Solomon's Keepers (24 page)

Twenty-two

The autumn air is cold and Shaw can see his breath in front of him as he pauses to check the street map on his phone. Eva’s place is only a turn away and he’s early.

‘Get me something I can use. Speak to the girl, and quickly.’ Dooley had said. ‘If she’s been rattling their cages as hard as ours then Matzov will squash her.’

He hadn’t been happy with the conclusion of a defection; ‘a de-fucking-bacle,’ he’d called it, but he backed Shaw’s judgement. Brodzky had loaded a spare Solomon chip, artfully flecked with a few traces of Rees’s blood, and sent that over to Belvoir. He was smart enough and there appeared to be no one else close with the interest, talent or motivation to stop him. A forensic team might prove something but the pressing priority had moved on.

The British weren’t playing along. The government faced an election and Matzov had them on the run. The usual services people were amenable and had provided Eva’s email and call records, but now they were backing off. ‘So do it quietly and before it’s too late.’ Dooley had said, He’d explained how.

Five forty-five in the afternoon. The street he turns into is quiet and Shaw can see Eva’s red Fiat parked on the street. The number checks out. Their email exchange had said six, had said he was an official liaison officer for the US Army, sounded earnest and polite. But it’s cold and she’ll be there so he walks up the three stone steps to the front door. There’s a panel of buttons. The bell for the ground floor apartment reads Smith/Aguilar and makes a buried drilling sound.

She stands square on as the door swings open. She’s wearing desert boots, jeans and a loose green sweater. She’s disarmingly attractive. An air of rehearsed defiance – one hand on hip, red tinted hair tied up and steady gaze waiting to take a reading.

‘Shaw?’

‘Miss Aguilar?’

‘You have some ID?’

He hunches his shoulders and pauses. Then turns on a half smile. Had she expected someone older, with gravitas?

‘I’ve got your emails here – and here’s me – one in uniform and serious – and a passport – it doesn’t get worse than that.’

She hands them back and nods him in. He follows her through the lounge. There’s a bay window overlooking the street at the front and most of the space is taken up with a long table covered in newspaper. The place smells of paint. At the back is a door to the kitchen and a pine table and chairs by a picture window to the garden.

‘Take a seat. You can chuck your coat on there if you like.’

‘I took a stroll from the subway. It’s a lot like my home town, Boston? I seemed to get here a lot quicker than I thought. I thought I’d be sitting on the step for a while.’

‘Not a good idea in this weather. Would you like some coffee?’

He looks around while she gets it. There are books stacked against the wall, eclectic paintings, mostly strident but a couple of little watercolours, artful nets at the bay window. On the newspaper-clad long table there are various curved wooden sheets like abandoned armour.

You an artist? He calls through.

‘It’s a chair. Will be a chair. It goes on a rope, believe it or not. Actually, a friend’s.’

She’s still hesitant when she sits down.

‘And what about you, Mister…Lieutenant Shaw? What are you and what have you come all this way for? I’m not sure what to expect after the responses I’ve had from your people. Am I in the nuisance and nutters category?’

Her eyes are sparky but tired. She has both hands around her coffee mug. She’s watching intently.

‘Do I call you Eva or…?’

She nods.

‘Eva, at my pay grade they don’t issue travel warrants to go visit nutters. I get to handle situations that…pose challenges, usually legal ones but situations that are causing us real problems and which we need to sort out. In this case I don’t even know yet. Your observations don’t fit into the world as we understand it and we don’t know what to make of them. This whole situation – this new KomViva thing – it’s all pretty mind-boggling, isn’t it? But I’m very sorry for what you’ve gone through. And if we’ve been less than helpful I offer my genuine apologies. I don’t think you’re a nutter or a nuisance. I don’t know what you are or quite what category this belongs in. Perhaps we should come up with the label together.’

‘So what are you? What do they call you? What exactly do you do?’

