Other Countries

by Jo Bannister

  Almost against his better judgement, Gorman was intrigued. ‘What do you think he did?’

  ‘I don’t know. I tried to press him, but Iqbal wouldn’t say any more. I think he regretted saying as much as he had. But he’s an intelligent, rational young man, and he doesn’t strike me as a fanatic. I don’t think this is because of anything Ford wrote in an academic paper.’

  Gorman didn’t think so either. He still didn’t see why a feud between the young Arab and the historian meant that Hazel was in trouble. ‘As far as I understand it, Ford’s people haven’t finished filming at Wittering. He’ll be back as soon as the weather improves. Talk to Hazel then. Maybe she’ll know why Iqbal came after Ford with a flame-thrower.’

  It wasn’t the response Ash had hoped for, but it was a reasonable suggestion. Perhaps because he no longer had a job, he tended to forget that most people had schedules to meet, places they had to be. He cast Gorman a rueful little smile. ‘You’re right. They’re probably on their way back now.’ He stood up. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get anything useful out of Iqbal.’

  ‘At least we know now who the target was. And that Iqbal was probably working alone. I’ll sleep sounder in my bed tonight just for knowing that.’

  ‘Thank you for the coffee.’

  Gorman scowled. ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic.’

  The next morning Ash walked Patience across town to Railway Street. The curtains in the front room of the little terraced house were drawn back, but there were no other signs of life, and no answer to his knock. He rapped the door again, louder, and waited. After a couple of minutes Saturday appeared, tousled, in shorts and a ragged T-shirt bearing the legend ‘Eventers do it three different ways’. It must have been a cast-off of Hazel’s: equestrian jokes were outside Saturday’s remit.

  ‘Did I get you up?’ asked Ash, pointedly.

  But that was unfair. Saturday had a job now, he worked the evening shift from eight until midnight in a petrol station; over and above being a teenager, he had every excuse for sleeping late. The youth didn’t complain. He yawned, and scratched the bird’s nest of his hair, then waved a hand vaguely in the direction of the kettle and wandered off upstairs. He reappeared a minute later, still unwashed but at least wearing a T-shirt that hadn’t been slept in.

  ‘Hazel’s not back yet?’ It was a rhetorical question: by now Ash had seen the state of the kitchen.

  Saturday gave an ambiguous grunt, bent to pat the dog.

  Ash tried again. ‘Have you heard from her? A postcard, phone call? Do you know where she is?’

  The boy shook his head.

  ‘Or when she’s due back?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘It’s not like her to drop off the radar.’

  But actually, he didn’t know that. All he knew was that for the past six months Hazel had been where he needed her when he needed her; and that had more to do with the state of Ash’s mind than Hazel’s. For all he knew, except when she was nurse-maiding the village idiot, she might have jetted off to foreign parts every available weekend. She might only have been waiting for Ash to get his act together, to gather up the remains of his family and start creating a normal life, so she could quit feeling sorry for him and get on with the things that free-spirited young women liked to do.

  Saturday muttered something into his coffee. Hunched over his mug, straw-coloured hair falling unkempt in his face, he looked like someone conducting a conversation from behind a haystack.

  Ash sighed. As the father of two sons who would in due course become teenagers, he considered dealing with Saturday as a kind of dry run. ‘Hello? I’m over here.’

  Saturday looked up, half exasperated, half amused. He enunciated clearly, as if speaking to someone very old who had mislaid his ear trumpet. ‘I said, it’s not like her to take up with a thug like that, either.’

  Ash shrugged. ‘She must see something in him that we’re missing. She’s not the only one: the man clearly has a following. Perhaps it’s a woman thing.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s a Too much oestrogen swilling round your system screws your head up and makes you think you’re kissing Prince Charming when actually it’s just another frog thing,’ said Saturday. Then he saw Ash’s expression. ‘What?’

  Ash recovered himself enough to shut his mouth and shake his head. ‘Nothing. It’s just, you never cease to amaze me.’

  ‘Why? Because I know some words with three syllables in them?’

