‘Do it anyway! My father will expect it. You told me earlier he’s had more death threats from those stupid towel heads. They’ll get the blame if your Kazakh gorillas do it right. I want that treacherous motherfucker gone ASAP, Carlos! Do you hear me?’ He hit the table.
Macrae put his hands up to placate the Russian. ‘Okay, okay, boss, I hear you. It’s his birthday tomorrow – it will be his last.’
62
BACK AT the office, feeling both shaken and stirred, I found Martha Fry waiting to see me.
‘I’ve come to say adios,’ she said.
‘No need. Contrary to what Bolshy might have told you, I’m not going anywhere,’ I said.
‘Maybe not, but I am.’
‘Why? What’s happened?’
‘Hell, honey, I’m just sick and tired of being pushed around by Bolshy and that Carlos creature. I’m over their shit. The final straw was when he ordered me to have you escorted off the premises.’
‘I’m guessing that would have been about half an hour ago?’
She looked surprised. ‘How did you know? Anyway, I told him to shove it.’
‘Martha, that’s a shame. I’m sorry to be the cause of all this.’
‘Nah, I was through anyhow. You’ve done me a favour. Time I was getting back to New York. I can’t even get a decent cup of coffee here.’ She gave me a hug and kissed me on the lips. ‘I might have stuck around if you’d decided to play nice with me,’ she said softly. ‘You’re just my type.’
‘Sorry, Martha. But you know … my wife.’
‘Argh. Why does everybody in England say sorry all the freaking time? Drives me nuts.’
‘Sorry. I will miss you Martha. I was just getting used to you.’
‘Aw, honey, I’ll miss you too. But listen to me – those jokers have got something going on. I know some stuff but not all of it. I do know it’s high stakes. Another reason I’m going.’
‘I’m pretty sure I know exactly what they’re up to,’ I said.
‘Well, you better watch out. These guys don’t fuck around. They’ll get rid of you whatever the goddamn purchase agreement says. So why don’t you go back to that sweet little wife of yours, pack your bags and get out of Dodge?’ Martha pressed her fragrant, curvaceous body against me one last time and left.
I sat down, feeling unsettled. Things were coming to a head. But I consoled myself with the thought that, once Shiv and I had sorted things out with the lawyers on Sunday, we would publish the story and it would be out of my hands. The chips would fall as they may. Better tell Annie all about it tonight, I decided. We could indeed be packing our bags before too long.
Mrs H popped her head round the door to tell me that the late news conference was about to start. Was I attending? I said I was. Anything to take my mind off Bolshy and his shenanigans.
‘Perhaps you should wipe the lipstick off your cheek first?’
* * *
The newslist for Saturday’s paper was dominated by two arrests. First, Ray Griffiths revealed that the police were holding Sir Jacky James in detention pending historic child molestation charges. Finally!
‘One for the good guys,’ Griffo said, punching the air.
The other arrest concerned the young Somalian Axmed Yusuf Qaasim, who had been Hazari’s accomplice in the killings of Hugo Morgan and Princess Izzy. He was picked up while trying to board a channel ferry at Folkestone. The security forces believed he was on his way back to fight for ISIS in Syria. Good, I thought. It would have been a travesty if he’d got away.
‘Okay, guys, that all looks good,’ I said at the meeting’s close. ‘For once I’m heading home early. Got a big day tomorrow.’
‘That’s right, boss,’ Griffo laughed. ‘Happy birthday from the troops by the way. Hope you enjoy the panto!’
Ah, shit, how the bloody hell did they know about that?
‘Oh yes, he will,’ Juggs said with a smile.
‘Oh no, he won’t!’ Mike Kelly replied.
63
I WATCHED, amused, as the big, burly man with dark stubble, red lips and two-foot high blonde beehive lifted up his voluminous skirts and said with camp voice and eyebrows arched: ‘Has anyone seen my knickers?’
‘They’re behind you!’ everyone around me shouted with glee.
