Dead in the Water (9 page)

“
You think these demands should be seen as a genuine bargaining position?” she asks.

“
I suppose so. Yes. They could be.”

“
Could be, not should be?” He shrugs. What the hell does she want him to say? “Do you play poker, Mr Boyd?”

“
Only for pennies when I was at university. No.”

“
Ever played bridge?” For all her attentiveness, she seems so relaxed that this could be small talk.

“
I have done,” he says, looking quizzical.

“
So what’s their game? You seem to be suggesting it’s a bid, an opening bid. Is that right?” She doesn’t wait for his answer. “Two bombs and then these demands. But they’ve made a clear threat to act again, to raise the stakes if we don’t respond. Is that bluff?”

He looks again at the list of demands. “I think you’re right. It’s a starting point for negotiations. But the Prime Minister won’t negotiate.”

“
That’s her stated position, Mr Boyd. I wouldn’t dream of inviting disloyalty, but that’s her job: to be resolute. Isn’t it?”

“
Yes.”

“
Who would have written these?”

“
I have no idea.”

“
Extremist groups are splinter groups. By definition, they break off from the mainstream. What’s the emphasis here? There are people in the Green movement who lean towards Animal Rights. There are some who get agitated about renewables. Draw me a family tree. Globalisation? Pollution? Bio-diversity? What drives these people? Whose bastard offspring is this?”

Mark studies the demands again and they talk for a while about the different shades of opinion and focus in various radical environmental groups. He begins to relax a little, dropping in a few anecdotes. She seems in no hurry. “The emphasis here is on transport,” he says pointing to the e-mail. “But it’s all inter-related. That’s the big claim of the Green movement. You can’t talk about global warming without talking about agriculture or Big Pharma. Forgive the pun. But yes, the emphasis here is on transport.”

“
And is that where the extremists are to be found?”

“
Not up to now.”

“
That’s what we thought too. We need to know who we’re looking for.”

“
And who are you looking for?” he asks.

She shrugs and smiles again. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. What do you imagine will be the response amongst your former colleagues?”

“
To the bombings. I think they’ll be appalled. It’s very damaging. Militant Green action has always been impossible to organise on a large scale. Small groups have delayed road building projects with Monkey Wrench tactics, and
Greenpeace
has been successful with some of its high profile actions. But for that kind of thing to work it needs widespread support. Anything seriously disruptive blows public sympathy right out the water.”

“
You have a theory?” Same question as before. Different words, same question.

“
I’m rather out of touch with developments in Green politics.”

“
I cannot imagine that Angela Walker would have someone as a personal adviser who was out of touch.” Is that a veiled threat? Without looking up from her notes, she asks: “Had you been expecting something like this?”

“
Green terrorism? It’s been talked about for years.”

“
You, personally. Had you been expecting it? Yesterday’s bombs. Did they come as a shock?”

You’re trying to trap me. You are trying to bloody trap me
. “Yes,” he answers quickly. “Yes, it did come as a shock. There was a time when I expected some kind of Green terrorism; but after 9/11, I’d thought that the public revulsion for Al Qaeda would have dissuaded anybody from this kind of action. I’d anticipated local protests, small scale sabotage, the kind of thing the ALF have been getting up to for years. Low key, but tightly focused. I’d never imagined anything like this. There’s frustration about the pace of change. And of course I’ve heard people saying that what human beings are doing to the environment is so extreme that extreme measures are needed. I know those arguments. But there’s no appetite for violence. And there’s something else about this which really puzzles me.”

She nods, urging him to continue.

“
The use of technology. Green is usually associated with low tech.” She nods. “I’m aware of the contradictions, believe me. Rubber inflatables with high powered outboard motors are quite high tech when you think about it, but when stacked against whalers and ships carrying nuclear waste they seem pretty basic.”

“
Indeed.”

“
I’ve only heard stuff second-hand, but from what I’m told, this is high-tech terrorism. You wanted to talk to me because I’m in touch with the Green movement. The trouble is there isn’t A Green movement. Green groups are composed of like-minded individuals – with the emphasis on individual rather than like-minded. People used to say it was a characteristic of the Left – that it was riddled with factionalism. Believe me, compared with the Greens, the Left is a model of coherence and unity. That’s the thing that really puzzles me about this. I thought I was pretty much on the ball when it came to the various different strands of Green thinking – but this … it’s come out of nowhere. And why Britain? Our record on the environment has improved enormously in the past five years.”

“
These people clearly think differently.” She looks through her papers, and puts them in her case. That seems to conclude the interview, though she says nothing to confirm it. She looks up at him and smiles.

“
I was a member of
Greenpeace
when I was at University,” she says. “I always wanted to meet you.”

“
Shame about the circumstances.”

“
Indeed. Thank you Mark. May I call you Mark? Thank you very much. We might need to talk again.”

“
I’m keen to help.”

“
Thank you. I appreciate that.” She gives him a card. “If you do hear anything that might be useful, please call me. That’s a private number. And a secure e-mail account. Thanks for your time.”

Mark accompanies her down to reception. She lightens up again, and they talk about university. He wonders, hypothetically of course, how she’d respond if he were to ask her to dinner. They’re in the lift, just the two of them, when she says, “You do understand, of course, that everything we’ve talked about is covered by the Official Secrets Act. Which means that you shouldn’t mention anything about our meeting to anyone. Not even Joanna or Sara.”

The lift doors open, she smiles at him again, shakes his hand, goes to reception to sign out and give in her visitor’s identity tag; and leaves.

