Starlight Peninsula (22 page)

She lay on the bed with a cold flannel on her forehead and whispered, ‘Thank you for walking him.’

Silvio now jauntily entered the room, waggling his whole body.

‘What have you done to him? He’s not brown any more.’

‘I washed him,’ Nick said. He put a glass of water on the bedside table.

‘That’s amazing. He’s a whole different colour.’

‘He stank,’ Nick said. ‘I’ve worn him out, fed him, and he’s done two shits.’

‘God. It’s so good of you.’

‘Do you want something to eat?’

‘No. Could you … It sounds stupid. Could you just stay here for a while?’

He took off his boots and lay down next to her.

She said, mumbling, glazed with painkillers, ‘When you’re sick, sometimes you just want someone near.’

‘I know what you mean. I haven’t got anyone at the moment, either.’

‘When you’re sick I’ll do the same for you.’

‘Okay. Deal.’

‘Nick? A man’s been following me. A tall, kind of lanky guy, with black hair. I thought he was in your house one night. I was coming across the lawn and I saw him through the glass.’

‘No. I don’t know anyone who would follow you.’

‘He has a tattoo on his hand. Of a dragonfly.’

‘I don’t know him, Eloise. You’re mistaken. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but living on your own’s not good for you. You’re spooked. Seeing things.’

‘Rubbish. I love being by myself. The Me time. The freedom. I wish I’d done it sooner.’

‘Hmm. There’s one thing …’

‘What?’

He said, ‘I’ve been meaning to tell you, there was a man on your property a couple of days ago, walking around your lawn. He went on the deck, looked through the glass.’

‘Really?’

‘I came over and asked if I could help, and he gave me his card. He was a real estate agent. He said the house was going on the market. He mentioned Sean Rodd.’

‘Oh no. Stop. Talk about something else. Chernobyl. Tell me about the Stalkers.’

He lay back, his head on her pillow. Silvio leapt up and draped himself across their feet. Outside, above the estuary, the gulls swooped and called, and the tide was running fast in the creek.

‘The men who worked on the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl called
themselves the Stalkers. Outside the zone, in a rundown hotel, we drank vodka and ate borscht. That borscht was memorable, I can tell you. The cream in it would kill you faster than the radiation.

‘The Stalkers had no fear. They worked with minimal protection, with skimpy equipment. The land around the plant was returning to the wild. It was a beautiful, eerie, poisonous place. Ten of us entered the zone on a bus. It was only when we were deep inside, driving through a forest that we …’

Silvio blinked his golden eyes, listening.

Over at the park the dogs raced to and fro, chasing each other across the parched ground.

Nick lifted the flannel from Eloise’s forehead, turned it and replaced it, smoothing it down. He pushed the tangled hair away from her face.

He said quietly, ‘Are you awake, Eloise?’

On the way to the Hartmann mansion there was a small, brief shower, the first in weeks. The traffic slowed, and a rainbow arced down between two dense black clouds. Rain drummed on the roof of the car.

Normally, this being a Saturday, Eloise would have embarked on one of her walks, leaving early, arriving home when the sun was going down over the peninsula. Now she drove with resolve and a faint sense of disbelief: was she really doing this?

At the ornamental gate, a camera turned towards her and a crackling voice enquired: name and purpose of visit?

She gave her name. ‘I have an appointment,’ she shouted.

There was a pause before the gates swung open. After the shower, the grass along the driveway glistened and the asphalt steamed. She
had entered a
Soon and Starfish
cartoon: the toy colours, the mansion with its fantasy towers and giant oaken door.

In the courtyard she parked beneath a white flagpole from which an unidentifiable black and white flag hung limp. The first person to appear was the security man, Chad Loafer. Unshaven, bleary-eyed, and even smaller than she’d remembered, he ushered her into a room with black furniture, in which lollies were arranged in bowls. Instructed to help herself, Eloise distractedly ate a couple of pineapple lumps, some jaffas, two blackberry jetplanes. Loafer hovered, muttering into his phone.

After ten minutes, the giant door creaked open and Hartmann appeared, dressed in the same outfit as his tiny bodyguard: black pants, a black top, black combat boots. Only Hartmann’s pants were stretchy and his jersey was the size of a duvet. Around his neck he wore a black scarf.

‘I am an early riser today,’ he announced. Loafer fussed around him, arranging his big chair. ‘Normally I get up at 2 p.m.’

She looked at him. He should have been consulting a talking animal, a magic dwarf. He should have been sipping from a jewelled goblet containing a foaming potion. Instead, he clapped his hands, and Loafer brought him a small tray on which were arranged two pills and a glass of water.

‘Pain relief,’ Hartmann explained. ‘For tennis elbow.’

Eloise waited and then said,

‘Thanks for seeing me. We just have a few extra questions.’

Hartmann smiled, showing his small pointy teeth. ‘Of course. No problem.’

She ran through a list, which he answered leaning back in the chair, his feet stretched out and his enormous hands steepled over his stomach. He was impressively articulate. At one point he said, ‘I have answered this already.’ To several other questions he said, ‘Refer this to my attorney, Lon Chasewell.’

