Osama (6 page)

Mr Ashe gave her a regretful little look. ‘My time is not my own,’ he said. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a thick wad of notes, bound with a red elastic band. ‘My rent,’ he said, handing it over, ‘for the next six months. Would you like me to put it in the sideboard for you?’

‘Thank you, Mr Ashe,’ Bethan replied. ‘Really, I don’t know what I’d do . . .’ But she failed to finish what she was saying, silenced by a dismissive wave of his hand as he stood up again – Dandelion jumped to the floor – and walked to the far side of the room, where there stood a large mahogany cabinet. He opened a drawer, slipped the notes inside, and walked back over to the sofa, where Bethan was lifting her Ribena to her lips with hands that trembled gently with old age.

‘Is there anything I can do for you before I leave, Mrs Jones? Any little jobs around the house? I can’t be sure quite when I’ll return . . .’

‘Oh, no, Mr Ashe. Really, you’ve done quite enough . . . You might pop some new batteries in the control for my stairlift . . . I wouldn’t want them to run out while you’re away. Do you know where they are?’

Mr Ashe smiled and bowed his head before striding out of the room. Such a pleasant man. So helpful. Bethan didn’t really hold with foreigners. Couldn’t trust them, her Gethin used to say, and he should know after all the trouble they’d given him during the war. But Mr Ashe wasn’t like most of them. She had taken to him the moment they met. He was so much nicer than any of her previous lodgers. More like a helpful neighbour for whom nothing was too much trouble. So much so that Bethan actively looked forward to him staying. She felt somehow more secure with a gentleman like that in the house. But he was seldom here, even though he paid for his rent many months in advance, and that saddened her. She cast a slightly guilty look up at Gethin at this thought – how he would have disapproved . . .

‘All done, Mrs Jones.’ Mr Ashe reappeared by the side of the sofa, from which he picked a single one of Dandelion’s pale hairs. ‘Would you like me to turn the volume up again for you?’

‘Thank you, Mr Ashe,’ Bethan said. ‘My hearing isn’t what it used to be . . .’

And as the volume returned and Mr Ashe took his leave, she took another sip of Ribena, closed her exhausted eyes and allowed the sound of the TV to wash over her as Dandelion snuggled up around her feet once again.

Mr Ashe closed the door of the front room softly behind him. The hallway smelled as neglected as it looked: musty and damp. There were cobwebs thickening over the yellowed plaster cornices, and by the heavy oak door a pile of wellington boots and an antique stand containing old walking sticks. Mr Ashe was quite sure they had not been taken outside for years. On the opposite side of the hallway was a door leading into a dining room that was never used. The flagstones on the hallway floor sucked the warmth from his feet as he walked to the wide wooden staircase. Mrs Jones’s stairlift was at the bottom, looking out of place beside the burnished, rather ornate banister. There was no way the old lady could make it upstairs without it, however. Mr Ashe laid the remote control on the seat and made his way upstairs.

Seventeen steps. He had counted them the very first time he came here.

Mr Ashe’s room was immediately to the left at the top of the stairs. The door, as always, was shut. He let himself in. It was a large bedroom – the largest in the house, Mrs Jones had told him when she showed him the room, but having examined all the others he knew that was a lie. Or rather a mistake, for he suspected Mrs Jones was past remembering such details. There was a lumpy double bed against the far wall with a patchwork quilt, and an enormous mahogany wardrobe in another. Behind the bed was a window that looked out onto the neglected back garden and, perhaps 200 metres beyond that, the brim of the cliff on which this old house stood, overlooking a grey sea that was only just visible through the rain. Three pictures hung lopsidedly on the wall: two of them were inexpertly painted oils of the imposing house, each from a different perspective, framed in cheap plastic with thick layers of dust and grime along the tops; the third, right next to the window, showed a sailing ship battling through stormy seas.

The floor was littered with big cardboard boxes – about fifteen of them – and taking up the centre of the room was a circular table about two metres in diameter and covered with a crumpled yellow tablecloth. Piled high on this were stacks of papers, files and photographs; books; a chunky Dell computer and what looked like an early mobile phone – boxy and with a six-inch antenna – but which was actually an Iridium satellite phone: Mr Ashe’s sole link with the outside world in this remote region where internet connectivity and mobile-phone reception were nothing more than rumours.

