A Loyal Spy

by Simon Conway

  “There isn’t any sugar,” she explained.

  “Just as it comes, then,” said Mulvey.

  Turning to hand them their mugs, she saw that the dog was sitting in front of the American Mikulski and having his ears scratched.

  “Mr. Said is a difficult man to track down,” said Coyle. “He isn’t very popular with his ex-wife. He is no longer employed by the army.”

  “Who reported him missing?” she asked, leaning back on the Aga rail.

  They didn’t reply.

  She sipped at her tea.

  “Is this from him?” asked Coyle, pointing to the postcard tacked to the fridge. “May I?”

  She nodded in assent and he peeled the postcard off the door.

  “Is this his handwriting?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have things to take care of,” he read out loud. “What do you suppose that means?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “People often go missing from Peshawar. I mean, Peshawar is a staging post, for people heading for the tribal areas and Afghanistan, isn’t that so?”

  “You believe Jonah’s in Afghanistan?”

  “Not anymore,” said Coyle.

  “Have you been to Afghanistan, Ms. Abd al’Aswr?” Mulvey asked.

  “I have.”

  “May I ask what you were doing there?”

  “I was driving a truck.”

  Coyle looked around him, at the dog, now curled up on the sofa, the breakfast things and two-day-old newspapers still on the table, the empty bottle of vodka and her socks slung over the back of a chair.

  “You’re on your own, then?” he asked, in a tone that suggested that she lived in a state of disarray.

  “Since he left,” she acknowledged.

  “You don’t have a telephone,” observed Mulvey.

  “The line doesn’t reach this far.”

  “And you have a part-time job with Scottish Natural Heritage?”

  “Yes. I monitor the orchids.”

  “Orchids?”

  “There is a species of rare orchid on the moor. I keep watch over them.”

  “To deter thieves?”

  “Partly.”

  “When did Mr. Said travel abroad?” Coyle asked.

  “I don’t know. Have you checked with the airlines?”

  They glanced at each other.

  “Did you discuss his departure?” Coyle demanded.

  “No,” she said.

  “You just woke up one morning and he was gone?” asked Coyle skeptically.

  “No. I came back off the moor one afternoon and he was gone.”

  “Did he leave a note?”

  “No.”

  “And has he made contact since?”

  “No.”

  “Except for the postcard,” said Coyle, standing very close to her.

  “Except for the postcard,” she agreed. She held out her hand for it, and reluctantly he gave it to her.

  “What was he doing in Peshawar?” asked Mulvey, from the far side of the room, as he sifted through the papers on the table. “Mr. Said, I mean.”

  “I have no idea. You won’t find anything interesting there.”

  Mulvey picked up a book and rifled through the pages. “You speak Arabic?”

  “Yes.”

  Their eyes were on her. She sipped at her tea.

  “Abd al’Aswr is an interesting name.”

  “It was my husband’s name. He was from Saudi Arabia.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Coyle and Mulvey looked at each other.

  “Mr. Said has some Middle Eastern ancestry,” Coyle told her.

  “Not all Arabs are terrorists,” she said defiantly.

  “Goodness, no,” said Coyle. “We wouldn’t for a second entertain that thought. Would we, Mulvey?”

  “Not for a second.”

  Coyle removed a passport-size photo from his wallet and held it up, pinched between his thumb and forefinger for her to see.

  “Do you recognize this man?”

  The photo was the same as the mugshot pinned to the wall at the center of the collage in Jonah’s study, the man with the wry, self-mocking smile.

  “His name is Nor ed-Din,” Coyle explained. “He’s a British citizen of Jordanian extraction. Do you recognize him?”

  “No,” she lied.

  “Do you have access to the Internet?”

  “No.”

  “This gentleman recently appeared in a video. I think you would call it a sort of confession. In it he makes certain threats against the security of this country. Serious threats. I repeat, do you know Nor ed-Din?”

  “I’ve never seen him before.”

  Coyle looked like he didn’t believe her. “We believe that your friend Jonah was a colleague of his. The Department, have you heard of that?”

