Java Spider

by Geoffrey Archer

  ‘Can I make you a coffee, madam?’

  The detective had stuck his head round the door. Fair hair, round face, hardly looked old enough to shave.

  ‘Oh please not madam. Makes me feel ninety.’

  ‘OK Mrs Bowen.’

  ‘But no, I don’t want a coffee. Thanks.’

  ‘Manage to get any sleep last night?’ he asked. He’d come on shift half an hour ago, replacing the night man. ‘Not as quiet as you’re used to, I shouldn’t think.’

  ‘No. In Warwickshire you can hear the mice breathe at night. Here there’s always noise. Cars, boats hooting on the river, and Big Ben of course.’

  Sally had hardly slept at all. It was Stephen’s smell as much as anything – the leather of his shoes in the wardrobe and the after-shave, scents which had become a turn-off as their marriage died. Last night her emotions had done battle, her lingering dislike of him fighting an upsurge of empathy for his suffering. The video image of him tied to that chair was burned into her brain.

  ‘I’ll leave you in peace, then.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  When he’d arrived that morning, the policeman had brought a selection of the morning papers. Inside pages carried features about the arms trade, about Indonesia and its army’s brutal treatment of rebels in Timor, Kutu and other islands. And about Stephen. Some of it supportive, some cruel. All reported his friendship with the prime minister dating back to university. All had been digging through the Register of MP’s Interests and had uncovered his former directorship with Metroc Minerals. Some had even speculated he still had links with the company and that the kidnap was in some way related.

  Sally was used to her husband being in the public eye, but what she’d read that morning hurt. They were writing of him in the past. As if he were dead.

  Detective Chief Inspector Mostyn had phoned at eight thirty asking her to make another thorough check of the flat. Stephen had never been tidy – another cause of friction. Papers of one sort or another had been scattered around the flat in drawers and cupboards and stacked on shelves in the Georgian break-front bookcase. The young detective had been with her when she found the briefcase, but she’d asked to be alone when examining its contents, fearful of finding something upsetting.

  Some of its contents were innocuous enough – bills and receipts. These she scanned and dropped on to the pale green carpet beside her.

  Then she picked up a small note written on pink paper.

  The handwriting was neat and round. Like a child’s, Sally thought. The address was Warwickshire, in the constituency. Effusive thanks for showing the writer round the Commons. Ordinary enough. MPs did that all the time. Then she turned the page.

  The advice about working at the Commons was great. When I finish my degree I’ll take you at your word. Millions of thanks too for the fabulous dinner – and everything else!!! I’m still tingling!

  Sally’s stomach clenched into a ball. When I finish my degree. God almighty! How old was the silly coot? She peered at the name. Angie. Twenty-one, twenty-two? Stephen was nearly fifty! She stuffed the letter in her handbag, so no one else would read it.

  Gingerly she picked through the pile for more handwritten notes, but there were none. Two typed letters from the Georgian Sporting Club, one of his regular gambling haunts. An invitation to a dinner, and another to a cut-price weekend at a casino in Monte Carlo. Never talked to her about his gambling these days. Not since the day she hired a lawyer to end his access to her property. He’d tried to sell some of her family paintings to settle debts.

  The next letter had been folded into a small square as if in annoyance at its contents. She opened it gingerly. The Metroc Minerals logo was blazoned across the top. Her heart missed a beat. Maybe the newspapers were right. Maybe there was still a link.

  As she read the text, she realised it was the same old story all over again. Signed by the Metroc Minerals finance director the letter demanded repayment of a loan the company had granted when he was on the board. A final demand. Dated last month. Threatening legal action.

  The loan was for £100,000.

  ‘God Almighty,’ she gasped, staring at it in semi-disbelief. She’d had no inkling he’d been that much down.

  She sifted the rest of the pile, hoping to find another letter saying the money had been repaid. But there was nothing more from Metroc. Something however from the Sidney Walker Finance Group. A name she’d never heard of. As she read it her hand fluttered up to her mouth.

  The letter threatened to send bailiffs round to remove the contents of the flat in lieu of unpaid interest totalling £12,000. Twelve thousand pounds in interest? How much was the loan itself, for heaven’s sake?