The panto dame pouted, pranced and leered horribly as he pulled a huge pair of granny pants covered in frothy suds from the washtub in the Chinese laundry. This Widow Twankey knew how to engage the audience. I fancied that the wicked wizard Abanazar bore more than a passing resemblance to Black Mac. Percy sat on my lap, rapt, fingers in mouth and wide-eyed at the colourful spectacle on stage. He had no idea what was going on but he was enjoying himself anyway.
As for me, I was happy to be away from the pressures of being an editor. The farcical escapades of Aladdin provided comic relief from all the headaches I’d been experiencing, including the jihadi death threats. More of the latter had followed the Muslim schools’ splash. It was unsettling but, hey, it came with the territory.
I had enjoyed a long lie-in as a birthday treat and Annie had brought me tea and toast, and her warm, soft body as a bonus. When we finally opened the curtains and sauntered into the kitchen still holding hands, Posh had looked at us both knowingly. She wished me a happy birthday.
Annie’s present was a stunning surprise. The Scoop Jon B had been a whimsical purchase at a time when I was struggling with cocaine but I had come to bless her many times since then. The graceful yacht’s strength and speed had saved Annie and me on more than one occasion. Holding the painting, I’d closed my eyes for a moment and left the dark, wintry grip of London behind as my mind travelled thousands of miles to welcome the warm, sunny embrace of Rose Bay.
There was another, even more welcome surprise: Wagga had finally arrived. Annie had kept it a secret but now here he was, looking a little skittish in his new surroundings, but a real sight for sore eyes. I’d acquired him from an Aussie wharf rat I’d met in a Jakarta marina while I was sailing The Scoop. The girl had disappeared with my coke stash, leaving the kitten behind. She was from Wagga Wagga – hence the cat’s name. Since then, he’d shared many adventures with Annie and me.
It was Neville’s day off but he arrived at midday to take us to the theatre. ‘I wish you a ’appy birthday, guv. And many ’appy returns. I told your missus it’d be my pleasure to drive you today cos you’ve been such a diamond geezer.’ I presumed that meant I was a good bloke. The sky had been slate grey when we’d left. The atmosphere felt ominous, portentous; the air bitter and biting. Snow was predicted for later in the day. Despite the heavy Saturday shopper traffic in Kensington, Nev dropped us off outside the panto theatre with time to spare.
After the matinee performance, he picked us up and took us to a hotel for tea. At my insistence, he joined us for Champagne and cake. They all dutifully sang ‘Happy Birthday’ in a lusty but discordant chorus, much to the delight of Percy and the disgust of a few elderly women with fur hats and pinched mouths at nearby tables. We laughed about the panto dame and joked about the wintry conditions outside. We yearned for the summer sun in Sydney and reminisced about The Scoop Jon B.
When we left about an hour later, I was feeling more relaxed than I had been since leaving Sydney nearly four months before. I took Annie’s hand in mine. Maybe it was the Champagne, but a warm, hazy euphoria, a feeling of such happiness I’d never felt before, settled over me. It was ten times greater than any high I’d ever reached from the damned coke.
Forty years, I mused. Mate. That’s half a bloody lifetime. You’ve achieved a bit along the way. But you’ve also screwed up in equal measure. From now on it’s going to be different. With Annie and Percy now in your life, you’ll never be lonely, or alone, again. Maybe we could even start thinking about having more kids – once all this death threat crap is over, of course.
The snow started wafting down on the way back to the apartment, like feathers falling from an anthracite sky. The effect was almost mystical. N
ev stopped the car just outside the apartment building, the wipers continuing their metronomic sweep. He rushed out with an umbrella to protect Annie from the sleet. I left the warm cocoon of the car and went to the rear door where Percy was strapped into his car seat. I bent down to release him. I remember I was humming some inane tune from the panto.
There was a loud crack that sounded like a sledgehammer hitting a metal post. I flinched. It reminded me of the time Annie and I had been fleeing Rehab Island on The Scoop as the pirates shot at us. I thought I heard Neville shout ‘Behind you!’ in some terrible parody of the panto and I half-turned to look over my shoulder at the others.
I saw a strange, hellish tableau unfold as if in slow motion. Two men were standing on the pavement outside our apartment entrance with guns pointing at our little group. They appeared similar – the same height, same dark, bulky clothing and both swathed in heavy scarves obscuring the lower halves of their faces. They were shouting something.
