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Decristoforo Mansion – it didn’t have any other name that he could see – was like a castle out of an Edgar Allan Poe story, completely at odds with its tropical setting. Huge and almost black with sloping roofs at odd angles to each other, it had three high towers topped with spires that seemed to sit on them like witches’ hats. The steep road up to it was lined with firs. The door was twice the size of a man. Standing in the porch you got a view of the whole of this side of the island, but at such an altitude that almost all you could see was the ocean in which the landmass sat. You seemed to be much, much closer to the sun up here.
Mordred got out of the car, clutching the bunch of roses in one hand and holding a caged parrot in the other. Rory knocked.
The old woman answered the door – the same one who’d driven the car. “I’m very sorry for deceiving you,” she said emotionally. “You were kind and I abused that. You were quite right to chastise me.”
“Sorry I lost my temper.”
“Come through.”
Fenella was waiting to greet him. She wore a plain black dress with long sleeves and matching heels. Her hair was dark; her face was well-defined, lean and severe. She was about Mordred’s age, but gave off a consuming gravitas that made her seem at least a decade older. Suddenly, a bunch of roses and a parrot seemed wholly inappropriate.
She smiled and came over. “My roses.”
“I realised they were yours after I bought them. There didn’t seem to be any wine on the island or chocolates and when I realised the flowers were a failure – ‘failure’ because they’re already yours, not because they’re not attractive – I went into ‘Exciting Trees and Exotic Birds’.”
She eyed the parrot through the cage bars. “That’s Kiki, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. As far as the owner’s concerned, I’m a tourist, so he’s got an unlimited supply of birds specially imported from the Amazon whose release he’s promoting to encourage biodiversity.”
“Whereas the reality is, he’s got exactly three.” She took the cage and examined the bird’s markings. “This is Kiki, definitely.”
“Will she be getting anxious?”
“She’s a cool customer. We’ll release her in a moment.” She led him through into a much larger room, very Victorian with dark furniture, expensive wallpaper and huge portraits of 19th century men looking miserable. “I’m Fenella Decristoforo-Salvaterra. I understand you’re John Mordred, British spy.”
“I tried to explain to Rory on the way over that I didn’t come here with any hostile intent.”
“When I heard about you, I thought you must be on your way to kill Peter. That’s partly why I sent a scare-squad.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because of the secrecy, and because he’s the only person on the island in which MI6 could conceivably have an interest.”
“Unfortunately, in my job, wherever you go, you’ve got to pretend you’re someone else. You can’t enter a location on the understanding that you’ve no harmful intentions so it’s okay to let everyone know what you actually do for a living.”
“In any case, you were nice to Maria. Even before you knew who she was. That impressed me a lot. I realised then you probably weren’t a killer. You could and would have killed her if you’d been our enemy. To stop her reporting back.”
“Okay, well, now we know I’m not the Terminator, let’s call it quits.”
“Agreed. Dinner will be ready in about ten minutes. Sit down, and tell me what you want. Although I think I can guess.”
“Is your grandfather-in-law available? This concerns him too.”
“He’s in England. At least, that’s what he told me. He doesn’t share everything with me. We’re not blood relatives, but we’re each the nearest to family the other now has. That makes us very close. We’re not lovers, before you ask. That would be wrong, and distasteful. I know women my age sometimes go for men his age, especially when they have money and there might be a big inheritance in the offing, but it’s not that. I love – loved – my husband. Peter’s son, Arnold. So did he. We’re both looking forward to seeing him again in the afterlife. That gives us a stronger bond than you might imagine.”
“I understand.”
“My own side of the family’s cursed, Mr Mordred, believe it or not. I won’t divulge the details, you’d probably think I had a screw loose. But I have no close blood relatives left, and I was selfish enough to hitch my fate to Arnold’s family. I thought they could save me, you see, and I was in love with him. In fact, I doomed them. Sorry, I’m rambling.” She pressed her fingertips to her temples. “What was it you wanted to ask?”
“You said you could guess. That’s not me playing games. I’m interested to see if you’re right.”
She smiled. “Admit that the waters around you have grown and accept it that soon you'll be drenched to the bone. I’m talking – we both are – about World War O.”
“You’ve even heard the phrase here.”
“We do have one of the world’s greatest computer scientists on the island. Most of the time, not right now. That means we know more about the world than some governments. You haven’t asked me yet how I knew you were a spy.”
“I prefer conversing with people to interrogating them, even where the latter’s a possibility, which it isn’t here.”
“Why isn’t it?” she asked.
“Because as far as I know, you haven’t done anything wrong.”
“So if the entire evening was to pass without me mentioning it, you wouldn’t ask?”
