The Pure Page 9

  13

  That night, Uzi couldn’t sleep. He knew he would be cursed in this way; he’d always suffered from insomnia after operations. The adrenaline. For a long time he lay with his head pressed into the pillow, in a mumbled conversation with the Kol. Then he sat up in front of his computer, scratching his fingertips, smoking spliff after spliff and eating strawberry mousses, watching the flickering screen. Before slamming the lid on the Polish men’s tomb he had stuck a disposable camera, the size of a fingernail, to the inner wall with adhesive pads. It was this that transmitted the images he watched on his computer screen all night; grainy images, in greens and blacks, three parcels slumped amongst the jagged fragments of glass, writhing occasionally and lying still again. He felt like a child watching caterpillars in a jar. Several times he had an impulse to go back and release them. But he didn’t.

  As morning broke, the bottles began to fall. One parcel in particular, which happened to be lying in an unfortunate position, became all but submerged within a single hour. Some of the bottles broke; Uzi couldn’t see any blood. He couldn’t afford to follow his urge to go back and release them. He knew that the gags would be growing less effective by now, having been soaked in saliva and chewed for hours on end. He knew their ordeal would be over soon.

  Sure enough, at around midday the bottle bank was suddenly illuminated. Two minutes later, a policeman in a reflective jacket climbed in and fumbled tentatively through the glass towards those strange, brown mermen, who by now were jerking and flailing madly, hoping to be rescued. Uzi waited until he had seen the policeman pulling away the packing tape from their faces. Then he clicked the red button in the corner of the screen, and when asked ‘are you sure?’ clicked ‘yes’. The picture went black. Several miles away, with a fizzing sound that nobody had noticed, the camera had destroyed itself.

  Uzi wasn’t worried that the operation would come back to bite him. He had seen the terror in his victims’ eyes. He knew there was no way they would dare to retaliate, or get the police involved. They had been humiliated, and the word would soon get around. He was safe. Instead, what haunted him over the next few weeks as he sat in a cramped shed at the entrance to Hasmonean Girls’ School in Hendon, equipped with nothing but a two-way radio and a CCTV screen, waiting for his wounds to heal, was – as usual – the Brussels kill, his first for the Office. He had taken life before he joined, of course he had, but only in the midst of combat. That Brussels kill had been his first, as they say, in cold blood. And it haunted him more than any other.

  Strangely enough, it wasn’t really Uzi – Adam – that had killed the whore, Anne-Marie, that night. Or, at least, he wasn’t the only one to blame. She had stumbled across information that would have burned a sensitive operation involving bugs, the UN, illegal arms shipments and Iranian sanctions; Adam could barely remember the details. But it was compromising enough for the Office to sentence her to death, and to order Adam and Avner to carry it out. It was their first operation together, and by that stage they had already become friends, so far as their world allowed. Neither of them could stomach the notion of killing this innocent woman with their bare hands. They were not Kidonim, black ops assassins, but they had been through a rigorous training. They knew countless techniques for squeezing the life out of someone quickly and silently, and disposing of the evidence afterwards. But they had both felt some pity for Anne-Marie in the dealings they had had with her. She was a mother, they knew that, of two small children, and lived a life of drugs-addled squalor which – amazingly enough – hadn’t succeeded in extinguishing her sense of humour. This was not an easy task. Not that they questioned the fact she had to be eliminated. There was a bigger picture at work, and they were both convinced that if the Office gave them such an order, it was for the sake of saving many lives. It was for the defence of Israel, for the good of the world. They still thought like that, back then.

  It had been Avner’s idea to spread the responsibility for the hit. He had been reading about execution systems in America, and was inspired by the fact that electric chairs are hooked up to multiple levers, so nobody knows who is actually responsible for delivering the fatal current. They could kill Anne-Marie, he suggested, by the same principle. Between them, they worked out the details. Through a car dealer Sayan they sourced two identical, unregistered black Mercedes saloons and fitted them with false number plates. When Anne-Marie went to work, as she always did, in the eerie shadows of the Boulevard Adolphe Max, Adam drove up and posed as a client. She knew him anyway; he had used her services once or twice, so there was no distrust. He called her over to his window, beckoning her round the car and into the road. Avner, who had parked half a block behind, gunned his engine and raced towards them; at the last minute, as Anne-Marie bent towards him, Adam shoved her into the path of Avner’s Mercedes. His hand like a pale trident. The cold slap of his palm against her sternum. Her terrified face; her hair unwinding into the night. Her head hitting the windscreen. The single cry. And they both sped away.

