by KJ Griffin
Chapter 11: Oxford: Tuesday, October 14
Sophie returned to Folly Bridge shortly after nine that night. She had worked all afternoon, breaking just before seven for dinner with Marcus. But the prospect of the ‘evening duty’ had dogged her efforts all day; it was both repulsive and compelling at the same time.
The black security guard appeared as soon as Sophie’s finger touched the buzzer on the outside gate. He keyed in the access code to trigger the auto-release mechanism and walked outside to help Sophie in with her bicycle.
‘Evening, Miss Sophie.’
‘Oh, hi,’ she smiled back coyly. ‘Sorry, you’ll have to tell me your name again.’
It was Carl. Nervous anticipation made Sophie loquacious. She indulged and even encouraged Carl’s semi-flirty chat while the gravel crunched underneath their shoes. She needed to feel she had a protector in the house, someone she could turn to in case the impending ordeal proved to be just too grim.
‘Is Omar expecting me?’ she asked apprehensively.
‘The boss? I don’t know about that, Miss Sophie. He’s got a small party going in the big conference room. Hang on a second and I’ll call Mr Hasan for you.’
Sophie waited while Carl muttered into the walkie-talkie he held in a gloved hand, but by the time he had finished a dark thought had creased her face into a frown.
‘How long have you worked for these people, Carl?’ she asked.
“Here?” he laughed. ‘Just since five days before you showed up, Miss Sophie. There weren’t nobody living ‘ere before that.’
‘Really? So who actually hired you?’
‘Mr. Hasan did—through an ad he placed in the Oxford Mail online.’
Carl chucked to himself and tapped Sophie on the shoulder,
‘Say, this is the stupidest money I’ve ever worked for, girl,’ he whispered.
‘Oh yea?’ she encouraged.
‘Yea. Fifteen thousand quid cash for a two-month contract,’ Carl whistled appreciatively. ‘And a thousand completion bonus! These Arabs are crazy spenders, all right!’
Sophie thought for a minute.
‘But you did say the contract only lasts for two months?’
Carl grinned and shrugged,
‘That’s right, only two months. Short-term job. But anyway, how do you fit in here, Miss Sophie? They told us there’d be a student by the name of Sophie coming to live in the house, but they didn’t say anything about her being so pretty!’
Carl had edged closer as he spoke and there was a see-through smile on his face. But Sophie’s mind was not on the security guard’s advance. There was something altogether more alarming in what he was telling her.
‘And when exactly did they tell you that, Carl?—about me coming here, I mean.’
‘Mr Hasan told me when he explained my duties at interview.’
Sophie froze with astonishment, but before she had time to assimilate Carl’s news she saw Hasan walking slowly down the corridor in that measured stride of his, wearing another immaculate suit. He nodded laconically by way of a greeting and ushered Sophie inside the house, turning down the left-hand corridor towards the dining room that overlooked the terrace where they had sat earlier that morning. At the far end of the corridor Hasan came to an abrupt halt, before twisting open the ornamental door handle with an elaborate flourish.
‘Miss Palmer!’ he announced formally.
Sophie followed the sweep of Mr Hasan’s extended arm and stepped inside the immense lounge, whose long, panelled ceilings inlaid with a series of symmetrical designs and tableaux seemed ill at ease with the brightly coloured sets of Arabian lounging cushions that housed two discrete clusters of guests, over which Al-Ajnabi presided, more European-looking than ever in jeans and loose sweater. Next to Sophie, near the door, Mousa kept guard over silver bins full of ice, which hoarded beer bottles, white wine and champagne; spirits and mixers lay beyond these on top of a table carved in delicately latticed Arabian woodwork.
‘Ah, good—Sophie! We’re delighted you could make it,’ Al-Ajnabi welcomed, beckoning her over with his right arm. The alcohol had made his tone less ironic, more overtly challenging. ‘Come on in and don’t be shy. Mousa, a drink for Miss Palmer, please!’
She settled for a bottle of lager, which she began to gulp nervously while Al-Ajnabi introduced her to the guests. In the nearest group, a Peruvian couple humming to the rhythm of a guitar, a disfigured Mexican woman, a serious-looking Jordanian, and the Irishman, Hennessy, whose morning flirtatiousness had matured with drink to a less-sophisticated leer.
At the invitation of the Mexican woman, Sophie joined the Latins. She asked them about Al-Ajnabi’s business projects, (which prompted the Peruvian man to burst into a paean of passionate song on his guitar), about their own backgrounds, (concerning which Sophie could only make out the word ‘activist’ repeated on all lips), and about how long they had been working with Prince Omar Al-Ajnabi, (which only drew some knowing smiles).