  ‘No. Because somewhere in that seventeen-year-old body dwell the heart and soul of a fifty-year-old cynic.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Saturday finished his coffee and headed back upstairs. ‘Well, it’s his turn to do the washing up.’

  Ash had one more avenue to explore. If it too proved a dead-end, he saw no alternative but to wait for Hazel to return, when and indeed if she did. He drove out to Wittering, expecting to find the film crew still camped out in the museum car park. But the big vehicles, including Ford’s trailer, were gone.

  For a moment Ash was nonplussed. Gorman had said that filming was not yet finished, that the crew were merely waiting for the weather to improve. And then it struck him that the rain had stopped. If Ford had taken Hazel away because the weather had made it impossible to film, shouldn’t they have returned when the sun came out again? But if Ford was expected back, why had the film crew packed up?

  Deeply uneasy, Ash went inside to ask if the museum director knew when and where the film crew had gone.

  Herbert Jennings was a man to whom routine mattered. (He was also possibly the last child in England to have been christened Herbert.) He liked to sit at his desk on a Monday morning, before the public were admitted, and plan his week meticulously. Though he had initially welcomed the publicity that would accrue from the new museum being televised, he soon discovered that routine was the first casualty when there was a film crew in attendance.

  They wanted to film during the time he’d set aside for staff training. They wanted to move the exhibits around. They wanted – saints preserve us! – to take them out of their cabinets. Herbert Jennings passed a cotton handkerchief across his brow at the very thought. When the tall woman with ginger hair had said they were taking a weather break, he had felt his heart soar like a lark. And when, this morning …

  ‘She telephoned to say that they wouldn’t be back,’ he told Ash, relief purring in his voice. ‘At least, she didn’t know when they would be back. She couldn’t get hold of the presenter, and two cameramen and a sound recordist had other jobs to go to, so she was pulling the plug’ – he said it as if it was some strange foreign expression he’d memorised by heart – ‘until she could put together a new schedule.’

  Ash felt cold fingers stroke his spine. ‘She couldn’t get hold of the presenter?’

  ‘Apparently he’s gone abroad and isn’t answering his phone,’ said the director, unaware of the pike he was driving into Ash’s vitals. ‘Celebrities. Hah!’

  ‘The woman with ginger hair,’ said Ash. ‘Did she leave a number where you could call her?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. You could try the hotel where they stayed, though. They might have a contact number for her.’

  SEVENTEEN

  The receptionist at The Crown – which is to say, The Crown in Wittering, not to be confused with any number of other hostelries of the same name in the cavalier counties of Warwickshire and Worcestershire – knew exactly how to get hold of Emerald. She showed Ash to the residents’ lounge, where Emerald was drowning her sorrows with a large balloon of brandy.

  She brightened momentarily at the sight of Ash. ‘Are you my taxi?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I’m a friend of Hazel Best’s.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Constable Best.’ Ash was irritated at having to remind her. ‘The police officer who was burned in the bombing.’

  Emerald had her mouth open to say ‘Who?’ again, when memory stirred. Her eyes narrowed and her broad mouth pinched. ‘Oh. Her.’

  Ash felt a rising ind
ignation. ‘Surely you haven’t forgotten, Miss …?’

  ‘Emerald,’ said Emerald.

  ‘That Hazel Best risked her life protecting your headline act from someone he’d failed to charm?’

  Emerald looked surprised, the gingery eyebrows elevating. ‘Really? Ford was the target? I thought it was an attack on the museum.’

  Ash winced, kicking himself mentally to save Detective Inspector Gorman the trouble of doing it physically. But in truth, did it matter if Emerald knew? ‘It seems to have been personal, something between Ford and the boy. We don’t yet know what it was about.’

  ‘Isn’t he an Arab?’ Emerald seemed to think this said it all.

  ‘Possibly. He flew here from Turkey, but he probably isn’t Turkish.’

  ‘They’re pretty unpredictable,’ suggested Emerald. ‘Arabs.’

  Ash hung onto his patience. ‘So are television personalities. We don’t know which of them started the feud. But we do know which one thought it was worth crossing a continent and sacrificing his own liberty to end it.’

