She raised herself, reached for the window catch behind Tarent’s head. Her breast brushed against his cheek as she strained at the immovable bolt. The window remained sealed up, and she subsided.
‘In some of our buildings, a few of the windows still open,’ she said.
‘Our buildings?’
‘The MoD.’
‘So that’s who you work for.’
‘Why are you so curious about me?’
‘I like to know who I’m with. All I know about you is that you travel about the country in an armoured Mebsher, with a minder.’
‘So do you.’
‘I don’t have a minder.’
‘As it happens, you do. As it happens, it’s me. I’ve been assigned to you.’
‘I was told – I’d missed the transport I was supposed to be in. They said there was another Mebsher in the region and it detoured to pick me up. That doesn’t sound like you were assigned to anything. You just happened to be aboard.’
‘We knew where you were. After the storm had passed a call went out for one of the personnel carriers to collect you. There are four or five Mebshers en route to Hull at the moment – there’s a departmental meeting coming up. When I heard it was you, I decided I’d be the one to pick you up.’
‘I thought you said you don’t go to trouble to get laid.’
‘I don’t. Trouble is what I do when I’m in the office. I wanted to meet you, not because I wanted to get laid but because of what happened to you in Turkey.’
‘So how do you know about me?’
‘We have ways. You’re at diplomatic level, which means the files are open to our office.’ She briefly tossed her head, flicked her hair back. She laid her fingers on the implant, indicating it. ‘I knew most things about you before the call, and today I found out the rest. Your wife – Melanie Tarent, I heard what happened to her. I also know where you were until last week, and what happened to Melanie. She was killed in violent circumstances that were never discovered or explained. Well, I can fill you in with a few details about that. We have established that she was killed by a radical wing of the insurgency in Anatolia, and they were using a new kind of weapon. We have people out in Turkey looking into that at the moment. Did you know they caught the people responsible?’
That startled him. ‘No, I didn’t. When did that happen?’
‘The day after you left. We were trying to get them back to IRGB – innocent until proved guilty, of course. We wanted to ask them a few questions first. On the way they were killed by another group of militiamen, who ambushed our convoy. Two of our people were killed too, several more injured. We think it was a local dispute, and there were two militias operating in that area. They were going for each other. But I thought you might like to know.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. I had no idea more people had died.’
‘They weren’t there for your sake. We wanted to find out where the insurgents were getting their weapons.’
‘You said it was a new device. I was there after the explosion and saw the crater. It was obviously some kind of roadside bomb. We saw those all the time.’
‘What did you notice about the crater?’
Her tone had been playful – Tarent nearly answered in kind. Instead, he said, ‘What should I have noticed?’
‘You were there.’ She had not changed her manner. ‘What did you see?’
‘It was a triangle. It had three straight sides, and they made up what looked like a regular triangle.’
‘Could you explain it? Did anyone else talk about it?’
‘Not that I remember. I wasn’t listening to anyone else. I think I was in shock, after Melanie.’
‘That’s what we are working on now.’ She sat forward, looked around the tiny room. ‘Do you have any drink in here? I mean, a real drink?’
‘Just water. We’re in a government building.’
‘I could work around that if you’d like to wait here for half an hour. Anyway, not all government buildings are the same.’
‘Meaning that the one you work in isn’t?’
‘No – ours is the same. Alcohol not allowed. But there are ways. Come round to see me one afternoon and I’ll introduce you to single malt.’ She rolled to the side, climbed off the bed. Tarent stared greedily at her long legs, her toned upper body, the perspiration still shining on her in patches. She filled two plastic cups from the cooler tap, swallowed all the water from one of the cups in three swift gulps, then passed him the other. ‘That’s enough of a drink for now.’
She filled her cup a second time. She dipped her fingers in the cold water and flicked droplets across her arms and breasts, smeared a handful of water over her belly. She sat down on the narrow bed again, this time sitting close beside him. Playfully she splashed some drops on him. He wet his hand and slid it gently across her breasts, then let more drops fall around her neck. His fingers brushed against the implant again.
‘So we have established that you work for the government,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t difficult. The Ministry of Defence.’
‘Something like that.’
‘Come on.’
‘I’m not formally allowed to say.’
‘I don’t suppose you’re formally allowed to fuck recently widowed freelance photographers. Anyway, you say you know everything about me, so you know my security clearance. What’s to lose by telling me where you work?’
‘It might lose me the job, for a start. For a woman to get to where I am now wasn’t easy.’
‘So, let me guess. MoD, Ministry of Defence, we’ve agreed. Your job is high up? Department head?’
‘Permanent Secretary. Private Office.’ She turned her face away from him suddenly, almost as if embarrassed by the revelation.
Tarent opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again.
‘I’m not making it up,’ she said.
He regarded her nakedness, the tangled bedclothes. The hot room was full of her scents. The improbability of it all.
‘You’re full of surprises,’ he said. ‘Should I know who you are?’
‘I hope not. We don’t advertise what we do.’
‘You’re not a Muslim, is that right?’
‘Yes, that’s right. I’m not.’
