Birdkill (25 page)

Kelly was already there, red-eyed and hunched over his notebook, a Starbucks take-out cup at his side. She had spent most of Sunday in bed with Clive Warren, they had surfaced only briefly to get sandwiches and a bottle of champagne. Clive called it pop which was marginally better than shampoo but still relatively unforgiveable. She let him know it and the subsequent play fight had descended into champagne-soaked lovemaking.

She smiled at the memory. Late in the evening, lying exhausted in a damp bed soaked with champagne and sweat, Clive had asked her about dropping the story. She’d told him she’d decide Monday after taking soundings at the office.

Kelly hurled a savage, ‘What the fuck are you grinning about?’ at her.

‘Nothing. Everything. You hear about Duprez?’

‘Yes, which is why I’m wondering what you’ve found to fucking smile about.’

‘Sorry, it was just a personal thing. I didn’t know you and he were close.’

‘We worked on stories together for twenty years. So you can perhaps do me a favour and show a little fucking respect.’

‘I’m sorry, Kelly. I, I didn’t realise.’ She avoided his fury by making a play of putting her bag down on her chair and pulling out her laptop. ‘Did you get any more detail about what happened?’

His glower faded. ‘Depends on who wants to know. How’d you find out about Duprez?’

‘A very fat man from intelligence visited me.’

‘Jolyon Raynesford.’

‘That’s the one. A real pig’s pig. You know him?’

‘Inside out. He’s had a busy weekend has our Jolly. He went to see my editor, too.’ Kelly slapped the cover of his notebook down. ‘We’re off the story, love. The mighty Telegraph and the glorious Guardian have both decided they don’t like the heat this particular potato is generating and they’ve both bailed.’

‘What about us? What’s Adel decided?’

‘Haven’t the faintest clue. I’m just here to tidy up and then I’m off to cycle into the lovely purple sunset.’

Mariam pulled out a chair from under the desk and slumped into it. ‘What the fuck? After all this? How can you do this? You’re national dailies.’

‘Sometimes something’s so toxic you just have to leave it. You pick your battles in this game. I can’t say I agree, but I’ve seen this happen before. It’s easier before a story’s blown up, see? If we’d have run a piece, they couldn’t have kept the genie in the bottle. But jolly old Jolyon got to it in the nick of time and my editor caved like Fred fucking Flintstone.’

‘And what about Duprez?’

Kelly focused on her and the penny dropped and Mariam marvelled. Oh my God. He’s drunk. He’s steaming. He must have been here all night.

‘What about him? He’s dead. Pushing up daisies. ‘salright, he only had two kids and a good woman who loved him. Nothing to worry about, like.’

‘I mean what about where he’d got to? Whose cages was he rattling?’

‘Why? What’s it change? You gonna go over there and finish what he started are you, darling?

Mariam flashed. ‘He’s dead. You liked him. I get it. Stop being a wanker.’

Kelly’s fists smashed down onto the notebook’s lid. It bounced. ‘Liked him? I
worked
with the bastard. We survived Bosnia, Kabul and Tripoli together. We were shot up, fucked up, blown up. He saved my bacon at least twice more’n I got his back. I owe him my life, twice over. You getting me? He’s fucking dead and I never paid the fucker back.’

Her flash of anger deserted her as quickly as it had come. She strode around the desks to Kelly and took him in her arms and he looked shocked, tried to push her away and then clung to her, sobbing. He clung to her, battered her back with blows that felt feeble to her as she gave him her succour and strength. Finally, sniffing and wiping his tear-streaked cheeks, he pushed her away. ‘Go on, fuck off.’

He reached into the desk drawer and pulled out a Grouse bottle. There was about an inch left in the bottom and he pulled the plastic cap off the Starbucks cup and owlishly decanted the scotch into it. The bottle clanged in the bin and he replaced the cap using both thumbs, finally sitting back with a sigh and a beam of intense satisfaction. He took a gulp from it and spilled whisky down his chin. Mariam was entranced by the droplets shining in his beard.

‘Duprez was good, you know that? I remember one time in Kandahar, I got a heroin-crazed goon from the Northern Alliance threatening to stick a bayonet in me back because he’s decided anyone with a map is a spy. And Duprez talks him down in a mix of Arabic, pidgin English and Pashtun. I never knew anyone with an ear for language like that stupid, dumb Yank. Anyone.’

‘America. What did he find out that got him killed?’

