Disorder (Sam Keddie thriller series Book 1) (16 page)

Chapter 42

Downing Street 

The inexplicable news Frears had relayed – via a mix of BlackBerry ‘code’ and a hurried conversation at Number 10 – was the worst possible. 

   One of his team had tapped an old colleague at the Border Agency to see if Keddie and Eleanor had, by chance, left the country. As it turned out, they were in Marrakesh.

   The news felt like a winding blow to the stomach. And the fact that they’d only just discovered it, a full day after the two of them had arrived there, hurt almost as much. Here he was, the most powerful man in the UK, receiving scraps of information from the very departments he was in overall charge of. But this was the nature of his grubby little operation, one in which he could not afford to involve anyone else.

 
Stirling had spent the day at an academy school in Kent, gurning at teachers, pupils and parents while inside, his stomach did somersaults.

   What had he been thinking? He should have fessed up right at the beginning. It would of course have been a cataclysmic story and his premiership would have died there and then. But at least he’d have exited with some grace, perhaps even with the sympathy of the nation. Now he’d be vilified.

   It was simply a case of waiting. He’d stand on the beach, awaiting the tsunami that would sweep him away. 

   But at a certain moment in the afternoon, sitting in the assembly hall listening to the school choir annihilating a Beatles song, he perked up. Christ knows, he’d survived scraps before. The hopeless briefs he’d won as a barrister, armed only with guile and intellect. The rivals he’d beaten with a mix of bloody-mindedness, luck and determination to win the party leadership. And the biggest fight of all, the battle for Number 10. He wasn’t out yet.

  
What would Keddie and Eleanor Scott realistically find in Marrakesh? There was no smoking gun. No piece of evidence that would conveniently drop into their lap. This wasn’t a Hercules Poirot mystery. They were two British people in a very foreign city who in all likelihood didn’t even know what they were looking for.

   And even if they did strike lucky, surely there was something Frears could do, something pre-emptive. He thought of the turning point he’d made days before, when he’d more or less directly asked Frears to eliminate Scott and Keddie. He’d already crossed the line. Now it was time to finish the job.

*

Across the apartment’s kitchen table, Frears looked the PM hard in the eye.

   ‘So you want someone to go in. A specialist.’ The Guardsman’s voice was barely a whisper, but the note of derision was still evident. 

   ‘Yes,’ hissed the PM.

   There was another bottle of single malt on the table, but only one glass. Philip Stirling hadn’t offered the Guardsman a drink. Frears was not a colleague, and certainly not a friend.

   The sounds of the apartment leaked through the closed door:
Newsnight
on in the living room, some junior minister being slowly eviscerated. Further away, a lavatory flushed. Aidan getting ready for bed.

   Frears was dressed, as usual, in suit and tie, a flash of red brace visible beneath his jacket. ‘As I’m sure you know, these things require meticulous planning. Adequately prepping a man for Marrakesh would be impossible, given our resources. We can’t ask the embassy to carry out surveillance on our behalf.’

   Stirling, his head down, both hands lost in the thick locks of his hair, looked up.

   ‘Well, that’s not strictly speaking true.’

   ‘I thought this was a tight-knit op,’ Frears said. ‘The secret we’re protecting,’ he looked briefly at the closed kitchen door as if he suspected someone was listening on the other side, then lowered his plummy voice even further, ‘would, if out, ruin you.’

   He said those last words, Stirling noted, without a huge amount of emotion in his voice, as if the prospect of his premiership going tits up were merely inconvenient.

    ‘It was a tight-knit op,’ said Stirling. ‘But the members of the small team you assembled have not proved capable. Anyway, calm down. All I’m planning is a by-product of what we’ve been doing there anyway. The Foreign Office has, with the help of the embassy in Rabat, been compiling the names of every British national in Morocco, just in case the riots turn nasty and our people need to be rapidly pulled out. They will know where Keddie and Scott are staying. I can find an excuse to attend one of their contingency meetings and easily get my hands on the information we need.’

   ‘The name of their hotel is just the start,’ said Frears.

   Stirling glared at the soldier. His obstructive comments were becoming very tiresome. ‘Do I need to come up with every single solution? That’s what I pay you for, isn’t it?’

   Stirling watched as the Guardsman clenched his hands on the table before him. The PM swilled the whisky in his glass and downed it. He was, increasingly, waking every morning with a hangover – a thick, pounding head and a stomach that swam with acid.

   Frears seemed to calm. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘I’ll get on to the company database. I’m pretty sure we’ve got someone in Tunisia, a local. Just get me the hotel name. I’ll look after the rest.’