The women were drinking at lively pace and they encouraged Sophie to keep up. Out of the corner of her eye, Sophie watched Al-Ajnabi disappear onto the terrace with the stubby Jordanian, whom he had introduced to her but had neglected to name. The two men were absorbed in a discussion serious and secretive enough to warrant Al-Ajnabi closing the door behind them. Across the room, Hennessy winked luridly at her, his pink face mashed to a beetroot red.
The Peruvian man began to strum louder on the guitar. Whatever the import of the words, the soft lilt of the beat, the rich melody and a few swigs of beer began to ease the tension in the pit of Sophie’s stomach and as she tapped the tip of her foot to the rhythm she struck up a conversation with the Mexican woman, Magdalena, whose severe face was accentuated by a deeply fissured scar. Were the British people confident about the future? (weird question, and sure, there were many problems, but it didn’t help to be a pessimist). How many more people could fit into such a heavily populated island as Britain? (Well, Sophie conceded, there were plenty of xenophobes and racists on the Right who wanted to limit immigration, but personally she didn’t think it was necessary to put caps on immigration quotas, especially if all the new arrivals could all play the guitar as beautifully as the man sitting across from her!).
But Magdalena only became more dogmatic.
‘You’re right about one thing, senorita. It is not people’s race or colour that matters; it’s the simple fact that there are so many of them in the world and so many, many more still to come.’
Sophie shrugged and took a few sips of beer. But it was evident that Magdalena wasn’t going to leave it there.
‘Let me give you a good example, Miss Sophie. In Mexico, as you probably know, nearly all the people are fervent Catholics. The priest shouts from the pulpit every Sunday morning that babies are a gift from God. If women take pills to stop themselves conceiving, then they are sinning against God’s wishes, he says. But what he doesn’t tell them, in his faulty logic, is that if they don’t take the pills to stop the babies, then neither should they take the pills to keep themselves from dying when they fall sick. For if babies are a gift from God, then surely it is also God who sends diseases in equal measure to keep everything in balance? But the leaders of religion, always conveniently forget that bit. The result? Generation after generation of ten-baby families all living longer and longer thanks to western medicine. And too many people all over the world think that this is a good thing! But come and see for yourself. Most Mexicans have historically always been peasant farmers like my father, his father and his father before him. But every time one generation dies, the farm gets divided into so many tiny portions, until no one can make a living as a farmer anymore. And so we move to the cities. Where is the work in the cities? There is no work except, far too often, for the drug cartels. And look what our wonderful drug barons did to my face!’
Magdalena took Sophie’s hand and forced her to run her fingers the length of the long, jagged scar. Sophie shuddered at the feel of it, and part of her
wanted to back away, but the touch of Sophie’s fingers must have been a cathartic experience for the Mexican, for the briefest sensation of contact prompted Magdalena to join in the Peruvian man’s song, while from across the room, Hennessy, too, began to clap and whistle, slugging Blue Label straight from the bottle.
Sophie seized the opportunity to detach herself from the strange Mexican woman and walked over to the balcony door, where Al-Ajnabi had returned from his secret meeting with the Palestinian and was standing with his back turned to his guests, lost as ever in his private thoughts. It seemed like a good moment to break the ice with the man whose bed she was very soon going to have to share.
‘Do you mind if I join you, Omar, or do you only want to see me in bed?’ she joked, trying to soften the Ramli’s stern features.
Al-Ajnabi turned round startled. More than ever before, Sophie thought she caught a serpent-tongued flicker of revulsion in his eyes, confronted with her alone and face to face. His eyes had narrowed to slits and the wrinkles around them were creased up tightly, before he flicked a few loose strands of that desert-blond hair off his forehead, relaxing into his habitual, cover-all smile. The realisation that her presence caused him discomfort shattered the last vestiges of Sophie’s confidence.
‘You don’t like me very much, do you Omar?’ she blurted out, unable to hide her thoughts.
‘Don’t like you? Whatever makes you say that, Sophie?’
The incredulity in his voice sounded shallow.
‘Oh, I’m not bothered whether you do or you don’t,’ she lied. ‘There’s no need to fake your feelings. But if that’s how you really feel, just tell me why you want me to go through with this elaborate bed farce—that’s all I want to know?’
Sophie could feel her voice rising uncontrollably in a flush of hot anger, and Al-Ajnabi must have noticed too, for he took her by the elbow and hurried her outside to the peace and darkness of the terrace.
