The Sand Men (38 page)

‘They’re not anymore,’ said Lea. ‘They’re fair game. But you’re right, it’s my fault. I neglected Cara, I should have been watching her more carefully, like Milo told me to.’

She stopped, breathless and angry, realising that Colette was crying. She stepped forward and hugged her without thinking, staying tight even as Colette fought to push her away. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,  it should never have happened. We have to stick together and see it through, for their sake. My husband is involved, and your husband too. But Ben couldn’t go through with it and they tried to kill him.’

Colette disentangled herself and stepped back. ‘Will you listen to yourself? You make up these stories. Dr Vance warned us about you. He says you’re not well. Why would you say such a thing? All I want to do is be with my family. I want my daughter to come home. I want my sweet girl back.’

She turned and ran to the safety of her house.

Lea was watching Colette leave when she realised a car had pulled up, and then Roy was there with Rashad and Hardy, standing before her with his arms held slightly out, looking at her as if he expected her to rush into his embrace. He was wearing new chinos and a white shirt she’d never seen before.

On the front lawn, a small hand-held garden fork had been left in the flowerbed. She picked it up and kept it ready in her right hand.

‘Leo and Rashad told me what happened,’ said Roy, keeping the others back and taking a step toward her. ‘I’m sorry it came to this. I know you’re thinking lots of crazy stuff right now, but can you at least let me explain.’

It was as if she was looking at him for the first time. She saw blackness in his eyes, the taint of greed. She saw that he would say anything now for it to be over.

‘I just want to know,’ she said. ‘How did they phrase the deal to you? Did they drop it into the conversation casually, over lunch? How do you tell a man you’ll give him everything he ever wanted in return for his daughter? Or did they even fool you at first?’

He took a step towards her. ‘It’s not like that, Lea—I’ve spoken to Cara and everything is going to be all right. There’s nothing that can’t be fixed. The kids didn’t realise what they were doing. We need to sort this out with the authorities as quickly as possible.’ He could no longer look at her. Lea recognised the change in his features. It was the attitude he adopted when he had made up his mind and would not be turned.

‘We need to know who’s helping you, Mrs Brook,’ said Rashad.

‘What are you talking about, Rashad?’

‘Your prints are over everything at the beach house, Lea,’ said her husband. ‘They think you’ve been in contact with a terrorism organisation.’

She ignored him and turned to Rashad. ‘You must be able to see what’s going on. Don’t you see what they’re doing?’

‘There were bomb threats,’ said Rashad. ‘They came from your house.’

‘Of course they did—the girls—’

It was too late. She saw how tightly the noose had been drawn around her neck.

‘Please, darling, you just need to tell everyone the truth. Did you plant the bomb outside the Coopers’ house? Did it go off before you could get away? Did Milo put you up to it?’

‘I think we should take your wife to the police now, Roy,’ said Hardy, moving toward her. ‘She can make a full statement there.’

‘You all know the truth,’ she said coolly. ‘I don’t know why we have to go through this charade. I don’t need to explain anything.’

‘Then let me take you in so that we can clear it all up.’ There was a darker tone in his voice now.

‘You’re not the man I married,’ she said evenly. ‘But I know what you are.’

‘What am I, Lea?’ he asked, walking forward, daring her. ‘What am I?’

‘You are the Ka’al.’

She raised a hand and struck Roy’s face hard with the hand-rake, dragging its tines down across his cheek. As the flesh of his right cheek split wide he cried out and tried to cover the stream of blood with his hands, humiliated at being attacked in public. She brought the handle down hard on his nose, feeling the crack of cartilage and would have put out his eyes if Hardy hadn’t jumped at her.

She turned to the security chief. ‘How much do they pay you to look away, Leo? How long do they keep the girls down there before they decide to get rid of them?’

‘I knew you were trouble the first time I met you,’ said Hardy with soft menace. He was physically imposing, but was wary of coming within range of her weapon. Roy had fallen back against the vehicle, his white shirt soaked in blood.

Across the road, the curtains flicked in a dozen houses but no-one came out to help her. Hardy feinted to one side, then the other as she brandished the fork, knowing even as she did so that he would easily take her. When he charged forward she was caught by surprise and thrown over on her back.

