I strode back to the bank of phones, got the phone card out and dialled. Miss Grenfell-Brodie answered. I said, ‘Hello, it’s Nick Stone again. I’m very sorry to bother you, but would it be possible to talk to Kelly? I’ll phone back in fifteen minutes if that’s all right.’
She was obviously getting used to this. I could almost hear her sigh. ‘Yes, of course, but please try not to do this too much, Mr Stone. It disrupts her routine. Phone calls can be arranged through this office at a more convenient time for everyone concerned.’
‘Thank you for telling me, I wasn’t aware of that. It won’t happen again, I promise. Could you ask her to bring her address book with her?’
‘Yes, of course. She will be brushing her teeth. She’s just had breakfast. I will fetch her.’
‘Thank you.’ I put the phone down. I did know about booking calls. But then again, fuck ’em. Who was paying the bills?
Sarah arched an eyebrow. ‘Who is Kelly?’
‘Never mind.’
We stood there waiting. I could see that she was dying to say something more, but she knew me well enough to know I wasn’t in the mood to answer.
As I stood by the phones, more and more anxious about being seen, I realized that I no longer had to be. I could call Kelly from the mobile. We walked back towards the apartment in silence, Sarah still with her arm around my waist.
As I closed the door behind us, she went to wash her face. I put the kettle on. I thought about what Sarah had said. I didn’t normally remember the deaths I’d seen, but I could see the body of Kelly’s little sister as clearly as if she’d been slaughtered yesterday. Whatever happened, Josh’s kids weren’t going to go the same way. But should I tell him, and risk him doing his job and telling the Secret Service? I would in his shoes, but did it even matter? Would the ceremony go on if he did? Yes, of course it would. But what about the source? Would it affect the timing of the hit?
As the kettle did its stuff I bent down to pull the deep-freeze plug from its socket, then stopped myself. Things had changed, but pulling it would show her that she’d been right about me. I decided to leave it where it was.
I walked around the breakfast bar towards the sofa. What the fuck was I going to do about this situation? My first reaction was to tell Josh and get him not to tell a soul, but that wasn’t going to work. Even if, like me, he didn’t give a shit about the brass in the White House, he would about the kids. Then he’d be smack in the middle of the same predicament as me. Some of them must be his friends’ kids, and then friends of his friends. Soon every fucker would know the score.
Sarah came from the bedroom, her eyes still red, even after her wash-up. She saw the steam rising from the kettle and walked past me to make the brews. I checked my watch.
A different female voice answered this time. ‘Oh yes, she’s on her way, she should be here any moment.’
‘Thank you.’ I cradled the phone in my shoulder, expecting a wait, but almost at once got, ‘Hi! Why are you calling me again, what’s up?’
At first I thought I should try not to sound as if I was talking to a child, then I decided not to bother. ‘Nothing, just checking you’ve cleaned your teeth.’ It got a laugh out of her. ‘Have you got your address book with you?’
‘Sure have.’
‘All right then, I’m after Josh’s number, because I’m going to the airport in a minute. Guess what? I’m going to Washington and maybe I’ll get to see him.’
‘Cool.’
‘I know, but I need the phone number and I’ve left it at home.’
‘Oh, OK.’ I could hear the pages flicking in her Spice Girls address book. At the bottom of each page was a multiple-choice profile and a space to insert the ‘cool factor’ of the person the page was about. I’d felt quite proud to see that she’d circled ‘funny and weird’ as my description, and given me a CF of 8 out of 10. But that had all crashed before my eyes as I turned to the next page and saw her grandparents circled as ‘kind and gentle’ and given a CF of 10. Perhaps I’d have to start tucking her pullovers into her jeans all the time if I wanted to up my cred.
She reeled off the number and I scratched it on the piece of phone book, then tapped it into the phone as we talked.
‘Nick, why are you going to America?’
‘I’m going with a friend. Her name is Sarah.’
