The Perfect Soldier (35 page)

Alma nodded, one hand reaching for the pack of Marlboro beside her typewriter. She hadn’t taken her eyes off Molly.

‘What else is on this tape?’

Molly told her about the scenes at the hospital, the shots that had so disturbed McFaul, Domingos lying on the bloodstained table, a surgeon hacking off his leg. At McFaul’s insistence, Bennie had seen it all and Molly repeated his description, word for word.

The cigarette hung between Alma’s lips, unlit.

‘Where is this cassette? Does Llewelyn have it?’

Robbie stirred.

‘No, definitely not. He was raising hell about it before he left.’

‘So where is it?’

Robbie and Molly exchanged glances. Then Robbie shrugged.

‘To be honest, he and I didn’t get on.’

‘Who? You and who didn’t get on?’

‘Me and Llewelyn. There were a million better things to do in Muengo. As you might imagine.’

Alma smiled for the first time.

‘Is this another pitch? You doing your Terra Sancta number? Only from what I’m hearing …’ she shook her head, ‘we have to find the cassette.’

She finally got round to lighting the cigarette, inhaling deeply. Molly was trying to remember her movements, those last couple of days in Muengo, when Christianne had been nursing Llewelyn at the MSF house. The night he’d come over from the UN bunker was the night McFaul had found the telex about Giles. The telex had been in Llewelyn’s jacket. Llewelyn had been in bed, delirious with fever. McFaul had been across the other side of the bedroom, reviewing the video through the camcorder.

‘He took it away,’ she said at last. ‘I’m sure he did.’

‘Who took it?’ Alma’s voice was low now, intense.

‘McFaul. He was very angry. He put the cassette in his pocket and I never saw it again.’

‘So where did he go? This guy McFaul? Where is he now?’

Molly looked at Robbie. Robbie shrugged, reaching for another date.

‘No one knows,’ he said. ‘He just disappeared.’

McFaul rode into Muengo on the back of a UNITA truck. Katilo loomed over him, his huge hands on the grab rail that ran above the back of the driver’s cab, his feet braced against the constant jolting as the truck bounced and swayed along the rutted dirt road. On the outskirts of the city, UNITA troops were already dismantling their road-blocks, and the
soldiers straightened and saluted as the truck ground past them. Katilo returned the salutes with the merest nod. From somewhere he’d found an old paratroop beret, and he wore it pulled low above his eyes. When he turned his head, inspecting shell damage by the roadside, McFaul could see the faint shape of the outspread wings where someone had unpicked the cap badge. The sight of the red beret made him think of Bennie, and as they swung into the road that led to the schoolhouse, he wondered what had happened to him. Days and nights in the cave had blurred the passage of time. He might be home by now, back in Aldershot, settling into the life he always said he missed so much. Trips to Tesco with the missus. Couple of pints with his mates in the evening. Treats for the kids at weekends. McFaul eyed what was left of the city – the fallen power cables snaking through the dust, the burned-out carcass of a bus, piles of rotting garbage at the roadside – and for the first time he understood a little of the appeal of Bennie’s suburban idyll. Compared to this, Aldershot would be wonderful.

The truck bumped to a halt beside the schoolhouse. Katilo travelled everywhere with a posse of bodyguards, four uniformed soldiers with a taste for Ray-Bans and yellow silk cravats. They vaulted over the tailgate and jogged towards the low brick building, peering in through the open windows, testing the locked doors.

Katilo watched them, deep in thought. So far, driving into town, there’d been no evidence of government troops or even local inhabitants. The streets had been empty, no sign of movement except for the rags of smoke still drifting across the city from fires caused by the recent bombardment. Earlier, before they’d left the camp by the river, Katilo had emphasised the importance of finding McFaul’s camcorder. They’d be driving around the city for an hour or so. There’d be
huge crowds, lots of cheering, maybe even rebel flags. He wanted the moment immortalised on video, a permanent record, evidence that UNITA had ended Muengo’s long nightmare. The city was free. The communists had surrendered. At last the people could get on with their lives.

Listening to Katilo, McFaul had wondered exactly how much of this drivel he’d really believed. Both sides in the war were in the business of self-deception, proclaiming their patriotism and their popularity, but anyone working amongst the Angolans knew the truth: that the
povo
, the people, were sick of the bloodshed and the endless battles for local advantage. The war had long ago ceased to be about a cause or a creed. This wasn’t communism against the free market, or East against West. It was a handful of warlords, men like Katilo, determined to bend whole cities to their will and grab what they could in the process.

