Louise Doughty - Black Water

Harper’s view was, let them talk. ‘You can hardly suppress the news coverage of what’s happening here. There’s nothing we can do about that.’

Henrikson placed the fingers of both hands to form a pyramid shape and nodded very sincerely. ‘Well, you’re the local expert,’ he said. Oh fuck off , Harper thought. ‘But I have to say that we had this discussion back in Amsterdam and company policy now is firm discouragement of anybody talking to the press; staff, clients, families. The potential for misrepresentation is just too high. We don’t want our client base thinking we let this become an emergency.’ The criticism of Harper’s sit tight policy was clear.

He chose to ignore it, thinking, he even talks like a training manual. I can’t believe I have to play these games at my age. ‘Well, the press can be very useful too.’

‘Agreed, agreed. .’ Henrikson nodded, firmly and repeatedly, quite dogged in his insistence on how much he agreed. ‘You’re quite right there. Well, I guess I’d better find me a desk and a phone so I can get going calling the clients.’ He clapped both of his hands on his knees, clamping down firmly. Harper noticed how muscled Henrikson’s legs were beneath his trousers. On one side of his neck, a thick vein pulsed and the purposefulness in his grey-eyed gaze was touched with the smallest hint of psychosis. God help us, Harper thought. This is what the Institute produces these days.

There was a light tap at the door and Wahid opened it. ‘Boss?’ he said to Harper.

‘What is it?’ Henrikson asked.

Wahid said to Harper, ‘Amber says we should go and take a look from the roof.’

Amber stayed in the office fielding calls while Harper, Henrikson, Wahid and two staff from the other team traipsed up the interior staircase until they reached the top floor. Wahid pushed open a blank door to the service corridor, where the pretence of the building’s painted walls and tiled floors fell away to reveal breezeblocks and a short iron staircase leading up to the roof. The light was bright white as they emerged, blinking. Wahid pointed and Harper saw immediately, looking north, the palls of black smoke rising from Old Jakarta, four columns, huge and black and billowing. To the right, further in the distance, was the blur of many more.

‘Amber took two calls at once,’ Wahid said. ‘Doesn’t sound all that spontaneous.’

‘Doesn’t look it either,’ Harper replied. ‘More than yesterday, you think?’

‘Lot more.’

Henrikson hitched his trousers, clapped his hands together, leaned towards them, then actually said, ‘Right, team.’

It was a week after the students had been shot. The shopping centre riots had died down, it seemed, but rumours were rife that soldiers were going round in plain clothes killing Chinese and raping women in gangs. They were saying hundreds dead — Harper’s staff thought it was far greater. Most of the families of their clients had been extracted and only essential personnel were left: even they were on standby. The Institute was taking the precaution of closing the office and moving ops to Le Méridien, a move that Harper thought a colossal waste of money. They were all working round the clock now.

As Harper came into Wahid’s office that morning, closing the door behind him, Wahid was standing by his desk, holding a claw hammer. He waved it at Harper.

Harper pulled a face. ‘As personal protection goes, that looks a little basic.’

‘It’s strong enough for a skull — but in fact, it’s for these.’ Wahid gestured with the hammer at his desk, which was scattered with floppy disks in blue plastic cases.

‘Is that necessary?’ Harper asked. They weren’t very big. Surely they could be hidden somewhere?

‘Henrikson’s orders,’ Wahid replied, tipping his head on one side and pursing his lips.

‘Where is that lump of meat this morning?’

‘One of the embassies or banks, he wouldn’t say.’

Harper and Wahid looked at each other then and both tapped the sides of their noses — a gesture Henrikson used when he didn’t answer a question.

‘Amber said he left some instructions for me, with you?’

‘Oh yes, this.’

Wahid put the hammer down and unlocked a small drawer in his desk. He withdrew a black, hardback notebook. ‘Client list, handwritten, did it last night. We’ve wiped the computers and the floppies are going.’ He gestured at the floppy disks with his hammer. ‘You’ve to take charge of this, Henrikson wants you to keep it at your apartment and take it to the hotel tomorrow, where he will personally place it in the safe inside his room.’

Harper groaned. ‘Why didn’t he just take it with him?’

‘He said he wants to interview hotel security before he lets the notebook into the building.’

‘You are joking, aren’t you?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ Wahid tapped the side of his nose again.

As Harper turned to go, the notebook in his jacket pocket, Wahid added, ‘By the way, there’s an Englishman here. He’s been waiting for you over an hour. Amber made the mistake of saying you’d be in at some point. He asked for you by name.’

‘What sort of Englishman?’

‘A client-type sort. But local commerce, small.’

‘Extractive industries or import and export?’

Wahid frowned down at the floppy disks. ‘Do you think this will damage my desk?’

‘Well, you aren’t going to damage the disks if you don’t.’

Wahid lifted a finger. ‘Good point,’ then picked up a handful of the disks, bent to put them in a neat pile on the floor and knelt beside them. ‘Extractive,’ he said, ‘but small-time and nearing his pay-off, I would say, I’m not even sure if he’s still paying subs.’ He brought the hammer down on the disks and the top one skidded across the room and smacked into a wall where it span and came to rest, undamaged.

‘Good luck with that,’ Harper said, as he reached for the door.

The Englishman was waiting in the small, empty room they used for meetings and interviews. The only decoration was a crispy-looking cactus plant in a red bowl on the windowsill — the window was frosted; it looked out over the internal corridor of the building — and a tattered, bleached map of Indonesia hanging from two bamboo poles and a piece of string slung over a nail on a wall.

In the middle of the room was a rectangular table with four chairs and the Englishman, whose stomach put his suit jacket under a certain degree of strain, was leaning back on one chair with his feet up on another. He had his eyes closed. On the table was a bottle of cheap whisky and two glasses, one half full.

‘Have you been waiting long?’ Harper asked politely. Damn, what was the man’s name?

The Englishman sat up quickly, put his feet down and shook his head as if he had been asleep. ‘Oh Harper, there you are, what took you?’ His voice was very slightly slurred.

‘Small matter of the city in uproar,’ said Harper, sitting down on a chair opposite, pouring himself a whisky and topping up the Englishman’s glass. ‘You want some coffee with that?’

‘Terrible habit,’ the Englishman replied, ‘very bad for you. Only drink green tea now.’

Harper half-turned back towards the door but the Englishman said, ‘Don’t bother your young ladies, they have enough to do tearing all those papers up.’

‘What can I do for you?’ Harper asked. They had met three or four times, he remembered now. He was a local vice president of some company or other, did he export sandalwood?

‘I’m just here informally,’ the man said, sipping his whisky. ‘Just informally, as, you know, just wondering what your opinion is on the way things are. . going, you know,’ he waved a hand in the air, ‘going.’