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“I know you’re not going to like this, Con, but a few tears wouldn’t go amiss. There’s been a lot of sympathy shown you over the last three days and it’ll ebb away PDQ if you refuse to play along for the cameras. No one’s going to believe you’ve been gagged and blindfolded for the last three days if you don’t show a little frailty.”

I dragged my attention back to him. “Don’t worry. I’ll do it when the time comes. I’m good at play-acting.”

He frowned. “Am I supposed to know what that means?”

I shrugged. “I do a good impersonation of a mistress, Dan. No demands. No expectations. No drain on the wallet. No interference in the love life when I’m not around. No cause for concern.” I smiled at him. “You should trust me to put on a good show. I’ve seen more bloody victims than you ever have.”

He made a ham-fisted attempt to put his arms around me, but I stepped out of reach. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” he demanded. “I’ve done everything you asked…and I get treated like something the cat’s brought in. What’s up? Is there something you haven’t told me?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“Nothing,” I said carelessly. “I’m a recovering hostage.”

He sighed. “Then talk to me about it. You know I’ll listen.”

We’d been through this in the flat. He’d fussed all over me, encouraging me to voice my fears, telling me he’d ask London to organize counselling, running through his own feelings of guilt after his friend died in front of him. Even if I’d been tempted to tell him the truth—which I hadn’t—his swamping insistence would have stopped me. What would I have had left once he—once anyone—had dragged every last secret out of me?

“There’s nothing else to tell. It was frightening while it lasted, but I was luckier than Adelina.” I managed another smile. “Which is why I might not be able to produce crocodile tears for the cameras, Dan. I’m alive…I’m in one piece…and nothing much happened to me. It would be shabby to pretend otherwise, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” he agreed slowly. “I guess it would.”

And that’s how we left it, with fifteen years of sporadic intimacy dead on the floor of a war-torn airport. Dan went through with his press conference in Baghdad, and I dodged mine by slipping past Harry Smith in a group of tourists from another flight. The interest died very quickly. Apart from the announcement of my release, there was very little else other than speculation in some of the Iraqi newspapers that I’d faked my abduction. I didn’t mind. I discovered very quickly that it was easier to live with myself when everyone thought I was lucky…or a fraud.

The trouble was I couldn’t live with anyone who believed it. It’s a form of betrayal when people close to you accept what you tell them at face value.

Shouldn’t they know you better than that…?

Extracts from notes, filed as “CB16–19/05/04”

…I never realized how fragile trust is. Can a single person really destroy another’s faith in everyone and everything?

…When I dream of revenge it’s always in retribution for my stolen relationships. What gives anyone the right to make me suspicious of people I’ve liked and loved? Or them of me?

…I can rationalize as much as I like but I know that nothing will ever be the same again. Whatever happens, I am not the person I was…

12

PETER MADE NO comment when I finally entered the kitchen, but he resumed his own seat before I sat down. He shifted it back immediately, as if aware that proximity might worry me. I don’t recall in any great detail what I said that morning, although I do remember telling them that my name was Connie Burns and that I’d been held prisoner for three days by a man called Keith MacKenzie whose story I’d investigated. I said he was a serial murderer who’d threatened to come looking for me if I ever spoke about what had happened.

Peter, who had a surgery he couldn’t miss, urged me to talk to the local police but I refused, saying it would only confuse the issue as there was a detective inspector in