Closing the bedroom door behind him, he carefully laid on the table the cat’s hair he had pulled from the sofa, before walking over to the wardrobe. His few clothes were hanging next to some long-forgotten garments of Mrs Jones’s. He selected a heavy green Barbour raincoat and loosened the hood from its pouch, before returning to the table. Lying on top of the Dell was a book. It was about two-thirds the size of an ordinary paperback, but a good two inches thick, and wrapped in a sturdy leather binding with a push-button fastener. Embossed in gold on the front were the words ‘Holy Koran’, in both English and Arabic. Mr Ashe picked up the book and slipped it into the inside pocket of his coat.

Then, rummaging around in one of the cardboard boxes, he found a small tube of superglue. He recovered Dandelion’s hair, left the room and locked the door: the key he used was newer and shinier than the one Mrs Jones had given him, because the very first thing he had done on moving into his new lodgings had been to change the lock after the old woman had gone to bed. She’d never mentioned that her key no longer worked, but that didn’t mean, of course, that she had never tried to get in, or would never try in the future. Half blind and confused, it was unlikely that she would ever understand the significance of anything behind the locked door, but Mr Ashe still didn’t want any prying eyes. He squeezed two tiny blobs of superglue, one onto the top of the door, one onto the frame, then carefully fixed the cat’s hair to them. It would only take a minute to dry, and nobody would notice it was there if they weren’t looking for it. He went downstairs again.

The voice coming from the television was slightly muffled here in the hallway, but it was loud enough for him to make out. ‘More details are emerging of the daring raid in Pakistan by US Navy SEALs that has killed Osama bin Laden . . .’

Mr Ashe could not help a brief smile. He pulled the hood of the coat over his head, patted his pocket to check that his Koran was still there, and stepped outside. He made it a rule to drive here as little as possible, and Mrs Jones, of course, had no car. So he walked briskly into the rain, not stopping to look back at the solitary shape of the house standing on that deserted clifftop. His face was dripping wet in seconds; within a minute, the rain had soaked the leather of his inadequate brown shoes. When he had walked the thirty-metre length of the driveway and exited through a pair of rattling iron gates, he turned right onto the road that would lead him, if he continued for another four miles, to the nearest railway station, Thornbridge. Perhaps one of the infrequent country buses would pass him before then, but if not he was prepared to walk.

A crack of thunder ripped the sky overhead. Mrs Jones’s house disappeared in the distance. Mr Ashe continued to walk, his shoulders still slightly stooped, his brow furrowed, the lower part of his trousers already sodden, his mind deep in thought.

Three

CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia, USA. 0700 hours EST.

‘I got to hand it to you, Mason. The President’s grinning like a goddamn lunatic – I think he’d do just about anything if you asked him.’

Mason Delaney felt his lips twitching with pleasure as he rested his hands on his neat little paunch. ‘Well, there’s a thought, Jed,’ he replied, his voice as quiet as it always was when he was receiving a compliment and pretending to be modest. His eyes sparkled behind his horn-rimmed glasses. ‘You make me sound like the new Monica Lewinsky!’

Delaney giggled. Jed Wallace, the President’s Chief of Staff, smiled patiently. It was an expression that didn’t suit his hawk-like face. His auburn hair was cropped military fashion and Delaney had no doubt this was a conscious style statement. Wallace ran the show in the West Wing, and he did it with military precision. ‘Seriously, Mason, you made a powerful friend yesterday, and one who expects to be around for a while. His approval ratings are through the roof. You just bought him another four years in office.’

‘I live to serve, Jed. I live to serve.’ Delaney inhaled deeply and, with a pleasant smile, looked around his office. The May sunshine was streaming in through the window, casting its light over his desk and the coffee table in front of the comfortable sofa on which the two men were sitting. He had made this office very much his own, transformed it from the bland, beige box it had once been into a place which, he felt, more accurately represented his character. An antique chaise longue stood along the opposite wall, and on the walls were prints of his favourite Michelangelo sketches. He adored the way the artist caught the male form. Really, he felt he could gaze at them all day.

