‘Where is your friend?’
‘There’s no friend Pablo. There’s no seam. It’s just us.’
‘I don’t understand.’ He glanced around. There was a lit camping lamp placed in each corner of the chamber. The ceiling was criss-crossed with beams of wood. Sitting on top of the thickest beam was a heap of white nylon rope. A jolt of fear shot through Pablo like electricity as the truth dawned. He turned and stared at Jags.
‘You’re going to kill me here?’
Jags shook his head.
‘I’m not going to kill you. You’re going to kill yourself.’
‘No. Why?’
‘It’s time.’
Pablo tried to bolt but Jags was too quick. He grabbed hold of his right wrist and held it fast as Pablo wheeled around, first attempting to hit Jags and missing, then straining to break free – pulling and pulling like a fish on a line.
Jags let him tire himself out for a while before throwing his victim against the nearest wall and watching him slump to the floor. ‘This’ll go a lot easier for us both if you calm down, Pablo.’
The Chilean spat pathetically in Jags’ direction, his white spittle travelling no further than his own puffer jacket and jeans.
‘Fuck to you.’ Pablo slumped forward, his chin on his chest. When he looked up at Jags, there were tears in his lined eyes. ‘I do not understand. Why do you need to do this?’
Jags said nothing. ‘Please. Help me … help me understand, I have done nothing wrong. I have told no one about the work we do. Not a word has come from my mouth. I swear it.’ He crossed himself.
Jags looked at him.
‘It doesn’t matter, you were getting ready to run, Pablo. Or to turn.’
Pablo shook his head. ‘No, no. It is not true, I have no such plan. This is wrong. They are wrong.’
Both men knew who they was.
‘They aren’t wrong.’
‘They don’t know me, they cannot read my mind.’ His head shaking grew more vigorous, manic. Jags looked away. This conversation was beginning to bore him.
‘They don’t need to read your mind, you know that. They read your phone, your computer – everything is there.’
‘They cannot know me better than I know me.’
Jags shook his head. Of course they did. That was the whole point. He pulled the envelope from his pocket and tossed it down to Pablo.
‘Look at those.’
Pablo hesitated, then did as he’d been told. He took the photographs from the envelope and flicked through them. It took a moment for him to realise that the blurry photographs had been taken inside his own home. Fragments of furniture, the door to his kids’ bedroom and then each of his children, in profile and asleep. He paused at the picture of his youngest son, Claudio – his favourite. The photograph of the boy reminded Pablo of a carved angel that he’d seen, long ago, inside the cathedral in Santiago. Jags pointed at the picture. ‘You’re doing this for your family Pablo. If you do this then your family will be taken care of.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘If you don’t … they won’t.’
Pablo stared at the picture of his son. Claudio was too young to know what sort of man his father was and this was why Pablo loved him best. He was still a hero to his youngest boy and if his life ended here, then he would remain heroic. More than a hero in fact – a martyr. One of the most respected in their small community – honoured every November as part of the Day of the Dead commemorations. Jags waited while these thoughts played out in Pablo’s mind. He put the photographs back in the envelope and pocketed them before pointing up at the central beam.
‘How do you know that this wood will hold my weight? The whole mountain could come down on your head.’
‘You told me it would hold.’
Pablo remembered now. Towards the end of their previous visit, he had told Jags that this chamber was where the old miners sometimes came to hang themselves and that this beam was the best place for it. When the silicosis had them in its grip and breathing was too hard and getting worse – when every cough brought a mouthful of blood that had to be spat out or swallowed back down. Or when the cancer had almost eaten them away and the pain was too much – then they came here. Partly to save their families from ruinous hospital bills, but also as a favour to their fellow miners. Everyone in these mining communities knew that the flesh that El Tio loved more than any other, was human flesh. A human sacrifice, a suicide, had been known to keep the mines accident-free for weeks, months even. Pablo climbed to his feet and stopped, staring past Jags into the tunnel’s dark mouth. There were miles of tunnel beyond that. He could walk into that labyrinth and never be found.
