The Gilgamesh Conspiracy (25 page)

‘Oh…er…no actually, nothing quite that bad. They just said I wouldn’t have the courage to ask you. They told me you were out of my league and I’d find you too intimidating, they said.  Sorry.’

She smiled at him. ‘No need to be: I am intimidating.’ The smile dropped from her face. ‘I spend my working life being intimidating. I’m known as…oh never mind.’

He saw her brooding expression and wondered what to say to restore her smile.

‘I think you’re lovely,’ he blurted out.

‘Now that’s just the booze talking,’ she replied.

He smiled down at his glass of diet coke. ‘No really. I’d ask you out again but we do live a long way apart.’

‘That needn’t stop you.’

‘Ok! Well when I’m next in London, perhaps we could do this again, if you’re around.’

‘That would be nice, and I’ll look forward to it. I’m away for the next ten days or so but then I should be back home.’ She pulled a notepad out of her bag, tore of a sheet and wrote. ‘Here’s my private e mail address and my home number; call me when you’re coming. In fact call me anyway.’

‘Thank you,’ he took it from her and gazed at it as if it was a winning lottery ticket. ‘Look the last fast train back to London leaves in about twenty minutes. I can give you a lift to the station.’

‘I think perhaps I’ll go back tomorrow,’ said Gerry. ‘I could go to a hotel tonight.’

‘It’s quite late; maybe you should check there’s one available.’

She stared into his eyes. ‘Go on Phil.’ She gave him her most winning smile. ‘Take a risk!’

He stared at her for a moment before looking around the restaurant and then whispered to her. ‘Or, or you could come back to my place…if you like.’

Phil proved to be a gentle and considerate lover and after four months of occasional liaisons driven by the irregular nature of their schedules Gerry began to rely on him more and more for her happiness. Then one day she came home from an operational screw-up with her front teeth broken and a heavily bruised face. Despite her reluctance to allow him to see her she was desperate for his company, and sent him an e mail as she was barely able to talk on the phone.

‘Before you come in, I look bloody awful,’ she mumbled through her slightly opened front door.

‘I can hardly believe that,’ he said, ‘you’ll always…oh shit!’ he finished as she opened the door wide.

‘No you can’t hug me,’ she said backing off and holding out a hand.

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve got a broken rib.’

‘What the hell happened, poor love,’ he asked as they sat down on her sofa.

‘I was in a car accident, I wasn’t wearing a seat belt,’ she began. Then she sighed. ‘Sod it! Why don’t I tell you the truth?’ She stopped and stared at her right hand and he realised that her knuckles were bruised and split. ‘I was in a fight; in Leipzig; I got beaten up.’

‘Oh hell Gerry, I didn’t realise you did the dangerous stuff.’

‘What? Because I’m a woman?’ she asked sharply.

‘No of course not, because you always seem such a…a calm person,’ he said.

‘Oh hah bloody hah! You really don’t know who I am, do you? Poor little Philip. Safe amongst your code breaking and translating and not realising that your girlfriend is a fucking killer. You want to know what happened to the guy who smashed my face? I broke his fucking neck. I beat him unconscious and then I knelt on his back, got hold of his head and twisted it. It makes a really weird noise you know when the neck breaks. That’s who you’ve been shagging for the last few months; someone who kills people and gets paid for it. So I wouldn’t blame you if you just walked out and went back to your nice quiet life in Cheltenham.’ She stopped, turned away from him, and began running her tongue over the remaining stumps of her front teeth.

‘Please don’t speak to me like that again,’ he said. ‘I’m going to take the week off and the next week off after that if you’re not better, and furthermore if you don’t behave I’ll never leave you in peace again. In fact I don’t think I’ll ever leave you Gerry unless you chuck me out. Now what do you need me to do for you?’ He smiled. ‘I’m actually pretty good at making soup you know.’

‘Ok, well the first thing you can do is give me a lift to the orthodontist, I’ve got an appointment in forty minutes, but I don’t like soup much. I think I need ice cream, chocolate and pistachio.’

‘What, together?’

‘No! Two separate flavours of course.’

Later on she was lying on her back in bed which was the only position which prevented her ribs from hurting, and describing the realities of her life to him in more detail. ‘So you’re not going to leave me then, are you?’ she finished up.

‘Of course not. Is there anywhere I can give you a kiss where it won’t hurt?’

‘On my face, you mean?’

‘Not necessarily’ he grinned at her.

She managed a small smile. ‘You’d better make it my forehead. I don’t think I’ll be ready for anything strenuous for a while.’