If he’s not a suspect, how does she know about Sara?

13
Caracas

There has been no shortage of volunteers to get the offices cleaned up, but although much of the damage is from fire hoses and the sprinkler system, the offices still reek of smoke; and it would be impossible to work there, even in the unlikely event of the electricity being restored in the next few days. But they need to work from somewhere. By late afternoon, after spending much of the day making mobile phone calls and calling in personal favours, he has arranged a makeshift office in an empty storeroom in the Henri Pittier Library in the
Jardin Botanico
. No windows and not much space, but a couple of desks, a telephone line and a loaned computer with an internet connection. It could be a lot worse.

Salvador has redeemed himself by doing much of the donkey work with the result that Jeremy at last has time to try to contact Rachel again. Nothing – there must be a fault with their satphone – but he’s not unduly concerned. In spite of the claims of the manufacturers, satphones are still not all that reliable; people often lose contact when they’re working in the field.

When he locks the door behind him he finds Salvador waiting, still hangdog and laden with his guilt from this morning. So Salvador accompanies him to the nearby bar. If the guy is so determined to make his confession, that’s fine by him. Always better to have a drinking companion than not.

14
London and Oxfordshire

It’s gone eight when Mark leaves the office that evening. In the street outside, a solitary policeman is walking nervously round a parked van. At this time of day the roads are usually clogged; but tonight, walking down Millbank feels more like an early Sunday morning than a Friday night. Unable to face another walk in the rain, he hails a cab.

Even at ten o’clock at night, the station foyer at Oxford is thronging with students, tourists, commuters like himself. He stands by the newsagent, waiting for Joanna. When the crowd has dispersed and there is still no sign of her, he rings home – only to find himself listening to Stephen’s voicemail instructions to his mates for getting to a party in Oxford. He leaves a message for Joanna – if he can’t get her on her mobile in the next five minutes he’ll find his own way home. There’s a local train to Culham, and their house in Clifton Hamden is only about twenty minutes walk from there. He’s about to put his phone away when there’s a text alert:

He smiles, then sees Joanna standing by the ticket office, watching him. He waves. She lifts a hand in acknowledgement and walks over. He kisses her on the cheek.

“
Who were you talking to?”

“
You. Just leaving a message.”

“
I said I’d meet you,” she says, as if Mark had accused her of not turning up.

“
I looked for you. I couldn’t see you.”

“
I popped to the loo.”

Joanna drives. They talk – about Rachel and Stephen, about the dog, about the garden, the village, and their elderly neighbours, Albert and Margaret. Joanna suggests they call in to
The Plough
; but Mark would rather just get home. He feels a curious sense of homesickness – all the stronger for being in Oxford and in the car with Joanna. They’ve been separated for nearly two years, they discussed it carefully at the time. It was a reasoned, mature decision, a mutual agreement; the very model of a modern marriage break-up. Both children seemed to take it in their stride, possibly because Mark had spent so much time away from home in the previous five years. There had been no unpleasant scenes. But Mark still hurts. There is too much tenderness between them for it to be easy. Slipping into familiar routines, which for years he took for granted, is poignant and painful.

Charlie, the black retriever, greets Mark with sloppy and boisterous affection. Stephen’s at his party in Oxford. Joanna has already eaten, but Mark is hungry, and she puts a portion of Bolognese sauce in the microwave. “I’d have done a stew for us both, but I wasn’t sure what time you’d get in.”

“
Fine.” He hopes his disappointment doesn’t show.

Joanna gets a bottle from the wine-rack in the old-fashioned larder. “Rioja?”

“
Lovely.”

She pours him a glass, and one for herself; and sits on the other side of the battered old oak table, watching him eat.

He was hoping that getting home would help him to relax; but there’s a nervy tension between them. He pours himself another glass of wine, picks up his dinner plate and goes over to the recently installed Belfast sink.

“
You haven’t mentioned work once,” she says, as he’s washing up his plate.

“
Is that bad?”

“
That’s what I’m asking you.”

“
I’m under a lot of pressure.”

“
That’s never stopped you talking about it.” He shrugs. “Oh, come on, Mark. You’re always under pressure at work. You like it. That’s why you do it. There have been two terrorist attacks in London last week, your life has been totally disrupted, and it’s like all you want to talk about is the dog. What’s up?” Charlie, sensitive to the threat of an imminent argument, is skulking on his bean bag and hasn’t even noticed the parmesan shavings that have dropped to the limestone floor. Mark tidies the work surfaces, wipes them down, then goes back to the table and fills Joanna’s glass with wine.

“
I don’t want any more,” she says.

“
If you want me to talk,” he says, “I’ll feel a lot more relaxed not drinking on my own.” She doesn’t pick up her glass. “It’s an accumulation,” he says. “Everything at once. This terrorism’s going to set everything back by years.” He pauses. “I’m exhausted. I’m completely bloody exhausted. I can’t think straight. And somebody ran into the back of the car on Wednesday night. I didn’t want to talk about it because I wanted to get home and put it all away. Forget it. Leave it behind for once.”

He smiles at her. Tries to smile at her. She’s avoiding looking at him. “You say I haven’t talked about work like it’s an accusation. I don’t want to talk about work. What’s so weird about that?”

“
You’re angry with me, aren’t you.”

Charlie gets off his bean bag and pads off to the living room, tail between his legs.

“
No,” he says. “No. I am not angry.”

“
Were you talking to Sara at the station?”