by Giles Foden
She was surprised how powerful the need for him was, considering how lukewarm she’d become at the end of their time together on the island. She found herself wondering whether it was anything special about him that was drawing her to him now, or simply the bomb’s levelling circumstances – its effect of making one want to preserve every emotional connection, however slight.
Some news came through just after she got back to Queller’s office. A group calling itself the ‘Liberation Army of the Islamic Sanctuaries’ had claimed responsibility for the killings, in statements faxed to Radio France International and the Cairo bureau of Agence France Press.
‘Jaysh Tahrir al-Muqaddasat al-Islamiyyah,’ said Queller, enunciating the group’s name in Arabic. ‘That isn’t one of the usual al-Qaida pseudonyms, but the pattern is the same. Bin Laden has always been calling for US forces to leave Saudi Arabia because he believes they tarnish the holy places. Mecca and Medina. In previous despatches he’s said he would pursue US forces and strike at US interests everywhere until that demand was satisfied.’
‘How would that help him, if he’s in Afghanistan and been expelled by the Saudis, like you say?’
‘I think the strategy would be that if he could throw the US military out of Saudi and the whole Gulf, he’d be able to establish an extremist Islamic government there, and hold the West to ransom by restricting the supply of oil.’
Miranda went and checked again that Nick’s name wasn’t on any of the casualty lists, either at Nairobi or Dar: what if he had been coming to see her? He wasn’t – all US citizens at the two sites had been accounted for. But where was he then?
During the afternoon, the Nairobi investigators had two lucky breaks. The first came just as Queller and Miranda were coming back from lunch. One of the men picked up by the Kenyans had been identified in a police line-up as the terrorist who had jumped out of a pickup and thrown a grenade at guards minutes before the Nairobi truck drove towards the embassy gates. Later, information came through from Karachi that Pakistani immigration officials had picked up another man coming off a flight from Nairobi. He had been travelling on a false Yemeni passport, and had tried to bribe the officials when they spotted it.
*
The breakthrough in the Dar investigation didn’t come till the following morning. Another security camera on the roof of the building had been found intact. Altenburg, who had already been through the images, sent them across to Queller with a scribbled note:
I suppose you had better let that girl watch this, since she is on it. It covers the fifteen minutes before the explosion. See if it prompts anything. Jack, I hear that you have had her attached to you as an assistant. That is against protocol, and a matter I will take up once this investigation is concluded.
It took a while for the right software to be loaded. A technician had to be called. As with the two previous tapes, the recording had been downloaded onto a computer file that enabled its image to be modulated more easily, and Queller’s computer didn’t have the right application. Once it was installed, they were able to watch the whole thing: Miranda walking across to the water tanker, the second truck approaching, the detonation itself. After that, the screen went blank. It sent a chill through her to see it all recorded in this way, but what worried her most was something else, something niggling at her mind that she couldn’t identify.
‘We’re lucky to get this,’ Queller said. ‘All the Nairobi tapes were destroyed and most of the ones at Dar were only on real time – just whirring away for the guards to look at – rather than recording.’
‘Can you show it again?’ Miranda asked, frowning.
Queller streamed the video a second time.
‘Can we zero in on the face of the driver?’
He pressed the pause button, then fiddled with the controls. The frozen spectacle enlarged, losing definition as he altered the settings.
‘Damn thing,’ Queller said.
Moving his hand swiftly between keyboard and mouse, he zoomed out, moved the cursor up, then zoomed in again. Finally the image she wanted came up full-screen. There, indistinct through the windscreen of the truck that had pulled up behind the tanker, was the face she had glimpsed a few minutes before the explosion – and, through a telephoto lens, a fortnight previously. She was realising why the face seemed familiar. It was one of the men she’d seen on the white cabin cruiser on the way back from Lyly. The man whose picture she had so nearly taken. The man with the pencil moustache.
25
‘What is the purpose of your visit?’
