To the Lions

by Holly Watt

  Just three hours later, they were shuffled through the upright seats and stowed trays and heavy grey safety belts that make not a bit of difference when a plane explodes into a million pieces. It seemed impossible that the madness of the Sahara was just three hours from Heathrow and safety, and those polite grids of houses far, far below the flight path.

  She paused at the entrance to the restaurant, actress in the wings. Alone this time. And it is harder, avoiding the spotlight, when she is alone on the stage.

  Bay trees, neat on either side of the door, and gold letters.

  She straightened up, still bruised.

  You have to behave differently when you are wearing a camera.

  Humans react when interested, she realised early on. They shift in their seat. They lean forward. They gasp and nod, they gesture and sigh.

  And the camera, that black pinhole eye, moved as she reacted. And as she moved, the tiny microphone picked up nothing but rustle.

  So she learned to freeze, upright, at that moment. That moment when he said, ‘I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but . . .’

  It was amazing how often people said those words.

  ‘The Daily Mail would go mad if they knew . . .’

  And every time she knew. She heard the words in 24-point headlines, typing across her mind. Even as his mouth moved.

  But she stayed still as he said it. Still as a statue. Wired up like a suicide bomber, and holding his face in her frame.

  And she would smile as he spoke, that big glowing smile. And the smile was the only thing her camera, unseeing and all-seeing, didn’t catch. And, encouraged by that dazzling smile, he would talk on, and on, and on.

  You have to behave differently when you are wearing a camera. You go where the camera needs to go. You turn when the camera wants to turn. And you are still, tripod still, when the camera demands to be still.

  Even when you’re scared.

  Because sometimes, just sometimes, she is scared. Suddenly terrified. Because the oligarch’s bodyguards are standing behind her, and she can’t see what they are doing.

  Because five of his friends have just turned up.

  Or because she has drifted away from her car, the car she always has waiting, and now a door is swinging open and she’s sliding out of control.

  And she has done all the self-defence classes and all the training – hostile environment training, they call it, how to get out of a minefield using only a chicken skewer – but when it comes down to it, she is a woman.

  And she knows – deep down, she knows – that she won’t win in a fight.

  And the lion will see that it’s only a chair.

  And if he finds her, wrapped in lace and wire, it will end in the nightmare.

  But not this time. This time, he can’t fight to the death. She has chosen these hunting grounds, for just that reason.

  Last chance. All on black.

  It’s the very end of that long, swinging shot, snaking in and out of the scene. Dancing perfect, singing bold; smiling gritted teeth.

  She thought it would get easier, out on these hunting grounds.

  And in the end, it just gets harder.

  Slowly, she has learned the human qualities, and sins and graces.

  And how to twist them. Emotions as an anatomy lesson, for just too long.

  The people who should never trust her believed every word. And the others began to worry.

  Because what is friendship, when you forge it in a few seconds? And if no one can trust you, how do you trust yourself? And when you’ve learned how to outwit, how do you learn to be kind? And if a man can fall in love in a moment, how can you trust the old tales?

  So she pauses on the steps of the restaurant, just for a second, glancing at the beautiful Georgian windows. Hesitates by the bay trees, just outside the entrance.

  The starlet twirling to the end of the long tracking shot.

  Steady, girl. Steady.

  You have to behave differently when you’re wearing a camera.

  And one day, she realised the camera was wearing her.

  44

  It was raining when they landed, a summer rain and the smell of warm tarmac. After the sandpaper air of the Sahara, the rain-soft breeze was home.

  Hessa had smoothed their passage as much as possible, with a wheelchair on standby and a smiling porter. Before landing, Ed scrambled to wash off most of the blood in the tiny airplane bathroom as Casey inspected her bruises from the cave.

  At the airport, Casey followed Ed into the ambulance. He was still wrapped in the green-and-red Anglo Air blanket.

  ‘Ed . . .’ The doctors were bustling around him, white-coat efficient. ‘Ed, I am so sorry . . .’

  ‘Casey.’ He managed to smile. ‘We can’t spend all our time apologising. I’ll be fine . . . I knew what we were doing. Now, go. Go. Go and see if those diaries were worth getting shot for.’

