Java Spider

by Geoffrey Archer

  ‘Want me to go to his flat?’

  ‘Yes. In case it’s something simple like he got back from the far east and collapsed with food poisoning. I’ve spoken to his wife. She’s agreed we can break in if we have to but she thinks there’s a neighbour with a key. Just a quick look, right? No turning the place over. Not yet.’

  Wesley Street, Westminster was less than five minutes away. A light drizzle fell as Randall crossed the road from where he’d parked.

  Mansion flats. Nineteenth-century. Four storeys, with iron grilles on the windows. Most of the apartments would be homes for MPs, their occupants increasingly concerned the Revenue Men might turn their attention to them.

  He studied the bell-pushes. Eight flats with a common entrance. He pressed the one marked Bowen in case the man was up there watching ‘Rugby Special’.

  No response. He glanced along the street. Two men in a car watching him, newspaper snappers on a stake-out. The tabloids had another victim in their sights.

  He was about to check if there was a bell for a caretaker when he heard the lock click. As the door swung open, a small terrier sprang at him, yapping.

  Its owner was female, late seventies and expensively preserved. She tugged on the leash. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘Quite all right,’ Nick smiled reassuringly.

  ‘Were you coming in?’ She stood to one side, then looked at him with suspicion. ‘Who did you want?’

  ‘Mr Bowen.’

  ‘Oh … I don’t think he’s in. I’m next door you see. I heard his bell just a moment ago. It’s been going on and off all afternoon.’

  ‘That was me. Just now anyway. Tell me, is there a caretaker for these flats?’

  ‘Yes, but today’s Sunday so he’s not here.’

  ‘Madam, I’m a police officer.’ He turned his back towards the press photographers and showed her his warrant card. ‘Can we step inside a moment?’

  She wound the dog’s lead round her wrist, then put on half-moon glasses to check his ID.

  ‘Do you by any chance have a key to his flat?’ he asked. ‘It’s because of the bombs. We’re checking the homes of MPs who’ve been away for a few days. Just in case … you know?’

  She looked a little doubtful but led the way to the second floor, dragging her protesting animal. She went into her own flat briefly and re-emerged with a key.

  Inside Bowen’s flat, the first door was the kitchen. Next, a small bathroom. At the end of the hall a living room on the left and bedroom on the right. Bed made. All neat and tidy.

  ‘Everything all right?’ the woman called from the stairwell.

  ‘So far, yes.’

  The living room was chintzy sofas, and repro antiques. No bodies on the floor, no sign of trouble. On a rosewood card table by the door, a fax and answerphone. He touched the replay. A woman’s voice, decidedly ‘county’, was coldly telling him to ring. The wife probably. Then a second message which caught his interest.

  ‘Greenfield here, Mr Bowen. Ringing at four thirty on Saturday.’

  The voice sounded north London Jewish.

  ‘I know you’ve been away this week, but I need to remind you that you’ve missed your payment deadline again. This really can’t go on. I don’t want to go public, but you’re forcing my hand, Mr Bowen. We’re not a charity. We’ve got to have our money. I’d be obliged if you’d call me first thing Monday. Please don’t make me have to ring you at the House or the Foreign Office.’

  Money problems it was, then. Pity. Sex would have been more interesting.

  One more message from the wife, concerned this time rather than angry. Then two from lobby journalists asking Bowen to call. Randall spooled back the tape and played it again, taking a verbatim note.

  As he reappeared at the front door, the woman looked relieved his arms weren’t full of stolen silver.

  ‘Thanks for your help, ma’am. Everything’s in order.’

  Out in the street he was eyed with curiosity by the snappers. Back in his car he called DCI Mostyn’s direct line on his mobile and told him what he’d learned.

  ‘Well that’s something,’ the Midlander mumbled. ‘Gives us somewhere to start if he’s not turned up by tomorrow morning. Better get yourself back in here and draw up an action plan.’

  Nick checked his watch. A quarter to five. He could see this dragging on all evening.

  He dialled his home in Wimbledon. The voice that answered sounded sleepy.

  ‘It’s me, Debs. Were you snoozing?’

