Dead in the Water (3 page)

He’s stopped at traffic lights half way down Upper Street, Islington, drifting, thinking about Rachel, reminded of the time he first took her in with him to the London
One World
office, just down the next street. That would have been about the time she was taking her mock A Levels. He smiles to himself. A chip off the old block indeed, is Rachel. She’s as stubborn as hell, and he’s dead proud of her, even if she does still cause them endless worry. Who was it who joked when she was born, ‘The first twenty years are the worst’? Well, they were wrong. It’s worse after they’ve left home.

“
Dad,” she said during her birthday meal in early February, a rare occasion when the whole family was together. “You know somebody in Venezuela don’t you.” She made it sound like flattery. Joanna changed the subject, but Rachel is never easily deflected; and if they couldn’t stop her, the best thing was to support her.

He’ll give her a call again as soon as he gets home. If it’s that urgent, she’ll have her phone switched on even if she has gone to bed.

Red to green. He pulls slowly away. He’s just turned onto Pentonville Road when suddenly there are flashing blue lights in the rear view mirror.
Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. What have I done? Just drive. Not too fast, not too slow.
The siren wails. Bloody hell. Mark pulls over. The police car screams past him on its way to fry more important fish.

Pentonville Road, Saint Pancras, Euston Road. It’s a battle to keep his speed down. Dammit, there’s a car behind him, some pillock in a Chelsea Tractor.

“
Keep your bloody distance,” he shouts.

He forks left off the Westway. And the dickhead follows him. What a prat. Left again, and the bastard’s still behind him. Be just his luck if the idiot vehicle behind him is an unmarked police car.

Pedestrian crossing lights turn red. No fucker crossing the road, but he pulls up just the same.

There’s a bang and he’s forced back in his seat. The fucking four-by-four fills his rear view mirror. He stays where he is, not moving, calming himself. This is the last thing he needed. He’s furious, of course he’s furious, but if the police turn up now, they’ll both be breathalysed. He’ll lose his licence and the fuckbrain in the
Defender
, or whatever it is, will get away with a caution.

Stay calm, stay calm.

A knock on the window.

It’s a woman. Why shouldn’t it be? But it’s a shock. What had he been expecting? A close cropped bruiser with a pit bull on a leash?

And as soon as he opens the door, before he can even get out of the car, she says, “I am so sorry.”

She’s wearing a light olive raincoat; unbuttoned, revealing a white blouse with plunging neckline. Deep red hair in waves over her collar. She’s close to tears.

They go round to the back of his car. The four-by-four – it’s a Lexus something-or-other, not a
Defender
– looks undamaged. On Mark’s car, the rear light clusters on both sides are smashed and the hatchback won’t open. If the woman didn’t look so fragile, he’d swear and shout at her. But, knowing that he must smell of booze, he keeps his distance and his cool and forces an unconvincing smile. They exchange names and addresses and he writes down the number of her car.

He’s about to advise her that she shouldn’t admit responsibility, when that is exactly what she does.

“
You really shouldn’t say that,” says Mark. “Your insurance company won’t want to know if you say it’s your fault.”

“
But it was my fault. I ran into you. I was on my phone. And I don’t want to involve the insurance.”

“
Legally, I have to have the name of your insurance company.”

“
Please. Just listen a moment. This is my husband’s car. He’ll be furious. I can’t tell him. I really don’t want to go through the insurance company. I’ll pay for the damage on yours. I’ll sort out everything. Please.”

“
We could be talking a thousand pounds the way these things mount up. Maybe more.”

“
I know.” She sniffs back tears. “Believe me: the alternative would cost far more than that. Please. I’m not asking for pity. I’m not looking for sympathy. I’ll pay. I promise you I will pay. I just don’t want it to go further than this. Please. Just get a quote, and write to me or let me know on my mobile and I’ll get you the money. Cash if you want.”

Rather taken aback, and still slightly shocked from the bump, he agrees.

“
Are you OK?” she says. “I didn’t ask. I’m sorry.”

“
Yes, I’m fine.” He stretches his neck, twists his head. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“
Do you have far to go?”

“
A couple of blocks.”

“
You can’t drive without lights,” she says.

“
A couple of hundred yards.”

“
Shall I follow you back? I’ll keep my distance.” She smiles. The first time he has seen her smile. “I’d hate the police to be involved.”

“
Thank you.” He looks at the paper with her details on it. ‘Daniella Gilman’.

“
Thank you Mrs Gilman.”

When he reaches the square near Lancaster Gate, he reverses into his parking spot, so the damaged rear lights aren’t there for all to see. As he gets to the outside door of his apartment, he turns. She’s waited. That’s nice. She lifts a hand to acknowledge him. He smiles and waves. She waves back and drives off.

Climbing the stone staircase with its plush carpet, he muses that things could be worse. He’s upset about the argument with Sara, but it was a great meal and they’ll have a weekend together in just over three weeks. And Rachel seemed in very good spirits. Before going to bed he tries ringing her again. Her phone must be switched off. Maybe she really is having an early night.

* * *

He dreams of driving with Sara down a country lane. It’s dark. No markings on the road, no cats eyes, no kerb. A tunnel ahead. The entrance blocked. Mark stamps on the brakes. “You’re drunk. You bastard. You’re drunk.” Sara’s yelling drowned out by the thunderous boom of rock falling all around them.

“
Sara, are you alright? Sara.”

He sits upright in bed.

There is no car, no accident, no Sara.

Reassured by the calm green glow of 2.27 on the clock radio, he gets out of bed, stumbles for a pee, takes a couple of painkillers to ward off a possible hangover, checks that he set the alarm and goes back into bed. Something must have woken him. Goodness knows what. Now is not the time to worry about it.