“Asking isn’t interrogating,” he replied. “You might choose not to tell me, in which case, I’d drop the subject.”
“It’s your job to find out, surely?”
“Except I already know. As you say, you have one of the world’s greatest computer scientists on the island. Most of the time.”
She gave a wide smile. “I like you, Mr Mordred. This may sound strange, given that we’ve only just met, but I already feel I can trust you.”
Maria came in to announce that dinner was served. They got up and went across the corridor into a small room with a polished walnut table. There was a fireplace, three armchairs, a picture of Christ showing his heart, and a TV. They sat down facing each other at the table and Maria brought two bowls of tortilla soup.
“I know you’re a vegetarian,” she said. “I asked the Sunshine Suite to wire me your lunch choices. Only a vegetarian would order their nut cutlet for the first meal of his first day on the island.”
“Don’t you get lonely here?” he asked. “Excuse me if that’s too personal a question.”
“Not at all. I used to. I haven’t left this house in years, unless you count going into the garden. I love it here.”
“It’s an unusual design.”
“Entirely my own. Peter gave me carte blanche, no expenses spared. Probably to keep me from brooding. We used to live in a typical pastel coloured town house fronting the bay. We moved up here after Arnold, Madeleine and Jill died, for grief’s sake – we had to get away from the mementoes or go insane. I designed it to be the flat opposite of what we’d left behind. We came specifically here because this is where Peter’s laboratory is. Underground”
“I heard.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Really? You heard about his laboratory?”
“They told me back at base. They love it. They love anything that reminds them of the big J and B.”
She put her head quizzically on one side. “The ... whisky?”
“The secret agent.”
She laughed. “Oh, I see, yes.”
“Sorry, I forgot about your two supermarkets. All those expensive spirits and not a bottle of wine in sight.”
“You won’t find J&B here, Mr Mordred. We only do moonshine.”
“Can I ask you about Peter again?”
“Anything you like.”
“I’m here because the British and US intelligence services were caught unawares by so-called World War O. It must have been organised via the internet, but we picked nothing up. The theory is that we were prevented from seeing it by some unknown electronic means. That would require an advance beyond our existing technology. Peter is known for his support for the Tax Justice Network. He’s also - ”
“You want to know if he’s responsible for the black hole in your surveillance.”
“Yes.”
“I honestly don’t know. But it’s plausible. And admirable, I think. Bankers, hedge-fund managers, stockbrokers and the like don’t contribute anything to society. Parasites are part of nature – any given system can tolerate them up to a point – but when they rule the world, you’ve got problems. Peter’s a goodie, Mr Mordred.”
“World War O is probably a passing fad. It’ll have blown over in a week or two - ”
“I sincerely hope not.”
“However, you must be able to appreciate what this kind of technology could do in the wrong hands. Say a country wants to launch a nuclear strike.”
“What are you suggesting? That we hand the science over to you?” She laughed. “That would be stupid.”
“I’m suggesting you destroy it.”
“That would also mean killing the person in whose brain it exists. Otherwise, he might be abducted and menaced into divulging it. Are you sure you didn’t come here to murder him?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Because his would-be assassin might think he’s acting for the sake of global security. That would be perfectly consistent with kindness to old ladies.”
He sighed. “Look, I’ll be honest with you. If he is behind it, then theoretically perhaps it would be better if he died. What if someone does kidnap and torture him?”
“He wouldn’t crack. Maybe you should leave, Mr Mordred.”
“If I wanted to kill him, all I’d have to do is kidnap you. He might not crack when he’s being tortured, but you’re a different matter. If I really had his death in mind, I’d have killed Rory and Maria and marched you out of here with a gun.”
They finished their soup and sat looking at each other for a long time. She seemed to have forgotten her suggestion that he should leave.
“Maybe we should release the parrot now,” he said.
“If your plan is to make me fall in love with you, forget it. That’s never going to happen. No insult intended.”
He could see he was losing her trust quickly. He had to do something. “There were lots of spies you could have been talking to now. I was sent to see you for a specific reason.”
She smiled bitterly. “And that reason: it wasn’t, by any chance, because you’re conventionally good-looking, a bit of a smoothie and about my age?”
“To get me as far away from Jersey as possible.”
She looked at him as if he was mad. “Sorry, I don’t understand.”
“Have you been following World War O?”
“There’s very little else on the television at the moment,” she replied. “Not that I watch TV a lot, but Peter likes me to keep up to date. How is it relevant?”
“Then I suppose you’ve heard of Hannah Lexingwood?”
“Jersey’s a long way away from here,” she said. “I’ve been following the local protests more closely. The Caymans, Turks and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands, Barbados, Panama. But yes. It’s an unusual name, so it stayed with me. Why?”
“Because she’s my older sister.”
