To the Lions

by Holly Watt

  ‘I didn’t know they were allowed guns in the camps,’ said Oliver.

  ‘They’re not. But they’re moody fuckers in these camps, and properly tooled up, some of them. There’s a lot of organised crime there, and the traffickers control the area, really. Just because they’re refugees doesn’t make them nice people, you know. They’re fucking human. The NGOs started bringing in caravans, quite decent ones, down from the Gulf states. The aid worker in charge of assigning them, he needs an armed guard just to move around Salama. It’s fucking dangerous in there. And there are riots all the time, over food and fuck knows what.’

  From a kestrel distance, the camp looked peaceful.

  They got back into the car, and drove along to the next point. This was where Ed would come a day after Oliver, and they went through the routine, again.

  ‘It’s just easier if you focus on a building they need to come to,’ said Josh. ‘You’d wait near a watering hole when you’re hunting.’

  ‘Sure,’ agreed Ed.

  ‘That’s one of the big water tanks,’ Josh gestured. ‘People come here all day every day, with their big buckets. They pick up their bread from somewhere else.’

  ‘Makes it straightforward,’ said Oliver.

  ‘What,’ asked Casey, ‘is the building with the big mural?’

  ‘That one,’ said Josh, ‘is a school.’

  32

  They climbed back into the car, U-turned sharply and headed back down the hill. The Tuareg stamped out their cigarettes and followed.

  ‘I see how you do it now,’ said Casey.

  ‘It’s pretty straightforward,’ Josh shrugged.

  She gestured to the Tuareg.

  ‘Don’t they mind?’

  ‘They don’t give a shit,’ Josh said. ‘They’re the most ruthless fuckers of the lot, those boys. Their gang has got a new trick, as they traffic people through Libya. They work out which of the refugees have friends or relatives in Europe. Because a lot of them do, you know. Then they grab them, force them to ring their family and torture them as they call. So all the family can hear is a lot of screaming and a power drill. And if it’s your sister screaming, you wire through whatever the traffickers want.’

  Casey winced.

  ‘No,’ Josh finished. ‘That lot do not care what we get up to up at Salama. And that’s what people vote for. Sending out the Navy to defend the Med. Sending them back to their deaths, while they tell themselves it’s the right thing to do.’

  He sounded almost angry. Oliver was quiet, looking out of the window, watching the shadows in the desert.

  ‘How did you first come up with the idea?’ Casey asked.

  ‘The London operation came up with it.’ Josh changed mood easily.

  ‘And who,’ Casey asked, ‘is the London operation?’

  He smiled at her, big hands steady on the wheel.

  ‘The London operation is a lot jumpier than us,’ he said. ‘Paranoid, a bit. Stands to reason, though. I don’t think Western police forces would appreciate us one little scrap.’

  ‘But who . . .’ Casey persisted.

  ‘They don’t like us talking about them at all.’ Josh shut her down. ‘It’s their one rule. Their only rule.’

  Casey sighed loudly.

  ‘I haven’t even said you’re out here,’ Josh shrugged at her. ‘London would go crazy.’

  She would have to get it out of Oliver, when they got back to London. If they got back to London. Swap anonymity for secrets, it was always the way.

  ‘So how did it all come about?’

  ‘I’ve known our London buddy for a long time, one way and another. It was just a suggestion, came out of nowhere. I thought it was crazy, at first. Then a few days after we first spoke, me and Leo and Rory went down to Nigeria. You know, it was pretty dark what that company was getting up to out there. Sure, we’re employed by a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary, and we invoice for security, or whatever. But they know what we’re doing. They know exactly what we’re doing down there.’

  ‘Which company?’ Casey asked, almost in a reflex.

  ‘She asks a lot of questions, your girl,’ Josh said to Ed, still smiling. ‘It doesn’t matter which company. One of the biggest. So we went to Nigeria. Then the next job, that was a coltan mine, down in the DRC.’

  ‘Right in the heart.’

