The first thing he registers is the smell. The whiff of char. The heady scent of barbecue.
Somewhere deep in his subconscious, Jonny wonders if he’s dreaming. It’s the grill that does it. And it’s the dream he has all the time, watching a family picnic from high on a clifftop. The action is all lit in colour, warmed by the sun – shouldn’t Jonny be able to join in too? After all he’s only a few feet away, teetering on the precipice, like he’s standing on the edge of the world. It’s a journey that should take seconds, but for Jonny is still taking a lifetime. All he’s ever wanted is somehow always just beyond his reach. His own family. His own sense of belonging. His own sense of meaning something, and meaning the same to someone else.
But then Jonny registers the second thing. The hand repeatedly smacking him around the face. And when he finally opens his eyes, all he can make out are faces – three, maybe four – clustered overhead. Anxious expressions, dark knotted eyebrows.
Jonny grunts, even the blinking is an effort. His endlessly recurring dream seems to have taken a nightmare turn. He flails a hand around to try and shield himself from more blows. There’s bolt of harsh light – is that a street lamp overhead? Is he lying on a pavement? The faces fall away as Jonny rolls to his side, pain thudding through his skull with every movement. The landscape spins into a nauseating blur as he heaves himself to sitting. And when his world finally settles, the first things to come into focus are the distinctive wrought-iron loops and curls of his front gate.
45Jonny’s gasp turns into a whimper at the sudden use of his bruised face muscles. He’s on the pavement in front of his apartment building. He must have been unloaded almost directly into the perennial street barbecue outside. The cluster of men who seem to reside here day and night shift back on to their haunches, regarding him with a curious mix of suspicion and concern.
Jonny gingerly assesses the lump vibrating on the side of his head. How long has he been out? He must have been dumped unconscious by—. Another gasp and whimper, as previous events clatter back into his mind. Something is thrust under his nose exuding an earthy belch of steam – a gourd of yerba mate, shiny silver straw gleaming incongruously between the dirty fingers proffering it to him. Despite the pain and confusion, a seed of warmth starts to bud inside Jonny. He sips, letting the warmth penetrate to the depths of his torso. A murmur of satisfaction ripples around the group.
Jonny tries to catch the eye of the hobo next to him as he passes the drink on. Who brought him back here? And when? The lump on the side of his head throbs as if to remind him how pointless his questions are. It is painfully obvious he has been out cold for some time. The people who snatched him off the street are pros. His unconscious form will have changed hands, not to mention cars, at least once, if not multiple times. His entire skeleton feels as if it has been taken to pieces and reassembled incorrectly.
Another grunt as Jonny rolls on to his knees. Instantly, two of the men cluster to his either side, hooking hands under his armpits to help him up. Even mumbled thanks are out of the question as Jonny stumbles, legs threatening to buckle with every movement. One of the men props him up against the gate, while the other shoves a hand into Jonny’s trouser pocket. He tries to stop a moan of protest escaping, but it’s no use, his bones are rattling inside their joints, but how is anyone supposed to know that other than him? Instantly both men fall back, expressions hardening into 46irritated resignation. Jonny’s keys are flung into the centre of his chest with a thud before they both turn away.
Jonny sags against the gate, disgusted with himself. If any of these men witnessed anything useful, they’re hardly likely to tell him about it now. He hunches to retrieve his fallen keys, wincing as he turns to unlock the gate, heading into the dark internal courtyard without another sound.
The climb up the stairs to his apartment door is just one agonising step after another. Jonny may have a few more facts at hand now, but none of them are adding up. That Bolivian woman warned him about subversivos. She specifically used the term given to anyone displaying politically dissident tendencies against the former Argentinian military regime. She can’t have meant a former military pilot, then, a member of that former regime – unless she somehow knew the man wanted to turn? Is that what she meant? Talk about the ultimate subversion. Or was she referencing something else entirely? Or was the whole episode just a distraction while her meathead comrade went for his wallet only to filch something far more significant?
Head spinning, Jonny levers himself up another step. He tries to organise his thoughts as precisely as he tries to place his feet. What had the pilot said about the body itself? That it was an attempted disappearance – or deliberately staged to look like one. That Jonny would have to confirm the identity of the victim for himself. That he was already looking in the right places. That the pilot wouldn’t have found him otherwise.
So where has Jonny been looking? He cups a hand over the lump on his head to stop himself from scratching it. The original tip-off about the body came from local police in La Plata. Access to the missing-persons’ archive too. Getting relatives of the disappeared to talk hasn’t exactly been straightforward. And as for connecting the two? Jonny flashes on to the photos they saw, torn and yellow with age. How could any of them possibly be 47relevant fifteen years after the end of the war? Even Paloma, the photographer herself, has started to resist taking pictures of pictures – resistance that Jonny is finding increasingly difficult to explain, let alone appreciate.