  “No.”

  “What about Richard Winthrop?” Mikulski asked, leaning forward in his chair.

  Coyle looked up sharply and Miranda had the feeling that Mikulski had deviated from a prepared set of questions.

  “No,” she replied.

  There was a pause.

  “Did Mr. Said take much with him, when he left?” asked Mulvey.

  “A change of clothes, that’s about it.”

  “A mobile phone?”

  ‘I’m not sure that he had one. They aren’t much use up here. There’s no signal.”

  “Did he possess a passport in another name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did he talk to you about what line of work he was in?”

  “We never discussed it.”

  “You don’t seem to have discussed very much.”

  “We had a predominantly physical relationship,” she said. “We fucked a lot.”

  Mulvey wagged a finger at her. “Now you’re teasing us.”

  “I don’t think I can help you any further,” she said.

  “You’ve been very kind, ma’am, and we’ve overstayed our welcome,” Coyle replied. He handed her a card. Inspector Coyle. Counter-Terrorism Command. “Give us a call, if you remember anything that might help. And if Mr. Said rings or writes, or turns up as suddenly as he disappeared, or you remember anything or hear something from a third party which could be of assistance in locating him or Mr. Nor ed-Din, then please let us know.”

  “I will.”

  “Of course you will,” said Mulvey.

  “It’s an interesting house,” said Coyle.

  “A bit remote for my taste,” added Mulvey.

  Mikulski rolled his eyes and got up from the chair.

  The policemen put their mugs on the table before they left. Neither of them had touched the tea. She stood by the sink and watched through the window as the police car rattled back down the track with the American’s head visible in the rear window, staring back at the house.

  As soon as the car had turned the corner she hurried down the hall to Jonah’s study.

  In addition to the photographs of Nor ed-Din she found three references to Richard Winthrop on Jonah’s board. The first was a clipping from the Baltimore Sun, dated May 2003, a block of text highlighted with a yellow fluorescent marker:

  Like dirty money, tainted reputations can be laundered, as the Bush Administration fervently hopes in the case of Richard Winthrop. Now at the White House National Security Council, Winthrop has been chosen to go to Iraq to serve as deputy to Coalition Provisional Authority Chief L. Paul Bremer. As part of President Reagan’s policy of supporting anti-communist forces in the 1980s, hundreds of millions of dollars in United States aid was funneled to the Salvadoran Army, and a team of 55 Special Forces advisors, led for several years by Richard Winthrop, trained front-line battalions that were accused of significant human rights abuses.

  The second reference was from the New York Times, dated June 28, 2004, the headline BREMER LEAVES AFTER IRAQI SOVEREIGNTY TRANSFER, and beneath it a photograph showing CPA chief Bremer striding toward a waiting pl
ane in his trademark tan suit and Timberland boots. At his side, his head circled with a black marker pen, was a taller and equally determined-looking man in a suit. Beneath the photograph the caption read: “L. Paul Bremer and his deputy Richard Winthrop IV stage an exit in one plane for the press and then fly out on another.”

  The third reference was in a cutting from the Wall Street Journal from February 2005, an announcement by the security company Graysteel USA that it had hired a new vice-chairman:

  “Richard Winthrop brings with him thirty years of experience in combating terrorism around the globe and absolute devotion to freedom and democracy and the United States of America,” said Graysteel owner, Thaddeus Clay. “We are honored to have him return to our great team.”

  With leadership drawn from the Executive Branch of the United States Government, Graysteel has the practical experience and the network to mitigate any security issue.

  She sat back in the chair.

  On the one hand there was Nor, with an obvious childhood link to Jonah and other parallels: both soldiers, possibly both members of the Department, both missing, both wanted by the police and The FBI. On the other hand, an American, a Republican ideologue with a past connection to Salvadorian death squads, one-time deputy to the proconsul of Iraq, and now vice-chairman of one of the largest security companies in the world.

  Where was the link?

  WHO’S BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED?

