The Wreckage: A Thriller (27 page)

“When did you last talk to Jennings?” he asks Daniela.

“After the attack on the Finance Ministry. He wanted to know what files had been taken. He also wanted my laptop and whatever results we’d obtained. I told him the program had only been running forty-eight hours, but he stil wanted the records.”

“Did you tel him about the double payments?”

“Yes.”

“What about the cash deliveries to the banks that were robbed?”

“He knew that too.”

They fal silent and watch Jamal’s two boys drawing pictures on butcher’s paper, sharing colored pencils between them. What sort of future awaits them, wonders Luca. Jamal has been identified and labeled as a col aborator. He and Abu wil be targets from now on. Friendless. Never safe.

Reaching into his pocket, Luca places the keys to the Skoda on the tea tray.

“These are yours now.”

Jamal looks at him. “Why?”

“You can be a taxi driver—until you become a doctor.”

“You do not owe me anything.”

“I owe you more than I can ever repay.”

Jamal drives them to the al-Hamra Hotel and drops them inside the security perimeter. They say goodbye with the engine running.

“I wil come back one day,” says Luca.

Jamal shakes his head. “Iraq is a place to leave, not to live.”

“What wil you do?”

“I have family in the south.”

Daniela turns away as the two men embrace wordlessly. She takes Luca’s hand as they watch the Skoda leave, waving one last time before going upstairs to their room where they undress each other.

Luca can’t find the clasp of her bra.

“Try the other side.”

“I never say no to the other side.”

Unhooking the clasp, he reaches for her breasts. “These are nice.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Firm.”

“They hold my bra up.”

She turns, expecting a kiss, but Luca avoids her lips.

“I thought you were going to kiss me.”

“Not yet.”

He wants to change the rhythm of her breathing. He wants to make her skin flush and her toes curl. He wants to see her self-control dissolve and for Daniela to exist on the same plane he does.

Afterwards, they lie together. She takes his hand and can feel it beating softly as if it contains its own tiny heart.

“Who’s Nicola?” she asks. “Nadia mentioned her.”

“A woman I knew.”

“You were close?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I lost her.”

Daniela looks at him steadily and for a moment the intel igence in her eyes seems to be absolute and unshakable.

“Why did you take me to meet Jamal and his family?”

“To show you why I do this.”

15

LONDON

Elizabeth is leaning out of the top-floor window, puffing on a cigarette but not inhaling. The last time she remembers doing something like this she was fourteen. It was a Pal Mal and she was hiding from her parents. Now she’s thirty-two and hiding from her son’s nanny. Age doesn’t make us any wiser or less prone to guilt.

She found an old packet of cigarettes when she was searching North’s study, looking for clues, trying to piece together his last days, checking his credit card statements, mobile phone bil s and emails; lipstick on his shirt col ars; or another woman’s scent on his clothes.

Suddenly nauseous, she breaks the cigarette in half, wrapping the butt in a tissue before flushing it down the loo. The tissue dissolves but the dog-end is stil there, bobbing in the bowl, mocking her.

She brushes her teeth and goes back to the study, sitting at North’s desk, feeling the contours in the old leather chair, worn shiny in places. She found the chair in a second-hand shop in Camden just after they bought the house in Barnes. North had wanted a new chair, but she told him this one was a classic. It reminded her of something you see in old movies about newspaper offices where reporters hammer on manual typewriters and yel at copyboys to run their words to the subs desk.

Her personal dreams of journalism had made this image seem romantic. At university she imagined herself as a famous columnist—the next Julie Burchil or Zoë Hel er or Lynn Barber. Instead she’d presented a “lifestyle” program, as forgettable as a phone number.

Elizabeth opens the report from the private detective. Her husband’s days are broken down into hours and minutes: times, dates and places. Tucked into the front sleeve of the folder is a USB stick. Using a directional microphone, Colin Hackett had recorded some of the conversation between North and the two men he met at The Warrington in Maida Vale.

Plugging the stick into her laptop, Elizabeth opens the audio file and presses “play.” There are background voices, car sounds, wind rustling the leaves. Three voices, one of them North’s, another speaks a guttural-sounding English, his words like gravel rol ing in a drum. The other accent is almost too perfect, like listening to someone mimicking Roger Moore.