  ‘Exactly. Now coltan,’ Josh went on, ‘coltan’s in everything electronic. Everything. But especially your mobile phone. And you do not want to know what we had to do to keep that mine ticking over. But we had to lay down a marker out there, so everyone, in all the little villages all around, knew: you do not go and fuck with that mine. I don’t give a shit what else you get up to in the DRC, but you do not fuck with that mine. You leave it the fuck alone. Then we train up a few of the locals, to stay and guard. Teach them which way to point a gun. Although they all know from the cradle down there.’

  Casey turned her phone over in her pocket, catching every word.

  ‘Sounds a bit edgy.’

  ‘It was.’ Josh paused. ‘Then next we went to keep an eye on a diamond mine, for a bit. Then bauxite, which they dig out and turn into aluminium. That mine was fucking horrendous.’

  ‘They strip-mine those sites, don’t they?’ Casey said.

  ‘Yeah, miles of earth ripped to shreds, everything gone, just for the top layer. So then the locals get even more fucked off, and now the company really needs us to come in and sort it out.’

  They had reached the main road, now, turning left back towards Euzma. Algeria and safety lay hundreds of miles ahead of them, all the way down the long road.

  ‘Sounds delightful,’ said Casey.

  She wondered if Oliver, Cormium’s superstar, who bought and sold untold tons of bauxite every single day, was listening. He didn’t seem to be. Oliver looked bored.

  ‘So eventually, I got to thinking,’ Josh went on, ‘that basically everyone is doing this shit. Absolutely everyone. Every time they fill up their car, it’s because of us kicking the shit out of some fucker out on the delta. When they take a call, they’re using tantalum, which comes from coltan, which comes from some shithole out in the DRC. When they’re down on their knee, proposing to some stupid bitch, they’re using a blood diamond from God only knows where. And the girl’s special dress is stitched together by some child in Bangladesh. And when they do their line of coke to celebrate, well, Christ knows what happens to get that to England. And, so I thought, fuck it. Fuck it. Everyone’s doing it really; they just don’t know it. So I called London, and they started sorting it out.’

  ‘Cutting out the middleman.’ Casey yawned, stretching.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Josh. ‘Exactly. That, and I thought if I didn’t do it, some other fucker would do it anyway.’

  She could see the huge bronze fist now, in front of the palace, clutching ugly at the silver plane.

  Josh waved at it.

  ‘And that’s just what these companies get up to when they’re only using us. The UK was about to get everything started up again, in Libya, before it all went south once and for all. The whole country knew exactly what he got up to, Gaddafi. They just didn’t give a shit. I can live with this. I’m OK.’

  ‘I take your point,’ Casey sparkled at him.

  He jerked the car to a halt. As they climbed out, Oliver came alive.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m actually here. This is so fucking awesome. I can’t wait.’

  33

  Almost before Casey was got back in the bedroom, she was stopping the recording, sending it whirling back to London.

  Hessa was waiting. She messaged Miranda: They’re OK. Then she opened up the file, and started to transcribe.

  In the Post’s offices, Hessa’s desk was near the back bench, the row of desks where the subs pull together the copy, article by article. When the page layout is decided, the word counts are fixed. The subs go through each sentence, snipping every superfluous word.

  Right now, the editor was s
tanding by the back bench, tightening a headline.

  There is an art to a good headline; the tabloids pride themselves on it especially. Up Yours, Delors. Gotcha. Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster.

  As Hessa looked up, Dash was walking past. Hessa watched Salcombe watching Dash.

  ‘Dash,’ the editor called. ‘We can’t get the splash headline quite right.’

  The splash headline sells the paper.

  ‘By the way, where are Miranda and Casey at the moment?’ The editor’s voice was casual.

  Hessa felt her head jerk, ever so slightly.

  ‘They’re just checking stuff for that big data project,’ said Dash. ‘And they’re planning to take a couple of days off at the end of the week. Think they’re a bit bored with that whole project, bloody divas.’

  Hessa dropped her head, concentrating on her screen.

  ‘Aaron,’ the editor said to the sub. ‘If you swap medical for health, we can do it in two lines.’

  Dash turned away from the back bench.

  ‘Dash,’ Hessa said apologetically. ‘There’s a . . .’

  ‘Could you come into my office, Hessa?’ Dash interrupted smoothly.