They pressed on, until she’d reached the end.

‘So, Eloise,’ he said, ‘the sun has come out. Shall we go for a walk?’

They headed out into the grounds, Loafer following discreetly behind.

Eloise looked around, at the green estate, as well tended as a golf course, the lawns stretching away in gentle dips and mounds, the line of trees on the horizon, each straight trunk tipped with a plume of foliage, like a quill pen.

She said, ‘Did you mean it when you said you could be murdered?’

‘Sure. I’m supposed to have stolen hundreds of millions from Hollywood. The United States is after my ass.’

‘But murder?’

‘They carry out extra-judicial killings all the time. Using drones, assassins. I could be like the guy who was murdered in London with the tip of a poison umbrella. Or the guy they fed the cup of green tea and polonium in the sushi house.’

‘The Russians did those.’

‘Yes, but same principle.’

Eloise was trying to think it out. How would Arthur have approached this? What would he have told Hartmann — and not told him?

She launched in, with a reckless sense of unreality, ‘You’re a master hacker.’

‘Sure. When I was young, in my country, the government paid me to break into its systems, looking for flaws.’

‘Can I tell you about something?’

He paused. ‘This is for Roysmith?’

‘No, for me.’

‘What do you have in mind?’

But not long after Eloise had started to explain, he held up his hand. ‘On second thoughts, we will go to a place where it’s good to talk. And let us give Chad our phones. He will put them in the chiller, in the golf cart.’

‘Really?’

‘Of course. Chad will look after your phone very carefully. And I must ask you, Eloise, to speak in a tiny little voice. I know I am tall, but you must do your best. You must whisper in my ear!’

While they were talking the rainbow appeared again, and behind it another shower, drawing a curtain of chainmail across the horizon. Over the Hartmann mansion, the sky was clear blue. It was hot down in the still air by the barn. They were wading among the chickens. Eloise admired the birds’ shiny brown and black feathers. Their eyes were like holes. As she and Hartmann spread the feed the chickens rushed and then were still, they pecked and paused, their eyes were tiny circles of blackness.

She felt awkward to be whispering, but every time she raised her voice he frowned, held up his big hand.

He said, ‘So you say there was a post-mortem. And someone made an unauthorised inquiry. From outside.’

‘That’s what I was told.’

‘You think someone wanted to know the results of the postmortem?’

‘I don’t know. I just wonder who inquired, and if there’s anything unusual.’

‘You think someone might have wanted to alter the results?’

Eloise stared at him. ‘Alter them. I hadn’t thought of that.’

Hartmann poured chicken feed from one palm to the other. ‘I have to tell you, I am in a constrained position right now. I am being spied on. You could be being monitored, because you have interviewed me. I must ask, Eloise, why are you telling me these things?’

She paused.

Arthur, help me out. What’s the best way to put this?

‘I just thought, Mr Hartmann …’

A magnanimous wave of the huge hand. ‘Please. Kurt.’

‘I just thought of telling you about it, Kurt, because it concerns Ed Miles. The person Arthur called just before he died was staying at Rotokauri with David Hallwright. And David Hallwright’s other house guest at the time was Ed Miles. The police looked into the phone calls, but didn’t go any further with their inquiry after they got the postmortem results, which said Arthur was drugged with sleeping pills when he went over the wall.’

Hartmann said slowly, ‘Mr Ed Miles, Minister of Justice.’

Minister of Chustice
.

‘Yes. Back when he was police minister. And David Hallwright was prime minister.’

‘Ed Miles. My nemesis.’ He smiled, showing his wicked little teeth. The smile made him look so different.

Eloise took a breath. ‘So I thought maybe you’d be interested, and, I don’t know, have some advice. Anything.’

Hartmann stooped, and held out a palm full of chicken feed. He said, ‘Mr Ed Miles, Minister of Justice, is a serious problem for me. He has done a great deal to facilitate my extradition. I have a feeling he talks directly to the White House. On a regular basis!’

Eloise laughed along nervously, watching the chickens. The way their heads shot out as their legs, swathed in feathers like big skirts, jerkily carried them over the dusty ground.

Sudden dizziness. When had she last eaten anything, apart from Hartmann’s lollies? Last night? She said in a glazed tone, ‘Ed Miles is going after Jack Dance’s job. He wants to be prime minister. The PM is low in the polls. Ed Miles is backed by Hallwright. Hallwright’s come back from France, and has been meeting with Miles. Like, plotting.’

Hartmann considered this. ‘Jack Dance is in need of currency,’ he said.

‘Yes.’

Hartmann smiled. ‘And so am I.’

‘The thing is,’ Eloise said, ‘when Arthur died, I didn’t ask any questions.’

‘Well. We must question. It is our duty, as citizens. I, of all people, know this, Eloise.’

She nodded. How would you describe his tone? It was hard to pin down. Compulsively tongue-in-cheek, yet also searching, sharp. She was reasonably certain he was taking her seriously. Wasn’t he?

The dust whirled in the shining air, catching in the back of her throat. Her cheeks were hot; she’d got sunburnt walking over the estate to the barn. Sweat stood out on Hartmann’s face.

