Old Enemies (16 page)

‘So give them what they want!’ It was Terri. She glowered at her husband from the other end of the table; he wasn’t the only one who was feeling pain and had a right to express it. An uncomfortable silence spread through the room.

‘What
do
they want?’

It was Harry who broke the tension, much to his own surprise. He hadn’t meant to interfere, to get himself in the middle of what was clearly a growing battle of wills, but he found himself asking anyway.

J.J. moaned softly, his fists clenched tight with frustration. ‘They were in contact again, last night.’ He took several deep breaths, trying to summon up reserves of strength. ‘It seems this kidnapping isn’t about money after all. It’s about some diaries. Written by Nelson Mandela.’

The Mandela diaries. The words rattled through Chombo’s mind like a curse, as they did every day. He was sitting on a balcony of his favourite hotel, sipping a cooling beer and gazing out across the swimming pool to the landscaped gardens beyond. The breeze was gentle, the rain gone, yet he could find no peace, and knew he wouldn’t, not until Mandela’s ghost had finally been buried and his diaries along with it.

The name of the former South African leader was still sacrosanct, the most powerful political force in this part of Africa, and no one dared touch his memory. His official diaries had long since been published but in their wake had come whispers of another, more private and far darker set of scribblings, comments and conclusions written down in his final years that took an uncharacteristically venomous line for a man whose reputation had been built on an infinite smile. But these writings were different, an old man’s chance to get even, from beyond the grave. Three months ago word had spread that the diaries were being touted around, that they would not only rewrite history but also screw up a fair bit of the future, too, by humiliating many powerful men. Chombo, so it was said, was one of them.

Like every leader, Chombo was not all that he seemed. He had avoided the retributions and prolific recriminations of the Mugabe years, partly by ensuring that he could never be identified as a threat to the old dog, and in still larger part because of his reputation as one of the original freedom fighters, a man who, even as a boy, had fought for the ZANU guerrillas against the white regime of Ian Smith. He’d run messages, endured many dangers, flitted between bush and barracks to bring instructions to the black troops on whose loyalty the Smith regime depended but on which it could no longer rely. It was even said that when the bush war had spread into the towns, Chombo had helped plant a bomb in Woolworth’s in the capital, then named Salisbury, that had killed and injured almost a hundred people. Yet such bravery came at a price. Chombo had been caught and had suffered grievously in the prisons of the white man, and wasn’t the scar on his face proof of that, a constant reminder of what he had given to his country? But all this was a lie, a story put around by a few of his friends to kick-start his political career; it had seemed to matter little at first but like so many of these things it had gained a life of its own. He had developed a habit in front of audiences of running the tips of his fingers along the scar, which was deep and slithered down his face from above his eye line to below his lip. The crowd would notice, whisper amongst themselves that it was a symbol of the struggle, of white oppression, and every time he touched it was like the beating of a drum to muster people to the cause. It was an unconscious habit, he said, even to himself; he had never deliberately played up to it, had he?

Chombo’s thoughts were interrupted by a servant – no, steward, that was the modern word, and in all things apart from tribal loyalties Chombo was determined to be modern. The man bowed, took a pace closer and refreshed Chombo’s beer while a yellow-breasted seedeater hopped along the balcony rail, waiting expectantly for crumbs. Chombo loved this spot. Beneath him a group of schoolchildren was playing in the pool; they were splashing and laughing, like all children should. Theirs was a private school, of course, not one of the gutter schools that had been left in tatters through the Mugabe years, but they were children nonetheless and they deserved their games in the sun. He had to start somewhere, rebuilding his country, and this place was as good a spot as any from which to begin, for this wasn’t simply his favourite hotel it was also
his
hotel, at least in part, owned by a white businessman who had felt the need for a friend on the inside of the black establishment and so had sold twenty per cent of the hotel to Chombo. Not that Chombo had paid any money, but the money would come, eventually, from the profits of the hotel, profits that because of Chombo’s participation were swelling, which was why he had just that morning agreed to take another twenty per cent stake and . . . And so forth. This was Chombo’s Zimbabwe, modern, clean, thriving, with contented children and respectful staff, and if it didn’t represent more than a tiny fraction of the country, then perhaps one day it would, under his leadership. If he survived the election. And the wretched diaries.

