The Vanishing (6 page)

In the main house there was only Forestier, the Eaton girl, a woman called Mailot, who worked in the lab. All the rest were in the building right in front of him now, except the pretty little black servant girl who had inexplicably come out half an hour ago, the one whining down below him. She was in the boat, with another of the Somalis holding a gun to her head. Maxim risked a quick glance over the side of the jetty, and could see her panting in the bottom of the boat, her staring, white, animal eyes on the gun. He screwed his face up, hating it. He had used coils of rope from the crate he was now sitting on to tie her, then her own shirt to gag her, so that her chest was exposed. He could see her breasts rising and falling as she struggled to breathe. She was terrified, and had wet herself. The Somali was sitting in the stern just staring at her, like she was a specimen.

Her appearance in the middle of the night had been an upsetting complication, reminding him that he had promised the Somalis they could do what they liked with the women here. That had been a lie. He didn’t want them acting like animals. He wanted to do what he had come here to do then get out. If possible, he wanted no deaths at all. He loathed all of it with a visceral feeling, right in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t handle it any more.

Ten years ago his life had been turned on its head in the classroom of a burned-out school on the outskirts of Grozny. Age thirty-three, he had rejoined the 466th Infantry as a volunteer, on a contract, starting at sergeant – and he had walked into the Second Chechen War with eyes wide open, having already been there for the first conflict, five years earlier. But preparation was nothing. A stupid set of errors had resulted in him being wounded and captured, along with half his section.

They had been kept in the basement of a hospital first – five of them – then moved to a wrecked school. The school was closer to the front line – within hearing of the Russian troops – so at night the mutilations had started. Before this he had only heard about it – one of those rumours of brutality which were attributed to both sides, and which he had never quite believed.

But that night Maxim had watched the Chechens cut off fingers, ears, noses, lips, taking turns to do the hacking while four or five held the victim down. They did it in an abandoned classroom, where Chechen kids had once sat at desks and learned about the solar system (there was a torn wall chart showing the stars and planets). All the windows were smashed out by shelling, so that the screams carried clearly across the open ground to where the Russians were sleeping. There was a purpose to it, Maxim realised – to frighten the enemy – but that couldn’t account for the laughter. The Chechens were a mix of ages, but they shared a common sense of humour. They laughed genuinely, loudly, as if watching slapstick on TV. Eighteen-year-old Russian kids writhed in terror on the floor, blood welling from their hacked joints, and the Chechens stood and pointed and laughed until there were tears in their eyes. At some point one of them brought in a dog and it started to eat something they had cut off a scrawny little kid called Sergei, who had only been in Maxim’s section seven days. Sergei had cried and convulsed on the floor, the knowledge of his death etched into his gaping, innocent, little-boy eyes, while the dog had eaten his severed fingers. One of the older Chechens had to actually crouch down, doubled up – he was laughing so much it gave him a stitch.

They moved on to castration afterwards, two holding the legs apart by sitting on them, cutting crudely with their bayonets, throwing the parts to the dogs, now that the idea had caught on. And they still giggled and laughed, or sat in a corner and smoked and watched. Maxim thought he had seen everything, thought he could not be taught, but that classroom had given him his final lesson. Before they even got to him he was permanently changed. Now usually, when he was alone, thinking, even when his eyes were dry and he looked normal, it felt like he was crying all the time, inside – secretly, silently crying.

When it came to his turn he kicked and screamed and struggled as they tore his trousers off and held his legs apart. He made as much noise as he could, ignoring the laughter, ignoring the idiotic idea that he should try to bear it in silence, to deprive them of the point. The shells started landing right then, while they were in the middle of doing him. The whistle, the crump, the world shattering, the clouds of dust and debris, the blinding flash of the blast. Then there was the usual chaos. The same every time artillery struck.

His own side were mortaring the school. They’d had enough – some officer had decided sleep was more important than shelling his own men. The attack killed three out of the five prisoners, but maybe they would have bled to death anyway. Maxim hadn’t complained. It was an unintended consequence that the mortars saved his life. All the Chechens fled, leaving Maxim and his corporal bleeding on the floor, slipping in and out of consciousness as the world came down on them. That’s how they were found the next morning, when the advance started again and the school was retaken. They were pulled out of the rubble half dead, mutilated, their war over.

