“I’m not sure yet. But do you think you could?” I tap away at the keyboard, trying to find what I’m looking for.
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. I’m pretty sure I’ll never forget what they looked like.” That’s the first time he’s talked about them that way, as if he too is haunted by them. I sometimes forget he feels things too. Does that sound strange? But by that, I mean I sometimes forget he has fears too, weaknesses. I try so hard to suppress mine I forget he must be doing the same. He sits down next to me on the edge of the bed so he can see the screen. I’ve pulled up the Interpol website. I click on the Wanted Persons tab top right. There’re currently 182 wanted persons listed, 182 photographs for Mark to look through. I think it’s fairly obvious what we’re dealing with now. I know two million dollars is fuck all to people who can afford a sixty-million-dollar jet, but I have the feeling this bag isn’t the sum total of their business.
Mark looks up at me. “Seriously?”
“It can’t hurt, can it? Scroll through. Check.” I hand him the laptop and leave him to it.
I grab my phone and go out onto the decking. I want him to check the FBI wanted list next and the British National Crime Agency list after. I find them easily with a quick Google search on my phone. Rows of FBI mugshots load up just like the Interpol site.
They’re a seedy-looking bunch. But then, to be fair, I suppose you could put a picture of Mark’s mother on an FBI watch list and she’d somehow manage to look seedy. I glance back at him through the glass door, his face lit up by the screen’s glow. It can’t hurt to check, can it? Even if he sees nothing, at least we’ve tried. And we will find something eventually or he’ll have to go back down there. We need to find some clue as to who they are, or we’ll just have to go back, leave the money down there, and forget the whole thing.
I suddenly remember the iPhone. It’s still in the gun box in the bag, which I’ve hidden at the top of the wardrobe behind the spare hotel pillows. Right at the back. Mark’s already vetoed using it, even turning it on. He insists we should chuck it. But it could save us so much time if we just used it. Just once.
The battery’s dead. I know this because I’ve already tried pressing the power button. I tried it while he was in the shower earlier. But no power.
If I could just charge it, then we’d know immediately who they were. We could stop searching.
I look at him again through the glass: his face is concentrated, focused. He’s worried about culpability, of course; I know he is. He’s thinking ahead, he’s thinking practically: if something happens, if we have to go to court. If we turn the iPhone on, it’ll be solid evidence that we have the bag. It’ll pick up signal and the account will show when and where. Even if we put it all back underwater, in the plane, under the sea. It’ll show up on some network server somewhere that it was receiving a signal after the crash. It’ll prove someone found the crash, the dead people, all of it, and told no one. Hid the evidence.
But then again it might just all be fine. I might just turn the phone on and find out whose it is and that could be it. I mean, if I make sure it’s on airplane mode, it won’t pick up a signal at all and that should be fine. No mobile phone record. No evidence. I can definitely do this. I can fix this. I know I can.
I’ll charge it tonight.
Something very, very bad has happened.
Last night Mark went to a private squash lesson over in the hotel complex. He needs the distraction—the stress is getting to him and I suggested it would be a good outlet. Plus he loves squash; it’s really sort of sanctioned shouting for men, isn’t it?
While he was out I took the opportunity to unplug the trouser press that’s hidden inside the closet and plug in the iPhone from the bag using our spare charger. I plugged it in, checked it was on silent, and slid it down the side of the press in case Mark looked in the closet.
I woke up earlier than usual this morning, the anticipation of what I was going to do weighing on my mind. I had to wait until Mark had finished his breakfast and got in the shower to slip back into the closet and unplug it. It hadn’t turned on by itself. I wasn’t sure if that was something that happened automatically—for all I know, it could be broken. And then where would I be? I pocketed it and replaced the spare charger in our suitcase and replugged the presser.
What I need is some more time by myself, just half an hour or so, to check the phone. But it’s hard thinking of excuses to spend time alone on your honeymoon, isn’t it? Nothing seems important enough to be a credible distraction. I think of Holli’s release two days ago. It makes sense that I’d need to Skype Phil to sort out logistics on filming with her as soon as we’re back, now that we’ve missed her actual release. That definitely seems like a good enough reason to leave the room on my own for a while.
I tell Mark I’m going out to Skype my crew. I tell Mark I’ll need an Ethernet connection for the Internet—it’ll make the call signal stronger, the picture quality better. And rather conveniently I’ll need to go to the hotel’s business center for that.
He offers to come too but I say it’ll be boring for him, and maybe a bit weird for Phil and Duncan, and I’ll be super quick. Back before he knows it, I promise. He seems satisfied. I suggest he look through the Interpol missing-persons section today too. Just in case. You never know. But then, I do know—I know they won’t be there. These people won’t be reported missing. They just won’t.
* * *
—
The business center is a small room with a large cream PC and a boxy printer unit. There’s a conference table in the center of it taking up almost all the floor space. I can’t imagine the room has ever been used for an actual business meeting. Perhaps they use it for staff meetings.
I give the corners of the room a cursory glance, high up along the coving. No cameras. That’s good. What I’m doing is going to look odd and I don’t want video evidence of me doing it. You know, just in case, in case it all comes out wrong.
I log on to the computer and pull up the search screen. I’m ready. I’ve been reading up on what to do all morning.
I pull the iPhone out of my pocket and push the power button. The screen floods with white light followed by the tiny Apple logo. I’m going to have to switch to airplane mode as soon as the locked screen comes up. I wait, holding my breath, while it slowly loads itself. How long has it been turned off? Does it take longer to load the longer it’s been off? I wonder. Probably not.
Then the screen flashes up. It’s not the locked screen. There’s no locked screen. No password. Just apps. Straight to apps. Oh my God! No password? That’s ridiculous, who does that in this day and age? I hastily swipe up the quick-access Control Center and tap the little airplane button. Safe.
It would have still been possible to switch to airplane mode from a locked screen, which is exactly what I had expected to be doing. My plan had been to bypass the locked screen. Apparently it’s fairly easy to do, according to the Internet. But I don’t need to do any of that now. The owner obviously wasn’t too worried about people checking his phone. I suppose putting it in a case along with a handgun is probably security enough.
My heart is hammering.
I have access to everything. There aren’t many app icons; some I recognize, some look foreign, but it’s mainly just the in-house apps, no additions, no Candy Crush. I tap on Mail. An inbox bounces up. All the emails are in Russian. Shit. I thought something like this might happen. Okay, well, I guess they were Russian. Anyway, it’s an alphabet I can’t read. Okay. The easiest way to do this is to copy and paste into Google Translate, hardly elegant but, again, let me stress: I am not a spy.