Voice 1: … you should stop saying these things and calm down…

North: Don’t tel me to calm down… I approved the transfers. I signed off on the details…

Voice 1: You did your job… due diligence… nobody is suggesting otherwise…

North: … it’s a bad sign… the money came from somewhere… it’s going somewhere… tel me.

Voice 1: These are not questions you need to ask. Worry about life, worry about your wife and family…

North: Leave my family out of this.

Voice 1: These things wil pass…

Voice 2: We have a proverb where I come from, Mr. North. If you have done nothing wrong, don’t worry about the devil knocking at your door…

North: But I am doing something wrong…

Voice 1: You’re exaggerating… nothing has changed.

There is a garbled section of the recording. North appears to have walked away from the table, but the men are stil talking.

Voice 2: … he’s rattled…

Voice 1: … I wil cal our friend. Tel him we’re concerned…

Voice 2: The time for talking is over… this is what happens when you deal with amateurs…

The recording ends. Elizabeth plays it back and listens for names, but there are too many gaps and unintel igible words. She concentrates on North’s voice, feeling something snag in his chest when he mentions the word family.

This wasn’t a normal business meeting. These weren’t normal business contacts. North told Bridget Lindop that he’d done something terrible and on the tape he talked about wanting to know where money had come from and gone. Perhaps Mitchel was right to be concerned.

Elizabeth looks at the daily log written by Colin Hackett. Before North went to The Warrington, he visited a house in Mount Street, just off Park Lane. She glances at her watch.

Rowan won’t be home from nursery for another few hours. Polina can pick him up. Grabbing her car keys and her bag, she gets in the car and programs the satnav for Mayfair. The journey takes her across Hammersmith Bridge and along Hammersmith Road past Olympia and through Kensington to Hyde Park Corner.

Late summer and there are stil plenty of tourists in London, eating sandwiches on the grass and taking photographs from open-top buses. London has never seemed like a destination to Elizabeth, but for others it is a postcard, a photograph or the backdrop to their holiday videos.

Mount Street is lined with Edwardian mansion blocks and rows of Italianate houses, every corner has a CCTV camera bolted to the brickwork. Curtains don’t twitch anymore and neighbors no longer study neighbors. Instead cameras record every dropped piece of litter and unscooped dog turd.

Walking up the front steps, Elizabeth presses a large bronze bel . The blue-painted front door is heavy and old. It opens after a moment. A woman in a black smock dress peers from inside. Elegant. Her hair is silver tipped and her features as delicate as a porcelain figurine.

Elizabeth realizes that she should have thought of a story.

“I’ve lost my dog,” she blurts. “I live around the corner. I’m asking everyone.”

The woman shakes her head. “What does your dog look like?”

“Umm, he’s white, ah, he’s a sort of terrier like a Jack Russel .”

“I haven’t seen any stray dogs.”

“Is there anyone else at home? Perhaps you could ask your husband.”

A man’s voice comes from the top of the stairs: “Who is it, Maria?”

“Someone has lost her dog.”

The door opens a little wider. Elizabeth takes the opportunity. She steps into the hal way, glancing up the stairs.

“It’s been two days and my little boy is heartbroken. I thought I’d knock on some doors.”

The man has gone. She didn’t see his face. The woman ushers her into a large front room with dormer windows and a fireplace. Every piece of furniture seems to fit perfectly.

Antique or expensive copies, they match the artifacts—Byzantine mosaics, swords, pottery and statues displayed around the room. The beauty of the items seems to distract Elizabeth, who doesn’t realize she’s being spoken to.

“I beg your pardon?”

“What is the dog’s name?”

“Ummm, ah, wel , his name is Fred, short for Frederick.”

The woman is almost ageless with a casual elegance that makes Elizabeth feel clumsy and shabbily dressed. She could be Middle Eastern. She could just be wealthy.

“Where do you live?”

“Around the corner.”

“What road?”

Elizabeth can’t think of a neighboring street. She mumbles something and Claudia kicks her as though punishing her stupidity.