  She smiled, light for a second, turned and jumped out of the ambulance.

  But as it pulled away, blue lights flickering, she felt the sudden emptiness, a space where he had been.

  I miss you, she realised, and the thought was like a punch. And I’ve hurt you. And I’ve tried to cue you into someone else’s lines. But if you can give me another chance, I will try. I promise. I will try.

  She watched until the ambulance turned a corner, and disappeared out of sight.

  They threaded their way through the holidaymakers and businessmen and sad-hearted taxi drivers. Outside the airport, Salcombe’s chauffeur, Vadim, was waiting, the big Mercedes purring. Salcombe had inherited Vadim from the last editor. The new relationship had started badly, when Janet, Salcombe’s PA, called down to Vadim to tell him to drive the editor to lunch at the Ivy.

  Vadim had sounded panic-stricken. It turned out he was moonlighting, whisking tourists back and forth from Heathrow in the plush Mercedes. The newsroom had found this so funny that Salcombe hadn’t been able to sack Vadim on the spot.

  Now Vadim, round and familiar, smiled at Miranda and Casey. His shirt strained over his stomach and he had abandoned the tie that Salcombe required.

  ‘You OK, girls?’ The Polish notes in his voice hadn’t altered in a decade. ‘Dash was worried. He say you get to the office as quickly as possible.’

  ‘Dash,’ grinned Miranda, ‘always says that.’

  ‘He serious this time,’ Vadim said. ‘He very worried. He say, drive fast and drive straight into the underground car park.’

  The moment Vadim pulled away from the kerb, Casey was frowning at the diaries, head down, making notes.

  ‘Can you work it out?’ asked Miranda.

  ‘No,’ Casey scowled. ‘It’ll take us ages to work out this code.’

  It was turning into a beautiful summer evening as they headed east towards London. The rain was clearing. Here and there the light sloped golden through the clouds, brilliant arrows of light, making sense of the old paintings of heaven.

  As they drove into the city, the parks were glowing green. The roses were out, wafts of scent almost crushed by the traffic fumes. The buildings were knife sharp against the haze of the sky.

  Vadim raced along the motorway. The sun was setting in neon ribbons of cloud, giving Gunnersbury an unlikely glamour. To the south, the tower blocks were like witches’ teeth.

  ‘Nearly there,’ said Miranda, just as the windscreen disappeared, shards of glass exploding everywhere.

  The Mercedes jerked sideways, safety airbags exploding like a punch.

  ‘Miranda!’ Casey screamed.

  The car spun horribly, violently out of control, the traffic breaking into splinters, and crashing all around them. A huge truck, vast and articulated, was careering towards them. Horn blaring, driver frantic.

  In the mayhem, Casey just heard the blast of the rifle.

  Somehow, madly, the truck managed to hook right, just missing a head-on collision with the Mercedes. It ploughed into the central reservation, horn still blasting, as the front of the Mercedes
buried itself into its side.

  The stillness was almost as shocking, stabbed by screeches and smashes as the rest of the traffic came to a halt.

  ‘Miranda,’ Casey whispered.

  There was a long pause.

  ‘I’m here,’ said Miranda.

  Very slowly, they opened their eyes, disentangled themselves, breathed.

  ‘I heard a gunshot,’ said Casey. ‘At least one.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Miranda. She had hit her eye; it was already puffing up.

  ‘Here,’ whispered Casey. ‘They’re coming for us here, in London.’

  Someone was screaming in the distance.

  They stared up at the huge truck, magically, miraculously, blocking the line of the sight to the huge towers just south of the M4.

  ‘He must be up there,’ said Casey. ‘Somewhere. There isn’t anywhere else he could have taken that shot.’

  They both, simultaneously, registered the deathly silence from the front of the car.

  ‘Vadim.’ Casey scrambled forward.

  He was gasping for breath, eyes nowhere, the blood pouring from his chest. Always a surprise, how much blood there is in a human body.

  Miranda, hopelessly, grabbed his coat, held it against the gaping hole. The blood soaked through almost at once.