  On the one hand, someone can’t be killed by a push. If it hadn’t been for Avner hurtling along the road, she would still be alive today. On the other, Avner was simply driving his car; if it hadn’t been for Adam, no kill could have taken place either. This was the puzzle they devised for themselves, a conundrum of guilt to prevent their souls from being permanently stained. But not knowing was worse than knowing. It haunted Uzi at the time. More than a decade later, as he sat in a fog of boredom in a cramped shed outside a girls’ school in Hendon, it haunted him still.

  Preceded by an itch, the Kol spoke up. ‘Uzi.’

  ‘It’s not night-time.’

  ‘You need to get the Liberty file. Just a reminder.’

  ‘It’s still not night-time.’

  ‘I’m not omniscient, you know. I’m just a voice. You need the file, you need to read her information, see her picture.’

  The school phone rang. The Kol said, ‘Believe,’ and the itch faded.

  ‘Yes?’ said Uzi, picking up the phone.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Hi, Avner.’

  ‘I need you to do this, Uzi.’

  ‘I will do it.’

  ‘When? It’s been three weeks.’

  ‘When you’ve given me the Liberty file, I’ll do it.’

  ‘The Liberty file? I’ve told you, for fuck’s sake, I’m working on it. But the election’s approaching. We don’t have much time.’

  ‘Tell that to your horse at London Station, not me.’

  ‘Just agree to do it.’

  ‘A deal’s a deal.’

  ‘This is pissing me off.’

  ‘I should care? We have a deal.’

  ‘Look, I need to arrange the meeting,’ said Avner.

  ‘OK, OK.’

  ‘I’ll call you tonight.’

  ‘I’m busy tonight.’

  ‘What are you doing that you’re so busy?’

  ‘Never mind what I’m doing. I’m busy.’

  ‘Let’s arrange the meeting now then.’

  ‘I’ve told you, not without the Liberty file.’

  ‘Why are you so obsessed with her anyway? What are you planning?’

  ‘Nothing. Look, I’ve got to go. There’s someone here.’

  Uzi hung up and blew out his cheeks. He needed a cigarette. He went to the door of the shed and opened it. There stood a girl dangling a schoolbag from her elbow as if she’d never in her life cared about anything.

  ‘You the security guard?’ she said rudely.

  ‘No, I’m Mickey Mouse.’

  ‘Israeli?’

  ‘How could you tell?’

  ‘Your accent. I’m Israeli, too,’ she said, switching to Hebrew. ‘Where are you from in Israel?’

  ‘Tel Aviv.’

  ‘I grew up in Petach Tikva.’

  ‘Small world, kid,’ he said impatiently. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘You’re in a bad mood. Do you need a cigarette or something?’

  ‘How can you t
ell?’

  ‘All you guys smoke.’ She took out a packet of Marlboro Lights, looked over her shoulder and put it back in her pocket.

  ‘Aren’t you going to give me one?’ asked Uzi.

  ‘I didn’t come here to give you a cigarette. I came here to see if you found my phone.’

  ‘You lost it?’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Seems like I’m not the only one in a bad mood,’ said Uzi.

  She smiled slightly. ‘OK, so I need a cigarette too. Can I smoke in here?’

  ‘Are you joking? This is England.’

  ‘I know. I just didn’t know whether you cared.’ She shifted her schoolbag from one shoulder to the other. ‘So nobody handed in a phone?’

  ‘No. Give me a description and I’ll tell you if I see it.’ Uzi beckoned her into the shed and hunted for a pen.

  ‘It’s an iPhone,’ she said, ‘pink case.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Uzi, writing it down. ‘You should be more careful, kid.’