“Do you have a photograph?” asks the woman.

“Pardon?”

“A picture of the dog. You could put it on lampposts.”

“Yes, what a good idea.”

Elizabeth wants to ask her about North and why he came to the house. She has the photographs in her handbag. What would the woman say if she just came straight out and showed them to her? She raises her eyes to the ceiling, hearing something upstairs. “Maybe your husband has seen Fred.”

“He’s busy.”

“What does he do?”

The woman ignores the question and stares at Elizabeth for a long time. “Why are you real y here?”

Elizabeth’s skin prickles with embarrassment and Claudia squirms wetly in her bel y.

“I feel so bloody sil y. I didn’t work out what I was going to say.”

“I don’t understand.”

“My name is Elizabeth North. My husband came here about a week ago. It was a Friday afternoon. Now he’s missing. I’m trying to find him.” The woman is watching her with her almond-shaped eyes, giving nothing away. Elizabeth takes the photographs from her handbag. They are curling now at the edges and stained with something sticky that Rowan put in her handbag.

“Who took these?”

“A private detective.”

Suspicion flares in the woman’s eyes. “Watching this house?”

“No. He was fol owing my husband. I was concerned about him. I knew something was wrong. He came here. Is one of these men your husband?” The woman stands and straightens her dress, brushing it down her thighs. “I don’t know who you are—or what you’re doing, but I want you to leave.”

“I’m tel ing you the truth. His name is Richard North. Can you just ask your husband?”

The woman walks to the entrance hal telephone. “Do I have to cal the police?”

“I’m leaving,” says Elizabeth.

As she tries to step past the woman, a hand shoots out and grips her wrist. “Tel me why you’re fol owing us.”

“I don’t even know who you are. I’m trying to find my husband.”

Elizabeth feels a sudden sharp cramp in her abdomen that takes her breath away. She has to lean on the edge of the table, breathing in and out against the pain.

The woman lets go and her voice softens. “You should go home.”

“I know he came here.”

“I wil ask my husband—but you must leave.”

A voice from above: “Is everything al right, Maria?”

It’s one of the men from the photograph—the one with the clipped English accent. Taking off his glasses, he studies Elizabeth, his eyes neither hostile nor interested.

“I’m looking for my husband, Richard North. He met with you.”

“And what makes you say that?”

“I have photographs.”

“What photographs?”

“You were sitting at a table outside The Warrington. There was another man with you.”

“I’m afraid you’re mistaken.”

Elizabeth can feel the skin on her forehead itching. She fumbles through the photographs, looking for the right one. Pul s it free. Holds it up. The man doesn’t want to look at her pictures. He hasn’t moved from the stairs.

“The other man in the picture—do you know his name?”

Nothing alters in his face, which has al the emotion and depth of a pie plate. Elizabeth presses on. “I just want to find him. Do you know where he is?”

“Show her to the door, Maria.”

Elizabeth wants to make him listen. “I know about the transfers,” she blurts, making things up as she goes along.

The man scratches at the corner of his mouth with a fingernail. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please leave my home.” He turns away, pul ing a mobile phone from the sagging pocket of his sweatshirt.

Elizabeth finds herself on the front steps where dead leaves are chasing each other in a circle of wind. The man was lying to her. Hiding something. Had she made a mistake coming here? Claudia has stopped kicking, but her heart stil races, beating like the wings of a bird against the bars of a cage.

16

LONDON

Colorful saris, black chadors, minarets and Halal butchers—it could be Bangladesh or Mogadishu or Hackney or Lambeth. Extended families. Ilegal immigrants. Sweatshop workers.

Flotsam washed up on British shores.

It took the Courier longer than expected to find Bernie Levinson. Fol owing him had bordered on the banal—tracking him between his various businesses and his very ugly mock Tudor house in Ilford with its swimming pool and revolving sunroom.

A bel tinkles above his head. He spins a CLOSED sign on the back of the door. The shelves of the pawnshop are lined with DVD players, iPods, satnavs and TV sets.

“I won’t keep you,” says a voice in the back room. The Courier walks behind the counter and through the door.