Dead in the Water (35 page)

She must be pondering the dreadful PR implications if the Press get hold of this, but says with compassion, “I’m sorry to hear that, Mark..” She’s good on personal detail. “It must be very distressing. But I can’t do anything about your neighbour or this man Hunter…. But you’re right about the carbon allowances. I’ll call a full cabinet meeting in the middle of next week.”

“
We should do something now.”

“
Thank you Mark.” She’s indicating the door. And that’s it. Meeting over. All he can take from it is a sop of commiseration for the father with the fugitive son. He’s furious with himself for allowing her performance of sympathy to wash over him – not a good state of mind to be in with less than half an hour to tidy up
The Guardian
piece and complete his preparations for the Select Committee. His article takes for granted the link between the storms and climate change, argues the case for carbon allowances and alludes to the looming danger of resource wars, but he’s not satisfied with it: there’s nothing new in his argument or his presentation of it. As for the Select Committee…

He has never liked the Portcullis House Committee rooms. However much the architects, designers and technicians may have tried to create light airy spaces with contemporary furniture and state of the art IT systems, it’s impossible to get away from the feeling that he’s intruding on the pompous workings of a private club. As a witness called before the Committee he can be as deferential or as forthright as he chooses; but, whether the atmosphere is self-congratulatory, adversarial or cosy, he is at their beck and call; and it is they who choose the agenda. Today several of the committee members are unavoidably absent, with the result that the rivalry between those present is more intense than usual; a rivalry which is displaced into an interrogation of Mark which becomes increasingly aggressive. Had he been better prepared, this wouldn’t have bothered him; he usually thrives on hostility. But not today. His argument that the report tends to take issues in isolation is lost in the determination of several members to disparage him personally. Instead of riding their challenges, he finds himself defending himself rather than his case.

“
Thank you, Mr Boyd. You have been very helpful,” says the committee chairman.

“
Thank you,” says Mark, forcing a smile as he gets up to leave. Where were his allies? Surely, not all of them were out doing good works in flooded constituencies. He is angry; frustrated by their pettiness, annoyed with himself for his own slackness. He has known this was coming for weeks; the stats have been on his desk for at least ten days. And tomorrow’s Environmental bloody Audit Committee looms.

He tries to develop his notes on Sustainable Procurement, but he’s distracted by the spook woman’s confident declaration that they will track down people like Stephen. It sounded awfully like a threat.

His keyboard seems jumbled; punctuation marks appear in the middle of words, and he is making the most elementary spelling errors. Ba once told him he must be one of world’s fastest two-fingered typists but today he can hardly get a word onto the screen without having to delete and retype. He used to be able to stay focused at work, no matter what was going on in his private life. He picks up pieces of paper to scan them for … then forgets what he’s looking for. Ignominy beckons. Is this what she meant by ‘normal’? He’s barely functioning professionally; has broken up with his girlfriend; is being ostracised by former colleagues; feeling guilty about Allan Hunter and the promise he made to Suzie White; and riddled with anxiety about Stephen. And to cap it all he’s had no word back from Andrew Linden about Rachel and her passport. Miss Prim’s ironic suggestion that he takes a holiday has its attractions.

61 Brazil

It could take hours to get things sorted at the Embassy; but the sooner they’re inside the compound, the sooner Jeremy will feel they’re safe. Since leaving the hotel room Rachel has said nothing more about being pursued; but although Jeremy is doing his best not to let her see it, what was preying on her has been haunting him. She was right: the evidence they’re carrying makes them both targets. Whoever Sanders was working for is not going to stop just because their man in the forest got himself a headache. They may be only ten minutes by taxi from the Embassy, but their priority is to get new clothes: in overalls and battle fatigues there is no way they are going to get fast-tracked to a temporary passport by some resentful Jobsworth with an axe to grind.

