Safe from Harm

by RJ Bailey

  ‘Are they going to kill us?’ she asks from the darkness, a crack in her voice.

  ‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’

  That, apparently, is not too reassuring, because she begins to sob, great heart-breaking catches in the throat. I pull her close. ‘It’ll be OK. They’re only angry with me.’

  I step away into the blackness.

  ‘Don’t go.’ Brittle and afraid.

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To get something to fight with.’

  It sounds as pathetic as it felt. My left arm is burning up now, as if someone had held a lighted candle to the fingertips and was playing it up over my forearm. It hurts enough to make my breathing dangerously shallow. I make the effort to fill my lungs, wincing as it stretches the knife wound open. I check it again. There is more blood than last time. I need the SwiftKlot in my RTG bag. It will have to wait.

  A bell pings.

  ‘I won’t be a second.’

  The machinery whirrs, the cables take up the slack. They are coming down. With reinforcements.

  Colour: beyond Red.

  SEVEN

  Most days, it wasn’t unusual for me to wake up full of self-loathing. It normally involved a pledge to stop drinking in the morning and then a bottle or two of wine that night. I had been out for a drink with Freddie, an old army friend, and we’d progressed far past the two-bottle mark. Always did with Freddie, because it was easy to slip back to the days when we could smell nothing but shit, sand and dead soldier. To the old, comforting stories. She’d been a CMT, a Combat Medical Technician, like me, and had spent some time on The Circuit before doing a Kevin Costner and marrying a client. It didn’t last. She was a girl from an estate in Plymouth. He was Californian and if not gay, 80 per cent of the way there. Freddie didn’t reckon that 20 per cent of a husband was what she had in mind, no matter how many Manolos, Mercedes, manicures and massages she could have. She never went back on The Circuit, though. Which was a shame, because she was good at it.

  So we drank to remember the times we had together before that little car crash of a marriage. Before both our car crashes of marriages. It nearly always came back to the day I had walked in on her and a Rupert – an officer – putting a novel spin on stocktaking. But, no matter how hard we hit the vodka and the ill-advised grappas, normally I managed to get up to make Jess breakfast before she went to school. But now my bleary eyes told me it was gone ten by the radio-alarm. And I could hear voices. Jess was still home.

  I pulled my hair into something presentable, went to the bathroom, splashed water on my face and cleaned my teeth. Twice. I put deodorant on over last night’s sweat, just as a temporary measure, I told myself. I did some mild stretching, careful not to pull anything. I had a pain in my kidneys, a dull throb. Not a good sign.

  Back in the bedroom I climbed into some fresh clothes and walked along the corridor to the living room. There were three of them in the kitchen, making toasties, and clearly the conversation had switched as soon as they had heard me coming. One of the friends I recognised from a previous visit, the athletic Aileen. I introduced myself to the second of our guests, a short, intense-looking girl with long dark hair and flawless skin. Her name was Saanvi.

  ‘What are you doing home?’ I asked as I fiddled with the coffee machine.

  ‘Teacher training,’ offered Saanvi.

  ‘Inset day,’ added Aileen.

  ‘Can I get anyone a drink?’ I asked.

  ‘We’re fine,’ said Jess. ‘We’re just going to my room.’

  ‘You don’t have to . . .’

  But the three had already scooped up their half-eaten sandwiches and were trooping off along the corridor. ‘Don’t get crumbs on the bed,’ I shouted after them. The only response was a whisper, a fit of giggling and a snort from Jess. The door slammed and I heard the sound of tinny music from a phone or laptop. I knew from experience it would become as annoying as a trapped fly, so I switched on Radio London. It was out of habit that I listened to the station. It always had the best traffic reports for the capital, useful if you had a client to drive. When I used to have clients to drive.

  I poured the coffee black and sat down on the sofa, feet on a coffee table I’d picked up at a shop on Upper Street. It was a nice 1960s shape – G Plan or Ercol or similar – but too far-gone to worry about putting cups or feet on it. One of these days I’d polish it up, maybe.

