Dark Clouds (19 page)

The sweat from Wagstaff’s forehead is trickling down along his cheeks. His totally disoriented wife is staring blankly through the kitchen window to her once loved but now discarded garden. Her whole life has been rudely disrupted. She doesn’t work and hasn’t had a job for years. Her prospects are bleak.

‘The scientist I met has a niece who writes as a fashion journalist,’ Wagstaff mutters.

‘Ah … here in London?’

‘I think so … it was just something that came up.’

One of the Anti-Terrorist guys at the door is already on his mobile as Earl gets up and leads Wagstaff to a computer in the corner of the room.

‘There is an alternative for you,’ Carla says to Annalise, who is confused.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We are going to take you into custody now. But if your husband co-operates with us and continues to do so, we could relocate you here in the UK, or elsewhere. You could start again, honey, with a new garden … either on your own or with your husband.’

There aren’t too many Pakistani fashion journalists working in London. But within an hour, there are photographs with details of four on Wagstaff’s computer. Bright youngsters in UK security service offices are presently checking out various family connections. By lunchtime, the search has been narrowed down to two serious possibilities and Carla points to a computer printout picture of a woman known as Sunita Malawi.

‘We’ll check her out,’ she says as Wagstaff and his wife are taken from their sitting room.

‘You don’t need me for this,’ I say, doing my best to give it an assertive pitch.

‘Oh, but we do, Rudi … you’re working for us now, and we’re only just starting.’

I’m shaking my head when my controller motions me towards the dining room table, where she considers me for a while in silence.

‘In the days, weeks and months after 9/11 … how did you feel?’ she asks.

Angry, embittered and frustrated. I had lost my first true love. Faria Bailey was mixed up with a massive pile of rubble and I wanted to avenge her death. My problem, however, was that half of her family were Muslims. So I ended up trying desperately to opt out from the whole conflict that followed. It was futile, of course. London is my home of choice. I have friendly feelings for the people, and I can’t stand aside if someone I know is putting up money to nuke those who have almost become my adopted family.

*  *  *  *  *

 ‘We need results,’ Carla Hirsch says.

Robson is driving the people carrier and Earl is on his BlackBerry. He keeps showing Carla e-mails he’s getting on Sunita Malawi and as we enter Manchester Square in Central London, I recognise the former Duke’s residence that now houses the Wallace Collection. This is a classy part of town, and Earl’s talking to two of his guys who are parked in a surveillance vehicle outside a house with a fine Georgian doorway.

‘We think the lady is at home,’ Earl says. ‘They’ve picked up a mobile signal from the house and a couple of calls have gone out on a landline.’

It could be a maid or a friend, but Carla’s confident.

‘We’re marauding intruders,’ she tells me. ‘And we’re going to scare the shit out of this woman. Maybe even literally – like in the Clockwork Orange. Do you remember the Movie?’

Vaguely – yes. I hated the mindless violence, and especially the guy in a bowler hat. I don’t want to terrify a defenceless fashionista. But we’re looking at potentially huge casualties here, and no one in their right mind wants radiation particles floating over Oxford Circus.

‘Hello – Royal Mail Special Delivery,’ Earl says when he’s pressed an intercom button and someone answers.

‘Oh, all right – I’ll come down,’ a woman’s voice answers. It’s deep and cultivated with just the hint of an Asian inflection.

‘Hi there … Miss Malawi?’ Carla asks with a friendly grin when the door opens.

‘Yes – but …’

She’s gorgeous and I’m sure her family have carried some weight in Pakistan since the days of the British Raj. I think she’s in her thirties, although her rich black hair has been pinned back in a businesslike bun and she’s holding a pen.

‘We need to talk with you,’ Carla says with a greasy smile, ‘and I think it would be best if we come in.’

She’s taken her Glock from a Stella McCartney bag and Sunita recoils when she sees the pistol. ‘
Oh my God …it’s like some rough insurgent from the hills of Kashmir suddenly exposing his organ as a weapon to intimidate her
.’

‘But I’m expecting a colleague,’ she stammers.

‘That’s all right, honey,’ Carla says as her target backs off into a fine Georgian hallway with all of the original features. ‘You can call and say you’ve had to go out. But if they come round anyway, you can let them ring on the bell … and when they don’t get a reply, I guess they’ll go away.’

