Dead in the Water (31 page)

Mark walks quickly, glancing through the high steel fence at the playground – the slides and roundabouts, the wooden train, the skeletal pirate ship – an abandoned colourless prison in the strange pale light of the quarter moon, which is hanging low in the sky over South London. He’s seen only half a dozen people since getting out of the car and nobody has propositioned him; but that doesn’t leave him feeling any less conspicuous. He’d feel happier walking a dog. Where are you when we need you, Charlie?

Is Stephen nearby, watching, wanting to be sure that Mark isn’t being tailed? What if the message wasn’t from him….? He looks up at the night sky, but although energy saving measures may give the empty playground a worrying whiff of a post-apocalyptic landscape, London light pollution still masks all but the brightest stars.

“
Dad?” Urgent, quiet.

“
Stephen?” His head shaved like Johnnie Bonehead Lacey.

“
Just walk with me. Don’t talk.” Stephen doesn’t stop, hardly looks at Mark, sets off towards Highgate Ponds, walking fast, not checking whether Mark is keeping up.

“
Stephen?” Fear bubbles up from somewhere inside, floodwater pushing up a drain cover, and for the first time in his life, he wishes he had a gun with him. Nobody knows his whereabouts. “Are you on your own?”

“
Dad, just walk with me. Right.”

“
Steve. Please. Just tell me ––”

“
Dad. Don’t talk. Please. I’ll explain.”

They pass the ponds, but only when they reach the woods at the top of the hill does Stephen speak again: “Stand close. Face me.”

“
What? What the hell is going on? Steve?”

“
Dad. We’re in the trees. They can’t listen in here. Face me. Close.”

Mark wants to laugh. They played games like this when Stephen was a child. He does as he’s told, reluctantly obedient, their normal roles reversed.

“
Are you OK, Steve?” He wants the comfort of holding his son. Standing so close, here in the woods, where childhood still resonates, Stephen seems further away now than when he first left home.

“
I’m fine Dad.” What else would he say? They both wait – wary. What had he imagined? That they’d meet up by the playground, then go off to his car and back home together, where Joanna and the dog would be waiting to greet them; and all would be forgiven, both of them, him and Stephen quickly forgiven; teenagers who’d stayed out a bit too late?

“
I’m sorry I didn’t answer your calls.”

“
It’s OK. If you’re in trouble of any kind, we’re here for you.”

“
I need to tell you things. Thing is I don’t know where to start.” But he does start, talking rapidly, his delivery alternating between an urgent torrent of confusing fragments and a cold, determined lucidity. “I joined a direct action eco group at Uni. I thought you’d be proud of me. I would have told you last weekend. But I thought it wouldn’t be fair because you’d have to pretend you didn’t know.”

“
What? Pretend I didn’t know what? Steve?”

“
Remember when all of us went on the Climate Change demo together? Rachel just started at Uni. You talking about how you thought that even if Direct Action didn’t always work in the short term, it often did in the long term. I know what you mean about public support – like if it’s too extreme it runs the risk of destroying our credibility.” He stops. They are standing very close.

Mark has a growing sense of unease.
‘Our credibility’? What’s that ‘our’?

“
I know you’ve had to change your mind about things since you got your new job.” Mark wants to reach out to him, to wrap his arms around him, tell him that everything will be alright. “The eco group I was in at Uni talked about Direct Action but they never did anything. Then about a month ago I met someone who asked me if I wanted to take part in something that would make a difference and I said yes. I don’t know what his name is. We just use nicknames. He’s Digger. That’s what we all want to do, isn’t it. Make a difference. He said no one was going to get hurt.” A pause. “So I agreed.” He stops. Sniffs. Looks around. “Just keep moving a bit yeah…” They circle each other; though to Mark it seems an absurd routine. “I only ever met two people – other than John. He’s in it with me.” He stops.

“
Right,” says Mark, trying to assure Stephen that he’s listening, that he’s not judging. “Is that it?”

“
Then I said I couldn’t go through with it.”

“
Couldn’t go through with what?”

Another pause.

“
There’s something planned for later this week. They said that nobody would get hurt. They wanted us to create a distraction.”

“
Who did?”

“
That’s why I couldn’t get in touch with you.”

“
Have you actually done anything, Steve?”

“
They’re arresting everybody. If I get in your car, they’ll arrest you as well.”

“
I have connections.”

“
Dad, you’re so trusting sometimes. They’ll interrogate me. And you. They’ll lock us up. Months without charge. That’s what they do.”

“
Steve, this is crazy. Does John feel the same way as you?”

“
We’ve got nothing to do with the bombs.”

“
You said you couldn’t go through with it.”

“
Yeah.”

“
Just give yourself up. I have a number for someone in the security services.”

“
You’re in bed with the spooks!”

“
Steve, listen. We don’t even have to go to the police.”

“
Dad, I don’t know what’s going on. But I know it’s bad. And ––”

“
Stephen, have you done anything?” He immediately regrets raising his voice.

“
No. I told you.”

There’s a long silence. From somewhere down near Haverstock Hill a siren wails, and then another. Screams of the city night. Then Stephen says, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, “We’re being used. I don’t know what’s going on. But I’m not going to turn myself in. I need to be around, Dad. Persuade them not to do it.”

“
Persuade who, Steve? Not to do what?”

“
There’s people I know been arrested. They weren’t even involved. Look, just stop worrying about me. Right?”

“
You ask me to meet you on Hampstead Heath in the middle of the night. You’ll only talk to me in the bloody woods. And you tell me to stop worrying.”

“
They’re looking for me.”

“
Who is? Who’s looking for you?”

“
The police. The security services. That’s why I thought of the swings. Like if someone picked up that call, they wouldn’t know, would they. Only you and Mum would know about the swings. Yeah? And here you can see if you’re being followed. That’s why I couldn’t answer your calls. That’s why I sent that text. You’d know what it meant. Nobody else would. They’re tapping everyone’s phones.”