‘I thought—’
‘You have to be neither male nor a Muslim, although if you saw the civil servants at my rank in other ministries that’s what you’d think. But I guessed long ago that being a woman and not being a Muslim were balancing opposites, and went for it. I worked hard, got a good degree, was willing to work for a year as an unpaid intern. Then . . . I rose through the ranks. I’m ambitious and I climbed quickly. My minister is an enlightened man. He’s what used to be called westernized. He likes soccer and cricket and heavy rock, he goes to the theatre when he can. He enjoys having women around him, and he likes non-Muslims working under him. Most of my staff are female.’
‘So who is your minister?’
‘His Supreme Royal Highness, Prince Ammari.’
In spite of everything she had said in the last two or three minutes, and even though he was expecting to be surprised again, Tarent almost missed a breath. Sheik Muhammad Ammari was Secretary of State for Defence, probably the highest ranking cabinet minister after the PM. This woman with the slim and sweaty body, the calm hands, the disarrayed hair, the candid eyes and the heady perfumes of after-sex, in effect ran the Ministry of Defence. She would be administratively responsible for the armed services, and held extensive delegated powers.
He reached down to the mess of clothes on the floor and disentangled his trousers, the legs turned inside out in his or Flo’s haste to remove them. The Canon was inside his belt pouch. He took it out.
‘OK, you get the photos,’ he said.
He switched on the camera, expanded it, then pressed the GAIN button. The lab was instantly accessible online, so it took only a matter of seconds for him to locate the three pictures he had taken of her. He held the camera for her to see.
>
‘You know, they don’t matter any more,’ she said, but she leaned against him to look closely at them. She leant a hand on his knee to support herself. Her nipple brushed against his arm. As photographs the three were not at all special: one was blurred, apparently by a sudden movement of the vehicle, the other two were as sharp as glass. They showed the half profile view of her that had become familiar to Tarent throughout the journey, leaning forward in her seat, her left hand raised so that her fingers rested lightly in the area behind her ear. Her face could not be seen clearly in either of the two best pictures. The interior of the Mebsher was in the background, dark and utilitarian.
She was resting the side of her head against his, strands of her hair dangling against his shoulder. He put an arm behind her, rested his hand on her backside. The images on the camera reminded him of her physical paradox: that coldness she seemed to radiate, her physical proximity yet her remoteness from him. Now this: her warm, voluptuous body touching his, her light breath on his face. She had told him to call her Flo.
‘No one but me would recognize you,’ he said.
Her hand remained on his leg, her fingers lightly wrapped under his thigh, a gentle rhythm of pressure from her fingers.
‘I would,’ she said. ‘And His Royal Highness would too.’
‘OK.’ He snapped the controller under the thin body of the camera, and waited for the connection to the lab to be confirmed. He selected the three shots and they dissolved into nothingness. ‘No copies, no back-ups, no originals – all gone forever.’ She made no response. ‘Don’t you believe me?’ he said.
‘Yes, I do.’ She removed her hand from beneath his leg, lightly tapped the implant behind her ear. ‘I felt them go.’
‘Is that thing always on?’
‘Twenty-four seven, but I can suppress it when I want to sleep.’ She reached out to take his camera from him. Reluctantly, he let her hold it. She held it up, as if lining up a shot. ‘I don’t understand how it can take photographs without a lens.’
‘There’s a lens, but it’s not optical. It’s called a quantum lens. I haven’t used a camera with an optical lens for more than a year.’
He pointed out where the three tiny shards at the front of the camera were recessed. He touched the release and they rose silently to form a shallow tepee over the microprocessor aperture. He felt in himself the easy pleasure of talking about the one subject he loved. ‘These sensors work at particle or sub-particle level. They digitally radicalize the image when the shutter is opened. An electronic lens is more or less automatic: it focuses, sets the aperture, the shutter speed, all in one operation. I can override the settings, but when it’s set to auto every shot is always in focus, always correctly exposed. They haven’t found a way to stop a Mebsher shaking my camera hand, but that will probably be the next technical upgrade.’
He was speaking lightly, but when he looked up at her he knew something in her had changed – the relaxed playfulness had disappeared.
‘Is it your own camera?’ she said.
‘This one is. I’m evaluating the other two for the manufacturers.’
‘Don’t you realize it’s illegal to use that kind of camera?’
‘I told you I had licences.’
‘Licences are irrelevant. If that camera is using adjacency technology, then taking photographs with it was banned last year.’
‘I never heard about that.’
‘Ignorance of the law is no defence—’
‘I was away,’ Tarent said.
‘Yes, you were in Turkey – in fact, there’s no law against them there, as it happens. But you can’t use them anywhere else in Europe.’
‘Why should they be banned? They’re just cameras.’
‘Quantum technology has been declared toxic. There are known to be occasional health risks for the user, and for anyone else in range. Too many side-effects.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this. How can a camera have side-effects? And what kind of illness am I supposed to have suffered? I’ve been using these cameras for more than a year.’
‘I don’t remember all the technical arguments. There was an advisory committee, and when the results of the tests were confirmed the Kalifate passed an emergency Act. There is a risk in using them, intermittent but apparently serious.’