‘You don’t have to do this, I could just go, I can disappear.’
Jags shook his head. ‘No you can’t, no one can. And anyway, your family—’
‘Let me try, let me run, please? Boss?’
‘I’m not the boss, Pablo.’
‘Who are you then?’
Jags paused. This was a man’s final question and he wanted to answer it honestly.
‘I am the overseer.’
Pablo repeated the English word and then translated it for himself. The old-fashioned term translated easily into Spanish and now Pablo understood. Jags was the overseer and he didn’t need to ask anyone what that made him, he knew what he was. Jags pointed at a sturdy-looking wooden box by the wall.
‘Take that and put it underneath the main beam.’
Pablo did as instructed. He wished he’d eaten the last meal Jags had offered him. He wished he’d kissed Claudio goodbye before he’d left that morning. At the end, that was all.
‘The company will look after your family … a special pension for your wife.’
Pablo stared at Jags.
‘A special pension …’ It was clear he did not believe this, but it wasn’t his main concern. ‘Just promise me that my family will be safe. My wife, my children. Claudio especially. Tell me he will be safe.’
‘We end this now and they will all be safe. I promise you that.’
‘Speak it to me in Spanish.’
Jags nodded slowly and looked Pablo square in the eye.
‘Tu familia estara a salvo. Now go ahead and haul that rope down.’
Pablo studied Jags as he spoke, then smiled sadly. His face was wet with tears now and he lifted his sweatshirt and wiped it dry. He placed his left foot on the wooden box first and stepped up gingerly. He reached up and pulled the white nylon noose down. He gave it a tug and nodded. It had been well-tied.
‘You did a good job.’ Leaning forward, he put his head and neck through. He only had one card left to play and so he played it now. ‘You know that when you kill a man, you have to carry his soul with you? Carry it on your back – forever. We believe that.’ He pointed his finger at Jags’ broad back. ‘You will have to work not just for one soul, but for two …’
‘And all the rest.’ Jags took a fast step forward and kicked the box away. Pablo’s hands reached for the noose, but too late; he clawed uselessly at his skin, trying to get a finger between his neck and the rope, but the more he struggled, the tighter the noose became. Pretty soon his hands dropped limply back to his side, and Jags watched as Pablo twitched and turned on the rope. He watched his jeans darken at the crotch and smelt the sharp stink of piss. This was taking too long. Stepping forward again, he grabbed his victim’s leather belt with both hands and pulled. Pablo’s stretched neck snapped, a louder sound than Jags had expected. It ricocheted back off the dark stone walls of the cave, then disappeared down into the black tunnel that led deep into the mountain. After that, there was silence.
Sooner or later someone would notice the smell and Pablo Mistral’s body would be found. His death would be recorded as suicide, but if the family paid the priest a little extra then the chances were he might still be buried in the Brochu church cemetery. Pablo was right to question Jags’ suggestion of a special pension for his wife. Such an arrangement would imply a special
connection between the company and this man and there could be no such link. Anyhow, supporting the dead man’s family did not suit Jags’ purpose. He had done with Pablo Mistral, but he had not finished with his family.
Jags drove, not taking his foot off the floor until he was within sight of Santiago International Airport. His instructions were to return back to base, back to Public Square’s headquarters in Cupertino, California. As he drove, Jags searched for answers to the dead man’s question: Why him? Why now?
It could have been anything. A word that Pablo had typed into a search engine, something he had bought online or just looked at for too long. Maybe a piece of music he’d listened to had contained the clue, or a conversation with someone on the smartphone that Jags had given him. Perhaps he’d uttered a certain phrase or mentioned one of the trigger words that they listened for. The phone tracker might have told them something about Pablo that even Jags didn’t know. It could have been anything.