  I hadn’t decorated when I moved in. The walls were plain and clean and that suited me just fine. I didn’t have much to put on them. A Modigliani-type nude that Paul had bought and a Pollock-lite mass of lines from an art student who had been a neighbour the last time we lived in north London. Then there were photos of Jess, from a close-up of her face covered in bubbles during bath time, through the ones of her on various beaches, including my favourite of her facing down the waves on the south coast of Jamaica, when we had returned to the island for the first time since our honeymoon.

  Then there she was growing rapidly, from a red-coated princess running amok in Disneyland Paris (which Paul always claimed reminded him too much of Don’t Look Now for comfort), through a whole series of dance lessons: tap, ballet, modern, jazz. There were images of picnics in Richmond Park, school discos, or whatever they called them now, a bevy of over-made-up girls going off to their first grown-up gig at the O2. Nothing for the past few years, though. Nothing since Paul died. There were still photos of Jess being taken, I’d seen them on Facebook before she unfriended me, but they were passing into the NSP – Not Suitable for Parents – stage. There were boys in them and drinks other than Ribena and Tropicana.

  I heard Jess’s bedroom door open and she appeared in front of me. She’d changed into jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt that was cut just beneath her bra to show an expanse of midriff. I bit my lip.

  ‘Mum, there’s this trip I want to go on.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘Noooooo,’ she drew it out so it was almost a sneer, then cut it short when she realised she actually needed me to agree to something.

  ‘When is it?’

  ‘Next year. It’s to Indonesia. Everyone’s going. We’ll learn to dive. It’s an important part of the biology curriculum. Plus we’ll be helping the local communities. And the planet.’

  ‘Indonesia?’ I asked. Colour: Yellow, bleeding into Orange.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it’s basically a field trip.’

  Jess considered this for potential traps. ‘I s’pose.’

  ‘What’s wrong with the Jurassic Coast? That’s where we went.’ Although as I said it I knew that these days nothing short of Jurassic World would do.

  ‘Mum,’ she said. ‘This is more than looking at cliffs and old fossils. Dead things. This is about life. What’s happening now. We’ll be staying in remote villages. Mapping coral reefs.’

  Colour: Red.

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I said. When I can actually think.

  That clearly wasn’t good enough. Jess was in an Action This Day frame of mind. ‘Every other parent said yes straight away.’

  ‘Including Saanvi’s?’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because she’s here,’ I said. ‘And I can ask her.’

  Jess flushed and put her hands on her hips. ‘That’s just racist.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Assuming her parents are more strict because of the colour of her skin.’

  I might have spluttered at that point, but my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID. Ben Harris. Ben Harris? I clicked it off.

  Jess turned to go.

  ‘You haven’t told me how much,’ I said to her back.

  She stopped and mumbled something, which I hoped I hadn’t heard right.

  ‘How much?’

  She repeated the figure. I’d heard right.

  ‘Jesus. Are you travelling by private jet?’

  ‘Muuuum. I knew you’d be like this.’

  Then she
was gone. A moment later the trio left, faces set in selfie-suitable pouts. They were certainly ready for their close-ups. I allowed myself a moment to relish the entire flat, breathing a sigh of relief at their departure.

  Five thousand pounds? I wondered if it was one of those ‘scientific’ and ‘ecological’ trips where privileged Western students get to build the same village latrines over and over or the identical rhino gets darted and tagged every fortnight. Maybe every trumpet coral and basslet on this Indonesian reef had already been counted, dozens of times.

  I heard Jess in my head. ‘Muuum, you’re so cynical.’

  Five K.

  I walked out onto the balcony and looked down at the canal. It was too early for a drink, but I already felt that little knot of anticipation in my stomach. I wanted a cigarette but had sworn not to light up at home, even when Jess wasn’t around. Several of her friends were already puffing away. I didn’t want to give her the chance to accuse me of hypocrisy whenever I warned her not to start down the nicotine road.