‘Come now, Sophie, you exaggerate,’ he said dryly in the chill air misting up from the river. ‘I do not dislike you any more or less than I like or dislike Hasan, Mousa, or any of my other employees. I have not hired you because I have feelings for you, either negative or positive. That was never my purpose.’
‘So what was your purpose?’ she continued, now confused as well as offended, but less angry all the same. ‘Why I am really here?’
His next movement caught Sophie totally by surprise. Without warning his hand shot out and snatched hold of her elbow, pulling her powerfully towards him till she could feel his breath hot against her face. She expected a kiss, but one never came, just an intense burning stare deep into the depths of her eyes, until just as abruptly he broke off, moving away towards the edge of the terrace, where the river meandered in dark, grey loamy-smelling coils under the darkness of a veiled night sky.
‘Your purpose here?’ he repeated with a wistful shrug of his shoulders. ‘We will see in due course. I cannot say, because I do not know for certain myself. The choices will all be yours, Sophie.’
‘Choices?’
‘That’s right, my dear Sophie. You may take me for a middle eastern autocrat, but I have always given the freedom of choice to all of my employees, even Mousa and Hasan. You are one of the variables in my latest project. Your input may prove beneficial to my cause, or it may even be harmful. But the decisions, I can assure you, will be all yours.’
She was confused now as well as angry.
‘I don’t get you. What cause? And surely if I’m to be a ‘variable’ in any strange business plans, shouldn’t I at least be told something about your projects?’
A cold wrap of river mist blew over Sophie. She shivered. Al-Ajnabi took to pacing the stone path with heavy heels.
‘Unfortunately that is not possible,’ he answered at last. ‘Think of it as you would an experiment in psychology. You’ll know what to do when the time comes. Your choices should be spontaneous.’
She followed him to the edge of the terrace, determined to get something less oblique from him.
‘Those others inside—are they all involved in your current business, too?'
He nodded.
‘And they know what your business projects will involve, right?’
Al-Ajnabi hesitated.
‘They are familiar with most of the details. But not all.’
He was facing her now. In the glow of the smoking-room lights, he looked devilishly handsome in that faded film star way.
‘But whatever business you’re involved in they’re not all businessmen that lot in there, are they Omar? Hennessy, for example—you’re not telling me he’s a financial player? He probably thinks a derivative is some sort of cocktail.’
Al-Ajnabi was impressed.
‘Quite right,’ he smirked. “Hennessy’s no businessman; in fact, some people would regard him as an enemy of our leaders of business.’
‘So what’s he doing here, then?’
Al-Ajnabi smiled wistfully.
“My business projects put me at odds with almost all of the world’s elite and with the millions they control. So, I have frequently had to make common cause with those who may be regarded as pariahs by the rest of society. Rebels who have long ago lost their original causes.’
‘Are you saying Hennessy’s some kind of terrorist?’ Sophie let out a sharp breath of amazement. “But why would you want to associate yourself with people like that? What possible reason could you have? You are rich. You have power and status. You come from a country that has made a fortune from selling oil to the West. Why are you so hostile to the world order that has made you so fantastically rich?’
He lit a cheroot and went back inside for more drinks. Sophie sat perplexed on a balustrade on the edge of the terrace facing the house. Al-Ajnabi came back carrying more bottles. He seemed to want to talk; and at least the talking seemed to deflect his malice away from her. Joining her on the balustrade, he passed her a bottle.
‘Do you know what it feels like to be an outcast from society, Sophie, to be separated from your past, from everything you love?’ He paused for effect rather than reply. ‘You see, me—, I have not always enjoyed my present position. There was a time when I too was an outcast, thrown out on the scrapheap and left to rot.’
‘Are you referring to your time in South Africa?’ she asked, still perplexed but encouraged by his confidence.
‘There, or elsewhere,’ he shrugged. ‘It makes no difference where or how. The important thing is to have survived—to have survived, to have learnt and to have understood the lessons misfortune teaches. That is when you open your eyes and see that what you have suffered on a small scale is what the whole world is suffering at the hands of the same kind of people—people ready to sacrifice the planet and everyone else’s well-being on it for the sake of their own comfort or ambition.’
The bitterness in his voice deserved some kind of pause, even if only to avoid having the same vehemence vented against her.
‘So having survived and learnt, as you say, do you mean to get even with those who hurt you? Is this what your business projects are about?’
He looked at her obliquely,
‘That would be only a part. It is important for me to remember what these people represent. There are deeper issues involved.’
‘But you are plotting revenge of some sort, aren’t you?’
