“Saudi secret agents intercepted the truck and disposed of it. You don’t know where.”
“Is that what really happened?”
The man smiles. “You don’t need to know that. Yes, that really happened, if you like. Anyway, can I tell you what headline I want to be reading tomorrow?”
“Go on,” says Harry.
“Saudis foil IS chemical attack on Vatican… that sort of thing.”
“I’ll do my best,” says Harry.
“You will,” says the Saudi, a steeliness creeping into his sallow eyes.
“Can I just ask one thing, though?”
“By all means,” says the man.
“Why?”
“PR,” is all he says, returning to surveying the motorway verge. He doesn’t say anything for the best part of a minute, and then he turns to Harry.
“How much do you know about Middle East politics?”
“Not a lot… I’ll grant you that,” says Harry.
“You’re not alone in England with that,” says the Saudi. “Well, there’s a lot of nonsense spoken about the centuries old emnity between Sunnis and Shias, but that is all just camouflage for the real power-struggle, that between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
“Traditionally we, Saudi Arabia, had America on our side, while Iran had Russia, but things have been changing. America has lifted its sanctions on Tehran because they believe what those Iranians liars are saying about abandoning their nuclear ambitions, while we Saudis are getting a bad press for our supposed human rights violations. The West, for so long our allies in the region, is falling out of love with us.
“And there is IS. We started funding Islamic State in order to help get rid of Assad in Syria – a Shia by the way – but we have created a monster that now threatens us at home – it threatens the House of Saud, the bedrock of stability in the region.”
“So you hope to discredit Islamic State and bolster Saudi Arabia’s image in the West, all at the same time.”
“There, you have it,” says the man. “It’s just one small piece in a complicated jigsaw.”
“But I don’t write the headlines,” says Harry. “They’re not stupid people. They’ll write it as they see it.”
“That is your job… to paint the picture that they see,” says the Saudi. “Anyway, that is the desired outcome. Two and half million pounds or a charge of kidnapping depends on it.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Mary is staring into a huge spray of flowers that has just been deposited in a vase by a smartly dressed blonde housekeeper. She’s not very good on her flowers, but she recognises roses, cream and pink roses, amongst the mix.
The weather in London has been bright and blue, but cold with it, for the past week or so, and a beam of sunlight is now illuminating the table with the flowers on it. On another table, against the wall, two silver platters have been placed, one piled high with sandwiches, the other covered in pastries. Next to the platters are bottles of water and Coca Cola and two thermoses, one marked coffee, the other marked tea.
Mary feels as nervous as a bride, good practice for when she and Ben attend the registry office in the summer. The photographer, Julian, is setting up next door; she can see him practising on his assistant, a young woman holding a collapsible reflector. Charlotte is talking on the phone outside in the corridor.
Mary turns once again to her list of questions, the result of a conference this morning in which the daily news team, joined by Charlotte from the Sunday and the daily editor, Miles Turner. Everyone is feeling both elated and suspicious about the approach from Harry’s lawyer, Hugo Fairbrother.
What he had to say was quite simple. His client had received several high six-figure offers for an exclusive interview, but he wanted to go with his old friend Mary Erskine. He didn’t want any money, but although he trusted Mary, whose recent reports he has been following, he does want copy approval.
“What do you think?” Miles had asked.
“Well, we never give copy approval… that’s an article of faith on this paper.”
“Mmm…” said Miles, clearly prepared to ditch this article of faith. “Is there some way around this?”
“Maybe I could talk to him,” said Mary. “Journalist to ex-journalist.”
“I don’t want to lose this,” said Miles.
The suite at Claridge’s had been paid for by Harry’s lawyer, which increased their suspicion even more, but sitting here now, Mary smiles at the irony. She and Harry had come to several movie junkets in this hotel, usually for visiting American actors. The journalists would sit in one room with the publicists, eating sandwiches and pastries just like these, waiting for their turn for fifteen minutes with some occasionally quite charming, but more often bored film star spouting generalised inanities.