  The ball in Sally’s stomach turned into a boulder.

  A tap at the door and the detective constable put his head round.

  ‘Just checking. Any surprises?’

  Sally Bowen looked up startled. For a moment she’d forgotten he was there.

  ‘Umm …’ she dithered, thinking to hide the letters. The word loyalty hovered in her mind. Her loyalty to Stephen, as his wife. Then she thought of the letter she’d just stuffed in her handbag. The pink one. The one from Angie. Loyalty to what?

  ‘Surprises, constable?’ she said eventually. ‘Well yes, I’m afraid there are some. Rather nasty ones.’

  Nine

  Singapore – Changi International Airport

  Tuesday 19.05 hrs (11.05 hrs GMT)

  RANDALL SWUNG THE bag of Nikons on to his shoulder, brushed the food crumbs from his thin cotton trousers and joined the line of bog-eyed passengers leaving the packed 747 at the end of the thirteen-hour flight from London. Burying himself amongst businessmen in suits and young mums with whining children, he filed from the air jetty into the huge, open concourse. The terminal was new since he’d last passed through Singapore eight years ago.

  On the flight, he’d slept a little and read a lot, trying to memorise parts of the files given him by Vereker of the SIS. They’d been wide-ranging; a political history of Indonesia and its repressed Democracy Movement, background on the Kutu copper mine and the resistance to it, and an Amnesty report on the torture techniques of the Indonesian security forces. None of it however had helped him decide on a clear plan of action.

  Asia was not a part of the world Randall had wished to revisit. Too many reminders. Here at this vast international airport, however, he could have been anywhere, so international were the faces around him.

  Out of touch with the Yard for fourteen hours now, a lot could have happened. Bowen might be free, this mission aborted. Wouldn’t mind much if it was – relaxing day off in Singapore then back home in plenty of time for the match on Saturday.

  Eleven thirty a.m. London time. Mostyn’s morning prayers would be over. A good moment to ring him. He spotted a line of booths on the wall to his right.

  Over a cream cotton shirt he wore a beige, multi-pocketed vest of the kind used by photographers. He fished in a pocket for a credit card then swiped it through the reader on the phone. He called the DCI’s direct line. Mostyn’s voice came through loud and clear.

  ‘Evening, guv,’ Nick began.

  ‘Evening? Who’s that?’

  ‘DS Randall, sir.’

  ‘Good man. Where are you?’

  ‘Singapore. Checking in. Anything new?’

  ‘Not a lot, old son. French police have come up with something on the TV side. They say one of those flyaway things was nicked from a car park in Strasbourg last week. Packed inside a Renault Espace. The registration’s been flashed all over Europe, so it’s a start. How about you? Good flight?’

  ‘Long. Girls were nice, though …’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. When do you get to Darwin?’

  ‘In about six hours. Before sun-up tomorrow. Got any contacts for me?’

  ‘Yes, we’re looking after you. One of the girls spent last night on the Internet. You know KEPO, the Australian-based Kutu Environmental Protection Organization that has links with the Ku
tuan resistance? Well it has a home page – whatever that is.’

  Mostyn was one of the few senior officers at the Yard who’d failed to become computer literate.

  ‘Using the name of your cover company Newspix, she got through on e-mail to KEPO’s main office in Sydney, and they gave her an address in Darwin. Got your pen?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Fire away.’

  ‘Jim Sawyer … their man in the Northern Territory.’

  Nick wrote down the phone number.

  ‘She’s told him you’re a snapper trying to get to Kutu as a tourist. He said he’d give you a tip or two. Expecting you to ring Wednesday morning. But look, I’ve had a long chat with our Aussie security chums. They say they’ve no knowledge of any subversives in KEPO. They say it’s a bunch of environmentalists and human rights wallahs. The closest they’ve ever come to criminality is blocking the traffic outside the parliament in Canberra.’

  Nick groaned inwardly. Another blind alley.

  ‘Great. And there’s nothing new on where Bowen is, I suppose?’