He reached out and touched her shoulder gently, guiding her back to the room. The first unexpected sign of intimacy startled her, but even with the thought of ‘bed duty’ heavy on her mind, it seemed better than his implacable antipathy.
‘If I were plotting, as you say, you can be sure it would be with very good cause and that it would be well executed.’ He spoke calmly enough, but again she had the vague impression that he had inexplicably numbered her among his enemies.
‘And the people you wish to avenge yourself against—are they in England now?’
He looked at his watch.
‘Some of them maybe,’ he sighed, as i
f the topic were suddenly boring him. ‘Come, let us go to bed. Collect what you need from your apartment, then have Hasan show you the way.’
It was the moment of truth; but now that it had come, the desire to postpone it was stronger than the will to see it through. She asked him about his guests. He waved a dismissive hand.
‘They don’t need me to put them to bed,’ he yawned.
But Sophie pulled him up again just outside the balcony door. Inside, the singing was still loud.
‘Can I ask you one more thing, Omar?’
He looked at her severely in the stronger light.
‘It’s about Hennessy,’ she continued. Why do you trust me not to go to the police about him?’
‘Because you would lose your money, Sophie, and I trust you not to do that.’
The smile was smug, appreciative of the inherent cruelty. Every time she felt she was making progress, Al-Ajnabi had a habit of stabbing her straight in the heart. Brusquely, she turned her back on him and marched huffily across the room, ignoring the festive Latins and the comatose Hennessy.
But in that way Al-Ajnabi perfected of being able to control her every thought and move, she found Hasan in the corridor, evidently waiting to lead her to the altar. In protest, Sophie made him wait for ages in the corridor outside her apartment while she sat inside, head cupped in hands. Suddenly, she longed to be back with Joanna in the Iffley Road, or in bed with Marcus in his college rooms.
It was a morbid fascination which Omar had cast over her as much as any sense of resignation that eventually drove Sophie to scoop up her night things and prepare herself for the walk to the gallows. Hasan was waiting there as she had left him, giving no sign of impatience or inconvenience.
They walked the length of the hallway and climbed the cream-carpeted stairs. Al-Ajnabi’s rooms were at the far end of the right transversal corridor, somewhere over the smoking room. Hasan knocked, waited a second, then opened the door for Sophie without entering himself.
The light was dim. Straight in front, Sophie could make out the bed, the head pushed up against the right hand wall. She had imagined a four-poster. It wasn’t, but to her relief, it looked wide enough to exclude any but the most contrived of intimacies.
Al-Ajnabi was standing in the balcony facing towards her, cradling what looked like a nightcap.
‘Can I get you another drink?’ he asked morosely.
Sophie shook her head and stood frozen in the doorway, her night bag hanging limp in trembling hands. The urge to bolt was almost overwhelming. She could picture herself vividly, running down the stairs, knocking Hasan over in the corridor, screaming for Carl to let her out, then running mad and unstoppable across Folly Bridge, all the length of St. Aldates to Marcus’s rooms in Christ Church, where he would be waiting to scoop her into his arms.
Again, Al-Ajnabi must have read her thoughts, for he was walking straight towards her, and before she knew it, he had taken her hand, escorting her across the room. He switched on a soft light and opened the bathroom door.
‘Why don’t you get changed?’ he commanded, rather than asked, in a tone that didn’t allow for any more hesitation.
Sophie did as he asked; what was the use in delaying the inevitable any longer? Instead, with the door locked tight behind her, she changed into her sexiest underwear and a negligee. She had thought about wearing her staid old pair of stripy pyjamas, just to annoy him, but pride had dictated a last-minute change of heart; she had a hunch that attack was her best form of defence.
He was waiting between the bed and the balcony, glass in hand. In the softest of light, his gaze was inscrutable.
‘So what are you going to do, Omar—stare at me all night?’ she teased, walking round him to the other side of the bed.
He seemed startled, shook his head then, to Sophie’s incredulity, turned his back on her and retreated to the balcony.
‘You get some sleep,’ he grunted taciturnly, ‘I will be some time.’
There was nothing to do but comply with his strange directive, so Sophie turned away from him and did as he suggested. The bed was nothing fancy. No tacky silk sheets, just plain white cotton. It was cosy and quiet inside, but Sophie couldn’t sleep. Why had Omar gone to all this trouble to have her in bed, only to ignore her for an extended, solitary drinking session outside? Somehow it was more uncomfortable with him outside on the balcony, brooding about whatever he brooded about, rather than snoring an arm’s length away across the bed.