this vantage point, all of London seemed to sparkle. Despite this, Jamie found Levi Rootenberg at a small table that overlooked neither vista. Even though window tables with postcard views were plentiful in the near-empty café, the man had chosen a seat nestled into an alcove. He was sipping a latte in semi-darkness.

  Jamie introduced himself and shook his new associate’s hand. ‘Shame to waste the view,’ he said, still standing. ‘I’m sure it’s included in the price of the coffee.’

  Rootenberg waved his hand dismissively. ‘I grew up in Africa,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen enough sun to last me a lifetime. That’s why I like London. These bright days are mercifully rare here.’

  Jamie shrugged and sat. Although Andy Turner was technically his boss, Jamie knew he really answered to Gerrit Vos. That had been true from the moment he’d accepted this assignment. And if Vos had decided that Jamie should hear Rootenberg’s plans for global domination, and Rootenberg wanted to announce them here in the gloom, well … then Jamie’s job was to sit and listen.

  He ordered coffee. ‘Mr Vos is an old friend,’ Rootenberg began. ‘We have worked together for many years, Gerrit and I. He trusts me.’

  Jamie nodded. It seemed important to Rootenberg that Jamie believed this. ‘I don’t doubt that,’ he said. ‘Still, isn’t it odd that he’s asked me to speak to you, instead of doing it in person? Do you know why he might have done that?’

  Rootenberg offered a world-weary smile. ‘Safer that way,’ he said. ‘Within any company, certain things need to be handled discreetly. And as for why you specifically are talking to me … well, as I understand it, Gerrit is coddling you as a favour to Andrew Turner.’ Rootenberg’s hands fluttered modestly. ‘Gerrit knows who to turn to for professional discretion.’

  Jamie had already had a taste of Vos’s discretion. At their meeting, right before mentioning Rootenberg, Vos had informed Jamie that the hours Andy billed for his services would be listed as consultation on site security at Thorndike offices and manufacturing facilities. ‘With so much terrorism these days,’ Vos had said, ‘no one’s going to question our wanting to beef up security protocols.’ He had chuckled and added, ‘The downside is, you may actually have to be seen staring at a few wire fences in Lancashire.’

  ‘When you say discreet,’ Jamie said to Rootenberg, ‘what do you mean, exactly? Immoral? Illegal?’

  Rootenberg looked at him with hooded eyes, a few seconds longer than was comfortable. Either he was incredulous that Vos would send someone who’d ask such a question, or else he simply wanted to register mild contempt. ‘I mean,’ he said with extra-precise enunciation, ‘arms deals with my home country.’

  ‘Your country?’

  ‘Zimbabwe,’ Rootenberg said. He inclined his head. ‘When I was born, they called it Rhodesia. Throughout my childhood, it was a rather troubled place. I personally lived through more than one guerrilla attack. When I was eleven, those self-same guerrillas won, and suddenly we were supposed to call them the government. I found myself in a brand-new country, with a new name.’

  ‘That must have been disorientating,’ Jamie said.

  Rootenberg laughed. ‘That’s one word for it. After I left Zimbabwe for university in South Africa, I never really returned. But my family stayed. And then, in the late 1990s, my parents were forced to sell their farm to the government.’

  Jamie nodded, as though this were the first time he’d heard this. The waiter placed Jamie’s coffee, along with a packaged biscuit, next to him. Rootenberg waited for the man to glide out of earshot. ‘So, you see,’ he went on, ‘my relationship with “home” is a complex one. And yet, I still hold a Zimbabwean passport. And their government still values what I have to offer.’

  ‘I don’t know a lot about Zimbabwe,’ Jamie said, ‘but I do know that, despite the change in leadership, there are UN, EU and British arms embargoes against it because of their human rights record. Is that not right?’

  ‘It is,’ Rootenberg agreed. ‘And yet, the government used to sell them Hawk jets back in the eighties and nineties. Even in 2000, two months before they banned arms sales to my country, the UK government agreed to sell them spare aircraft parts to use in their war in the Congo.’

  Jamie thought about Vos, and his talk about the grey hinterlands of morality.

  ‘Even today, the UK allows contractors to apply for an Export Licence to sell controlled goods to Zimbabwe,’ Rootenberg said. He added, ‘And why wouldn’t they? The UN’s own charter says every country has a right to self-defence. Last time I checked, Zimbabwe was still a country.’

  Quickly, Jamie tried to work out what was really going on in the company he’d just joined. Thorndike was planning to do a deal with a proscribed state, he surmised, and they’d put Vos in the hot seat – not only because Business Development was his purview, but also because of his expertise in sneakiness. Vos had then hired a personal crony with an appropriate pedigree to see the deal through.