She put her spoon down. “I don’t believe you.”
He took his phone out - Christmas photos – and passed it over.
She scrolled through them. Her mood switched and she laughed. Something in her seemed to relax completely. Maria brought in two plates of sweet potato burritos and set them down on the table. Fenella gave no indication of noticing. She passed the phone back.
“I suppose it must have been a bit of a shock when you turned on the TV and saw her at the front of a ten-thousand strong crowd,” she said, “berating Saint Helier financiers. Or did you know in advance?”
“I had no idea.”
She started to eat. “What’s your view of the matter?”
“I love my sister and I don’t necessarily disagree with her politics.”
“But?”
“I don’t know enough about the subject. When I was in the Caymans the other day, the superintendent of police told me it’s all happening too late. He says there are already measures in place to make tax evasion virtually impossible.”
“And you fell for that?”
“He’s a policeman. He may be mistaken, but I doubt he was trying to deceive me. He’d have nothing to gain.”
“That’s your criterion of truth, is it? The moral status of the messenger?”
“One of them, yes.”
“In any case, not all financial immorality is tax evasion. The world’s corporations haven’t zeroed in on 102 square miles of otherwise insignificant land in the middle of the Caribbean just because they like being together.”
“We’re getting off the point. I’m not here to kill Peter or kidnap you. If you want me to leave, I will.”
“I don’t want you to leave. I’m very sorry I suggested it. I should have trusted my earlier instincts.”
“So we’re friends again?”
“It may strike you as hypocritical, me railing against ‘parasites’. What do I do, after all? I’m a kept woman, and not even the kind who dispenses sex, or cooks, or cleans. The truth is, if it hadn’t been for Peter, I’d have curled up and died. I’m keeping him alive, that’s my purpose, and he does good. When he dies, I probably will.”
“I hope not.”
“It’s not a question of my getting over Arnold’s death. As I’ve already told you, I’m cursed. That makes all the difference.”
He remembered Brian’s words: don’t get into an argument about it. “You say you think Peter’s in England?” he asked. “I don’t want to scare you, but are you sure he’s okay?”
“It hadn’t occurred to me until now, but no.”
“You do realise that I’ve been sent here to ask about the science of surveillance-blocking. Once I’ve gone, it’s only a matter of time before the military arrives. By ‘time’, I mean days, possibly even hours. They’ll go through Peter’s laboratory and take you away for questioning. Somewhere in the world, he’ll be apprehended. I’m not sure what will happen to you then. Either of you.”
She stopped eating. “This – what you’re saying ... This is inevitable, isn’t it?”
“I’m not trying to scare you, if that’s what you mean.”
“I need to talk to Peter and destroy everything of value in his laboratory.”
“And then you need to come with me. We need to get you off the island.”
“And go where?”
“Wherever Peter is. We can separate once I know you’re safe.”
“I don’t want a life on the run. I don’t want to leave this house.”
“You’ve got to.”
She stood up and opened the door. “Come on,” she said.
He followed her up a wide, winding staircase. They passed two floors and emerged into a dimly lit corridor. They turned right, and she opened a pair of French windows. Suddenly, they were on a balcony, overlooking the island. In the distance, the sun had just gone down, leaving a smear of orange beneath the purple. The sky sparkled with stars. Beneath them, only darkness. On a table to one side stood a caged parrot. She opened its door, coaxed it onto her finger and brought it out.
“We can’t let her go now,” Mordred said. “She probably can’t navigate in the dark.”
Fenella smiled. “She’s well trained, and she’s got good night vision. She’ll find a branch somewhere and wait till morning.” She took Mordred’s hand. “Make a wish.”
“Right now, I wish you’d come with me.”
“A secret wish.”
She kissed the bird and let it go. They watched it for a while before it disappeared into the darkness.
She turned to him, suddenly practical. “I’d like you to leave now, Mr Mordred. I have lots to do.”
Her voice cracked on the last sentence, but he could already see there was no point in arguing with her. She’d made up her mind. Even he could appreciate she didn’t have many options, and those she did have were all unpleasant.
“Thank you for a lovely evening,” he said. It sounded woeful, but he couldn’t think of anything beyond the conventional.
She waked to the edge of the balcony as if he’d already gone. Rory arrived and escorted him downstairs and to the car. Mordred got onto the back seat this time; he no more felt like speaking than the other man apparently did. But in Rory’s case, it was probably mere tiredness.
As they drove along the fir-lined road away from the house, Mordred wound down the window, He half-expected to hear the crack of a gun. That was obviously what she’d been thinking.
But it never came. On the highest turret of the house, he could just make out a multi-coloured pirate flag, waving in the breeze. Overhead, he heard the low rumble of a troop-carrying plane.
