I moved the cursor across with a now quite steady hand and clicked. There was, of course, no message, just a PDF. I opened it and the screen filled with white nothing. I scrolled. Some Arabic emerging from the right that I didn’t recognise, then some numbers in Roman numerals, like filing references. At the bottom, a crude stamp – a raised arm, clutching an assault rifle, the emblem of the Shia military that had constituted Hezbollah – and a date. It was nearly eleven years old. From about the time I was first in Lebanon with Yusef, I thought, and smiled.
The marketing maidens had long gone about their functions, but I still reduced the page to a tab and walked away out to the mezzanine landing that overlooked the lobby, leaving my jacket on the back of the chair to show the place was taken. I know, it’s stupid and embarrassing, but I was suddenly thinking that the Business Centre was being monitored too.
And I dialled Roger Passmore’s number on the mobile Sarah had given me only for contacting the Centre, only for contacting her. I was disobeying her for the first time and I felt a momentary twinge of sorrow for that, which I swept away. I had known since Yusef’s house that I was going to do this. This was my time now. All mine.
The stiff, bored voice of his PA. It was like I’d never been away. A pause, some music. I pictured the scene. Young men and women, perhaps, being turfed out of Roger’s office.
Then: “Natalie. How good to hear you. Is everything all right?”
I didn’t reply immediately. I couldn’t. It was like continuing a long-dead conversation, one that had started years ago. Strangely, it was also like hearing someone I thought was dead.
“Hello?” he said and I feared he was going to do that cradle-tapping thing that people only do in movies.
“Hello, Roger,” I said at last and was surprised by the flat calm of my voice. I presumed I was going on tape.
“Natalie, what’s been happening?”
It had that false breeziness of someone unqualified to deal with a wild animal. And I laughed, a dry little airy chuckle, genuine, not for him, a release of anxiety, I suppose. Isn’t that what they say about comedy, about timing? I had rehearsed what I needed to say.
“I need two things, Roger. I need your email address. A private one. A secure one. I’m sure you have one of those, yes? And I need to see you, alone, at eleven thirty tomorrow morning.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.”
“Oh, you will. Trust me. Give me that email.”
“Can you tell me what this about?”
“Give me an email and sit in front of it now.”
I collected myself and lowered my voice.
“I want you to have it now. Are you in front of a computer?”
He answered slowly, like he was looking at someone else.
“I can use my tablet, yes.”
“So give me your fucking address. I promise it’ll be worth it.”
I returned to the PC. Another pause from him.
“OK, Natalie. Keep calm. Are you taking this down? It’s rogerrabbit21, all one word, with numerals . . .”
Somehow that moment made it all worthwhile. His email tag was rogerrabbit. And I’d never have known if I hadn’t gone through all this.
“Make sure you get the double-R in the middle.”
“Got it,” I said. “But only the twenty-first, Roger. Aw.”
That would be fun on the replays, office juniors smirking. But maybe he’d have it edited out.
“Never mind,” I said as I tapped in his address. Send. “There.”
And after a moment: “Has it arrived?”
But I knew it had. Silence his end. I hung up and turned off the mobile.
I lay across the cover of another bed, my head just below the cheap and over-inflated hotel pillows. I’d had to move fast and couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been to leave my bag in my room. I’d grabbed it from the first floor, no trouble with the lifts, and ran from the hotel.
I made the sanctuary of the Tube and took the eastbound Central Line. It was nearly empty. There was only a fair and pretty girl with a dark boy in a pushchair sharing the lift – a nanny, I guessed. No one looked at me. But I got off at Oxford Street – plenty of exits, always crowds outside – to watch my back, just in case. Nothing, so I carried on to Liverpool Street and found a small budget hotel on the margins of Shoreditch, built of mock-sandstone with a glass corner. I checked in again, this time using cash from Masha’s card. A moment’s concern again as the cashier stared at the screen, but then she smiled up at me.
“Would you like an early morning call?”
On the bed five minutes later, I realised I was relaxed again for the first time since I’d left Yusef’s bed. It felt a little post-coital, like Yusef had just rolled away. I wanted lazily to turn the mobile on, to see the numbers coming in, to see if Sarah had called, as she promised she would, using the cover of her switchboard through the Centre. I wanted to see if there were numbers starting with the international +44 or just marked “blocked” or “private number” because they would surely be from Roger’s office. They’d be trying to catch up. And I wondered if Sarah already knew I’d betrayed her, betrayed her trust by going my own way. I’m sorry, Sar.
But I’d said all that needed to be said in that last call. I felt in control, even if they found me now and took me in. Whatever, I was safe now. I’d disobeyed orders by presenting my calling card myself, my “life assurance”, as Yusef had called it. But I reasoned it was the same deal, whether I did it