Gangsters in uniform, thought McFaul, watching Katilo adjusting his new beret before joining the bodyguards. One of them had shot out the lock on the front door of the schoolhouse. Now, Katilo reached up from the roadside, helping McFaul climb down from the truck, gesturing impatiently towards the splintered woodwork. He was to go inside the schoolhouse. He was to find the camera.

McFaul limped across the beaten patch of red earth, still patterned with the tread marks of the Global Land Rover. Inside, the schoolhouse smelled foul. There were fresh animal droppings on the floor and someone – presumably Bennie – had scrawled a cheerful adieu across the blackboard. ‘WELCOME TO MINESVILLE,’ the message read, ‘BEST FOOT FORWARD.’

McFaul went through to the dormitory. His own possessions were still in the kitbag at the foot of the bed but of the camcorder there was no sign. He’d left it on top of the
kitbag. He was sure he had. He frowned, bending to retrieve a small black hair clasp from a fold of blanket beside the pillow. He turned it over in his hand. The clasp belonged to the Englishwoman, Molly Jordan. She’d been wearing it the morning she’d come across to the schoolhouse, the morning Bennie had obliged her with the news of what had really happened to her son. He’d seen it when she’d been sitting at the table. McFaul looked across the room at Bennie’s bed a moment, wondering what had happened. The wall above the bed was still studded with tiny pellets of Blu-Tack but the photos of his wife and kids had gone.

McFaul shrugged. In the schoolroom next door he found Katilo studying a hand-drawn map of one of Muengo’s minefields, still pinned to the big easel Bennie and McFaul had used for training sessions. The shape of the minefield was outlined in green Pentel and small red crosses indicated the location of each lifted mine.

Katilo was counting the crosses on the top map. There were seventeen. He saw McFaul in the open doorway.

‘We blew them up,’ McFaul said drily. ‘In case you were thinking of using them again.’

Katilo reached out for the easel. Under the top map there were half a dozen others. Some of the minefields were fully cleared. The rest had yet to be declared safe. He studied the bottom map for a moment or two then let the rest flick slowly through his fingers. The man’s got a problem, thought McFaul. He’s been chucking mines around for so long he can’t remember which bits of his nice new city are OK, and which bits are lethal. As long as he was outside Muengo, tightening the noose, none of that mattered. Now, though, it was different. If he was to keep the people alive, he needed access to the fields and the river but access to both was barred by mines. Katilo’s perfect soldiers had changed sides. Soon,
poor fool, he’d want them disarmed and back in their boxes.

Katilo glanced over his shoulder.

‘Where’s the camera?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You said it would be here.’

‘It’s gone.’ McFaul shrugged. ‘We could try somewhere else.’

They drove to the MSF house. A shell had fallen forty metres up the street, stripping one side of a tree of its branches. The blast had also shattered the windows of the house. When McFaul got no reply at the front door he began to knock the remaining shards from the nearest window frame. He was about to try and climb in, using his good leg to lever his body into the room, when Katilo pulled him out of the way. He’d been watching from the truck. He studied the front door, stepped back, then planted a heavy kick at the panel beside the lock. The wood gave way at once and he felt inside, releasing the lock.

McFaul went straight to Christianne’s bedroom. The last time he’d seen Todd Llewelyn, the TV man had been prostrate here, flattened by malaria. In all likelihood, they’d flown him out on the Hercules but there was a chance, McFaul thought, that they might have reclaimed the camera from the schoolhouse, and then left it behind in this room of Christianne’s. McFaul began to search. To his surprise, Christianne’s clothes were still hanging in the tiny wardrobe. He went to the bed, pulling back the single blanket. The sheet beneath was cold to the touch. McFaul frowned, picking up the pillow. Beneath, double-wrapped in polythene, he recognised the shape of the video-cassettes that fitted Llewelyn’s camcorder. With the cassettes were a handful of spare batteries and a couple of leads. Katilo was looking at them too. For the first time, he was smiling.

McFaul gestured at the cassettes.

‘Still no camera,’ he said.

