Dark Clouds

by Phil Rowan

  I pull the flush and tighten the belt on my robe when I open the closet door. There’s no conversation on our way back to my isolated room, but Fiona’s waiting with a welcoming smile.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, she says when I climb back between the sheets. ‘If you and Ingrid go to this Greek island, I’d like to come and visit, if I may.’

  Most certainly. ‘You’d be very welcome.’

  Only I’m getting confused. Didn’t my neighbour recently attempt to seduce my Valkyrie Princess, and quite brazenly, according to Ingrid?

  I’m dithering and giving out exhaustion signals when Nurse Reilly appears with a blood pressure gauge.

  ‘You’re going to have to rest,’ she tells me. She’s deliberately avoiding any eye contact with my visitor, who is picking up her handbag of the moment.

  ‘Give me a hug,’ I say spontaneously to Julia, which gets her sitting beside me on the bed.

  Her expensively groomed black hair is soft and shiny. She’s been a good friend, and I’m losing myself in her warm embrace when the door opens. I can see a huge bald-headed guy with a lump under his left arm, which I think is a gun. I’m clinging on to my neighbour while Nurse Reilly says, ‘Eh … excuse me …’

  The bald-headed guy is familiar. I’ve seen him in Crowndale Square. He drove the BMW that Carla Hirsch came to see me in. She’s coming in past him now, but she stops when she sees Fiona’s elegant back with my arms around her shoulders. There’s mild panic in her eyes. I’d like to know why, but Carla’s followed into my overcrowded room by Dr Zakir.

  ‘I want please to examine patient,’ he says. ‘So I would wish everyone to wait outside until I am finish … ‘

  Chapter 18

  A Desperate Housewives repeat is coming up on the TV. Someone is about to be murdered in an idyllic suburban close and Dr Zakir is standing with his arms folded at the end of my bed.

  ‘You must take rest now,’ he says, and I agree. I want to just fall in with the housewives and empathise with their challenges. I’m on my own briefly, but I can hear raised voices outside in the corridor. I recognise Earl Connors’ polite, mediating tone and shortly afterwards my Controller enters.

  ‘So, Rudi … it’s you and me now.’

  I could complain, and as I think about it, she’s sitting patiently on the edge of my mattress. ‘Can we talk, sir? OK –maybe …but I’m fragile, so not for too long, please.’

  ‘You have my sympathy,’ she says, ‘for what it’s worth.’

  There’s a self-deprecatory tone here that intrigues me. Am I experiencing a more human side of Agent Hirsch?

  ‘Right – ’

  ‘But this person who shot you … any idea who he might be?’

  A smiling Asian with a nicely pressed shirt and tie in a beige Lexus. He was articulate and I imagine he had been well educated. ‘Hi Rudi …I’m going to kill you!’ Great – I’m lucky he only winged my arm and gave me a nasty bang on the head. Jeremy Wagstaff and his wife, Annalise, are in protective custody. Sunita Malawi is, I’m sure, doing whatever she can to push Carla and myself right out of her handsome head, which leaves the Brixton rioters. One of whom might have taken my picture and Michael ‘Mohammed’ Sharif could have identified me. But how was my hit man to know I would be leaving Sunita Malawi’s house in Manchester Square when I did?

  ‘I’ve never seen him before,’ I say to Carla. ‘He could have been anyone.’

  She’s looking closely at her nails, but then she raises her eyes.

  ‘Your friend Fiona and I didn’t get along,’ she tells me, but I don’t want to go there. In fact, I’m not sure where I’m going anymore.

  ‘It’s probably best if you don’t return to the house where you’ve been staying in Islington … it’s too risky.’

  I’m thinking seriously about a trip back to the States. I keep having disturbing images of Ingrid being wooed by the mysterious Russian who likes her art work, and it’s getting to me. I’m drawn to the anonymity of my cousin Lee’s place in Wyoming. It’s very remote, and I think I could blend in with the ranch scene. ‘You come on down here any time you want to cut out, Rudi boy …you’ll have to work and earn your keep mind, but we can always do with an extra pair of hands, especially with the harvest and when we got to round up cattle for the market.’

