Java Spider (47 page)

Randall dropped to his knees lifting Bowen’s head.

‘All right, Stephen?’ Course he wasn’t. Eyes flickered open then closed again. Randall looked up at the Chinaman and pointed at Bowen’s chains.

‘
Kunci?
’ he snapped. He’d remembered the word for key.

‘
Tidak! Tidak!
’

The Chinaman didn’t have it. He jabbed a finger upwards.

‘OK. You show me!’ Randall assured the semi-conscious minister he would be right back, then prodded the cook into the corridor and up towards the bridge. ‘
Berapa laki-laki?
’ How many of them were they?

‘
Tiga. Tiga
.’ Three.

True? Or was there an engineer or deck-hand lurking somewhere too?

Nick pointed up the companion-way. The cook nodded and climbed in front, hugging his head.

In the wheelhouse Randall panicked. No helmsman. His body was gone, the coulis of blood smeared in a long streak out to the bridge wing as if he’d come to life and dragged himself there.

He heard a splash. Then it clicked.

‘Dedi!’ Randall snapped. ‘What’ve you done, you prat?’ He pushed out on to the little balcony. Dedi turned round, a wild look in his eyes, the helmsman’s assault rifle slung over his shoulder. The body of the other man was also gone.

‘I give them to sharks,’ Dedi retorted, glaring at the Chinaman.

Them and the keys to Bowen’s shackles which were probably in one of their pockets.

‘Shit!’ Randall leaned over the rail. The sea was clear. They should be floating somewhere. ‘Where are they?’

‘They go to bottom. I make heavy so no one find.’

‘Jeezus! When you fuck up, you don’t half do it in spades …’

‘I no understand …’

‘Never mind. Keep an eye on this bugger,’ Nick ordered. ‘And don’t hurt him.’

Dedi unslung the rifle and prodded the Chinaman with it. Heart sinking, Randall searched the wheelhouse on the off-chance the keys would be hanging somewhere. Then he clattered below and turned over the two cabins. Nothing. On his way up to the wheelhouse again, he heard a shot and a scream.

‘Christ almighty!’ He rushed for the wing. The Chinaman was in the water, splashing feebly in his own little circle of crimson, his face submerging.

‘If he live he tell intel ’bout me,’ Dedi muttered, defensively. He’d become like a two-year-old, obsessive and beyond reason.

So matter-of-fact. Death as a way of life. But there was one life that could be saved, if they were quick.

‘Come. We need tools, understand?’

No response from Dedi.

‘The Englishman – he’s down there, locked up. Have to break his chains. Come look.’

Two decks down, the smells of onions and faeces had combined in a gut-wrenching stink. Dedi wrinkled his face in disgust, then gaped at the now unconscious Stephen Bowen.

Randall pointed at the ankle shackles. ‘Bolt cutters. We need bolt cutters. See?’

Dedi sucked his teeth. ‘No. On
Timini
is nothing.’ Then he saw the meat cleaver. He picked it up and looked at Randall. His eyes were questioning.

‘Can’t cut steel with tha …’

Then he realised what Dedi meant. Hack Bowen’s foot off instead.

‘No way!’ The man was half-dead with septicaemia. An amputation like that would finish him.

The minister stirred. His eyes opened. He tried to raise his head, but gave up.

‘Find something,’ Randall ordered, crouching down. ‘Must be something on board this tub. Something heavy enough to smash the links.’

The Kutuan held his look as if he’d not heard.

‘Dedi?’

‘Sure, mister. I go look.’

He shuffled out. As Randall cradled Bowen’s head he heard the door to the machinery space open then close again and Dedi’s feet going up to the next deck.

‘Who … who are you?’

The croak startled him. Bowen was making an effort to focus his eyes.

‘Nick Randall. I’m a detective sergeant with Scotland Yard Special Branch. Don’t worry. We’re going to get you out of here.’

Bowen’s jaw worked, but no more words came. His eyes glazed over. Randall held the bottle to his quivering lips. The man was in such a state, it was hard to know how to help him.

‘Keith wants me dead …’

Bowen’s words tumbled out as he pushed the bottle aside with his manacled hands.

‘Nobody wants you dead, Stephen.’ The man was
delirious
. ‘You’ll be OK. You’re safe now.’ Far from it, but it was all he could think of to say.

Suddenly Bowen looked up at him with a fierce intensity.

‘BBC?’ he croaked. ‘Are you the BBC?’