Neville and Annie were frozen, their faces aghast but I couldn’t see Posh. Then I stood up and there she was … sprawled on the car bonnet, her body half-twisted, her pale contorted face only inches from the sweep of the windscreen wipers. The thin layer of melting sleet under her body was stained an obscene red. Oh my God.
I was dimly aware of Annie screaming, of Percy crying and the shouts of panicked passers-by, who were running and ducking. Then Nev’s umbrella came down hard on one of the gunmen’s outstretched arms and the man’s weapon skittered along the pavement and into the dark recess below a parked car.
The other man’s gun hand came up and he shouted the same thing again – ‘Allahu Akbar!’ Oh my God, I thought, you’ve got to be kidding!
I started to move towards Annie but heard another bang and felt a burning sensation in my chest. I fell back towards the car, one hand trying to grab hold of Percy’s loosened strap before I slumped to the ground, cheek on the freezing concrete. Things went a bit blurry. My senses sent vague messages to my brain: noises, images and smells. I was conscious of a faint roar of buses, the squeal of brakes, the underlying ambient hum of the city; I detected the reek of diesel fumes and the flat, indefinable urban smell of the wintry, chaotic capital. Out of the corner of one eye I could make out the distorted electric smears on the wet, glistening tarmac from street lamps, car indicators, neon signs and shop interiors.
A ghostly image of The Scoop Jon B in the shimmering jade waters of Rose Bay flitted into my head. And then I saw, heard, felt … nothing.
PART FOUR
The relationship of a journalist to a politician should be that of a dog to a lamppost.
H.L. Mencken
64
TECHNICALLY, I WAS dead at one point. Or ‘brown bread’, as Neville would say. But it was disappointing: no spooky bright lights; no angels to usher me northwards to heaven; and no gazing down from the ceiling at my bed-bound body. And, as far as I know, my soul did not leave my body as my hero Ernest Hemingway claimed his did after a French mortar bomb knocked him sideways. Okay, I was dead just for a few moments, maybe a minute at most. But an out-of-body experience would surely have been a treat, something to tell my grandchildren one day.
There are two reasons I’m still alive: the first is that Nev called for an ambo when the gunmen raced off; the second is that it arrived within six minutes (the target response time in the capital, apparently, is eight minutes, so I was fortunate). According to Annie, they estimated I’d lost about three litres of blood lying on the pavement before a paramedic got down on her knees and stuck a bloody great needle between my ribs, allowing the air to escape. Just as well I was unconscious at the time – I hate needles. Then they got IVs going at the scene to provide painkillers and fluids to keep my blood pressure up. Say what you like about the NHS, it saved my sorry arse that day for sure.
The bullet had lodged in my left lung, collapsing it like a burst balloon. The doctor told me later that I had suffered a pneumohemothorax. She explained patiently that the bullet hole had sucked outside air into my chest while blood filled the lung cavity. The combined effect had sent me into shock.
Annie says I was in the operating theatre for nearly two hours. The surgeons cut me open just below my left nipple and removed the remains of a nine-millimetre bullet from my lower lung. They told her I would likely recover quite quickly given my otherwise reasonably healthy condition. I was lucky, they said: a six-inch scar would be the only permanent physical reminder of the attack. But of course, unknown to the good doctors, I would also carry the mental scar of Posh’s death for the rest of my life.
Apart from the beeps and sighs of the various medical machines and the general gloom of the room, the first thing I noticed when I came to was Annie holding my hand – the one with the little plastic clamp on my index finger that apparently measures your heart rate. Her eyes were red and puffy, her make-up a mess. Despite my befuddled state, I realised I was in a hospital. What gave it away were the sundry tubes that were draped about my half-naked person, presumably feeding some stuff in and sucking other stuff out. I clumsily took the mask off my face. I was dry-mouthed, dopey, disoriented. No pain, just mild discomfort.
‘Oh Jonno, thank God,’ she breathed, her eyes closing in relief. ‘I thought you were going to die. That bullet – half an inch to the right and … well, we would not be talking now, my love.’