   Stirling’s shoulders dropped slightly. This was better. ‘I acknowledge that this is way beyond your original brief,’ he conceded. ‘But we don’t have a choice, do we? The alternative is to sit and wait to be screwed every which way imaginable. And I’ve put way too much into this –’

   At that moment, the kitchen door opened and Charlotte Stirling stepped into the room. With a look that the PM felt was worthy of the most wooden member of an amateur dramatics society, she froze in an attempt at surprise.

   ‘Oh,’ she said, with a smile that could have sunk the economy, ‘I didn’t realise you were still chatting.’

   ‘We’re not,’ said Stirling. ‘Frears is just going.’

   The Guardsman rose from the table, muttered goodnight to them both, and headed out of the kitchen, turning left to the lift.

   Charlotte dropped into his seat, taking the whisky bottle and pouring a large glass.

   ‘I hardly think that’s wise,’ said Stirling.

   ‘It’s not for me,’ she said, lifting the glass to her nose and inhaling deeply before placing it on the table before him. ‘It’s for you. You look like you could use it.’

   Stirling didn’t argue with her, taking another deep glug from the proffered glass.

   ‘I want to thank you,’ said Charlotte.

   Christ, thought Stirling. This sounds ominous.

   ‘You’re sticking with this, aren’t you?’ She leaned across the table, fixing him with her eyes.

   Once, a long time ago, Stirling had found those dark pupils, set off against the pale skin, rather attractive. But what had really drawn him to Charlotte Bowlby was her family wealth, money accrued from the vast tracts of Scotland her aristocratic parents owned. Dosh that had supported him on his long journey to the top.

   ‘I am,’ he said, hardly needing to spell out the implications of him not doing so.

   ‘Good,’ she said, matter-of-factly.

   Despite the death of their marriage, which had foundered when Philip was still practising at the Bar, the Stirlings had remained together because their overriding individual needs found succour in the relationship. At first it had been a mix of Charlotte’s vulnerability and Philip’s reliance on the Bowlby fortune that had done the job. But these days, the marital glue was made of different stuff. She was, at least ostensibly, much stronger, no longer so desperate for the crumbs of support he offered. The self-harm, pills and booze had been replaced by a steely façade acquired through years of therapy. He’d noticed another trait too. She actually liked being the Prime Minister’s wife. He could tell she got off on it. She had charities begging her to be their patron, organisations asking her to give speeches, magazines who craved interviews. She was wanted, if only after a fashion.

   And of course one other thing bonded them together. Something both of them shared and neither of them ever wanted exposed. A poisonous family secret that had, in recent days, like a powerful virus, mutated in a deadly new direction.

   This evening’s exchange had been unusual. Usually the dark secret was the source of blazing rows in which Charlotte, with tedious predictability, always sided with Aidan. Tonight seemed to suggest to Stirling that she was moving on, appreciating his efforts. Or possibly, he thought, she was simply aware of the very precarious situation the family found themselves in. They were staring into the abyss, a Tunisian assassin all that stood between them and a very long fall.

Chapter 43

Marrakesh, Morocco

They stayed in the riad, ordering more tea. Little was said. It wasn’t just that they were both tired. Sam could feel himself processing their recent exchange, his head, despite the danger of their continued quest, noticeably calming.

   As they paid their bill they asked the waiter if he’d heard of Marcel Hadad’s antique shop. The man sucked his teeth before finally giving in and scribbling a small map on the back of a napkin.

   On finally locating the shop after a circuitous walk through more alleyways, they discovered it closed. In the end, there was nothing to do but head back to the hotel.

   Once in the room, Eleanor headed into the bathroom for a shower, emerging a little later with a towel wrapped around her. Sam, who was watching a local news channel completely devoted to the continued tensions in the city – with excitable commentary in Arabic and images of small skirmishes between police and youths wearing balaclavas – tried to respect her privacy. But when her back was turned, he couldn’t help but take in the graceful lines of her shoulder blades, the dark wet hair clinging to her back. At that moment Eleanor turned, catching him right at it. Sam smiled awkwardly, then hastily made for the bathroom to take a shower.

   When they headed downstairs later, Kamal was on reception. Sam asked him if he knew the name of the restaurant where Charles Scott had dined on his last evening in Marrakesh.

   ‘I’d like to go,’ said Eleanor, noticing the doubt on Kamal’s face. ‘See the places he visited.’

   Kamal reluctantly gave them the name of a place in the medina, but urged caution and insisted they took a cab.

   It was dark as they left the hotel, a scattering of taxis and two slowly cruising police cars the only vehicles they passed.

   They were dropped at Bab Laksour, an old gate north-west of the Djemma el Fna. Passing under a stone arch they moved down an ill-lit, near-empty street, the few people out walking at a pace, as if there were a curfew that Sam and Eleanor hadn’t been told of. They passed a pile of rubbish bags that had been ripped open by an animal, the smell of festering food waste filling the warm air. A door slammed shut behind them, making Sam flinch.