  Back in Euzma, Ed took Casey in his arms, and held her, for a long time. It wasn’t about sex, she knew. It was wanting to know that we’re both here. If nothing else, I can touch you. We’re real, you and I.

  He wasn’t agreeing over Salama, but they couldn’t fight each other as well as everyone else. It was too much.

  ‘You’re doing that in case we die out here, aren’t you?’ he whispered. ‘Sending back the recordings so they’ve got them, no matter what?’

  ‘We’re not going to die, Ed.’ But she couldn’t promise.

  She put on the music again, sound pouring tinnily from the cheap speakers.

  They lay on the bed, side by side.

  ‘You start to believe it, don’t you?’ said Ed quietly. ‘You listen to them talking and talking, and suddenly they start to make sense.’

  ‘I was looking down at that camp,’ said Casey. ‘So many of those women, when they finally get to Europe, they’re shoved into the worst brothels. Fed lies by the only people they trust. Trafficked across Europe and raped by a thousand men. Disappearing into that nightmare world, for ever. And they can’t escape, or they’ll be sent back here. You start to wonder whether someone might prefer just to die, out here. A quick bullet. Because we know where they’re going. And maybe I’d rather be dead, than that.’

  ‘It makes you insane, being out here,’ said Ed. ‘You would never think any of this at home.’

  ‘I know.’ Casey rolled over, face in the pillow. ‘I know. It gets into your head, when you’re living a lie. It always does somehow. You have to believe it, for it to be believable. And if you force yourself to believe for long enough, it starts being real.’

  She jumped at a knock at the door.

  ‘Who is it?’ she called out. You never opened the door if you didn’t know. Never went to the spyhole in a hotel either. Because someone could wait, gun ready, and fire when you blocked out the light.

  ‘Bullet straight through the eye,’ a former spook had told her, with a certain relish.

  ‘It’s Josh.’

  Josh liked her, Casey thought, too much now. It was often a problem. You needed to be liked, flirted with and taken into the circle of trust. But that could so easily go too far.

  ‘Take off your clothes,’ she whispered to Ed. ‘Go to the door, wrapped in a towel.’

  He understood in a second, stripping off his clothes.

  ‘All right, mate?’ Ed opened the door, clutching a towel. ‘We’re . . . A bit tied up.’

  ‘Sure, buddy.’ Casey could almost hear Josh wink. ‘We’ll be out on the terrace. Oliver wanted to do a bit of practice with the rifle. Thought you might too.’

  ‘Awesome. Down in a bit.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  Ed turned back towards the bed, catching Casey admiring his chest. He raised an eyebrow at her, and she got the giggles. Laughing was almost unfamiliar.

  ‘We’ve got to take our time now,’ he said. ‘I don’t want them thinking I rush these things.’

  Ed threw himself on the bed.

  ‘This bed is amazing,’ he said. ‘Like sleeping on a cloud.’

  They stared up at the ceiling together. The crystal chandelier sparkled dustily, sending flicks of light around the room.

  ‘Fit for a princess,’ said Casey. ‘And not a pea to be seen. Sleep in it tonight. You can’t be tired tomorrow, and I know you didn’t sleep well on that sofa.’

  ‘I’ll try. And I am so sorry about all that, again.’

  ‘Forget it.’

  Ed chucked aside a pink satin cushion.

  ‘It’s such a weird contrast, isn’t it? All this, just down the road from Salama.’

  ‘That bit doesn’t shock me any more,’ said Casey. ‘I used to find it bizarre. I remember interviewing migrants at Ventimiglia, down on the Mediterranean. This group of migrants stuck on the border between Italy and France, with nowhere to go. They were sleeping on the beach, under tarpaulins and driftwood and torn plastic bags. And I’d look up while we were speaking, and there was Monaco, just a few miles along the coast. The most expensive real estate in the world. And when you’re out in Mumbai, the slums run right up to the glitziest skyscrapers. Or there’s Zaatari, where reporters aren’t allowed to spend the night in the camp, so me and the snapper were staying in a five-star hotel in Amman. Even in London, we step over the homeless.’