In a croaky voice, I asked for some water and took a few sips after she poured it into a small plastic beaker. ‘Jesus Christ, what happened?’ I said eventually. ‘I feel like I just went ten rounds with the Widow Twankey.’
‘You don’t remember?’ Annie said, concern etched on her lovely face.
‘Not really. I sort of remember being at the panto and then … nothing.’
She took my hand again. Her eyes looked haunted and fresh tears sluiced more mascara down her cheeks. Worryingly, she looked as distraught as she had in the aftermath of her horrible ordeal on Rehab Island.
‘Jonno, there was a shooting. Outside the apartment. Two men. When we got back from your birthday tea. And – poor Posh is dead.’
I didn’t take it in. Not at first. It didn’t make sense. Why would anyone want to kill our nanny? ‘What! How?’ I was seized with a sudden fear. ‘Jesus bloody Christ, Annie – is Percy all right?’
‘He’s okay. Doesn’t really understand what happened. He thinks it was a bit of play-acting, like the pantomime. Nev’s daughter Mary is babysitting.’
‘Ah, shit, poor Posh. Did she die, you know … at the scene?’ Now I could feel tears running down my face. Guilt washed over me in waves. Had Posh died because of me?
‘Yes. They reckon she died instantly of the gunshot wound.’
‘Was it … was it the Martyrs? The Movement of Martyrs or whatever those fuckers call themselves? Shit, shit, shit, Annie, I should have taken them more seriously. I didn’t think for one minute that they’d ever carry out their threat.’ I closed my eyes. Pictures of the young nanny giggling and playing with Percy swamped my fevered brain.
‘What do the police say? Do they think it’s them?’
‘I recognised the two men. They were the ones in the car I told you about. I have no idea if they were jihadis. You can ask the police yourself. They’re very keen to speak to you.’
‘I don’t remember anything. Why would they shoot Posh? Presumably it was me they wanted.’
Annie explained that when Neville stopped the car outside the Kensington apartment, Posh had immediately got out of the front passenger seat and turned around to help me with Percy. The gunmen stepped forward but Neville raised his umbrella and Annie reckoned that must have distracted the one who was aiming at me because he half turned as he fired and the bullet hit Posh instead. The impact flung her backwards across the car bonnet. An image of glistening metal, red-stained sleet and moving wiper blades came into my head. I rubbed my temple but it did not ease the pressure I felt there.
‘Jesus, Annie. It’s unbelievable. That poor girl. I don’t remember any of
it. What happened then?’
‘As I reached the pavement, I saw Neville hit one of the gunmen with the umbrella but the other one fired. And you – you just went down.’ She started sobbing heavily, her chest heaving. I put my arms out and she leaned over, her head on the right side of my chest.
‘Where is Posh now?’ I asked gently, my own tears mirroring Annie’s.
Annie raised her head slightly. ‘I don’t know exactly. The police took charge of her body, I think. There’s an inspector outside so we can ask him.’
‘Does her family know what’s happened?’
‘Not yet. I’ve been putting it off. It’s after midnight here so it will be about midday, I think, back home. I’d better call them soon in case it gets on the news back there.’
Just then the door opened and a young nurse with a nice smile came into the room to check if everything was okay. Are you kidding? I felt like saying. I’ve been shot, our nanny has been murdered and my wife and son terrorised, and you ask if we’re okay! Annie looked at me, her face a tight, tired mask of tension. The same thought must have occurred to her because we both suddenly smiled wearily at each other.
Then the nurse held out a copy of a newspaper. ‘Mr Bligh, this was delivered a few minutes ago. There was a note saying you would probably want to see it.’
It was our Sunday edition. I winced as I read the splash headline:
NANNY DIES AS TERRORISTS TARGET UK TODAY EDITOR
The high-impact front page also had a small headshot of yours truly. It was a shock … I hadn’t given a thought to the newspaper since waking up. But, of course, the attack would be the big story of the day and all the other Sunday papers would also probably give it strong play. UKT could not possibly ignore it.
I saw Annie looking at the page, her face white and drawn. It suddenly realised how selfish I’d been. Since coming to, I’d given little thought to what impact the shooting drama might have on her already fragile psyche. Those frigging terrorists.
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