  Below me, one of the old, vanishing narrow boats was chugging by. The sort that looked like a scrapyard had been emptied onto the top, with all sorts of junk it was impossible to imagine would ever be of any use to anyone ever again. It was like the world’s worst boot sale. At the tiller was a gnarled man in his sixties or seventies, roll-up cigarette in his mouth. He appeared to be mumbling to himself. Probably cursing the newer boats that had appeared on the canals, some of which looked like they’d floated off the pages of Elle Deco. With London house prices still climbing beyond ridiculous, some young couples had taken to canal living, but decorated their boat as if it were a flat in Chelsea. The waterways were now a ‘lifestyle’ choice according to the Sunday supplements. I guessed the old boy down below would agree. Except his particular lifestyle was dying out.

  Jess’d love me forever if I paid for Indonesia. Or at least she would until the gap year rolled around and she needed flights and hostels and four months away in Cambodia and Laos.

  I felt that stab of pain once more, the one that tells you that for the moment you probably can’t tell your daughter how much you love her without something being thrown back in your face. Maybe, for now, it was enough that I knew it. The phone rang again. Ben Harris. This time I took it.

  Later, I would spend a long time wondering if I should have just let it ring out, for all our sakes.

  EIGHT

  It wasn’t just my pocket of Islington that had come up in the world over the last few years. Ben Harris had moved on from Creative Security Resolutions and graduated from Park Royal to Knightsbridge, in a building next door to Il Convivio, an old-school Italian with ultra-modern prices. His company was called Hippolyte and the offices were decorated in tasteful neutral tones, with what looked like expensive art on the walls and very fancy light fittings, which might have been art too. The Ben I knew had gone in for displaying whiteboards and Sharpies rather than Wilmotts and Slaters.

  He had been short and to the point on the phone. Come and see me, he’d said. I had spent the best part of two hours trying to erase the damage of the previous night until I realised that I wasn’t going to win that battle. Or the war. I scrubbed up, but not as well as I would have liked.

  I was shown through by Jovanka, a pencil-slim, well-groomed young woman in a sharp black dress, whose hips moved enough to register on seismic sensors. I felt like a sack of King Edwards next to her.

  Ben was behind a desk reclaimed from an industrial site, thick and steel. He, too, had undergone something of a makeover. He looked younger, superficially at least, neater and smoother than I recalled. Really, he looked like he was trying to channel Don Draper, with his short hair and Hardy Amies suit. The shirt was gleaming white, the tie Richard James (I knew that because I had bought Paul a similar one) and I would guess he had ironed his underwear. Or, more likely, someone had pressed it for him.

  He leapt up as I crossed the floor and came from behind his desk, grabbing both my biceps with an iron grip and planting kisses on my cheekbones with pinpoint accuracy.

  Still holding tight, he put his head to one side, took a half-step back and examined me. ‘How are you?’

  ‘You know . . .’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine when I get some circulation back in my arms.’

  ‘Sorry, sorry. It’s just so good to see you. Sit, sit. You want something—?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘And how’s Jess?’

  Where to start? I ducked it. ‘She’s good, too. Great place,’ I said, spinning my chair back and forth to take in the room. The inspiration was Memphis Italian, I supposed. Normally the clients had that kind of furniture, not the PPO providers. Ben was clearly doing well. ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Fourteen months now.’

  ‘And Hippolyte?’

  ‘You didn’t hear about us?’ He looked surprised or perhaps a little offended that I didn’t know of the company. Like an actor who doesn’t want to be recognised, but is not best pleased when he isn’t.

  ‘I let my subscription to Security Industry News lapse.’

  I’d never had a subscription to SIN but Ben frowned as if I had broken a cardinal rule. ‘Well if you hadn’t . . . and if you’d been paying attention, you’d know that the industry has had one massive growth spurt.’

  That happened. The Circuit expanded and contracted, like lungs. It swelled to bursting in the wake of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, when a lot of work that should have been done by the army was put out to tender to civilian security outfits. It was when the cowboys came along in droves. It shrank again when the situation over there became too dangerous and people started asking questions about how many private contractors had been killed. ‘Domestic or foreign?’ I asked.

