A Delicate Truth A Novel

through night traffic. It has a taxi sign on its roof and a single passenger on the rear seat, and one glance is enough to tell him that the passenger is the corpulent, very animated Aladdin , the Pole that Elliot won’t touch with a barge. He’s holding a cellphone to his ear and, as in the Chinese restaurant, he is gesticulating magisterially with his free hand.
    The pursuing camera veers, goes wild. The screen goes blank. The helicopter takes over, pinpoints the people carrier, puts a halo over it. The pursuing ground camera returns. The winkingicon of a telephone, top-left corner of the screen. Jeb hands Paul an earpiece. One Polish man talking to another. They are taking it in turns to laugh. Aladdin ’s left hand performing a puppet show in the rear window of the people carrier. Male Polish merrymaking replaced by disapproving voice of a woman translator:
    ‘ Aladdin is speaking to brother Josef in Warsaw,’ says the woman’s voice disdainfully. ‘It is vulgar conversation. They are discussing girlfriend of Aladdin , this woman he has on boat. Her name is Imelda. Aladdin is tired of Imelda. Imelda has too much mouth. He will abandon her. Josef must visit Beirut. Aladdin will pay for him to come from Warsaw. If Josef will come to Beirut, Aladdin will introduce him to many women who will wish to sleep with him. Now Aladdin is on his way to visit special friend. Special secret friend. He love this friend very much. She will replace Imelda. She is not gloomy, not bitch, has very beautiful breasts. Maybe he will buy apartment for her in Gibraltar. This is good news for taxes. Aladdin will go now. His secret special friend is waiting. She desires him very much. When she opens the door she will be completely naked. Aladdin has ordered this. Goodnight, Josef.’
    A moment of collective bewilderment, broken by Don:
    ‘He hasn’t got fucking time to get laid,’ he whispered indignantly. ‘Not even him.’
    Echoed by Andy, equally indignant:
    ‘His cab’s turned the wrong way. What the fuck’s it gone and done that for?’
    ‘There is always time to get laid,’ Shorty corrected them firmly. ‘If Boris Becker can knock up a bird in a cupboard or whatever, Aladdin can get himself laid on his way to sell Manpads to his mate Punter . It’s only logical.’
    This much at least was true: the people carrier, instead of turning right towards the tunnel, had turned left, back into the centre of town.
    ‘He knows we’re on him,’ Andy muttered in despair. ‘ Shit .’
    ‘ Or changed his stupid mind’ – Don.
    ‘Hasn’t got one, darling. He’s a bungalow. It’s all downstairs’ – Shorty.
    The screen turned grey, then white, then a funereal black.
     
    CONTACT TEMPORARILY LOST
     
    All eyes on Jeb as he murmured gentle Welsh cadences into his chest microphone:
    ‘What have you done with him, Elliot? We thought Aladdin was too fat to lose.’
    Delay and static over Don’s relay. Elliot’s querulous South African voice, low and fast:
    ‘There’re a couple of apartment blocks with covered car parks down there. Our reading is, he drove into one and came out by a different one. We’re searching.’
    ‘So he knows you’re on him then’ – Jeb – ‘That’s not helpful, is it, Elliot?’
    ‘Maybe he’s aware, maybe it’s habit. Kindly get off my bloody back. Right?’
    ‘If we’re compromised, we’re going home, Elliot. We’re not walking into a trap, not if people know we’re coming. We’ve been there, thank you. We’re too old for that one.’
    Static, but no answer. Jeb again:
    ‘You didn’t think to put a tracker on the cab by any chance, did you, Elliot? Maybe he switched vehicles. I’ve heard of that being done before, once or twice.’
    ‘Go fuck yourself.’
    Shorty in his role as Jeb’s outraged comrade and defender, pulling off his mouthpiece:
    ‘I’m definitely going to sort Elliot out when this is over,’ he announced to the world. ‘I’m going to have a nice, reasonable, quiet word with him, and I’m going to shove his stupid South African head up his arse, which is a fact. Aren’t I, Jeb?’
    ‘Maybe you are, Shorty,’ Jeb said quietly. ‘And maybe you’re not, too. So shut up, d’you mind?’
     
    *
     
    The screen has come back to life. The night traffic is down to single cars but no halo is hanging over an errant people carrier. The encrypted cellphone is trembling again.
    ‘Can you see something that we can’t, Paul?’ – accusingly.
    ‘I don’t