Java Spider (17 page)

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 Kutuan 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 smile 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.

As the plane began to taxi he turned and leaned towards her.

‘Truth is we still don’t know where Bowen is,’ he confided, speaking in a voice just above a whisper. ‘But that’s between you and me.’

‘I see. But they’ve sent you to try to find him?’

Gently, gently. Play it down.

‘Big place, the south Pacific. I’m just a little cog in a very big, very complicated machine.’

‘But if they’re sending someone like you undercover to Kutu, there’ll be a good reason for it …’ she persisted, whispering.

Sure there was a reason. Called Assistant Commissioner Stanley. Whether it was a good one remained to be seen. He didn’t answer.

‘Look, I realise there are things you can’t tell me …’ she added, oozing understanding. The engines began to roar. ‘Oh I h-hate this part,’ she stuttered, gripping the armrests.

The 747 careened down the runway and lurched into the air, heavy with fuel and a full passenger load. As it banked for the turn to the southeast, the lights of Singapore’s harbour and business district disappeared beneath cloud. When the wings levelled, Charlotte relaxed again.

‘Take-offs and landings,’ she explained. ‘I’m fine with the middle bit.’

‘Hold my hand if it helps,’ he offered, winking again.

She lifted one eyebrow.

‘Been out this way before?’ he asked, trying to sound chatty.

‘No. I’ve been nowhere,’ she confessed.

‘Big break for you then?’

‘Yup,’ she gulped, her anxiety boomeranging back. ‘For me and for the News Channel. We’re a bucket-shop news station. Everything done on the cheap. Foreign news, if we ever cover it, is something we buy from agencies. Until today the very idea of sending a reporter to the other side of the world was unheard of. They had to call an emergency board meeting to authorise the money for my air fare.’

She saw his look of disbelief.

‘It’s true! They’ve set a daily limit on how much I spend. If I exceed it, the accountants will pull me out.’ She laughed. ‘Not a problem
you
have, I imagine. Taxpayers’ money. No expense spared. By the way,
are
you going to Kutu, or just Darwin?’ She answered her own question. ‘Kutu, obviously. You’ll work with the Indonesian police.’

‘That depends,’ he mumbled. ‘Maybe.’