Box 88 : A Novel (2020)

sunloungers and started cooing over the divine Spanish boy. Moments later Annette, the young French mother who had also brought her children to the villa, emerged from beneath the fallen fronds of the palm tree holding her son and daughter by the hand. Kite found a spare pair of swimming trunks in the hut for José and they all jumped in the pool. Kite extracted Annette’s surname – Mouret – and discovered that her husband knew Luc well but had never met Eskandarian before. When Annette began talking to Martha and Jacqui, Kite found out where José lived in Barcelona (a suburb called Sarrià), where he went to school and if he had ever been introduced to Luc or Eskandarian before (he had not). He also learned the boy’s surname: Zamora. All this took place amid the general joyful chaos of an early afternoon swim: Kite and Martha ducking one another; Annette’s children showing off how long they could hold their breath underwater; Xavier appearing from nowhere, bombing into the water to the annoyance of his sister but to the screams and delight of the children. Kite was aware that his deceptions had become so commonplace that he was spying almost without being aware of it.

In due course Rosamund called out, ‘Lunch!’ and the group gathered on the terrace to eat a three-course lunch prepared by Rosamund and Hélène. Kite was seated between Xavier and Martha, at the opposite end of the table to Jacques, Luc and Paul. He hoped that the ghetto blaster – which was still plugged in behind the sofa – would capture their conversation, but had a hunch that any potentially sensitive exchanges between them would take place behind closed doors in Luc’s office, where the Gameboy had long since ceased to function.

The swim had forged a bond between Kite and the children, particularly with Bita’s son, José, who hung on his every word. After lunch, Luc invited his guests to join him on a walk around the property, an invitation taken up by all of the adults with the exception of Annette, Martha, Xavier and Kite. Ada, Bita’s three-year-old daughter, was asleep in a hammock in the garden. Annette promised to keep an eye on her so that Bita could join the walk.

It was only as Kite was losing sight of Abbas and Eskandarian on the drive that the idea came to him. He had chanced on an opportunity to photograph the documents in Eskandarian’s office. But how to do so without raising Xavier or Martha’s suspicion? They were planning to watch a video with the kids. How to get away from the television room for long enough that his absence wouldn’t be noticed? And how to do so without Martha wanting to come with him?

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Kite announced. They were all in the sitting room, helping Alain and Hélène to clear up lunch. Moments earlier Kite had taken his camera back upstairs and changed the roll of film. He turned to the children. ‘Do you guys like playing hide-and-seek?’

Xavier groaned and said: ‘Thought we were going to watch Temple of Doom?’ But the children all squealed in delight. Annette agreed that it would be an excellent idea as long as they didn’t wake Ada.

‘Then let’s play in the house,’ Kite replied. The tactic had fallen into his lap, a moment of pure good fortune. He appointed Martha and Xavier as the chief hunters and divided the rest of the group into three teams: Annette would be with her son, Jacqui with Annette’s daughter, and Kite with José.

‘Fair?’ he asked.

They all agreed that the teams were perfect. Xavier and Martha remained in the sitting room and said that they would count to a hundred. The garden and the pool were pronounced out of bounds, but every other area of the house was in play.

‘Just don’t make a mess in my room,’ Xavier grumbled. Jacqui told him not to be so selfish.

As soon as Martha had closed her eyes and started counting, Kite grabbed José by the hand and sprinted up to the first floor. Momentarily leaving the boy on the landing, he grabbed the Olympus Trip from his room then ran up the stairs to the attic beckoning the giggling José to follow him, all the while urging him to be as quiet as possible.

Kite pushed open the door of Eskandarian’s bedroom. He pressed his fingers to his lips and whispered in French: ‘Hide behind the door. I’ll be in the room on the other side.’

From two floors below he heard Martha shouting out: ‘Three, two, one … coming!’ as José froze in a tableau of excitement, stifling a delighted giggle. Kite showed him where to hide, willed him to stay where he was, and went back out onto the landing. He then closed the bedroom door and moved as quickly as possible into the office.

He shut the door behind him and took the camera out of his back pocket. There were several piles of correspondence on the far side of the office, some of it in envelopes, some of it open on Eskandarian’s desk. Crossing the room, Kite held the lens over the desk as he had been instructed and took a photograph of the closest letter. The snap of the clicking shutter, of the reel winding on, seemed deafening. He had practised in the Hampstead flat and remembered Peele telling him not to think about the noise. Kite was aware that his hand was shaking slightly and his breath quickening as he lifted the letter, placed it upside-down on the desk beside him and photographed the document underneath. There were seven pieces of paper in all, some covered in Farsi, others in French. He kept the camera steady with his right hand and moved the pages with his left, putting them back as he had found them at the end of the process. One careless slip or sudden draught from the partly-open window and Eskandarian’s correspondence would be scattered to the