He steered the Chevy into the short-term parking lot, found a spot he liked and switched off the engine. It could have been anything. But it wasn’t – it was the sum total of everything. Every piece of data about this one man, added together and analysed alongside everyone else’s. The company Jags worked for had decided that Pablo was unreliable because they knew everything. And they were never wrong.
5 Grand Luxe
THE HEADLAND HOTEL, HONG KONG
A grey-toppered doorman in braided uniform and white gloves pulled the heavy glass door open for Patrick and nodded a greeting. Patrick thanked him with one of the dozen or so Cantonese phrases he had memorised. The doorman gave him a look that suggested he appreciated the effort if not the linguistic skill. Patrick reshouldered his kitbag and trudged across the thick carpet in the direction of the nearest empty armchair.
Sitting down in the lobby of the Headland was sweet relief after the tumult of a Hong Kong rush hour. Although the hotel was full – in large part due to the number of hacks who’d checked in in recent days – it didn’t feel that way. Almost all of the other wing-backed armchairs distributed around the room were taken, but there was a hush to the place – more like a gentlemen’s club than a hotel lobby. An enormous multi-tiered chandelier glistened in the centre of the high ceiling. Underneath this, on a polished mahogany table, was an arrangement of dark red roses and green foliage on a similar scale. Patrick gazed at the display and did a rough count – he could see at least one hundred and fifty large-headed red roses from where he sat. The flower seller outside his local tube station back at home – the place where he sometimes bought flowers for his girlfriend – would probably charge around five hundred quid for that lot.
The Headland was, without doubt, one of the swankiest hotels he’d ever stayed in and he had mixed feelings about the place. If he’d been here in Hong Kong with William Carver, as opposed to John Brandon, then no way would they have booked a room here. Brandon referred to it as the ‘Most Luxe of the Grand Luxe hotels’. Not just the press hotel but a posh press hotel – Carver would rather have chewed his own arm off. Patrick smiled. Maybe he’d buy a postcard of the hotel from the souvenir shop and send it to him. Although given that his old boss had ignored every email and phone message Patrick had left for the last several months, there was a good chance William would just chuck it straight in the bin.
‘Bollocks to him.’
A Chinese man in black suit and tie, who was sitting nearby, lowered the Asian Wall Street Journal he’d been pretending to read and glanced across at Patrick. His face was brick-red, his eyes bright. He smiled at Patrick. This man was a permanent fixture in the lobby of the Headland – the least secret secret policeman Patrick had ever seen. But then this man’s function wasn’t just to watch and listen – his bosses on the mainland had far more subtle ways of doing that – it was to remind everyone that China was here. They weren’t going anywhere and, pretty soon, they’d be in charge. Patrick smiled back, then pushed himself up from the armchair and went to look for John Brandon. First find your reporter, then mix your package and after that – sleep. He decided a sweep of the hotel would be quicker and more effective than using the phone, since Brandon seldom read messages or used his mobile unless he needed something.
Patrick had been away from home for five of the last six months and for almost that entire time he’d been working with Brandon. He’d heard people refer to him as John Brandon’s bloke or, even worse, Brandon’s boy. They’d been together in Egypt as the Arab Spring slowly fizzled out, then Turkey, briefly in Bahrain and Ukraine, and now Hong Kong. Technically Patrick had been promoted – he was producing one of the BBC’s most high-profile correspondents – but it didn’t feel that way.
He checked the bars first. There were five of these distributed around the hotel, possibly one of the reasons that the place never felt too busy. Brandon was in the third bar Patrick tried.
‘Good God Patrick, you look like shit. I’m surprised the doorman let you in.’
Patrick would have liked to respond in kind, but the truth was that Brandon looked fine. Well-slept, freshly shaved and extremely smart in his trademark cream linen suit and blue, open-necked shirt. The sweep of thick white hair was washed and combed and, as Patrick drew closer, he wondered whether Brandon might even be wearing some sort of foundation. The veteran anchorman saw Patrick staring.