  September 4–5, 2005

  Miranda got off the bus at the bottom of Bowmore’s Main Street and walked toward the round whitewashed Presbyterian church at the top of the hill. It was a beautiful clear day on Islay without a cloud in the sky. The dog followed at her heels. At the Co-op she crossed the road and headed diagonally across the square past the usual huddle of teenagers standing around the telephone box and walked toward the school.

  She knew that she could not approach Esme at home. The level of antagonism between Jonah and his ex-wife Sarah and her new husband Douglas was such that she would not be allowed to speak to Jonah’s daughter if she showed up at their front door. She also understood the reason for it.

  In mid-1999, soon after Sarah announced that the marriage was over and that she had found someone else, Douglas was kidnapped and held in captivity for several days in a remote corner of Sutherland in northern Scotland. Jonah had not approved the kidnapping, he had not been involved in the planning or the execution of it, but he had been lured up to Sutherland in great secrecy on an unrelated pretext.

  Jonah had described to her the ferocious mixture of emotions that followed on seeing Douglas lying face down on a bed of straw, naked but for a pair of underpants; the mixture of horror at what had been done in his name and a visceral anger at the man who had made a cuckold of him. There was no way that Douglas could have identified him—it was dark, he’d been wearing a balaclava. But Douglas had known that it was him, squatting in the cattle shed beside him, of course he had. Who else could it be?

  The subsequent police investigation had failed to uncover any evidence to tie Jonah to the crime. He had no desire to confess. But he remained a suspect. It was Jonah’s colleague Alex Ross who had recruited the team and undertaken the kidnapping. He had done so on behalf of Jonah’s employers in the intelligence services, who devised it as a means to blackmail him. All it would take was for one of the kidnappers to come forward and, in return for immunity, place Jonah in the cattle shed. He’d be discredited and imprisoned. Neutralized.

  “Why would they do that to you?” she had asked.

  “Because I know things,” he told her, “a secret that must never be told.”

  “What kind of secret?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know.”

  She wondered whether it was because of the secret that must never be told that he had disappeared and the police had come calling at her door.

  It was break time and the playground was full of children. Miranda stood by the fence and almost instantly spotted Esme. She was unmissable. She was playing hopscotch in a headlong rush, tripping from square to square, her wild and unruly hair streaming behind her. As she darted to the back of the queue, Miranda raised her arm and waved. The dog panted excitedly. Esme peeled away and ran over to the fence.

  “Hi, Esme.”

  “Hi, Miranda. Hi, dog.”

  Miranda squatted down so they were face to face through the chain links, with their noses almost touching. Esme reached through and scratched under the dog’s chin and behind his ears.

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  A sly smile crossed Esme’s face and she shook her head vigorously.

  “How about a clue?”

  It was a game that they’d been playing since her arrival in Scotland. Give the dog a name …

  “Dog,” Esme replied, after consideration.

  “It’s not very specific as names go,” Miranda said.

  “Dog,” Esme repeated.

  Miranda smiled. She wanted to reach through the links and hug the little girl. “Dog, then.”

  “Has he caught many rabbits?” Esme asked.

  “Plenty.”

  “He’s as fast as the wind.”

  “Esme.”

  “Yes?”

  “I wondered if you’d heard anything from your dad,” Miranda said. “Has he called you or written to you?”

  Esme looked at her feet.

  “I just want to know that he is OK. That’s all.”

  She wouldn’t meet Miranda’s eyes.

  “It’s OK, Esme. It’s me.”

  “You mustn’t tell anyone,” Esme said, after a pause.

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  “Wait.”

  Esme turned on her heels and ran across to the far side of the playground. The dog stuck his snout through the fence, eager to follow. Esme stopped next to an older girl and they had a short discussion. The older girl glanced at Miranda. Something was exchanged and Esme sprinted back over to the fence. She held two dog-eared postcards in her hand that had been folded in half.

  “You mustn’t tell,” she said.

  “It’s all right,” Miranda told her.

