The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [169]
Joe writes: You can’t hear. I can’t speak. We’re like two of the wise monkeys.
“You’re a monkey. I’m a gorilla,” says Ruiz, shouting at him. “I want to see Holly.”
Joe writes: Can you walk?
“Yeah.”
Joe helps Ruiz to sit and then stand. He’s wearing a hospital gown with ties at the back. Ruiz can’t hold it together with his bandaged hands, so Joe does it for him, clearly not enamored of the task.
“I could get used to you not talking,” says Ruiz, as they shuffle down the corridor. Joe pinches him on the arse, making him jump.
They reach Holly’s room, which is full of flowers and get-well cards. Holly is sitting on the edge of her bed while a doctor peers into her ears with a torch-like contraption. She’s chewing gum. Looking bored. There are marks on her wrists where the handcuffs tore at her skin.
“How come you get proper pajamas?” says Ruiz. “Your legs are better than mine—you should be wearing a gown.”
Her face lights up and she’s on him in a heartbeat, throwing her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips.
“This is the not the way a young lady should greet a man of my age and in my condition.”
He doesn’t hear what Holly says. Maybe she says nothing at all.
37
LONDON
Throughout Monday, Luca sits in the High Court listening to opposing lawyers make grand speeches about press freedom and commercial confidentiality. It has been almost a week since the thwarted terrorist attack and two days since he left hospital with his arm in a sling and the bullet in a small glass jar that is nestled in his pocket. A souvenir. Proof that he doesn’t always sit on the sidelines.
The Financial Herald is trying to overturn the High Court injunction preventing publication. Mersey Fidelity’s lawyers are doing verbal and linguistic somersaults as they argue that commercial privacy should outweigh public interest. The judge is not having a bar of it. The lawyers lodge an immediate appeal. He dismisses it. Luca steps from the court and calls Daniela with the news.
“We’re going to celebrate.”
“You’re not supposed to be drinking.”
“I’m going to watch you get drunk and then take advantage of you.”
“But you’re an invalid.”
“We’re not going to arm wrestle.”
Daniela laughs and it sounds like music. Luca ends the call and steps outside, looking for a cab. He has a story to write, but there are still questions to be answered. Dialing a new number, he listens to the call being rerouted through different internet servers until Luca’s new best friend answers.
“Capable?”
“Mr. Terracini.”
“Call me Luca.”
“Thank you, Mr. Terracini.”
“Any news?”
“They’re on the move. A van arrived this morning.”
The address in Cartwright Street is an old bank building with an ornate iron door and arched entrance. A removal van is parked in the narrow side alley in front of two identical black Pathfinders. What a world these people live in, thinks Luca, as he pays the cab driver. Taking a table across the road, he nurses a coffee and watches boxes and computers being loaded into the van.
Another Pathfinder shows up, this one disgorging a set of beefy passengers in suits and dark glasses. One of the occupants he recognizes. Older. Grey-haired. Giving orders.
Luca waits until he disappears inside. He pays for his coffee and crosses the street, following a removal man into the lift and rising through the floors. The doors open. Boxes are stacked in the corridors. A shredding machine lets out a long whine. Industrialsized. Worm-like mounds of confetti are spilling from plastic sacks.
Soft footsteps. Somebody yells at him to stop. He is gripped from behind and pushed into an office where Artie Chalcott and Brendan Sobel are deep in conversation.
Chalcott looks up. His face reddens. Luca notices that his eyes are very small. Perhaps they are the standard size and his head is overly large. Maybe they shrink