  ‘Oh God.’ Miranda was covered with sticky red. ‘Oh God.’

  ‘That’s from a rifle,’ Casey said tonelessly. ‘The hole on the other side will be even worse. The London operation; that’s what Josh called it. It’s here. They’re here.’

  She crouched down.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here, Miranda. They’re coming for us.’

  ‘You go,’ said Miranda. ‘Take the diaries, get to the office. Start publishing. Light the fire. Go on, Casey. Go on.’

  The truck driver was climbing out of his cabin.

  ‘Holy shit.’ It was a broad Cockney accent. ‘I thought we were all goners there. Fucking hell. You all right?’

  He caught sight of Vadim, turned pale.

  ‘I can’t leave you, Miranda,’ Casey was fading. ‘I can’t leave you here.’

  ‘The police will come,’ Miranda said. ‘And the paramedics. If there’s any way of keeping Vadim alive, they’ll find it. But I’ve got to stay with Vadim. And you need to be gone before the police get here. Run, Casey. Get out of here!’

  Casey looked at Miranda, Vadim, the truck driver, his mouth agape.

  ‘Right.’ Casey forced herself out of the car, the danger all around. Her body hurt. Ignore it. She grabbed the rucksack, turned. ‘Be careful, Miranda.’

  ‘I will.’

  And Casey sprinted, keeping the truck between her and the towers, racing down the slipway. The whole motorway had come to a halt now, so she skittered between cars, running as fast as she could.

  When she reached the bottom of the ramp, the street traffic was already slowing around her. In the distance she could hear the howl of the sirens.

  It had been a brilliant shot, Casey thought, on a fast-moving target. A different league from the shot into Salama.

  She raced for the train.

  The other passengers looked almost alien, as she prowled up and down the platform, unable to stand still, heart a thud in her throat. It felt impossible that she could blend in.

  Looking down at the tracks, she remembered one of the Marines, back on the Apollo, talking about returning from one of their wars. ‘This policeman pulled me over, said I had been going at fifty-five in a forty zone. I was looking at his mouth moving and thinking, do you really expect me to care? Do you know what I’ve seen, and do you still think I care about your stupid little rules?’

  The train drew to the platform, sparks bursting from the rails. Too slow, too slow. Her jaw clenched as she thought of Miranda, battling to save Vadim under a cool sniper’s eye. And a jolt, again, twisting to see: is somebody watching here?

  Casey got on, unable to sit down, in this ordinary world. The doors slammed closed and she messaged Dash: I’m nearly there.

  45

  Dash couldn’t sit still. Miranda had called him, filled him in on the chaos on the M4, warned him that Vadim was clinging precariously to life.

  The crime correspondent was writing up the crash, with no mention, yet, of the Post’s involvement.

  ‘Psycho shooter in London horror smash,’ the tabloids had headlined it already. The Post’s managing director had been dispatched to track down Vadim’s wife, to try and hold her together, somehow.

  Dash winced at the photographs as they filtered through: ambulances and flashing lights and solid policemen unfurling yellow tape. Then he turned to the next thing.

  ‘Get me the crossword guy,’ he shouted.

  There is one thing that every editor knows, the only cardinal rule in newspapers: don’t fuck with the crossword. A newspaper can get almost everything else wrong, and no one will really care. But at a spelling mistake in the crossword, all hell breaks loose. A hundred furious letters will flood in. Subscriptions will be cancelled. A dozen times, the crossword will be returned, neatly filled in with unflattering descriptions of the editor.

  Cruciverbalists do not like wasting their time. They don’t even like it very much if the crossword is moved, just a few pages from its usual place in the paper.

  Peregrine Courtenay had written the crossword for the Post for thirty years. A quiet eccentric who thought in riddles, he lunched with the obituaries editor and the paper’s astrologer.

  The astrologer was paid almost more than anyone else at the paper, because thousands of people bought the Post just to find out what disasters were scheduled to befall them this week.

  ‘Baffling,’ Ross growled once. ‘Although to be honest, the astrologer is better at predicting the future than those jokers on the politics team.’

