Giddings reached out for her hand, trying to calm her, console her, but she pushed him away, swallowing hard, fighting to choke back the tears.
‘I thought you were a friend,’ she said simply, ‘and you betrayed me. All the time you betrayed me.’
‘How come?’
‘By knowing what you’d done. What you’d helped do. By …’ she shook her head, maddened by the complexity of it all, ‘being part of what happened. James. Domingos. Those poor bloody people in Muengo. You’ll tell me it’s war. You’ll tell me it’s too bad. You’ll say I don’t understand. That’s what you’ll say. You’ll pat me on the head and say I don’t understand. You’ll say it’s very complicated and very important and then you’ll tell me we can still be friends. No?’
Giddings nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said quietly, ‘friends. Friendship. There’s still room for that. Whatever you think.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘I hope not.’
‘You are. And you’re evil, too. You’re evil because you know what you’re doing. You know where it leads. You know what happens at the end of it. People like you kill kids like mine. Dear God …’ She turned away, aware for the first time of McFaul standing by the door. He was looking at her. And he was nodding.
McFaul awoke in the middle of the night. Giddings had given him a room on the first floor. It was small and bare, a single bed, a metal washstand, and tall wooden shutters hooked back against the wall beside the window. The door lay diagonally across from the bed and before he’d gone to sleep, McFaul had rolled a sock in a ball and left it behind the door. Now, the sock was a yard into the room. He could see it quite plainly in the light through the open window.
McFaul got out of bed. He’d folded his clothes on top of his holdall. Both had gone. He stood in the half-darkness for a full minute, knowing he’d been right. People like Giddings weren’t stupid. Amateur or otherwise, McFaul had been using a camera and in the ceaseless propaganda war, pictures were what hurt you most. Yesterday, in Katilo’s hotel room, McFaul had in fact shot nothing, but Giddings wasn’t in the business of taking risks. He’d want to know. He’d want to check. He’d want to be sure.
McFaul smiled to himself, limping across to the washstand and splashing his face with water. This was the first time he’d ever slept in a bed without removing his false leg and sleep had been a long time coming. But given the contents of the leg, the little cassettes he’d wedged inside, it had been worth it. He studied his face in the mirror, fingering the little ridges of scar tissue, the smile wider now, knowing the way it would go. Tomorrow, Giddings would be as good as his word. He’d take them to the airport. He’d see them through the formalities. And as fast as he could, he’d get them out of Africa.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Molly was half-asleep when she heard the knock on the front door. She pulled back the duvet and crept across the bedroom to the window. For some reason the central heating hadn’t come on and she began to shiver, peering through the slit in the curtains. Patrick’s Volvo stood outside in the lane. Alice was sitting in the front. She was looking up at the bedroom window. She was waving.
Molly found Giles’s dressing gown on the back of the door, and she tightened the belt round her waist as she made her way downstairs. The dressing gown enveloped her with Giles’s smell, a sweet mustiness that made her catch her breath. The clock in the hall said ten past three. She’d been home less than an hour.
Patrick was waiting on the front doorstep. Alice was halfway up the garden path. Almost shyly, Patrick offered her an enormous bunch of flowers.
‘From your trusty family solicitor.’ He beamed at her. ‘Lovely to have you back.’
Molly made them a pot of tea, clearing the pile of unopened mail off the kitchen table and apologising about the state of the place. She’d left in a hurry. She’d asked the daily help to look in from time to time, and the poor woman had obviously done her best, but nothing emptied a house of warmth quicker than prolonged absence.
‘Of course, dear,’ Alice murmured, ‘of course.’
Alice was a plump, pampered woman several years older than Patrick. She’d never had any children of her own but she somehow affected a knowledge of more or less everything. Including bereavement.
Molly had found some wholemeal digestives and a slice or two of banana cake.
‘It’s a question of adapting,’ Alice was saying. ‘It’ll be hard, believe me, but in the end you’ll get there.’
‘Get where?’ Molly surprised herself with the depth of feeling behind the question. She’d spent the journey back from Heathrow staring out of the train window. Never had England depressed her so much. The cold, grey skies. The endless suburbs. The slack-faced executives queue-jumping for taxis at Liverpool Street station. Giles had been lucky, she’d thought. Kissing goodbye to all this.