The official in the ill-fitting blue uniform examined her passport photograph extremely carefully, as if he expected to find another underneath. Security had been stepped up everywhere in the wake of the bombings.
‘Vacation.’
A lie, but under the circumstances, easier than having to explain. To explain how she and Jack Queller had matched the image of the truck driver with a file photograph of a known bin Laden associate: Yousef Mourad, a Syrian bombmaker. Or how Queller had sent her to Zanzibar to check out the Arabs who had been on the boat. Or how she had rung Nick numerous times to tell him she was coming, but had got no reply.
The man looked at her from behind black-rimmed glasses. ‘Which hotel are you staying at?’
‘Oh. I’m staying with a friend. Nick Karolides. He works here – on the coral-reef project.’
The official nodded, as if it were perfectly obvious, and reached for his stamp.
Walking out into the car park, Miranda looked around for Nick’s motorbike, even though she knew it was foolish to hope. A row of minibus taxis tooted their horns. She accepted the blandishments of the first driver who caught her eye.
‘My name is Rashidi,’ he told her, with a wide grin. ‘Your destination please?’
‘Can you take me to the Macpherson Ruins Hotel?’
‘Twende!’ he shouted, and started the engine.
‘What’s that?’
‘Let’s go! Is Swahili, mama.’
She fidgeted during the journey, as the driver avoided potholes and cyclists. All the things she had seen before – the cloistered streets of Stone Town, the women in veils with copper pots or bundles of faggots on their heads, the endless rows of palms and flashes of blue ocean – they just got in the way now, pressing on her attention. She wanted answers, fast. Where was Nick? The anxiety was now cutting into her deeply.
Miranda soon got some answers, but not the ones she wanted – standing in the dark foyer of the hotel talking to the Indian manager, with his white suit and sleek black hair.
Yes, he remembered her. And yes, he too had been wondering what had happened to Nick.
‘Because you see, madam, he is owing me for his room, and his belongings are still there. It is you who has been telephoning?’
‘Yes. When did you last see him?’
‘Over a week ago, madam. The English gentleman, Mr Leggatt – I think you met him, yes?’
Miranda nodded impatiently.
‘Well, he came here in his boat, and they went off. And that was the last I saw of them. I thought they had gone to Lyly, and then taken a longer cruise. But now I am beginning to be anxious. I am beginning to think that it is happening again.’
‘What?’
‘We had an accident here before, madam. With Mr Nick’s predecessor. Didn’t you know?’
‘No. What happened?’
The Indian’s face took on a pained expression. ‘He drowned, madam.’
Miranda shook her head, as if to rid herself of the thought. ‘Have you spoken to anyone? People at the docks? Leggatt’s house?’
‘No, madam. You see, Mr Nick was often away for periods. With his work. He recently went to Lyly, as I said, our small island over there.’
He pointed in the direction of the sea.
‘Yes, I know. I went there. You didn’t think to send a boat to Lyly?’
He hesitated, then raised his hands. ‘As I say, madam, Mr Nick is often away.’
She wondered what to do. It occurred to her she might visit the policeman Nick had once mentioned. She couldn’t remember his name. But the best thing would be to go find Leggatt. If anyone knew where Nick was, it would be him.
‘Would you like some refreshment? A cup of tea? A glass of soda?’
The manager looked at her hopefully, as if the forms of service might resolve their problem.
‘I want you to check me in,’ she said. ‘I’m going to go to Mr Leggatt’s now to make inquiries.’
She showed him her passport and filled in the check-in form. Then they went outside, the sun straining her eyes as they emerged from under the thatched eaves into the sandy car park. The manager gave the taxi driver directions to Leggatt’s farm.
