Dead in the Water (5 page)

The streets are still wet, but it has stopped raining and the sun is shining.

He can hear birdsong.

Mark has had an office in Liberal Party Headquarters in Cowley Street for nearly eighteen months now. Asked by Angela Walker, the new Prime Minister, to join the government as a personal adviser on environmental issues during the campaign for what has since become known as the Hurricane Election, he consulted colleagues in
One World
and spent a difficult weekend with Joanna and the family to discuss it in depth. Stephen, who had just started at University and was still smarting from breaking up with his girlfriend, wanted to know whether Mark would go on living in London during the week. Beyond that he appeared not to be interested.

Rachel, however, was not impressed. “It’s selling out, Dad. It’s what they all do. Talk green when it suits and turn right as soon as they get elected. They’ll castrate you. They’re liars, the bloody lot of them…” ‘They’ being elected politicians of every hue.

Joanna said that he should do what he thought was right, implying that it was no longer any of her business.

Mark knew exactly what he wanted to do, but he continued his careful deliberations for another two days before formally accepting the post as personal adviser to the woman who was shortly to become Prime Minister of a coalition government.

Cowley Street is no more than five minutes walk from the Houses of Parliament, close to the Headquarters of the Labour and Conservative parties on Millbank and in Smith Square. It’s an imposing, if sunless building, with a fine Georgian frontage in light sandstone. Mark has often thought that it feels out of place hidden away down a back street; it has the feel of a building that should overlook its own grand park. Today, however, he walks in without a glance at the elegant architecture, more convinced than ever that arranging a permanent office for him in Cowley Street was less about placating the Liberals in her cabinet than keeping him at a discreet distance.

Everybody wants to talk about the bomb; but the predominant feeling is relief. If this is the big terrorist outrage that people have been warned about for so long, it’s something of an anti-climax. It wasn’t a dirty bomb; the only people to have been evacuated are those in buildings in Piccadilly closest to the blast, where surveyors need to check for structural damage. Everybody is speculating, everybody has a theory; but few people seem all that shaken up by it.

At his desk by ten past seven, the first thing Mark does is to ring Sara. The answering service cuts in. “It’s me,” he says. “Where are you? In the bath, I guess. I’m sorry we argued last night. Sorry I drank too much. Lovely meal. Can you get back to me?”

He’s checking the Internet for a news update – the roundabout above Piccadilly Underpass has been closed to all traffic – when Barbara Taylor, his P.A., comes in, pleased to see him, as always.

“
You’ve done well,” says Mark. “Getting in on time.”

She hands him a large sealed delivery bag. “Most of this lot originated before the bomb. Everything’s on hold.” Together they go through the briefing papers and his diary. “My guess is that your appointment with the P.M. is off.”

“
Figures.”

“
And before you ask,” she says, “It’s already brewed.” She smiles, her dark eyes, sparkling even at this time of day, shoulder length straight black hair tidily framing her small precise features. She’s about five years younger than him, in her early forties; divorced, bringing up her 12 year old son on her own. And this morning she is bloody gorgeous.

She turns and leaves, and he watches her walk from the room. Desire can be so reassuring. A few minutes later she returns with a mug of coffee, a
pain au chocolat
, and a warm, open smile that sidesteps his predatory gaze.

With e-mails and phone calls constantly zinging to and from the Mayor’s office, it’s a frustrating morning, and it’s not until just after midday that Mark can finally get on the phone to Jeremy Peters in Caracas.

“
A good time to talk?”

“
It’s half past six. I’ve only just got out of bed.”

“
Can you give me ten minutes?”

Jeremy agrees, even though he’s only half dressed and has yet to grab a cup of coffee.

“
Is this about Rachel?”

“
Partly.”

“
She’s with good people, Mark Dias called yesterday morning. Says she’s doing fine. He’s impressed.”

“
That’s good,” says Mark.

“
Are you worried about her?” asks Jeremy.

“
No more than usual. She rang last night. Seemed fine, but I haven’t been able to get back in touch.”

“
Sat coms in the forest are notoriously unreliable. And she’s better off where she is than here in Caracas.”

“
That’s great consolation.”

“
I did tell ––”

“
I know. I know you warned us, Jeremy. And we warned Rachel. But for Rachel ‘not very stable’ was the clincher.”

“
Mark, this is localised. Believe me. Caracas is a hot spot. The rest of the country just watches and waits.”

“
Is the government still in control?”

“
I had an informal meeting with the Minister last night. He said foreign correspondents’ talk of civil war was a joke, upping the ante so they’d get longer in the fleshpots of Caracas.”

“
And what’s your gut feeling?”

“
My gut feeling! About civil war?”

“
Yes.”

“
My gut feeling, Mark, is it’s a fucking mess. But the government is very much in control. Kids get shot in the streets and nobody cares – because they daren’t. I guess I shouldn’t get upset about it. Shit happens, eh.”

“
Tell me about it. Talk shit to me, Jeremy.”

“
Is this about Rachel or work?”

“
Both. I have to write a report for Andrew Linden.”

“
Oh,” says Peters. “Right,” making no attempt to conceal his distaste for Linden, the Foreign Secretary.

“
Caracas is heaving with American and Chinese advisers. What does that mean? I don’t know. What I do know, Mark, is that the oil companies want to take things into their own hands. They’re recruiting private armies. They claim they’re protecting investments. But everybody knows they want the government to give them access to the tar sands. So… in answer to your question, yes, the government’s in control. But who’s in control of the government? What the hell do I know? I’m just the guy on the street.”

“
Jeremy, you’re the guy who gets to have dinner with the Minister.”