  Emerald sniffed. ‘Like I said – unpredictable.’ She checked her watch, a large man’s affair strapped to her big-boned wrist. ‘I don’t know how you think I can help.’

  ‘Mr Ford may be able to shed light on what happened. I’d like to talk to him. Do you know when he’ll be back?’

  ‘Hah!’ The brandy was beginning to take effect. ‘I know when he should have been back. I know he called me yesterday to say he’d be delayed. I told him the weather was brightening up, but he wasn’t interested. When I tried to phone him back he didn’t answer, and when I checked with his hotel in Marrakech he’d gone. Nobody knew where to.’

  Anxiety stirred the contents of Ash’s stomach. ‘Was Hazel still with him?’

  Emerald shrugged. ‘I presume so. The receptionist kept saying “they”. To be honest, I blamed your friend. I thought she’d spirited him off somewhere.’

  Ash’s heavy eyebrows rocketed. ‘You thought Hazel Best had kidnapped Oliver Ford?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I thought she’d led him astray. Turned his head. Given him something more enjoyable to do than coming back here to finish my film.’ Emerald checked her watch. ‘Where is that damned taxi? Look, darling, I don’t know what they’re up to. I don’t even care what they’re up to. I just wish he was here, working, instead of playing at Lawrence of Arabia!’

  ‘And you’ve no idea where they could have gone?’

  ‘After Morocco? Could be anywhere. Oliver knows the whole of the Middle East like the back of his hand. It’s where he made his name – Turkey, Iraq, Syria. I wouldn’t know where to look for him, even if I felt the inclination.’

  ‘What will you do about your film?’

  ‘Put it on hold, darling. Hope it all comes together later.’ She sighed. ‘You’d be amazed how often things like this happen in our industry. Too many damned prima donnas. All stars and no chorus.’

  Defeated, Ash went home. If he couldn’t find Hazel, he could at least feed his family. But Frankie had put something in the oven before she went to collect the boys from school. Feeling oddly disappointed that even this small achievement had been denied him, he retreated to his study. When he’d had the big house to himself, he’d lived mostly in the kitchen. Now he shared it, he appreciated the private space Frankie had created for him. The rule – also established by Frankie – was that, when he was in the study, nobody too young to vote was allowed to disturb him unless the house was on fire.

  Patience regarded rules the way she regarded her car harness: a splendid idea in principle, but not something to get in the way of what she wanted to do. She was lying on the conker-coloured leather sofa, curled round like a croissant.

  Ash frowned. ‘How did you get in here?’ He was sure – almost sure – the door had been shut.

  The lurcher thumped her tail in friendly greeting.

  ‘Well – at least move up.’

  She did as she was bid, leaving him a perfectly circular dip in the sofa cushion lined with fine white hairs. Ash sat down, and the dog put her long head on his knee. He stroked her ear. The speckled one: the other was tan.

  ‘I can’t find her,’ Ash said simply. ‘She’s with Ford, but nobody knows where they are. Nobody knows when they’ll be back. Or even, with any certainty, if.’

  Dogs are good at sensing distress in their owners. Patience pressed herself along Ash’s thigh, holding his troubled face in her steady golden gaze.

  ‘Dave Gorman thinks she can look after herself. And of course she can – we both know that. But it’s a big world out there, and I think Oliver Ford may be more at home in it than Hazel is. I’d hate to think she was in some kind of difficulty and I didn’t know.’

  What would you do if you did know? asked Patience.

  ‘I’d be on the next plane. Frankie would look after the boys. I’d pull whatever strings were necessary to find her, and I wouldn’t come back without her.’

  How would you find her?

  ‘I still have friends in Whitehall. This used to be my field, remember? We’d pull passenger lists from every flight departing Morocco in the last forty-eight hours. If she was on one, we’d know where she’d gone. If she wasn’t, then we’d know she was probably still in Morocco, and that’s where I’d start looking.’

  You could do that now.

