The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [112]
He reacts as though scalded, rearing backwards and pointing the gun at her stomach. Elizabeth lowers the bedclothes. Her nightdress is bunched between her closed thighs. He’s staring at her pregnancy as though witnessing a miracle.
“Turn around. Face down. Hands above your head.”
“Do you know where my husband is?”
“Count to a thousand.”
“Please tell me where he is.”
“Louder! I want to hear the numbers. If you call the police, if you tell anyone, I will come back and cut your baby out of your womb. It will be the last thing you see before you die.”
Elizabeth begins counting slowly, her mouth almost too dry to make the words. The room is quiet. She stops. Listens. Rain gurgles in the downpipes. Wind shakes the trees.
Crawling out of bed, she goes to Rowan’s room, placing her hand upon his chest, feeling for his heartbeat. Then she slips into bed next to him, placing her arms around his sleeping form, protecting him from the monsters.
BOOK THREE
We are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.
EDWARD R. MURROW
1
LONDON
Holly opens the curtains, dividing the room with angled light. The overnight storm has passed and the sky is the color of tarnished silverware. The bruise on her cheek has faded but if she presses it hard enough she can still feel it beneath her skin. Zac’s bruise: the last one he inflicted upon her. A souvenir. No, that’s not the word she wants. A reminder.
She should call his parents. Help make arrangements for the funeral. She only met them once. Zac told them that she was a legal secretary and was helping him sue the army for compensation. Can you sue the army for war injuries, she wondered. Maybe the government doesn’t allow it.
There is a knock on the door. Her heart leaps. She checks the window. The fire escape is her escape route.
“Who is it?”
“I’m looking for Florence.”
“Just a minute.”
Holly pulls on a pair of jeans and picks up a lamp from a table between the beds. Unlocking the door, she steps behind it, holding the lamp above her head.
The door opens. Nobody enters.
“You don’t need that,” says the voice.
Holly looks across the room and sees her reflection in the mirror. The man in the hallway can see her.
“I’m a friend of Vincent’s. You can call me Joe.”
She studies him for a moment, looking for the lie, then lowers the lamp on to the table. Joe steps into the room.
“I brought you something to eat,” he says, handing her a paper bag with handles. “I didn’t know if you were a vegetarian so I brought you both.”
Holly rips open the wrapping and bends into a sandwich greedily, forcing the corner of the bread into her mouth.
“How do you know Vincent?” she asks between mouthfuls.
“We’ve worked together.”
“Are you a copper?”
“A psychologist.”
Holly searches his face. He’s telling the truth. She starts on the second sandwich.
“Can I sit down?” he asks.
“Do what you like.”
The hotel room is just big enough for two single beds, a wardrobe and an armchair worn smooth by many buttocks. It smells of ancient lacquer and cheap perfume and, somehow faintly, of wet tobacco trodden into the carpets.
“So?”
“So what?”
“How did you sleep?”
She laughs. “This conversation sounds like a real winner.”
Joe is studying her. “Do I make you nervous?”
“No.”
She opens the soft drink and gulps it noisily, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She’s sitting cross-legged on the bed, barefoot, shoulders hunched. Pausing for a moment, she looks at Joe again, examining him like a strange animal that has crossed her path. Mid-forties, slightly stooped, he has a tangle of hair and baggy clothes. He has kind eyes and a bumbling sort of air, like a man who’s forgotten something.
“Where are you from, Holly?”
“Why?”
“I’m interested.”
“Why are you interested?”
“I’ve read your Social Services file.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
“I called in a favor.”
“What about my privacy?