  ‘Think of it this way,’ Rootenberg continued. ‘The government needs the UK’s defence industry to succeed. There’s not a single cabinet minister who doesn’t act as a pimp for British weapons on every foreign trip. Before a minister even leaves this country, they get three separate briefings: one about the actual purpose of the trip, one on the political climate of the state they’re going to, and one that gives them talking points the government would like them to raise.’ He leaned back. ‘You can guess what the
key talking points often involve. Defence is a money-maker, my friend.’

  If Thorndike Aerospace genuinely was entertaining the possibility of getting an export licence for Zimbabwe, they were dreaming, Jamie told himself. Working through this particular middleman, Thorndike was bound to lose any slight chance they may have had.

  ‘As I understand it,’ Jamie ventured, ‘you aren’t licensed to broker arms anymore.’

  Rootenberg smiled sardonically. ‘No flies on you,’ he said. ‘You’re right – I lost my licence over a minor bit of business involving ex-Yugoslav handguns. But then, I wasn’t claiming I could obtain legal permission.’

  Mentally, Jamie erased all his speculation about Thorndike’s motives.

  ‘I’m simply pointing out,’ Rootenberg went on, ‘that the issue isn’t cut-and-dried. Nearly thirty countries have been accused of serious Human Rights violations – and the UK and Europe still exports billions of pounds worth of goods to them.’

  Rootenberg drained his latte and raised his hand to the waiter for another. He chuckled warmly. ‘Now, let me make you a deal,’ he said. ‘Why don’t I tell you exactly what I’m proposing, and after that, you can tell me what a rotten piece of shit I am.’

  Jamie smiled in spite of himself. ‘Agreed.’

  Rootenberg glanced from side to side, and lowered his voice. ‘I have some friends who work in the Zimbabwean military. They are prepared to do me a favour.’

  ‘For payment, presumably,’ Jamie said.

  ‘That’s irrelevant to you,’ Rootenberg replied. ‘Whatever happens, such extraneous expenses would come out of my end.’

  Rootenberg explained that the initial sale he planned to make to Zimbabwe was small – a consignment of fifteen-millimetre artillery shells. He hoped however that over time – and with Thorndike’s unofficial backing – he may become trusted enough to sell his Zimbabwean chums other items. ‘Zimbabwe’s always in the market for rocket launchers and hand grenades,’ he observed. ‘Their own manufacturing industry’s in the toilet. If we can earn their trust, I have grander visions than artillery shells, believe me. There’s big money to be made.’

  They fell silent again as the waiter delivered Rootenberg’s latte. They offered patient half-smiles as they waited for him to leave. ‘I can understand that Gerrit Vos doesn’t want to be seen talking to you about this,’ Jamie went on quietly, ‘but why would he even have to? Presumably, you already know how you’re going to transport the shells, and someone at Thorndike knows how to fudge their ultimate destination –’

  ‘Such things needn’t concern you,’ Rootenberg said. ‘It’s not about this insignificant consignment of shells. If that were all it was, Thorndike Aerospace would never go near this deal. It’s the long-term benefits that the company is interested in. Making friends in Africa right now is smart. Thorndike wants to be in a good position when international relations change.’

  ‘And in the meantime they’re willing to risk illegal deals?’

  ‘There’s very little risk,’ Rootenberg said. ‘But there’s potentially great reward. That is why Gerrit wants an open line of communication with me.’

  ‘And that open line of communication is …?’

  ‘Yes, it’s you. You’re a personal messenger-boy between Gerrit Vos and me. That’s especially important for a reason we have yet to discuss. This isn’t going to be clear sailing – we have a very powerful rival.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Rootenberg explained that the rival’s name was Strategic Ballistics, and that it was part of the consortium that held a legal monopoly on Russian arms exports. The company also held sway over a number of important figures in Zimbabwean military procurement. Rootenberg said he was relying on factionalism within the military to pave Thorndike’s way towards lucrative deals. Rootenberg had formed personal alliances with the enemies of Strategic Ballistics’ Zimbabwean supporters.

  Jamie couldn’t help but feel both bemused and intrigued by the labyrinthine world he had stumbled into. He was being offered insights into the clash between first-and-third-world politics he was unlikely to get in his law degree. Indeed, he wondered whether this knowledge would prove useful to his education.

  ‘We have to ally ourselves with one side,’ Rootenberg continued, ‘and there is only one side available to us. That does mean our long-term success will depend on an African country’s internal politics – something we can’t control.’

  He smiled at Jamie. ‘But in the meantime, we can at least sell them some artillery,’ he said.

  Sara took the tube to Green Park and walked up Piccadilly before cutting over to St James’s Square and the offices of Andrew Turner & Associates. After yesterday’s unsettling vision, Sara had realised that she could not trust her own psychic powers. At least, not until she had convinced herself once more that they were worth trusting.