Katilo’s smile faded. He went to the window and shouted orders at the men in the truck. They ran down the path to the front door and McFaul heard the splintering of wood and smashing of glass as they began to move from room to room, tearing the house to pieces. After half an hour, they hadn’t found the camera. Katilo was standing in the wreckage of the kitchen, examining a pile of underwear in the sink. He picked up a pair of briefs, black lace, holding them between his finger and his thumb. His men watched him, following every movement.

‘No camera?’ he said softly.

McFaul shook his head, remembering the party Christianne had thrown, this same kitchen alive with the sound of laughter, and music, and the clink of glasses. Christianne had told him then that she wouldn’t be joining the evacuation flight. At the time he hadn’t believed her, blaming the booze, but a week later she’d evidently been as good as her word. Everywhere, amongst the debris, was the evidence that she hadn’t left with the rest of the aid community: more clothing, books, shoes, make-up, even an envelope of photographs. The photos had been strewn across the greasy kitchen table and Katilo had already been through them, recognising Christianne at once from the afternoon she’d spent with McFaul at rebel headquarters. Many of the photos had been taken on weekend expeditions upriver, and a couple featured Christianne standing topless in the muddy brown water. She had a beautiful body, big breasts, nice shoulders, her skin lightly tanned, her head slightly tilted and her face framed by falling ringlets of auburn hair. Katilo had lingered on the shot for a long time, Christianne’s smile telling him everything he needed to know. He’d thrust the photo at McFaul.

‘She had a boyfriend?’

‘Yes.’

‘English? Like you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But younger,’ he’d laughed, showing the pose to his men, ‘eh?’ McFaul had nodded.

‘And dead,’ he’d said, turning away in disgust.

Now, they left the house. The bodyguards had looted as much as they could carry, armfuls of trophies, and they tossed the booty into the back of the truck, awaiting Katilo’s next orders. Katilo was looking at his watch. It was late morning, normally the busiest time of the day in Muengo, but still the streets were empty.

Katilo looked down at McFaul. Both men were sweating now, the sun hot.

‘You think it went on the plane? The camera?’

McFaul looked away, back towards the house. Christianne would return here, and when that happened the soldiers would find her. Their blood was up. He’d seen it in their faces, looking at the photos on the table, pulling open drawers, sorting through her clothes, sniffing the tiny phials of perfume she kept in a carved wooden box on the dressing table. In the hands of these men, Christianne would be helpless. Afterwards, if she was lucky, they might kill her. Otherwise, they’d just do it again, or sluice her down and pass her round the rest of the army. Little something to amuse the troops. Little present from a grateful commander.

Katilo was still waiting for an answer. McFaul told him there was one other place they should look.

‘Where?’

‘I’ll show you.’

The drive across the city took them past the ruins of the cathedral. One end of the roof had taken a direct hit and
the road beneath was littered with broken terracotta tiles. The walls were pock-marked with shrapnel damage and a plaster saint in an alcove overlooking the plaza was newly headless.

The soldier behind the wheel was driving fast, enjoying himself, weaving the truck from kerb to kerb, avoiding the bigger chunks of masonry. On the other side of the city were the streets of tiny bungalows built by the Portuguese decades ago for the clerks and engineers they’d shipped in from the coast. Domingos had lived there and so, still, did his brother, Elias. McFaul had been to Elias’s place a couple of times with Domingos, and now he took the driver around the grid of streets, looking for landmarks he might recognise. Towards the end of the second circuit, the driver was getting visibly anxious. Katilo gave orders only once. Unless you obeyed, unless you did his bidding, the consequences could be painful. So where did this friend of McFaul’s live?

McFaul shrugged. An old man had appeared in the road up ahead. He was standing beside the remains of a tree. The driver slowed the truck, then stopped.

‘Elias,’ McFaul said. ‘Ask him for Elias.’

The driver spoke to the old man in Ovimbundu. The old man lifted a wizened finger, indicating a turning fifty metres away. The driver gunned the engine, and the old man disappeared in a cloud of dust. The turning took them into another road. The driver began to count the bungalows. At the fifth, he stopped. A dog lay sprawled in the road, its torn throat black with flies, and McFaul took a deep breath, knowing that time was running out. The driver was right. Katilo had no patience. If Christianne wasn’t there, they’d both be in deep trouble. The only card he had to play was the camcorder. Without the means to put Katilo onto videotape, McFaul was worthless. Even his de-mining skills Katilo would probably discard.