The taxi takes them to an enormous shopping mall, dominated by what looks to Jeremy like a vast sculptural golden horse-shoe magnet, a cross between the Macdonalds’ arch and Saddam Hussein’s crossed scimitars. Assuring them that it is actually a gateway to paradise, the taxi driver agrees to wait in the car park while Jeremy and Rachel kit themselves out as anonymously as they can.

Even at this time in the morning the place is busy, and Jeremy is reluctant to let Rachel out of his sight She insists that she can look after herself, but what worries him is who else is looking out for her. They compromise, find a shop which does both men’s and women’s clothing, and go their ways onto separate floors.

Jeremy buys himself a couple of plain shirts, some underwear and socks, a pair of denim jeans, a casual jacket and a small overnight bag. After paying for these, he goes to the toilet and changes. , Rachel is waiting for him by the checkout downstairs. To his amazement, she’s dressed in a black trouser suit, leather shoes, a lightweight coat with red lapels and carrying a chic little red leather handbag to go with.

“
I’m treating myself. Is that alright?” she asks, tongue in cheek.

It has to be, except that beside her he now feels scruffy and out of place– a feeling that is compounded when they get back to the taxi and the driver whistles his approval.

“
I’ve never had a nice suit before. I’m a business-woman now. That’s what people do, isn’t it. Criss-cross the Atlantic on business.”

The taxi drops them at the gates of the Embassy. They present themselves to the gatekeeper who writes down their names, then frisks them and checks their bags. He looks puzzled and amused to find that the contents of a woman’s handbag comprise nothing more than a pocket pack of tissues, a satphone and a purse with loose change and the receipt for the clothes.

“
My passport’s been stolen,” says Rachel. “We’ve come to see someone about getting a temporary replacement.”

The official points to a notice that states that all enquiries relating to the replacement of lost or stolen passports should be addressed to the British Consulate in Rio de Janeiro. Jeremy’s spirits sink; but Rachel is not so easily put off, charming but insistent that they have to get back to England immediately. He’s adamant. They just don’t deal with passports at the Embassy.

“
Can we wait here, then?” she asks.

Jeremy, whose feelings are a mixture of admiration and embarrassment, is about to intervene, to ask if they can ring the Rio Consulate from here and at least get things moving, when the phone rings.

“
Yes sir. Yes sir. Yes.” He writes something down on a pad. Puts the phone down. Checks what he has just written against their names, then tells them, “You have to see Mr. Geoffrey Whittingham. Through the doors straight ahead. He’ll meet you at the main reception desk. You have to leave your bags here please. In the lockers.” The gatekeeper gives them keys and places Mark’s case and handbag in a locker.

Andrew Linden has personally contacted the ambassador, who has given Whittingham the responsibility of making Rachel’s repatriation as quick and easy as possible. Her temporary passport is ready, her flights booked – Brasilia to Sao Paulo, and then the 16:10 British Airways flight to Heathrow, arriving 07:20 tomorrow morning – and an Embassy car arranged to take them to the airport. He even advances her five hundred Reals in case the flights are delayed. He’s polite and pleasant to Jeremy, but his brief clearly doesn’t extend to ensuring that Rachel is accompanied on her journey back to London.

Brasilia International Airport is a very different place at eleven in the morning than it had been at three: it’s sticky with people. Rachel already has an e-ticket, but Jeremy has to buy his. The clerk is surprised to be offered cash and has to ring for clearance from a supervisor, who in turn calls for the police. Is there any way he could make himself more noticeable? When they have established that the dollar bills are not forged, he is given his ticket; and told that because the UK is currently on a terrorist Red Alert when they get to Sao Paulo, he’ll have to check in again a full two hours before departure. But at least they’re now booked onto the same flights.

Waiting at the departure gate, sitting on a bench seat, a couple of backpackers in their twenties, a Latino woman and an American man, ask if the seats beside them are taken. Rachel says it’s fine, and chats happily to them. Although he keeps his thoughts to himself, Jeremy is wary. He’s growing suspicious of everybody – they’re happy young eco-tourists, just flown in from Manaus where they’ve had ‘such a brilliant time’ on the full Amazon adventure package – but Sanders was an American, and he, too, did a good line in geniality.