I looked over at her. She was staring quizzically, trying to work it out. I was sure she knew it was a child. Those things are hard to hide.
I said, ‘My friend Sarah is going to do some work in Washington and I’m going with her. Hey, would you like to speak to her?’
‘OK.’ There was a slight reluctance in her voice. Maybe she sensed that things were about to get complicated. I didn’t want to tell her they already were. Sarah came to the settee with two full coffee mugs.
I passed over the phone and said, ‘Sarah, this is Kelly. Kelly wants to say hello.’
She fixed her eyes on me as she spoke. ‘Hello?’ There was a gap, then, ‘Yes, that’s right. Sarah.’
I kept looking at her and hoped this was the right thing to do. It might come in handy, later. Sarah was still talking. ‘Yes, I’m going to Washington. What do I do? I’m a lawyer. Yes, I’m just going over to work, just for a few days, and Nick is coming with me.’ She was obviously getting the third degree. ‘Oh yes, a long time, but I hadn’t seen him for years. Yes, OK, I’ll pass him back. Nice to talk to you, Kelly, goodbye.’
‘Will you still call me next week?’
‘I promise. Don’t worry, this isn’t instead of next week’s phone call. I’ll see you soon, no worries.’ I was just about to carry out our normal routine at the end of a call, but checked myself. This one was different. Shit, this could be the last time I spoke to her. ‘Hey, Kelly.’
‘What?’
‘I love you.’
She sounded slighty quizzed at me saying it first, but very happy nonetheless. ‘I love you, too!’
‘Bye bye.’ I slowly took the phone away from my ear and switched it off, not feeling too sure how I felt about letting it all hang out.
‘How old is she?’
‘Nine last week.’
‘You kept that quiet, didn’t you?’
‘She’s a friend’s child.’
‘Of course.’
‘No, she is.’ I thought about telling her about Kev and Marsha, but decided against it.
She sat next to me on the sofa and cupped both hands around her coffee, still puffy-eyed.
‘You OK?’
She nodded, trying to regain some sort of composure. ‘Yes. Look, thanks for… I don’t know what came over me.’
As we drank our coffee I explained my plan. We would go to DC, and I would look at what Metal Mickey thought was so worth looking at. Depending on what I found, I would then decide whether to tell Josh, or just go for it ourselves.
I was feeling uncomfortable about the Josh situation, but cut away by trying to justify it to myself by the fact that he wouldn’t be back until early this afternoon, and by then I’d be with Mickey. So it wasn’t as if I was abusing our friendship. I took another sip and decided that was bollocks. Deep down, I knew I was.
Everything we did now would be paid for and ordered by Sarah, in the name of Sarah Darnley. It was part of her security blanket. There must not be any movement detected on my credit card or phone. We went back down to the call box and called the ticket line. We were going to leave for Washington National on the 8.50 a.m. from Raleigh.
After showering and sorting our shit out we drove north, back towards Raleigh. There was a constant flow of early morning commuter traffic. It was cloudy, but no need for wipers yet. First light had passed us by as we headed out of the city, stopping only to buy some coffee and a plain blue baseball cap for Sarah from a gas station. I had one hand on the wheel and was sipping coffee through the gap in the top of the container when Sarah, who’d been keeping one eye on her wing mirror, turned off the radio. ‘Nick, we have a problem.’
Behind us, and to our right, was a Fayetteville blue and white. I stopped at the lights as Sarah started to draw her pistol, placing it under her right thigh. On the basis of her performance so far, the mere sight of it got me flapping.
‘Sarah, let me do this.’
She didn’t reply. The cruiser came up level. My heart started to pound big time. Both of the patrolmen, one black, the other Hispanic, were wearing black, short-sleeved shirts and sunglasses, even at this time of the morning. Their chests looked bigger than they actually were, due to the protection they wore under their shirts. The driver was staring at us both, the Hispanic was face down, looking at a screen attached to the dash, probably carrying out a plate check on our car. I smiled like an idiot at the driver. What was I supposed to do? He wasn’t giving me any instructions.
