Counterfeit!

by Elizabeth Ducie

  ‘Oh I think she was genuine enough,’ Suzanne blurted out. ‘Dr Businge certainly believed her story and felt we should try to help her.’ Chibesa, on the other hand, had argued vigorously that they should be cautious, not knowing whether Sara was speaking the truth or not. But Suzanne decided it would not be politic to mention this fact to Sir Frederick.

  ‘Yes, I’m sure she was genuine, my dear; but it doesn’t do to get personally involved, you know. Take it from one who’s been in this game for a long time.’

  Then with a smile, he waved her goodbye and started riffling through the papers on his desk once more.

  8: ENGLAND; OCT 2004

  When Suzanne arrived home that evening, the flat was in darkness and she assumed Charlie was out. Switching on the hall light and dropping her briefcase and the bag of shopping she’d picked up on the way home in the kitchen, she pushed open the door to the lounge.

  ‘Shut the door! I don’t want them to see any lights,’ hissed a voice. Suzanne peered into the darkness.

  ‘Charlie, what on earth are you doing in the dark?’ With the light from the hall spilling over her shoulder, she could just see her sister, pressed against the wall, peering through the edge of the curtains. Then she turned, rapidly crossed the room and pushed Suzanne out into the hall, pulling the door closed behind her. ‘What’s going on, Charlie?’ Suzanne didn’t even try to keep the irritation from her voice. ‘I’ve had a long, tiring day and the last thing I want to do is play silly games.’

  ‘I’m being watched,’ Charlie said, striding up and down the hall and chewing her thumbnail. ‘I went out for a walk earlier on and noticed a van across the road. It was parked just inside the alleyway, blocking the back entrance to the curry house, which is why I particularly noticed it.’

  ‘So what makes you think you’re being watched?’

  ‘Well, as soon as I came out of the front door and looked across at it, it drove off.’

  ‘So what makes you think…?’

  ‘But then it came back. I spotted it down the road when I walked back across the bridge and when I arrived up here in the flat and looked out of the window, it was parked back in the alleyway again. And it’s been there ever since.’

  ‘Well,’ Suzanne said, taking her sister’s arm and steering her back towards the lounge, ‘if they are watching you—and I’m not for one minute saying I think they are—they know you’re in here, don’t they? They saw you walk down the steps from the bridge and come through the front door? So what’s the point of hiding here in the dark?’

  She clicked on the lights and walked across to the window, having a good look around as she flung her arms wide to draw the curtains across. The alleyway opposite was empty, as was the road as far as she could see in either direction.

  ‘There’s nobody there now, sis. Are you sure you’re not imagining it? We’ve had a pretty stressful few days, after all.’ But Charlie shook her head stubbornly.

  ‘I know what I saw,’ she said.

  ‘Well, if we see them again, we can give that nice young PC a ring with the registration number.’ Charlie groaned and Suzanne looked at her sharply. ‘You did make a note of the registration number, didn’t you?’

  ‘I must be mad! I never thought to do that. I was too busy hiding behind the curtain.’ Suzanne patted her sister on the arm and smiled.

  ‘Never mind; we’re not all trained detectives,’ she said. ‘Now, more importantly, what are we going to eat? I’m starving. How about popping across the road for a curry?’

  ‘But, what if…?

  ‘…they come back? No problem. Unless they’re planning to prise open the fire exit, there’s only one way into this building—through the front door. I’ll ask Sanjay to give us the table in the window, so we can keep an eye on the place at the same time. And we’ll leave the curtains open, so we can see if anyone comes into the flat.’

  ‘Wow, that was a great curry,’ Charlie said a couple of hours later, pushing her chair back and rubbing her stomach, ‘I’m stuffed.’

  ‘So you won’t want any dessert?’ Suzanne asked. ‘They do a mean julabjumen here.’ But her sister just pulled a face and shook her head. Then she put her hand to her mouth.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I forgot to ask how your presentation went.’

  ‘I think it went quite well, although there was a surprise guest that rather threw me. The boss brought Francine Matheson with him.’ Charlie gave a laugh.