  With all of this introspection, I’m missing out on the situation with my Controller. Her usually ice cold mask has slipped a little; her mouth is open like she’s in a trance and she’s staring aimlessly at the window which overlooks what I gather is a former mental asylum.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I ask and her body jerks as though I’ve woken her.

  ‘Yes – I guess so … but I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘What about?’

  Her defences are down and I’m keen to explore around the real Hirsch.

  ‘Before 9/11,’ she says, ‘I was coasting along in the State Department. I wasn’t going anywhere fast, and I didn’t have strong feelings about … well – anything.’

  ‘Sure –’

  I’m not the best person to respond on this. I’ve been in a neutral gear emotionally for almost ten years. I keep rushing mindlessly from one assignment to the next, and I drink too much.

  ‘But then the North Tower collapsed and my father died, Rudi … suddenly, everything changed.’

  I can relate to this.

  ‘I loved him so much … he was my icon,’ she says. ‘And when I realised what had happened, I became very angry. I wanted to go out and find the people who killed him. Most of them were already dead. But their cause flourished and that’s why I’m here … it’s a personal crusade, I guess.’

  I’m nodding emphatically. She’s a tough cookie, and scary. I wouldn’t want to do or say anything she might not approve of. Just now though, I don’t think I can help anyone. I need me time, and if cousin Lee in Wyoming can’t give me a bed, there’s always Mom in Sausalito or my dad in LA. I think I’d last about a week with either of my parents. We’d all get very tense and screwed up. ‘What you need, son,’ I can hear them saying, almost in unison, ‘is a proper job …why don’t you think about law school? You’ve probably missed out on the best opportunities, but you could always make a decent living as a lawyer.’

  ‘Can I break off now?’ I ask.

  ‘What do you mean … you want out?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve had enough. I want to go back to the States.’

  This is just what she needs: a challenge she can respond to. Her brain is getting back into gear. Her eyes are homing in on me, and Agent Hirsch is reverting to her normal, ruthlessly pro-active self.

  ‘Come on,’ she says, getting up and walking over to the window. ‘You’ll be OK. Your doctor’s already confirmed this, and we need you.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re our only link with the main players. Sulima Sharif is due here tomorrow – right?’

  Possibly – maybe. She had said she might come on Friday.

  ‘I want you to call her and see what’s happening.’

  She’s taking my phone from her bag and switching it on. There are two messages from Ingrid. I want to play them, but Carla’s back in my space on the side of the bed, so I scroll through the numbers until I get Sulima’s. She’s at least an hour ahead, but she could be anywhere between Paris and Geneva. Her number’s ringing, and then she answers.

  ‘Rudi?’

  ‘Hi – how are you doing?’

  There’s a pause, followed by a burst dam load of unhappiness.

  ‘I honestly don’t see the point of anything I’m doing any longer,’ she tells me. ‘I’m depressed, and Michael’s living in another world … I don’t know my brother, Mohammed.’

  Carla’s pressed the speaker button at the bottom of my phone and she’s nodding.

  ‘Are you coming to London tomorrow?’ I ask.

  ‘No. But I’ll be there on Saturday and I’ll call you.’

  She’s breaking up, so I say how much I’m looking forward to seeing her and
that I’ve got all sorts of possibilities on offer. I’m thinking of Fiona and maybe Daisy Glover on the social side. They’re right at the centre of a glamorous party scene, and I’m sure Fiona would love Sulima.

  ‘It’s a pity we don’t have a picture of this guy, Pele Kalim,’ Carla says when I’ve switched off my phone. She’s got up again and is musing over by the window. OK – I was unlucky. I messed up with the first camera she gave me and Pele’s back-up got my second. Maybe there’ll be another opportunity for me to make it third time lucky.

  ‘So you think he loves Sulima – and she feels the same about him?’

  Yes – definitely. Although she doesn’t approve of the jihad stuff, and she wants to put some distance between herself and her brother.

  ‘If you were Kalim, Rudi, and you knew that this beautiful woman you loved was coming to London, you would try to contact her – yes?’