  ‘Mmm … Just a little lie down.’ They’d been living together for the past two years. Debbie worked in personnel at a local police station. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’ve been caught for duty.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Always a little suspicious of him when he went to his ex-wife’s house. ‘How was Sandra?’

  ‘Never saw her. They rang when I was parking. Had to phone the house from the car to say I couldn’t make it.’

  ‘Oh no … So when are you coming home?’ Her voice sounded flat.

  ‘No idea, chuck. You know what it’s like.’

  ‘No peace for the wicked, eh?’

  ‘Something like that. See you later. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  He rang off and turned on the ignition.

  Debbie was a divorcee too. No kids though. She was good for him. Easy-going like himself, never nagging about where they were heading as a couple, never getting into a paddy over anything. Above all, she let him be himself. Women sucked blood, given half a chance, and he wasn’t a willing donor.

  M4 motorway

  16.55 hrs

  Traffic on the motorway into London was dense with country-weekenders returning home. Charlotte had spoken little on the long, fast drive from Devon. She hated her personal life being newsroom gossip, particularly when the man in question wasn’t going to last.

  They’d passed the airport and were approaching Chiswick when the pager went off again. A message to call the editor on his direct line. She used Jeremy’s carphone.

  ‘Ted! Hi. It’s Charlotte here.’

  ‘Great, girl. Where are you?’

  ‘West London.’

  ‘Ah … Sorry, girl. Think I’ve dragged you back unnecessarily.’

  ‘Oh. Bowen’s turned up?’

  ‘Not exactly … Just had my arm wrenched up between my shoulder blades, that’s all. Downing Street’s been on to all the editors. TV and press. They’re saying it’s a storm in a teacup. Marital hiccup. Asking us to leave him and his missus in peace so they can sort it out.’

  ‘Leave Bowen in peace? So they know where he is, then?’

  ‘That’s the implication. Not said in so many words. Anyway I’ve talked with the competition and we’ve agreed to give them the benefit of the doubt – until tomorrow anyway.’

  ‘I see. So you don’t want me in?’

  ‘No. We don’t need Jeremy either. Will you tell him?’

  ‘Umm … yes I will.’

  ‘Sorry to spoil your er … cosy weekend together.’

  Charlotte could see his smirk as clearly as if it were a video phone. She took a deep breath, counted to three, then replied.

  ‘We were visiting my parents, actually, Ted. My dad’s dying. He’s got a brain tumour.’

  ‘Oh fuck! You serious?’

  ‘Yes. Unfortunately. Jeremy was good enough to drive me down.’

  Silence for a few seconds.

  ‘I see. I’m sorry, girl. Very sorry.’

  ‘But that’s private, Ted, about my dad. Don’t want everyone knowing about that too.’

  ‘Point taken. Lips sealed. Now, Mandy tells me you’re on the breakfast shift tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s right. In at 4 a.m.’

  ‘Perfick. If there’s an early break on Bowen, you can get stuck straight in.’

  ‘No problem. See you tomorrow, then.’

  She clicked the phone back in its holder.

  ‘The flap’s over?’ Jeremy checked.

  ‘For now. S
ankey’s running scared. You know what he’s like. Desperate for the Channel to appear respectable so the licence’ll be renewed. And everyone in the media’s scared of what’ll be in the government’s new Privacy Bill. So – good behaviour all round.’

  She turned to look at him. Straight, fair hair, green eyes, fancy driving gloves, leather steering wheel, compass on the windscreen – he just wasn’t her type. But he meant well. And he’d been kind. But it was time to ditch him before he thought he owned her. The trick was to do it kindly. She reached out and rested her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Will you drop me at my place?’

  ‘Drop you?’ He half-turned, eyebrow raised.

  ‘Yes. I’ve got to be up again at three. And I want to be on my own for a while. You understand.’

  He had the bruised look of a child parted from his teddy.

  ‘Fine.’ He shrugged.

  ‘But thank you for driving me to Devon. You’ve been sweet. You really have.’

  Sweet. Jeremy winced.

