Dead in the Water (27 page)

He’s dreading this encounter. But better to come in person than talk over the phone. Allan Hunter he remembers from the conversations they had when he was working for
One World
; but Suzie? He has no idea who Suzie is.

There’s a sound of someone moving around inside. Then the door opens – no more than the few inches that the security chain allows.

“
What do you want?” A woman’s voice comes from behind the door; a hint of Scouse about the accent.

“
Miss White, my name’s Mark Boyd. I’ve come to talk about Allan.”

“
I’ve answered all the questions I’m going to answer. If you want anything else you’ll have to arrest me.”

“
I’m not the police. Cathy Barnes at
One World
said ––”

“
I’ve had enough. Right. I’ve nothing to say.”

“
I’m sorry to just turn up out of the blue like this.” He’s expecting her to shut the door on him; but it doesn’t move. “I work for Angela Walker. I can’t promise anything, but I do have contacts and I helped Allan once before.” A face appears in the space between the door and the frame. He smiles. “I can’t promise anything, but I want to do whatever I can.”

“
I really don’t know why you want to see me.”

“
If I’m going to try to pull strings, I just need to know a bit more. The police won’t tell me anything.”

She breathes in, as if about to speak, then hesitates, could almost be holding her breath. “OK,” she says wearily, then fumbles with the chain and opens the door. Mark offers his hand and introduces himself again.

She’s tall, nearly six foot. As he recalls, Allan was short and wiry, probably no more than five foot seven. She’s not wearing any make up and her blond shoulder length hair has not been washed in several days.

A tumbler of red wine stands on the glass coffee table. She takes a drink without offering any to Mark. Why should she? She curls into a corner of the maroon leather sofa, tucking her feet beneath her, aims the remote and turns the television off.

Suzie is distressed and her story is disturbing – but she’s not maudlin, there’s no self pity in her. In spite of what she said at the door, she’s desperate for someone to listen to her talking about Allan. And, for all his sometime selfishness, Mark can be a good listener. After a lengthy interview with the police, she spent much of Sunday and Monday finding a good solicitor to take on the case – but neither she nor the solicitor have yet been allowed access to Allan. She’s spoken to her MP, who has said he will do what he can; but she’s as much in the dark now as she was when she heard about Allan’s arrest on Saturday. On Wednesday she was back to work in the secondary school where she teaches art, did the job, avoided the staff room and came straight home after school. Mark was right about the accent; her folks are still in Liverpool, but she’s not gone back. They never got on with Allan.

“
Would you like a glass of wine?” she asks.

He’d love one; but says he’d better not. “Do you mind me asking about Allan?”

“
Ask.”

“
Why do you think they arrested him? It wasn’t the CARECO thing was it?”

“
That probably got him on their files.”

“
I’m on their files,” says Mark. “I’m sure of it. Every member of
One World
,
Greenpeace
,
Friends of the Earth
,
Amnesty
is probably on their files.” And, he wouldn’t be surprised, given the way things are going, probably the
RSPB
as well. “Apart from the van, was there anything in the week before he was arrested that could have –– ?”

“
You mean anyone he’d seen? Did he have secret meetings? Was he more affectionate than usual? More distant? The police asked me all that. I don’t know. You look back. You look for tiny clues. Like the night the van was nicked. Did he call anyone? Was he late home from work? And you know what, the answer is I just don’t know because we didn’t live that regular lives. I like a lie in at weekends. He gets up early. Brings me a cup of tea. That’s what he did on Saturday.”

“
I don’t mean did he do anything wrong. I mean was there anything, anything at all that the police might have misinterpreted?”

She fills her glass, offers him the bottle again.

“
He was working for that politician. The Tory, the one who’s on the telly a lot. Had to go round a couple of times. Stoke Newington I think he said it was.”

“
Andrew Linden?” Mark has to consciously conceal his shock.

“
Maybe. I don’t know their names. Measuring up, drawing up plans. Big house, Allan said. And he was having the works. Allan was dead chuffed. Would have paid well, he reckoned. Maybe that got them twitched. You know, working for a politician.”

“
Had he started the job?”

“
He’d delivered all the plans. Usually takes six weeks or so from giving the client the plans. They have to order stuff in.”

“
And what does he actually do when he measures up for these plans?”

“
I don’t know. I never go with him. I know he has to go up in the loft. Comes back filthy sometimes. Fibreglass insulation can be, you know ––”

“
Yes.”

When Mark went round to the house on Sunday, Linden must have known that Allan had been arrested. That was an informal meeting of the inner cabinet, the Coven. If the police suspected Allan of being involved with the
Angels
, they’d have been through that house with a toothcomb. Or insisted on an alternative venue until they could guarantee it was safe. Surely Linden would have mentioned that. And Mark recalls him even boasting about having the work done.

“
I actually know Andrew Linden. I wouldn’t call him a friend; but we get on pretty well. I have a meeting with the Prime Minister tomorrow. I don’t know if it will make any difference, but I promise you I’ll do what I can.”

She nods and smiles gratefully, and seems to have more faith than Mark that having the ear of the Prime Minister will get Allan released.

“
There is something else,” says Mark. “My son’s gone missing. Stephen. He’s 20. It’s nothing compared with what’s happened to Allan. But we’re worried. I’m trying to get in touch with a John Lacey. I think John and Stephen knew each other quite well.”

“
The police asked me about John Lacey. He popped in a couple of times for a drink. Never stayed long.”

“
I don’t suppose you have his phone number do you?”

“
The police took the computer. Still haven’t brought it back. I need that. I’ve got lesson plans. Schemes of work. All kinds of things on it.” She looks tired, her attention seems to be drifting.

“
That’s outrageous,” says Mark. “They should have returned that. I will do what I can. I promise.”

