Blood Moon Rising (A Beatrix Rose Thriller Book 2) (9 page)

Chapter Eighteen

B
eatrix followed the girl. She walked quickly, with a determined stride, and led her a quarter mile away from the facility, heading south. She didn’t speak. Beatrix fixed
the ripped
abaya
as best she could, managing to obscure the fact that
she wasn’t local. A couple of extra Grizzlies rumbled past, but the girl reached up and took Beatrix’s hand again, and they paid them no heed. Beatrix’s face was obscured by the shawl, and they would have looked like a mother and her child.

“Who are you?” the girl asked her as they walked.

“My name is Beatrix.”

“You are not Iraqi.”

“No.”

“American?”

“English.”

“You speak excellent Arabic.”

“Thank you. I’ve had a lot of practice. What’s your name?”

She looked across at her doubtfully, as if her name was something to be guarded. “It is Mysha,” she said at last.

“Hello, Mysha. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For helping me. That was getting very unpleasant.”

“No. I must thank you. I was going to be trampled.”

“You shouldn’t have been there. How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“Then you definitely shouldn’t have been there.”

She ignored that. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Why were you there?”

“I’m a journalist.”

“The television?”

“Yes.”

“You were there to report on it?”

“That’s right.”

She was quiet, as if musing on Beatrix’s answer.

Another Grizzly went by, and then a series of police cars, lights flashing and sirens howling. Beatrix knew she had to get off the street. If Duffy had seen her, and that was more than possible, then he would put men into the area to look for her. Her disguise was rudimentary, at best. It wouldn’t hold up. She had to get into cover.

They walked on and reached one of the small shantytowns that Beatrix and Faulkner had driven through earlier. It was comprised of sun-baked mud huts and lean-tos that looked like they would
collapse
with the faintest breath of wind. Some had corrugate
d meta
l roofs; others were wrapped over with mismatched tarpaulins. The houses were penned in by piles of scrap metal and bright green lakes of raw sewage. The streets were thick with rubbish, sickly sweet as it rotted in the heat. There would occasionally be a break in the line of huts, and the gap would be stacked high with trash, black plastic bags that had been ripped open by hungry animals, spilling their fetid contents into a thick, cloying soup. A mangy dog slunk across the road, his belly on the dirt. Two rats followed him. They passed a girl drinking from a broken water pipe. There was a woman perched on the piles of trash, picking out and emptying plastic bags. The other women wore
hijabs
, many in colours other than the usual black, perhaps in an attempt to inject a little vibrancy into what must have been a monotonous, difficult existence.

“Where are we?”

“We call it Kassra,” the girl said.

Beatrix translated. “Broken?”

“Yes. The village next to it is Attashis.”

“Thirsty. Broken and Thirsty.”

“Yes.”

The child led her through a maze of jumbled streets to a medium-sized hut with an orange tarp hauled over the frame to serve as a roof. The place was in poor condition. The ditch that ran at the back of the property was littered with packing crates and plastic bottles. Sewage ran along a trench in the middle of the road. The walls were constructed from wooden panels and sheets of
corrugated
metal. The windows had been smashed, and the apertures were covered with plastic bags. Part of the tarpaulin roof was missing, and the front door had been separated from the hinges. Mysha pulled it aside so that they could enter, and once they were inside, she pulled it back into place.

Beatrix looked around the shack. It had been built right onto the ground, with no floor, and the sand was cold and yielding underfoot. Blankets and rugs were spread out to try and make things look more homely, but they only emphasised the spaces that were left uncovered. Blankets that had been hung from the ceiling broke the space into two distinct areas: one for sleeping and the other for cooking and eating. The walls were made of ill-fitted planks of wood, the gaps between them letting in shafts of light. There was a jerrycan of fresh water that must have been collected from a well, a small gas stove, a paraffin lamp, some sticks of furniture and a line that had been strung from one corner of the room to the other, bowing with the weight of damp clothing. There was a bucket in the corner. Beatrix guessed that was the toilet.

“Is this your home?”

“Yes,” the girl said. “Your head,” she added, as if keen to change the subject, embarrassed perhaps. She reached a cautious hand in the direction of the bloody wound on Beatrix’s temple.

Beatrix caught her hand and smiled. “I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll just have a nice bruise to remind me what happened.”

“You are bleeding. Here.” She went to the sink, took a dishcloth and soaked it in water. Beatrix lowered herself to her haunches so that Mysha could dab the blood away. “Are you sure you are alright?”

“It’s just a scratch. Thank you.”

The girl rinsed the blood from the cloth and hung it out to dry. “Would you like something to drink?”

“That would be nice.”

The girl went to a cupboard and filled a saucepan with cold water. She placed it on the small stove and set it to boil while she prepared the tea leaves and cardamom. Beatrix sensed that something was unsaid. The girl was putting on a brave face, but there was something that she wanted to talk about.

Beatrix would normally have thanked her and left. She should have done just that. There were things to do, and the world wasn’t standing still. Duffy wasn’t indulging himself with a hard luck stor
y, s
he could be certain of that. He
must
have seen her, and now every second that passed meant that he was eroding the advantag
e th
at she had over him. There was nothing that could be done about that. There was no profit in her being found all the way out here, unprepared, unready. It made sense for her to hide out for an hour or two until she had found a way to get a message to Faulkner. Then she would bring the fight to him.

“Where are your parents?”

“I don’t have any,” she said as she worked.

“What do you mean?”

Beatrix heard the faintest quiver in her voice. “They are dead.”

“What happened?”

