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CHAPTER FOUR

Even in winter and under a sullen sky, Chiswick, moneyed and classy, oozed vibrancy and colour, aspiration and style. Treading an unfamiliar path through a crush of dead leaves, my senses alert to every police siren, every copper on the street, I turned right and left until finally I found myself in a maze of streets and homes that in summer would be hidden from view. It was as quiet as a desert night. Row upon row of classy red brick houses with white railings and balconies lined the wide tree-lined avenue. Suburbia at its finest.

It didn’t take long to locate the house right at the end. Screened from the street by a hedge, detached, it was a building of entrances and exits, a metaphor for life and death. It never occurred to me that Reuben might have moved or even died. Reuben, somehow, seemed indestructible.

Murmuring good morning to a young pretty mother pushing a baby-buggy, I followed the line of the wall to the rear of the building. A heavy wrought iron gate divided the boundary between the property and the pavement. As I walked back round to the front, the teal-coloured front door with the lion’s head brass knocker swung open and a woman stepped out.

In her mid to late thirties, her dark blue coat buttoned up, only the perilously high heels and pointed toes gave the game away. Actually, I lie. She had a satiated, just-fucked expression on her face. And I knew why. Even in middle age, Reuben had projected a strong sense of his own sexuality. A man’s man, Reuben adored women. Seemed like this peculiarity of his personality remained unchanged, his enthusiasm undimmed. Before she closed the door I bowled up to her and turned on my most winning smile.

‘Private parcel delivery for Mr Greene.’ I took out the dummy set of keys I carry with me, rattled them and pointed as if my van was parked around the corner.

She started, a flush of colour spreading across her cheeks. ‘Oh right,’ she said. ‘You want me to take it? Only I’m in a bit of a hurry.’ She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

‘It’s heavy,’ I said. ‘No worries, I’ll pop inside and get Mr Greene to sign for it first.’

She smiled, grateful. ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome. Sorry to have held you up,’ I called after her, closing the door silently behind me.

I stood in the inner porch. I don’t know why but I felt as if my lungs were being crushed from the inside. I could hardly draw breath. I hadn’t seen the man in more than fifteen years and just because he’d worked for Mossad a long time ago did not mean that he could throw light on current events. Would my unexpected appearance trigger a negative reaction? Would he welcome a voyage into the past? I guessed there was only one way to find out.

The house was long and narrow with pale laminate flooring. Stairs to the right, two doors to the left, ahead a light and airy kitchen with a glass roof and two steps down into a dining area with a view of a pretty walled garden.

I could hear water running. The sound came from upstairs. I crossed to the kitchen, helped myself to a mug of coffee from a pot, still hot, and pulled up a chair near the window. After spending so much time out in the cold Reuben’s home felt unnaturally warm.

I saw Reuben before he saw me. The skin under his dark, intelligent eyes was more pouched than before, and his hair, now uniformly grey, thinner on top, yet he was still recognisable. An imposing figure, with a body built to last in spite of being a couple of stone heavier, he wore a dark shirt of needle-cord buttoned to his throat. The sleeves turned back exposed formidable forearms. I’d always believed that he could strangle a man with his bare hands.

I stayed absolutely still and watched as he suddenly registered that I was there. He had total mastery of his physical responses. Only someone who knew him well would be able to divine the thoughts and emotions running through his mind. I read shock in his eyes as if he believed that the day of reckoning had finally arrived and he was to be eliminated by one of his many enemies. Next, recognition, puzzlement, suspicion, and finally pleasure. His full lips drew back into a smile as he crossed the floor and down the steps, arms outstretched. I stood up, opened my arms wide, showing in that one small gesture that I had come in peace. He held me tight, clapping me on the back like a long lost son. His embrace aroused a brief, fleeting need in me to belong. As inconceivable as it was, an infinitesimal part of me flirted with the idea of rejoining the human race even though I knew deep in my heart it was impossible. Reuben was the only person in the world who knew me before and after. He was aware of what I’d become and what I was. He would not judge me. He would not ask awkward questions. He would not ask me to explain. We were never going to have one of those mundane conversations about what I’d done the previous day, week or year. We would not waste time discussing my choice of holiday destination. Relationships were off limits because I had none.

‘Joshua Thane, the young man I once described as shimmering with menace,’ he let out a loud laugh. ‘My God, I thought you were dead. What brings you here? We must eat. We must celebrate. You are hungry, yes? I have pastries and eggs. What would you like? Name it and you shall have it.’