  Ash frowned. ‘And tell her what? I can’t charge in to rescue her from someone she doesn’t want rescuing from! No, I’m over-reacting. I’m sure everything’s fine. She’s just headed off for a romantic interlude with someone glamorous. She’ll come to her senses soon enough, and then she’ll come home. The best thing we can do is pretend we weren’t worried about her.’

  Patience appeared to give that some thought. Then: I wonder what Saturday meant.

  ‘About what?’

  When he called Hazel’s friend a thug. Wasn’t that odd? I’ve heard him call you all sorts – a prat, a moron, Grandad – but never a thug. Why would he call Oliver Ford a thug?

  Saturday wasn’t surprised to see Ash back again so soon. It took a lot to surprise him. Being on the streets from the age of fourteen will do that.

  ‘You called Oliver Ford a thug. Why?’

  The youth shrugged, pushed down the knob on the toaster. Left to his own devices, he survived exclusively on things you could spread on toast. He never tired of the exercise: bread in, knob down, knob up, toast out. Of course, an electric toaster is a novelty to someone who has only recently had access to electricity.

  ‘Saturday. Look at me. I want to know what you meant.’

  ‘I don’t like the guy. What can I tell you? Some people you like, some people you don’t. I don’t like Oliver Ford. Hazel does. Maybe you do. Lots of people do, but I don’t. OK?’ He applied himself to the toast, spreading marmalade until it dripped off the sides.

  Ash breathed heavily at him. ‘What is it that you’re not telling me?’

  Saturday rolled his eyes. ‘Can you narrow it down a bit? I mean, are we talking nuclear physics here? Street dance? The history of the northern Semites, or how long it takes to boil an egg?’

  Gabriel Ash was a big man, and because he was also a decent man, he very seldom got physical with anyone. He had noticed – they’d thought he hadn’t, but he had – the alarm in people’s eyes as he used to shuffle past on the weekly torture that had been his trip to the shops, and he’d always taken care never to justify their concerns. He might have been the local idiot, but he’d been scrupulous about being a harmless idiot. Rambles With Dogs. He might have mumbled to himself, but he never raised his voice. He never swore. And he never, ever laid his hands on anyone.

  He gathered the front of Saturday’s T-shirt in one hand and lifted him off the kitchen chair. The boy’s eyes flared whitely at him – but old habits die hard: he never let go of his toast.

  Nose to nose Ash said, very quietly, ‘I know when you’re lying, Saturday – your lips move. Now, I asked you why you called Oliver Ford a thug. Not a ba
stard, or a prat, or a pompous twat or a blithering idiot, but a thug. That wasn’t casual abuse: it came from somewhere in particular. If I find out that Oliver Ford has laid a finger on Hazel, and you knew …’

  Saturday shook his head vigorously, the straw-coloured hair flying. ‘I don’t! I didn’t … I’ve never seen him touch her, and she’s never said anything like that. Gabriel, I would have told you. Honest I would.’

  Ash lowered him slowly back onto his chair. ‘Then what …?’ And then he had it. ‘He hit you?’

  The boy got up to feed the toaster again. Perhaps he wanted more toast; perhaps he just wanted to turn his back. ‘Yeah,’ he said negligently. ‘It’s no biggie. I mean, maybe to you it is, maybe people who live in Highfield Road and work for the government don’t expect to walk into a door once a week, but some of us aren’t so precious about our personal space.’

  But there was something infinitely sad about his dismissiveness. He was claiming not to care about being struck only because he’d been helpless to prevent it. As a street kid Saturday had had no rights, no influence, no protection, and he’d had to accept whatever came his way, good or – much more often – bad. Ash had believed that had come to an end when Hazel took him in. It turned a knife in his gut that the boy had been hurt once again, by someone he would never – left in his own world – have met, and hadn’t even thought it worth mentioning.

  Ash swallowed. He reviewed all the things he’d been about to say and put them away. Finally he said simply, ‘What happened?’

  For some seconds it seemed that Saturday wasn’t going to answer. Ash suspected he was trying to come up with a plausible lie, something that might cast him in a better light than he deserved. Then he realised the boy was embarrassed. Embarrassed by his own helplessness, because someone could hit him and there was nothing he could do about it.