“
Listen, Mark. The man has all the charm of a Mafia boss running a protection racket. Europe comes up with Carbon Resource Funding, or whatever the current jargon is, or the forest gets turned over to the heavies. It was a threat, not a promise. Have you heard what they’re calling it?
The
Forest Protection Force
. They have an asset; and they want to cash in.”

“
I don’t care what you call it. Protection money. Whatever. The question is, can they deliver? I have a report to write for Andrew Linden.”

“
You make it sound like a yes / no question.”

“
I want an informed opinion.”

“
Mark, I’ll write you a paper, I promise. Now can I have my shot of caffeine?”

“
We’ve got the summit in just over a week,” says Mark. “Mrs Walker is confident she can get agreement on Carbon Resource Funding – providing there’s still a government out there to sign up.”

“
I hear what you’re saying, Mark.” The conversation is over.

“
Look after yourself.”

“
I always do. What the hell is going on over there, Mark?”

“
The Piccadilly bomb? You’ve heard about it already?”

“
I have the World Service wake me in the mornings.”

“
You probably know more than I do then,” says Mark.

Later he grumbles to Ba, “Believe me, if I catch
The World at One
, I’ll feel well informed.”

6
Caracas

The 6.45 phone call was not a good start to Jeremy Peters’ day. Since then it has got steadily worse. He got in to the office to find all three computers crashed; and now to cap it all, the landline phones are down.

There are two full time paid staff in the
One World
office: himself and Calixta, who’s out all morning at a meeting. Several volunteers drop in on an occasional basis. And then there’s Salvador, an earnest young guy in his early twenties, a genius with computers, who would happily spend his whole life in the office. He reckons the problem is a virus. He can fix it. He can fix anything can Salvador.

For much of the morning Jeremy has been using his own mobile to try to find someone, anyone, willing to talk to him about the shooting incident. He’s spoken directly to Ortega and even got through to Rodriguez’s PA; but everybody gives a version of ‘Why bother?’, variations on a theme of ‘Stuff Happens’: leave it, it’s not his business, things are tough at the moment; if the patrols are trigger-happy, so be it – better that than the anarchy and looting that erupted a month ago.

Within a couple of hours Salvador has the first computer up and running, the virus purged and most of the data restored. The only lost files are overnight e-mails and internet correspondence. Salvador is pretty pleased with himself. “All I have to do is reload the programmes and the computer is ready. Now that I know what is the problem, the other machines are easy.”

“
How long before I can do some work on it?”

“
Maybe an hour, maybe ––”

“
You’re brilliant, Salvador. Thank you,” which Salvador takes as an invitation to talk about his new girlfriend. How he’s known her for years, how he’s always wanted her, how he thought she wasn’t interested, how they met up again unexpectedly …

With the phones down and only one computer working, Jeremy walks to the café in the
Jardin Botanico
, not least for the pleasure of reviving his memories of walking in the gardens with Rachel three weeks ago. It would be a good time to ring her. Midday is one of the times that José and Pablo regularly power up the satphone. It’s a couple of days since they last spoke; and he’s missing her.

But the satphone’s not on. Shame.

7 London

There are two kinds of meetings that Mark has with Angela Walker: those where she seeks genuine advice from the man once known as the court favourite, and those where he is given instructions. When she postpones a meeting it invariably implies a briefing. The Underpass bomb has already become a fact of life. He feels powerless, out of touch and irritable.

At ten to two he sets out early for Downing Street on foot. But he doesn’t reckon with the throng of photographers and police manning the maze of metal fences around Number 10. He’s late – or he would have been had she been there. Jay Porter, one of her private secretaries, has left instructions for him to follow her down to her office in The Commons. Why can’t these bloody people use phones?

How things have changed. Two and a half years ago, on the morning after what became known as the Kent Hurricane, he’d been interviewed on the
Today
programme and most other radio and TV news channels had sought him out for comment. An intensely hot summer, six months without rain, then a September Monsoon that resulted in the flooding and subsequent abandonment of whole tracts of East Anglian Fenland. And just when people had started to come to terms with that, half way into October, after a day of glorious sunshine – the Big One came. Not just high winds, fallen trees and blushing weather forecasters; but a real Caribbean style Hurricane. One hundred and thirty mile an hour winds; power black-outs throughout Kent and Sussex; a train blown off a viaduct; whole caravan parks dumped into the sea; three cross-channel ferries wrecked. And a major air crash.

In the Great Storm of 1987, nineteen people lost their lives. The Kent Hurricane claimed more than two thousand – and it would have been five times that if deaths of those whose survival depended on efficient emergency services and functioning electrical systems were included in the figures: the sick and the elderly, the infants and the injured.

Every time Mark was interviewed he dared to state what the politicians fudged: that the summer droughts, the autumn rains and now the Hurricane – all were directly attributable to climate change; that things could only get worse if action were not taken immediately. Amazingly, they’d paid attention. Politicians started wanting to be seen with him. The spring election had been dominated by environmental issues. Angela Walker’s coalition government came to power on a raft of green policies. And there was Mark – right at the heart of things – quietly making suggestions, offering advice, helping with policy. Most, if not all, of Walker’s colleagues wanted to hitch a ride with the rising star.

He should have known better: politicians and the electorate are no less fickle than the weather itself. During the fifteen months in which Mrs Walker’s coalition government has held office, there have been no violent storms, no drought, no extreme weather of any kind. That first summer in power was one of the most glorious on record: warm and sunny, but not scorching hot; perfect weather for watching a ‘Brit’ winning Wimbledon and English teams triumphing at cricket and in football. Many places in the world were suffering drought and famine, floods and devastation, but Britain was again a green and pleasant land.