Ned Beauman - Glow

‘You mean football.’

‘Soccer.’

‘Football.’

‘Soccer.’

‘Football!’ both girls shout happily.

They pass out of earshot. ‘Come on,’ says Fourpetal.

Raf points out that he’s chaperoned by twins and a small dog. ‘I don’t think this is a good time to follow him.’

‘What else are we going to do?’

They set off. The incongruous council block at the top of the hill has a gabled roof with omelettes of yellow moss at the edges and below that satellite dishes roosting between the drainpipes. When Nollic and his kids cut across the playground at its edge, it becomes obvious that they’re on their way to the big supermarket on the other side. Raf and Fourpetal dawdle in the car park for a couple of minutes and then carry on through the automatic doors.

‘It’s hard to believe this is all about something as trivial as a party drug,’ mutters Fourpetal. ‘I do have some respect for good coke, but on the whole I always assumed drugs were something invented by film directors to densify value after inflation rendered big suitcases of cash obsolete.’

‘Why did they let him take his dog in? No one ever lets me take Rose into shops.’

‘People like him get what they want. They understand the congenital deference of the working classes.’

Remembering Zaya’s story, Raf initially hopes they’ll be able to move around in here unnoticed ‘like vengeful ghosts’, but when a supermarket worker lunges out of nowhere to force a free sample of marshmallow chocolate brownie on him, he realises they are going to need a different approach. He picks up a basket.

‘What are we supposed to be cooking?’ says Fourpetal.

They might as well get at least some use out of Ko’s curry recipe. ‘Let’s get onions, garlic, ginger. Um, coconut milk. That kind of thing.’ Raf’s noticed that in chain supermarkets like this the coconut milk, next to the sweet chilli sauce and poppadoms in the Asian section (which stocks Asian ingredients for non-Asian people), is at least double the price of the coconut milk next to the ackee and kidney beans in the much smaller West Indian section (which stocks West Indian ingredients for actual West Indian people), demonstrating that, as many skunk dealers in gentrifying areas will assure you, there is money to be made selling the same product at different prices to different ethnic groups according to their willingness to pay.

‘Are we a gay couple?’ says Fourpetal.

‘We’re flatmates.’

Fourpetal frowns. ‘You and me? Really? How did we become friends?’

‘I genuinely have no idea.’

They find Nollic in the baking supplies aisle, and for a while they just stand there watching him from a distance. He’s carrying the Pomeranian under his arm while his daughters swing one shopping basket between the two of them. Maybe they’re going to make pancakes or something. Raf thinks about what Lacebark has done: all the troublemakers executed inside the Concession; all the union organisers’ wives tortured in Gandayaw; all the friends of Zaya — and one friend of Raf — kidnapped and interrogated and then deleted from existence no more than a few miles from here. Somebody above Bezant had to order or at least approve all that horror, and it’s not as if Raf was expecting to see talons and hooves instead of hands and feet — he knew it was just going to be some normal-looking guy in a suit. But he just can’t make himself believe it was Nollic. Perhaps it’s not so much his loving manner with his daughters as his obvious affection for their silly candyfloss dog.

A few hundred million dollars a year in royalties to help prop up a military dictatorship: Nollic could probably live with that. Rivers running black from all the mine tailings dumped upstream: Nollic could probably live with that, too. But not dozens of murders. That was what Raf learned listening to Martin: yes, every one of these men has a price, like Zaya said, but every one of them also has a limit, even if they don’t know that they have one until suddenly it locks them in place like the clutch in a seatbelt. And it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re moral. It just means they want to look at themselves in the mirror and feel like nice guys.

Raf strides forward. ‘What are you doing?’ hisses Fourpetal.

‘Latimer Nollic?’ Raf says when he’s almost at the white sugar.

Nollic turns. ‘Yes?’

‘You work at Lacebark.’

‘Sure. Did we meet at. .?’

Fourpetal catches up with Raf and starts yanking at his arm in panic, but Raf ignores him. ‘You have a guy called Bezant working for you in London. You know that, right? You’ve heard of him?’

Nollic sighs. ‘You’re journalists? Guys, honestly, I’m with my kids here. This isn’t how you do this.’ He has dark grey hair and one of those wealthy physiques that isn’t all that tanned or muscular but for some reason still seems unusually well tailored and resilient, as if he’s reinforced by a fine mesh of platinum filament just under the skin.

‘We’re not journalists. Men working for your company killed my friend.’

‘Is this for a documentary?’

Raf takes a deep breath. He can make this work. ‘You must know what’s happening in London right now. And you must be in a position to do something to stop it. I know you want glow. But, trust me, you’re not even close, OK? The other side are running rings around you. If you carry on with what you’re planning, then, yeah, I bet you’ll succeed in killing plenty more people. But that’s all. So why don’t you just end it now? Maybe I can put you in touch with the people you’re chasing. Maybe you can even negotiate. Maybe you can still get something out of this.’

‘Oh, I get it, you’re activists. You’re activists for Myanmar. Guys, we release reports on the human rights situation every six months.’

‘Yes,’ says Fourpetal, ‘I used to write them.’

Nollic gives him a quizzical look. ‘I’ve been to Myanmar,’ he says. ‘I can tell you, it’s not great, but it’s getting better every day. We’re doing everything we can. But this isn’t the place to talk about it.’

‘Have you ever been to Gandayaw?’ says Raf.

‘Yes, of course. Once in 2001 and once before that. . I think it was 1990.’

This sets a pinion turning in the back of Raf’s mind. The Pomeranian’s long tongue hangs out of its mouth like a cord to be pulled in an emergency. Then Fourpetal blurts, ‘Take me back.’

‘Pardon me?’ says Nollic.

‘Take me back. I know more about all this than anyone at Lacebark. I can tell you everything.’

Raf looks at Fourpetal in disbelief. ‘What the fuck is this?’ he says. One of the girls giggles at the swear word.

‘With what I know, you can catch them all tomorrow,’ says Fourpetal. ‘Just promise me I’ll be safe. Please. Let’s make a deal.’

If Raf had to guess he’d say Fourpetal didn’t make the decision to do this until the moment the words flopped out of him. Hurriedly Raf starts indexing what he told Fourpetal earlier today. Fourpetal knows about Cherish tricking Lacebark. He knows how to find Zaya’s flat. He knows about Ko working for Zaya. He knows about the boy from the Serbian café sleeping with Win. And, of course, he knows about Raf lying his way into the training facility. If Fourpetal talks, everyone on that list who can’t get away in time is going to die in a Lacebark warehouse.

Nollic’s expression has changed, and now the box cutters of contempt in his gaze warn that he’s bored with pretending not to understand what this conversation is about. ‘Let me be clear, Mr. .’

‘Mark Fourpetal. I was at the conference in North Carolina in April. I very much enjoyed your speech.’

‘Mr Fourpetal, even if I could make any sense of what you’re saying right now — and even if I would ever be willing to consider “making a deal” under these circumstances — I don’t need to make a deal with you or your friend. Understand? Right now nothing could interest me less. I have full confidence in all of Lacebark’s employees and I already feel sure that we will meet every one of our targets and objectives this quarter.’ From the way he says it, his meaning couldn’t be clearer: ‘We are going to win this war.’