  Three

  Monday 03.30 hrs

  CHARLIE WAS STILL half-asleep as she fell into the back of the minicab, tugging at the hem of her short skirt. She was dressed in a red two-piece under her open fawn coat. The smell of the car’s air-freshener reminded her of public lavatories.

  ‘Early start then?’ the driver asked, ogling her in the mirror. She’d always suspected there was something seriously wrong with men who spent their nights driving.

  ‘Gosh! So it is,’ she replied, pretending she’d only just noticed the time. The driver crunched the gear and shot off.

  She’d heard the radio news at three. Of Stephen Bowen there’d been no mention. Probably turned up late last night with his tail between his legs. Or whatever.

  The empty streets were bathed in sodium light. She liked the feeling of Londoners sleeping peacefully all around her while she set off to bring them up to date with the world when they awoke. But above all she liked the clear roads. Within fifteen minutes they were at Wendover Street. Tucked to one side of the News Channel entrance was the long sausage of the down-and-out in his sleeping bag.

  The newsroom on the first floor was open-plan with a low ceiling, cream walls and small work-spaces cluttered by screens and keyboards. A dozen or so bodies at work, most having been on all night, looking forward by now to the end of their shift.

  ‘Morning Charlie!’

  The shout came from Tom Marples, producer of the morning show, a gaunt, swarthy man who was old-fashionedly coy about his gayness.

  ‘Morning Tom.’

  She hung her fawn coat on the wall hook behind her desk, then logged on to her terminal. The prompt flashed – Mail. Two service messages – an invitation to a leaving party for one of the VJs, and a style advisory from Ted Sankey on the need to avoid clichés. Then a third message which made her squirm.

  Charlie! How could you? The guy’s a trainspotter. My dick’s twice the size of his. Fancy a nibble?

  Charlotte felt the blood rush to her face, sensing everyone in the newsroom watching. A glance up, then down. No one looking. All too busy.

  The log-in for the message was newsroom – a code made available for temps. Anyone could use it. No way of tracing the author.

  It was that bloody cow Mandy, she decided.

  ‘Charlie!’ Tom again, calling to her. ‘Can we have words?’

  She picked up a notepad and crossed to the producer’s desk.

  ‘Nice weekend, hun?’

  She checked his eyes. The question was innocent. Marples was outside Mandy’s knitting circle.

  ‘Fine thanks.’

  ‘OK … For the headlines at six, we have three minutes. Top story – today’s health debate in the Commons. Not sexy, but important, and we’ll be taking a “live” later in the prog – Angus at the Wickleigh Hospital with a bunch of nurses.’

  Charlie jotted a note. It would be her job to write the stories.

  ‘Then there’s super pics of floods in Kansas that came on the overnight CBS bird. There was a shooting in Belfast, and finally a real treat from Australia. A cycling kangaroo … It’s a hoot.’

  ‘Can’t wait. Nothing new on the missing minister?’

  ‘No. What is that about? There’s a weird note from Mandy saying you’re on top of things.’

  Charlie winced. How long before the bitch got tired of her innuendoes?

  ‘Stephen Bowen,’ she explained. ‘Number two at the Foreign Office. Didn’t turn up where he should’ve done at the weekend. Had a tiff with his wife, according to Downing Street. The big test is whether he arrives for work this morning. If he doesn’t that’s when we start ringing bells.’

  ‘Sca-andal! Whoopee. But too late for the breakfast show, yup?’

  Charlie nodded. ‘Probably.’

  ‘Pity. I’ll put it down as a watch.’

  ‘I’ll start bashing the phones around eight, just in case,’ Charlie told him. ‘And I’ll pull together some library shots of him.’

  4.25 a.m. On air in ninety minutes.

  Jakarta

  11.30 hrs (04.30 GMT)

  Stephen Bowen’s failure to return to England was a problem Harry Maxwell was determined he should not have to embrace. As Britain’s official MI6 representative in Indonesia, he was meant to be concerned with the minister’s security for as long as the man was in the country. But from the moment Bowen checked out of the hotel next to the embassy, telling the ambassador to mind ‘his own fucking business’ when asked where he was going, Maxwell had felt relieved of any responsibility towards him. His department head at Vauxhall Cross, however, who’d phoned him at home on Saturday night, hadn’t seen the matter in quite such black-and-white terms.

