Dead in the Water (32 page)

From the air, all Brasilia was awake and partying; on the ground, the airport feels like an abandoned ghost town. He has often found it disorientating to arrive in a big city in the middle of the night. After the events of the past twenty hours or so and the lack of sleep, this feeling that he is neither awake, nor even truly present, is intensified as the file of weary passengers leaves the plane and, with Rachel virtually sleep walking, they are herded in single file across the tarmac and into the terminal. The airport bus drivers have long since found their way to the great party that is always happening somewhere else. As they enter the building and trudge up a long narrow ramp, Jeremy’s arm through Rachel’s to guide her, he looks out through the large plate glass window, then changes his focus to the reflected line of passengers, all bar two of them clutching their numerous items of hand baggage like contestants in a children’s party game. He can see Rachel’s reflection, but not his own.

And then they are through into a windowless baggage collection area. As he walks past the squealing belt, a solitary unclaimed bag from a previous flight still trundling round, he realises that the man in the mirror on the opposite wall, the man in blue overalls proudly emblazoned with
Sullivan Air Taxis
,
is himself.

There are no security checks as they leave the baggage hall. In Arrivals, a dozen or so friends and relatives are waiting; but there are no officials, no police, no staff anywhere to be seen. They could wait here, sleep in the terminal; but they’re going to have to get to the Embassy, and Rachel needs proper food and rest. They need a hotel. They have cash, but without a passport they could have trouble getting a hotel.

Jeremy’s Spanish is excellent; by his own reckoning his Portuguese, passable. They wait in the queue for a taxi, Rachel still seems barely conscious, swaying on her feet as if she were staggering home from a late night party.

“
Can you take us to a hotel, please. Good, cheap, near the British Embassy.”

“
OK”

“
Wait. My daughter’s passport has been stolen. I need a hotel where ––”

“
Sim. Eu compreendo
¸” says the taxi driver, winking.

They get in the back of the taxi and set off into the sweating fog-drenched night.

“
What was that about?” asks Rachel, without opening her eyes.

“
He’s taking us to a hotel. I said your passport’s been stolen.”

“
I don’t mind sharing a room with you, Jem, but I’m not pretending to be your daughter.”

Wednesday

56 Clifton Hamden, England

Mark rings the front door bell and waits.

Joanna appears in heavy white towelling dressing gown, one hand holding the robe tightly around her, the other holding back the dog, her face taut with fear.

“
Oh,” she sighs, relieved it’s Mark.

He puts his arms round her, half expecting her to pull away from him. But close, it seems, is where she wants to be. They hold each other, her head turned to his chest, neither of them speaking, while Charlie the dog yelps with delight and runs off to collect a toy from the kitchen to bring for Mark.

“
You’re not the police.”

“
I would have rung, told you I was coming. But my phone’s being tapped.”

She takes a step back and looks him straight in the eyes. He’d been thinking about this moment during the drive down, wondering if she’d scoff and call him paranoid.

“
My God,” she says; and seems to shiver slightly, as if something solid in her world has just given way.

The kitchen is where they have always talked, as a couple and as a family; where there are always things to do, drinks to make, dishes to wash.

Joanna makes coffee, retreats to the work surface, waiting for the kettle to boil, while Mark tells of his meeting with Stephen – and Charlie, quickly over the excitement of Mark’s arrival, snores in his basket.

“
Thank you. For coming to tell me.”

“
I couldn’t tell you on the phone.”

“
Of course.” She leans forward on the table, hands covering her face. It’s a gesture that Mark used to misinterpret, reading it as a sign of exhaustion and melancholy, when for Joanna it’s a way of concentrating, shutting out distractions. “Why would the police want to tap your phone?” Her eyes are still shut.

“
God knows. I guess I have a lot of contacts. It’s mad. The world’s gone fucking mad. Maybe they’ve been watching Stephen for a while.”

“
Oh come on, Mark. That’s ridiculous.” How could anybody think like that about Stephen, she seems to be implying. Mark finds her indignation touchingly maternal, but hardly reassuring.

“
Stephen’s in an Eco group, Joanna. Every bloody Eco group is suspect. All of us are suspects. If they can they raid the
One World
offices ––”

“
Right.”

“
They spread the fucking net wide enough and they might just trawl in someone who could be useful to them.”

“
Mark. You’ve made your point.”

Charlie gets out of bed and, tail between his legs, skulks over to the back door. Mark gets up and lets him out. Feeling chided by the dog’s sensitivity, he apologises to Joanna for his frustration, for swaering, for his exhaustion.

“
It’s OK,” she says. “You and me both.”

He goes to the glass fronted cupboard in the corner of the room, gets a bottle of Scotch and a couple of glasses. To his surprise, Joanna nods.

“
Mark,” she says, her voice is trembling. “What do we do about telling the police?”

“
I’ll talk to the spook, the woman from Five. If they pick him up, they’ll protect him. He could be a key witness. They can’t charge him with anything.”

“
You have a lot of faith in the authorities, Mark.”

“
I just think the alternatives are a lot worse. He says what he’s involved in has nothing to do with the bombings. He really believes that. But it wouldn’t surprise me at all if whoever’s behind the bombings is pulling the strings.”

Joanna looks straight at him across the table, meeting his gaze. “Is he in danger?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
But from the way he was. From the way he talked to you. Does
he
think he’s in danger?”

“
Yes,” says Mark, quietly. He reaches out and takes her hand. She allows him to hold it, to squeeze it. “We have to tell someone, Joanna.”

