by Holly Watt
‘Remarkable creatures,’ murmured Drummond, taking a swig of another gin and tonic.
‘They really are.’
The sun was a molten sliver behind a fretwork of branches. The reservoir gleamed in the last light of the day.
To her right, Casey could see the guardhouse and, in the far distance, the bulk of the shipping containers.
‘What’s that?’ She couldn’t help herself.
Bailey glanced across. ‘Just storage.’
The urge to run the quarter mile to the containers was almost overwhelming. Casey felt as if her legs might take the decision for her, marching across the clearing in front of all the guards, and Bailey himself.
I have to know.
Not now.
Half desperate to hunt, half desperate to hide.
‘How long have you worked for Ambrose?’ Bailey asked Casey, interrupting her thoughts.
‘Only a few months,’ Casey answered smoothly. ‘I was with the home secretary before. That was a more junior role, of course.’
Casey had trawled over Serena’s CV, double-checking everything with Drummond. Serena herself had been ordered to take a holiday. I absolutely insist, dear girl. You’ve been working yourself to the bone. Take a few days off, it’s an order. Cancel my appointments. It’s recess, for heaven’s sake. And as a would-be MP, there would be no drunken photographs of Serena Brackenbury in Ibiza, no ostentatious shopping trips, no #wishyouwerehere and champagne.
‘Because you weren’t in Wrocław,’ said Bailey. ‘For that symposium.’
‘No, I missed that trip,’ Casey smiled. ‘Jilly handled that one.’
‘Ah, yes, Wrocław.’ Drummond looked up from his drink. ‘We’ll have to talk about that, old boy. When we’re … ’
Drummond nodded heavily at Casey, and she gazed out at the rhinos, pretending not to notice.
Later, when they were back up at the house, Casey glanced at her phone. ‘Would you excuse me?’ An effacing smile. ‘I must just respond to these messages.’
Bailey was pouring yet another gin and tonic with a smile and a nod. Casey stood, crossing the verandah. She walked through an elegant drawing room, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her.
A few minutes later, she pushed the drawing room door again and edged her way back in. She sat down in an overstuffed racing green armchair concealed from their view and pulled out her phone.
If they hadn’t heard her come back in, it was hardly her fault.
Out on the verandah, Drummond was talking, his voice quieter now.
‘It was all a bit strange, old boy … I don’t mind telling you … Still not quite sure what she was after … Or who she was working for … Could be a honeytrap … ’ A sharp yelp of laughter from Drummond, ‘Or could always be something to do with the Chinese, of course.’ Drummond’s voice rose slightly, ‘Did I ever tell you? Last time I went to Beijing, my bloody charger disappeared on the flight and I was so knackered from the journey that I just borrowed another one from the hotel receptionist without thinking. And as soon as I plugged in my sodding phone, everything on my phone was downloaded instantly! Bloody everything!’ A rumble from Bailey. ‘Oh, yes, of course. Anyway, as I say … I have no idea who that bloody girl is … ’ Drummond’s voice dropped again, barely audible now. ‘But I know where she is staying right now … And I thought you might be … Well. Interested.’
Casey listened as Drummond recited an address – a neat house in Buckinghamshire – while Bailey sat in silence.
Casey waited for a couple more minutes before walking out on to the verandah.
‘I just love these gorgeous, warm evenings. It’s never like this in England, is it? And, oh, look, what a glorious moon … ’
They chatted until Casey yawned.
‘I do beg your pardon.’ Casey smiled round the room, a prospective candidate’s gleam. ‘But I think I’ll have to go to bed.’
‘Of course.’ Bailey was on his feet. ‘You know where everything is?’
‘Yes. Thank you so much.’
Casey lay under a billowing mosquito net, watching the mahogany ceiling fan revolve.
Fear swirled through her, pulsing like blood.
Clothes ripping, a gash of agony and a man looking down as she drowns.
She forced herself to listen to the house settling to sleep. Doors closing, quiet feet pattering down a corridor, a brisk goodnight from Bailey.