Upstairs, the sitting room is not too different from what it might have looked like in the 1770s or 80s. It’s pretty opulent in a discreet sort of way. The only things slightly out of place are an Apple Mac computer on an antique desk and copies of Vogue and Harpers on a pretty pricey Kashmir carpet.

‘Sit down, sugar,’ Carla commands, pointing towards a Sheraton chaise longue that has recently been re-upholstered. ‘This is Biff,’ she says, pointing at me, ‘and that’s Boff,’ which is Earl. ‘And we’ve got more people downstairs. I’m Charlene, babe, and we’re here to ask you some questions. If you’re nice and co-operative, we’ll probably just leave you to get on with your stuff. But if you give us any grief, honey, we’ll get so heavy you’ll wish you’d never left your mother’s womb … do you hear what I’m saying?’

Sunita may be writing mainly about social gossip and sexual speculation for the world of fashion and popular culture, but she has harsh memories of rough and undisciplined soldiers mistreating her family in Pakistan; usually when one set of ruthless opportunists replaced another in Government.

‘Yes – of course.’ Her eye contact is cautious and she’s nodding respectfully. ‘But what do you want?’

‘We’ll start with your family,’ Carla says with an encouraging smile. She’s sitting in an expensive winged armchair while I perch on a piano stool and Earl folds his arms by the door.

‘You have, I think, an uncle who is a scientist – right?’

‘I have two actually ... Mukhtar and Pandit.’

‘OK ... so who does what?’

This wasn’t at all what Sunita Malawi expected when she saw the obscene Glock pistol coming out of the Beatle girl’s handbag. She had assumed that we were the worst sort of opportunist thieves: Educated people perhaps who had been diverted into heroin or crack and needed money to pay for it. Only the accents are out of line, and what’s an apparently respectable Afro-Caribbean doing with a couple of American hoodlums.

‘I’m sorry – I don’t understand ... what do you mean?’

‘Oh, honey – please ... don’t get all cutesy with me!’

‘But ... ’

Only Carla’s already on her feet and moving to sit beside the fashionable columnist on her Georgian chaise longue.

‘You’re a very attractive woman, Sunita,’ she says, running an excited hand down along her shocked target’s short Prada skirt and along the slightly shiny silk of her stockinged lower thigh. ‘I would really love to take your clothes off and explore the delights of your beautiful body. I think Biff and Boff might also like to do something similar, albeit a little more forcefully ... you hear me, honey. I mean, these guys have agitated dicks, which I think they’d really like to stick all the way into your lovely soft, silky cunt and fuck you to hell and back, babe ... and maybe they’d follow on with some anal penetration.’

Earl’s looking pointedly out through a window, while I try hard to think up the sound of my meditation mantra. It’s outrageous and embarrassing. I’m appalled by Carla Hirsch’s crude intimidatory techniques. But Sunita has the message and she’s struggling to speak.

‘Pandit’s a horticulturalist, and Mukhtar’s a physicist,’ she exclaims.

‘So Pandit’s into flowers, crops and seeds?’

‘Yes ... he’s presently working for the World Food Programme.’

‘In Pakistan?’

‘No ... he’s based in Switzerland. He’s essentially a strategist who does occasional field trips.’

‘OK – so Mukhtar’s a physicist ... tell me more, sugar.’

Agent Hirsch now has a hand under Sunita Malawi’s left breast and she’s running her fingers up towards an extended nipple.

‘No – please, don’t!’ the Muslim columnist pleads.

‘So – ’

‘He has worked mainly on the Pakistan Government’s nuclear programme ... but more recently he has been travelling and lecturing.’

‘Where?’

‘In the Middle East, I think ... and in London.’

Carla has reluctantly joined her hands between her legs and I’m confused. This is not a part of my country that I can identify with. OK – I’ve heard about water-boarding and rendition. I’ve seen pictures of the Muslim victims from Abu Ghraib in Iraq, and I’ve heard pretty unsettling stories coming out from Guantanamo. A part of me, however, still stands to attention when I hear our national anthem. I’m proud of the Stars and Stripes and what it represents. And Mukhtar Ali is a nuclear scientist, which is worrying.

‘I’d like some iced water, ‘ my controller says. She needs a break and I’m happy to oblige. Earl’s grinning reassuringly like we’re in it together when he opens the door. ‘
I’m not a bad guy, Rudi – don’t worry
.’ And I’m reassured by thoughts of him singing hymns on Sundays in Jamaica, so I wink back. He’s OK, and we all have to deal with people like Carla occasionally. She’s the support structure for our ostensibly laid back reality. The kitchen’s mainly Smeg and Neff and there’s some chilled French water in the fridge.

