by Tim Weaver
I checked my phone for a signal, willing it to return, but we were in the middle of the South Atlantic, still a day away from the Empress Islands, and there wasn’t even a flicker. Worse, my battery was almost out. The phone was just an extension of my notebook now, a dormant piece of plastic where ideas and outlines and photographs were stored. I powered it down.
I had nothing.
No way out.
I must have been asleep because, by the time I realized what was happening, the door had been opened and closed and a bottle of water lay on the floor. It was a quarter full.
Pushing back from the table – my head still pounding – I hurried across the room, grabbed the water and sank it in two gulps, feeling the water travel from throat to stomach. It was lukewarm but I didn’t care. I drank it so quickly, some of it spilled on to my face, my hands, on to my T-shirt and across my chest. Once I was done, I felt out of breath, my clothes damp, the heat of the room forgotten just briefly. But then it returned again, like a furnace.
It was 12 a.m. I closed my eyes, trying to think. That meant we would be at the Empress Islands in about seven hours’ time. Was that what they were waiting for? Was that why I was being kept in here?
Click.
The door opened a fraction and Grobb appeared. He fixed his gaze on me immediately, as if he’d only just been watching me on camera and knew exactly where I was in the room.
‘Stay seated,’ he said.
When I did as he asked, he opened the door further and I could see out into the corridor beyond the width of his frame. It looked like the night lights were on, the space a mix of pale cream lamps and thick shadow. After a beat, Grobb stepped back out of sight, and two other people replaced him.
One was Alexander Marek.
The other was Roland Dell.
46
It took me a second to process; seeing the headmaster of the Red Tree here, so out of context, was impossible to grasp at first. But then Roland Dell came in, his gaze taking in the room, and it all fell into place.
He was dressed in a suit jacket and jeans with a white shirt, unbuttoned at the neck, his hair slicked back, his beard thicker than when I’d seen him at the school. He looked tired, as if he hadn’t slept, but he was still handsome, athletic, young for a man of forty-eight, his bright blue eyes reflecting back the bloom of the strip lights above us. There was something else too, humming just below the surface, a look in his eyes that immediately set me on edge, and I realized the school headmaster, the amiable, talented academic, was just a role to him. It was a part of who he was, but not the real part. It was a skin he pulled on.
He stood staring at me, Marek behind him, at his shoulder, almost in deference – a servant waiting to be summoned – and the truth about their dynamic revealed itself. All I’d laid at Marek’s feet, I should have been pinning on Dell: Marek was just a fixer for him, someone who got things done as quietly and efficiently as possible.
Dell was the architect.
I glanced at Marek. His eyes were blue as well, but nowhere near as bright as Dell’s, and they didn’t handle the light the same way: they seemed to sink, like a wreck dropping to the bottom of the ocean. With his hair scraped into a ponytail, I was able to see the same scar as before, a mark tracing the line of his head. He wasn’t physically intimidating but he was dangerous. They both were.
It was like a scent they gave off.
Marek pushed the door shut and, once it was closed, Dell finally moved. I could hear the air conditioning kicking into life as he glanced at the camera in the corner of the room, almost glaring at it. I watched the red light wink a couple of times and then vanish altogether.
They didn’t want any of this on tape.
Dell pulled a chair out and sat down opposite me, placing both hands flat to the table. He tilted his head slightly, examining me, maybe looking for signs of fear. Inside, every muscle in my body was screaming with panic, every nerve was firing, every corner of my skull seemed to be aching – but I managed to keep a lid on all of it. I didn’t break eye contact with him until he turned and looked back at Marek, who was standing in the same place, his arms behind him.
‘I’d forgotten just how far away this fucking place is.’ He swivelled around to face me again, smiling. ‘You’ve been travelling – what? – four days and you’re still going. It’s a pain in the arse to get to, plus the weather’s shite and the towns are all dumps. I mean, everyone goes on about St George being modern, but modern compared to what? The Middle Ages?’
He smirked, eyeing me.
‘But I can tell you this.’ He leaned forward over the table, his hands still flat to it, pretending that he was imparting some ancient secret. ‘A tax haven being so far away from everywhere, that has its advantages too. It’s not as sexy as the Cayman Islands – there’s no palm trees, or rum and Cokes on the beach after work – so there aren’t any investigators or journalists looking to justify a “business trip” to the Empress Islands. Everyone just forgets it’s here, and do you know what that means? It means you can do things down here you can’t do elsewhere.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I saw your finances.’
The smile faltered, but he didn’t let it derail him. ‘That’s what I figured. I mean, why else go to the Empress Islands, right?’ As soon as he said right, I heard it: the accent. He’d hidden it from me at the school but he didn’t have to hide it now.
He was from the islands too.
‘Yes,’ he said, seeing me make the connection. ‘My father was a diplomat. I was born in Bermuda, but he got offered the governor’s job on the islands and we moved down here when I was young.’ He paused, smiled again. ‘Thanks, Dad.’
‘So you were the one passing money through the Red Tree?’
He shrugged. ‘When was the last time you heard about the taxman digging around in a school, David? I mean, it happens, but not very often. A school’s a good place to hide things.’
