‘I need to see some identification,’ she said.
Begrudgingly they showed her their passes. They looked real enough. So did the uniforms. The taller one with the moustache was an inspector and the shorter one a sergeant. Their names were Coyle and Mulvey.
‘Tea?’ she asked.
‘Please,’ said the taller one, the inspector named Coyle. ‘Both white. No sugar for me.’
‘I’ll have two,’ Mulvey told her, and after a pause he said, ‘Please.’
The third man slipped through the door and stood by the entrance to the hall, in a rapidly expanding puddle of water.
‘And your friend …?’
Sergeant Mulvey stared at her for a moment without comprehension.
The man dug around in the pocket of his leather coat and retrieved a crumpled business card, which he offered to her. It said
Mark Mikulski, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
‘I’m only here to, uh, observe …’ he said, in a North American accent.
‘Do you want tea?’ she asked.
He shook his head, dislodging further droplets of rain. Then he looked around and, spotting a chair by the wall, he sat down in it. Inspector Coyle frowned, as if sitting amounted to a breach of protocol. There was clearly tension between these neatly turned out policemen and their unshaven companion.
She made three teas and was careful to discard the tea bags in the compost bin. Coyle stepped aside to let her get the milk carton from the fridge. She sniffed at it before pouring.
‘There isn’t any sugar,’ she explained.
‘Just as it comes, then,’ said Mulvey.
Turning to hand them their mugs, she saw that the dog was sitting in front of the American Mikulski and having his ears scratched.
‘Mr Said is a difficult man to track down,’ said Coyle. ‘He isn’t very popular with his ex-wife. He is no longer employed by the army.’
‘Who reported him missing?’ she asked, leaning back on the Aga rail.
They didn’t reply.
She sipped at her tea.
‘Is this from him?’ asked Coyle, pointing to the postcard tacked to the fridge. ‘May I?’
She nodded in assent and he peeled the postcard off the door.
‘Is this his handwriting?’
‘Yes.’
‘
I have things to take care of
,’ he read out loud. ‘What do you suppose that means?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘People often go missing from Peshawar. I mean, Peshawar is a staging post, for people heading for the tribal areas and Afghanistan, isn’t that so?’
‘You believe Jonah’s in Afghanistan?’
‘Not any more,’ said Coyle.
‘Have you been to Afghanistan, Ms Abd al’Aswr?’ Mulvey asked.
‘I have.’
‘May I ask what you were doing there?’
‘I was driving a truck.’
Coyle looked around him, at the dog, now curled up on the sofa, the breakfast things and two-day-old newspapers still on the table, the empty bottle of vodka and her socks slung over the back of a chair.
‘You’re on your own, then?’ he asked, in a tone that suggested that she lived in a state of disarray.
‘Since he left,’ she acknowledged.
‘You don’t have a telephone,’ observed Mulvey.
‘The line doesn’t reach this far.’
‘And you have a part-time job with Scottish Natural Heritage?’
‘Yes. I monitor the orchids.’
‘Orchids?’
‘There is a species of rare orchid on the moor. I keep watch over them.’
‘To deter thieves?’
‘Partly.’
‘When did Mr Said travel abroad?’ Coyle asked.
‘I don’t know. Have you checked with the airlines?’
They glanced at each other.
‘Did you discuss his departure?’ Coyle demanded.
‘No,’ she said.
‘You just woke up one morning and he was gone?’ asked Coyle sceptically.
‘No. I came back off the moor one afternoon and he was gone.’
‘Did he leave a note?’
‘No.’
‘And has he made contact since?’
‘No.’
‘Except for the postcard,’ said Coyle, standing very close to her.
‘Except for the postcard,’ she agreed. She held out her hand for it and reluctantly he gave it to her.
‘What was he doing in Peshawar?’ asked Mulvey, from the far side of the room, as he sifted through the papers on the table. ‘Mr Said, I mean.’
‘I have no idea. You won’t find anything interesting there.’
Mulvey picked up a book and rifled through the pages. ‘You speak Arabic?’
‘Yes.’
Their eyes were on her. She sipped at her tea.
‘Abd al’Aswr is an interesting name.’
‘It was my husband’s name. He was from Saudi Arabia.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He’s dead.’
