Unholy Ghost Read online

  The new carer looked at him for a second trying to be sure of what he had said. Then they heard a car engine revving hard and uniform number two went to the window of the corridor.

  ‘She leaves.’

  Jimmy looked. He saw a Mercedes sports car moving away from the drive at speed down the road.

  ‘Her car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A nice car.’

  ‘Yes, a very nice car.’

  ‘Good wages here? For such a nice car I mean.’

  A look of scorn came into her face.

  ‘Greta does not buy such a car from her wages.’

  ‘No?’

  He waited. This woman wanted to talk to him, he could tell, but he didn’t push it. He’d ballsed up one interview, he didn’t want to screw up a second chance.

  The woman waited a second before she spoke.

  ‘Did you come for money?’

  Jimmy could see that there was no great love between this one and the recently departed Greta, and the way she’d been barged aside made her want to unload some of her anger.

  ‘No, not money. Why would I want money from her?’

  ‘Many people want money from her.’

  ‘They do?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know Greta well?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  Number two let the words sink in. Then smiled.

  ‘Not at all is the best way to know Greta.’

  Jimmy grinned to show he appreciated the joke.

  ‘Why is that?’

  A conspiratorial look came into the woman’s face. She was going to dish the dirt on Greta and would thoroughly enjoy doing it.

  ‘You have seen that fine car?’ Jimmy nodded. ‘It is new. She has money for such a car but not to pay what she owes.’

  ‘She owes people?’

  ‘Plenty of people. When she has no money she is all smilings and friendships and she borrows. Oh, she is so thankful, she vows to pay back. Yes, but when she has money what does she do? She buys herself a pretty car and no one gets paid back what is owed.’

  ‘Does she owe you money?’

  A look of disdain that he could ask such a question flashed into her face and voice.

  ‘Me, no. I know better, but others she owes, plenty of others. And her rent, I know she has troubles with her rent. There are other things also.’

  ‘Other things?’

  Now she became cautious, her anger was gone, she’d said what she wanted, now she was being careful.

  ‘You are not police, not English police?’ Jimmy shook his head. ‘But you are making enquiries of Greta?’

  ‘Yes, I’m making enquiries. I was given Greta’s name and her place of work by the Munich police. I am not the police but my enquiries are known to the police.’

  That was enough. She was reassured and ready to go on.

  ‘I think she has borrowed from the residents here which is very much against the rules, very forbidden. And there have been missing things. I make no accusations, you understand, I tell you what everyone knows. Small things but valuable have been missed.’

  ‘And she has borrowed from the residents?’

  ‘That I know to be so, I have been told by them. It is expensive, this place, our residents are not poor people, but even the well-off can go childish when they get old, and they can do foolish things.’

  ‘Where does all the money go, when she’s not buying pretty cars?’

  Reminding her of the car got her going again. Jimmy guessed it might.

  ‘She gambles. She wastes her money at a club. If she wins she spends, if she loses she borrows. Mostly she borrows, I do not think she is a good gambler.’

  ‘Do you know the name of the club.’

  ‘Yes, she has told me. The Schwarz Diamant, The Black Diamond.’

  ‘I see.’

  A man came into the corridor. He was wearing a suit and was quite young, either management or a visitor. He spoke rapidly and with authority in German to the woman. He was management. She answered and then he obviously told her to get going because she went.

  He turned to Jimmy and said something in German.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t speak German. Do you speak English?’

  The answer was curt and unfriendly and probably not true.

  ‘Nein.’

  It was obviously his way of saying goodbye.

  That was that, thought Jimmy so he smiled a farewell and walked away.

  Once outside he walked along the quiet road and thought about what had happened. He’d bollocksed up the interview with the Greta woman, but he’d made real progress with uniform number two. It was a fair bet that the people he wanted were connected with the gambling club she used. They’d probably used her bad debts to get her to do the wheelchair thing and once she’d done that they knew they could use her to set up the journalist killing. That must have been where the money for the car came from. Well, they weren’t pikers when it came to pay-offs, he’d have to give them that. The car looked expensive and it had definitely done the trick and bought her silence and loyalty. Even if she hadn’t fainted when he sprang what he knew on her he wouldn’t have got what he wanted without a hammer and chisel, and maybe not even then.

  He saw the busy main road ahead and carried on walking. He’d find a taxi or the station. The woman he’d come to see was pretty much a dead-end now and she wouldn’t be taken in with what he’d said about her friends killing her. She’d tell them all right, and probably do her best to see that they came after him. In which case they’d get him. This was their town and even if he moved out of it quickly they’d probably still get him. Distance didn’t seem much of a problem for them, not if getting McBride gunned in Rome was anything to go by. No, he needed to stay and contact them, not run. But he had to make it soon, he needed to find them before they found him. Well, he had a name, the gambling club, The Black Diamond. So why not pay it a visit? It was a risky move, but, when you came right down to it, what else were gambling clubs for, except for taking risks?

  Chapter Thirty-three

  ‘Yes and no.’

  Nadine gave him a look.

  ‘Cut the crap, Costello. Did you get what I wanted?’

