Free People Die by Kevin Wignall Page B

discussing with Esther today?”
    Pearson was suddenly too busy being compliant to notice the implication of JJ’s question, that he was getting intelligence from somewhere. “I was keeping them up to speed; there’ll be some restructuring once this is out of the way.”
    “Who’s protecting Berg?”
    “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s a case of him being protected.” He was lying even now, a built-in inclination that was only slowly yielding.
    “So take a guess. If he’s being protected, who might be protecting him?”
    “I don’t know,” Pearson said again, more insistent, an air of convincing desperation creeping into his voice.
    It was amazing to see, this Achilles’ heel opening up steadily before him, concern for his family gradually bringing Pearson around. Some of the people JJ killed professionally had families of course, but it was rare for him to kill family men in their own homes. He met most of them in anonymous places, in hotels, in transit, away from the kinds of witnesses who might act irrationally.
    Pearson wasn’t a hit though, he was an information source, and the keys to that information were being fed in the kitchen directly below them. JJ didn’t want it to come to that, didn’t believe either that it would even come close, but he would if he had to and Pearson knew that too, now at least.
    JJ plucked a small picture frame off the desk and looked at it, a smiling boy and girl of school age, a baby sitting vacantly between them. “Nice kids,” he said before putting it back down. Pearson didn’t respond, he merely stared at him, calculating perhaps or bewildered, all his arrogance faded. “I killed a kid once a few years back. I say a kid—he was only, say, eight or nine, but he was off his head and waving an AK-47. So I don’t know if that counts but he looked like a kid when he was dead, harmless, innocent. Then I suppose most dead people look harmless; it’s the nature of the condition.”
    “Please ...”
    The interjection was desperate, emotionally punch-drunk, but JJ continued, “I’ve never killed a real kid, you know, an untainted kid, and I have no doubt that it would haunt me. But, you see, that’s the trouble with me. I’d rather be haunted and alive than without blemish and dead. So you really need to start thinking, or we’re going down to the kitchen and I’ll line them up and kill them one by one till it comes back to you.” Pearson was slowly shaking his head, eyes downcast. JJ coaxed him further. “Think hard. Where might Berg be, and if he’s being protected by someone who might that be?”
    He was convinced there was something in the last question, the fact that Pearson had described Berg’s protection as not being in their hands. If Berg had simply gone to ground Pearson would have said as much, so Berg was definitely being sheltered by some third party.
    “I don’t know anything for sure,” Pearson said eventually. “It’s not my area and you must know how Berg is for keeping a lid on things.”
    “But?” said JJ, speeding him along.
    “In the last few months Philip has been nurturing some high-level links in Russia. I believe it’s how the situation being dealt with presently first came to light.”
    “FSB links?” Pearson shook his head, like it still hurt him even to be giving this much. “Mafia links?” JJ asked, incredulous at the brazenness of it.
    “It’s a blanket term, but yes.”
    “So Viner gets airbrushed for supposed Mafia links while Berg relies on the same links for protection and no one thinks to question his operation ?”
    “That’s a simplification, and you know it is.” Any hint of common sense was always dismissed as simplification. “And I don’t know for certain that he’s being protected by them at the moment. You asked me to guess.”
    “Who is it?”
    “I don’t know. I really don’t know,” he said, emphasizing the words. “And I can’t guess. For God’s sake, your guess is probably