She could hear the floorboards creaking as they eased into the cool of the night. One cracked so loudly that she sat bolt upright, her throat closing up. Her pulse roared, and it felt as if her blood had been replaced with a thin metallic flow of terror, adrenalin oozing from her pores.
And then she was falling, and it was as if she was falling forever.
Casey made herself lie down again. Drummond was pottering around his bedroom now. She could hear him clearly through the locked door, fidgeting with his laptop. There was a squeak of springs as he climbed into the bed.
Any minute now.
I can’t.
You can.
You must.
She jumped as her phone lit up. A message from Miranda. You all right?
Not really.
A sort of vertigo. I might step over the edge.
The answer came straight back. You can do this, Casey. You’ve done it a thousand times. You can do it.
A long pause and then another buzz. I trust you.
Casey read the message again and again.
I trust you.
It was like a dam across a river, the reservoir slowly filling. Casey lay on the beautiful bed, and breathed in and out.
Not broken, no.
And now she had to force herself to stay still. Force herself to lie in the bed, and force herself to wait until the house was fast asleep.
63
She sat up.
The house was still.
Moving quietly, Casey slipped on her trousers and the black silk shirt. She grabbed her handbag and slid open the French doors that led out to the verandah.
The house was silent.
It was lucky, Casey thought, that her room was on the south side of the house, looking down towards the reservoir and the rhino enclosure.
She trod lightly over the boards of the gallery, and jumped down the steps, landing noiselessly in the grass. There was a breeze coming from the west and the garden was a mass of shadows and whispers.
Casey skirted the large swimming pool and hurried down the slope towards a fence. Bailey’s voice echoed loudly in her head. ‘The last owners had to have a big fence built around this house, right? After they ended up with a zebra in the swimming pool … ’
But there was no lock on the gate, and it took only a second for Casey to nip through and sprint down the hill towards the enclosure. Her handbag – one that Serena would carry – bumped against her hip.
She almost laughed aloud. The evening was warm, the moon shone down peacefully, and in her black silk shirt, she disappeared into the night.
Her feet flew. And there was the fence with the heavy telegraph poles. It slowed her only briefly, scrambling under. Then she was slipping through the enclosure, barely making a sound.
Casey crept around the clearing, edging nearer to the shipping containers. From here, she could see the guards high up in the tree house, idling the night away.
Now she was at the door to the laboratory, the padlock gleaming in the moonlight. She dug into her handbag for the tiny hacksaw, and it took only minutes to cut away the padlock. And then she was into the containers, moving quietly down the jerry-built room towards the old kitchen cabinets.
There it was: FBT.
Casey grabbed the file, fingers shaking.
She edged the laboratory door back open, pulling a brand new padlock from her bag. It snapped into place with the tiniest of clicks, and she turned towards the house.
A torch glowed, close by.
Without thinking, Casey was flat on the ground. The torch was between her and th
e tree house, bobbing briskly in her direction.
A guard? Doing an hourly check?
Casey lay on the ground, trying to estimate the distance to the bushes. She started to crawl, moving as quietly as possible. The grass crackled beneath her, every sound a roar in her ears. The guard was marching towards her, hurrying down the track towards the laboratory. She had to get off the path. Had to be hidden in the grasses before the torch lit her up, before the scurry of motion gave her away.
There was no time for caution. A jerky scramble, a hurried scuttle, and she was deep in the long grass.
The torch’s movement stopped.
Casey became aware of a terrible smell. The stench coated the back of her throat, a putrescence enfolding her. She gagged.
The torch swung around.
She had to get deeper into the thicket. Had to bury herself in the dark. She wriggled forwards.
An eruption of flies filled the air, buffeting her eyes, her nose, her hair. One found its way into her mouth, and she retched instinctively, jerking forward.
Henke, she realised, the revulsion flooding over her. Henke slung into the brush like a sack of old rubbish. He was just a few feet from her, blackened, bloating, oozing.