  Esme passed the cards through the fence. On one was a photograph of Wadi Rum. She turned it over. It was addressed to E and signed “Bear.” It said: I miss you, sweetpea. The stamps were from Jordan, postmarked Amman. The other was of the Bala Hissar, identical to the one sent to her from Peshawar. It said: I’m thinking about you. She was beginning to put together a sense of his movements. He had been in Peshawar, Pakistan, and then Afghanistan, and then just a few days ago Amman in Jordan. “He sends them to Elisabeth, that’s the big girl over there,” Esme explained. “She brings them to school and reads them to me.” She shifted from foot to foot and then she glanced around. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

  “It’s nice to see you,” Miranda said.

  “Say hi to Dad,” she said, and for a moment her face was transformed by a glowing gap-toothed smile. Then she sprinted away.

  “I will,” Miranda said to herself, “I will.”

  She walked back to the bus stop with the dog following.

  She had to wait an hour at Port Askaig for the ferry back to Jura, and she sat at a picnic table outside the hotel and nursed a vodka and tonic. She stared across the sound. Unusually the surface of the water was as still as a mirror. She flicked through the local newspaper but the words blurred and she could not hold the sense of them. Why hadn’t Jonah sent her a postcard from Amman at the same time as he had sent the one to Esme with the message I miss you sweetpea?

  Did he miss her too? All he’d written to her was: I have things to take care of. She felt angry. Had she wasted two years of her life, wandering the island, while he wrote his stupid memoir? Why had he stopped writing to her? And what was he doing in Amman? Just as Inspector Coyle had described Peshawar as a staging post for Afghanistan, she knew that Amman was staging post for Iraq. Was that where he was?

  It had been in Iraq during the 2003 invasion
that Jonah had invited her to come back to the UK with him. He’d told her that he loved her, and in the heady, supercharged atmosphere of those first few days of the war—called “shock and awe”—it had seemed possible that it was true. She herself had felt a strong desire for it to be true. After all, there was nothing left for her in the Gulf. She had learned that her son was dead. She had a British passport. There was nothing to stop her. Why not go with him?

  The ferry set off across the sound toward her. It had been August 2003 when they had arrived in Scotland and taken up residence at Barnhill on Jura. And there they had lived for two years, ostensibly because Jonah’s daughter lived with her mother on Islay, the adjacent island, but in fact in a sort of self-imposed exile. She hadn’t set foot on the mainland for two years. Jonah had been over to visit his parents but never for more than three or four days. Then one afternoon, he had returned from Craighouse, Jura’s only village, and she understood immediately from the brooding expression on his face that something was up. He had said to her, “I have to go away for a few days. It may be nothing.”

  She had felt then that she deserved more of an explanation. He’d told her that he was going to the island of Barra in the Outer Hebrides to speak to a former colleague named Andy Beech.

  “I won’t be gone long,” he’d said, distractedly, “I’ll come straight back.”

  She rode the short distance to Jura standing at the ferry’s ramp, and a tourist couple gave her a ride as far as the hotel in Craighouse. She had another vodka and tonic in the empty public bar. By the time she left, it was school closing time, and as she was crossing the street to the bus stop she saw Moira Campbell and her four boys. Moira lived in a stone cottage at the river crossing at Lealt, about seven kilometers south of Barnhill.

  “Need a lift?” Moira called.

  “Please.”

  The kids squeezed in the back of the Land Rover with the dogs and Miranda rode in the front beside Moira. Moira’s husband Graeme was the gamekeeper for the estate, and he was one of the very few people that she had encountered in her wanderings on the moor in the previous months.

  “Graeme’s been meaning to stop by and talk to you,” Moira said.

  Miranda glanced across at her. Moira’s face was plain, honest and open. She wondered how it was that they had never become friends, but even as she floated the question she knew the answer. She hadn’t made the effort. For too long she’d kept entirely to herself. Someone had once told her that she had the independence of a cat. Afghanistan, Iraq and all the other places had hardened her to the point of numbness. There was a kind of aloofness that did not earn her many friends, particularly among other women. Besides, she had a bad habit of fucking their husbands.