  ‘What, Little Piggy Matheson? And was she still stuffing herself like she did at school?’

  ‘The Parliamentary Undersecretary was looking very good,’ said Suzanne primly. ‘She was elegantly dressed and really looked the part. Mind you, she was too busy to stop and say hello to me. She left a nice message with the boss instead.’

  It had been the spring term of the first year at the grammar school on the outskirts of Exeter. Suzanne had settled in well, helped by the fact that her sister was a couple of years ahead of her in the school. The new girl, transferring from Liverpool Institute High School, had seemed standoffish and talked in an accent which would have made her very popular two decades before, but was now just seen by Suzanne and her friends as ‘weird’. The two girls had gradually learned to tolerate each other and even to enjoy each other’s company over the following seven years as they vied for the top spot in every exam they took. They’d lost touch with each other when they moved on to university—Suzanne to Oxford and Francine to the School of Oriental and African Studies in London—but Suzanne had watched with interest the rising fortunes of her erstwhile school friend.

  ‘That’s nice; although I never really warmed to her the way you did.’ Charlie took a swig of her beer and pointed at Suzanne. ‘By the way, I meant to tell you, I’ve remembered something about the vehicle that was, I mean might have been, watching me.’

  ‘And that is…?

  ‘The registration began with an X?’

  ‘Not much to go on, is it?’

  ‘Well there aren’t many Hummers around in this city; maybe your PC would be able to narrow it down for us.’

  ‘He’s not my PC, Charlie, don’t be silly; he was just being—’ She stopped suddenly and stared at her sister. ‘Hummer; what Hummer?’

  ‘The Hummer that’s stalking me.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me it was a Hummer!’

  ‘Didn’t I? Sorry. Is it important? I thought you didn’t believe in it—so why should it matter what type of vehicle it was?’

  ‘Because there was a Hummer acting suspiciously outside the hospital last night. Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it?’

  ‘But why would they be outside the hospital? I’ve got no connection with that place, apart from via you—and I never mention your place of work to anyone. You’ve drummed that into me often enough.’

  ‘Charlie.’ Suzanne reached across and took her sister’s hand, ‘I don’t think they’re after you. I think they’re after me.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Think about it.’ She started ticking off a list on her fingers as she spoke. ‘There was the loss of my suitcase; the strange way it was returned to me, the fact that the contents had been rifled—at least I’m fairly sure they had; the break-in at the flat—and now the same, or a similar vehicle hanging around both the flat and the office. Besides which, how would anyone know where you are staying anyway? No, I definitely think they’re after me.’ Charlie stared at her sister with a look of uncertainty on her face, and then her shoulders dropped as the tension went out of them.

  ‘Oh, thank goodness for that. I was so sure Sandro had found me and was coming after his little black book.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad that’s taken a weight off your mind,’ said Suzanne dryly. Charlie bit her lip and opened her eyes wide.

  ‘Shit, I didn’t mean it like that, Suzanne; you know I didn’t.’ She looked so guilty, Suzanne couldn’t keep a straight face any longer. Charlie screwed up her napkin and threw it across the table. ‘But do you have any idea who might be doing t
his to you—and what they’re looking for?’

  ‘Well,’ Suzanne said, ‘I’ve got an idea, but I don’t want to talk about it here, especially if we’re not sure who’s listening. Look, I’ll settle up with Sanjay while you pop next door to the off-licence and grab a bottle of red. Then we’ll go home and I can tell you what happened while I was away.

  ‘So,’ Charlie said, after Suzanne had finished telling the tale of Sara and Ruth for the second time that day, ‘you think all this might be connected with that brave woman and her poor sister?’

  ‘I’m rather afraid it is,’ she replied, ‘and I’m only glad I didn’t leave the papers in the flat yesterday. She risked a lot, talking to us like that—she was terrified and kept telling us to be careful. I’d hate to think I was responsible for blowing her cover.’

  ‘So where are the papers?’

  ‘The originals are with WB in Kampala. He’s hidden them somewhere—wouldn’t even tell us where in case we were compromised as he put it.’