3
Amazonas

Rachel is no more than ten yards down Pablo’s path before gunfire opens up again. Automatic weapons strafing the forest. She throws herself to the ground, then, keeping herself as flat as possible, worms her way behind a tree and curls up small, as if she were an animal feigning dead. She wants to call out for José Dias, but dares not make a sound, even with insects crawling over her.

For half an hour or so, the sound of occasional gunfire batters the night, splintering trees and setting off howls of panic amongst the monkeys and birds. Then it stops. Maybe they reckon they’ve killed everybody, or maybe they aren’t too bothered, assuming nobody can survive in the forest alone. Maybe they’re right.

She waits until the helicopter takes off from the clearing. She waits as it hovers overhead, searchlight vainly trying to penetrate the forest, doubly darkened by torrential rain and tangled vegetation, before it flies off. And then she waits some more.

Only when the flames from the burning settlement have reduced to embers, does she flee, struggling into the forest along the narrow trail that leads to the other tree hide. Thankfully, the clouds have cleared and enough moonlight seeps through the forest canopy to enable her to find what she’s looking for. Strapping the video camera to her forehead, and using the built-in light as if it were a miner’s helmet, she climbs the rope ladder and checks for snakes and scorpions before entering the little cabin. Like her own childhood tree house, this one has walls and a roof.

Standing in the doorway, she tries the satphone again. Briefly she gets a signal, but Jeremy Peter’s phone is switched off. And then the connection goes down again.

She has enough of her wits about her to plaster her hands, her face, her neck, every inch of exposed flesh, with insect repellent before curling up in a corner, still in shock. And there, stinking of Deet, she stays for the rest of the night, drifting occasionally into fitful sleep, but not much wanting to. Her head is still hissing with radio static, the after shock of gunfire and grenades; and every time she shuts her eyes she sees Xiomara, her body lying broken in the mud, folded in ways it shouldn’t. The pool of blood around the girl’s head slowly filling.

Don’t sleep
, she says to herself.
Don’t shut your eyes. Don’t even shut your eyes.

Xiomara’s mother knocked backwards by bullets as if hit by a lorry. Flames reaching high into the heavy black smoke above. The acrid smells of burning, of gunfire and grenades clinging to her clothes; sulphur sticking in her throat. A sickening memory of burnt hair and flesh. Then nothing. No thoughts. No feelings. Numb. Cold inside her head. And in spite of the humidity, she shivers.

Don’t sleep. Don’t sleep
. Dreading that her dreams will take her back to the clearing.

Until suddenly, as dawn breaks over the forest, she jolts awake, realises that she has fallen into … Into what? If not sleep, then at least a temporary oblivion. She listens for gunfire, machinery, explosions; alert to any unfamiliar sound. But the forest has already forgotten the massacre. When creatures die, they metamorphose: leaf-fall turns to compost, mammal flesh to insect larvae.

She claims the few tins of basic rations stored in the hut, together with a compass, machete and survival bag. She’s about to leave the hide, when she’s struck by something akin to vertigo. The horrors of the night and lack of sleep have taken their toll; the prospect of climbing back down the rope ladder unnerves her, and she freezes, trying to unpick a plan of action from her knotted terrors.

The satlink should have transmitted direct to the
One World
office in Caracas. They could well be watching it even now. But José taught her that you shouldn’t rely on the images getting through without corruption. The in-camera digi-card recording must survive. She has to make sure people see the video.

But how to get out of the forest? It’s far too dangerous to follow the dirt road down which they brought their strange machinery. The alternative is to aim for the river. She knows where José Dias hid the small inflatable. If she can get to the river, then all she has to do is carry on downstream until eventually it meets the Orinoco. The
Forest People’s Alliance
outpost in Esmerelda
is only thirty miles or so from the
Meeting of Rivers
. As long as the boat doesn’t overturn or deflate, she won’t even need to navigate. The river will be the safest place.

In her head she may have got herself as far as Esmerelda, but she is no closer to the forest floor than she was five minutes ago. It takes an effort of will to move: she has a compass, the machete, a survival bag, and she has the video camera and satlink. When she gets to the ground she takes a compass bearing and sets off in a South Westerly direction, heading for the river.

Above the clamour of sound that pervades the forest, she hears her name. Someone is quietly calling her name. “Miss Boyd?”

She turns, looks where she thinks the voice is coming from, wondering briefly if a parrot has overheard her name in the village. Then stops, chilled by the thought that hearing her own name in the chaos of the forest is a kind of lunacy, that the voice is inside her head.

“
Raq-hel?” A man’s voice.

They must know she survived the massacre. They must know about the video.

Why don’t they just shoot her?

On the path ahead a man is holding a pistol.

“
Raqhel?”

She freezes.

“
Raqhel.”

It is José Dias. She wraps her arms around him and holds him to her. Her eyes are watering.

As she steps back from their embrace, she realises that her right hand is covered in blood. When the hell did that happen? But it is José who is injured; the left sleeve of his shirt torn off as an improvised bandage to cover his wounded upper arm.

He refuses to allow her to look at the wound. “I am OK, Raqhel. Is a splinter. No more.”

“
Shrapnel?”

“
Maybe. Is OK. See.” And he moves his arm to prove to her that there are no broken bones. He’s clearly in pain, but there’s nothing she can do that he hasn’t done already. They have no medical kit; and if he says he’s alright, how can she argue?

“
I was heading for the river,” says Rachel.

“
Good. Very good.”

“
How far is it?”

José shrugs. “You have the compass?”

“
Yes,” she says.

“
Good. Maybe one day to the river. Maybe two days from there to Esmerelda.”