Java Spider

by Geoffrey Archer

  ‘Look, as far as the bedroom arrangements are concerned …’ Randall began, deciding he’d better clarify matters. He stopped mid sentence. Footsteps were crossing the terrace to their left. They both looked. It was the intel man sneaking past hoping not to be noticed. He disappeared through a door.

  ‘That … that’s the room next to ours,’ Charlie gulped.

  ‘Yes.’

  Their eyes locked.

  ‘Umm … so there’ll be somebody actually in the room next door to us, listening?’ she whispered huskily.

  ‘Looks like it. Listening and maybe watching, I suppose …’

  Her jaw dropped. Then she frowned. ‘This is actually quite serious, isn’t it?’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  He saw a blur of embarrassment in her eye.

  ‘Well, we’re … we’re supposed to be on honeymoon, right? And, as you so perceptively said in Darwin this afternoon, there’s only one thing honeymooners do when they get into bed …’

  She half smiled. She was floundering. Wanting him to tell her what to do.

  Randall knew that look. Knew what it meant. Knew for certain that if he wanted to make love to her, he could. Visions of having sex with her deluged his mind suddenly, flushing out all thoughts of Bowen, of Dugdale and the job. Everything that mattered bleached out by a testosterone surge …

  That was the trouble with sex. It took over. Took over completely. And he mustn’t let it.

  ‘Turns you on, does it, chuck …’ he growled, in an instinctive and clumsy put-down to cover his confusion, ‘… the thought of being videoed shagging?’

  She put a hand to her mouth. That aspect of it hadn’t occurred to her.

  ‘But then I suppose being videoed is what you get paid for …’ he went on, labouring the joke until it hurt. He bit his tongue.

  ‘Thanks.’ She looked bruised, and turned her eyes away.

  ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean …’

  ‘Forget it.’

  But she couldn’t. There was nothing funny about this situation. It scared her to death.

  ‘Look, I’m serious,’ she continued, looking down at her plate. ‘What … what are we going to do about that bloke?’ She shivered at the thought of him behind the wall, watching their every move, listening to their every breath.

  ‘OK …’ Randall reined in his imagination. Back to the job. Back to what mattered. ‘Let’s be serious then. They will be listening. But what they’ll be listening for is some bit of careless talk. Some clue that we’re journalists or Amnesty workers instead of who we say we are. That’s what it’s all about. So, we just have to stick to our legend like glue.’

  ‘It was your idea.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘The legend. Being honeymooners.’

  ‘Well … sure.’ She was making a point again, he realised. Making the point that they would have to do something. ‘Well yes, I suppose the guy listening to the bugs might find it odd if …’

  Charlie reached down suddenly and slapped her leg. ‘Talking of bugs …’

  Mosquitoes flitted round the light above their heads. Nick dug in the grey holdall and found a stick of repellent, glad of the distraction. Charlie smeared it on her legs and arms.

  ‘You are taking malaria pills?’ he asked, then wished he hadn’t. He was not responsible for her. Couldn’t afford to be. The woman had chosen to come here.

  Charlie nodded. ‘Of course I am.’ She looked at him expectantly. She wanted a decision. ‘They might find it odd, you said, if …’

  ‘I was only thinking,’ he muttered uncomfortably, moving the food round his plate, ‘that maybe we should give them something for their bugs to bite on.’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, lowering her eyes again.

  ‘I mean just something for their tape. Sound effects.’ He paused, waiting for a reaction, but there wasn’t one. ‘Tell you what, we could just turn the telly up loud and then provide a backing track of screwing noises.’ He shrugged at the nonsense of it. ‘How about that?’

  Charlie lifted one eyebrow. This was becoming a black farce. She was scared stiff. Not of sleeping with a relative stranger – she’d done that a few times in her life – but scared of this place, of the spooky, sinister men who lurked in every shadow. Scared too of the dangers she would face tomorrow if she was to get the story she’d come for.

  What she needed above all was for Nick to be on her side. To help her get at the story, and to keep her safe. In short she needed him to care about her. If achieving that meant being videoed shagging as he so poetically put it, then so be it.

