The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [99]
“Ruiz says he’ll do a deal for the girl if we back off.”
“Do you believe him?”
“No.”
“How much do the Brits know?”
“Green shoots.”
Chalcott is walking along the sideline, ignoring the crowd noises. He pauses. “We may have a problem from another quarter.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone is asking about Ibrahim.”
“Who?”
“A journalist called Luca Terracini, based in Baghdad. He’s like Osama’s Lord Haw Haw.”
“Didn’t he win a Pulitzer?”
“That’s him. Sometimes I wish we were still in the fifties. We could haul guys like Terracini up before the Anti-American Committee and get them labeled communists and traitors. Instead we give the cunts prizes. If it weren’t for us, Terracini would be picking through the rubble of the next Ground Zero.”
“How did he trace Ibrahim?”
“He hasn’t, but he’s sniffing around. He’s with a woman—a UN auditor. She likely made the connection.”
“How are we playing it?”
“I don’t want Ibrahim spooked. The Iraqis are kicking Terracini out of the country.”
“That should solve our immediate problem.”
“You just worry about the girl.”
23
LONDON
The wedding is over, the rice has been thrown and photographs are being posed until the smiles look painted on. Ruiz slips away from the guests and well-wishers, taking a gravel path around the side of the church. He walks to the edge of the Grand Central Canal where brightly painted canal boats look like children’s toys left behind after a summer picnic. A group of eager ducks navigates within range, expecting bread to be thrown, bored with the daily grind of paddling.
Ruiz takes out the tin of sweets and puts one in his mouth, rolling it over his tongue. There is something quite melancholy about seeing a daughter married, walking her down the aisle and handing her on to another man. Claire has not been his little girl for twenty-five years, but for a brief instant in the church the past and present had collapsed into a single moment and he saw her as a child, turning to him, saying, “Look at me, Daddy. Look at me.”
Ruiz glances over his shoulder. The photographer is waving his arms, trying to marshal everyone on to the front steps, the bride and groom at the centre. He might be directing aircraft or sending semaphore messages. Phillip’s family are standing together—charming sociopaths with top-drawer accents and expensive clothes. His mother, Patricia, is wearing a fur coat that is totally out of season and cost the lives of countless small mammals.
Ruiz takes out the mobile he borrowed from the professor and punches a number. He listens to the call being redirected electronically… once… twice… Finally, he hears it ringing.
“Hello, Capable.”
“Mr. Ruiz.”
“You should call me Vincent.”
“I’ll remember that, Mr. Ruiz. How’s your mother?”
“Still complaining.”
“Mine too.”
Henry Jones, otherwise known as “Capable,” is one of those individuals that people sometimes call unlucky but really believe are somehow jinxed. Awkward and anxious, things break when he’s around. Vases topple. Light bulbs pop. Motors burn out. Fuses short. Doors lock with keys inside. The only exception is with computers, which seem to respond to Capable like a violin in the hands of a virtuoso.
In his callow and foolish youth, Capable had been an expert hacker—famous for penetrating one of the biggest UK banks and giving Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, a zero account balance. He didn’t steal the money, he simply transferred it to the Inland Revenue with a note from Brown saying, “Merry Christmas, have a drink on me.”
Ruiz came across Capable a few years later, when the poacher had turned gamekeeper, advising banks on cyber security. He had been arrested after a misunderstanding with an undercover copper in a public toilet in Green Park that had resulted in a broken jaw and a public indecency charge. Ruiz gave Capable a character reference and saved him from being passed around by the cellblock sisters at Wormwood Scrubs like a party bong.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Ruiz?”
“I need you to trace a mobile phone.”
“Stolen?”
“Mislaid.”
“What was