‘Get back in, man. Jesus.’
In the second car, the package – some grey-suited fuck from New York or Washington – has his window down and is looking over at the wooden huts, clearly nervous.
Up ahead, Ray sees what is wrong – there’s a pile of vegetables or some shit spilled in the middle of the road, and two women are frantically loading whatever it is back into a large wicker basket.
Behind them, playing, are three small children.
Ray glances across at the wooden huts and thinks he detects something… inside one of them, movement… someone… moving. Then he turns in the other direction and looks towards the concrete structure, only a sliver of which he can actually see, due to the position of the two SUVs. But framed there in the space between them is a tall man leaning against the wall, staring right back at him.
The man’s face is long and drawn, his expression intense, his eyes bloodshot.
He seems restive, restless… shifty.
Ray hears the crackle of another radio communication from inside the car, but he can’t make out what is being said.
He looks around again, rapidly – at the huts, between the SUVs, up ahead – the only difference this time being that the two women have stopped doing what they were doing.
Perfectly still now, crouched on the ground, they too are staring directly at him.
And that’s when it dawns on Ray what’s going on, what this is – it’s not fear, not anxiety, not regret, it’s anticipation… a sickly, pounding realisation of what might happen here, of what he might do, of what he might be capable of doing, and while there’s no way he could have known in advance they were going to stop in this village, not consciously anyway, it’s as if his body knew, as if every nerve ending in his system knew, recognised the signals, picked up on them, so that now, as he raises his weapon a little higher, he feels the rhythm of his heartbeat falling into sync with the rhythm of this unfolding situation…
He directs the muzzle of the gun at the huts, then at the women and children.
‘Kroner, Jesus, are you fucking crazy?’
Ray glances back at the car, Deep Six more animated than he has ever seen him.
In the middle car, the package is still staring out of the window, a look of horror forming on his face. It’s as though the anticipation has spread, as though it’s a virus, or a stain, alive somehow, crimson and thirsty.
Ray swallows.
He’s thirsty himself, the feeling in his veins now inexorable, like a dark, slowly uncoiling sexual desire that senses imminent release.
He puts his finger on the trigger.
A few feet away, the door of the lead car opens slightly, just a crack.
‘RAY.’
This is shouted.
Ray exerts a tiny amount of pressure on the trigger.
‘Tube,’ he shouts back. ‘DON’T.’
The car door clicks shut again.
Ray refocuses, taking everything in.
But there’s no longer any movement he can detect from inside the huts. And the man at the concrete wall is inert now, frozen – like a splash of detail from some busy urban mural.
The women ahead are frozen too, and still staring at him – though the children in the background seem oblivious, unaware…
Hopping, dancing.
Licks of flames.
In the oppressive heat, Ray shivers.
He really doesn’t have any idea what he is doing, or why, but one thing he does know – there is nothing on earth, nothing on the vast continent of Africa, nothing in the even greater interior vastness of Congo itself, that can stop him now from doing it.
1
PHONE RINGS.
Jimmy puts his coffee down and reaches across the desk to answer it.
He glances at the display, vaguely recognises the number, can’t quite place it.
‘Yeah?’
‘Well, well, young Mr Gilroy. Phil Sweeney.’
Jimmy’s pulse quickens. Of course. The voice is unmistakable. He straightens up. ‘Phil? God, it’s been a while. How are you doing?’
‘Not bad. Keeping busy. You?’
‘Pretty good, yeah.’
And after this, Jimmy thinking, maybe a little better.
‘So that was a shame there, all those cutbacks. Hard going, I imagine.’
‘Yeah.’ Jimmy nods. ‘It’s not exactly front page news anymore, though.’
‘No, no, of course not. But come here. Listen.’ Formalities out of the way, it seems. Very Phil. ‘Is it true what I hear?’
‘Er… I don’t know, Phil. What do you hear?’
‘That you’re writing an article or something… about Susie Monaghan?’
Jimmy looks at the block of text on the screen of his iMac. ‘Yeah,’ he says, after a pause. ‘But it’s not an article. It’s a book.’ Cagey now. ‘A biography.’
‘Jesus, Jimmy.’
‘What?’
‘I’m no editor, but… Susie Monaghan? Give me a break. Tell me it’s not the prospect of the last chapter they’re drooling over.’
Jimmy is taken aback at this – celebrity drool, as he remembers it, always having been something of a Phil Sweeney speciality. Though he’s right in one respect. The paragraphs Jimmy currently has on the screen are from the last chapter, the longest and most detailed in the book and the one he’s tackling first.
‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘But that’s not all they’re interested in. There’s plenty of other stuff. The boyfriends, the drugs, the tantrums.’
‘Which no one outside of the Daily Star demographic would give a shit about if it wasn’t for how she died.’
Jimmy shrugs. ‘Not necessarily. It’s an intriguing story, her death, the timing of it, what it exemplified.’ He pauses. ‘What it… meant.’ He shifts in his chair, picks up a pen, fiddles with it. There was a time when a call from Phil Sweeney was a good thing. It meant a lead, a tip-off, information.
This he’s not so sure about.
Jimmy’s old man and Phil Sweeney had been in business together in the late nineties. They were good friends. Then the old man died and Sweeney started taking an interest in Jimmy’s career. He kept an eye out for him, introduced him to people.
Fed him stories.
‘Oh come on, Jimmy.’
But those days, it would appear, are over.
‘I’m sorry, Phil, I’m not with you. What is this?’
There is a long sigh from the other end of the line.
Jimmy glances over at the door. He can hear voices. The students from across the hall. Are they arguing again? Fighting? He’s not sure, but it might come in handy as an excuse to get off the phone, if he needs one, if this conversation gets any weirder.
‘Look,’ he says, no longer attempting to hide his frustration. ‘I’m doing a bio of Susie Monaghan, OK? Sneer if you want to, but I’m taking it seriously.’ He hesitates, then adds, ‘Because you know what, Phil? It’s work, something I haven’t had a lot of recently.’
He tightens his grip on the phone.
‘Yeah, Jimmy, I know, I know, but -’
‘Well, I don’t think you do actually -’
‘I do, I get it, you need the assignment, and that’s fine, it’s just -’
‘Oh, what? I’m supposed to run all my proposals by you now, is that it?’