As soon as he said that, something else clicked into place: the date that the money first started appearing in the Red Tree accounts was September 2000.
The same month Dell became headmaster.
‘Let me ask you something,’ he said, his eyes fixed on me. ‘Why do you think they gave me the job of headmaster at the age of thirty-two?’
Again, he’d jumped ahead of me; seen where my thoughts were focused.
‘I mean, I’ve proven myself in the time since, and I enjoy it there. But a school like that, so prestigious, so much class, so many mega-rich parents and narrow-minded governors sitting in judgement – why would they give the biggest job in the school to a history teacher who’d only been there five years and had only been a teacher for nine?’
‘Because you paid them off.’
He pointed at me. ‘There are no flies on you. See, what I learned early on in my life is that being wealthy doesn’t make you less interested in money. In fact, the opposite. It only feeds your obsession.’
‘So you didn’t pay it all into offshore accounts then? You kept some of the money back for the governors – and for yourself.’
‘I did. My share never went through the school.’
‘Your “share”?’
‘A figure of speech,’ he said, but he was lying.
‘So if you never put your “share” through the school, who do the three accounts in the Empress Islands belong to?’
He didn’t respond this time.
‘Did you steal all of that money from Caleb Beck?’
Dell forced a smile, as if I was so wide of the mark it barely deserved an answer. But there was a moment, a flicker of something, when I’d accused him of stealing the cash. So was that what Penny had followed a trail back to, and what had got her killed: realizing that Dell had taken her father’s money?
‘Did you murder Caleb Beck?’ I said.
Dell just looked at me.
‘What about Penny?’
Nothing.
I knew I was on to something. Dell was having to concent
rate, to force himself not to show any hint of surprise or anger or alarm, and while the movements in his face were all minor, they were there: fractional adjustments that said everything.
‘That was why Penny told everyone her name was Corrine Wilson,’ I said, as more of the puzzle came together. ‘You had no idea who she was, did you? She arrived at the school, not because she wanted to teach – or, not just for that reason. She joined the Red Tree because she wanted to look into you, into what happened to her father. She suspected you were involved in Caleb Beck going missing.’
I paused. Jacob Howson had told me that Penny had worked hard to subdue her accent but, occasionally, he would hear it slip.
It was because she’d been trying to hide it from Dell.
So was that what ended up getting her killed? Not Marek finding out she’d stolen information from the security suite, been through his computer and taken a keycard – but a minor lapse in her accent in front of Roland Dell?
He started shaking his head, dropping his eyes away from me, as if he realized he’d become too transparent. ‘You’re an idiot, you know that?’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘You must be able to see that none of this matters. What you think I did, what I really did, it’s ephemera.’
‘Is that what you call it?’
He held his hands out flat, palms up, in a you tell me gesture.
‘If it’s just ephemera,’ I said, ‘why are you here?’
‘That’s actually a very good question,’ he said, and glanced back over his shoulder at Marek. ‘How long did it take us to get here? Twenty-two hours?’
‘Twenty-one,’ Marek replied.
It was the first thing he’d said.
‘Twenty-one hours,’ Dell repeated. ‘Ten and a half to Cape Town, three on the ground, a five-hour flight on a Gulfstream from there to the airport on the Empress Islands, another hour’s layover there, and then an hour and a half to fly two hundred and fifty miles out into the South Atlantic ocean – in the middle of the night – to land on a tiny cruise-ship helipad in the pissing rain.’
Dell brought his hands back, lacing them together on the table in front of him. ‘Even when your money can buy you luxury,’ he continued, ‘you know, first-class flights and private jets and all of that, it still makes for a hell of a journey. So, like I said, it’s a good question. Why even bother?’ He looked at me, eyes boring into mine, an odd slope to his mouth; I couldn’t tell if he was disgusted by the sight of me, or amused by my situation. ‘See, the reason I’m so successful is because I always know what’s going on in my school and in my life. I know each little part: who’s who, what’s what, what’s working well, what isn’t. Some see that as a negative – micro-management. I call it pragmatic.’ He waved a finger between me and him. ‘Take this as an example. A lot of people, they would have just sent Alexander down here by himself. I mean, let’s be honest, that would have been a hell of a lot easier than this Jules Verne crap I’ve had to pull, and ultimately he would have got the job done, one way or another.’
I glanced at Marek. He hadn’t move an inch the entire time he’d been standing. Same position, same stance, his hands together behind him, at the base of his spine.
‘And yet, here I am.’
When I returned my gaze to Dell, the mock joviality had disappeared and in its stead was a blackness; the man beneath the man.
‘I’ve got some questions. That’s one reason I came.’
His eyes were drilling into me again.
‘The other is a lot more straightforward,’ he said. ‘I think it’s important to look people in the face and see if they’re lying to you before you cut them up and dump them in the ocean.’
47
Instantly, the air chilled.
‘What do you know about Penny?’ Dell said.
I watched him: there was a moment, as he said her real name aloud, when his eyes showed something softer. A sadness, or a regret; a burst of light. But then, whatever it had been, it was gone again and his expression became a blank.
