by Holly Watt
The conference room fell into silence.
‘You’d actually go there?’ asked Dash. ‘And see whatever they do . . . Legally, I don’t know if . . .’
‘We could work it out on the ground.’ Miranda was at her most persuasive. ‘We might be able to crack it out there, before even going out to the camp. If they told us enough.’
Behind Dash’s back, Casey raised an eyebrow at Miranda.
‘What’ – Dash was wary – ‘is the plan?’
‘We go in,’ Miranda said smoothly. ‘We find a guy who can go in alongside Casey. They join up with the group – whoever they are – in Algeria, and tag along on the way to Libya. Then we find out where they go, and what they do.’
Dash dropped his head and peered at them through the bars of his fingers.
‘You’re insane.’
‘A little bit,’ agreed Casey.
Dash spun his chair round and stared out of the window.
‘I don’t like this idea,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Not at all.’
But he wanted it, they could tell.
‘Dash’ – Miranda told him what he wanted to hear – ‘there isn’t any other way. We could never run this story based on a few anecdotes. You know that.’
He spun his chair back round. ‘So who do you have in mind? To go in with Casey.’
Casting was always difficult. Back at the News of the World, the Fake Sheikh used to spend days selecting the team around him, for just the right impression.
Miranda opened her mouth.
‘Nathan Hill,’ Casey cut across.
‘Nathan?’ Dash raised his eyebrows.
Nathan was one of the staff photographers at the Post. Tall and blond, he hugely enjoyed telling girls about his exploits as a war photographer. Casey had heard about his camera zoom being shot off in Aleppo several times. As a chat-up line, it never failed, he insisted.
‘It’s that mix of creativity and bravery, sweetheart,’ he’d explain. ‘Gets them every time.’
‘Nathan would be fine,’ said Casey. ‘He’s tough, and he’s had his back to the wall a hundred times. He thinks quickly. And he wouldn’t panic.’
‘Too much ego,’ said Miranda. ‘It would have to be you running this, making the decisions. And – no matter what Nathan claims – there would be a split second before he obeyed an order from a woman. You know what he’s like.’
‘He’d get the job done though,’ objected Casey.
She’d watched Nathan prowl towards a wounded soldier, ducking in and out of doorways, sliding over crumbling wreckage, seeing the whole world through a frame. Nathan always got his shot.
‘Risky,’ said Dash. ‘He’s too wild.’
‘Dave?’ suggested Casey.
A tough private detective, Dave Accardi tracked cheating employees and vanishing creditors. He specialised in errant husbands, approached out of the blue, by a knowing blonde in a hotel bar who laughed at all his jokes. The divorce payouts quadrupled when the wives called in Dave.
Before the game was shut down, the Post had occasionally used private detectives. Accardi could magic a phone bill from thin air, or know a bit more than he should about a bank account. Charming and understated, he cost a fortune and was worth every penny. The dark arts, it used to be called, and Accardi knew them all.
‘Dave’s sharp,’ agreed Miranda. ‘And there isn’t much he hasn’t done before.’
But Dash was wincing.
‘I think Dave got a bit cute on the Ashton case,’ he said. ‘I heard the police are taking an interest in him at the moment.’
‘I’d forgotten about that,’ admitted Miranda.
Bobby Ashton, top scorer in the Premier League, had been splashed across the tabloids a few months earlier. He’d been snapped coming out of a hotel in the far reaches of Aberdeenshire with not one, but three hookers. His press man, who’d come up the hard way at the Sun, went over Ashton’s Lamborghini inch by inch, and when he found the tracker he’d called in the police and got an injunction.
‘Smart,’ everyone agreed, crossly. And because of the fast work of his poacher turned gamekeeper, Bobby Ashton was still shifting cereal bars and football shirts by the million.
‘Not Dave then.’ Dash shook his head.
‘One of the actors?’ Miranda suggested. ‘One of the ones we’ve used before. Or we could even give the editor’s brother a decent part for once.’
‘Can’t see Felix Lincombe,’ Dash said, ‘coping with snipers in the Sahara.’