It was Sarah who switched on. She opened her window, and at the same time I could see the black trooper doing the same. His moustache met his glasses, with acne-scarred cheeks each side. I couldn’t see his eyes, only what he was looking at in his mirrored lenses, but his demeanour told me that I wasn’t on his Christmas card list.
Sarah came to the rescue. ‘Hello, Officer, can I help you? Is there something wrong?’ Her voice was outrageous; it was the fluffiest damsel-in-distress impression I’d ever heard.
The policeman would have heard it many times before, only not in Cambridge English. He drawled, ‘Yes, m’am. The driver of this vehicle is violating the Federal Highway Code by consuming a beverage whilst at the controls of a moving vehicle.’
She said breathily, ‘I’m so sorry, Officer, we didn’t realize. We’re just on vacation from England and…’
The black policeman got the OK from his mate. The check had come through. He nodded back at him, then turned towards us. He looked at me and jutted his jaw. ‘Sir?’
The lights had changed to green, but no-one was going to hit their horn. I smiled like the dickhead tourist I was determined to be. ‘Yes?’
‘Sir, please don’t consume beverages on the highway. It’s an offence.’
‘I’m sorry, Officer, it won’t happen again.’
Trying hard not to let a smile reach his face he drawled, ‘Y’all have a nice day,’ and they drove off.
At the airport I abandoned the car in the longterm carpark. Formalities such as handing it back to the rental company didn’t figure on my list of things to do today.
I waited outside the terminal while Sarah went in and got the tickets. I needed to call Josh’s number, hoping to leave a message. Getting it clear in my head what I wanted to say, I hit the keypad.
A heavily Hispanic female voice answered, ‘Heelo? Heelo?’
‘Oh hi, is this Josh’s number?’
‘Jish?’
‘Yes. Can I leave a message for him?’
‘No Jish.’
‘Can I leave a message?’
‘Jish no here.’
‘I know that. I want to leave a message.’
‘I say to Jish. Goodbye.’
The phone went dead. I felt as if I’d wandered into
Fawlty Towers
. I redialled as Sarah came out of the terminal. She saw me and headed over. She passed, handed me my ticket and carried on walking. We were going to travel as two separate individuals.
‘Heelo? Heelo?’
I could hear a vacuum cleaner in the background. I said, ‘Please say to Jish, Nick is flying to Washington today.’
‘OK. Ees Nick.’
We were getting warmer.
‘What… time… is… he… home?’
‘He no home.’ Maybe not so warm.
‘
Muy bien, muchas gracias, señorita
,’ I said, using rusty stuff I’d learned while garrisoned on Gibraltar as a young squaddie. Then I added the only other Spanish phrase I knew: ‘
Hasta la vista, baby
.’
I checked in and made my way to the gate area. The front pages of the state newspapers glared at me as I passed the news-stand. The main picture seemed to be a fuzzy black and white still from a CCTV video of Sarah and me lifting the van. She was still looking like a sperm, T-shirt over her head; I was side-on with my head uncovered. It must have been taken at the point when the dog and I were about to have a major disagreement.
I decided not to buy the paper or hang around. The news-stand was part of the shop where I’d bought the maps of the lakes; maybe it would be the same woman behind the counter, and she could put two and two together. I walked to the gate area and waited.
24
The hour-long flight was late landing. The Ronald Reagan National Airport, Washington’s main domestic terminal, is a stone’s throw from the capital, on the west bank of the Potomac river and south-west of DC, near the Pentagon. You can see the traffic jams around Capitol Hill as you land.
I disembarked behind Sarah, who was following the rest of the herd towards the baggage area. We’d both packed our weapons in our bags; being a domestic flight, there wasn’t much of a risk. I collected my holdall from the carousel and walked off to the phones. It was 10.27 a.m.