  ‘OK, Dad.’

  She took the pen and wrote down her name and details in loopy, girlish handwriting. Gal Liberman. On the top of the ‘i’ she drew a heart.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I’m going for a smoke over the road. Are you going to stop me?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  ‘Rules.’

  ‘I’m not a teacher. My job is to keep you safe.’ He surprised himself with those words, even more so because – somehow – he meant it.

  ‘Can I borrow a lighter, then?’

  Uzi rummaged in his pocket and gave her a lighter.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘naughty boy.’

  ‘What?’ He followed her gaze. There, lying on the floor at his feet, was a small bag of cannabis. He stooped to pick it up and waved her out of the room.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, ‘wait a minute.’

  For a moment they stood without speaking. Uzi saw her – really saw her – for the first time. Her skin was pure and childlike; her wiry hair fell like a mane over her shoulders. She seemed frozen in that briefest of moments between childhood and adulthood. A barely ripe fruit. Her top buttons were undone; the schoolbag over her shoulder was pulling the neck of her blouse open. He could see the beginnings of a little swell of breast, and a thin sliver of underwear.

  ‘How old are you?’ he said.

  ‘Old enough.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘To buy some of that from you.’

  ‘Some of what?’ said Uzi, playing for time.

  ‘Oh please,’ she said sarcastically. ‘That.’

  ‘I’d lose my job.’

  ‘Now that would be a tragedy.’

  ‘I only sell to friends, kid.’

  ‘I’m a friend now. Do this for me. At a good price.’

  ‘It’s not going to happen.’

  She rolled her eyes in the way that only a teenager can. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

  ‘Daniel.’

  ‘OK, Daniel. I know your little secret. If I told people you had drugs in here, you’d lose your job anyway.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell anybody.’

  ‘No? What would you do to me, Daniel?’ She looked at him levelly and he felt a rush of electricity into his groin. ‘What would you do?’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said.

  ‘You don’t be stupid. All I want is an eighth.’

  He paused. ‘You tell nobody.’

  ‘How much are you going to charge me?’

  ‘Thirty.’

  ‘I’m a kid, for god’s sake.’

  ‘Don’t you get pocket money?’

  ‘I’m not paying any more than twenty. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘Do I have a choice?’ said Uzi.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘You drive a hard bargain, Miss Liberman.’

  ‘Call me Gal,’ she said, and laughed.

  ‘Fine, twenty then.’

  ‘And I get to keep your lighter, too.’

  ‘Have the fucking lighter. Anything else?’

  ‘There might be,’ she said, shifting her schoolbag from one shoulder to the other. The sliver of underwear widened. ‘That depends on you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re here tomorrow?’

  ‘Sure. All day.’

  ‘I have a free period at eleven. I’ll get it from you then.’ Oddly, she shook his hand. And she was gone.

  14

  That evening, Uzi needed to let off steam. He was sick of sitting all day cooped up in a shed, watching parents and students going to and fro like ants, hour after hour. He was sick of raising and lowering the barrier. He was sick of not being able to smoke. He was sick of Avner Golan, for making him agree to this kamikaze project.

  He went home, ate some instant noodles, watched a Bruce Lee movie on his two televisions. The Kol was mercifully quiet. He ate a strawberry mousse, then got ready to go out. Before leaving his apartment he almost gave Avner a call to schedule the meeting with WikiLeaks, just to get it over with. But he stopped himself. He wanted that Liberty file first; it was his bargaining chip. He needed to see the file on the woman who had saved his life.

  Uzi walked the streets. Autumn had a blustery grip on the world, and leaves stuck to the pavement. He needed some action, any action. In a moment he decided that the time had come to return to Camden, to revisit the crime scene. But this time he was going with his Glock. He’d been steering clear of the place since the stabbing, lying low. But he wanted to carry on with business soon, and he needed to know where he stood. Had his deterrent worked? Hopefully it had sparked off rumours; hopefully other dealers would be scared of him now, would give him a wide birth. Soon he would know.