  Of course.

  ‘So if we keep her in the frame, we might get to Mr Big?’

  I don’t like this idea of using Sulima as bait to net Pele. There is another possibility, I suggest, and it’s enough to get Carla away from her consideration of the old asylum building.

  ‘I know a Tunisian,’ I tell her, ‘who’s in touch with some of the people Rashid Kumar was involved with.’

  She’s interested, although a part of her is furious because I haven’t mentioned it previously.

  ‘I’ll contact him.’

  ‘When?

  ‘Tomorrow – if Dr Zakir lets me go home.’

  ‘You can’t return to Crowndale Square – it’s too risky.’

  ‘OK – ’

  ‘But there’s a hotel in Islington where you can stay. It’s pretty anonymous, and Robson or one of Earl’s team could keep an eye on you there.’

  She won’t let me go yet. I do however still have my Khalad card to play.

  ‘I need to rest,’ I tell her, and she gets up reluctantly from the chair she’s moved to. ‘But I’ll call my contact tomorrow and I’ll let you know how it goes when I’ve seen him.’

  In any other circumstances, I feel I’d be grilled relentlessly. This may still happen, but my Controller is biting her lower lip and I’m waiting.

  ‘The Israelis think our Mukhtar scientist guy is in Tehran,’ she says.

  Well – it looks like nuclear Ali is getting around.

  ‘Anyway … we’ll speak again tomorrow.’

  * * * * *

  The Desperate Housewives are splitting into cliques along Wisteria Lane and they’re being criticised increasingly by their precocious kids. I’m falling asleep, but on the BBC there’s a serious academic talking about shifting alliances in British politics. ‘For a long time,’ he says, ‘we’ve all been Labour, Conservative or Liberal voters …increasingly, however, we’re getting more Nationalist supporters who oppose what they see as alliances between Afro-Caribbeans and Muslim Asians …’ It’s a depressing debate, and I’m thinking of Ingrid when I smell coffee and hear a reassuring voice.

  ‘Well, you had a fair old sleep then, didn’t you?’

  Nurse Reilly is grinning with a breakfast tray and the sun is coming through my window.

  ‘How long?’ I ask.

  ‘Almost twelve hours … and I believe they’re going to let you out today.’

  There is still a bump on my head and my arm is a bit numb. But the scrambled eggs, coffee and toast with marmalade is a welcome treat.

  ‘How come you were on last evening and now this morning?’ I ask Nurse Reilly.

  She does split shifts sometimes, she tells me, which means she can then get more time off in small blocks to spend with her fireman boy friend.

  ‘But you had a lot of strange people here last night – and your police guard’s still outside … so if you’re not a gangster – what are you?’

  A wink and a finger to my lips. I can’t say a word. Nurse Reilly thinks I’m mad, and she’s pouring me another cup of coffee when a young doctor arrives.

  ‘Hugh Benson,’ he says, beaming. ‘And how are you, Mr Flynn?’

  Better than yesterday, thanks, and could I please have my clothes?

  ‘Of course – we’ll bring them up and I’ll give you IBUPROFEN in case you have any discomfort from your injuries … we’d also like to check your arm wound again in a few days.’ And that’s it. We shake hands and I wait until a shaven-headed Polish orderly delivers my stuff in a plastic bag.

  ‘You are a victim of crime?’ he asks.

  Most certainly. Some grinning bastard hugely enjoyed gunning me down.

  ‘We do not have any crime in Poland,’ he says. ‘And this is because we are all Poles. There are no foreigners, so no trouble.’

  I’m thinking concentration camp guards from a few years back, and the way locals treated Jews from the ghetto. I have no enthusiasm about the thought of visiting Warsaw or Austria anytime soon. ‘So thank you Hans or Zachowski …and I’m sorry, I can’t give you a tip. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to get dressed now …and I hope you have a nice day.’

  I should really be more tolerant. I have nothing against Poles or Austrians personally. It’s just that I find them a little creepy. There was a Polish Pope, who seemed OK, but there was another who had once saluted Adolph as a member of the Hitler Youth. Only I need to check here because the more intellectual guy was, I think, a German.