‘I’m an investigator. I get to the facts and I make a case for what we do about them. Other people decide. If I do my job well and present a cogent case then hopefully they make a good decision.’

‘I see. The facts, and cogent cases. Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend, Shaw – someone special?’

‘Well, I’m engaged, yes…’

‘What’s she like?’

‘You mean…’

‘What’s she like? What does she look like? How old is she? What does she wear? What’s her voice like? I’d like some facts about her.’ Eva spreads her hands and gestures as though introducing a ghost approaching from one side. ‘If she were here now, what would she say? What would she smell like? Can you picture her? How does she move?’ Her arms are painting in the air.

Shaw watches her for a moment, thinking.

‘She’s dark. Slim, dark hair, real pretty. She’s a runner. She’s…I don’t know, she’s…’

‘Is she my height, or taller?’

‘A bit taller.’

‘And her skin – like mine? Darker?’

‘About the same. A bit paler.’

‘What colour are her eyes?’

‘Brown – look, I think I know where you’re headed…’

‘Shaw, could you tell her in a room full of people if you were blindfolded?’

‘I guess so.’

Eva leans in. ‘Up close now, touching, eyes wide open…naked – would you know your fiancée from any other woman in the world?’

He has to say it, but the yes is genuine.

Eva leans back. Her mobile goes. She looks at the screen. ‘Sorry, would you excuse me a moment.’ She steps into the kitchen, lowers her voice.

‘Yes. Yes it is. No, nobody. No, tonight? Yes. How will I…? An hour…well I’m with someone but yes, I see. Okay. Yes. One hour. Who…? I see. Yes…Yes. Alright.’

She is ashen when she steps back onto the room.

Shaw has been listening and also wondering how to take this forward and is shocked.

‘You alright?’ He’s half on his feet.

She slumps into the chair, and then rallies. ‘I’ve got to leave…in an hour. Where were we?’

Shaw sees he’s losing her. ‘Suppose I cut to the chase and say I believe you – but I can’t put the whole picture together? Suppose I say that you’ve put the cat amongst the pigeons, we’re used to order and discipline and being in control and you’ve knocked us back and made us question – realise that things are not what they seem. Suppose that right now people are saying it is just possible that you’re right. But that then raises a lot more questions. We may have rebutted you, pushed you off – but suppose we are willing now to really listen. We really do want to get to the bottom of this. Will you help me?’

‘You think he’s alive?’ Eva’s hand reaches forward and she grips his arm, eyes boring into him. ‘You didn’t come here on a maybe, did you? Are you saying you think he’s alive too?’

‘Jesus, if you only knew, I do not want to raise any false hopes or fears or expectations – I really don’t. But – I’m willing to entertain the idea that – he may be.’

Eva’s on her feet now. ‘No maybes! To hell with maybe! I need a yes or a no!’

Shaw stands across the little table and reaches out. She pulls her hands away.

‘Eva, Eva – listen to me, calm down. I am going to help you. I am going to do what I can and I want the answer to be a yes. God knows I do – but you have got to help me here.’

‘Why? He’s not with you any more is he? You said he was dead. You said you cremated him. I met his mother and she told me about scattering his ashes for Christ’s sake! That’s how much help you were! Now you think you know where he is and you want him back. What have you done? You took him away. Not even a word. What did you do to him?’

‘Eva, I…I can’t tell you everything. We had every reason to….’

‘Get out of here! You can’t help me, can you? You’re here on a fishing trip. I’ve found out more than you know. That’s the truth isn’t it? You need me but I certainly don’t need you. What do you want – to kill him all over again? I should have listened to them and not talked to you. We are done here!’

Eva lunges way from the table. Tears are flowing. She hits the long table as she passes and newspapers shuffle to the floor. She strides across to the front door. The mobile is in her hand. ‘Get out – or I’m going to call the police. Get out and forget we ever spoke. Rees is dead. Just like they said – I’m confused and sad, a crazy woman pestering the United States army in their glorious pursuit of whatever it is that they substitute for happiness…at ever greater human cost. Now leave me alone.’