If anyone could give me what I wanted Reuben could, but first he needed to be finessed. As far as brunch was concerned, I settled for eggs, poached, and more coffee. While he hustled around the kitchen he rattled on about the old days. He made no mention of my unorthodox entry. Reuben only ever voiced criticism.

‘Remember you asking what it felt like to kill someone?’ he said at last with a chuckle. ‘I told you that it doesn’t feel like anything. It’s…’

‘Business not personal,’ I chipped in.

Reuben cast me a slow sideways look. He knew where I was going with this. My first kill broke the cardinal rule. It was personal and it was supposed to be my last. The fact that I was here sitting in his kitchen meant events had come full circle. I don’t believe in karma. If I did I’d be dead a thousand times over, but I definitely felt the pull of something outside my very ordinary human powers. Disturbing.

‘Eat,’ Reuben said, putting a plate down in front of me. ‘Then we will talk.’

We ate in silence. In spite of the unusual and tricky circumstances in which I found myself, I was calm. I trusted nobody, but I trusted Reuben. If I pitched it right, Reuben with his extensive contacts would provide me with the answers I so urgently needed.

At last, when the plates were cleared, I told Reuben what had taken place that morning. I delivered the account without emotion, as he had taught me. I kept my pitch neutral, the information factual, giving as clear a description of events as possible. At this stage, I didn’t identify the target. He listened with the acuity I expected from him. He did not express surprise or comment upon my low diversification into theft. He frowned only once, but when I mentioned the surviving witness, he grew angry.

‘You did not know about the boy?’ Condemnatory, Reuben’s dark eyes turned as black as the sharps and flats on a keyboard.

My jaw ground but I said nothing. I’d broken a fundamental rule. ‘I…’

‘Didn’t do your homework,’ he barked. ‘What have I always taught you: surveillance, knowledge, survival. You check the intelligence then you check it again.’

He was right, of course. It was not Wes’s fault. The blame lay with me.

‘Have you forgotten the art?’ Reuben snarled.

What could I say? Even if I’d elicited screeds of personal details, something told me that I would have missed the one that counted. ‘It was a one-off, an unusual job.’ More unusual than I could ever imagine, and one I never wished to repeat. Ever.

‘How could you be so remiss?’ he growled. ‘What was it, greed?’

I met his eye. He had a point but I’m not sure it fully explained my incompetence. I’ve heard it said that there is a particular time in a serial killer’s life when he wants to be found and stopped. To facilitate his discovery, he makes a mistake. I was not a serial killer in the sense that the term was generally applied so I didn’t believe I fell into this category.

‘I slipped up, took my eye off the ball,’ I said lamely.

‘You got complacent,’ Reuben said, contempt in his eyes. After all I’ve taught you, his expression implied.

‘I admit I was reckless,’ I said, stubbornly defending my reputation.

‘And you let the boy go?’ Reuben saw me for the fool I was. This rattled me.

‘I did.’

‘Why?’ In Reuben’s book, you took no prisoners.

Stumped for an answer, I said. ‘If ordered to kill him I would have done. Nobody gave the order.’

‘Then you have taken an unacceptable risk.’

‘Yes.’ No point in denial.

‘The police will be all over it and now they will have a description of you.’

‘A description but not an identity.’ They couldn’t exactly issue a warrant for the arrest of a man without a name. Even so, the boy had dragged me kicking and screaming out of the shadows. Did Reuben of all people recognise this? If so, he didn’t enlighten me.

Reuben took out cigarettes and a lighter. I sensed he was playing for time. He offered me the pack. I rarely smoked but this seemed like the right occasion. I took one, lit it. Reuben did the same.

‘You need money?’

‘Yes.’

‘I will see to it.

‘Somewhere to hide?’

I hesitated. It would be the smart move yet I could see now that it would be too easy for Reuben to slip back into his old role as mentor and me as pupil. I no longer responded well to criticism. ‘No, just give me the cash, I’ll be fine.’

‘As you please.’ Dark-eyed, he took a drag of his cigarette, drawing the tobacco deep into his lungs.

‘The reason I’m here,’ I confessed, ‘is that I went back.’

‘Back?’ he spat, ‘Are you out of your mind?’

‘To finish the job,’ I lied.

Reuben met my gaze with watchful eyes. He nodded briefly.

‘After I arrived,’ I continued, ‘the place teemed with British, Russian and Israeli security services.’

Most people would have reacted. Reuben was not most people. He barely flinched. ‘The woman,’ he began. ‘You said she worked at Imperial College.’

‘That’s right.’ I inhaled deeply. ‘Dr Mary Wilding.’ I floated her name as if it were a smoke ring. A pulse fluttered in Reuben’s thick neck. I checked any natural response of my own.