  ‘Look … I think maybe you’re making more of a problem out of this than you need …’ she said softly, reaching out and touching his hand. ‘This honeymoon thing – it’s acting, Nick. Like you said back in Darwin. Whatever we do it’s acting …’ She held his look until she knew he’d understood. ‘So just give me the script, will you? Or we can ad lib it. Whatever … it’s fine by me. You lead, Nick – I’ll follow.’

  She withdrew her hand.

  ‘You’re the boss, Nick.’

  Yes, thought Randall. That was just the bloody trouble.

  Fifteen

  London – 10 Downing Street

  19.00 hrs

  PRIME MINISTER COPELAND stood in the middle of the room, eyes glued to the TV set in the corner. There’d been a murder and the Channel 4 News was leading on it. The chief executive of Capital Electricity p.l.c. had been shot dead an hour ago. Bullets fired through the window of his 7-series BMW while being driven home from his office in Battersea. He’d demanded an urgent report from the Met. Assistant Commissioner Stanley was on his way over.

  Three days ago the press had written about the executive’s £125,000 pay increase. On top of an annual salary of £575,000. A productivity payment, Capital had called it. For raising shareholders’ profits by sacking 2,000 workers and freezing the pay of the remaining staff.

  The Revenue Men had struck again.

  ‘Bastards!’ Copeland hissed. He meant all of them. The terrorists for mounting such an atrocious attack – and the City men whose greed tempted other men into sin …

  He switched the set off. It sent shivers up his spine watching it. Every outrage by the terrorists felt like a move up the path towards his own front door.

  Envy was the sin Copeland was most prone to. Nearly thirty years of public service in the House and in government, and now managing director of UK Ltd., and what did he get out of it? A spurious sense of power and a wage that was a fraction of what the top businessmen earned. Which was why Stephen Bowen’s suggestion of a little sleight of hand as a way to feather his nest had been so cruelly tempting …

  With the panache of a poker player Stephen had slipped him the proposition at a time when he was riddled with doubts about his suitability for the job. For the first time in his life a chance to acquire capital, a lump sum as a cushion for early retirement. Not a huge amount. About the same as a year’s pay for an electricity company chief …

  And no one could ever know. No names. Nothing in writing. A secret between him and Stephen which neither would ever reveal because each had as much to lose. A secret that had been as safe as houses, until Bowen fell into the hands of monsters who could make a man reveal anything.

  The buzzer went.

  ‘The assistant commissioner’s here, prime minister.’ His personal secretary’s voice. ‘But I’d like a quick word myself first if I may.’

  ‘Of course. Come on in.’

  The secretary was late thirties, five feet ten, curly hair and contact lenses. A grammar school boy.

  ‘It’s Mrs Bowen,’ he explained. ‘She’s rung twice. Wants to see you. You’ve been so busy today …’

  ‘Yes quite. But yes, I must see her. Poor Sally. What’s it about, d’you know?’

  ‘She wouldn’t say. Book her in first thing tomorrow, possibly?’

  ‘You’ve got my diary …’

  ‘Nine o’clock then. I’ll ring her. And one more t
hing. The foreign secretary’s coming over in ten minutes …’

  ‘Oh.’

  What was that about, he wondered?

  ‘Thank you. I’d better see David Stanley quickly.’

  ‘I’ll bring him in.’

  The assistant commissioner was dressed in a dark grey suit. Normally he wore uniform for a meeting with the PM but there’d been no time to change.

  ‘Come and sit down, David,’ Copeland said, pointing to a floral print armchair. ‘Good of you to come over. I’m sure you’re as pressed as I am.’

  ‘Indeed, prime minister,’ he replied sharply. His place was back at the Yard, not here.

  ‘Yes, well I had to know about this murder. For heaven’s sake – high-powered rifles being loosed off in a London street – this is one hell of an escalation.’

  ‘It is sir. And makes us increasingly certain there’s an Irish connection with the Revenue Men. First it was Semtex. Now an Armalite.’