He pulled his eyes away from the terrified black girl and picked up the magazine he had found lying on the end of the jetty.
Intelligent Life
. Was this what Sara Eaton read to amuse herself? He flicked through it, trying to read it, to get his mind off the black girl’s panic. It was full of glossy adverts for expensive watches and pens. It confirmed everything he thought about the wealthy. They let life slip through their hands, they had no idea what it meant to be alive.

He heard footsteps on the jetty and looked up, throwing the magazine aside. Time to concentrate. Self-consciously, he wiped a hand across his eyes, just to check. They were dry. The man he had put on the house was walking towards him. Maxim stood to meet him. ‘Something wrong with your radio?’ he asked, once the man was near enough. He felt contempt staring at the man’s flat, ignorant, animal face. He was no better than the rest. Maxim had provided all five of the Somalis with very sophisticated radios, to speed up communications, but for some reason they wouldn’t use them. ‘Is there something wrong with your fucking radio?’ he asked again. He spoke in English. He’d been assured they all understood English.

‘The light has gone off,’ the man said, ignoring the question.

Maxim nodded. It had been like this throughout his dealings with them. He had picked them because they were for hire and they matched the cover perfectly. Pirates. That’s what everyone would think. But he wished now he’d thought of something else. Arisha would tell him he was being racist, but how could he help it? All they wanted to do was rape, kill and steal. He looked down at the one in the boat, who had stood now. He would have to stay here, guarding the girl. ‘You stay with her,’ he said to the man. ‘No messing around. You understand?’ The man looked blankly at him, licked his lips, looked up to the other one. Had he understood anything? The girl had seen Max, of course, seen him telling the others what to do, so she was a problem. The cover story wouldn’t last long once she started talking. And she could identify him, if things really went wrong. He could threaten her, threaten her family – would that solve it? He really didn’t want to kill her. But he couldn’t think about it now. Right now he had to forget about her, get his mind on what was about to happen. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to the one beside him. ‘Time to start.’

Tom woke into blackness, unsure where he was, fireworks going off somewhere in the distance. It took him a while to place himself. Then he remembered in quick succession the plane journey out, the meeting with Sara Eaton, the food, the drink. Too much drink. His head was sore. He needed water. He had no watch, so no idea what time it was, and since there was no mobile cover out here he’d switched his phone off.

He lay for a few seconds in the pitch darkness trying to recall the entire evening, most of it spent in the summerhouse with his new client. Except she had never been a client, he recalled, and wouldn’t ever be, now. That had been the disappointing conclusion to the evening. Not being able to help her with the business side she had already arranged for him to fly back to the UK in two days’ time. But she’d kept him that long. That was interesting – that she had wanted him to stay two days with her, for no apparent purpose. She had not been what he would have expected from the super-wealthy. But then, she was the only person he had ever met who fitted that description. Maybe she was typical. He didn’t have a clue.

Another noise from outside made him remember that he had woken to the sound of fireworks. At least, that was his impression as his eyes had opened. Could that be right? Or had he dreamed it? He tried to place the sound he had just heard, but couldn’t. Something breaking? He rolled in the big bed and found the water bottle she had given him on the floor. He took a drink, clumsily in the darkness, then got his feet on to the floor. The room was so dark because he had pulled big wooden shutters over the windows, he recalled. Outside it had been clear, bright moonlight as they had sat drinking and chatting, swatting the mosquitoes. He groaned, still feeling half asleep. How much had he told her about himself? Considering her age, she had been surprisingly good at getting him to talk. And all that stuff about his eyes. He smiled to himself. Had she been flirting? Incredible. He wondered whether that would continue over the next couple of days.

Again a noise interrupted his thoughts. Fireworks again? He could hear shouting now. Why would there be fireworks? Some private celebration among the staff? Some pagan ritual, maybe. God knows what went on out here after dark. He was in the middle of nowhere. Sara had seemed oddly normal, but at the end of the day the world she lived in was incomprehensible to him. He wouldn’t be surprised by anything.