  Charlie barked a laugh.

  ‘That’s a bit “cloak and dagger” for you public servants, isn’t it?’ Suzanne smiled ruefully and nodded.

  ‘Yes, I wondered at the time if he was being a bit paranoid, but now I’m beginning to think he might have been right.’

  ‘And the copies?’

  ‘They’re on my phone—and Chibesa’s laptop. We scanned them in before giving them to WB.’

  ‘So what happens, now?’

  ‘I’m not sure; I need to think about it and talk to the rest of the team. But one thing’s for sure.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think it might be a bit late for Sir Frederick’s warning about not getting too involved.’

  ‘Hmm, and are you going to tell him about all this?’

  ‘Well, he knows about the break-in, but that’s all for now. I didn’t mention my suitcase, as I thought it was just a mix-up in communication and I could hardly tell him I thought my knickers were arranged in a different order, now could I? Pete might have mentioned the Hummer from last night, but unless it was a red alert report, it won’t have reached the boss’s office anyway. And no-one knows about it being outside the flat apart from the two of us.’

  ‘So you could keep it all to yourself, then?’

  ‘Yes, and I will for the time being—apart from talking to the guys in Africa, that is.’ Then a thought struck her and she slapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh no; my presentation!’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Everyone was there—the whole of IHF; plus a senior politician. And I told them about Sara and Ruth. Not by name, obviously, but there was enough information in there that she could be uncovered quite quickly by someone who was really trying.’

  ‘But who’s going to want to do that?’

  ‘Who knows, Charlie? That’s the trouble; we don’t know who we can trust and who we should be wary of. And the default position is always to err on the side of caution. If you don’t know who to trust—trust no-one, no-one at all.’

  9: ZAMBIA; NOV 2004

  ‘Oh for goodness sake, not again!’ On Chibesa’s computer screen, a small egg-timer was spinning gently. A high-pitched buzzing was just audible above the sound of the ceiling fan that languidly moved damp, hot air from one part of the room to another.

  The buzzing stopped and the egg-timer disappeared, to be replaced, not for the first time that morning, by a small white box bearing a message in blue writing: A NetBIOS error has occurred. Dial-up discontinued.

  ‘Right, that’s it—I give up!’ Chibesa glanced at the clock on the wall; the hands standing at a few minutes before noon. Grabbing his sunglasses from the desk, he headed for the door. They were the most expensive pair he’d ever bought, costing him ten dollars in the market, but the Dolce & Gabbana logo made them worth the money. They certainly managed to fool most of his friends.

  He ran down the outside stairs from his third floor office and turned right out of the gate, waving to the two security guards in their little yellow hut. The noise and dust of midday Lusaka hit him like a brick wall. The street had been quiet and empty when he’d arrived at seven-thirty, but a bustling market had sprung up during the morning while he dealt with paperwork and fought with his computer connection.

  Nestled against the red-brick walls of the complex, and sheltering from the sun under the overhanging jacaranda trees, was a row of food stalls. Chibesa could smell a pungent mixture of frying onions, melons and overripe bananas. His stomach rumbled; he’d not eaten for hours.

  The rest of the stalls were ranged along the edge of the pavement in full sunlight. Stallholders perched on small plastic stools, protecting themselves from the strong rays with umbrellas. The shoe-seller had his usual pile of sandals, plimsolls and flip-flops on the old tarpaulin stretched across the pavement. There was no order to the stock, and no two adjacent shoes made up a pair. Potential buyers scrabbled through the pile, trying to find two shoes that matched.

  Next were the clothes stalls. There were racks of tie-dyed caftans in purples and greens; cotton blouses in blacks, creams and oranges, decorated with gold embroidery; and the maroon and lemon patterned shirts that were Chibesa’s trademark. He often whiled away his lunchtimes looking at these stalls. But today he was heading to the government pharmacy on the other side of the street.