The journey took about three quarters of an hour. It had seemed less on Nick’s motorbike. As they arrived, a dog ran out. It started barking at the matatu – snapping at the tyres as they drew up in front of the house with its tin roof, and its lawn running down to the sea. She saw the wooden jetty where she had stood in the dark after the trip to Lyly. Behind the house, through the taxi’s window, she could see rows of sheds and, stretching up as far as the eye could see on hills above, the green terraces of clove plantations. It seemed a far more welcoming place than when she had last come, in the rainstorm.
She wound down her window. The dog was standing nearby, growling. Rashidi switched off the engine and turned back to her.
‘Danger from this beast,’ he said, with great seriousness, though he was still grinning.
She ignored him and got out of the vehicle. Continuing to growl, the dog lowered its head and looked up at her – but there was something more tentative about the noise it was making now. She felt confident it wouldn’t bite. She swung her bag at it, and it slunk off away. It was the rolling tyres that did it, she thought, that had excited the animal’s curiosity. Poor Ray had said the same of the little white bobbysox on the antelopes they had seen at the game park: the flicking, the instinctual binary code of these white anklets, is what triggers the lion or cheetah to pursue, he had told her. She thought of him lying in hospital, with his bandaged, shattered knees. Then of Mrs Ghai and the others who had died. She wanted to find the people who had done this.
She noted that the Winston Churchill wasn’t in the bay, nor was there any activity in the clove-drying barns. She approached the bungalow and banged on the porch door. There was no piano music this time. The door was locked and the whole place seemed deserted. She was just about to leave when a small black figure appeared from the direction of the dilapidated drying sheds.
‘Could you tell me where …?’ she began loudly, then realising he couldn’t hear her, walked quickly towards him.
She recognised the boy. It was the one who had been on the sloop with them the day they went to Lyly. Sayeed.
Already he was shaking his head rapidly. He seemed a bit startled and frightened to see her. The only information she could get from him corresponded with that supplied by the manager at the Macpherson.
‘Bwana and the young bwana went away in the big boat. I have been waiting!’
‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘You’re not in trouble.’ She reached out and touched his shoulder.
The boy smiled at her shyly and poked a finger through one of the holes in his ragged T-shirt. ‘They shifted to the place we were before. Lyly.’
She considered him for a moment, assessing his usefulness. ‘Would you be able to get another boat and take me there?’
The boy made a helpless gesture with his hands. There was a silence, during which he looked to one side, showing the whites of his eyes. Finally comprehending, Miranda reached into her bag and took out a billfold. She peeled off a hundred dollars in low denominations and handed them over. They instantly disappeared into his grubby shorts.
‘You come to the hotel at Macpherson Ruins tomorrow morning, early, and we go to the island. Yes? You understand?’
The boy nodded.
‘I give you some more money when we return. OK?’
He nodded again. ‘Yes. I take you.’
She returned to the Macpherson. After paying the taxi driver, she went to the lobby to ask the manager for her room key. He wasn’t there. She rang the bell. As she was waiting, it struck her that she might as well ask to stay in Nick’s room. It wasn’t a question of not paying for two – more that she might gain some clue as to what had happened. Maybe he had left a note or something.
Hesitating at first, the manager finally assented to her request.
‘As you are … his friend,’ he said, haltingly.
The admission of her intimacy with Nick clearly didn’t fall into his usual professional patter, and he seemed almost relieved to turn and fetch the key off the rack behind him. Nick must have left it before he went, she thought. At least that meant he was planning to return.
They walked across the lawn to the chalet. Once the manager had opened the door, Miranda stepped inside. It was gloomy, and the Indian walked over to draw the curtains.
Evening sunlight, corn gold, streamed into the room. Miranda saw that there were some lumps of driftwood on the windowsill, and a pile of shells, including a large conch. The walls were hung with sponges. There must have been at least twenty of them.
‘Mr Nick, he collected those things,’ the manager explained, seeing her look. ‘So … I will leave you. Please lock the room if you go outside. We have been suffering the problem of burglary.’
