Chaos Theory Read Free Page A

and said, ‘Czech. See here, this word “ nemocnice ”, that means “hospital”. I tore my Achilles’ tendon once when I was filming in Prague, and they took me to the “ nemocnice ”.’
    ‘So maybe P R C H A L means something in Czech. Maybe it’s not initials at all. Hey, maybe it’s the Czech for “prickle”. Well, hey, it sounds like it, doesn’t it – “ prchal ”?’
    Silja looked at him over her half-glasses, unamused. She passed over another piece of newsprint and pointed to the edge of it. ‘Here, look, there’s a date here. 30 June 1943. This is more than sixty-five years old.’
    ‘So somebody lost this case during World War Two. Could have dropped it off a boat, I guess. Or maybe it came from a plane crash. There were all kinds of bits of aircraft wreckage down there, and it was pretty much in line with the end of the landing strip.’
    Silja poured herself another cup of black coffee. ‘Well, I don’t think we’ll ever find out, will we? Whoever used to own this box, he died before he could enjoy his last cigarette.’
    Noah took out two Marlboros, and lit them both. ‘My daddy always used to warn me that smoking kills.’

Three
     
    A deola Davis woke up and stared at the alarm clock beside the bed. 5.57 a.m. Shit. She wouldn’t have time for her morning workout. She would hardly have enough time to take a shower.
    She heaved Rick’s arm off her and sat up. ‘I’m late,’ she said. ‘I have my first meeting at six forty-five.’
    Rick was still sleeping. He mumbled, ‘ Don’t  . . . you really don’t want to do that, dude . . .’
    Adeola flung back the bedcover and bounced out of bed. ‘You said you’d wake me. You promised you’d wake me. Jesus Christ, it’s your job to wake me.’
    Rick opened one eye and looked up at her, confused. ‘What’s the matter, baby? What’s happening?’
    ‘I need to be sitting across a table from the Ethiopians in forty-seven minutes, that’s what’s happening. I need to look fresh, and perfectly groomed, and I need to have my head together. I need to be utterly composed.’
    She crossed the room, scooping up her blue silk bathrobe as she went, and opened the bathroom door. ‘I do not need to look puffy-eyed and dishevelled and exhausted, nor do I need to smell as if I’ve been having all-night sex with my head of security.’
    Rick propped himself up on one elbow. ‘But you have been having all-night sex with your head of security.’
    Adeola went into the blue-tiled bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror over the washbasin. God almighty, she looked like one of those juju masks they sold in the backstreet markets in Lagos. Her short hair was all frizzy, her eyelids were swollen, and her lips were pouting. She climbed into the glass shower cubicle and turned on the shiny designer faucet.
    ‘Coffee?’ asked Rick, coming into the bathroom naked. He was stocky and muscular, with a black crucifix of hair on his chest. He had a handsome, heart-shaped face with some disturbing femininity in it, like a young Tony Curtis or a Ray Liotta.
    ‘Cranberry juice, that’s all.’
    He opened the door of the shower cubicle and stood watching her as she soaped herself. He had a slight tic in his right eye, the result of a gunshot wound inflicted in Kuwait, so that he looked as if he were winking at her. ‘Are you sure that’s all? Cranberry juice? I mean . . . forty-seven minutes, that’s just about long enough . . .’
    She turned to him. ‘There’s a time for everything, Mr Kavanagh. A time to live and a time to die. A time to be a lover and a time to be a fighter. And a time to get the hell out of the bathroom and put some pants on.’
    ‘You’re a goddess, you know that? Look at you.’
    Adeola had a long, exotic face with feline eyes and a very strong jawline. This morning she might have thought that she looked like a juju mask, but she looked exactly like her mother, whose extraordinary appearance had made the UN