And now it was Harry in the position of those movie stars. She just hoped that he isn’t going to spout vacuous nonsense like them. Would the lawyer be present, acting like those film publicists and steering the questions away from anything too real or penetrating?
Mary gets her answer in less than a minute, as Charlotte strides in, followed by an enormous man, almost as wide as he is tall, with a belly like the prow of a ship. And there’s Harry, a sheepish smile on his face, which broadens into a grin as he sees Mary.
“No personal questions please,” he says, in memory of the PRs they both had to battle back in the day.
“I was just remembering all those film junkets here,” says Mary standing to kiss him on the cheek and give his arm a squeeze. He is unshaven and wearing the oddest-looking clothes. “Did you remember doing John Travolta here?”
“Oh, yes,” says Harry. “And Leonardo DiCaprio.”
“Good day, Miss Erskine. My name is Hugo Fairbrother,” interjects the mountain of flesh, proffering a warm, clammy hand. “My client will give you his account of what happened in Italy and Switzerland, and if you will just allow him to speak, without interrupting with questions.”
“Is that the way you want to play it?” Mary asks Harry.
“Mary, I want you to know what’s been happening, and it is extraordinary,” says Harry. “But I am still the subject of a criminal investigation. Mr Fairbrother here will just make sure I don’t give the police any cause to haul me back off to the cells.”
“Fair enough,” says Mary, switching her micro-cassette recorder to record.
“You still have one of those?” says Harry, laughing.
“And this,” she says, sliding her iPhone across the table. “Belt and braces.”
Charlotte too has the voice recorder app on her phone set to record.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
It’s only a short walk from Claridge’s to the hotel where the Saudi is paying to put up Harry, but instead he heads down on to Piccadilly and finds a cashpoint. He puts in his personal debit card and requests a balance. He does indeed appear to be £50,000 richer than he was last week.
A short walk takes him to Turnbull & Asser on Jermyn Street, where he uses the company credit card to buy two pairs of chinos, three shirts, a tweed jacket, three pairs of boxer shorts, eight pairs of socks, a pair of tan Derby shoes and a pair of suede loafers.
The assistant is very sorry but the credit card has been refused. Harry asks him to try again, and then hands over his personal debit card. No problem this time, thank you very much, sir, have a good day.
The cold wind is whipping down Jermyn Street as he trudges back carrying his shopping bags. He thinks he managed to convey to Mary the sort of story he wanted her to write. He stuck to the facts, her raised eyebrows registering her amazement as his story unfolded.
And then the questions. He knew a sticky one would involve the stolen diamond. No, he says, that had all turned out to be a huge misunderstanding.
“A misunderstanding?” said Mary, almost laughing with incredulity.
“A misunderstanding,” deadpanned Harry. “You see, Aafia had actually given the diamond to her father, who presumed that the transaction had been completed and ther
efore took possession. He’s paid up now, thankfully.”
Mary just stared at him. She knew he was lying and she knew that he knew she knew. Luckily she didn’t seem to know about the safety deposit box. The police haven’t leaked that then.
And then there’s the tricky question of his flight to England, leaving Max in the lurch. Fairbrother intervened at this point.
“Miss Erksine,” he said, managing to sound like he’s addressing an under-housemaid. “You can imagine my client’s state of mind on being nearly killed not once, but twice. But that is not what is important here.”
“What is important here?” That was Charlotte, standing in the corner of the room, staring hard at the lawyer. A bland smile spread across Fairbrother’s face, and he bowed his head slightly.
“That is for you to decide… you’re the journalists,” he said. “You now have the facts laid out before you most generously, and now my client, as you can see, is in need of some rest and refreshment – or rest and recreation as they say in the military.”
“I’m not really in the mood for the latter,” said Harry.