Alice and Patrick were exchanging covert glances and Molly wondered for a moment what they’d been expecting. Her duty, plainly, was to be brave.
She picked up the teapot, offering Patrick a refill.
‘Tell me about Giles,’ she said. ‘Tell me they’ve found him.’
Patrick looked startled.
‘I’m afraid I can’t.’
‘Not even a body?’
‘Not even that. One day maybe but …’ he reached for the sugar tongs, trying to mask his embarrassment, ‘not quite yet.’
‘Might he turn up, then?’
‘Yes …’ Patrick glanced at Alice again, ‘but it could be months, even longer than that. Evidently these things are hard to predict.’
Molly nodded, saying nothing, warming her hands on the teapot. She’d bought a copy of the Daily Telegraph at the station and the colour supplement lay on the floor at her feet. Pages and pages of Christmas offers plus a special feature on the New Year’s best ski destinations. None of it mattered. None of it made the slightest particle of sense.
Patrick was leaning forward on the table, intimate, sympathetic, the pose he often favoured in the office. Alice had beaten a tactful retreat to the sink, rolling up her sleeves and pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. Molly wondered how long it would take her to wash up two cups and a plate.
‘I’ve been talking to the life insurance people,’ Patrick was saying, ‘on your behalf.’
‘Oh?’
‘I think I may have mentioned it on the phone. When you called. Last week …’ He paused a moment, then continued, ‘Giles had been extremely prudent. In fact, if anything, he was over-insured.’
Molly nodded, her eyes still on Alice. She was soaping the cups for the second time.
‘He always believed in insurance,’ she said vaguely, ‘but then I suppose he would, wouldn’t he?’
‘Of course,’ Patrick chuckled, ‘and a good thing too. I know it must feel pretty meaningless just now but in the end you’ll be due a sizeable settlement. Once they’ve found a body.’
Molly offered him a weak smile. She meant it as gratitude but she could tell at once that he was disappointed. She reached for his hand, giving it a squeeze.
‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘it’s sweet of you to take so much trouble.’
‘It’s nothing, my dear.’
‘I mean it.’
‘I know you do,’ he put his other hand on hers, ‘but that’s not the best of it.’
‘It’s not?’
‘No. Lloyd’s have confirmed they’re disputing the New Jersey claim through the courts.’ He nodded. ‘That’s extremely good news. The best, in fact.’ He released her hand, gesturing round. ‘The pressure’s off. No bailiffs. No need to skimp and save. Should do wonders for your peace of mind. Yours and one or two others.’
He smiled at her, fatherly, leaning back in the chair and making room for Alice as she bustled round the table, wiping it with a wet cloth. Molly watched her, suddenly exhausted, wanting them both gone. With luck, in minutes, she’d be back in bed, the room curtained against the last of the daylight, willing herself into unconsciousness.
A
lice was talking about Christmas. Did Molly have plans? Was she going away? Molly shook her head, smothering a yawn.
‘I hadn’t thought about it, to be honest. It hadn’t crossed my mind.’
‘Then you must come to us, you absolutely must. Mustn’t she, Paddy?’
Patrick nodded. He had his pipe out now and Molly’s heart sank, watching him fill it, tamping down the tobacco with his big, square-ended fingers. Christmas in Frinton would be endless, three days of rich food and bad television and quiet chats around the fire. These people were kind and well-intentioned but they’d suffocate her with their sympathy. She thought for a moment about Angola, the scenes she’d left behind, the people she’d met, and she realised with a shock that she missed it.
‘We have the meal early,’ Alice was saying. ‘Normally around half-past one. That gives us a little break before the Queen.’
Patrick nodded, sucking at the pipe.
‘Nice stiff walk in the morning. Church at eleven.’
‘And sherry afterwards at the rectory. Just a few of us. The vicar’s little treat for the regulars.’
Molly nodded.
‘Sounds wonderful.’
Alice was back at the sink. She began to hum ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’, wringing the cloth dry and draping it over the taps. Patrick had found the pile of unopened mail. He leaned forward, picking up an envelope on top.