He waved out to summon Loafer, and Eloise was abruptly convulsed with such a paroxysm of sneezing she staggered about in the hay, raising more dust. Then Hartmann sneezed, a staccato series of small eruptions, surprisingly delicate in such a big man. He sneezed like a cat.

‘
Gesundheit
,’ he kept saying, ushering her across the grass towards the golf cart. Loafer opened the chiller and gave them back their phones.

She sat under the canopy, Hartmann’s huge thigh pressed against hers as they trundled over the bright grass towards the house, the sneezes running between them in a relay.

They walked through dim rooms filled with black furniture. In many of them the curtains were drawn. ‘There are eyes everywhere,’ Hartmann whispered, laying a theatrical finger to his lips.

In a vast kitchen, tropical fish swam in an aquarium above the stove. There was a black bench, a black table. A silent woman in a smock silently left the room as they entered.

‘I need,’ Hartmann said, ‘a snack. Would you like a snack, Eloise?’

He called out. ‘Raquel! Precious! Are you there?’

Raquel or Precious emerged, winding her hair into a bun and fastening it on top of her head.

‘Snackaroodles,’ was Hartmann’s command.

The woman turned smartly to the sink, opened the faucet with her elbow like a doctor, and soaped and washed her hands. She drew open the double doors of a giant fridge.

Hartmann squirted hand sanitiser on his palms and rubbed them vigorously. He offered the bottle to Eloise, who used it, lest he be offended.

‘Over here,’ he said, and led Eloise to a black table by the window, from which they could see the estate stretching away in a rolling series of grassy knolls.

‘I joke all the time, Eloise,’ he said, ‘but I am serious about being watched. I must warn you, it’s best not to discuss business in the house. Tell me about Roysmith. He is a charming man.’

‘Scott’s great. He’s the most principled journalist I’ve ever met. And he’s nice to work for. I love his wife, too. She’s a photographer. She’s cool.’

‘I watch his show,
Roysmith
. He cares about social issues, about the poor. He uses that word all the time, what is it?’

‘Splendid. Only I think he’s cut down on that a bit.’

‘He wears nice suits. Tell me, where does he get those suits?’

‘Someone called Ronald.’

‘Where do you live, Eloise?’

‘On the Starlight Peninsula.’

‘Where they demolished the old Starlight Hotel? Did you know STARLIGHT is a computer programme used by spies? It’s a force multiplier.’

‘Oh … What’s that?’

‘It turns data into actionable intelligence.’

The smocked woman arrived with club sandwiches and small bottles of Coke.

‘I do not drink alcohol,’ Hartmann said.

‘Oh God, no. Me neither.’

They clinked bottles.

The woman watched from the kitchen door, silently removing the plates when they’d finished. Hartmann said he was due for a conference with his lawyer. He saw her to the door.

Out in the courtyard, under the rinsed blue sky, Eloise said in a low voice, ‘If you’re so watched, how do you contact people?’

‘I have the best encryption, naturally.’

‘Okay.’

He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, it’s very straightforward. I can easily contact people without anyone knowing.’

‘Oh.’

‘Of course. This is my business. At the moment, I’m working on a system for encrypted Skype. One that is totally secure and works through the internet.’

‘Wow. Great.’

‘Anyone I want to talk to privately, I can send a message and we can meet if we need to.’

Eloise said, ‘It’s ridiculous, I’ve had the feeling lately that I’m being followed.’

Hartmann put his hands together. He pursed his lips, giving her a priestly, knowing look. ‘It would not surprise me.’

‘But why? I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m not up to anything.’

‘Aren’t you?’ Hartmann said.

Silence.

‘You are now,’ he said.

‘But I haven’t …’

Hartmann looked thoughtful. ‘In my experience, it is hard to say when something starts. You’ve started something coming to see me. But when you look back, it may be that you started it some time before.’

She sighed. ‘I really don’t know
what
that means.’

‘Sometimes you take action, or start asking questions, before you realise what you are doing. And sometimes you find other people are asking too — the same questions.’

‘I still don’t know …?’

‘Put it this way. I believe there is such a thing as Collective Consciousness. Information runs through the world and, in certain circumstances, our minds can tap into it. The internet is a man-made construction of a phenomenon that is already there. So if there is an unanswered question, you may find others are moving towards it, too. That is why it is so hard to say when something has actually
begun
.’

‘I’ve been wondering about ESP.’

‘ESP? Call it Collective Consciousness. The information is out there. Sometimes more than one person will read it, or start moving towards it, at the same time.’

‘It doesn’t really explain why I might be being followed. To be honest, it’s just as likely I’ve been imagining it. I’ve been living alone.’

‘My guess would be you are not imagining it. Events are merely coming together. Put it another way: our actions are more instinctive than we think. You believe you have free will, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘But really, many of the things you do are automatic, instinctive. And sometimes as a group, as a society, we move in a certain direction instinctively. We are all animals.’

She said, ‘The idea’s been coming into my head lately: a layer of the world has been hidden from me.’

‘And now you are alone, you are starting to make it out, to glimpse what has been hidden. You are not distracted. Your vision has cleared.’