  ‘You’re a Pisces, aren’t you?’ the astrologer had retorted.

  The cartoonist sometimes joined Peregrine for lunch too, sketching idly on yesterday’s paper.

  Today, Peregrine was wearing a grey cardigan, red corduroys and a turquoise tie. His eyebrows gave the fashion desk nightmares.

  Dash eyed him dubiously. He suspected, quite rightly, that Peregrine regarded him as some sort of barbarian, dragging the Post like a virgin sacrifice into the twenty-first century.

  ‘Peregrine,’ Dash began sternly. ‘The investigations team are coming in with some diaries, and they think they are written in code. It’s imperative that we crack this code, as soon as possible. Do you understand?’

  Whenever he spoke to Peregrine, Dash felt like a subaltern giving orders in the First World War.

  ‘Of course, my dear fellow.’ Peregrine was nodding distantly. ‘Of course. But you know, one of the best people at this sort of thing on the paper is Toby.’

  ‘Toby?’

  ‘Yes, you know, your young reporter. Brilliant mind. Quite brilliant. Does my crosswords in minutes every day. Of course,’ Peregrine preened, ‘I could make them harder, dear boy. But the readers don’t like it when I do. Ruins their breakfast.’

  Dash beckoned Toby across the office.

  ‘You’re both up. And I need this code cracked by the morning.’

  Peregrine sighed, and pottered off to cancel his table at Wiltons.

  Casey burst through the doors of the Post. Dash was waiting for her, eyes almost sympathetic.

  ‘You OK?’ He wanted her to be, though he knew she wasn’t. ‘I should have been more careful. I thought you would be safe in London.’

  ‘The whole world thinks it will stay over there,’ said Casey. ‘Right up until it comes over here.’

  The Post had emptied out now. Hessa had the big conference room all ready. She had transcribed the tapes, all of them, and even ordered sandwiches from somewhere. Peregrine and Toby, the odd couple, were waiting patiently at one end of the long table, Peregrine shooting occasional disapproval at the sandwiches.

  ‘Did you know,’ Peregrine asked the sandwiches, ‘that Herodotus was the first to descri
be a scalping? The Scythians and aposkythizein.’

  As Casey walked in, they fell on the diaries.

  Ross leaned against the wall. Robert, the chief reporter, had his feet up on the table, notepad ready, headline eyes. Dash set out the publication plan.

  ‘We would have liked to delay running this story,’ Dash began. ‘To give ourselves some breathing space. But we probably can’t now. The tabloids are going feral over the M4 shooter, so we have to move things up. The police aren’t anywhere near making arrests yet, as far as Arthur can tell, but you never know. They’re trying to work out where the shots came from. Peregrine and Toby, I need you to throw everything at breaking that code.’

  Salcombe walked into the room and sat down at the table.

  ‘Carry on, Dash,’ Salcombe nodded.

  ‘Right. If we get any new names overnight, we can try and front them up asap. I’ll get the general reporters in early so they can head out to any possible doorsteps. The moment this story starts breaking, anyone involved will lawyer up, and potentially try and leave the country. We won’t have long to jump them.’

  ‘Seconds count?’ asked Robert.

  ‘Apart from everything else,’ Dash pointed out, ‘we’ve got to assume that at some point, whoever is behind this will start warning the people involved. And at that point we lose the advantage of surprise. They may have warned them already, which makes them potentially dangerous.’

  ‘What,’ Casey asked exhaustedly, ‘is the timeline on all this?’

  ‘We’ll break it online tomorrow afternoon and then it can be in the paper the next day.’ Dash was thinking aloud. ‘We can break it down into day one, day two, usual stuff. Selby first, and then we’ll toss Newbury to the sharks in the evening. I’m going to need two thousand words from you, Casey, for day one, about the manhunt out in the desert. Bung in all the colour, with a nice drop intro.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘I’ll call someone in from the Business section to put together a profile on Selby. Cormium won’t like it, but tough. Robert’ – Dash nodded at the chief reporter, who pulled together yards of copy when a major story broke – ‘will knock up the news story.’