  ‘Domestic, mostly. London especially.’

  I waved my arm around to indicate the opulence of the room. ‘Hence this.’

  Ben slightly missed the point I was trying to make about his extravagant fittings. ‘Yes. Hence Hippolyte. But, the expansion has only been in one area. Can you guess?’

  ‘Not really.’

  Ben looked disappointed that I wouldn’t play his game. ‘The big boom in this city is in female PPOs.’

  He sat back and let me think on that for a moment. My cogs were slow. Well lubricated for sure, but with the wrong kind of lubricant. It took a while for them to rotate into place.

  ‘Ben, did you call to offer me my old job back?’

  ‘You must have guessed.’

  ‘You asked me three months after Paul died. I think I told you to go fuck yourself.’

  ‘Grief,’ he said, sitting back behind his desk. ‘It makes us say things we don’t mean.’

  ‘Not always,’ I said. ‘The offer was insensitive. I think you said, “I know Paul’s dead and what-not but I need a woman to travel to Moscow with a client, right now.” I said I wasn’t ready and you said I had to get back on the horse. And then I told you to fuck off and die.’

  He nodded, as close to an apology as I was going to get. ‘But why else would I call you now? You must have realised that’s what I’d do. I don’t have time for social calls.’

  ‘I was curious.’ And thinking about five-grand field trips.

  Ben played with a pencil for a few moments. ‘Well, are you ready to come back?’

  ‘Honestly? I don’t know.’

  ‘You have to sometime. Look, shit happens, we both know that. What happened to Paul was . . .’

  ‘Inconvenient?’ I offered.

  ‘Don’t put words in my mouth. But you aren’t the first woman to lose her husband.’

  ‘Mine was a little different,’ I said softly. Two men in balaclavas don’t step out of an alley and put four bullets in a husband’s face every day, mangling his features so that I barely recognised him when I had to identify his poor body. At least other wives know how and why their husbands died for the most part. But because he was part of an ‘ongoing intelligence operation’, the precise details were sketchy.
Two men shot him shortly after his shift ended. Arrests were made, to no avail. And the killers were still at large.

  ‘Did you ever get therapy?’ he asked.

  ‘Every therapist I ever met needs more therapy than their patients.’

  ‘My man was very good. Helped me get over the death of Robert.’

  Robert was a springer spaniel. A dead dog wasn’t quite in the same league as a murdered husband, but it was a waste of breath pointing that out. I stood. ‘I think we’re finished here. I appreciate your concern—’

  ‘There is no concern,’ he said flatly. ‘You know me better than that. I didn’t call you in because I thought you needed cheering up. Or because I was worrying about your state of mind. Or because you’ve obviously let yourself go. Charity has never been my strong suit.’ He made a show of tidying some papers on his desk. ‘I asked you here because I need an operative, just like last time, but I thought by now you might have . . . calmed down a little.’

  For some reason I stood my ground, which he took as a signal to continue. ‘Look, all over London there are Ultras with wives they don’t want to leave alone with a man, certainly not a young, well-built guy who works out and looks after himself. Maybe it’s a cultural thing. Sometimes it’s jealous Russians with a beautiful wife who they know didn’t marry them for their good looks and the size of their dicks. Sometimes it’s a Saudi prince who doesn’t want any man with his wife and daughters. Maybe it’s someone who appreciates there are situations where a woman is worth two men. And there are even some male clients who prefer women PPOs. You tend to be much less conspicuous than some bull-necked thug. Frankly, I don’t care what the reason is. Right now female PPOs are a licence to print money. What was that politician paying you?’

  ‘Gemma? Seventy,’ I said, still rooted to the spot.

  ‘Well, you’d get a hundred now, easily. When you are back to being fully match fit.’

  An Ultra was an Ultra High Net Worth Individual, as opposed to mere ‘Hunnees’ or ‘Honeys’, regular poverty-stricken High Net Worth Individuals. A hundred grand a year was probably an Ultra’s florist bill, too. In that world everything went up in multiples of 100K.