There was a long pause.
‘Ed,’ said Miranda, eventually. ‘It’s got to be him.’
Dash knew Ed. Had sent him out to Tahrir Square with one of their reporters. Back when women were dragged away by a hundred hands, and violated a thousand screaming times. ‘He could do it.’
‘Not Ed,’ said Casey, and felt Dash’s eyes on her.
‘He’d be good,’ said Miranda. ‘He taught himself a bit of Arabic, too, while he was out in Iraq.’
‘Give me a bit of time.’ Casey stood up. ‘I’ll think of someone.’
She walked out of the conference room.
‘You’re not there yet, anyway.’ Dash looked at Miranda. ‘I need more detail. It’s too shaky. Too many holes. You’re going to have to find more before I let you go anywhere.’
Miranda waved it away. ‘We’ll find something.’
One of her phones went. She looked at it.
‘Give me a moment, Dash? It’s an estate agent trying to flog Casey a mega-mansion.’
‘And you’re her PA now?’ He laughed at her.
‘Well, after all, Dash,’ she smirked at him. ‘Who doesn’t enjoy a bit of role play?’ She pushed a button. ‘Hugo, darling. She’s decided to go with the Trevor Square one, I’m afraid . . .’
15
Back in the investigations room, Casey dropped her head into her hands. Just for a moment. She had met Ed years ago, when he was a Royal Marine, hunting pirates out in the Indian Ocean. Casey had been sent there just for a few days, boarding the ship from some scruffy port in Oman, and heading for the wild Somali coastline.
I’m Ed.
Casey.
And she just knew. Ed. He had kissed her once. Just once. At the top of Primrose Hill. They had met, just once, when he got back to England. His tour had come to an end, weeks after Casey had flown home from the Seychelles.
‘What the fuck are you doing in the Seychelles?’ Ross had asked, when she finally got off the boat, legs quivering at dry land. ‘I thought you were flying back from Oman.’
‘The pirates are going to prison here.’ She was watching the Somalis look up in wonder at the wild orange flowers, the neat little houses.
‘Casey, I’ve had hacks turn up in the wrong place before, but never the wrong fucking hemisphere.’
Now, Casey remembered when Ed had called. ‘My tour is finished. I just thought you might want to know. I am back.’
By then, they were writing to each other, enchanted letters. She had fallen deeper with every word. He made her smile, and wonder, and hope. And she scribbled back, this is who I am, tell me who I love.
It was odd seeing him not in uniform for the first time. She had only ever seen him in that khaki camouflage, that hotchpotch of green. She had wondered if it was the uniform. She had never been into them before, like some girls were. But maybe it was just the uniform.
It wasn’t the uniform.
They smiled at each other, on an anonymous train platform, crowds bustling past.
‘Hello’ sounded so oddly polite, when she could see the rest of her life, quite suddenly.
‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Hello.’
They walked the streets of London, not quite daring to go to her home, to where it would be real, or not.
It started to rain when they were near the zoo in Regent’s Park. ‘When I was younger, I used to go to the top of Primrose Hill when there was a thunderstorm,’ said Casey. ‘You could see lightning exploding over London.’
&n
bsp; ‘Let’s go up there now,’ said Ed.
So they did, running through the rain, dodging the London plane trees, He had to pull her up the last bit, giggling, out of breath. Then they looked out across the rooftops of London, as the storm erupted overhead. The park smelled green.
‘It’s not very clever standing on the top of a hill in a thunderstorm,’ said Ed.
‘Never mind that.’ Casey pointed towards Westminster. ‘I think that’s the Post building.’
He kissed her then, just for a moment, and she kissed him back, knowing happiness.
But suddenly, from nowhere, he was pulling away. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry, Casey. I’m so sorry.’
He looked at her again, just for a second, and then turned and ran away, away down the hill, slipping and sliding in the mud.
There had been references when they were on the ship, just oblique ones. Iraq. Afghanistan. The Marines, in at the worst. Again and again. The blood and the terror. The agony and the silence. There had been too many tours, too close together. Six months away, too many times. No time to remember how to laugh.