  ‘No. It’s more confused than ever. Looks like Bowen did have a woman, though. She took him to the airport for the Singapore flight on Wednesday morning. The Indonesians have interviewed her. They say she confirms their earlier evidence that he left the country. Trouble is the Singapore police swear blind he never turned up on their manor.’

  ‘That’s helpful … Anybody from our side trying to talk to the woman?’

  ‘Yeah. Harry Maxwell. Something else you ought to know – the Indonesians have been rounding up OKP activists in Kutu. Including the man you’re supposed to see, Dr Junus Bawi.’

  ‘That’s all I need. Covering their backsides, presumably.’

  ‘Presumably. Ring us again from Darwin, OK?’

  ‘OK, guvnor …’

  He found a luggage trolley and dumped his bag on it. Two hours to wait for the connecting flight. He felt stiff after sitting for so long and began walking to get his circulation going, mingling where he could with other passengers. He paced the length of the building then turned for a second leg, pausing at the flight departure screens to read the gate number of his onward hop.

  The concourse was dotted with overpriced shops. He hovered near a boutique where cameras and calculators glittered like treasure. Nice toys, he thought – for those with money to spare. Nice to look at – like the blonde standing at the counter examining a wristwatch, a grey holdall hanging from her shoulder. He ran his eyes down her back. Neat figure, not too tall. Pink shirt, fawn cotton trousers. Nice bum …

  She sensed him looking and flicked a glance over her shoulder, her black-coffee eyes ringed with lines of sleeplessness. She half smiled – then her jaw dropped.

  Randall gulped. He spun the trolley round and propelled it away, aiming for the biggest crowd he could see. Anywhere to put distance and people between himself and the one news reporter in Britain who could recognise him as a policeman.

  ‘Christ!’ he breathed.

  What the fuck was she doing here? Charlotte Cavendish. His cover blown, before he’d even got to Kutu.

  ‘Christ,’ he mouthed again, trying to think. ‘Now what?’

  ‘You want buy?’ The Chinese sales assistant reached for the watch.

  ‘What? Oh, no. No thanks.’ She thrust it back and moved quickly away. She was sure it was him. All dressed up like a snapper now, pretending not to know her.

  Just to see someone she recognised was extraordinarily comforting. Since leaving London she’d felt horribly alone. Fought like a cat for this assignment, now she had it she was scared to death.

  What the hell was his name?

  She strode out into the middle of the concourse, trying to see where he’d gone. Chest tight with panic, she felt like a prospector who’d found gold and lost it again. That man knew things, and as yet she knew the bigger part of sod-all. Maybe he even knew where Stephen Bowen was. Prize it out of him and she’d be in for a scoop.

  Sankey had told her the detective’s name, but she’d forgotten it. He’d told her something else too when he’d signed her up a year ago. Told her that luck didn’t fall off trees; people had to make it for themselves. She was about to do just that.

  Randall! Nick Randall. Detective Sergeant. She smiled grimly. Things were looking up.

  She’d spent the flight from London in a blue funk. Bitten off too much. Travelling to another world, a handful of press cuttings the only information she had on the place she was going to. She, little Charlie Cavendish, taking on the big networks with an amateur Australian camera-person she’d never even spoken to. She, who’d never reported from abroad before. A journalist on the bottom rung, just able to hold her own in a tin-pot, rip-and-read cable channel, making her pitch for the big time, but absurdly ill-equipped for it.

  She’d done her best to stifle those fears, stuffing them metaphorically down at the bottom of her bag. Like a child with nightmares whose mother turns the pillow over, so the side with the good dreams can get to her.

  Luck had teased her. Now she had to find him again …

  Randall stuck with the crowds, moving where they moved. The woman wasn’t visible when he glanced round, so he reckoned he’d managed to lose her for now. He saw a sign for toilets, abandoned his trolley and carted his bag into a cubicle.

  Must have arrived on the same plane from London, he guessed, sitting on the lavatory seat and listening to a noisy defecation in the next box. The jumbo had been full. Easy to have missed her. Now, she would probably be on the same flight to Darwin … Avoiding her was going to be impossible.

  Bloody woman. Woman and journalist. Doubly devious.