‘Paloma,’ he whispers, bracing himself against the banister, fresh jolt of agony coursing through his skull at the thought. How can he have forgotten about her until now? Where is she? And has she been harmed? If those men have so much as touched a single hair on her head … Jonny is suddenly suffused with a flood of panic and rage so intense that he’s inside his apartment and punching numbers into his phone’s keypad without being entirely sure how he finally got there, mind jangling with loose threads, connections he can’t make, words he still can’t fucking understand. By now all he is sure of is he can’t trust anyone.
Mercifully, Paloma answers the phone almost as soon as the line starts to ring.
‘Jonny? Is that you? Are you OK?’
He props himself against the wall, sagging with relief at the sound of her voice.
‘What happened? Where have you been? I’ve been going out of my mind —’
‘Don’t worry,’ he stops her. ‘Really. I’m OK, I promise. I need to tell you everything, but I’ll catch you up with it all in the morning, understand? I just called to make sure you were alright —’
‘What?’ Paloma’s shock crackles through the receiver. ‘In the morning? What do you mean, in the morning? You were snatched off the street at gunpoint, you’ve been missing for hours, I’ve been losing it over here, and now —’
‘But I’m OK,’ Jonny stops her again. The idea that their phones might be tapped would have felt fanciful before. Since he’s been ambushed, it feels anything but. The pilot knew far too much about both him and his work to assume anything else. ‘Please just tell me that you’re OK too?’
48‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Paloma is shouting now. ‘I’m not the one who was bundled into a moving car with a hood over my head. I lost my bag but I’m fine other than going crazy over what was happening to you. I thought … I thought you were dead …’
‘I told you, I’ll catch you up in the morning, I promise. I don’t want to talk about it on the phone right now, if you get what I mean.’
Paloma lets out an audible gasp. ‘Oh my God, you’re … you’re not alone? Are you still being threatened now? Is someone holding you up at gunpoint inside your apartment?’
Jonny shakes his head. ‘No, no, no, nothing like that. No. There’s no one else here. And I’m fine. I wouldn’t be on the phone to you if I wasn’t —’
‘Then just tell me what happened before I completely lose my mind.’
‘Not now, Paloma. Don’t you understand? Those men weren’t just robbers. They were after a lot more than your bag. They knew exactly who I was. We were followed. Deliberately. By very dangerous people. We need to be even more careful now about everything we do, everything we say.’
And who we say it to, he reminds himself. Paloma’s behaviour was already starting to confuse him. He can’t let his guard down completely with her now, either.
A beat of uneasy silence passes between them.
‘Do you mean … do you mean those men knew about our … about our work?’
‘Exactly,’ Jonny replies, sagging with relief all over again. ‘Like I said, we need to be really fucking careful from here on in, Paloma. I’m so relieved that you’re OK.’
She sighs, a low thrum through the receiver. ‘Well, I’m glad that you are, too. Are you sure that you’re really —’
‘Yes,’ he cuts her off. ‘I promise you. I’m fine. Just lumps and 49bumps, nothing critical. What happened to you after they got me into the car?’
‘They just dropped me. Literally dropped me, I didn’t realise my legs had gone until they let me go and ran. Someone helped me up, I don’t know who it was. I was screaming for you.’
‘Did you see where they went?’
‘No clue. I was just concentrating on where the others were taking you. I tried to run into the road but it was impossible. I’m sorry, Jonny. The car just disappeared.’
‘Don’t worry. What could you have done? All that matters is that you’re alright —’
‘And that you are too. I was thinking the worst, you know? What could they possibly want with you when they already had my bag.’
‘So how did you get home? Didn’t you lose your keys?’
Paloma suddenly goes quiet. Jonny frowns.
‘Paloma? Are you still there?’
She answers in her small voice again. ‘Don’t be angry, OK?’
‘Why would I be angry?’ Jonny wonders, trailing off as he realises exactly why. She must have left her door open – all her doors, by the looks of it. All her cameras unattended. All their pictures lying around for anyone to see. He told her to leave everything of value behind. He didn’t mean leave it unprotected and on display. The bump on his head resumes operations with a thump, firing a fresh burst of adrenaline into his bloodstream.
‘I know.’ Paloma’s low voice is laden with guilt. ‘And you’re right. You’ve been right all along. It’s all I’ve been saying to myself since you disappeared. I should have taken the whole thing more seriously. I promise I’ll be more careful. I swear I’ll never leave it unlocked again.’
But Jonny can’t reply, his mind stuck in a hellscape involving masked, armed men lying in wait for Paloma anytime she returns home, in the dark, defenceless and alone. And now in the increasingly more likely event that dangerous people are actually 50listening to their calls, she’s told them that she can no longer lock herself in.
