Chapter Forty

The Enemy

 

 

IT FELT AS if there had always been something going on behind her back, beyond the mirrors and glass, obscured by the sun, always just out of reach. As she walked, she tried to recall the exact order of events that had brought her to this point.

It had started with Milo being hit by a car. Why had the police never managed to trace the vehicle? They would have contacted Leo Hardy, they would have made him check every truck and saloon in the workers’ compound. Why had they never found it? Because Hardy reported to the Ka’al.

And Rachel’s lonely death in the scalding desert heat. What had happened in the hour of her death? How could she have accidentally locked herself outside, knowing that she was at risk in the heat?

The Busabis’ house, burned down because Harji smoked, but Mrs Busabi swore he had given up. Ben Larvin almost crushed to death beneath the concrete pipe, another absurd accident that should never have happened. There should have been enquires launched, questions answered. Instead there had been quiet confusion and silence. The Ka’al left no trace. They were the Sand Men; they scattered themselves to the winds, only to reappear when they were hungry once more.

She recalled reading about the energy blackouts in America, how executives had turned off power to those in most desperate need. They had no shame, no conscience, no guilt, because this was how companies had always been run and would always survive.

Milo hadn’t been the first tragedy. Tom had died and a worker had frozen to death on the beach. Everything was all right until you came here, Betty Graham had told her. But it couldn’t have been. It must have started earlier.

As she was letting herself in she heard the sound of an approaching vehicle, and turned to find Leo Hardy’s green Land Rover in the street. He spotted her and pulled up before the house.

‘You always seem to be in my way, Mrs Brook,’ he said, taking an unnecessarily heroic leap out of the vehicle.

‘I was going to say the same thing, Mr Hardy.’

‘I’m checking the security arrangements,’ he warned. ‘You have to get back in the house and stay there until this thing has passed.’ He narrowed his eyes at the street. There was an absurd, outdated masculinity about him.

‘What thing?’

‘It’s a security alert. A big day tomorrow, ya?’

‘I need to find my daughter. Some of the children are missing.’

‘They haven’t been in touch?’

‘Their phones go to voicemail.’

Hardy prowled around his car as if checking for enemies. ‘I just came from the North Side nursery. A few of the older kids are helping to paint the room for the parents’ celebration dinner. Who exactly is missing?’

‘My daughter, Norah, Dean, Roslund, some others, I can’t remember all their names. We haven’t seen or heard from any of them since before dark. They were supposed to be coming home but never got here.’

He shrugged, barely listening. ‘They probably stayed late at school or went to the beach.’

‘I rang the school. Cara always turns her phone back on as she leaves.’

‘Okay, let me make a call.’ He speed-dialled a number on his iPhone and cupped a hand over the microphone. ‘I’m checking with the nursery staff.’ Lea waited while he spoke, studying his pressed scoutmaster shorts and high beige socks.

‘You’re absolutely sure of that?’ Hardy put his hand over the phone. ‘They haven’t seen your daughter, but some of the others are there.’

Her head throbbed with the effort of remaining calm. ‘That’s what I said, they’ve—’

‘Wait, let me finish.’ He listened—or pretended to listen—for a moment. ‘The supervising teacher only just came on duty. She thinks your daughter and her friends went to get burgers.’

‘Then why aren’t they answering their phones? The directors—’ She caught herself.

‘What?’

‘It doesn’t matter—’

He rang off. ‘You might as well tell me.’

‘My husband’s promotion—’

‘Roy’s a lucky man. The board trusts him with everything.’

‘I still can’t believe he rose so quickly.’

‘It was always on the cards, Mrs Brook. They like well-educated men.’

‘Was it on the cards even when he was back in London? Was he told he’d get a promotion then? Did you ever meet the board of directors?’

‘I deal with their people. We all deal with their people. Nobody has to meet them.’

She studied his bare forearms and saw no evidence of burns. ‘Have you ever heard of the Sand Men—the Ka’al?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Hardy shifted impatiently. ‘I have to go. I’m trying to get everyone back to the compound. I’ve already lost most of my best men this week. The new compound guards are a bunch of illiterate bastards who can’t fill in a simple form. I don’t know where everyone is.’

‘People think the workmen caused your security breach but they didn’t, did they?’

‘Maybe someone is planning to leave us with a grand gesture.’ Hardy stopped and looked at her in the ghostly blue light of the street lamps. ’There have been warning signs.’

She rubbed at her temples, trying to forestall a headache. ‘The warnings came long ago, Mr Hardy, and they started on the inside, right in the heart of Dream World, but everyone ignored them. When people find out that you did nothing to stop it, guess who’ll get the blame?’

‘That sounds like a threat.’ He opened his mobile and made a call, speaking in Afrikaans. She stood waiting for him to finish, chilled in the warm night air. ‘My men are going to be on duty all night anyway, so I’ve instructed them to look out for your kids. I need you to go inside your house and stay there until your husband and daughter arrive, ya? Go and write something, assuming your laptop is repaired, do something that will calm you down.’

‘How did you know about my laptop? I didn’t tell you.’

‘You women have no secrets from us. I don’t want you wandering around the neighbourhood, do you understand? From midnight nothing bigger than a mosquito is going to get through our security. Everything must be kept orderly, and you can help by not frightening the hell out of people.’

‘Are you with them,’ she asked, ‘or with us?’

‘It depends on who you call them? Liberals—you all make the same mistake.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You come to a strange land and think you’re surrounded by devils. You never identify the real enemy. It’s you people.’ He jabbed angrily at her chest. ‘It’s always you.’

Waving her away from the vehicle, he jumped back in and roared off, accelerating with a squeal of tyres as he barked commands into his phone.