Then while he was sharing her flat he had applied for a job in the MI6 headquarters in London, and with his linguistic skills he was readily accepted. He had not suggested that they live together on a permanent basis; instead he had rented his own place until he had sold up in Cheltenham and bought a small terrace house in Twickenham. He was able to afford it because his parents had died when he was only twenty-four and left him a fair amount of capital. She had been a little put out that he had not even suggested that they live together but then there was his recent promise never to leave her and she realised she was content with their off and on cohabitation at each other’s homes. It wasn’t until she returned home pregnant after the Mulholland business that she realised that actually she really did love Philip. She had been looking forward with some trepidation to telling him that he was going to be a father, because she had absolutely no idea what his thoughts would be. The idea that she would become a parent had never seriously crossed her mind and so she had never discussed the possibility with him. She wondered if he had been similarly disinterested or whether she had just been extraordinarily selfish. But before they could resolve any of these issues together she had received that message from Richard Cornwall. The time had been 11:37.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

‘Gerry!  Wake up!’

She sat up abruptly. The sun was just beginning to raise a red rim on the eastern horizon. She groaned and rubbed her eyes.

‘Why did you wake me up?’ She yawned widely.

‘It’s nearly dawn, time for us to have some water.’

She saw him grimacing as he spoke to her. ‘Are you ok?’ she asked. She stretched her arms up, gazed across the sea to the east where the sky was brightening and yawned again.

‘Yes I’m alright, I think.’ He frowned. ‘It’s just my head.’ He struggled to a sitting position and the sudden effort sent a pulse of pain through his head. He put his hand on the place where his hair was still matted with dried blood and moaned.

‘Ali what’s wrong?’

‘It’s my head; it really hurts.’

Gerry stared at him and saw the right side of his mouth drooping and his right eye closing. ‘Oh shit you’re stroking. Oh hell Ali. Lie down.’  She eased him back against the side. ‘Talk to me!’

His breathing had taken on an awful rasping quality. What could she do? She staggered over to the corner and snatched up the remaining water.

‘Drink this; come on.’ She tilted the bottle to his mouth and encouraged him to drink. After drinking half of it he pushed the bottle away.

‘I haven’t told you about Gilgamesh yet.’ His voice was slurred but she could just make out his meaning.

‘Oh fuck Gilgamesh,’ she said. ‘Come on, drink some more.’

She offered him some more of the water and he drank it gratefully. His breathing became less stressed.

‘How do you feel,’ she asked.

‘My head still aches,’ he mumbled. ‘I can’t feel my arm.’

Gerry looked all around the raft, seeking inspiration from she knew not what. ‘Ok, maybe the worst is over. You must have had a blood clot where you were hit on the head.’

‘I’ll tell you about Gilgamesh now. Tabitha knows where it is. It’s hidden in my house back in Baghdad.’

‘What? You have a copy?’

He managed a crooked smile. ‘That photocopy of the original, which Mansour made. I kept it. I never got the chance to give it back. It’s signed by all those people.’

‘Whose signatures?’ she asked, ‘who signed it?’

‘And seals. Official seals. I kept it hidden away. At my house in Baghdad. It’s been there all these years.’

‘Where is it hidden Ali?’

‘But first promise me you’ll find my son. And Tabitha…they know.’ He began to cough.

‘I’ll get you the rest of the water. Hold on.’ She retrieved the bottle from where she had dropped it, unscrewed the cap and supported his head with her other hand. ‘Here drink this.’ Then she realized his head was sinking down on to his chest, his breathing became more labored, slowed down further, then he gave one last sighing, groaning breath. She lifted his chin and immediately saw his right eye was closed and his left had a fixed stare. She placed her fingers under his jaw and tried to feel for a pulse, but she had seen enough death to know his life had ended.

She lifted up the water bottle and inspected the contents. She ran her tongue over her dry lips and drank what little remained. Then she slumped back against the other side of the raft and stared at him, turning over in her mind what he had told her. There was a Gilgamesh document; it was signed by a list of people who would not want its contents revealed; it was hidden at his house in Baghdad and his wife Tabitha or son Rashid would know where it was.

‘Now all I need to do is get safely off this raft,’ she muttered, ‘then I have to avoid the bastards trying to kill me; find my way to Baghdad; identify your house; befriend your wife and son; locate this document and bring it safely home. Should be a piece of piss really.’

Then suddenly she felt a sense of rage and outrage flooding through her. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ she shrieked. ‘I want to get those bloody bastards!’ She slammed her hands on the side of the raft. ‘I want to kill the bloody fuckers.’ She hit the side with alternate hammer blows of her fists, ‘I want to beat their bloody brains out, rip their hearts out, they killed Phil; they locked me up for fucking years; took away my baby; oh shit, shit, shit!’ she collapsed onto the floor and howled in rage and frustration until the emotion slowly drained away from her.

Gerry pulled Ali’s body into the meagre shade given by the edge of the raft and pulled his eyelids down. ‘Ali, I’m going to try and survive,’ she said quietly, ‘and if I do…well they’ll get what’s coming to them.’ She tugged off his sweater, arranged his arms across his stomach and draped the sweater over his face in a forlorn gesture of respect.