‘The microbiologist,’ he said slowly, as though his brain had suddenly filled with sludge.

I blinked. ‘She was a research scientist.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘You didn’t bother to look into this aspect of her background?’

Unforgivably, I had not. I glared at him. He said nothing, his expression one of sheer disbelief. He took another drag of his cigarette, flicked a flake of tobacco from his tongue. ‘So who did she upset? What was her crime exactly?’ A shrewd glint entered his eyes.

I told him what I’d been told, then I said, ‘As the security services are all over it, I assume she committed industrial espionage.’

‘Assume?’ Reuben’s damning expression ripped right through me.

‘It’s a fair…’

‘Clearly you were not familiar with her sphere of work.’

I said nothing. My brain was in overdrive, misfiring and failing to make connections.

‘She worked at the Department of Virology at Imperial College,’ Reuben said.

‘Virology,’ I repeated, sounding leaden.

‘The department she allegedly worked in was a front,’ he added, darkness in his tone.

‘For what?’

Reuben did not answer my question directly. ‘The college has many departments,’ he continued, cool-eyed. ‘Some more secret than you can ever imagine.’ His voice assumed a forbidding note. It felt as if a chill easterly wind gusted across the room. I felt faintly nauseous and it was unconnected with brunch.

‘Meaning?’ I said.

‘Bio-weapons,’ he snapped. ‘Chemicals that kill,’ he added as though I didn’t get it the first time. ‘As deadly as nuclear but more vile in its application.’

‘And illegal,’ I flung back at him. This was Britain, for God’s sake, not some far flung Russian outpost.

Reuben threw me a contemptuous look. ‘Yes, which is precisely why any sane government ensures that it has counter-measures in the event of a biological attack. Wilding was working in strategic defence.’

I contained a groan. This had catastrophe written all over it. No wonder the security services were all over it like typhoid in an Indian slum. Christ Almighty, what was on the hard drive? Reuben read my expression and asked the same question. I shook my head.

‘Why don’t you know, and when the hell did you become a common thief?’

I opened my mouth to protest. Reuben waved away any attempt at excuses with a flick of his wrist. ‘And your American friend, how does he fit?’

I gave no names. I explained that Wes was the fixer, the guy who acted as a middleman. ‘Crime lords have their own contract killers on the payroll, but sometimes they need a specialist job that puts enough distance between them and the intended victim.’ Safe to say, I usually got involved in the dirtier end of the business although I drew a line at abduction and torture.

Reuben stared at me with distaste. ‘And this character, you have operated with him before? He is reliable?’

‘As much as anyone.’ Except, of course, he’d lied royally to me.

Reuben nodded slowly. I realised he was trying to work out a way to save my reputation, my skin. Thank God for that.

‘You want out?’

I did my best to conceal my shock. How could I? Was it really possible for me to rub out the past, get a nine to five job, settle down and start over? Straight answer: no. My silence lurked like a restless ghost in the room.

Reuben gave voice to what I was thinking. ‘We all want out at some time in our lives but it isn’t always possible. Few have the necessary requirements for this type of activity,’ he added with false delicacy. ‘What I am trying to tell you, Joshua, is that you cannot change who you are. You can change your name, your address, your friends and you can run away from problems, but not from yourself.’

This I already knew. I didn’t want a lecture. ‘Then I’d appreciate your help. You could find out what the Israelis are after. It would give me a lead to find those responsible for the theft.’

‘And then what?”

Take them out. I shrugged, a go figure expression on my face.

He shook his head. ‘I no longer have those type of contacts. Your only option is to finish what you started.’

‘What the hell do you mean?’

Reuben hiked both shoulders, raised both hands, palms up in supplication. ‘It will be difficult but…’

‘I will not kill the boy.’ This took both of us by surprise. I cleared my throat, drew heavily on the cigarette. ‘It would be too tricky,’ I added. ‘He’s probably in a safe house.’ Seconds thudded past. Silence washed into the room like sea invading a stricken vessel.

At last, seemingly forgetting the boy, Reuben asked, ‘Who took out the contract?’

I shook my head. ‘His anonymity was part of the deal.’

‘You were paid well?’ Reuben’s voice thronged with cynicism.

‘Handsomely.’

He thought for a moment. Easy to guess what he was turning over in his mind: that no paymaster would rest easy with such a poor return on his investment. I was, in effect, a dead man walking.

‘What was on the hard drive, Reuben?’

He didn’t answer straight away. He seemed to be weighing something up in his mind. The stillness in the room was so tangible you could have heard a feather fall.