For a second, Casey was oblivious of her surroundings, trapped by the horror. Then the torch flickered behind her again. She threw herself to one side just as the torch gleamed brightly on Henke’s body.
The corpse was caught in the beam of the torch, reeking and rotting. There was an exclamation of disgust from the guard, and the torch glinted away again.
The man must have thought she was an animal feasting on the body, Casey realised. The rustle, the urgency, that sharp burst of panic.
The torch was bobbing away again. It rested on the laboratory door, found the neat padlock, and then jounced away, further along the edge of the reservoir. Casey lay on the ground, enveloped in the fetor of decay.
It took longer to climb back up the hill to the house. She was tired now, the adrenalin draining away. She squeezed through the gate, creeping up through the garden, and she was nearly there, nearly safe. She patted her hair smooth, brushed away a few blades of dried grass.
Henke filled her mind.
Chucked into a thicket, and left to rot. A man, abandoned.
And she was the only reason he was out here in Njana. She was the one who had led him here, urging him to his death.
Now he would lie there forever, picked clean slowly under the vast African sun. Because she’d abandoned him too, of course.
While every day, just a few hundred yards away, Bailey would smile, entertain his guests, pour another gin and tonic.
Just far enough away that the stench didn’t quite reach, and even if it did, it might be a duiker, a rotting zebra: just another death in Zimbabwe.
She wondered if Bailey would ever even think about it, the corpse slung into the bushes, festering in the dark.
And it was all her fault.
Nearly at the house now. Nearly. She stopped short, all the air rushing from her lungs. There was a shape sitting on the verandah.
Bailey.
Back away?
No.
Hide?
Impossible. He had seen her, standing up with a gesture that might have been a wave.
And there was nothing to do but wave back and walk towards the house, and hope.
‘Good evening, Serena.’ Bailey’s face was in shadow, but the lights in the drawing room behind him glowed. Casey knew that her face was lit up, spotlit, every movement clear. From his stage, he could see everything.
‘Hello, Elias.’ Casey somehow managed to smile. She scrambled for the words, scrabbled for the excuse she had practised earlier. ‘I was just having a chat with my boyfriend.’
She climbed the stairs to the verandah, steps to the gallows.
‘You must miss him. With all your travelling.’
‘Oh, I do,’ agreed Casey. ‘Very much. But I enjoy working with Ambrose Drummond too. I’m so lucky to work for him.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Everyone reckons he’ll be in the cabinet soon,’ Casey emphasised. The small talk seemed impossible. Henke lay just over there, rotting under the light of the moon.
‘And what are your own plans, Serena?’
‘I’m going to be an MP.’ Casey dredged up Serena’s icy self-confidence. ‘And I would love your support in that, Mr Bailey.’
Bailey laughed, and it sounded appreciative, but Casey couldn’t be sure.
‘I’ll be interested to watch your career, Serena.’
‘Thank you,’ Casey smiled.
She made as if to sit down in the chair opposite him, but as she stepped forward, she tripped and her handbag crashed to the ground, spilling its contents across the verandah.
‘Oh, dear.’ She rushed to grab her purse, her eyeshadow, her foundation.
Bailey bent down to help her, handing her a lipstick and a compact mirror, her phone and the contents of her handbag.
‘Here.’ He shoved them at her.
‘Thank you so much,’ she beamed at him. ‘I must get some sleep.’
And she was away, hurrying back towards her bedroom.
All she could do was hope that he had been reassured there was nothing in her handbag. With an agony of relief, she thought about the little hacksaw and the buckled padlock buried in a shallow grave not far from Henke’s body. And with any luck tomorrow they would think they had just misplaced the key for the padlock, hanging new and shiny, on the door to the laboratory.
But she couldn’t be sure. Couldn’t be sure that they might not come for her with an efficient brutality. And as she lay down to sleep, all she could think of was Henke, and thousands of crawling flies.
64
The next morning, Drummond bounded into the dining room, a grin on his face.