She shaded her eyes and stared overhead. Apart from a thin layer of cloud out to the west the sky was clear and the sun was climbing above the horizon. She looked at the sea. This morning there were no white capped waves, just an even swell over which the life raft steadily swooped up and dived down. She had become so accustomed to the rhythm she barely noticed it. She decided to set up the canopy again. If it looked like it was likely to become splashed by spray she would take it down and wrap it up so as to keep it salt free.

‘Ali, I’ve got nothing to drink and nothing to eat,’ she announced to the dead man. ‘I just have to do what I can to stop dehydrating, and hope your prayer for rain is answered. Although it looks like it’s going to be a beautifully sunny today. And hot.’ She pulled off her blouse and sweater, still damp and clammy from their soaking and spread them over the top of the canopy to dry. Then she thought they might get blown off by a gust and spread them out on the side of the raft with one of the straps tucked through a sleeve.

Maybe she would live three more days before she became so severely dehydrated that her organs would fail and she would die. Until then she had to do her utmost to reduce sweating, she had to protect herself from the sun and keep still as much as possible and hope for a miracle. She realised she was getting hot and perspiring so she stripped off the rest of her clothes.

For hour after hour under the shadow of the canopy Gerry sat very still. Every now and again she gazed at Ali, nursing a crazy idea that he would suddenly wake up and pull the sweater clear of his face. If he did, she would revise her opinion of ghosts, zombies and life after death generally.  She kept her breathing as shallow as possible and only moved to relieve aches in her limbs and vary the pressure points on her buttocks and back. A sheen of moisture covered her upper body and she gazed resentfully at the rivulets of sweat that dribbled slowly down her front. She used the bailer to scoop some seawater back into the raft and she sat against the side with a tepid pool swilling around her legs and then every few minutes she would pick some up and pour it over her head and shoulders.

From time to time she looked at the tainted rain water that she had collected off the roof sloshing gently about in the bottle and wondered if she would be better or worse off if she drank it. She suspected that in another couple of days she would be desperate enough to take the risk. Otherwise she would become more dehydrated and she would feel increasingly lethargic. Next would follow dizziness, loss of concentration and thereafter she hoped that she would just slip into unconsciousness.

For the moment she was thoroughly bored. She had nothing to do except scan the horizon with slow careful movements of her head. She passed the time by going back over her memories, trying to concentrate on the pleasant ones, but her mind insisted on recalling her more troubled times.

She had been happy at boarding school until the bullying started and she had turned into a lonely girl, sometimes a victim of teasing about her scrawny height. They had called her Miss Take as a cruel pun on her name.

Then, through her genetic inheritance, from a gangling twelve year old she had blossomed into a tall well-proportioned figure by her mid-teens. In addition, through a series of martial arts classes augmented by vigorous self-imposed exercise, she had become a tough determined character whom nobody dared cross.

First of all she had adopted a policy of totally ignoring the bullies whilst slowly building up her strength and agility. When she was on holiday back in the Gulf she enrolled in a judo class, and then she began taekwondo. After a year she had mastered most of the basic movements but what she really wanted to do was impress her enemies with a jump spin hook kick. At the end of the long summer holidays when she was sixteen she was ready to use her skills but by then the bullying had stopped. She was now tall, powerful, morose and nearly friendless. At the end of the year her father was posted back to London. Her parents wanted her to stay on at the private school but she insisted on going to the local comprehensive. She was five feet ten inches tall and weighed one hundred and fifty eight pounds of trained muscle and was immediately marked out as someone not to be trifled with. This reputation was confirmed when she came to the defence of another girl who was being threatened by a couple of young men and she used her skills to somewhat unnecessarily violent effect. Fortunately this incident took place in the town and although it was witnessed by her school friends, none of her fellow pupils were involved. Her parents had been somewhat aghast as the policeman who had been called to the scene just off the high street had officially cautioned her on the use of martial arts.

Her time at university had been fairly happy. She had finally had her first sexual experience in her second year when she had at last learned not to be so prickly with the young men who would ask her out once, but generally not a second time. By the time she graduated she thought herself to be fairly well adjusted but she sometimes wished she had not decided to read psychology because she subjected herself to unrelenting critical self-analysis.

After university she had applied to join the Intelligence Service and after two years she had joined Executive Operations. Her training had advanced until she was lethal with her hands and feet as well as with guns and blades and other weapons. Then a few years on, just as she had unexpectedly found her life enhanced by meeting Philip and the bemusing prospect of becoming a parent, her life was overshadowed by his death. And then after she had allowed Rashid Hamsin to escape, it seemed that some sort of divine or devilish retribution was visited upon her and in a state of bewilderment and depression she had ended up in prison.