“
I’ve got the address book though.” She gestures to it, lying on the coffee table next to a portable phone. “When I went to the police station with the solicitor they gave me a plastic bag with all the paper stuff they’d taken. Have a look if you want.”

Lacey, John. He writes down an address in Wood Green and two phone numbers.

Mark leads the way into the hall. The stained glass is lit up: a pale yellow crescent moon and white stars against an indigo blue background.

“
The picture glass is very beautiful.”

“
Thank you. Allan’s friend Dave made the door. I do the glass. Kind of hobby. I sell odd bits and pieces to friends.”

“
Thanks for talking to me Suzie.”

“
Thanks for coming. Sorry I was so rude when you arrived.”

“
Anybody would be. I’ll be in touch.”

“
Thank you.”

Her trust in him is touching and humbling.

Walking back to the car, dodging round the overflowing skip, he rings both numbers for John Lacey. No reply on landline or mobile. He leaves a message on both.

The sky has cleared. It’s a mild night. With any luck he’ll be at
The Malabar Palms
before Sara.

51
Roraima, Brazil

“
That risky, was it?”

They have escaped the dark corridor of the
estirón
and are climbing slowly away from the tree canopy.

“
There’s a first time for everything, Jez.” Terry has nothing to add and suggests that Jeremy goes back into the cabin to look after their passenger. So, while Terry nurses the plane over the Sierra Parima, Jeremy sits with Rachel, who drifts in and out of consciousness. When she is awake, she alternates between hyperactive chatter and a disquieting silent stare. He tries to soothe her, to assure her she’s safe, to convince her that he … that he what? They’ve only spent two days together. That he cares for her far more than he should?

Her story surfaces as flashes of memory; and Jeremy struggles to make sense of the chronology. She doesn’t know what happened to José, can’t remember being picked up by Sanders and his goon; but the little hide bag with the camera and the phones is where she says she put it – in her pocket. The documents she took from the dead man by the helicopter are waterlogged and illegible, and the camera’s not working, but that could be because the battery’s dead. Jeremy is still unsure that he has the order of events right when her eyes close again. He has, however, managed to piece together at least something of what’s happened in the past week or so. Best let her rest. He returns to the cockpit and retakes his co-pilot’s seat. “Where are we boss?” he asks with strained good humour.

“
About an hour to Boa Vista. We’ve just crossed the border.” The instruments read seven thousand feet above sea level and they’re descending slowly towards the unbroken green of the canopy below.

“
Not much sign of a border.”

“
What do you expect? A thin red line? Believe me, JP, we’re in Brazilian air space.”

“
Have we crossed the mountains?”

“
We’re not talking about The Andes, JP. Four thousand feet. How’s your little friend in the back?” Jeremy is more aware of the gaps and mysteries in retelling Rachel’s story than he had been when listening to it. Dias and da Silva were good men, both of them. Good colleagues. Fine honest men. And Chimo and Ronaldo. What happened to them? Did Sanders dispose of them? Who else? Who next?

“
You believe her?” asks Terry.

“
The massacre. Yes. It fits. I’ve no doubt about it. The Yanomami stuff. Who knows?”

“
She’ll be OK,” says Terry, his expression inscrutable, the silence between them as heavy as clouds; the dull throbbing of the engine thrumming in Jeremy’s ears like a childhood fever.

What to do with Rachel? If the camera has the evidence that Rachel thinks it does, then London would be the best place to go with it. The world needs to know what’s happening in Venezuela. Rachel is the daughter of a key government adviser. She has a personal story to tell. That will guarantee it news status. He’s beginning to formulate a plan when Terry interrupts his thoughts: “And where does the Yank fit in to all this?”

Jeremy shakes his head. “God knows. One thing’s certain though. Boyd didn’t ask him to come looking for her. But somebody did. You did a job for him before?”

Terry thinks about this, as if talking about other clients were the freelance pilot’s equivalent of breaking the Hippocratic oath. “A couple of months ago. Him and a couple of Chinks. Took a lot of photographs. They had various gadgets with them. In my job you ask too many questions, you don’t get the work. And not everyone wants to go to
Angel Falls
. ”

“
Chinese?”

“
A lot of them in Venezuela. Have been for some time. Chummying up to Hugo Chavez before he got whacked. This may be America’s backyard, but you go shitting on a leader who’s a popular guy, he’s going to make friends elsewhere.”

“
Were they surveying?”

“
Fuck knows, Jezza. Like I said, I’m a pilot, not a detective.”

“
Resource wars. It’s where it starts. Where no-one can see it.”

“
Who knows,” snaps Terry, shutting down the conversation. Since Jeremy returned to the cockpit, Terry has become increasingly tense; and they fall back into the isolation of their private anxieties, separated by the dull drone of the engine.

“
I don’t suppose your woman’s got a medical card and a passport in her Yanomami lunch bag?”

“
There’s a video camera, a satphone, some waterlogged documents and a piece of dried meat.”

“
She’s not going to be popular with Brazilian immigration control.”

“
Are we?”

“
You got your passport haven’t you. I told you to bring it when we talked on the phone.”

Jeremy checks an inside zip-up pocket of the overalls that he’s still wearing. He has his passport and a couple of hundred US dollars. “I’m in your hands.”

“
I guess you don’t have much choice.” Terry is focused on his instruments. Then he presses a button on the radio and changes to the international VHF distress frequency: “MAYDAY. MAYDAY. MAYDAY. Cessna Floatplane Yankee Victor – Lima Foxtrot Tango Bravo. Cessna Two Zero Six Floatplane. Engine malfunction. Estimated position six five miles south east Boa Vista. Heading East North East. Now descending through four thousand. Intend emergency landing Rio Branco. MAYDAY. MAYDAY. MAYDAY.”