“Well, time for your close up,” said Mary, looking at his unshaven face, the eyes seemingly sunken and with dark rings beneath them. Harry appeared to have lost some weight as well. She had accompanied him next door, introduced him to Julian, and murmured: “What’s this all about, Harry?”
“It’s about survival, Mary. Survival and dealing with your past. You know?”
* * *
“I like the beard,” says Rachel. “Not so sure about the clothes.”
Max smiles. He is wearing a loose-fitting grey sweatshirt and a pair of jogging pants that the lawyer had brought him, and a pair of blue Crocs.
His wife is looking as immaculate as ever, and Max notices the uniformed guard giving her the eye.
“This room is probably bugged by the way,” he says. “Just so you know.”
“Yes, the lawyer warned me,” says Rachel. “He also says he’s confident that you’ll be a free man by this evening.”
“Yes,” says Max, and they lapse into silence. It’s Rachel who breaks it.
“Do you still want to carry on?” she asks.
“Christ… yes,” says Max. “Now more than ever.”
“Despite everything?” she asks, looking at him meaningfully. Max isn’t sure he really wants to know what ‘everything’ entails.
“Yes,” he says. “Despite anything.”
She smiles, and he can see that her eyes are welling up. Their heads lean in together, their mouths meeting.
“No kissing!” shouts the guard, prising them apart. “Open your mouth please,” he says to Max, who duly obliges. Rachel is laughing her head off.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Harry takes a left on to Piccadilly, and walks down past Fortnum & Mason and towards the Ritz. Sitting against the wall, legs scrunched up, head wrapped in a scarf and buried beneath a hoodie, is the familiar figure of Nicola and her dog.
The dog looks up warily as Harry walks up and deposits his shopping bags on the pavement.
“You still here then?” he asks.
She looks up, bright blue eyes staring out from a raw, red face. Beneath her chapped lips there is a large cold sore, above them a moustache is sprouting.
“Where else am I going to go?” she asks in a northern accent. Harry realises that he’s never really heard her speak before.
“I don’t know,” he says, and then he has a thought. He unclips the Rolex that has been hurting his wrist so much and drops it into Nicola’s lap. The dog lifts its head defensively, as if about to leap to her mistress’s defence.
“What’s that?” asks Nicola, staring at the watch.
“It’s a Rolex Submariner, worth at least £5,000,” says Harry.
Nicola looks up at him suspiciously. “What am I going to do with that?” she says. “They’ll think I’ve stolen it.”
“You may have a point,” he says. “There’s a pawn shop up near New Bond Street… I’ll take it up there. I’ll see you later.”
He scoops up the Rolex and slips it back on his wrist, which he notices still has the raw indent of whatever had been used to bind his hands in Rome.
Nicola watches him cross Piccadilly and disappear up Berkeley Street.
“What the fuck was that all about?” she says to Topaz, stroking her on the head. She looks back down towards the Ritz, hoping to see H, but he hasn’t been around for days now. Anyway, he’s always off his head on Spice these days. He’s barely able to speak most of the time.
“It’s a legal high,” he had said, rolling it into a cigarette. But Nicola doesn’t smoke – she never has. And she gave up drink to look after Topaz, so she doesn’t want to get high.
She realises a woman – a well-dressed elderly woman – is looking down at her. “I hope you’re feeding that dog properly,” she says sternly, and turns on her heels.
“Fuck off!” Nicola shouts after her retreating back. “Just fuck off, you silly old bitch. What do you know? What do you know about anything?”
* * *
Harry checks into the hotel, where he’s greeted with the sort of obsequiousness that the Saudi must experience everywhere he goes. It’s a two-room suite and Harry is told to make himself at home with the bars and restaurants – it’s all taken care of. Have a nice stay, sir.
While he’s running a bath he rings the office, but oddly there’s no reply – only the standard out-of-hours automatic message. He tries the office manager Fi’s mobile, but goes straight through to her voicemail, the same with analysts Cyril and Tim’s mobiles.
