The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [66]
“I’m a journalist.”
Jennings shrugs dismissively. “What do you think that means? Special privileges? The law doesn’t apply? You think you understand this place, Mr. Terracini, just because you speak the language, but you’re no different to the other hacks and glory hounds who turn up here wanting to put gloss on a new career or resurrect a fading one. You look at this country and think you’re going to sum it up in a thousand crisp words, but you wind up in the bar of the al-Hamra trying to make sense of the horror. Nobody understands this place.”
“They can’t just kick me out.”
“Yes they can.”
Jennings forces himself to relax, pulling his neck from side to side until the vertebrae pop.
“What if I take my chances?” asks Luca.
“We won’t allow that. Should you be arrested, or imprisoned or kidnapped, the American government would be expected to negotiate your release. We would prefer not to have that situation arise.”
Jennings repacks his briefcase, putting each pen in the allotted place. It closes and he spins the combination lock.
“If you’ll excuse me, I have five bodies to repatriate.”
“American soldiers?”
“Civilians. Four Americans. One German. The attack on the Finance Ministry.”
“What attack?”
Jennings straightens his jacket and opens the door. “Oh, that’s right, you were in custody. There was an attack on the Finance Ministry. Four security contractors died and a UN auditor was abducted.”
Luca croaks, “Who?”
“Their names haven’t been released.”
“The auditor?”
“They found his body this morning in the river. Tortured. Executed. I had to call his parents in Hamburg.”
“There was a woman…?”
“Safe. The United Nations is pulling out all non-essential staff. You should get yourself on the same flight, Luca. Nobody spends any longer in Iraq than necessary. Your time is up.”
9
LONDON
Elizabeth North sleeps on her side with one knee exposed and an arm dangling over the side of the bed. She dreams that she’s naked in a dark tunnel, breathless and blind.
The phone is ringing. She rolls over too quickly and almost topples out of bed. Her fingers find the receiver.
“Hello?”
Silence.
“North? Is that you?”
Someone is breathing.
“What’s going on? Who is this?”
She waits.
“I’m going to hang up now… Hello?… If you’re not going to answer you can… can… you can get lost!”
Slamming down the receiver, she traps her finger between the handset and the cradle. The pain makes her eyes water. Sucking her finger, she sits on the edge of the bed. Once she owned a lap. Now she’s full of baby. She can’t see her pubic hair unless she looks in the mirror and she hasn’t bothered waxing since they took their summer holiday to Jordan.
It was a strange choice, but North had business in Amman and Damascus. Afterwards they went to a resort on the Red Sea with bungalows and swimming pools and a kids’ club. Elizabeth and North had fought because he spent so much time on his BlackBerry answering emails instead of playing with Rowan. They had make-up sex afterwards. Angry. Passionate.
Standing at the bedroom window, she watches a jet pass overhead on its way to Heathrow, flashing silver. The noise penetrates the double-glazing. Pressing her fingertips to the glass, she can feel it vibrating and the sensation seems to reach into her chest and shake something inside her like a wine glass resonating at the perfect frequency of sound. Her marriage used to be like that—resonating with a perfect frequency. Now it has the discordant ring of a dropped sword.
She and North had met at Cambridge when she was studying politics and he was doing his masters in economics and sleeping with every impressionable undergraduate he could charm out of her knickers. His car had broken down—an old Citroën C5—and he was standing by the road with his collar pulled up and a sodden newspaper over his head. Elizabeth had pulled over in her Peugeot.
“Want any help?”
“How are you with engines?”
“Terrible.”
“Can you stop the rain?”
“Afraid not.”
His hair was plastered to his forehead and he looked like a little boy.
“Get in.”
“I’m all wet.