“My father died during the war. He was a soldier. The
Americans
bombed his tank. There is a road from Basra that heads to Baghdad. A lot of traffic that day. Many tanks. The Americans sent bomb after bomb. Many men were killed. I was a baby. My mother told me what happened. I do not remember him.”

“And your mother?”

“She was shot.”

“By who?”

“The security men. She was one of the ones they killed. The shooting at the office of the oil company. Did you hear about that?”

“Yes, I did. A little.”

“There was a big protest. Bigger than today. Angrier. Many people complaining that jobs were going to foreigners and not local people. My mother complained for my brother.”

“Were you there, too?”

“At the back. I saw.”

That was why she had been returning. She wanted justice, and there was no other means to get it for a twelve-year-old girl.

Until now, perhaps.

That was it. Beatrix realised why she wasn’t able to leave. It was safest to stay; that was part of it, but it wasn’t all of it. There was something of Isabella in the young Iraqi girl. The same age, give or take. The same stoicism. Abandoned, just the same. Her own sense of guilt, buried just beneath the surface, couldn’t be ignored. She couldn’t leave her now without knowing if she could help. Money, perhaps. She had plenty.

“You said you had a brother?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he?”

“The security men arrested him. He wouldn’t leave my mother when they told everyone to move away. They hit him in the head with their rifles and took him away.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I do not know for sure. There is a building where they say they keep their prisoners. Perhaps there.”

“Has he been charged?”

“I do not know. I do not understand what is involved. He has done nothing wrong. I hope they will release him. But I have not seen him since they took him away.”

Beatrix was humbled by the little girl’s grace and composure. She had been orphaned, and now her brother had been arrested, too. There was
no one
to help her. How had she buried her mother? Had she been able to? How had she managed to do anything?

“Do you have any other relatives?”

“Not in Iraq. We have an aunt and uncle in Kuwait. But I have never met them.”

She had been put through a terrible experience that would have crushed most people, and yet here she was, trying to maintain what was left of the family home, waiting patiently for her brother to be released. But what if he wasn’t released? The riot would be characterised as inspired by insurgents. That would be the story that they would tell. And what if he was implicated in that? What if he met with an accident while in custody? What if he was disappeared? Juntas had been using those tactics to keep the people under the yoke for centuries.

“You said you were a journalist, Beatrix.”

Beatrix regretted that she had lied to her now. “Yes,” she said, because what else could she say? “That’s right.”

“Perhaps you could tell a story about what has happened?”

“To your brother?”

“Yes. Perhaps it would make a difference.”

“Yes,” she said. “Perhaps it would.”

The girl smiled and exhaled, and Beatrix watched as the enforced maturity sloughed away and she saw her for exactly what she was: a twelve-year-old girl who was growing up too fast under the most awful circumstances. Beatrix thought again of Isabella, and the loss that she was going to have to face before the year was out. A loss on top of all the other losses. The thought brought the pain back to the surface in a sudden rush, and she couldn’t suppress the wince.

“Are you alright?” Mysha said, hurrying over to her.

“Maybe he hit me harder than I thought he did.” She braced against a chair and did not resist as the girl guided her down into it.

“You should rest, Beatrix.”

“Maybe I should.”

“It is getting late. Stay here tonight. I will tell you about my brother. For your story.”

The hour was getting late, that was true. Beatrix thought about it. There was very little that she would be able to do this evening, and in any event, Duffy might have already started to look for her by now. Roadblocks were a possibility. Rolling patrols. Her
earlier
decision was right: it made sense for her to lay low for a few hours until the initial impetus waned. If it were her looking for him, she would scour the immediate area and then gradually widen the perimeter until it reached the city, and then she would search the hotels.

The risk of discovery was greatest now.

It was safer to stay where she was.

And it would give Faulkner a chance to make an assessment, too, and work out the safest way for her to return to the city.

And she felt so very, very tired.

“Thank you, Mysha. That’s very kind. But I need to speak to my colleague. He will be worried about me. Do you have a
telephone
I could use?”

“Of course,” Mysha said. “It was my mother’s. There is some credit on it.” She opened a box and took out an old-fashioned Nokia. She switched it on and handed it to Beatrix.

Beatrix had memorised Faulkner’s number. “It’s me,” she said as soon as the call connected.

“What happened?”

Mysha surely wouldn’t be able to speak English, but she spoke quietly and quickly, nonetheless. “A demonstration of how Manage Risk does its business.”

“Are you alright?”

“I got cold-cocked, but I’ll live. Where were you?”

“They moved me on. I doubled back, but they wouldn’t let me get anywhere near you.”

“It’s fine, Faulkner. Relax. I’m fine.”

“Did you get closer to Duffy?”

“Yes. It’s him. He was there. Right in the middle of it. I think he saw me.”

“Shit.”

Mysha brought her another cup of tea.

“What do we do next?” Faulkner asked.

“If he did see me, he’ll be looking for me now. The road back to the city won’t be safe. I’ve got somewhere to stay tonight. I’m out of the way.”

“And?”

“And I’ll need you to come and pick me up. Tomorrow
morning
. Seven.”

She told him where she was.

“Fine. And then?”

“I need you to arrange a call with Pope.”

He hesitated. “Okay . . . you want to tell me what you want to speak to him about? Because I know he’s going to ask.”

“You need to tell him there’s going to be a change of plan.”

“We’re still going to get Mackenzie West?”

“I promised Pope I would, and so we will.”

“What about Duffy?”

“We’re going to need him to help us do what I want to do.”

“You think that’s likely?”

“I can be persuasive.”