  Tomorrow evening would be the test. One of the details that Sara’s psychic foray into Tim Wilson’s life had unearthed was exactly where and when he would meet his lover-and-victim-to-be, Philip Berger. In a sense, Sara knew, the two men had already met – in a chatroom online. But their first face-to-face encounter had not happened yet. If Sara’s visions could be trusted, that event would take place in a pub in Hackney on Saturday evening. Tomorrow. Sara planned to be there. If Wilson and Berger turned up, Sara would know that her visions of, and concern about, Wilson had some validity. If they didn’t …

  Well, maybe she would do what she had once threatened Eldon Carson she’d do, and find a way to resign from the psychic club.

  In the meantime, Sara had two full days to do something productive. She still needed to find out rather a lot of information, because the problem of Gerrit Vos remained. Had Vos really been responsible for the deaths of union leaders in South Africa? As she could not prove the veracity of that vision with another vision, she had decided to try to discover further details in a more conventional way.

  This morning, Sara had waited for Jamie to leave the flat, then rang Andy Turner’s private mobile. She had asked to meet as soon as possible. Andy was at work, but told Sara that he was merely shuffling paperwork that day, and had no client meetings. He had offered to drive to Brixton immediately. Sara had not wanted to presume to that extent; she’d come to him, she’d said.

  When Sara arrived at Andy’s offices, she offered her name to the receptionist. The young woman eyed Sara with curiosity and picked up her phone. Sara glanced about the reception area and thought, not for the first time, how crucial aesthetics were to Andy. Art, design and colour palettes were as important to him as military lore – or even his professional devotion to high-priced defence consultancy. This place, Sara reflected, was painfully perfect in its juxtaposition of modern design and English traditionalism. There was only one objet d’art that seemed incongruous amidst the models of fighter aircraft and modern figurative paintings – a single Senufo tribal mask, that took pride of place on one of the office’s most prominent walls. Sara knew, as no other visitor would have, that this was Andy’s tribute to her, and her own aesthetic perfectionism.

  Within seconds, Andy had emerged from behind the partition that separated the lobby from the offices. Recently, Sara had seen him wearing little other than an array of expensive suits. Today he was dressed for a period without clients, in a black Hugo Boss T-shirt, khaki cargo trousers and jungle pattern Paul Smith trainers. Sara had never thought of Andy as being especially physically fit, but in this outfit, it was hard not to notice his muscular arms and well-developed chest. He even showed a ripple of abs under his slim-cut shirt. Maybe Andy’s unrealised childhood dream of joining the SAS hadn’t been so far-fetched: he looked ready for an assault course.

  Andy kissed her. ‘At the moment,’ he said, ‘my office is a battlefield. I’m absolutely outflanked by hundreds of contracts and reports – and I think the paperwork is winning.’ He motioned to a cosy corner of the reception area. ‘Let’s sit over here. Less of a mess.’

  They sat, and by force of habit co
nfigured themselves in the way they had once done in Sara’s office, during Andy’s therapy sessions. Sara curled into a chair that faced him on the sofa. It felt just like old times. ‘I have been working to exhaustion,’ Andy said. ‘Right now, I am organising the minutiae of an Investor Mingle for Thorndike’s Investor Relations Team.’

  Sara raised an eyebrow. ‘A mingle?’

  ‘We hold them now and again at some posh wine bar in the City. It’s a chance for our investors to chat with the executives. It’s never as formal as an investor update event or, God forbid, the Annual General Meeting – but it’s important. The company is still struggling to make the move from subcontractor to prime contractor, so image has got to be Job One.’

  Before long, Andy was explaining how to handle crowd control at AGMs, and how the company’s security guards worked with police to corral the inevitable cluster of anti-war protestors. With typical indiscretion, he revealed Thorndike’s tactics against the ones who had bought a few shares in the company, just so they could get inside the hall and disrupt proceedings. All the while, Andy drank mugs-full of Lady Grey tea, as Sara sipped a glass of sparkling water.

  It wasn’t until forty minutes later that Andy brought the conversation around to why Sara had come. ‘I assume,’ he said, ‘this get-together has something to do with my most recent freelance consultant?’

  Sara smiled. ‘I’ve just been wondering where Jamie’s new position might lead,’ she said. ‘I can’t get any sense out of Jamie himself – he’s so charged-up about working for you – but I do wonder about his relationship with Thorndike.’

  ‘And your concern is entirely my fault,’ Andy confessed. ‘I should have cleared it with you first. It just happened so fast. Gerrit needed a security consultant, and so I mentioned Jamie and said a few things about his background. Before I knew it, Gerrit and I were in your living room, offering Jamie a contract.’

  Sara nodded as if she believed him. Andy would never admit that he’d been looking for some time for a way to funnel money to her partner. She said, ‘I suppose I’m just worried about Jamie getting involved with the defence industry, at the same time as he’s planning a new career in human rights law.’