‘We were in this field of maize,’ he started once. They were drinking tea in the officers’ mess, whiling away time. ‘And I suddenly realised there were too many of them. Taliban. And I had to cover the others, my men, so they could get out. I had to stay behind. In this endless field of maize. And I just thought, “I’m going to die. I am going to die now.” It felt so simple suddenly. I don’t know . . . I still don’t know how I got out . . .’
His voice had trailed off.
‘Go on,’ said Casey gently.
‘No.’ He got up and walked away, leaving his tea steaming on the side.
She had looked up his battles, when she got home. Working out where his troops had been, and when, during those unwinnable wars. Calculating the deaths and the amputations and the pain, as if careful research, proper notes, could make sense of it all.
After he had run away, there were desperate telephone calls.
‘We can make this better.’
‘No, Casey. I can’t . . . I can’t do this to you . . . I can’t make this your life too.’
‘Ed. Please. Please.’
She’d never chased anyone, Casey. Always been the one to run away. But she had tried then.
He had left the Marines, at least. Gone into private security.
She got him working with one of the television crews, who needed someone to keep their cameras and presenters out of trouble.
‘He’s so smart,’ one of the presenters had chirruped to Casey afterwards. ‘He just gets things, straight away. And, man, we got in some tight spots out there.’
That was how Miranda got to know Ed too, after bumping into him on a jaunt to some explosion in Palestine. They had stayed friends, Casey knew. But Casey didn’t ask about him. She could never ask about him.
Miranda walked into the office. She was eating a sandwich, and chucked a brownie at Casey.
‘Got you that.’ It was their standard peace offering. ‘Dash doesn’t think we’re there yet. We need something more.’
‘I can’t work with Ed.’
‘He’s clever,’ said Miranda. ‘He thinks fast. And he might be able to keep you alive.’
‘No,’ said Casey. ‘Not Ed. I can’t. And you’re letting Dash pretend we can do this without being involved . . . And you know we can’t.’
‘If you want to do this, and I know you do, it’s going to have to be Ed. I think Dash will let you go out there with him, and I can’t think of anyone else.’
Casey got up abruptly.
Miranda was talking about something. Casey moved clumsily; swayed out of their office, headed for the door. Unable to see where she was going, sudden tears, she bumped into John – John, the office bully, who couldn’t look a woman under the age of forty straight in the eye.
‘Careful, Casey.’ John looked at her more closely and sighed. ‘Oh dear, girlie problems?’
‘Fuck off, you twat.’
And Miranda, watching her stumble off, knew she would never be able to stay away.
16
Casey was running round the park. Round and round. And every time she thought she might stop, she found she couldn’t.
She didn’t fall in love easily, Casey. It was easier, always easier, to run away. And not many men could keep up.
Round and round and round.
Hyde Park was at its most green, almost unbearably lush. The grass had both the promise of spring and the beauty of summer. There were ducklings on the Serpentine, with anxious parents.
Round and round and round and round.
It was her phone, finally, that broke the spell.
‘Casey?’ The voice was unsure, uncertain.
‘Lady Newbury?’ Casey found that she could hardly breathe.
‘I’ve come up to London,’ said Lady Newbury. ‘I’ve got to visit the flat. I suddenly decided I had to, someday, so I might as well get on with it. I thought that you might be interested to come along.’
‘I am,’ said Casey, without having to think.
‘I’m going there now.’
‘I’ll meet you there. Pimlico, wasn’t it? I’ll be twenty minutes.’
Lady Newbury told her the address and Casey started to run. The pain began again. She ran faster.
Charlwood Street was a pretty road on the Pimlico grid. Lady Newbury was standing outside one of the white stucco houses, looking up at the top-floor flat. There was a gap in the railings, like a missing tooth. For a second, Casey wondered how Lady Newbury could bear it.
‘This was where I lived before I was married,’ Lady Newbury said, almost speaking to herself. ‘I was happy here.’
‘Sorry about . . .’ Casey gestured at her running clothes.
‘You must think it odd that I asked you here,’ Lady Newbury carried on. ‘I suppose I could have asked one of my friends, instead.’