‘I just did a quick two-way for the news channel …’ This explained both the make-up and Brandon’s good mood. He didn’t get asked to do as much television now as he used to and he jumped at every opportunity. ‘Updating the Great British public on the latest demos and so on.’ Patrick nodded, although he wondered how helpful the viewers would have found this update, given that Brandon clearly hadn’t left the hotel all day. His two-way would have been nothing more than a rehash of wire copy and some stuff he’d read on the internet.
‘I’ve got all the voices we need for this radio piece, John. Are you happy to start putting that together?’ Brandon nodded. ‘My room in twenty minutes if that works for you?’
Brandon looked at his watch.
‘Twenty. Absolutely. I’ll just finish this …’ he pointed at the vodka Martini and thimble-sized portion of salted cashew nuts sitting on the bar in front of him, ‘… and I’ll be right up. What about this hotel, eh? I bet Carver would never have you staying in a place like this?’
‘No, he wouldn’t.’
‘No. A cut above …’ He plucked the cocktail stick-skewered olive from his Martini and gobbled it down. ‘Especially the bedrooms. Odd isn’t it? In Egypt we had to sleep on those dreadful bloody Chinese-made sheets. Here in China – more or less – we get the very best Egyptian cotton. I haven’t even had to use my John Lewis mattress topper. Ironic huh?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Perhaps I should do a FOOC on it.’
Patrick hoped that this was a passing fancy. Producing a useable despatch for From Our Own Correspondent with Brandon was a tortuous experience.
‘So, twenty minutes, in my room?’
‘Twenty, yes …’ Brandon glanced round the bar. A few new faces had wandered in. There was a ‘Women in Business’ conference in one of the boardrooms and, by the looks of it, one or two among the group might have recognised him. ‘Half an hour tops.’
Up in his room, a maid had turned down the king-size bed. There was a gold-wrapped chocolate on his pillow and a lily of the valley candle flickering on the bedside table. Patrick briefly considered whether a quick nap might not be a good idea, but decided against. If he went to sleep now he might never wake up again. He scoffed the chocolate and tried not to think about the bed. He remembered his last full week off work, back at home in London with his girlfriend. Rebecca had tucked him up in bed on a Sunday afternoon and he’d stayed there, pretty much comatose, until Tuesday. It was the best sleep of his life. He woke at six in the evening to a tray of hot tea and toast slathered in melted butter and Marmite.
‘I feel like a new man.’
‘You and me both. My c
urrent man is obviously broken beyond mending.’ He wanted to call Becs; it had been a day or two since they’d spoken and it would be good to hear her voice. He checked the time and did the maths. He couldn’t call her now, she’d be teaching a class. But definitely later.
He took a shower, standing under the burning hot water for a full ten minutes, letting it wash a day’s worth of sweat and grime from his skin. After that he wrapped himself in a towel and the fluffy hotel dressing gown and stood at the window. From his room he had a clear view down over the harbour and across to Kowloon. Patrick rubbed his blond hair dry and watched the Star Ferry boats shuttle to and fro across the dark water. He pulled on a clean T-shirt and jeans, cleared the dressing table, set up his laptop and tape recorder and got to work.
First he loaded all the audio he’d collected that day onto the laptop and chopped it up into bands. He designated each a different colour and placed one on top of the other. This part of the process always reminded Patrick of his parents and a long-ago holiday on the Isle of Wight. In an Alum Bay gift shop, the eight-year-old Patrick glimpsed a glass lighthouse containing layer upon layer of coloured sand. He’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted that lighthouse; he begged for the souvenir and eventually his mum gave in and bought it, in spite of his father’s warning that the ornament would inevitably be broken before the day was out. In fact the Isle of Wight lighthouse survived a year – his most prized possession. It lasted until one long, boring Sunday when curiosity had got the better of him and he removed the cork stopper with his dad’s bottle opener to see what might happen.
A Cursed Place Page 4