  There are repeats of the Oz soap Neighbours coming up on my TV. It’s all a bit small town villagey and adolescent and I’m switching to The Producers singing ‘Spring time for Hitler’ when there’s a knock on my room door.

  ‘Yes?’

  It’s Robson, and he’s tentative.

  ‘I’ve been sent to collect you.’

  ‘Right … so where are we off to?’

  ‘Islington … there’s a hotel. You have a top floor suite, and Mr Connors has asked me to get you anything you need from your house.’

  The security service people carrier is parked in a space reserved for ambulances at the hospital entrance. The radio is on and a news reader is getting excited about a Muslim demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in London.

  ‘Mukhtar Ali was shot earlier in Amman,’ Robson explains.

  ‘By the Israelis?’

  He’s nodding, while waving at a furious hospital parking supervisor.

  ‘That’s what it looks like … or should I say, that’s the story and a lot of people want to believe it.’

  I suppose Carla and her colleagues have good contacts with Mossad and the Shin Beth, and Mukhtar was seen as a threat on the nuclear side. Robson, however, is more interested in the next news item. It’s about clashes between Nationalists and the Muslim community in the Essex town of Harlow, which I don’t know.

  ‘This seems to be happening a lot now,’ I say when the news reader moves on to an item about grape subsidies within the European Community.

  ‘I suppose it’s difficult for you to imagine what England was like before the last war and in the ten or twenty years afterwards,’ Robson says when we stop at traffic lights.

  On the contrary, my man. I read Enid Blyton and Dr Doolittle when I was a kid in California. I know all about stiff upper lips and understatement, and I quite liked the work of Noel Coward, Graham Green – and who was the toff guy who wrote the Bond stories? Also, I reckon Robson wasn’t born until sometime in the early seventies, so he can’t know that much about England from the thirties to the sixties.

  ‘That’s not the point,’ he snaps when I say that old England is long gone and that we’ve now all moved on in to the new millennium. ‘We value our history and traditions, just as much as you do in America. Also – how would you feel if you suddenly woke up and found that were surrounded by foreigners who didn’t really want to be a part of your society?’

  He’s angry. I can see that, and I think he could overheat if we get into an argument.

  ‘So this street stuff now with the Nationalists is because they feel the way you do?’

  He’s stopped the
people carrier, which is worrying. We’re quite close to Hackney police station. But I’m not really fit enough to defend myself if he starts expressing himself physically.

  ‘Listen,’ he says when we’ve parked with two wheels on the pavement. ‘Forget all of this bollox you’ve heard about London being the greatest and most multicultural city in the world. That’s party political bullshit for elections, and you’d better believe it. This is England, mate … and the English are not happy about what’s happened to their country. We’ve been overrun see by people who don’t share anything with us … and we don’t like it. Can you understand that?’

  I’m going to have to speak with Carla or Earl about this guy. He’s in danger of over-heating, which could make it more difficult for him to carry out his duties for Her Majesty. So I breathe in deeply and give him as hard a stare as I can manage.

  ‘I see where you’re coming from,’ I tell him assertively. ‘If I were English I might have similar feelings. But frankly, I’m not sure if this is really relevant to what we’re trying to do.’

  I’m taking a risk. He might just say, ‘fuck off!’ or worse before pushing me out onto the sidewalk. He might even punch me. But being firm seems to work.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, pulling back to his own side of the vehicle. ‘I didn’t mean to have a go at you, mate. It’s just that I feel very strongly about what’s going on here at the moment.’

  Sure. That’s clear. My great uncle George was in the America First movement in the nineteen thirties. They didn’t want us to get involved in the Second World War and were strongly opposed to mass migration into the States from countries they perceived as being ‘foreign’. They only wanted white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, or Catholics at a push

  ‘So you reckon the English Nationalists have had enough and that’s why they’ve taken to expressing themselves on the streets.’

  I’m offering this in a spirit of reconciliation and Robson responds with an appreciative nod as he re-starts the people carrier.