  When he arrived in Camden it was dusk, and he could smell a bonfire burning. He was hungry and bought a piece of desiccated pizza from a dirty stall on the High Street. There was one club, Meteor, just behind the Market, which was frequented by the local pushers. It was labyrinthine, sprawling over three floors, with countless dark niches and corners in which to do deals and have private conversations. It was to Meteor, then, that Uzi went, his Glock strapped under his armpit.

  The music was loud and Uzi felt good to be back. The bassline vibrated in his bones. At the bar he ordered a Coke and poured whisky from his hip flask into it. Then he found a table on the balcony, overlooking the dance floor, and sat there drinking, thinking of cigarettes, keeping an eye out for dealers. When he’d drunk half the Coke, he poured in more whisky and carried on. He became lightheaded as the alcohol entered his bloodstream, and the flashing lights of the club made him feel somehow at peace, as if he was sitting deep inside himself, as if he was overlooking Hades. He noticed some activity in the shadows, some transactions taking place, but nobody seemed to have spotted him. It was as if he had become invisible. He drank.

  The dry ice machine was turned up high, and clouds of it moved slowly across the dance floor. Through this mist Uzi saw four men making their way up the stairs to the balcony. They seemed polite and inconspicuous, and didn’t look even once in his direction; because of this he knew they were coming for him. The mist clung to their legs, slipping away as they climbed the stairs. If he got to his feet, it would inflame the situation. He shifted round in his chair, feeling strangely calm, and folded his arms across his chest so that the fingers of his right hand nestled under his armpit, on his Glock. The Office had taught him how to fall back on his chair, kick the table over and shoot with one movement; he had found the technique easy in training, though he had rarely used it in the field. Ironic. It looked like it might come in useful now he was an exile.

  The four men split up and approached him separately, from different angles. Uzi took a cigarette from his packet and put it between his lips. The strange feeling of calmness could not be shaken, and he wondered if it meant he was about to die. He didn’t recognise any of the men. They didn’t look English. Closely cropped hair, pale skin, rough movements. Polish perhaps.

  In sec
onds, all four were standing around his table. One of them spoke in a thick Eastern European accent, loudly, over the noise of the music.

  ‘Adam Feldman?’ he said. His real name. The Office, he thought. It could only be the Office. He tightened his grip on the gun under his armpit.

  ‘Who are you?’ he replied.

  ‘Our boss wants to speak to you.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘She.’

  ‘She?’

  ‘She says you know her. From Camden.’

  ‘What is her name?’

  ‘She says you know her name. She is waiting for you.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Come this way, please.’

  The men did not seem expert, but they certainly were not amateurs. And there were four of them. Uzi had little choice. He got to his feet and followed them through the noise and flashing lights, past the gyrating bodies, through the clouds of dry ice, along corridors, down echoing spiral staircases, and finally out through a fire exit. Outside, the music sounded muffled and atavistic. A fine rain was falling in great, soaking sheets. There, engine snarling, lights off, squatting in the water-sliced shadows, was a sleek, black Maybach 62. The back door was open; through the rain, a woman could be seen sitting on the seat of soft cream leather.

  ‘Liberty,’ said Uzi.

  ‘You’ve been doing your homework,’ she said in a languid American purr. ‘When we met, I said I was called Eve.’

  ‘I Googled you. You’ve obviously Googled me, too.’

  ‘You could say that,’ she said, a note of seeming warmth in her voice. ‘Join me here on the back seat, Adam.’

  Uzi paused and weighed up his options. If things turned nasty he didn’t stand much of a chance; Liberty was armed last time, and she was likely to be armed now as well, not to mention her men. He could try to talk his way out of it. But why? He had nothing to lose any more.

  He made his decision and got into the back of the car, sliding across the seat. Two of the men got in the front. The doors slammed with muffled thuds and Uzi had the sudden sensation of sitting inside a jewellery case. The engine whispered as the car moved off. There was a strong smell of aniseed. Liberty was wearing a white blouse this time, and gold gleamed at her throat and fingers. Her hair was twisted over one shoulder, exposing her caramel neck, and her eyes burnt with a dark fire. Her handbag was resting on her lap.