Shaw is right behind her. He reaches across but changes his mind.

‘Alright, I’ll go. But listen to me one more minute. Sure we want him back. We never wanted to lose him and we’re pissed that we did. And if we’ve made the terrible mistake you’re suggesting – and which I now believe we have, we will make it right. Right the way to the top we’re pissed about it. Feel pretty stupid too. But the important thing is what we do now, right? We can make it right, Eva.’

‘Sure. Be seeing ya.’

He’s in the hallway now and the door is open. He half turns. Last shot and not sure she’s listening.

‘Eva, did you talk to Network One yet? You haven’t told them about this, have you?’

‘Oh no – don’t go there. They’re like you – it’s all a fantasy – a figment of my KomViva-addled imagination.’

‘But you talked to them, right?’

‘Good bye Lieutenant.’

She goes to close the door but he’s still in the doorway.

‘Eva, listen to me. What you said just now – you should have listened to them – is that who you meant. You mustn’t believe them, let them take you in.’

‘Why not? I need them to change their tune like you’ve changed yours. They don’t seem to want to.’

‘What does that tell you?’

‘It tells me that I don’t trust any of you. You’re as bad as each other and you use people. Now you want to use me.’

Shaw pushes back in. Eva shrieks and throws herself in front of him to stop him but he pushes her in and closes the door. Somehow she loses her footing and goes down; she clutches at his jacket and slides to the floor. He is crouching over her and she strikes wildly, catching him in the mouth.

He picks her up, pinions her arms to her side and carries her bodily through the lounge and back to the table. Her mobile phone goes off in the hall where she’s dropped it. She tries to stand but he pushes her down.

‘Let me up you bastard.’

‘Shut up, Eva! Shut up and listen. Calm down and think. Your life may just depend upon it. Just listen to me.’ He waits for her breathing to settle. He speaks slowly and clearly. ‘They will not let you blow his cover. Do you know what it took for them to get this far, to get here, have you any idea how much is at stake for them? Do you know what happened to Rees, what it took to…prepare him, to train him, what they have risked to get him, what they are prepared to do to make sure we do not get him back? His life and yours are nothing to them in this. Don’t you see? It’s much bigger than that. You must think now.’

She seems drained. ‘They are going to let me meet him. To prove it isn’t him.’ She starts laughing. ‘You see, you think he’s alive now but they insist it’s just an illusion. It’s the way my mind works, superimposing the familiar, the desired, on to KomViva. They say it’s happened before.’

‘You don’t believe that, do you?’

‘I haven’t much to lose, have I? All you have to go on is my conviction – and they are going to prove to me that I’m wrong. Then it all goes away, doesn’t it?’

‘The hell it does. You’ve everything to lose, just when you’ve everything to gain. He has her hands in his now. Eva, Eva, let’s just look at this together. Think about it. Who stands to lose if you’re right and who stands to gain?’

‘Will you take him away again?’

‘Eva, he signed up to be part of a military programme. Nobody forced him to do that. He had a choice. It was his decision.’

‘He mentioned me, didn’t he? I mean you wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t.’

‘He did. Yes. And his friends knew. They didn’t want to say anything of course until…. There was a ban on…relationships…in the run up. You must have known that. I know it seems a bit primitive but look where we are, the added complication. The idea was single guys able to act for themselves and…you just got caught in that at the wrong time.’

‘Why did he go to them? Why the story about being killed in action?’

He’s backing off, trying to decide where to restart and how much to tell her. She leans back. Suddenly she notices the blood on his face and seems to come to. ‘You’re bleeding. Sorry, let me…’ She gets some kitchen roll and he wipes it away, a cut inside his lip.

He takes a deep breath. ‘Eva, we never had this conversation, understand? We thought he died. He was injured. He was taken to a special place – a hospital that specialises in treating the…Did he ever tell you what was happening?’