  ‘Hey, Uncle Chibesa, wait for me!’ He turned, hearing his name called. A young boy was trotting along the pavement, pushing his way past shoppers and waving vigorously. He wore a tight shirt of yellow gingham that rode up, exposing a thin sharp-ribbed torso. By contrast, his orange shorts were a couple of sizes too big and he’d threaded an old silk tie through the belt-loops to try and keep them in place. He kept yanking at them to stop them slipping down. Panting when he reached Chibesa, he gave his uncle a huge smile.

  ‘Hey there, Joey,’ Chibesa patted the boy’s head. ‘How’s Samuel?’

  Chibesa was the sole wage-earner supporting his eight-year-old brother, Samuel, and a growing number of cousins, second cousins, nephews and nieces, all Aids orphans. For the past three weeks, they’d all been concerned about Samuel whose latest chest infection seemed to be lingering longer than usual.

  ‘Better today, but still coughing,’ Joey replied. ‘You know he finished his medicine last night?’

  ‘Yes, I saw the empty bottle on the table this morning. I’m just going to buy some more and you can take it home to him. Do you want to wait here or come in with me?’

  ‘Er...’ The boy put his finger in his mouth and looked longingly up the street at the food stalls. Chibesa grinned and pulled a couple of coins out of his pocket.

  ‘How about you go get us some lunch,’ he said, ‘and we’ll eat it in the garden before you take Samuel’s medicine to him.’

  As Joey grabbed the money and ran back up the street, Chibesa pushed open the door to the pharmacy. It was cool inside, cooler than his office and much cooler than the street. He wondered what it would be like to work in a place like this. He felt lucky that his job in the Health Ministry, and especially the secondment to IHF, gave him access to this government facility. Otherwise, he’d have to buy his medicines from the market and you never knew what you were getting there.

  His visit to the pharmacy was short and within a few minutes, he was sitting on a bench in the Ministry grounds sharing a slice of water melon with his young cousin. As they ate, they watched the ants massing around the pool of juice dripping from their hands onto the path in front of them. Joey picked up the medicine bottle and rubbed his thumb along the slight bulge on the neck below the cap.

  ‘I’m going to ask Samuel if I can have this bottle for my strange-shapes collection when he’s drunk all the medicine,’ he said.

  Lunch finished, Chibesa took Joey back onto the busy street and flagged down a passing minibus. It was packed, but the boy managed to find a place on the back seat, squashed between two elderly ladies loaded down with parcels. He held Samuel’s medicine carefully in one hand as he wave
d to Chibesa with the other.

  When Chibesa got back to his office, there was a post-it note stuck to his computer screen. It said: Phone Suzanne Jones and a telephone number beginning +44. Chibesa punched in the numbers and smiled as he heard the quiet English tones on the recorded message.

  ‘Hi, this is Suzanne Jones. I’m not at my desk right now, but please don’t hang up. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I return.’

  ‘Suzanne, this is Chibesa returning your call. I’ll be here —’ but a voice broke in before he could finish his sentence.

  ‘Hi, Chibesa, I’m here.’

  ‘Suzanne, hello. It’s great to hear your voice. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I wanted to see how you were getting on with the recall. Terrible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Recall, what recall?’

  ‘Didn’t you see the email?’

  ‘No, I’ve not seen anything—mind you, I’ve not been able to dial in all morning.’

  ‘Oh good grief, Chibesa, I never thought of that. Look, I’ll fax it over to you now. The guys in Uganda found diethylene glycol in samples of cough syrup from a local pharmacy. It’s supposed to be an import from the States, but they think the labels are fakes. The stuff probably came from somewhere in Eastern Europe—or from a local factory.’

  ‘Diethylene glycol; that’s antifreeze, isn’t it?’ Chibesa asked.

  ‘Yes—but occasionally it gets used in place of glycerol—it’s cheaper and easier to get; but it’s highly toxic! There were loads of children who died in Haiti in 1996 and the same thing happened in China a couple of years back. We’re hoping we’ve caught it in time in Uganda, but we’re recalling the product across the region in case some of the batches have gone to other countries.’

  ‘Hang on,’ Chibesa said, ‘the fax is just coming through.’ He reached across the desk and tore off the strip of thin paper. ‘Okay, I’ve got it.’