‘Let me take care of her,’ said Roy, spitting through red teeth and split lips.

‘Keep the fuck away from me,’ said Lea, clawing at him as Hardy dragged her to his Land Rover one-handed, holding her wrists. He shoved her into the passenger seat as Rashad climbed into the back, then centrally locked the doors.

Roy kept his hand over one half of his face as he took one last look at her. Then he headed for his BMW.

Lea fell back in her seat, defeated. Hardy started the engine and tapped out a cigar.

‘Those things are going to kill you, man,’ said Rashad.

‘I’m not asking you to smoke them for me.’ He cupped his hands over the end and drew hard until it glowed, tossing the match out of the window.

‘My daughter,’ said Lea quietly. They ignored her. ‘She’s fifteen years old. Norah is sixteen. Dean is sixteen. Joia Chalmers was just thirteen years old.’

‘You could have told me you were behind me, brah,’ Rashad told Hardy as they drove off, ignoring Lea.

‘I was hanging back, trying to stay out of your rear-view mirror.’

They were talking about the trip she made to the resort with Rashad. Hardy had followed them. Her heart sank.

It’s a power-fucking male conspiracy,
Rachel had told her. ‘You’ve both been played and you don’t even see it,’ she said, her interest in them fading.

‘I think she’s taken a shine to you,’ said Hardy over his shoulder. ‘I never had you down for a ladykiller, being a Hindu.’

‘You were a fucking ignoramus in Kenya,’ said Rashad, ‘and you’re no better now.’

‘Really? I’m smart enough to leave you with the shit work, ya?’ He laughed.

Rashad checked his Rolex. ‘Man, I was supposed to be home ages ago, and now we got to go via the police.’

Hardy compared his watch to Rashad’s. ‘That’s a fake, right? You should buy yourself a real one. That thing looks like shit. I’m taking the other exit, the cops by the main entrance are running around like a bunch of
Iftar
chickens. If they see her in the back, they’ll stage an intercept to get all the fucking credit.’

The Land Rover was heading toward the tunnel Lea had cleared with Rashad, the exit that would take them under the main highway. Hardy was driving fast. The door locks were down.

She tried to think of a way out. They would have to take her to the police, where she would be charged with conspiracy to kill under the terrorism act, and she would disappear along with Cara and the others.

She sank further into her seat, realising she had travelled to this young country carrying the seeds of harm within her own family. The worm had always been in the bud. She had imported it from the West, like someone slipping through customs with a banned import.

The Land Rover turned off and descended to the tunnel. Hardy couldn’t risk taking her through the main checkpoint, just in case she tried to pull something. He was heading for the Central Dubai Police Headquarters.

She knew what would happen now, had read about it often enough. Her request for legal representation would be denied under the prevention of terrorism ruling that allowed her to be indefinitely held, but a deputy from the British Embassy would doubtless appear with suspicious speed to act as a go-between.

Perhaps Mr Qasim would come along to watch another westerner disgraced. They would carefully explain their reasons for holding her. They would treat her well. Perhaps he would agree to release her in Roy’s custody after certain statements had been signed.

If they covered their tracks cleverly enough, Cara and her friends might manage to stay free, but only if she believed what Lea had told her. She was the only adult who admitted the truth, and nobody would listen now. They wouldn’t hear her unless she said what they wanted her to say, that she had made bomb threats to the resort in a misguided attack on the phantoms who had supposedly taken the compound’s children. That she was not well, that she needed medical help. Roy would probably prefer it if she was held at the station until she could be charged, just to make the grand opening of Dream World easier.

She could see the progression in seamless continuity at last, beginning with the man who froze to death on the beach, moving through Tom and Milo and Rachel and Ben, culminating in the resort’s public launch, broadcast live in sixty different countries. Share prices soaring, companies growing, multi-million dollar deals, a round-up of troublemakers that turned the world’s attention away from secret detentions, torture, paedophilia, rape and murder, then on to the next resort with no chance of ever stopping the cycle, the most extreme perverts gradually replaced by subtler new members. An entropic cascade of corruption, always learning from the past, becoming ever more insidious and sophisticated.