‘You are looking … ’ He posed in the doorway, ‘at the new Secretary of State for Health.’
Casey let out a squeal. ‘How on earth … What happened to Colette?’
‘Congratulations.’ Bailey was pouring himself some orange juice. ‘A cabinet minister. Very impressive, Ambrose.’
‘Colette Warwick has been sacked.’ Drummond was reading aloud from his phone. ‘The Post broke some story about her husband last night. Bloody vultures.’
Drummond wasn’t really acting, thought Casey. He was genuinely delighted, forgetting it was all a set-up. A reward, and she had helped him.
‘Poor Colette.’ She made a face.
‘Yes, well.’ Drummond sat down at the breakfast table. ‘It’ll mean a promotion for you too, Serena, my dear. Now, Elias, I’m afraid the PM needs me home as soon as possible. We’ll have to make tracks, Serena.’
‘Of course, Ambrose, of course. Duty calls. You could always fly home in the jet, if you need to.’
For a moment, Drummond looked tempted. Then his eyes met Casey’s. ‘Better not, old boy. I’d have to declare it. Stupid bloody rules, but there we go.’
‘Then I’ll tell them to get the car ready to take you back to Harare.’
‘Thank you.’ Drummond sounded brisk, as if he was already settling into the trappings of his new role. ‘Thank you, Elias. Most kind.’
The Overfinch took Drummond straight to the airport.
Serena, back in London and coolly efficient, pulled strings and scrambled Drummond on to the first flight out of Harare. Oblivious to Casey’s existence, Serena made only one booking, and the rest of the flight was full.
‘Fairly reasonable,’ Drummond laughed as he peered up at the departure boards. ‘Can’t really blame old Serena.’
Casey felt twitchy, wanting to get back to the UK.
Miranda called her. ‘I’ve checked and you can fly back via Nairobi tomorrow morning, Case. There isn’t any mad rush. Hessa’s story’s running well, so we want to give that a bit of space, anyway. The political team can handle most of it.’
‘Miranda, I don’t think Hessa should … ’
�
��It’s OK, Casey. We’ve got it all covered.’
‘But, Miranda … ’
‘It’s fine. Everything is under control.’
And Casey couldn’t explain the feeling of dread that descended.
She didn’t go back to Kizzie’s, but checked into a basic guest house as close to the airport as possible. Her room was on the first floor, opening on to a steel walkway that ran the length of the building before a flight of stairs led down to a dingy swimming pool. The place seemed to be almost entirely empty, just a couple of jet-lagged travellers confining themselves to their rooms.
The rest of the day crawled past, the hours bleeding into each other. Casey sat in her room, head down, typing up her notes. She edged the laboratory documents out of the secret compartment in her handbag, and looked at them with satisfaction. Then she sent photographs, notes, thoughts to Miranda, as she always did. Hansel and Gretel; a superstition.
Work done, she sat by the swimming pool. It was a dank spot, the high, blank walls of the guest house too close to the edge of the pool. The space felt hemmed in, the sun never reaching this scummy water. The tiles were white, cracked, utilitarian. Big cartoon signs banned running and petting and shouting. Casey looked at the insects floating on the surface of the water and decided: no.
She stayed on the white plastic chair for a while – the seat an awkward basket weave design that left diamond shapes on her legs – thinking and fretting. Her legs hurt from the escape through the ocean, the bruises aching, the cuts throbbing. When night finally fell, she lay in the dark, listening to the sounds all around her. The room was hot, a small fan on a table spinning erratically. The mosquito nets pinned over the grimy window frames had split, and there was a smell of old cooking oil.
Is everything OK? she messaged Hessa.
It’s fine, Hessa answered. Go to sleep. It’s all OK.
Casey lay awake for hours and was only woken from a half-sleep by the jangle of her phone. She reached out, blinking at her watch, and stared bleary-eyed at the screen. Not a number she knew.
‘Hello?’
‘Good morning, Casey.’ She didn’t recognise the civil voice.