‘No …’ Randall frowned, puzzled. ‘Police. From London. From home.’

‘Something to tell you …’ Bowen croaked. ‘People have to know …’

Suddenly Randall realised what Bowen had just said.
Keith
wanted him dead.

‘Listen,’ Bowen hissed, ‘you’ve got to know …’

Certain he was on the brink of some extraordinary revelation, Randall reached into the camera bag. If it was what he thought it was, he needed it on tape.

‘What was that, Stephen?’ he asked gently, switching on.

When he saw the video camera Bowen’s eyes lit up.

‘Is it on? Quick …’

‘Yes. I’m recording,’ Randall replied, steadying his voice. ‘What is it you wanted to say, Stephen?’

‘Keith wants me dead,’ Bowen whispered, mouth set hard. ‘Because of the money …’

His head dropped back, his eyelids flickering. His breath had the strength of a butterfly.

‘Keith who, Stephen?’ Randall pressed. He felt a door opening into another world.

Bowen mustered all his fading strength. ‘
Copeland!
’ he hissed into the lens.

‘The prime minister wants you dead?’ Randall prompted gently.

‘
Yes!
We had a deal …’

‘What sort of deal?’

‘A million for him and a million for me, if we got the money for the power station.’

Randall frowned. Mumbo-jumbo. Then he remembered the story on World Service.

‘Million pounds?’

Bowen nodded, drawing breath.

‘A million for
him
… who did you mean by
him
?’ Checking, checking. With dynamite you had to be absolutely sure.

‘
Keith
. Copeland! Listen to me, you’ve got to listen.’

‘I’m listening, I’m listening. You’re saying you and the prime minister were each getting a million pounds in commission for the Kutu power station?’

Bowen was weakening. His eyelids drooped. A white curd of saliva dried on his lips.

‘Yes. Sumoto arranged it … Four-six-five-three-two-nine …’ His voice trailed away.

‘What’s that?’ Randall reached forward with his spare hand to support Bowen’s head. The man was fading.

‘Züricher Bank … Next month. Next month we get the money …’

‘What? An account number? Yours? Copeland’s?’

But Bowen was gone. Unconscious again, his breath a rattle in his throat.

Shit! Evidence. Devastating evidence. But he needed Bowen to tell it in court. Camera off and into the bag. Bag on shoulder. Up on his feet. Where the hell was Dedi? Bowen needed medical help fast.

Out in the corridor he yelled up the companion-way to the bridge.

‘Dedi!’

Nothing. He went back into the fetid cell. Bowen was motionless. Not even the rise and fall of his chest anymore.

‘Don’t die on me for fuck’s sake,’ Randall hissed. He dropped to one knee. The minister’s face was in repose, devoid of pain.

‘I don’t believe it …’ Randall felt Bowen’s neck for the carotid artery. No pulse.

For a moment he considered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but the thought of it made him gag. Anyway there’d be no point – the pustules all over him showed the man’s body was a poison sack.

Suddenly feet clattered on the companion-way.

Dedi stuck his head round the door and beckoned frantically. ‘We go now, mister. ABRI come!’

‘What?’ Randall ran behind him up the steps and out on to the deck.

Dedi pointed to the west. A few hundred metres away, bearing down on them fast was the sharp, grey prow of the navy patrol boat.

‘Shit!’

What to do? Stick with Bowen? No point now. And anyway, there was no way to know whose side these navy boys were on.

They leapt the gunwales. Randall cast off while Dedi started up. Then they powered away, keeping the
Berkat Amanat
between them and the gunboat in the hope they’d not been identified. Dedi’s survival would depend on it.

Randall looked back at the ketch wallowing in the swell like a drifting, wooden sarcophagus. His shoulders sagged. He felt numb. He’d just taken a man’s life, but unlike in Malaysia, this time there’d been no life
saved
by which to justify it.

All he had to show was a statement on tape. An accusation of corruption at the highest level. Bowen’s last desperate card.

Randall turned away from the
Berkat Amanat
and faced towards Kutu.

Back on the island, two hours or more away, another life was in jeopardy.

Twenty-two

Kutu – east of Piri

13.40 hrs

THE COASTLINE WAS
close, but no more than a blue shadow in the haze. The heat blur which obscured it had helped cover their tracks. They’d looped south before turning east again for Kutu and – so far as they could tell – had avoided detection.