  He began to plan. She knew who he was. No doubt of that. Where they were going there’d be other media around, people she would be bound to talk to. She’d give him away, tell them all that he was a copper, and he couldn’t have that. Threats wouldn’t stop her. So he would have to try charm.

  He checked his watch. Ninety minutes until the connection. Time for some juggling. He flushed the toilet, washed his hands, then made his way to the gate for the Darwin flight. No sign of Charlotte Cavendish amongst the first few passengers already waiting there. An airline rep was checking boarding cards. He presented himself at the counter.

  Swamped with dejection at her failure to find him, Charlotte sat in her aisle seat on the jumbo watching the door for the last stragglers to board, hope dwindling. So much for making her own luck.

  She’d studied the departure boards and realised there were other flights he could be on instead of this one to Darwin. Probably Jakarta-bound, to liaise with the Indonesian police.

  The sense of having missed a scoop drove her back to the fears of inadequacy that had plagued her on the flight from London. For solace she sought refuge in thoughts that were warm and familiar – home, friends and family. But then the worries she’d left behind began to crowd in. Awful ones like the imminent death of her father. And silly ones, like whether asking Jeremy to feed her cat would make the relationship even harder to break. She’d left him her keys.

  Yesterday evening there’d been time for only the briefest of phone calls to Devon before racing home to get a bag packed and making for the airport. Her father had sounded all mumbly when she’d told him where she was going, saying he didn’t want her to go there. Her mother had come on the line and told her not to worry. That Ambrose was easily upset – increasingly frightened of dying – wanted his family around him. Take no notice, dear, she’d said. You just go off and enjoy yourself …

  Enjoy herself?

  Randall. Walking through the door, the last passenger to board, wearing jeans which fitted his terrier look much better than the suit she’d seen him in before. The door clunked shut behind him. Excitement surging through her, she held her breath as he came towards her along the aisle, checking the overhead seat numbers. She felt a schoolgirlish blush spread up her neck as he wedged his bag in the locker above her head.

  ‘Excuse me.’ He looked down at her, his smil
e as warm as a sun lamp. ‘I’m in there,’ he said, pointing to the window seat.

  She let him pass, a smirk spreading across her face.

  ‘What a coincidence,’ she breathed.

  ‘Isn’t it just …’ Nick answered, sinking into his seat without looking at her.

  ‘Saw you back at the shops there. We er … we weren’t actually introduced yesterday,’ she said, offering him her hand. ‘Charlie Cavendish.’

  ‘Nick Randall.’ He gave her the smile again, in no hurry to let go of her hand.

  ‘Detective Sergeant …?’

  ‘I was hoping you’d keep quiet about that part.’

  ‘Hence your disappearing act,’ she replied, confidence surging back. ‘Must have been a nasty shock to see me.’

  ‘Yes. But I’ve got over it now.’ He winked at her.

  ‘Good for you,’ she breathed, realising the situation had suddenly been turned on its head. Instead of her chasing him, he had come looking for her. If he fitted her preconception of police officers, he’d be a man who thought with his dick. Fine. Ahead lay a three-and-a-half hour flight. Plenty of time in which to get him to talk.

  She fastened her belt as the aircrew began their safety brief. Before boarding she’d had a bit of a wash in the ladies’ room and sprayed her neck with Amarige. She leaned towards the window seat slightly, tucking her hair behind her ear and willing the perfume up his nostrils.

  ‘Do I assume we’re going to the same place?’ she asked coyly.

  ‘Quite possible.’

  ‘Is he there – on Kutu – Stephen Bowen?’ Too far, too fast. She could tell from his face.

  Randall raised his hands in mock surrender.

  ‘Name, rank and number. That’s all I can give you, ma’am.’

  ‘Sounds like it’ll be a dull flight, then,’ she quipped.

  He chuckled.

  ‘Take it easy. The wheels aren’t even up yet.’

  The plane backed from the stand. Nick watched through the window as the terminal lights retreated. His interest in the woman was simple – self-preservation. Nothing else. But Charlie was grinning like she’d won him in a raffle. Have to tell her something, but not too much.