Somehow Mandela had discovered the truth, that Chombo’s wounds had come not from torture at the hands of white men but as the result of a self-inflicted car crash on the Massachusetts Turnpike while he had been a student in Boston, that he had never played a part in the bush war, that he had never risked his life, except through drunk driving, and that he had never been inside Ian Smith’s jails or felt the swipe of his blade. Oh, it wasn’t a sin in Mandela’s eyes that Chombo had never fought or even that he preferred a master’s degree to martyrdom, but what Mandela would never forgive, as a man who had spent twenty-seven years of his life locked away in a prison, was someone like Chombo who claimed the moral authority of African suffering while in fact he’d been screwing his brains out between the legs of white girls on the other side of the world. Chombo was no better than a jackal that had come to steal the carcass after the lions had done all the dirty work. That was Mandela’s view, he’d written it down in his diaries, and opening them before the elections would be as good as splitting Chombo’s skull with an axe.

He had to stop the diaries, prevent Mandela’s ghost rattling its chains. Everything depended on it. That would take sacrifices, of course, but what weighed more heavily on his conscience, one white boy whose name he didn’t even know, or children like those who were splashing and squealing in front of him, the future of Zimbabwe? For Chombo, it was no contest. And as he sat there, reflecting on it all, he was delighted to discover that it didn’t prick his conscience, not a bit. He was turning over a new page. He smiled in contentment; his file would get thicker after all. He swatted away a fly and called for another drink.

‘For God’s sake, give them the sodding diaries!’ Terri demanded, her voice rising.

‘You know I can’t,’ her husband whispered, struggling for control.

‘What the bloody hell matters most to you, J.J.? Those diaries – or the life of your son?’

J.J.’s grey, drawn face suddenly flushed with anger. How dare she? ‘You know it’s not like that.’

‘From where I’m standing, it looks very much like that!’ Terri broke away. She picked up a photograph of Ruari that stood on the sideboard, one in a funky teenager frame – Harry noticed there seemed to be many more images of the boy about the place since he’d last been here, staring out from every corner. She thrust the portrait defiantly at her husband, her words squeezing through tears. ‘He’s worth more than any book.’

‘I know he is,’ J.J. snapped back. ‘But how many times do I have to tell you? That’s not my decision to make, and getting hysterical isn’t going to help him either.’

Her lips moved, but for the moment words seemed to fail her. Instead she cried out in despair. For a moment it seemed as though she might slap his face, she was trembling, tears pouring down her cheeks, but she turned away. ‘Harry, help me!’ she whispered. Her husband flinched. Then she fled from the room, clutching the photograph to her breast.

‘I apologize for that,’ J.J. muttered to the others as they listened to her running up the stairs to her bedroom. ‘Neither of us had any sleep. It’s so very hard . . .’ His own eyes were overflowing with exhaustion.

‘Which is why, J.J., I think we should call in the authorities. We need all the help we can get,’ Archer said.

Breslin turned on him. ‘I’ll not put my son’s life at risk. You know what the kidnappers said!’ He was panting in anger, his head lowered like a bull preparing to charge, his lips twisting and ready to abuse the other man for his insensitivity, for taking advantage of the moment, but even as the curses came to his tongue his shoulders sagged in resignation. The man was doing no more than his job.

Hiley joined the game, too. ‘It sort of makes sense, Mr Breslin. Our hands are tied without them.’

Breslin turned, feeling outnumbered. ‘What about you, Dad?’