  ‘Juxtaposition,’ said Ed. ‘The ridiculously rich and the impossibly poor.’

  ‘With smiling Jordanians bringing us breakfast in bed,’ remembered Casey. ‘You’re looking at a gold tap in the bathroom – just a tap, with endless clean water – and thinking that would be the height of luxury, out in Zaatari. On our day off, the photographer and I would drive out to float in the Dead Sea for a bit, or climb up through Petra.’

  ‘With the tourists all around.’

  She’d flown back for a party, once. Straight from Tripoli to Cap Ferrat. Well, via Cairo and Stuttgart and Nice, because that was the quickest route. Body armour in her luggage.

  ‘Why the body armour?’ Suspicions at border control.

  ‘Family wedding.’ A smile and a shrug. They laughed and waved her through.

  A taxi had taken her down the coast, heart stopping at every traffic light. Oh, not another checkpoint, every time the taxi braked. No, you’re here, it’s OK. You’re safe in your borrowed dress. Dancing on the edge, and peering across the sea in the dawn. Dreaming, that night, that the corpses floated up and out and in.

  ‘When you’re laughing over a silly joke,’ she said, ‘it starts feeling wrong to laugh.’

  She turned to him and hugged him, lying soft against his chest.

  *

  As they headed down to the terrace, the door to the suite was open. Casey paused.

  ‘Don’t, Casey.’ Ed’s hand was on her back, nudging her forward. ‘Both of them . . . Don’t. It’s too risky.’

  ‘I won’t be a second, Ed. Please. I have to. Wait round the corner. Shout, “Get a bloody move on, Carrie” if they’re coming.’

  ‘Casey . . .’ But he went.

  Casey slipped into the room, with that surge of adrenalin that made every sense burn. She looked around the room carefully. No sign of a trap, she thought, but then nobody sees the best ambush.

  She walked, spring-footed, to the desk. Her heart thudded.

  Rory’s desk was large, grand, topped in green leather. It didn’t fit with the rest of the room; he must have dragged it from somewhere. A bust of a Roman emperor glowered down, incongruously disapproving.

  Josh’s room was chaos. But on his desk, Rory kept things neat.

  Apart from a pile of magazines dedicated to motorbikes, this desk was almost empty.

  On a shelf above the desk there was a stack of diaries – navy blue leather, year stamped in silver. Three years of them,
a big page for every day. Far too many to photograph, page by page.

  Casey opened one of the diaries at random, almost screaming in frustration. Rory wrote in code, she saw. Impossible to read the numbers.

  155511. 451092.

  She photographed a page, knowing it wasn’t enough. Pages had been torn out too, she saw. She slid the diary back into place.

  Breath shortening, she switched on his computer. In the big bedroom, the start-up rattle echoed loudly.

  ‘Shit,’ she muttered. ‘Shit.’

  The screen lit up impassively. ‘Enter password.’

  Casey thumped the desk in frustration.

  ‘Get a bloody move on, Carrie,’ Ed shouted, voice echoing down the hall.

  Casey slammed the off button, praying it would shut down in time. She raced to the door, slipping for one terrifying second on the white marble.

  ‘All OK?’ Josh turned the corner, and Casey wasn’t sure if he had seen her, diving out of the office.

  On the wall beside the door to his office, a huge painting hung in a heavy gilt frame. Casey stared at Arab horses, racing over the desert, wild flourishes of joy.

  ‘I love this,’ she pointed. ‘Most of the art in this place is hideous, but this is beautiful.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about art.’ Josh was beside her now. He glanced past her, into the room. The computer might still be glowing, blind blue and deadly.

  ‘Ed only knows about caves.’ Casey was focusing all her attention on the painting. ‘He’s hopeless at all this. It does my head in sometimes.’

  Josh looked at her sharply, and she smiled back, just a hint of promise.

  ‘Maybe you should teach me,’ Josh said.

  ‘Maybe.’

  They stared at each other, for a second.

  ‘Ethan would have loved it here.’ She broke the spell.

  ‘He would have.’ Josh stepped away as Ed appeared round the corner.

  They walked to the terrace. It was blazingly hot. Rory was playing a game of solitaire and smoking a cigarette.