  ‘We wanted. I’m in this too, remember?’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes and no. I know where I can contact the people who used her.’

  ‘So it’s yes?’

  ‘But I have no introduction, no safe way in. I can get in all right, but if they don’t want to talk to me the question is, will I get out?’

  Nadine stood up and took a slow turn round the room. It was a neat sitting room, not big but well done out. She didn’t stint herself, thought Jimmy, always a suite. Still, if it was all on her obscene expense account why not?

  She came back and settled again.

  ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘I’m not wild about it myself.’

  ‘If you go in and don’t come out where does that leave me?’

  ‘That question isn’t exactly top of my list.’

  Suddenly she was loud and angry.

  ‘Fuck your list. I didn’t come all this way for you to finish up in a back alley like Serge. I came here to get a job done. You’ve screwed up, Costello, I should have known you would.’

  Jimmy ignored the outburst. She was just letting the noise out while she figured her options, so he sat and said nothing. Nadine got up took another turn round the room. Jimmy knew what she was working on – go with him to the club or let him go alone? It was a tricky call for her to make. Go with him and she might make the contact she wanted, but she might also suffer the same fate if the contact wasn’t welcome. Let him go alone and either he made it or he didn’t. If he did then he had what she wanted and that put him in too strong a position for her to feel comfortable. If he didn’t she was still on the outside, alive, but in the cold with nowhere to go but back to Paris and the brothers from Chicago. And that would also be pretty much out in the cold now she knew Veronique was waiting in the w
ings in a place that had enough security to be sure no one could get at her without the right introductions. She’d thought hard but come up empty on how she might get Veronique for herself. To get Veronique she would need Costello and that put her back where she was already. She needed the bastard.

  She settled again and gave him another look. It was meant to be a nice look, one which showed Jimmy that she had decided to trust him, one which told him that they were partners in all this. One which hinted that they could be partners in more than this if he wanted. Unfortunately it had insincerity stamped all over it.

  Christ, thought Jimmy, she must be desperate to try that game out on me.

  ‘You shouldn’t take too much notice of what I say sometimes, I speak before I think,’ she lowered her eyes, ‘but I guess you already know that.’ The eyes came back up. ‘Jimmy, I trust you on this, I know you’re good at what you do, it’s just that, well …’ The eyes went down again. God, she was bad at this. But in a way Jimmy was pleased. He was glad she was lousy at something. He finished her sentence for her. It was better than watching her do it.

  ‘You want to stay alive more than you want to make the contact. You want me to go in and test the water. I take a bullet in the head or I get to meet someone, either way you get something out of it.’

  She tried to keep the nice going but Jimmy could see it was hard work.

  ‘I only get something if you come out alive. If I didn’t think you’d make it I wouldn’t let you go.’

  ‘No. If I die you know the people who killed me are the ones you need to talk to and you know where to contact them. All you’ll need is another messenger.’

  The ‘nice’ fell away, not that she’d ever been really convinced of it herself. It was something she did when she really had nothing else to do.

  ‘All right, either way I get something.’

  ‘That’s OK, I would have made the same choice. I would have explained it differently, that’s all.’

  ‘If you make the contact, what then?’

  ‘That, girly, is the big money question.’ ‘Girly’ hurt, he could see it, so he went on. ‘And I certainly don’t need you with me fluttering your eyes at these guys. It wouldn’t work with them any more than it would with me, even if you were any good at it, which you’re not.’ He could see she was getting up a head of steam. ‘I doubt they’ll be like your amateur rent boy and think trying to be nice is any part of what they’re doing.’ Enough. Any more and she’d go pop. Now he’d made it clear he was the one making the decisions he could get down to it. ‘They’ll only be interested if they believe we can offer a deal and it will have to be a damned good deal and laid out fast just to get them to listen, if they’ll listen. To do that I have to be sure I’m offering them more than they’ve already got. And as I have no idea what it is they’ve got or are trying to get you’ll have to tell me what this game we’re all playing is about.’

  There. It was out in the open.

  The steam was all gone and her brain was ticking. She was good, she latched on to the business as soon as she saw it and put anything else to one side. She’d taken his point and was now deciding how to play it so it was to her own best advantage. Jimmy let her take her time. He wanted her to feel she was in control. That was important.

  ‘They want the Colmar estate.’

  ‘I know that much. What exactly is in the estate that they’re so keen to get their hands on?’

  ‘What were you told?’

  ‘Loot, Nazi loot from the war.’

  She had the good grace to laugh.

  ‘You didn’t believe that, did you? No, you didn’t, how could you?’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘An island. A smallish island with a big, deep-water harbour.’

  ‘The old whore owned an island?’

  ‘No. She owned most of the shares in the company who own the island.’

  ‘And what does this company do?’

  ‘It processes fish.’

  Jimmy had been ready for many things, but not a fish processing company. Who causes all this mayhem to get control of a fish processing company?

  ‘That sounds about as sensible as Nazi loot.’

  ‘Oh it’s sensible all right. The people I work for in America have been after that company for over five years, longer if you count all the lead-in work that went on before we got called in officially.’

  ‘Who kills people for a fish factory?’

  ‘Anybody who wants to control the world.’