Coyle and Mulvey looked at each other.
‘Mr Said has some Middle Eastern ancestry,’ Coyle told her.
‘Not all Arabs are terrorists,’ she said defiantly.
‘Goodness, no,’ said Coyle. ‘We wouldn’t for a second entertain that thought. Would we, Mulvey?’
‘Not for a second.’
Coyle removed a passport-size photo from his wallet and held it up, pinched between his thumb and forefinger for her to see. ‘Do you recognise this man?’
The photo was the same as the mugshot pinned to the wall at the centre of the collage in Jonah’s study, the man with the wry, self-mocking smile.
‘His name is Nor ed-Din,’ Coyle explained. ‘He’s a British citizen of Jordanian extraction. Do you recognise him?’
‘No,’ she lied.
‘Do you have access to the Internet?’
‘No.’
‘This gentleman recently appeared in a video. I think you would call it a sort of confession. In it he makes certain threats against the security of this country. Serious threats. I repeat, do you know Nor ed-Din?’
‘I’ve never seen him before.’
Coyle regarded her sceptically. ‘We believe that your friend Jonah was a colleague of his. The Department, have you heard of that?’
‘No.’
‘What about Richard Winthrop?’ Mikulski asked, leaning forward in his chair.
Coyle looked up sharply and Miranda had the feeling that Mikulski had deviated from a prepared set of questions.
‘No,’ she replied.
There was a pause.
‘Did Mr Said take much with him, when he left?’ asked Mulvey.
‘A change of clothes, that’s about it.’
‘A mobile phone?’
‘I’m not sure that he had one. They aren’t much use up here. There’s no signal.’
‘Did he possess a passport in another name?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he talk to you about what line of work he was in?’
‘We never discussed it.’
‘You don’t seem to have discussed very much.’
‘We had a predominantly physical relationship,’ she said. ‘We fucked a lot.’
Mulvey wagged a finger at her. ‘Now you’re teasing us.’
‘I don’t think I can help you any further,’ she said.
‘You’ve been very kind, ma’am, and we’ve overstayed our welcome,’ Coyle replied. He handed her a card.
Inspector Coyle. Counter-Terrorism Command.
‘Give us a call, if you remember anything that might help. And if Mr Said rings or writes, or turns up as suddenly as he disappeared, or you remember anything or hear something from a third party which could be of assistance in locating him or Mr Nor ed-Din, then please let us know.’
‘I will.’
‘Of course you will,’ said Mulvey.
‘It’s an interesting house,’ said Coyle.
‘A bit remote for my taste,’ added Mulvey.
Mikulski rolled his eyes and got up from the chair.
The policemen put their mugs on the table before they left. Neither of them had touched the tea. She stood by the sink and watched through the window as the police car rattled back down the track with the American’s head visible in the rear window, staring back at the house.
As soon as the car had turned the corner she hurried down the hall to Jonah’s study.
In addition to the photographs of Nor ed-Din she found three references to Richard Winthrop on Jonah’s board. The first was a clipping from the
Baltimore Sun
, dated May 2003, a block of text highlighted with a yellow fluorescent marker:
Like dirty money, tainted reputations can be laundered, as the Bush Administration fervently hopes in the case of Richard Winthrop. Now at the White House National Security Council, Winthrop has been chosen to go to Iraq to serve as deputy to Coalition Provisional Authority Chief L. Paul Bremer. As part of President Reagan’s policy of supporting anti-communist forces in the 1980s, hundreds of millions of dollars in United States aid was funneled to the Salvadorean Army, and a team of 55 Special Forces advisors, led for several years by Richard Winthrop, trained front-line battalions that were accused of significant human rights abuses.
The second reference was from the
New York Times
, dated 28 June 2004, the headline ‘
Bremer Leaves after Iraqi Sovereignty Transfer
’, and beneath it a photograph showing CPA chief Bremer striding towards a waiting plane in his trademark tan suit and Timberland boots. At his side, his head circled with a black marker pen, was a taller and equally determined-looking man in a suit. Beneath the photograph the caption read: ‘
L. Paul Bremer and his deputy Richard Winthrop IV stage an exit in one plane for the press and then fly out on another
’.