  ‘But you’re no nearer finding them.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t say that,’ he replied testily. ‘But arrests aren’t imminent. However,’ he continued quickly, ‘in the Bowen case we do have a man in custody … Ricky Smith, the TV technician who beamed the pictures to the News Channel. Picked him up at Waterloo station at midday.’

  ‘Excellent. Has he talked?’

  ‘No. Not a word. But we found a piece of paper in his pocket with some figures on it. Turned out to be a reference number for a package on a flight from Bali that landed at Heathrow this afternoon.’

  Copeland’s eyebrows rose expectantly. Stanley took in a deep breath. The news he’d brought was not pleasant.

  ‘The package contained a human ear, prime minister. We believe it belongs to Stephen Bowen.’

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  ‘And there was a note with it. This is a photocopy.’ He reached into an inside pocket and extracted a single sheet of A4 folded down the middle.

  As Copeland read it a wave of nausea engulfed him.

  You want Mr Bowen back? We send him to you, one piece each day. Signed OKP.

  ‘My God! They’re monsters!’ He wrung his hands. ‘Where is he, David? Where have they got him?’

  Stanley scratched the side of his face. ‘We’re waiting to hear from DS Randall. If Mr Bowen’s on Kutu, Randall will find him, I have every confidence of that.’

  The secretary buzzed again. The foreign secretary had arrived. Relieved, Stanley got up to go. The two visitors nodded to one another as they passed in the doorway. Copeland waited until the door was closed.

  ‘What’s up then, Hugh?’

  He despised Foreign Secretary White. He’d appointed him because of his reputation for gravitas rather than for his ability, which was slight. The man was a cipher, but, he feared suddenly, potentially dangerous.

  Tall and skinny, White savoured what he was about to say.

  ‘Tomorrow my department will be issuing a statement on overseas aid, Keith. Featured prominently in it is the loan to Indonesia for the construction of the power station on Kutu. You’ll remember the project. My department opposed it as being too controversial, but you pushed it through Cabinet. Well, tomorrow, I think the press are going to be asking you why you did.’

  Sixteen

  Hotel Touristik, Kutu

  Thursday 05.45 hrs

  CHARLIE AWOKE WITH a start. For several seconds she didn’t know where she was. Then Nick’s light snoring reminded her. She turned towards the sound. A trace of dawn light filtered through the fanlight above the door to the room, just enough to show the mountain of his bare back. She wanted to snuggle up to him again, to draw comfort from that mound of bone and muscle – but she didn’t, knowing that to do so was taboo.

  The bridal suite was spacious but windowless, kept cool and fresh by an air-conditioning unit. In the middle was the king-size bed on which they lay, with a headboard of padded white plastic.

  She began to wonder what the man in the next room had made of it last night – their ludicrous faked orgasms struggling to be heard against the babble of a TV soap in Bahasa.

  After their glutinous meal they’d taken turns in the bathroom, making the most of the half-blocked shower and scratchy towels. Then, dressed in clean briefs and a T-shirt, with a dab of Amarige on her neck, she’d joined her notional husband under the thin top-sheet, more unnerved than ever by the thought of the monster listening next door.

  The room had been in darkness apart from the TV glow in the corner. Too dark Randall had said for a camera to see them. Sound would be enough.

  As soon as he’d said it, she’d realised there wasn’t going to be any intimacy between them. For a moment she’d felt hurt. Embarrassed even at having made her readiness to perform so obvious. Then she’d told herself quickly that it really didn’t matter a row of beans if he wasn’t attracted to her. This was work. Nothing else.

  During their desultory theatricals, they’d lain side by side not touching. Then Nick had switched off the TV, and they’d listened to the rattle of the air-conditioning, hovering on the brink of sleep.

  In the darkness Charlie’s fears had begun to multiply again. The terrors that had come and gone through the day – eyes that stared, uniforms and guns, imagined torture chambers. From the sound of Nick’s breathing she’d known he was still awake too. A hug was what she needed. For comfort and security, nothing else.