As Hardy swung the Land Rover toward their final destination of the evening, she knew all that was left was for the players to follow the predetermined script. Corruption was controlled in the same way that modern warfare was conducted, from a distance, behind banks of flickering screens. Jail a tourist, send a signal, sign the big deals behind closed doors.

Hardy flicked on the headlights as they entered the tunnel. ‘Shit, you could have cleared this better,’ he complained, looking at the broken pallets pushed against tunnel walls.

‘Mrs Brook helped me,’ said Rashad. ‘We were in a hurry.’

Something ran in front of the car. She tried to see between the headrests.

‘Fuck, man. What was that?’ asked Hardy.

There was a odd puckering sound and something obscured part of the windscreen. She thought at first that someone had thrown eggs at the Land Rover, then realised that there were holes in the spiderwebbed glass. She had never heard real gunfire before, and was surprised that it sounded so oddly undramatic. Hardy swore and ducked, then grunted and flopped toward the centre of the car. A flap on the side of his head had dropped down like a red trapdoor, and a fine mist of blood darkened the window.

She reached forward and tried to work out the central locking system as Rashad grabbed at her.

Punching down at the switch, she slipped her sweat-slick arm from his fist, kicking at the passenger handle as the windscreen took another hit. With the high door acting as a break she dropped low, falling to the ground and moving back behind the vehicle. Rashad was coming at her now, and she could hear others moving.

She ran back toward the tunnel entrance with Rashad in pursuit and shouts rising from the fire-blackened walls. Rashad threw himself at her and they fell into the rubble. A pile of bricks grazed her knees and arms, tearing skin. She tried to rise but he dropped hard on her, holding her down.

Rashad punched her in the side of the head and she dropped back, blunted. When she could see once more she tried to rise, but his weight was heavier on her than before.

He wasn’t moving. Her right hand rose to his forehead and came away scarlet. His shaggy black hair was disturbed, and she could see a hole exposing meat that glistened inside the curls. She wriggled from beneath him and tried to rise, but he convulsed, gripping her more tightly.

And then he fell away, a dead weight, and she realised he had lost consciousness. Slowly, she pulled herself out and climbed to her feet.

There was no more gunfire now, no more shouting. There were only the dark shapes of slender young bodies. It was impossible to tell how many there were. She looked back into the dark of the tunnel but her eyes could not adjust to see their faces. They were motionless now, waiting.

They watched her go in silence.

The workers were letting her leave.

Without looking back, she limped away.

She still had the passports on her, and some money. Her credit cards might work for a while yet, until the others discovered Hardy and Rashad. Once the police found out that she was still alive, they would search the compound. She knew how they thought now; she was a woman, she felt comfortable at home, she would return to her house to await arrest and explanation, accepting the role that had been granted to her, like someone who always waited to be told what to do.

To prove them wrong, she headed for the coast.

Chapter Forty-Nine

The Paradise Of Sunlight

T
HE AIR-CONDITIONING KEPT
the office at a perfect nineteen degrees centigrade all year round. Dr Vance put the window blinds back in place and settled in his chair to study what he had written in neat black biro:

Patient Name:
Lea Catherine Brook

Referral Comments:

Patient suffers from an advanced form of paraphrenia and is adept at reconfiguring events around her into any number of unifying conspiracy theories. She has no previous history of the condition, which seems to have started when she first moved here and mistook the mezuzahs attached to Milo Melnik’s doorways for security bolts. After this she began to construct a series of intricately connected fantasies around various ‘key events’ in her unifying conspiracy theory. She entered a dream world of her own making and constantly found new evidence to support her life within this bubble of make-believe.

As is common in such cases, her condition is based around a confluence of latent fears: loss of control over her family, diminishment in her role as a wife and mother, inability to integrate within her new surroundings. These fears may have become exacerbated by outside events, in particular the heightened security alerts affecting the resort prior to its opening, a number of unfortunate accidents affecting her friends and neighbours, and the presence of immigrant workers intruding into the compound.