‘Have you heard of Project Coast?’ he said tentatively.

I shook my head, perplexed by the sudden change of subject. Once more he stared at me for a moment with what seemed genuine indecision, then when he finally spoke he had a certainty about him that I normally found reassuring. That morning I wasn’t reassured.

‘Project Coast was a programme that originated in South Africa. It involved the creation of an ethnic specific biological weapon. The weapon only attacked blacks.’

I wanted to interject, to lean forward. I didn’t flicker so much as an eyebrow. Reuben had taught me well.

‘The project was run by the Pretoria government. Deeply secret, it ran during the 1980’s. The then Defence Minister oversaw it. The work was still at the embryonic stage when the apartheid regime collapsed. Certain individuals assisted in the government’s twisted endeavours. One was an American, Dr Larry Ford, a gynaecologist who allegedly worked for the CIA, his role to create and develop biological weapons. Years later, he was found dead with a gunshot wound to his head. The official version was suicide, his involvement with the CIA, as one would expect, denied. When the police opened the refrigerator in his home they found enough toxins to poison the entire state of California.’

I wondered why Reuben was telling me this. His information seemed rehearsed and readily given, a little too pat. Irrationally, I had the sudden sick sensation of being played. Resisting the temptation to speak for a second time and with a deep, growing sense of unease, I nodded patiently for Reuben to continue.

‘You knew nothing of this?’ he said, a sharp edge to his voice.

I shrugged my ignorance. It was Reuben’s turn to go silent. I realised what he was driving at. ‘You think I had a hand in Ford’s murder?’ Suddenly I saw the connection to Wilding.

He did not answer straightaway. He studied my face with the same penetrating gaze as a man shining a spotlight into my eyes. I hoped that he was satisfied with what he saw. I am a gifted liar, but I wasn’t lying this time. ‘It was a particularly inept piece of work,’ he admitted. ‘I would have been disappointed in you.’

‘When was this, exactly?’

‘Spring 2000.’

My mind reeled back. I was twenty-four. Russia. My first gig for Mikhail Yakovlevich, a Russian thug. ‘Nowhere near. I can prove it.’

Reuben sipped his drink, nodded in agreement, accepting my explanation at face value. Glad we’d cleared it up, I was less happy that I’d fallen under suspicion. ‘You think there’s a pattern, someone bumping off scientists?’

‘Perhaps.’

Shit, and now the security services were on my tail. ‘You were saying,’ I said, trying to lose the thought and get him back on track.

‘Certain groups of people have individual genetic characteristics. As you probably know, there is an entire industry devoted to the creation of drugs to target specific genes responsible for certain genetic disorders.’

I nodded.

‘An entirely commendable endeavour, of course, it involves the precise sequencing of DNA. But there is a less benign application. By a rigorous process of selection, there are those who hope to develop pathogens to attack targeted individuals based on either their racial orientation or their sex.’

‘Hope? You mean it’s been developed?’ I said.

Reuben’s accompanying smile was claustrophobic. What was once a sick dream had assumed a reality of nightmarish proportions and, well out of my normal sphere of operation, I confess it shook me. ‘Think how such a thing could be turned into a military weapon,’ he continued, without missing a beat. ‘So obsessed with the threat of nuclear destruction, most politicians retain a blind spot for other more diabolical possibilities.’

I had no tremendous interest in politics, but I was certain this wasn’t true. Governments knew, all right. Only the general populace remained ignorant. And thank God for that. Reuben picked up on my dismay. With cool, he disregarded it.

‘Which is why there are secret departments to counter the possibility of such an odious attack.’

‘You think Wilding was involved in this type of research?’

Reuben shrugged his massive shoulders. ‘Never a good idea to jump to conclusions, but it is credible.’

I blinked and cursed my stupidity. Even for a man like me there’s a big moral distinction between slotting bad people one at a time and annihilating innocent individuals en masse. What if such a weapon fell into the hands of a rogue state or terrorists? Aside from what they could do with it, it would provide the perfect means for blackmail. Christ, you could hold entire countries to ransom with that kind of leverage.

‘You think this was why she had to die?’ Already I was thinking her death politically motivated and unconnected to organised crime. For sure, the security services would be after my hide.

Reuben did not answer, just looked. I scratched my ear. ‘The U.K. is a melting pot of races. Which target group are we talking about?’

‘That I can’t tell you.’

‘Can’t?’

‘Because I genuinely don’t know,’ he spread his hands.

‘But, surely, there are treaties and agreements…’

‘Which can be broken.’ He leant towards me once more. ‘Government exists to protect its people. One has to fight any threat, however vile, accordingly.’