A mile from the coast Dedi throttled back, then cut the engines. Shoulders hunched, he moved from the bridge to the bows and stood listening. He was aiming for a bay east of Piri, familiar to him from diving expeditions and seldom frequented by army patrols.

‘Nothing?’ Randall checked.

‘Is quiet,’ the Kutuan muttered. He turned back to the bridge, restarted the engines and headed in. As they closed with the coast he tried the mobile phone, desperate for news of his sister, but got no connection. ‘Piri too far ’way,’ he explained, his face pained. A few minutes later Randall tried, needing an urgent word with Maxwell. Still no signal. Then the battery died.

He cursed. Absurd to have to rely on the World Service for updates from London. On the journey back to Kutu he’d listened to the radio every hour, but there’d been no change to the story saying there were fears for Charlie’s safety. He checked his watch, something he did constantly now, fixated with the notion that every second that passed was one less for her.

In the three hours since their escape from the patrol boat, he’d quizzed Dedi about where prisoners were taken on Kutu. Kadama would have been the first stop. But if Charlie was in Sumoto’s hands she could be almost anywhere. Then Dedi had snapped his fingers, remembering the small private villa on the coast road between Kadama and Piri, with flat ground behind for a helicopter to land. Sumoto had had it built when he was commander on the island. Dedi had heard a rumour once of a helicopter flying from there to the volcano. At a time when there’d been disappearances …

Sumoto still used the place occasionally, Dedi had said. He’d given Randall directions how to find it.

As they entered the bay, Nick scoured the shore line with the binoculars. Then, satisfied as he could be they weren’t being watched, he tucked the glasses away in the grey holdall, which already held the compact assault rifle taken from the
Berkat Amanat
together with two magazines bound together with tape. Thirty-five rounds.

Randall knew he would be on his jack when they touched land – Dedi had his own life to save.

Two fishing boats bobbed at anchor in the bay. On one of them a man in denim shorts and shirt lay under an awning, sleeping away the hottest part of the day.

They dropped anchor well away from him, then lowered the inflatable, the sun beating down mercilessly as the outboard sped them to the shore. Dedi bowlined a long line round a tree root, then, once secure, crouched beside Randall in the shade of a fig tree.

The air was still, the foliage electric with crickets, the coast here rocky and barren. A battered truck piled with watermelons rattled towards Piri. Once it had passed, Dedi stood up and turned awkwardly to Randall. The time had come. His hands clenched and unclenched.

‘Can’t help you no more, mister,’ he muttered, his flat face pinched and anxious. Survival for him meant going to ground. ‘Got to go now.’

‘I know. I understand.’ Randall held out his hand. ‘Thanks, friend. And if you ever come to London …’ Stupid remark.

‘Sure …’ Dedi allowed himself a brief grin. Then he pointed up the road. ‘Like I tell you,
bemo
come along here maybe every half hour.’ He backed away, the look on his face saying Randall had to be insane to be going where he was going.

‘Bye, Dedi.’

‘Bye, mister Nick.’

The Kutuan marched off. Randall stared up the road praying it wouldn’t
be
half an hour. Ten kilometres from town, it would take two hours to hoof it, with every chance of being picked up. And no Kutuan would risk giving a lift to a foreigner. So the bus it had to be. He twitched with frustration, trying to block his mind to what could be happening to Charlie in the meantime.

He had been responsible for her. No getting away from it. But it was more than a sense of duty driving him now. Charlie had got to him. She
had
penetrated his defences.

He checked the watch again. Just after two. Ringing Maxwell was his other priority. By rights he should make it number one – find a phone and tell them about Bowen. But the risk of being picked up that way was too great. Charlie had to come first.

Maxwell. How much should he tell him?
Not
about what Bowen had said. Too sensitive. And it could wait.

Another ten minutes passed before the bus came. On board three gnarled women sat with wicker baskets on their knees stuffed with squawking chickens.

The Kadama interrogation centre loomed on the right, impossible to miss just as Dedi had said – high,
grey
walls pock-marked with grilles. Randall took deep breaths to steady his pulse. The other
bemo
passengers kept their eyes averted.

Then he turned his head to look out for the brick depot Dedi had mentioned. Seeing it, he tacked twice on the overhead rail. The
bemo
stopped to let him out. As it drove off, he felt as alone as he had ever done. Alone and in the open. A white man on a black island clutching a holdall, strolling along a road where tourists had no business to be.