‘And I suppose you want me to make a tiny increase in my offer again?’
Nelson nodded.
‘Well, I won’t! I’m accepting their five million, and I’ll have Isabel back here tomorrow night.’
I glanced at Nelson who was watching Luís closely. He shrugged. ‘I can offer my advice, nothing more.’
‘Good.’
‘Luís?’ I said, hesitantly.
He frowned towards me.
‘I know you can pay five million dollars, and you want to. That’s fine. I’d like to see Isabel back soon too. But Nelson’s right, we should just check to see that she is alive. So why don’t you agree to five million provided they come back with proof of life? If they have her, and they know they will get their five million, then there’s no reason for them to delay in replying, is there?’
I looked over to Nelson for support. He nodded.
‘OK,’ said Luís. ‘But you think up the question.’
The question was, ‘Which town does Dave come from?’ Luís never got a chance to ask it.
When he suggested proof of life, Zico refused. Luís stuck to his demand, with no luck. Eventually the phone call ended, with Zico swearing he would kill Isabel.
Luís put down the phone. His face was fixed. Cold.
‘You know what this means? She might be dead already,’ said Nelson quietly.
Luís stood before me, tall and gaunt. The events of the last few days, and especially the last few minutes had aged him.
‘I’m just going up to her room,’ he said.
I pounded up the track, the trees and undergrowth of the Atlantic rain-forest on either side a mass of dark murky green. But I hardly noticed the profusion of life around me: my eyes were focused on the dirt under my feet. My brain was focused on Isabel.
My feelings were a swirl of contradictions. I hardly knew her, yet I felt as though I knew her better than any other human being in the world. The conversations we had had together played over and over again in my mind, especially those discussions we’d had long into the night about everything and nothing. I saw parts of her, now her huge eyes, now her shy smile behind a strand of black hair. I remembered the time I had first seen her, leaning against a desk in the Dekker Ward trading room, sexy, instantly attractive.
I burst out of the forest into the sheep meadows above. Behind me, I knew, was a spectacular view of the fazenda and the outskirts of Petrópolis. But I didn’t look at it. My head was bent, my eyes down.
I was angry, angry that Isabel might now be dead. Angry with myself for abandoning her, angry with Nelson for not preventing the police from disturbing her kidnappers, angry with Luís for not being more in control. But worst of all, and this was something I could hardly admit to myself, I was angry with Isabel. She knew she was a kidnap risk, so why hadn’t she been more careful? Why had she gone and got herself killed just now, just when I realized how much she meant to me?
Except I didn’t know how much she meant to me. I was confused about that, too. We were only at the beginning of a relationship. How would it have developed? Would it have come to anything? I found my imagination fast-forwarding to a whole life together. Would she have fitted into my small flat in Primrose Hill? It was difficult to imagine her there.
It was absurd. It probably never would have worked. And now, because of Zico and his friends, I might never know what might have been.
But I couldn’t accept that.
Was she really dead? Nelson thought she was. Luís thought she wasn’t. We hadn’t heard a word from Zico.
Logic suggested Nelson was right, and he had experience of these situations. But until we had proof that she was dead, I couldn’t believe it. I was with Luís. I had to hope and pray she was alive, whether it made sense or not.
Finally, near the summit of the steep hillside, I stopped and sat down. I could just see the fazenda nestling in the valley below.
It had been a horrible couple of days. Luís had been like a ghost. Cordelia had gone into hospitaclass="underline" her doctors were worried about the effect all the stress was having on her pregnancy. Nelson Zarur had offered to waive his fee, but in the end Luís had paid it.
I had phoned Ricardo and told him that it looked as if Isabel might have been killed. It was difficult. He had tried to take it coolly, but his voice sounded dead, empty. I told him I would be coming back to London soon. He cut the conversation short. Isabel had been right: she had meant something to him.
‘She’s still alive, you know.’
It was evening. Through the french windows behind us, the last red embers of the sun were crumbling behind the mountain at the head of the valley. In front of us was a roaring fire. We had been sitting staring at it in silence for half an hour, each holding a glass of Ballantine’s.
I nodded. ‘I know.’
‘We have to believe that, no matter what Nelson or Zico or anyone else says.’
‘I know.’
Silence.
Then Luís stirred. ‘What was she like? At work?’
‘She was quiet. Serious. Very good at her job. She got on with things. I think people respected her.’
Luís shook his head. ‘I’m surprised she went into banking. Disappointed, in a strange kind of way. She seemed so idealistic. Of course I disagreed with her, and we had arguments. But I respected her ideals. And then she went to the United States, and came back eager to prove to the world that she could be a better banker than me. Why?’
‘I don’t know. But she certainly was driven. She did want to prove something, and I think it was to you.’
‘But she didn’t have to!’ said Luís. ‘It was enough for me that she was my daughter. I didn’t expect her to become a great financier as well.’
I thought about this for a moment. ‘Perhaps it was the fact that you didn’t expect anything of her that drove her on. I don’t know. But don’t blame yourself. You brought up a wonderful daughter. You should be proud.’
Luís just stared into the fire.
‘She hadn’t lost her ideals,’ I said. ‘That favela deal was a brilliant idea. And she believed in it. For her it was a chance finally to use her skills to do some good.’
‘It was good. It’s a shame it didn’t work.’
‘That was only because Ricardo Ross destroyed it.’
‘Oswaldo Bocci is scum. Ricardo is a fool to have anything to do with him. I know Dekker Ward are very good, but sometimes they go too far. I wish Isabel had worked for someone else.’
‘They have a bad name?’
‘Yes, they do. They’re not exactly corrupt, Ricardo isn’t that stupid. But there is a...’ he searched for the word ‘... smell about them. They deal with people they shouldn’t. Like Oswaldo Bocci. They bend the rules when they shouldn’t.’
I wasn’t surprised. ‘Presumably Isabel knew this when she joined them.’
‘Yes,’ said Luís. ‘I tried to talk her out of it, but that probably only egged her on. She said that it was a great career opportunity for her and that she would be completely honest. And I think she has been. She has a good reputation in Brazil.’
The fire crackled and spat. It was almost totally dark now, and the room was illuminated by the glow of the flames.
‘I’m going to resign when I get back to London,’ I said.
‘Are you?’ Luís straightened in his chair. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t like banking. Or maybe I just don’t like Dekker. I had decided before I came out here with Isabel.’
Luís didn’t answer. We lapsed into silence again. Our thoughts drifted back to Isabel.
‘We can save her favela deal,’ Luís said.
‘How?’