‘Me?’ Breslin senior stirred from his perch in the corner where he’d been sitting quietly. He was a watcher, not a rusher. He scratched his chin. ‘Personally, I never was much for running to the police.’ As he spoke, his eyes were fixed firmly on Harry. ‘And the Swiss police don’t seem to be making much progress, two bodies and bugger-all else.’

‘Well, they wouldn’t, would they, not if Mr Jones is right,’ Hiley added.

Stiffly, reluctantly, like the creaking of a rusted drawbridge, J.J. turned to Harry. ‘What do you think, Mr Jones?’

‘I’ve got nothing to offer but guesswork,’ Harry replied.

‘Nevertheless.’

‘My guess is that they’re in Italy.’

‘On the basis of one phone call?’ Archer interrupted. ‘They could be anywhere – doubled back to Switzerland, or even somewhere in the Balkans.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘But you
guess
otherwise,’ J.J. persisted.

‘Everything Mr Archer says might be correct,’ Harry conceded, feeling awkward and exposed in his sweaty sports kit surrounded by all the suits. ‘We can’t discount the possibility that the phone call was a deliberate attempt to mislead us.’

Archer nodded.

‘But on the other hand, let’s assume the helicopter was heading in its intended direction. Look . . .’ He led them back to the computer with its maps and began tracing a path across the screen. ‘It was coming out of the mountains. There was no need for it to be flying in anything other than a direct line towards its destination. If it were heading south it wouldn’t have passed anywhere near Ceppo Morelli.’

‘And if it carried on east it could be sitting outside some souk in Turkey by now,’ the bloody-minded Archer suggested.

‘No, it couldn’t even get out of Italy, not without refuelling, which would have left clues. So follow the logic, and the flight path and . . .’ Harry’s fingers traced a line across the base of the Alps from Ceppo Morelli, across Lake Como, until it hesitated near Verona – ‘they’d have landed somewhere short of here.’

‘And then?’ J.J. pressed quietly.

‘Put yourself in their boots. If you were the kidnappers, wouldn’t you want to stop somewhere close at hand?’

‘So somewhere in Italy.’

‘Northern Italy.’

‘Even if you’re right, it’s still a hell of a lot of space in which to hide one boy.’ J.J. stood up from the screen and stretched his back wearily. ‘So what’s your view, Mr Jones? Should we talk to the police?’

‘I’ll say to you what I said to your wife. It’s a decision that only the parents can take.’

‘You did? You told her that?’ For a second J.J. seemed in pain as he struggled with the idea of Harry talking about such things with his wife. His eyes darted back and forth, searching Harry’s face for some clue as to what else they might have discussed, then stood silent, as though coming to a decision. ‘May we have a
private
word?’

He led Harry back through the sitting room, past the half-decorated Christmas tree, and out onto a small roof terrace directly outside the windows. It stood on top of an extension to the main house that Harry assumed might be a playroom or garden room, the sort of thing that was common as kids came along and families grew. The terrace had been packed up for the winter, its table and chairs piled in a corner, the patio heater covered, the plants in tall stone pots covered in hessian to protect against the frost. Dead twigs lay piled in the corner. Breslin stood at the railings, looking out beneath a dull, lowering sky across the frost-covered gardens, like a ship’s captain on his bridge searching the horizon for icebergs. He buttoned his suit against the cold, lit himself a cigarette and sighed, picking a stray flake of tobacco from the tip of his tongue.

‘Something just between us?’

Harry nodded.

‘I’ve acquired the rights to the Mandela diaries. They’re historic, intriguing, sensational in parts. I’d just done the deal when we last met.’

Harry remembered him bounding up the stairs and the words that had leapt from his lips.
They’ve signed! We’re saved!

‘The diaries are a huge commercial coup. And now we’ve been told to destroy them, otherwise we’ll never see Ruari again. A straight swap. But . . .’ He winced, as though he had caught sight of the iceberg, far too close. ‘The diaries aren’t mine, they belong to the company. They’re worth millions. I’m not in a position to do what the kidnappers demand.’