“While the cat’s away…” he says to himself, adding some cold water to the bath, and then hitting the TV remote. BBC and Sky rolling news seem to have moved on to other stories – nothing yet about his release from police custody this morning. He checks his soon-to-be pawned Rolex. It’s shortly after two. He tries the office again, and gets the same lack of response as before.
He rings Max.
“Dialled number not recognised,” his service provider informs him.
He tries Rachel. What is he going to say? Christ, does she really have feelings for him?
“Dialled number not recognised.”
“Perhaps I did die back there in Verbier,” he says to himself, dipping a foot in the water. “Perhaps this is what death feels like – a free luxury hotel room where nobody answers your calls.” And where you talk to yourself, he thinks.
At least room service seems to exist. He calls up for a medium rare steak, chips and salad and a half bottle of Côte du Rhône, and lays out the clothes he is going to wear. They don’t match that well, he realises now, but at least they’re smart. The shirt and trousers from the boutique in Martigny he consigns to the bin.
His phone rings.
“Hi, Harry… it’s Fi here. Christ, are you all right?”
“I’m fine thanks, Fi. Where are you?”
“I’m at home.”
“At home?” says Harry, desperately working out what day it is. It’s not the weekend.
“Have you been to the office?” asks Fi. “The police took all the computers on Monday, and just about everything else that wasn’t nailed down. It’s a bit of a mess in there. Tim and Cyril buggered off – and I haven’t heard from them since. Is everything going to be all right?”
“Have you heard from Max?”
“No, he’s in prison in Italy, isn’t he?”
“I heard he’d been released without charge.”
“Oh, thank God for that,” says Fi. “What happened?”
“It’s a bit complicated to go into right now, Fi. But if Max makes contact, will you ring me straight away?”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
“All’s well that ends well,” Aafia is saying to the moustachioed man behind the desk. They are in a fourth-floor office of the Ministry of the Interior in Riyadh, the inverted pyramid building that everyone seemed so proud of when it opened.
The colonel,
as he styles himself, a career veteran of the Mukhabarat and Aafia’s minder for the past two years, is actually a distant cousin of hers. Perhaps it was why he was chosen to look after her. She doesn’t like him anyway. He is about forty, with sallow skin from sitting in this windowless, airless office for too long.
“Yes, but just think how badly it could have gone,” he is saying now, twiddling his pen nervously. “Just imagine the implications if the Saudi secret service were found to have been actively involved in helping a terrorist cell carry out a sarin gas attack on the Vatican on the Christian church’s most holy day. As a PR setback for the kingdom it would dwarf 9/11.”
“Yes, but if we’re going to supplant Iran in the affections of the West then we needed something big like this.”
The colonel is smiling. “With you-know-who in the White House we don’t need to worry about Iran just at the moment.”
“We always need to worry about Iran”, says Aafia, tugging at the headscarf that she had pulled down around her shoulders as soon as she entered the office. The colonel is her cousin after all. She didn’t bother with an abaya, the long black dress worn by most Saudi women in public.
Aafia wasn’t allowed to drive here so she had had to come by bus, which was annoying – or rather the men on the bus had been annoying because she was travelling without a chaperone. One old bloke, the same age as her father, kept on and on at her, threatening to call the religious police, until a glance at her identity card for the General Intelligence Directorate shut him up.
“What’s with stealing the diamond?” asks the colonel.
“Ah, yes, that was going to be my leaving present for Tariq,” she replies.
“That useful idiot? Why – didn’t you give him plenty of money for his schemes?”
“Yes,” says Aafia, sensing an edge of jealousy in the colonel’s voice. “But I felt guilty for using him.” And I wasn’t supposed to fall in love, or lust, she thinks to herself. She feels sad about Tariq, although she had gradually broken it off over the past year or so, made it feel like it was a mutual decision.
The Concierge Page 30