‘Seen this?’
He handed an envelope to Molly. It was cream-coloured. In green, on the back, was the shape of a portcullis and the words ‘House of Commons’. Molly picked it up and opened it. The letter was typewritten and brief. It offered Molly regrets and consolations for Giles’s death. It said he’d been a good friend. The word ‘tragic’ was used twice. Molly looked at the signature at the bottom. The name sounded familiar though she couldn’t quite remember why.
‘Vere Hallam?’
Patrick nodded.
‘MP for Aylesbury. Not really a chum of Giles’s, more of a business associate.’ He paused. ‘Nice enough man though, from what I hear.’
Molly read the letter again. Vere Hallam had been devastated to learn about Giles’s death and in the final paragraph he pressed her to get in touch if there was anything she needed.
‘Business associate?’ she queried.
‘On the syndicate. Giles roped in a couple of MPs. With his track record, they were queuing up.’ He smiled, reaching for his matchbox, nodding at the letter. ‘I imagine Mr Hallam’s pretty relieved. Bankruptcy’s bad enough. If the syndicate had gone down, he’d have been out of a job, too.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, yes. Bankrupt MPs are automatically suspended from the House. Might have been nasty for HMG. Given the current situation.’
Molly folded the letter, remembering now where she’d last heard Hallam’s name. Robbie Cunningham had mentioned him, back in Luanda, the evening they’d met at the Café Acardia for a meal. Robbie had been amused at the coincidence, Giles’s syndicate top-heavy with Tory MPs, pulled back from the brink of disaster, leaving the government’s fragile majority intact.
Molly returned the letter to the pile on the sideboard. Alice had run out of domestic chores. She was standing beside Patrick’s chair, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder. Patrick reached up, touching it a moment, then smiled again.
‘Glad to be home?’
Molly looked at them both, the fond tableau, the proof that one couple at least could weather life’s storms.
‘No,’ she said truthfully, ‘I don’t think I am.’
‘No?’ Patrick expelled a fat plume of blue smoke, then waved it away.
‘No.’ Molly shook her head. ‘It doesn’t feel like home at all. It feels different. Like nowhere I’ve ever been. And nowhere I ever want to be.’ She shivered, pulling Giles’s dressing gown more tightly around her.
Alice had stolen a look at her watch.
‘Of course, dear,’ she said soothingly, ‘it’s bound to feel a little bit that way. Just for a day or two. Before you get used to it all. Believe me. Take a tip from someone who knows.’
Molly nodded, trying to look grateful. Alice, to her certain knowledge, had led a seamless, trouble-free existence, undisturbed by any of life’s nastier surprises. Her idea of a crisis, as Patrick had put it in one of his occasional quiet asides, was early closing day.
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ Molly said. ‘I’m just tired, that’s all.’
‘Of course you are, dear.’
‘And a bit grouchy, I expect.’
‘Not at all, not at all. Golly, if you can’t be honest with us …’ She reached for her coat, leaving the sentence unfinished.
With obvious reluctance, Patrick got to his feet while his wife explained about the family dog. They were due at the kennels to pick him up after a minor operation. With Labradors like Sammy you had to be so careful. Molly nodded, accompanying them into the hall, overwhelmed again by the gulf between the world she’d left behind, and the cosy certainties of life in middle-class England. In Muengo, Sammy would have lasted five minutes. Skinned and spit-roasted, he’d have kept an entire family alive for a week.
Patrick had paused by the door. He buttoned his coat, waiting while Alice returned to the kitchen to pick up her handbag. Out of earshot, he bent to Molly and kissed her lightly on the forehead. Molly froze, feeling his hand find hers.
‘Any time, my dear,’ he murmured, ‘just phone.’
It was dark by the time McFaul got to Devizes. On Ken Middleton’s instructions, he’d picked up a hire car at Heathrow, driving first to Southsea to dump his kit. He had a tiny terrace house a stone’s throw from the sea, an inheritance from his mother, and he’d cat-napped for several hours on the sofa before coaxing a dribble of hot water from the shower and getting on the road again. His own car, a neat Escort automatic, was garaged in a lock-up round the corner. He’d spent most of his brief summer leave trying to sort out a problem with the automatic choke, but he had no appetite now for rejoining the battle. His priorities, after all, were clear. Get down to Devizes. Show Ken the precious footage. Make him commit to a full-blown film.