  Maxwell was overweight and sweated a lot. He loathed the humid heat of the tropics. He’d been here a year, listed as a political counsellor at the embassy. Another two years on station and he’d be moved somewhere cooler, he hoped.

  He pressed his damp forehead to the warm side-window of the taxi and eyed the glass and concrete monoliths, which were the phallic symbols of Asia’s ‘tiger’ economies. Alongside the taxi a bajaj motorised rickshaw waited in the jam, belching two-stroke fumes, its sweaty rider looking with ill-concealed envy into the air-conditioned car.

  Stephen Bowen was the sort of politician Maxwell automatically suspected of malpractice. Last Tuesday he’d sat in on Bowen’s arms-deal press conference and concluded this was a man who found it easy to lie.

  ‘No bribes were paid to get this contract,’ Bowen had insisted, poker-faced.

  ‘Commissions then …?’

  ‘Normal practice. Matter for the companies concerned, not for politicians.’

  Bowen’s look had been too smug to be honest.

  It was a British journalist who’d posed the question. Few Indonesian reporters had shown up. Most demanded cash payments to attend embassy press conferences, an aspect of the local culture which Maxwell’s ambassador refused to go along with.

  Bribery not a matter for politicians? In this country politicians were in the thick of it, but to say so in print was a crime. Maxwell was on his way to court, to watch the trial of a young journalist who’d written an article saying the commission on the arms deal with Britain amounted to £45 million and was going to a close crony of the president. For diplomatic reasons the hearing had been postponed until after Bowen’s visit.

  The car stopped outside the court. The driver took his money with a grunt. Maxwell got out. After the artificial chill of the taxi, the heat smothered him like a wet pillow.

  The facia of the court house was Dutch colonial, its grandeur downgraded by the opening of a McDonald’s next door. Maxwell wore a pale-blue shirt and light-grey slacks. He heaved his bulk up the steps to the portico, a handkerchief to his forehead.

  The air in the lobby was heavy with the sweet, clove-scent of kretek cigarettes, a last chance for smokers, because inside the courtroom smoking was banned. In large letters above the entrance to the chambers a sign rea
d PANCASILA, the acronym for the five principles upon which the nation of Indonesia had been founded. Social justice for all was one of them. Maxwell had a sneaking suspicion that the half-million or more people whose murder had been prompted by the nation’s leaders in the past thirty years might have been short-changed.

  He joined the swell of bodies, mostly younger than him, squeezing into the chamber, and craned his neck for somewhere to sit. His eye was caught by a young Javan grinning at him. There was a space beside him. The twenty-six-year-old journalist had a slim, almost boyish frame, and an alert face with a broad nose and thick lips. Abdul was one of what Maxwell described as his intelligence sources. A member of the semi-proscribed Association of Free Journalists, they usually met in quiet, un-public places. There’d be many young scribes here today, since one of their own was on trial.

  ‘Thanks my friend,’ Maxwell wheezed, easing his corpulence into the small space. ‘How’s things?’

  ‘Busy. Busy. This should be quite a show.’ Abdul tilted his head to the rows behind. Fifty or sixty young men and women in their twenties and thirties, friends and supporters of the accused. ‘Why you here, Harry? Come to defend your country’s reputation?’

  Maxwell resisted the goad. ‘Curious, that’s all. Came for my education.’

  The clerk called for silence. The air was electric. From a door at the far end of the white-walled court three black-robed judges entered, their faces like masks.

  Then from a side entrance came the accused, escorted by a policeman in knife-sharp trousers. Aged twenty-five, black hair shiny with oil, street-wise face alive with excitement, he took his place at a table beside his defence counsel.

  The accused’s bribes story had not been published. No editor dared print such stuff if he wanted to retain his licence and liberty. The journalist’s crime was to have tried to disseminate his heresy.

  Maxwell’s knowledge of the local language Bahasa Indonesia was insufficient for him to follow the proceedings. The outcome, however, was not in doubt. The accused would be gaoled for ‘sowing hate’, a catch-all law that made insulting the president a crime that could lead to seven years in gaol.