The question focused Kelly and he paused for a second’s thought. ‘Parker! Nosy Parker! The great General, Tom Parker. Three stars, by the grace of God. Duprez had hold of a secretary who’d worked with the old bastard, made accusations of improper conduct and got herself a court martial. Discharge, no pension. Do not pass go. She dished and Duprez taped it all. She’d kept copies of his Outlook archives. Clever girl. ‘cept she wasn’t clever enough not to get in a car with Matt who, if I know naughty young Matthew, has decided he was gonna mix business and pleasure and slip her one.’

‘Where are the archive files?’

Kelly scowled. ‘The hell would I know?’ He flung the paper cup after the bottle. ‘Damn.’

‘How do you know he taped her?’

‘Because he called me. Why are you so bloody nosy?’ Kelly struggled to his feet, gripping the desk. ‘I’m just going out.’ He stifled a belch with the back of his hand. ‘And may be some time.’

She watched him leave, brushing against the wall to support himself. She sent a test email to Duprez’ account. A second later, it bounced, with Google’s cheery
The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try double-checking the recipient's email address for typos or unnecessary spaces.

She was still staring at the screen, deep in thought, when Alan Kingsthorpe loped in. ‘Ah, there you are. Adel wondered if we might have a word?’

‘Sure,’ Mariam murmured, her eyes on the screen. ‘Give me a couple of minutes, Alan.’

She wandered around to Kelly’s side of the cluster of desks and prised it open. Her heart leapt with joy. Brian Kelly was, indeed, an old fashioned boy. Facing her was the Windows 7 start screen asking her for a password. She yanked the power cord and pulled the battery, restarting the machine in repair mode. A few clicks later and she had shortcut the password by re-assigning the ‘sticky keys’ utility as the command prompt and changed the system password to ‘Kelly’. She picked up the machine and left the safe room, taking the stairs up to Adel Ibrahim’s office two at a time and arriving breathless and elated.

She knocked and went in. Ibrahim, Kingsthorpe and a stranger in a grey suit were arrayed along the meeting table. She placed Kelly’s machine on the shiny black surface and cracked it open. ‘Good morning.’

Ibrahim was grave-faced. ‘Good morning, Mariam. Let me introduce Iain Carmichael. Iain is our legal counsel.

‘Good morning,’ Carmichael smiled. A little smattering of grey at the temples, a Tuscany villa tan and Dunhill cufflinks.

‘Are you going to tell me the Telegraph and Guardian are dropping us? Because I just met a very drunk Brian Kelly who gave me the news already.’

Ibrahim blinked and glanced at Carmichael. He shifted in his chair. ‘Yes,’ he drawled, reminding Mariam of a small boy playing for time. ‘That and the fact we have also given an undertaking to cease this investigation.’

Kelly’s email was downloading.

Kingsthorpe’s voice was stern. ‘Do you think we could have your full attention Mariam?’

She gazed up at him. ‘Sure. Sorry. So we’re dropping the Hamilton story or all stories from Buddy’s archives?’

‘Everything. Kovak was misleading us and we accept that fact.’ Ibrahim was talking to her, his words coming slowly and his regard directed at Carmichael.

‘You have been given those assurances by none other than Jolyon Raynesford himself, I take it?’

Carmichael flinched, which Mariam enjoyed. He shot his expensive cuff and smiled for her benefit. ‘I can say that we have been talking to security personnel at the highest level and have received a full briefing and come to the conclusion that the investigation is most definitely not in the public interest.’

‘And the clicks?’ She asked Ibrahim. ‘We don’t care about clicks anymore?’

‘Not these clicks.’ Kingsthorpe answered for him.

There was an email with four big attachments sent by Matt Duprez. All four were Outlook archive files. She clicked to download them.

‘I see.’ She beamed at them. ‘Well, that’s that then, isn’t it?’

Ibrahim looked relieved, Kingsthorpe’s pale eyes were suspicious. He leaned forward. ‘That’s an end to it. Any files relating to this must be deleted.’

Carmichael scrutinised the laptop. ‘In fact, I think we’d be safest if we took that, don’t you think?’

‘I doubt it,’ Mariam channelled the Cheshire Cat. ‘This is Brian Kelly’s machine. I was just fixing it for him. The project laptop’s downstairs. Would you like me to get it?’

Kingsthorpe stood. ‘No need, I’ll come down with you. It’s good you’ve taken this so well.’

She shrugged. ‘We’d sort of hit a dead end anyway. A bit like Matt Duprez, really.’

Adel Ibrahim’s soft face was censorious. ‘That was not funny.’