“
Steve.” He wants to tell him he’s being paranoid, that’s his job as a dad, to reassure his son – except that his son is right. “But if you haven’t done anything….”

“
It doesn’t make any difference. Don’t you see? I’ve got to do this. Yeah?”

He mustn’t let Stephen sense his welling tears. “I’m glad we’ve talked. Thanks.”

“
Look, Dad, the thing is that the group I’m in is pathetic. We’re nothing. We’ve done nothing. And they have these crazy plans. And I’ve got to stop them. Because it’s going to work against us. Right.”

In the distance, from somewhere over Camden, a helicopter thumps, its searchlight beam a thin stick of light in the humid air. Police chasing a joyrider? Or more arrests in the war against terror?

In a soft, gentle voice, trying to disguise his own anxieties, Mark says, “You said that you thought what they were planning was stupid. Then you stopped.”

“
I don’t know. I can’t be sure. They want us to do something around the Summit. I think they’re going to target Heathrow. They want us to create a distraction.”

“
What do you mean ‘something around The Summit’?”

“
Force a response.”

“
Have you met these people?”

“
Somebody’s giving us money. We don’t know who they are.”

“
What do you want me to do?”

“
Tell Mum I’m OK. And don’t tell the police. Not yet.”

“
You’re not a secret agent, Stephen. We’re out of our depth. Both of us.”

“
Dad, could you do something for me? Go to Mum. Tell her I’m alright. Yeah? Don’t ring. Go and see her. Yeah. They’re tapping phones.”

“
I know.”

“
Will you do that?”

“
Yes.”

“
You’ll go and see her. Yeah? Tell her yourself.”

“
I’ll do it tonight.”

“
Thanks.” Stephen smiles. “I can make a difference. That’s what I want to do. That’s the best we can aim for isn’t it.” Such plaintive echoes of things Mark has said so many times.

“
We love you, Stephen,” he says, desperately wanting to hold him safe, to warn his precious child not to do anything silly, to prolong the contact, to say something that will be helpful, supportive, loving.

But Stephen has to go. “Please don’t try and follow me.”

“
And what should I do with this?” asks Mark, showing him the mobile that Johnnie Bonehead sold him for twenty pounds.

“
Trash it, Dad. That’s what you got to do. Throw it in the pond.” And he turns, and walks away, through the avenue of trees, towards Spaniards Road. The young man who was Stephen becomes a slow moving silhouette in the ashen moonlight, the human figure soon dissolving in the shadows of trees.

55
Brazil

At eight o’ clock the airport at Boa Vista had seemed empty. Jeremy imagined the plane might be no more than a third full. But when they board, every seat is taken, passengers arriving as they might at a railway station in rural India. If there are regulations for hand luggage, nobody is enforcing them: everybody, except Jeremy and Rachel, has as much with them as they can carry: rucksacks, guitars, laptops, brown paper parcels, wooden carvings and (much to Jeremy’s amazement) shopping bags. Take-off is delayed by the half hour it takes to get all this safely stowed. Thank goodness they’re sitting together, they have window seats and nobody has to clamber over them. The only piece of luggage that Jeremy and Rachel have between them is the little leather bag given her by the Yanomami; and in it the digital camera and her satphone with their precious store of images.

“
I’m amazed there aren’t any chickens,” he says to Rachel.

She smiles. “Maybe that’s what’s in the shopping bags. Brilliant, isn’t it.”

“
What?”

“
Is this an Airbus?”

“
I think so. Why?”

“
It’s what it feels like. It’s great. I love it. I love flying. I love buses. Best of both worlds. Brilliant!”

She’s surprisingly lively and alert, chatting about life in the village – but no mention of José or Pablo, not a word about her escape through the forest.

The plane gets to the end of the runway and, with no delay for air traffic clearance, immediately surges forward on its take off run. They enter low cloud and her energy fades as fast as the lights of Boa Vista disappear.

She turns to him. “I’m so tired,” she says. “I’m sorry. You mind if I go to sleep?”

“
No. No. Of course not.”

Within seconds, she’s breathing heavily and her head is resting on his shoulder. He’d like to sleep himself, but he’s too conscious of her there, not wanting to move in case he wakes her. An hour or so into the flight, however, and he must have been dozing himself because her voice startles him.

“
Did you like Terry calling you Jez?”

“
What?”

“
Jez. Is that what I should call you?”

“
Oh,” he says, puzzled for a moment. And then, “Nobody ever called me that. Friends call me Jem. But… whatever…call me what you like.”

Her head lolls sideways, and he assumes she’s dropping off to sleep again, when she says, without turning to look at him, “Thank you.”

“
What? What for?”

“
For being there.”

“
I didn’t rescue you. You rescued yourself.”

“
And you didn’t try to make me think you did. Dad always says I get embarrassed about thank yous. So I’m keeping my eyes shut. I’m asleep. I’m not really saying this… Just thank you for being there.”

He squeezes her forearm. “That’s OK.”

She pats his hand – as enigmatic as it is affectionate.

The journey time from Boa Vista is nearly five hours. Rachel sleeps for most of that time, doesn’t stir again even as the changing air pressure and shifting tones of the plane’s engines mark the beginning of its descent into Brasilia.

In the twenty four hours he’s been away from Caracas, Jeremy has begun to feel disconnected from urban life. When the plane emerges from low cloud, he finds the lights of Brasilia painfully bright. To Jeremy, the whines and the clunks of the flaps and undercarriage, as the pilots make their approach, seem unfamiliar and brutal. The landing is routine; but the roar of the engines, as the pilot engages reverse thrust, sends tremors of anxiety through his stomach.