Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [75]
As she moved farther into the room and turned toward the bathroom, Jack wanted to call out to her, to protect her, warn her away, keep her from seeing that horrifying tableau inside. But he hesitated and then it was too late. Her eyes widened slightly as she took in the bloody tile and al-Fida’s body, frozen in death.
To Jack’s surprise, she didn’t break down. Didn’t even utter a sound. She just stared at al-Fida for a long moment, then reached into her purse and took out a cell phone.
She didn’t use it immediately. Instead she stood there quietly, still staring at al-Fida, looking more disappointed than bereaved. Jack had no idea what her relationship was to the dead man, but the fact that she’d had keys to his flat seemed to indicate that they were close.
Yet there was no sign of tears in her eyes.
Was she in shock?
Keeping her gaze on the body, she took a deep breath and shifted her shoulders as if preparing for something. Then she punched in a number, a short one, and put the phone to her ear.
Jack could hear it ringing even in the closet. And when the line was picked up, the woman began to cry—so abruptly it startled him.
Her voice choked with emotion, she said, “Please … please … you have to help me. My boyfriend—I think he … I think he’s killed himself.”
Jack watched in astonishment as she answered a few questions between sobs, trembling uncontrollably as she gave al-Fida’s address to the person on the line.
Then she hung up—and the moment she did, her demeanor abruptly changed again, the tears vanishing, her expression blank and unmoved by what lay before her.
Dropping the cell phone into her purse, she crossed to the bedroom doorway, flicked off the light, and went back out to the living room.
* * *
By the time the police and ambulance arrived, Jack was back outside.
After the woman left the bedroom, he climbed out the window then moved down the alley to the adjoining street and worked his way back around to the front of the building.
Waiting in the shadows under the oak tree, he watched the drama unfold. Neighbors awakened at the screech of approaching sirens and the flashing of lights against windowpanes. Soon the street was filled with people, and as the police and paramedics rushed in through the building’s entrance, Jack couldn’t help but think about the scene outside Jamal Thomas’s apartment.
The window was lit now and he saw the woman crying again as she pointed them toward the hallway.
She had called al-Fida her boyfriend, but her initial reaction to his death seemed to belie that. As much as Jack would have liked to attribute her behavior to shock, the changes in her demeanor were simply too abrupt to be believed.
She was acting. And doing a very good job of it.
So who the hell was she?
Jack had assumed that with al-Fida dead, his search for answers had come to a hard stop. But this woman’s puzzling reaction raised new questions, and her association with al-Fida, whatever it might be, was bound to be significant in some way.
Was it possible that Swain had been telling the truth? That al-Fida was an MI6 mole and this woman was part of the cell he’d infiltrated?
No. That explanation didn’t make any more sense now than it did before.
Jack knew he needed to talk to her.
He stayed in the shadows, unnoticed by the police or the neighbors. If anyone were to notice, they’d only look at him as yet another rubbernecker—or whatever the British equivalent of that was. As they carted al-Fida’s body out on a stretcher and loaded him into the back of the ambulance, Jack saw the woman standing in the window again, watching as they closed the doors.
A uniformed police officer was questioning her now, notepad in hand, and the woman played her part to perfection. He couldn’t hear what