A loud shrieking started. It got louder before he realised it wasn’t a monkey. Immediately he was on his feet. Was it a woman? His body went into panic mode, his heart suddenly thumping furiously. A short stream of crackling explosions split the air, like firecrackers. He recognised the sound at once. He was listening to an automatic weapon, maybe more than one. What had woken him was gunfire, not fireworks. And a woman screaming in distress.

He thought to pull his clothes on quickly and found the light switch by the bed. It didn’t work. The electricity was down. Of course. That was why he could hear everything. That was why he was sweating so much. The rattling air-conditioning unit was off. He stumbled to the window and pushed the shutters wide open. The moonlight streamed in, blinding him. He shielded his eyes and saw figures running, down by the dock and nearer, then another scream, from somewhere in front of him, not from the house.

He stepped back, now very frightened. Something was going on. He saw he already had all his clothes on, his wallet, mobile and passport in his trouser pockets. Even his shoes were on. He must have collapsed like that into the bed, a little drunk, exhausted by the heat. But now he had to get out of here. He had to find out what was happening, hide if necessary, but not stay in here, waiting for it to come to him.

He pulled the door open too quickly, too carelessly, then shut it again. There could be people out there, waiting to shoot at him. There were guns involved. He had to think before he acted. His brain was going into overdrive, running through the information. What
could
be going on?

It was like a burglary, maybe. But they were on an inaccessible island in the Indian Ocean. Did that happen? Could burglaries happen out here? He moved cautiously back to the window and looked out again. This time he could see nothing at all – no running figures, no muzzle flashes. Had he really heard guns being fired down there? He had a dizzying sensation of confusion. Everything was silent now, totally silent. Was he dreaming it all, right now?

He heard a man’s voice, shouting something, high-pitched, full of fear. There was nothing dreamlike about it. He went back to the door. He was on the top floor, Sara had a huge room on the floor below him. He’d been given a tour and seen where it was. He should go there. That was the only thing he could do. He edged the door open a fraction and squinted into the gloomy passageway beyond. There was no one there. But from below he could hear running feet, doors slamming, definitely in this house. There was a palpable atmosphere of danger and panic. He realised he could smell smoke, something burning. He moved out into the passage and ran to the stairway. There was movement somewhere farther down. He looked over the edge but it was too dark to see.

He took the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible, on tiptoe, but running. On the floor below he turned towards where her room was and immediately saw something lying in the shadows, halfway along the passage. He crept to it, his muscles tense. Before he was anywhere near he realised it was a person, lying flat on their stomach, arms spread. He took in the blood, in a dark, glistening patch on the bare boarding, the clothing pulled up around the head as after a struggle and violence. It was a man, he thought. There was no movement at all. No breathing. Was it the man called Arthur, the chef? He inched forward, intending to check for vital signs, but immediately heard Sara speaking. At the same time there were three more shots from outside, but closer. The shots drowned out her voice, so he couldn’t make out the words, but he could hear the fear in them. She was speaking very quickly, like she was pleading, breathless. He stood and moved quickly along the gloomy passage, towards the point where there were three chairs placed against the wall. Past them were the double doors to her room. They were wide open.

He came round the chairs with his pulse racing, instinctively in a crouch. He was sure she was speaking to someone, that something was happening inside her room. He had no time to think about it, but all his police experience was screaming that there must be some kind of robbery under way. As he passed the last chair he picked it up and held it in front of him, as a shield, then stuck his head round the door.

His brain registered the images like a series of snapshots, in a split second, everything racing. There was a tall man directly in front of him, back to the door, blocking his view, about two metres inside the room. The room was lit by moonlight streaming in through a long, wide window. The man was armed – a long weapon, a rifle. He was black, short hair, very muscular, very tall. He was pointing the gun at Sara. She was on the floor, on her knees, hands on top of her head. As Tom’s head came into view the man started to turn, towards him, following Sara’s glance. Her eyes had flicked to Tom immediately, giving him away.