“
You told him that you wouldn’t go to the police.”

“
We don’t have to go to the police.”

“
That’s semantics, Mark.”

“
Stephen was talking about an attack on Heathrow. Even if they arrest him he’s going to be safer in police custody than hanging around with bloody idiots who’d do something like that.”

Joanna’s elbows on the table, fingertips massaging her forehead. Charlie whining to come back in.

“
Is that what you really think, Mark? That we should turn him in?”

He takes a drink of whisky. “Maybe we should wait. Give him time to do whatever it is he thinks he can do.”

“
You’ve always been really good about making decisions.”

“
It hasn’t felt much like it lately.” She looks at him, her eyes are wet. She takes a tissue from the box on the table, blows her nose. “We have to decide together, don’t we. It has to be us, Joanna.”

She nods. He looks at his watch. Four o’clock.

“
I’ll call at seven. I want to speak to the woman who interviewed me. I don’t want to be fobbed off.”

“
OK. If that’s what you think is best.”

“
Is it what we think?”

“
Yes.”

What Mark wants to do is to hug Joanna, to go through to the living room, to sit on the sofa together, to wrap themselves around each other, as if the physical comfort will at least momentarily save them from their anxieties.

What he does is go round to her side of the table and massage her shoulders. She strokes his hand as if patting Charlie on the head, then turns on her chair to face him.

“
Listen.” She pauses, then squeezes his hand and removes it from her shoulder. “Where do you fit into all this, Mark?” He’s puzzled by the question.

“
I wish I knew.”

“
You see, there was a time I’d have thought that you’re being egotistical around all this ––”

“
Oh, for goodness sake ––”

“
Just hear me out. Everything you’re telling me is about you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound so horrible. But just suppose … just suppose that it
is
actually
you
who connects all this, that you’re not being paranoid or egotistical. Suppose you are the connection. Stephen. Allan Hunter. Angela Walker.” He stands up and goes over to the sink to wash the coffee cups. “Oh, for goodness sake, don’t do that now. Listen, Mark, you’re a target. You know it. At one time you relished it. You used to say it was a sign that you were getting the job done. Lately you’ve been keeping your head down.”

“
I didn’t come here for a getting at Mark session.”

“
Don’t be so touchy. I’m not getting at you. I’m not blaming you. You’ve done what you had to do. Keeping your head down. That’s what gradualism’s about. But you are still a target.”

“
So who the fuck is targeting me?”

“
I don’t bloody know.” The dog is whining again. “Leave him. He’ll only … I’m sorry, Mark. It’s not meant as a criticism.”

He gives a hollow, snorting laugh. “Bloody well sounds like it.”

“
Look, the police are tapping your phone. This phone as well, probably. Maybe it’s to protect us. There are a lot of people who want to discredit you.”

“
Like most of the tabloid press you mean.”

“
I’m not joking, Mark. People think of you as Mister Moderate now. Before Mrs W brought you in to the government you were Captain Extreme. But there are people who think of you as more dangerous now than you were before. It’s the government they want to get at, Mark. They don’t give a toss about you personally – or me – or Stephen or this guy Allan Hunter. Just suppose it’s you who’s the link.”

There’s an unappealing logic about what she says. He drains his glass of whisky, Joanna takes a sip from hers.

“
And what if you’re right. Suppose I am the connection. How does that change anything for Stephen?”

“
I don’t know, Mark. I’m just trying to make sense of things.” She manages to force a conciliatory smile.

Mark goes round to her side of the table, kisses her lightly on the temple.

“
Sorry to be so …”

“
It’s OK.” She reaches up, takes his hand and squeezes it.

“
I saw Sara. We met for a meal. I hadn’t spoken to her since last weekend. I told her it’s over. Told her I couldn’t see her again.”

“
I’m not sure how I should react to that.”

“
I thought you’d want to know.”

“
Thank you.” He’s waiting for her to mention the D word, but instead she asks, “Do you want to stay?”

“
I’d love to stay, but I have to be in work, and there’s stuff I have to pick up from the flat, and the traffic at this time in the morning will be a lot easier.”

“
It’s OK, Mark. It’s OK.”

“
I would love to stay, Joanna.” And in spite of the prickliness, the undertow of resentments and veiled accusations, it seems something has eased between them.

She comes with him to the front door.

“
Thank you, Mark. Thank you for coming here tonight. I’m sorry if I’m …”

“
Yes. Me too.”

Standing in the porch, Joanna waves, retreats into the house shuts the front door.

Mark sits for a moment in the car, exhausted, trying to summon up the energy for the drive back to London, when his mobile gives a text alert. It’s from an unknown phone:

57
Brasilia

Jeremy should have known that there’d be no cheap hotels within easy walking distance of the Embassy. The driver takes them to a multi storey block that could have been thrown up anywhere in the world. The receptionist, a tubby little man with small, frog-like eyes and bulbous cheeks, is watching television, nodding and laughing at a grotesque game-show. He laughs without opening his mouth, exhaling through broad pursed lips that make him look as if he is just paused for breath in the middle of a trumpet solo.

“
Bom dia
,” says Jeremy.

“
Bom dia
. Good morning. I speak English. You speak in English.” He doesn’t take his eyes from the television. The ‘game’ seems to be loosely based on apple bobbing, but it’s a version which might well exercise Amnesty International in any other context: the four naked contestants, two male, two female, their hands tied behind their backs are dunking their heads in what look like great vats of shit to find the ‘apples’.