But she couldn’t stand it, Casey understood. She wanted someone who would witness, but not grieve; commemorate without reminiscing.
A friend, bringing flowers and sympathy, shortbread and normality, that would be unbearable.
‘I do know,’ said Casey. ‘It isn’t unusual.’
The hallway had a colourless carpet and knocked-about paint. Lady Newbury climbed the stairs slowly, as if to Bluebeard’s chamber. On each floor, the ceiling was lower. Just under the roof, the flat was airless, stifling. There were two bedrooms and a kitchen knocked into the sitting room. The eaves nibbled away at the headspace.
The police had searched the sitting room and put everything back, slightly skewed. The table wasn’t where it normally sat, according to the bumps in the carpet. The paintings were slightly off kilter.
‘I’ve meant to do it up for years,’ said Lady Newbury. ‘But he had parties for his friends, you know. I thought I would do it one day.’
Just as at the house in Chagford, the art was of a magical quality. Casey didn’t know much about paintings, but even she could see the incandescence in the still life above the fireplace.
Silver photograph frames dotted the flat. On bookshelves, on a chest of drawers, on the windowsill. The Newburys framed everything in silver.
‘I don’t know why I came. I suppose it was more so that I had been,’ said Lady Newbury. ‘So that it wasn’t ahead of me any more. I can’t imagine that there is any chance that we would find anything the police had missed.’
She sat down on a grey chenille sofa, as if exhausted.
‘I suppose you’re right,’ said Casey.
‘It’s terribly stuffy,’ said Lady Newbury. ‘Could you open the . . .’
They both looked at the window. Casey moved towards it, hesitated for a moment and then pushed it open.
She saw what Arthur had meant. Milo could not have fallen by mistake. The window was too high up the wall, with a sort of parapet beyond. He must have climbed out and then slipped, or jumped. There were no scratches on the paint, Casey saw, no scuffs. Milo couldn’t h
ave been forced out. Not a murder, then.
Casey glanced back at Lady Newbury. She was staring hopelessly at the wall, just next to the front door.
A painting was missing there, Casey saw. The brass picture hook empty, a square of wallpaper unfaded.
‘Conrad said it was missing.’ Lady Newbury looked destroyed. ‘He warned me, at least.’
Conrad, Milo’s father, Casey remembered. The art dealer.
‘Was it nice?’ asked Casey.
Lady Newbury almost smiled. ‘It was a Renoir drawing. Stunning,’ she said. ‘The insurers are kicking up a fuss because they say we don’t know when it went missing. And we don’t, really. I suppose Milo could have sold it at any time, for whatever reason.’
‘But it could have been stolen, too,’ Casey thought out loud, ‘at any time.’
Casey moved into the bedroom. It didn’t look as if the police had searched in here. There wasn’t the sense of slight shift. Lady Newbury’s influence was clear in here. Heavy chintz curtains fell to the ground, and the furniture was mahogany. There was a striped armchair in one corner, with a matching footstool. The footstool crouched like a faithful dog. Casey opened a cupboard door. Dozens of beautiful shirts; ties in neat rows; dark Italian suits.
‘Do you mind if I look around?’ she shouted through.
There was a pause.
‘Please do,’ the words echoed back.
On a dressing table were silver-backed hairbrushes, and another of the silver photograph frames. This one held several smaller photographs.
At the bottom of the cupboard, among a confusion of shoes, there was a folded gandoura, the long white tunic worn in north-east Africa. Casey picked at the yellow embroidery for a second. Flecks of sand still stuck to a pair of walking boots.
As she jerked out the tunic, one of the silver frames clinked to the floor. Casey picked it up. It was a large one, several photographs trapped under the glass. She peered at it. Artistic pictures of a desert. An oasis and some dunes and a long line of camels, silhouetted against the sky. A glass of champagne, close-up, and what looked like a private jet blurred behind. A black jeep. In one of the photographs, Milo was squinting into the sun, smiling. He was sunburned. Behind him, golden sand billowed in the relentless waves of the desert.