The third reference was in a cutting from the
Wall Street Journal
dated February 2005, an announcement by the security company Greysteel USA that it had hired a new vice-chairman:
‘Richard Winthrop brings with him thirty years of experience in combating terrorism around the globe and absolute devotion to freedom and democracy and the United States of America,’ said Greysteel owner, Thaddeus Clay. ‘We are honoured to have him return to our great team.’
With leadership drawn from the Executive Branch of the United States Government, Greysteel has the practical experience and the network to mitigate any security issue.
She sat back in the chair.
On the one hand there was Nor, with an obvious childhood link to Jonah and other parallels: both soldiers, possibly both members of the Department, both missing, both wanted by the police and the FBI. On the other hand an American, a Republican ideologue with a past connection to Salvadorean death squads, one-time deputy to the proconsul of Iraq, and now vice-chairman of one of the largest security companies in the world.
Where was the link?
4–5 September 2005
Miranda got off the bus at the bottom of Bowmore’s Main Street and walked towards the round whitewashed Presbyterian church at the top of the hill. It was a beautiful clear day on Islay without a cloud in the sky. The dog followed at her heels. At the Co-op she crossed the road and headed diagonally across the square past the usual huddle of teenagers standing around the telephone box and walked towards the school.
She knew that she could not approach Esme at home. The level of antagonism between Jonah and his ex-wife Sarah and her new husband Douglas was such that she would not be allowed to speak to Jonah’s daughter if she showed up at their front door. She also understood the reason for it.
In mid-1999, soon after Sarah announced that the marriage was over and that she had found someone else, Douglas was kidnapped and held in captivity for several days in a remote corner of Sutherland in northern Scotland. Jonah had not approved the kidnapping, he had not been involved in the planning or the execution of it, but he had been lured up to Sutherland in great secrecy on an unrelated pretext.
Jonah had described to her the ferocious mixture of emotions that followed on seeing Douglas lying face down on a bed of straw, naked but for a pair of underpants; the mixture of horror at what had been done in his name and a visceral anger at the man who had made a cuckold of him. There was no way that Douglas could have identified him – it was dark, he’d been wearing a balaclava. But Douglas had known that it was him, squatting in the cattle shed beside him, of course he had. Who else could it be?
The subsequent police investigation had failed to uncover any evidence to tie Jonah to the crime. He had an alibi and no desire to confess. But he remained a suspect. It was Jonah’s colleague Alex Ross who had recruited the team and undertaken the kidnapping. He had done so on behalf of Jonah’s employers in the intelligence services, who devised it as a means to blackmail him. All it would take was for one of the kidnappers to come forward and, in return for immunity, place Jonah in the cattle shed. He’d be discredited and imprisoned. Neutralised.
‘Why would they do that to you?’ she had asked.
‘Because I know things,’ he told her, ‘a secret that must never be told.’
‘What kind of secret?’
‘It’s better if you don’t know.’
She wondered whether it was because of the secret that must never be told that he had disappeared and the police had come calling at her door.
It was break time and the playground was full of children. Miranda stood by the fence and almost instantly spotted Esme. She was unmissable. She was playing hopscotch in a headlong rush, tripping from square to square, her wild and unruly hair streaming behind her. As she darted to the back of the queue, Miranda raised her arm and waved. The dog panted excitedly. Esme peeled away and ran over to the fence.
‘Hi, Esme.’
‘Hi, Miranda. Hi, dog.’
Miranda squatted down so they were face to face through the chain links, with their noses almost touching. Esme reached through and scratched under the dog’s chin and behind his ears.
‘Are you going to tell me?’
A sly smile crossed Esme’s face and she shook her head vigorously.
‘How about a clue?’
It was a game that they’d been playing since her arrival in Scotland. Give the dog a name …
‘Dog,’ Esme replied, after consideration.
‘It’s not very specific as names go,’ Miranda said.
‘Dog,’ Esme repeated.
Miranda smiled. She wanted to reach through the links and hug the little girl. ‘Dog, then.’
‘Has he caught many rabbits?’ Esme asked.
‘Plenty.’
‘He’s as fast as the wind.’
‘Esme.’
‘Yes?’
‘I wondered if you’d heard anything from your dad,’ Miranda said. ‘Has he called you or written to you?’