‘What harm can they do? They’ve had no adverse effect on me.’
‘How do you know? Anyway, you should hand them in.’
‘These are how I make my living. There must be a way round this law for professional photographers.’
Flo touched the implant on her neck. ‘Want me to find out for sure? I can do it now.’
‘No, because then you’ll pull rank on me and I’ll have to give them up. Let me get this debriefing out of the way, then when I’m back in London I’ll talk to the people I work with. If necessary I’ll change the cameras then.’
‘They’ll tell you the same as me.’
‘Maybe so. Come on, Flo – you’re not in the office now.’
Flo reached out to take the camera from him again, but he swung away from her and placed it back in its case. He plugged it into the recharger. He put all three of the cameras into the tiny closet. She watched him, and as he closed the closet door he looked enquiringly at her, wondering if she was going to keep arguing with him. Instead, her mood had changed abruptly again. She was sitting across from him on the bed, leaning back in a relaxed way on her elbows.
‘So, we agreed we’d like another fuck?’ she said.
Her mood change made him incredulous. ‘I thought after that you might be about to put on your clothes and leave me.’
‘No – you’re right. I’m not at work now. Ignore what I said about the damned cameras. I forget myself, sometimes. I don’t know when to switch off. I’m really sorry.’
‘I’ve been a freelance for long enough to know that the last thing to do is flout the law. If there’s a problem I’ll deal with it later.’
‘I know, I know, let’s forget it.’
‘Forget everything?’
‘No, I’ve switched off now. Let’s just do what we came in here to do.’
10
She pressed him down on the bed. He was uneasy at first, chilled by her mood swings, but they did it all again and this time their lovemaking took longer and was sweatier than before. The heating vent blew unwanted warmth on them as they slowly, pleasurably regained their breath. The physical act purged him of the irritation she had brought on, but now he was wary of her. He lay above her, his chest pressing down on her breasts, one leg trailing away towards the floor to try to find cool air, but he was exhausted, drained, sweltering, fulfilled, exhilarated by her. Flo seemed to be asleep – she was unmoving with her face buried against his shoulder, her breathing slow and steady, but after a few minutes she suddenly tensed up and tried to roll out from under him. He shifted to make a space for her, so she levered herself up and away from him. She left the bed, took a brief shower in the cubicle behind him, then dried with his towel and began putting on her clothes. Tarent watched her dressing, already feeling regrets that it was over, wishing she would spend the remainder of the night with him. The thin shaft of light was still the only source of illumination in the room. He watched as she pulled on her pants over her neat, exercise-toned buttocks, then lifted the ankle-length skirt, and retained it at her waist with a clip.
‘Shall we meet again tomorrow?’ he said.
‘Not possible. Unless you want to give Warne’s Farm a miss and travel with me to Hull.’
‘I’m under orders. You know that. Why on earth do you need to go to Hull?’
Now that she had most of her clothes back on, she was assertive again. ‘It’s a DSG, devolved seat of government. I have meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I’ve several regional committees to get through, two advisory panels, a meeting with chief constables, applications from the town council, and the rest. Staffing and provisioning arrangements. Mostly routine, but time-consuming. I
warned you – I don’t have a private life. But I can hide you in my hotel room, and see you after work, at night.’
‘I’m not sure—’
‘I’m having to deal with a never-ending series of problems.’
‘Not on your own.’
‘No – the whole department is involved, of course. But there’s a state of emergency, because of what happened in London. Everything is a crisis at the moment.’
‘What happened in London?’
‘You must have heard.’
‘I’ve been cut off from the news for several months.’
‘There was a terrorist attack on London. Just over four months ago. It was as devastating as a small nuclear weapon. It was contained in some way that we’re still trying to understand. But an area of west London was completely destroyed.’
He stared at her, trying to form a reaction.
‘You really hadn’t heard about this, had you?’ she said.
‘That’s incredible. There must have been thousands of casualties. It’s incredible!’ He realized that in the shock of hearing what she had told him he was repeating himself. He suddenly remembered the scenes he had glimpsed from the car window as the officials drove him into London: the blackened, flattened landscape they did not want him to see, the way they had darkened the glass to restrict his view. ‘This really happened?’ he said, insensibly. ‘A nuclear attack, against London?’
‘It’s known as May 10, the date it happened. Not a nuke, in the way it’s usually meant. It was probably a larger version of the thing they turned on your wife. Unfortunately, that kind of device is in use more and more. What happened to her was one of several similar attacks in the last month. But London was the biggest and worst incident yet. We’ve been able to study it, which isn’t true of most of them, because of where they are used. But, well, west London makes a forensic examination much more straightforward.’
‘You say there have been a lot of these?’
‘At least fifteen in the last four weeks. Most of them in places like Anatolia, but there have been two similar small incidents in Britain. Three in the USA, one in Sweden. Like most people, you probably don’t realize that we are at war, and this is one we’re not going to win. We’ve already lost the war against climate change – now there’s this. It’s the old cliché – the war to end wars. This time it’s literally true. If another major city is hit, there won’t be another war after this.’