‘I think you killed her,’ I said.
‘How do you even know she’s dead?’
‘Because her body was dumped on that railway line.’
‘That’s quite a leap, considering that she’s not even registered as a missing person.’
I smiled, but there was no humour in it.
He frowned. ‘Do I amuse you?’
I gestured to Marek. ‘I think he killed her – for you.’
He watched me for a while, then picked a hair off his jacket and changed position on the seat. He was telling me he was in control, that this entire conversation was being conducted at his pace and on his terms.
‘So who put those ideas in your head?’ he asked.
‘They’re not ideas.’
‘Was it Jacob Howson?’
Again, he watched me for confirmation. This was a fact-finding mission and a firefighting exercise: half a cold-blooded execution, half an act of survival.
‘Was it Howson?’ he said again.
I stared back, giving him absolutely nothing, and then I closed my eyes; my head was starting to thump again. In the darkness, I tried to shift ahead of Dell to my next move, a way to escape. How was I going to get out of here?
Come on, think of something.
But I couldn’t. I had nothing. My head was just static and, when I opened my eyes again, Dell was leaning forward, staring at me.
‘You struggling?’ he said. A smile skirted the edges of his lips as if he glimpsed some sort of advantage – an access point, a way to get at me. ‘That’s why I told them not to give you anything. A couple of days without food and just a few mouthfuls of lukewarm water, that starts to affect your ability to function. You’ve got a crashing headache, your muscles ache, you’re trying to think straight but all you can really think about is getting something to eat and drink.’ He leaned away from me again, the chair creaking as he settled. ‘You might as well be honest with me, because nothing about this is loaded in your favour. The guys in security, they’re not coming back for you. They’re not interested in what goes on in here. They’ll be out on shift until we’re done, until we’ve got what we want from you, and then Alexander will message them and they’ll return to their desks and they’ll find no trace of us, and no trace of you. That’s just how it works. You can’t affect that, because all of them are on my payroll.’
They’d probably been that way since Beth was caught on camera. Marek had come to the ship to get rid of her, and Dell had paid the security team to help. I pushed my anger down. The less he thought I knew, the better.
‘Who told you about Penny?’ he said again.
I looked at him blankly.
‘Was it Howson?’
‘I don’t know who that is.’
‘Bullshit.’
I shrugged.
‘Where is he?’
‘I just told you,’ I said, ‘I don’t know who –’
‘You’re lying. You’re hiding him and Richard somewhere.’
‘I’m not hiding anyone.’
‘It was Howson who told you.’
‘Told me about what?’
He smirked. ‘You know I’ll find that little fucker, don’t you?’
I shrugged again, as if it made no difference to me, but inside I was frantically thinking how I might go about getting hold of Howson. I needed to warn him to stay hidden, or even better to move on somewhere else. But then I looked around the room and reality kicked in. How was I going to do that? How was I going to get out of here? I glanced from Dell to Marek.
Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe this was the end.
Dell pushed again: ‘Admit it was Howson and we’re done.’
‘I don’t know who you’re talking about.’
‘It was Howson, wasn’t it?’
‘No.’
‘What did Penny pass on to him?’
‘I don’t know who this Hows–’
‘Bullshit!’
Dell smashed the flat of his
hand on to the table. The whole thing moved, the legs shifting, the surface vibrating. He stood, straightening his jacket, and turned to Marek. They looked at one another, and then Dell swivelled on his heel, his face burning red with rage.
‘You broke into my school,’ he said, pointing at me. ‘You broke in and you stole that laptop from me. I always knew it was you, you piece of shit.’
I’d wiped all expression from my face.
‘We’ve been through your laptop,’ he went on. ‘We found it in your cabin. There’s nothing on there that we can’t deal with, and everything else is in your head.’ He buttoned up his jacket. ‘We can contain that easily enough too, because pretty soon your head isn’t going to be attached to your body.’
I tried not to show him that his words had got to me.
‘But this Penny stuff,’ he said, ‘it’s a problem.’
He brushed himself down.
‘Whatever Howson has in his possession – that’s a problem too.’
He went to the door and swiped a card across a reader fixed to the wall. The door buzzed. Pulling it open, he moved into the gap, looked both ways along the corridor, and then brought back a water bottle.
I looked at the bottle, fixed on it, felt my muscles tense and my throat constrict. It had been refrigerated, tears of condensation running down it.
‘You know, some things you regret,’ Dell said, bringing me back to him, his voice almost like a whisper. ‘Penny.’ He stopped at her name; a brief flicker of pain. ‘That was hard.’
‘So you did kill her?’
‘She was smart,’ was all he said.
It was almost as if he’d genuinely liked her. Howson had said the same thing about Marek; that he’d had a soft spot for Penny, which was how she was able to manoeuvre him. Maybe Marek was drawn to Penny through lust, a physical attraction, but I didn’t get that sense from Dell. It was like whatever he felt for her was based on something much more deep-seated – and that had only made her betrayal even worse in his eyes. Could he have known her back in Sophia? It was possible, but if that was true, why hadn’t Dell recognized Penny when she turned up at the school, pretending to be Corrine Wilson?