  She’d risked a whisper. ‘How about a little cuddle?’ He’d hesitated, as if even that might be unprofessional, but had then rolled towards her, holding her briefly, a hand on her shoulder, letting her cheek rest against his chest, but keeping their nether regions chastely apart. Then he’d quickly turned away again, mumbling ‘g-night’.

  She’d got the message. For him, everything they did together was to be strictly business.

  Eventually the rattle of the air-conditioning had become hypnotic and she’d dozed off.

  Then a couple of hours later she’d been woken by his laboured breath against the back of her neck, the weight of his arm round her waist and his fingers loosely cupping her breast. She’d kept very still, knowing he was asleep, knowing that while he stayed that way she could draw the comfort from his body that he’d denied her earlier. Very slowly so as not to wake him, she’d eased the ridge of her spine back into the curve of his stomach. He was erect.

  They’d lain like that for a while, their breathing synchronised. Feeling the pressure of his body rise and fall, Charlotte had imagined a bond growing osmotically between them that might yet ensure his protection when the crunch came.

  He’d rolled away from her eventually, mumbling nonsense words. She’d lain awake a little longer, keeping as close as she dared without waking him, dogged by the self-mocking thought that going to bed with a man as a security blanket seemed to be becoming something of a habit. That thought triggered a string of others – Jeremy, the newsroom, her cat, her father – everything peeling like damp wallpaper from the back of her mind.

  Then she’d slept again. Until now.

  Nick was woken by the clatter of a bucket in the courtyard outside. In his dream he’d been with Debbie, driving through Wimbledon searching for a Chinese takeaway that had moved.

  For a few woozy seconds he assumed it was Debbie in the bed beside him and slung his arm round her. His hand closed on a breast that was small and quite firm. Debbie’s were like soft cushions.

  He pulled back his hand, abruptly remembering where he was and who he was with. Charlie gave him a knowing look that made him spin fast through his memory. But it was OK. He had behaved.

  ‘Hi,’ he croaked, groggily. ‘Forgot where I was for a minute. Sleep OK?’

  ‘On and off.’

  Randall had wanted her very badly last night. He’d yearned for the pleasure she would give him, like an alcoholic did for whisky. Lying there after the TV was off, listening to the lightness of her breathing, her fresh-washed smell enhanced by some scent or other, his mind had kept saying – can’t do any harm, she wants it too
, so why not, for God’s sake? The job was why. And Debbie was why.

  He sat up and blinked towards the daylight coming in above the door. Then he looked down at the floor beneath it. He rubbed his eyes to clear them. Something had been pushed under the gap like a morning paper.

  He extracted his legs from beneath the sheet, swung them from the bed and crossed the room. A plain brown envelope. No writing on it. Flap sealed.

  Concealing it from Charlotte, he took it into the bathroom, closed the door and switched on the light. Gingerly, out of habit, he felt the envelope to see if it was thick enough to hold the components of a bomb. Too thin. He slit the flap with the nail file Charlie had left on the shelf above the basin.

  He frowned. Nothing inside the envelope except a small plastic folder which looked strangely familiar.

  ‘Christ,’ he growled, realising suddenly what it was.

  He tilted the envelope so the folder slid into his hand. Holding it by its edges to avoid smudging prints, he opened out an English driving licence. The name printed on it – Stephen John Bowen.

  He goggled.

  Brad Dugdale’s words came flooding back. ‘What’ll you do if you find something. Tell the PM?’ Then the fleeting smile in the bar last night. ‘Evidence? Maybe you’ll get lucky …’ No wonder Dugdale knew where they were staying. He’d made it his business to find out.

  Randall stared down at the licence. Evidence yes. But of what? That Bowen was here, or simply that someone wanted them to think he was? And had Dugdale stuck the envelope under their door himself? Too bloody dangerous, surely … If the police had caught him with it, he’d be done for.

  There could be another explanation of course. That it wasn’t Dugdale at all. That word had got to Soleman Kakadi that there were Brits in town and the OKP chieftain had decided to make contact. A supporter amongst the hotel staff, perhaps. The waitress in the restaurant, even. Picked their room simply because she knew they were British. But odd to leave no message. No way of communicating, of opening a dialogue. Without that, what was the point?