‘The first thing I did when I got back was barricade myself inside, close all the windows. It’s so hot in here I can hardly breathe. Nothing’s been taken, everything is exactly as I left it.’
‘You’re sure you’ve checked everywhere?’ This time his reply comes out as brusquely as he intended. They’re living in an increasingly desperate city, the peso is losing its value by the day. The financial crisis has been their literal bread and butter for weeks now, the only news story making headlines internationally. The most basic of precautions are not just common sense, they’re a matter of survival. And Paloma can’t even seem to see that.
‘Yes. I’m fine, Jonny. I promise. There’s no one else here. Unless they’re a ghost.’
‘Well, there are plenty of those around,’ he mutters to himself, turning on the spot, reflexively checking the confines of his own unit, as unremarkable as ever, until his gaze snags on the battered clock against the wall.
‘Did you call the police? Or call anyone else at all? What did you tell them?’ Jonny checks the time on the clock with that of his watch. Can it really be gone three a.m.? He must have been out for hours. Was he drugged? Instantly he is picturing dark skies, unconscious cargo, black water.
‘Of course I did. There were guns, you were dragged into a car. I wasn’t going to sit around waiting for you to show up in a ditch somewhere. But all I could really tell them about was being robbed myself. If they had a dollar for every time someone said that these days they’d be millionaires.’
‘So what did they say? When you reported it? What did you say, I mean.’
‘That a gringo had been abducted. And that I was robbed in the process.’
‘But no one has come around to take your statement, or 51whatever they do in this country? Or get you to show them where it happened?’
‘No. Well, not yet, anyway.’
‘Did you give them my name? Or tell them what I was doing here?’
‘Yes and no …’
Jonny has to pull the phone away from his ear for a moment as his head starts to spin again. He was officially reported missing almost six hours ago and no one has followed up since? A foreigner forced into a car at gunpoint looks a whole lot like a kidnapping, doesn’t it? In a city so beset with financial problems? Or is it so equally beset by drug problems that this looks like just another day at the office? He lifts the phone back to his ear.
‘Well, you better call off the dogs.’
‘No way,’ Paloma exclaims back. ‘I mean I’ll call in that you’ve turned up, but —’
‘What? You don’t even know what happened.’
Jonny finds himself yanking the receiver away again before she can question him any further. It couldn’t be more obvious that they both need protection, but Jonny still can’t be sure from what. They have been followed. Their possessions have been stolen – her pictures, his notebook. But they haven’t been warned off. In fact, quite the opposite – they’ve been given clues. And they’ve been given them deliberately. They’ve even been given an actual map. Although they’re yet to figure out exactly where it leads. When he finally puts the phone to his ear again there is only breathy silence on the other end.
‘Thank you for looking out for me,’ Jonny begins. ‘There’s nothing else we can do about it for now. And I’m OK, I really am. Try and get some sleep, and we’ll talk first thing.’
‘Sleep? Are you kidding me? How can I possibly —’
‘Look, just try and rest. It will all look different in the morning, I promise. I’ll see you then.’
52Another beat of silence passes between them. He pictures their preferred coffee stop, conjures the smell of the beans, sets the scene in his head as if he can project it down the line via telepathy. Coffee, clatter, conversation. A low hubbub to drown everything out.
‘And bring your camera,’ he adds. ‘We’ve got a ton of work to do.’
Paloma sighs. ‘Well, I hope at least you get some sleep.’
‘I hope you do too. Y que suenes con los angelitos. Or something like that, anyway.’
Finally her voice softens. ‘You’re full of surprises, you know that, Jonny Murphy?’
‘Just don’t test me in a real conversation. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Sweet dreams to you too,’ she answers, before ringing off. Jonny lets the dial tone blare in his ear for a moment. As usual, the direct translation would be far more appropriate, he thinks. It’s the only reason he can ever remember the expression to start with: May you dream with the angels.
Hanging up, he limps over to his bookshelf, wincing as he shoves it away from the wall, checking the floorboards beneath are undisturbed. He reaches into his pocket, removes his wallet, finds the small ball of paper crammed underneath – the map that Paloma had found tucked inside her photo sleeve. Smoothing it out with a shaky hand, he commits the pencil drawing and its scribbles to memory before folding it neatly into a flat, tiny square.
Kneeling, he runs a sweaty fingertip over the two newer screws, still slightly too shiny for his liking, most definitely out of place to anyone who knows where to look. Easing the tiny square of paper into a crack between the boards, he heaves the bookshelf back into place. A few staggered steps later, ceiling lamp still blazing overhead, he is finally able to collapse into his bed. His unconscious mind only ever quiets under the brightest of lights.
53He is asleep in seconds. At last his dreams fill with vacant, infinite dark.