She looked round the room. The bed was made, but otherwise the place looked as if Nick had just popped out for a minute: clothes thrown on the back of the chair, some of his scuba equipment piled up in a corner. She went over to a calendar on the wall, to see if anything was written on it. She lifted the pages. Nothing. Just pictures of Gettysburg, Graceland, New Orleans’s Jackson Square – a picture of Andrew Jackson’s statue and street revellers. Beside the photograph was a caption: ‘From Civil War to Mardi Gras – on both sides of the platform of this statue of Andrew Jackson are written the words “THE UNION, IT MUST BE PRESERVED.”’
On the desk, Nick’s laptop was open, in front of a line of marine biology textbooks propped against the wall. She turned it on, looking through a few documents. But they all related to his work. Her eye fell on a postcard of Drew Barrymore. She turned it over. It was from someone called Dino in Florida, whom she vaguely recalled Nick mentioning. The postcard mentioned scuba equipment. It also said, ‘Your ma is improving – I might even take her out! Anything to keep that Torrance guy away from her.’ It gave no clue as to where Nick might have gone.
She went into the bathroom, took in what was there. A tube of toothpaste, the cap off, a little pink worm of the stuff on the porcelain. A pair of nail clippers, slightly rusted. His shaving kit was also on the sink. She reached out and touched the soap-stiff brush, imagining his warm cheek against hers.
She studied herself in the mirror. She looked exhausted. Her hair flopped lifelessly about her ears and neck. There were dark circles under her eyes, and deep crease-lines either side of her nose. The last week had taken more out of her than anything in her life since the loss of her father. Nothing, she reflected – certainly not her training, which seemed like a joke now – could have prepared her for it.
She went back into the bedroom. After hefting her suitcase onto the bed, she stripped off to her bra and underpants, thinking she might take a shower before unpacking.
But first she went over and looked out of the window. It was covered in mosquito grille, yet she could still see the white expanse of the beach and the ocean’s shimmering stripe of green, swelling and flashing in the low sun. Also, but indistinctly, she could make out the black bodies of a group of boys, glistening as they splashed about in the surf. Through the mesh, and the sea’s background noise, she listened to their cries and laughing voices.
Her hand found the conch on the wooden sill. She picked it up and examined it. The opening was as pink as the toothpaste. She lifted it to her lips and blew – t
he sound that came out was so low and mournful that it made her feel uneasy.
She put it down and went over to the desk. Leaning on it, face to face with Drew Barrymore. Ever After. There must be some clue in the room. She looked at the line of books. The spine of one was different, older. She reached and picked it out – a heavy green ledger, stained and swollen from contact with water. It was his journal.
She traced her finger under his handwriting, neat and blue except where water had made it run. The last entry was some time ago, and it mentioned her.
July 20. Lyly with L. and M. Usual (fishwise anyhow!) except for snake of course. Mamba, L. said. Think M. was quite impressed … She’s marvellous.
She smiled at this, but already the tears were starting to prick, and the questions. Where was he? Was this how he felt? She wondered if she herself could ever have anything like the same depth of feeling. Her stomach twisted. Now she was here, seeing his words, she felt close to him again. It was strange, because she’d thought he was almost as hesitant as her before, and now she felt her heart losing its own hesitancy as she became aware of his true feelings.
She has a great laugh. Laughing and her hair blowing in the wind as we walk along the beach. In love? Think, hope, God knows.
Moved, intrigued, leaning over the table in her underwear, Miranda flicked back through the pages – back through the days and the weeks, back to their first meeting at the embassy, and the account of his earlier trip to Lyly. These were the images she took to bed with her, once she’d taken a shower: Nick stomping about the island looking for the cave mouth, or lying in the cottage watching the lighthouse beam fan across the sea.
*
So it wasn’t surprising, when she and Sayeed arrived at Lyly the following morning – when they searched the cottage and the beach, and the boy came running, saying there was a body, there was a body washed up on the shore, and it was muzungu, white – that she was convinced it was Nick.