   As his eyes slowly adjusted to the gloom, Sam noticed that the walls were covered with the posters he’d seen earlier, of the young woman. He looked again at the angry red message below her. The characters – a mix of simple loops, hard angles and what looked like symbols – had an ancient feel to them. Sam could easily imagine them on a cave wall, carved thousands of years ago.

   At the restaurant, the atmosphere in the alleyways was banished in an instant. They were greeted warmly by a maitre d’ in a dinner jacket – a man clearly on a mission to dispel the atmosphere in the city – and led into a courtyard. Eleanor gasped at the sight before her. It was entirely lit by candles and enclosed by deep red walls. Underfoot were thick patterned carpets while the white table cloths were sprinkled with rose petals. Somewhere out of sight, possibly on the floor above, musicians were playing a haunting tune that somehow combined blues with a distinctly North African sound.

   Sam guessed that most of the restaurant’s guests, although foreign, were not tourists. In the midst of rising turmoil in the city, they seemed too calm, chatting in hushed tones. Sam made out French, Dutch and German voices.

   An hour or so later, after courses of pigeon bstilla and lamb tagine, washed down with a bottle of French red, Sam realised he was staring at Eleanor again, and she was staring right back at him.

   ‘Do you know,’ she said, as if she suddenly felt the need to break the spell, ‘this is the most relaxed I’ve felt in days. There may be riots breaking out everywhere, but I feel safe here, miles from the UK.’

   When their waiter returned, they ordered tea and, inspired by the restaurant’s other guests, a shisha pipe. Before the waiter departed, Sam asked him if he remembered a dinner given for the British PM. The waiter beamed and gestured to Sam to follow him back to the passage that led into the courtyard. There, on the wall, was a series of framed photographs that neither of them had noticed when they’d arrived. In each, the cheery maitre d’ was seen shaking hands with some dignitary. Some Sam did not know – North African politicians or celebrities, he guessed – but others were instantly recognisable. There were faded photos of Chirac and Boris Yeltsin. Clearer ones of Blair, Clinton, Sarkozy and Angela Merkel. Then below, a photo of the night in question. It showed the grinning maitre d’ flanked on one side by a man who had to be the Moroccan Prime Minister, his wife and a boy, possibly aged about ten, and on the other, by Philip and Charlotte Stirling. Sam darted back into the courtyard and gestured to Eleanor to come and look.

  ‘Charlotte Stirling,’ said Eleanor, looking at the picture. ‘I remember her well. We used to go on holiday with them when I was a teenager. Most of the time she was drinking on the quiet, or in her room crying.’

   ‘I wonder who that is?’ asked Sam, pointing to the figure next to Stirling. The PM had an arm around the shoulders of another man, who was taller. There was a slight distance between the men as if, possibly, they weren’t as chummy as the gesture suggested.

   ‘Looks an unusually relaxed pose for a Prime Minister,’ said Eleanor. ‘Could be my father, I guess.’ She looked a little closer. ‘It’s a bit out of focus at the edge. You can only see a corner of the head. The hair looks quite long, or is that a shadow? It’s so hard to tell.’

  The maitre d’ passed by as they were studying the photo.

   ‘Ah,’ he gushed. ‘Prime Minister Stirling. A charming man. And the beautiful Mrs Stirling.’

  Sam realised that they had little hope of gaining any objective information from him.

  ‘Can you remember who else was here that evening?’ he ventured.

  The maitre d’ shrugged his shoulders, sweeping an arm across the gallery of photos.

   They returned to the table for their tea and pipe. Eleanor was the first to take a hit, the smoke drawn through water from a small bowl in which coals gently glowed. She exhaled, the air around their table suddenly dense with fruity smoke. She passed the pipe to Sam, who drew on it. The smoke was cool, soothing. He could feel his head lighten.

   In the cab back to the hotel, Eleanor sat close, her knee touching Sam’s. She did not remove it for the duration of the journey, leaving Sam with the sensation of a small electric current flowing upwards from his leg.

   In the hotel reception, a group of guests had gathered round a widescreen television. There seemed to be some heated discussion. Sam and Eleanor approached and saw, over someone’s shoulder, a man in a suit on the television giving a stilted address. Below him, Arabic words ran along the bottom of the screen.

   ‘What’s happening?’ Eleanor asked a woman next to her.

   The woman, who was wearing a hijab and a smart tailored suit, turned to Eleanor with a grim look on her face. ‘The man on the television is a government official,’ she said. ‘He is asking everyone to stay at home tomorrow. A lot of people are coming to march, people from outside the city. It will not end well.’