He feels more comfortable once they’re on the plane, the backpackers seated out of sight, out of earshot and forgotten. As the plane takes off, Rachel clutches his arm. His immediate thought is that she doesn’t like flying, but it’s she who asks, “Are you OK?” He’s caught off guard, reminded of the shameful pleasures of his dream in the hotel bath.

“
I am,” he says. “Are you?”

He dares to put his hand over hers, a safe gesture, a comfort.

She nods. “Are we going to be alright?” And if, for a moment, he was the man who might become her lover, he is now her protector, her guardian, the friend of her father who has said he will bring her home safely.

“
Yes,” he says. “We’re on our way. Couldn’t have gone better. It could have taken a fortnight to sort out your passport. And here we are.”

She shuts her eyes, but her hand doesn’t move; and from the dark place she has drifted to she asks, “Why did they attack the village?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
Why do you think?”

He’s reluctant to say what he is now certain of.

“
Jeremy.” This time there is no mistaking her squeeze of his arm; it is not affection, but insistence that he tell her what he thinks. She wants to be informed, not shielded.

“
Tar sands.”

“
What do you mean?”

He hesitates, and then says quietly, almost under his breath, “Everybody in the environmental movement has known for years that Venezuelan Amazonia is Eldorado for the oil companies. The last report I read estimated that the Orinoco Heavy Oil Belt alone contains at least a trillion barrels.”

“
But why destroy the village? Why kill people?”

“
You can’t just sink a well to get at this stuff. It’s worse than open cast mining. Much worse. They scalp the soil and the pollution and wastage is horrendous. To get a single barrel of oil they have to dig out four tons of earth. We’re talking about destruction of the rain forest on a scale never seen. You can only protect trees if they’re still standing. It’s my guess they wanted the earth movers in before anyone could squeal.”

She opens her eyes and looks at him. Colour seems to have drained from her face, as if, after everything she has gone through, it is only now that she realises what they are really up against.

“
And now? Why now?”

“
The mini Summit. And the political situation in Venezuela. Remember Pablo’s ‘organised confusion’? Right now that’s Venezuela.”

“
It’s what he used to say about his cooking.”

“
He used to say it about a lot of things. Right now, it’s a damn good description of Venezuela. I suspect there are people who want to get at these tar sands before they’re locked off permanently under United Nations funded Forest Protection schemes.

“
Organised confusion.” She pauses again. “And we’re alright are we?”

“
We’ve both got our tickets booked, haven’t we. The British Embassy’s looking after you now. We don’t have to leave the airport in Sao Paulo. Home tomorrow. By tomorrow night your video will be on TV.”

“
I had a dream when I was in the forest. It was like a kind of time travelling.”

He turns to look at her. They both try to smile. He would like to kiss her. “We’re going to be alright,” he says.

They stream off the plane at Sao Paulo Guarulhos, along endless travelators, past wall-high ‘intelligent’ plasma screen advertisements which respond to people’s head movements, and into a giant holding area, where continuous announcements in Portuguese, Spanish and English tell them to await further instructions. The airport police are ostentatiously armed with sub-machine guns, but there are only three of them here, and they’re huddled in a corner chatting, barely noticing the hundreds of passengers that have gathered from flights that have arrived from all over Brazil at more or less the same time. Clutching his small travel bag, Jeremy finds himself hanging around Rachel, trying to convince himself that he is being protective, whilst feeling more like a timid child clinging to a preoccupied parent.

When they finally arrive in their transit lounge, he feels a little more relaxed – until he checks in for the London flight, and finds that he and Rachel cannot sit together. The flight’s full, and Rachel’s check-in was done at the Embassy when they booked her ticket. An eleven hour flight. The prospect is a nightmare.