She picked up the laptop and pushed back on the wheeled chair. ‘Sometimes joking makes things seem better, believe me.’ For a second his thunderous face made her wonder if she hadn’t gone too far, but then she didn’t care anyway. She led the way downstairs, the open laptop cradled in her arm, the last attachment downloading.

‘It’s not your fault this has happened, you know. You’ve clearly got tremendous talent and I know there are other stories we can use your investigative smarts on already,’ there was a desperate-sounding edge in Kingsthorpe’s voice. ‘This is not an end, but a new beginning.’

She let him drone on as they stepped into the safe room. She plugged Kelly’s machine in and led Kingsthorpe to the Internet–linked laptop. She handed it to him. ‘Do you want the adaptor?’

‘No, no, this’ll be fine for now. Do you have any files on your own machine?’

‘No, we kept them in here.’ She lied.

‘Lovely. Well, clear up out of here and use your desk upstairs for now. I’ll pop down a little later and we can look at assignments together.’ He paused and gave her a grateful smile. ‘Well done, Mariam. Really well done.’

She looked down, a picture of modesty. He patted her shoulder and she hated him. She fished in her bag for her memory key and dashed around to Kelly’s machine. She copied the files and deleted them from Kelly’s system. She wiped the email from Duprez and cleared Chrome’s cache and browsing history, copied the My Pictures directory into a sub-directory to overwrite the deleted sectors then deleted the lot and emptied the Recycle Bin. It wasn’t perfect, but it would at least pass a cursory examination. She dropped the memory key into her bag and fished out a pack of wipes, cleaning Kelly’s machine with one of them and feeling paranoia had perhaps got to her. Mariam recalled Buddy Kovak’s flaccid corpse embalmed in its bath of bloody fluid and felt sick.

She trudged upstairs to her ‘old’ desk. She’d barely spent a day working in the busy little office and the various members of the 3shoof team were surprised to see her. ‘Howdy, stranger. Back to join us mortals, are you?’

She smiled and nodded, shrugged and accepted the teasing. She pulled up her chair and set up the wireless connection. She had to ask for the new password, but that was okay. She downloaded Outlook and installed it. Something stopped her from copying the attachments from the key and opening them. She went in search of Kingsthorpe and found him in his office. He was having a meeting and she hesitated to push open the half-frosted glass door. He beckoned to her.

‘Sorry, Alan. But is it okay if I take off for the rest of the day? There’s nothing urgent on and I wanted to take a bit of time out and, you know, get my head around things.’

He threw his arms open. ‘Of course, of course. Take all the time you need. We’ll get you properly settled in and set up when you’re ready.’

She gave him a thumbs up. ‘Thanks. That’s great.’

Mariam scooped her notebook into her bag and took the lift down to the ground floor. Striding out into the busy street, she dialled Clive Warren. ‘Hey, babe. What are you up to?’

He drawled. ‘Thinking about you.’

‘Right answer. Wanna come pick me up?’

‘Sure. Where?’

‘Edgware Road. Outside the Mount Lebanon coffee shop.’ She snorted. ‘Your two bloodhounds could have told you that.’

Damn, but he was fit. The sweat cooled on her belly, on her throat. The little thrills still in her stomach, the blush on her chest. Mariam let go the knotted sheet and held him, solid under the tanned skin. She ran her hand over the slick knotted muscle and reached up to kiss him, a filthy, gorgeous sweet scent over them both.

The fading light in the French windows shadowed where their bodies still met. That little moment of disappointment as he slipped out. Oh, God, but she was dirty. He tensed at her rich chuckle. ‘A penny, then.’

‘Nothing. I’m good. Fuzzy.’

‘Frizzy, more like.’

‘Leave my hair out of it, bully.’

His mobile rang. She groaned. ‘Ignore it.’

He put a finger against her lip. It smelt of her and she was instantly aroused. Oh, have mercy on me. He reached for the damn thing, twisted away from her and cold air rushed in to take his place. She pulled the rustling duvet to herself, cool cotton.

‘Warren.’ He listened. A male voice on the line. He slid off the bed. ‘Okay. Give me twenty.’

He thumbed the screen and slid the mobile onto the chair by the window. He turned to her and she admired his shadowed shape against the dying light. He was going to leave her and she wanted to scream no, but it was in his face and she held her hand out to stem his words.

‘It’s fine.’

‘I have to. It’s business. I’ll be back soon enough.’ Ah, business. She smiled for him, although her selfish self was yelling
No, you bastard, come back I want more of you! Now!
at her.