Ken Middleton was on the phone when McFaul arrived. Global Clearance occupied a brand-new unit on an industrial estate on the northern edges of the town, and Ken had commandeered the big room upstairs as his personal office. The last time McFaul had seen it was three months back. Then it had been an empty shell, still smelling of fresh paint and newly sawn timber. Now it looked like a military command post. Two of the walls were covered in maps, and there were three separate workstations, each with its own computer screen, each dedicated to regions where Global had a special involvement.
Middleton was sitting at the desk marked ‘South-east Asia’, talking to someone at the other end about a shipment of detectors. He was a small, round-faced man with a fuzz of thinning blond hair and a little too much weight around the waist. The latter was a consequence of the hours he kept. Like McFaul, Middleton was a divorcee. He rarely left the office earlier than nine and existed almost entirely on takeaway meals. McFaul could see the remains of the last one in the bin by the window, a crumpled pizza box crusted with congealed tomato paste.
Middleton ended the conversation with a snort. On the phone from Heathrow, McFaul had given him the details of Llewelyn’s camcorder. Now, Middleton was nodding at a pile of big cardboard boxes on the desk he reserved for what he called ‘General Admin’. All three boxes carried the Sony trademark.
McFaul looked at them.
‘What are they?’
‘You asked for editing facilities.’
‘I said we had to sort the pictures out.’
‘Same thing, isn’t it?’
Middleton got up. He reached for a bayonet from a shelf overhead and began to saw his way into one of the boxes. His obsession with technical equipment was legendary. Within a year, he was planning to interlink all Global’s field operations via satellite to a central computer, giving himself hourly updates on de-mining pro
gress across the planet. There was, in this, a hint of megalomania but McFaul had yet to meet anyone in the de-mining business who didn’t regard Ken Middleton with enormous respect. If he wanted to play the puppeteer, pulling strings across the world, then so be it. The man’s determination to lead a personal crusade had already put the mines issue squarely on the public agenda. Mines were evil. Kids were dying. Eyes should be opened. End of message.
Middleton was examining the contents of the biggest box. According to the label on the front, it was an Edit Controller. Middleton obviously hadn’t a clue how it worked. McFaul smiled, watching him racing through the instruction manual. As ever, he read it backwards, starting from the end.
‘Where did this lot come from?’
‘Place in Bristol. Bloke drove it down this afternoon.’
‘How much? As a matter of interest?’
Middleton ignored the question, his finger anchored halfway down a page. Years of fund-raising had given him a profound reluctance to discuss money but he had a real talent for chiselling big sums from sources across Europe. The EEC Commission in Brussels had, to McFaul’s certain knowledge, contributed millions and there was a rich shipping magnate in Oslo who was happy to sponsor individual initiatives. The editing equipment, in Middleton’s eyes, would have been small change.
‘What’s happened to Bennie? You heard from him at all?’ Middleton’s eyes didn’t leave the page.
‘Top drawer,’ he said, ‘Africa desk.’
McFaul limped across to the workstation by the door. A big Michelin map of Africa was pinned to the wall above the computer screen. The map had been laminated in clear plastic and white chinagraph ringed areas where Global was involved. McFaul paused, looking at Angola, hunting for Muengo. The town had earned itself a red pin, Middleton’s private code for operational disaster. Red pins meant withdrawal under fire, the job incomplete, the worst possible outcome after months of patient fieldwork.
‘Top drawer,’ Middleton said again, ‘and good luck with the writing.’
Bennie’s letter lay beneath a sheaf of telexes from the British embassy in Luanda. It ran to five pages in all, a long, rambling account of what had happened in Muengo. According to Bennie, everything had gone wrong. The organisation had been shit, the support non-existent, standing rules violated, operational procedures ignored. Terra Sancta had arrived out of nowhere, uninvited, and the result had been a shambles. Was Global there to clear mines? Or play at showbiz? Wasn’t Angola dodgy enough already without people like Todd Llewelyn around?
The Perfect Soldier Page 42