When I return to the sitting room overlooking Manchester Square, Carla’s back on her target’s magnificently toned thigh, and Sunita’s perfectly sculpted forehead is covered in a thin film of nervous sweat. What did her uncle lecture about, Agent Hirsch wants to know.  Who were the students he mentored, and what sort of relationship did he have with them?

A part of the lovely Sunita Malawi is genuinely puzzled by the queries. She’s also becoming a little impatient as her interrogator sighs, removes a lingering hand from her target and stares pensively for a moment at the pointed toes of her elegant Manolo Blahnik heels.

‘You’re fucking with my head, sugar,’ she says eventually. ‘And it’s making me feel mean.’

‘I’m sorry ... I don’t understand.’

‘Come here – ’

‘What ... why?’

‘Stand up – ’

Reluctantly, the Pakistani fashion journalist gets to her feet. She is followed by Agent Hirsch, who stands in front of her with her eyes lingering on her target’s inviting chest.

‘I think I’m going to take your clothes off – ’

‘No!’

‘But first, I want to kiss you ... nice and slow, on your mouth. Then I want you to bring me off, slowly, with a nice build up ... can you do that, honey?’ 

I want to intervene to try and save the vulnerable Sunita from my insatiable controller. Only I’m thinking about the columnist’s Uncle Mukhtar, so I hold back on any coughing as Carla fondles the fashionista’s breasts.

‘No – please ... stop now!’

‘OK – but we are going to talk seriously ... because I don’t need any more footsie crap, babe. I want the goods ... right!’

‘Yes – I know. I understand ... but please – ’

There is a little chilled water left in the bottle I’ve brought out from the kitchen. Sunita gulps a mouthful. She’s been defiled by a gross infidel. But she eventually sits back down on the chaise longue as Carla faces her from the period wing chair.

‘Mukhtar’s a committed Muslim,’ she says quietly, with her eyes averted like she’s ashamed of what she’s about to reveal. ‘He has become a mentor figure for some people recently.’

‘What sort of people are we talking about, honey?’

There is a pause, but as Carla gets up from the winged chair, Sunita breaks down and weeps.

‘Activists, I think,’ she concedes amidst the sobs.

Her carefully applied eye makeup is dripping down along her photogenic cheeks. She’s ready to talk and Earl records the details. Uncle Mukhtar is not presently in the UK. But he has an apartment in Knightsbridge, which is close to Harrods. There is an address book in Sunita’s antique desk. It has a gilt line around the edge of the pages which Carla is now flicking through. I want to tell the vulnerable beauty from Pakistan that this really isn’t my scene at all, and if I could, I’d get up and walk out, period. Biff and Boff are unsavoury characters from Agent Hirsch’s lurid imagination, as indeed is the seamy Charlene. I’m getting a small flicker of recognition for my thoughts in Sunita Malawi’s pleading eyes. ‘
I so need your help, kind sir ... please; anything you can do to end my ordeal would secure my everlasting and most meaningful gratitude
.’ I’d really like to step in. ‘
Your knight in shining armour has arrived, dear lady – so fear not
.’ But Carla Hirsch’s probe is just beginning.

‘We’re going to have to take you into custody, sugar,’ she tells her beautiful target. ‘I think you’ve been helpful so far, and if this continues, you should be OK.’

Sunita’s raising and lowering her head like Agent Hirsch is an oracle who’s just appeared with a helpful revelation. She’s still sitting obediently with her head going up and down when two uniformed female cops arrive to escort her to a secure facility.

‘Honey, you’re gorgeous.’ Carla tells her with what I suspect is genuine admiration. ‘And in any other circumstances, I’d really like to get something going with you. But I don’t want you to tell anyone about our little get-together here today ... that’s just between us. OK?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Sunita agrees with a truly sincere nod.

‘And if you’d like some useful advice, I would suggest that when this is all wrapped up, you should maybe take off for a month or so. Go somewhere nice and quiet where you don’t know anyone and just get in touch with your spiritual side. The world’s a very fraught place just now, babe. So you shouldn’t trouble yourself too much about politics and strife and all of the heavy stuff that might exercise your Uncle Mukhtar.’