  The laugh came from Jimmy this time but it petered out when he saw she wasn’t joking.

  ‘Explain.’

  She sat back and let him wait. It was her way of saying she wasn’t giving up control so easily.

  ‘I’ll tell you enough to make you understand what this is all about because you’re right, you need to know how big it is and because your boss was also right, you’re a lousy liar. When you talk to them they need to know you understand how far everyone will go in this thing.’

  ‘And how far is that?’

  ‘All the way because a war is coming. In many ways it’s already started, but at present it’s very low-level and the casualties are small and peripheral. Your boss McBride, the old Nazi, the journalist, even Serge, are all casualties of this war. And more people will get killed, eventually lots of people, and in the end there will be winners and losers. But this time the war isn’t being left to countries or politicians. No one is going to use military muscle, well, not much anyway and nowhere that it really matters. The real strategic fighting, the fighting that matters, will be done between businesses, multi-national corporations. It will be planned in boardrooms and carried out through stock exchanges. Countries don’t matter any more, they’re a leftover from a bygone age. Politicians are irrelevant. They can be bought and sold like any other commodity. You see, Costello, no one in their right mind wants a war that kills business and leaves everyone with some great, God-awful mess that has to be cleaned up. The people who want to run the world, to own the world, don’t want it smashed to pulp first. Nuclear weapons are as far as military muscle can ever go and have proved as useless as all the other miracle weapons, expensive, unreliable, and in the end no damned good. The only real difference is that nuclear weapons don’t even leave anything to the winner.’

  ‘All of which means?’

  ‘Large-scale military wars are over, but the aim of war remains – occupy your enemy’s territory, subjugate it, and you’ve won! Nothing else works. Occupation means bring him to his knees on his own soil and have the means to keep him there.’

  She waited, did he understand, was he convinced she was making sense? It mattered, it was important that he felt in control.

  ‘And this fish factory can do all that?’

  She knew it wasn’t a joke, it was a genuine question. He wanted to understand but unfortunately he was stupid.

  ‘Controlling energy does the job and does it without destruction of physical things or the economic fabric – only people die and then only the poor or unimportant, those who are neither serious producers nor mass consumers, the unnecessary, the unwanted, those surplus to economic requirements. Whoever has control of the energy will have the industrial might, a might greater than any military force. Machines need fuel, people need fuel, without fuel everything stops and we all go back to the Stone Age. Masses of cheap labour are useless without energy. Control the energy and you control the people. Control the energy and you have occupation. You win.’

  Jimmy believed her, at least he believed big business was behind it all. He also believed that the fish factory island was part of it all, an important part. But was he right to believe? What would McBride have made him believe? And that brought him back to the most important question and the one he couldn’t answer – what was it that McBride wanted out of all of this? Not control of a fish factory!’

  ‘Why is the island so important?’

  ‘No, you’ve got enough to be going on with. If you believe wh
at I’ve told you then you know what the stakes are and that’s enough. The people you will contact want the island. Colmar must have stashed some shares with the old man, he wouldn’t deal, so they killed him and got them from the daughter. Now they want the other ones held by the Colmar estate. You have to convince them I can get the estate. That we have a cast-iron candidate whom we can control absolutely.’

  ‘If they’ve gone this far they must be sure they can get the estate somehow. What’s my offer of Veronique Colmar likely to be up against on their side?’

  ‘Work it out for yourself, you’re supposed to be the shit-hot detective. I’m just a girly who flutters her eyes badly, remember? Just get me what I want. If you set up a meeting for me, a safe meeting, I’ll tell you the rest. If not, if you don’t come back, well, I won’t say it was nice knowing you.’

  Jimmy wasn’t happy. He’d done badly with Greta at the residential home, now he’d done badly with Heppert. He knew a bit more but nothing that really helped, nothing that he could honestly say he even understood. What would McBride want him to do? And what did he want? Did he still want to kill the bastards, did he still want that? Maybe, maybe not, but even if he wanted to kill them, was he still up to it? If the business in the alley with Serge was any indicator the answer was no.

  ‘Do I tell the Dane what’s happening?’

  ‘Nothing, not this time. Let’s keep this to ourselves. Does he still trust you?’

  ‘I don’t think he ever did.’

  ‘Don’t get smart. Does he still think you’re feeding him straight information?’

  ‘How the hell would I know? I call him and tell him what I know. He listens. End of story. You two are the ones who know what’s going on, not me. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m the one who does as he’s told. I leave you two big brains to figure out who believes what.’

  ‘When will you go to the club?’

  ‘Tonight. No point in putting it off or hanging about. I’ll go early, about nine. If I’m not back by midnight …’

  She waited.

  ‘Go on.’

  But there was nothing to go on with. If he wasn’t back by midnight he was never coming back at all, so what the hell did he care what she did? It all had to end sometime but he’d always hoped it would end for a reason, for some reason he’d understand. If he didn’t come back he would have died without knowing why or for what: a stupid, pointless death. Then he thought of his wife Bernie, dying in a hospital bed from cancer with him useless, watching, with nothing he could do and nothing he could say. All death was pointless, why the hell should his be any different?