‘Shall we take a look?’ Wallace interrupted him politely after a full minute of silence.

Delaney snapped out of his reverie. ‘I beg your pardon, Jed?’

‘The images. Shall we . . . ’

‘Had enough coffee?’ Delaney indicated the china coffee pot and the two full cups on the table.

‘Sure.’

‘Cookies?’

‘No cookies, Mason. Thank you.’

‘I only ask, Jed, because I think you might lose your appetite when you see them. If you’d rather not put yourself through it . . .’

‘I’ve finished my coffee, Mason.’ Wallace pushed the cup away from him to underline this.

Delaney gave him a bland smile before standing up and shuffling over to his desk, where he picked up a manilla A4 envelope and brought it back to the sofa. He sat down, fixed Wallace with a stare that he knew would make the Chief of Staff uncomfortable, then removed a sheaf of photographs from the envelope.

The photographs were in colour, but they were grainy and occasionally out of focus. The first showed an unmade bed and a large bloodstain on the rug in front of it. The second showed the same thing but from a different angle.

‘Mason, none of these show the—’

‘Always wanting to fast forward,’ interrupted Delaney, ‘to the money shot.’

‘It’s what I’m here to talk about, Mason.’

‘Then let’s talk, Jed.’ Delaney held out a third photo with his arm outstretched so that they could both admire it, much as Delaney had been admiring the Michelangelos a moment before. It was a close-up of a mangled and bloodied man’s face. Even Mason Delaney, who had no use for or knowledge of guns, could clearly identify the entrance wound, just above the right eye: a small dot of dark red, surrounded by an orange sun that had spread across the side of his face, taking out the eye and the upper part of the cheek. The rest of the face, including the grey beard, was spattered with blood. The mouth was open, and the man looked as though he had been gunned down just as he was screaming in terror.

Delaney dropped the photograph onto Wallace’s lap before reclining on the sofa with his hands clasped behind his head. The Chief of Staff looked nauseous. ‘Of course,’ Delaney said, ‘you might be of the opinion that the great American public ought to be shown this. On the other hand’ – he coughed gently – ‘you might decide that publishing such a sight would be a tad inflammatory.’

Jed Wallace appeared unable to take his eyes off the photograph.

Delaney continued to talk, a little quieter again, but his voice still as nasal as ever. ‘What is it that that Sagan doesn’t like about me, Jed? Is it the way I look? The way I sound? Is it that I wear a Turnbull & Asser dicky bow and not a pair of fucking epaulettes? What peg has the little shit got me hung on, huh?’

‘Really, Jed, I don’t know what you’re—’

‘Sagan wants the President to publish, no?’

Wallace looked up from the grim image. ‘How did you know that, Mason?’

Delaney removed his glasses, breathed on them and meticulously cleaned both lenses with his handkerchief. ‘Here’s the deal, Jed,’ he said, and all of a sudden his voice was not quite so shrill as usual. ‘You put that photograph out to the news wires, it’ll be on the front cover of every damn newspaper in the world within twenty-four hours, not to mention the computer screen of everyone with an internet connection in about twenty-four seconds. It’s grotesque, Jed. Every last Islamist on the planet will think the President’s gloating. DEVGRU went to a lot of trouble to drop the bastard’s body in the Indian Ocean to stop his grave becoming a shrine. If you give that picture to the world, you’ll be creating a million shrines.’ Delaney blinked heavily three times. ‘I don’t think you should do it, Jed.’ He stretched out, lifted his coffee and took a long sip, raising his eyebrows at Wallace over the brim of the cup.

The Chief of Staff turned the photographs over on his lap. ‘It’s the President’s decision, Mason,’ he said.

‘But of course it is, Jed. Of course it is. And I hope the President knows I’m here to watch his back.’ He folded his hands over his paunch again.

Wallace stood up. ‘I have to get back to DC. Could I . . . ’ He pointed at the envelope that was still on Delaney’s lap.