The Wreckage: A Thriller (37 page)

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, Hol y?”

“Why?”

“I’m interested.”

“Why are you interested?”

“I’ve read your Social Services file.”

“Isn’t that il egal?”

“I cal ed in a favor.”

“What about my privacy?”

“Have you talked to someone like me before?”

“Yes.”

“When was that?”

“You want dates?”

Joe gives her a pained smile. “Vincent thinks you can tel when someone is lying.”

“He’s wrong. I tricked him.”

“How did you do that?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Hol y tilts the soft-drink can, draining the remainder. She toys with the can, running her finger around the rim.

“What’s the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?”

“Psychiatrists can medicate.”

“Just my luck.”

“Why wouldn’t you talk to the police?”

“Same reason I don’t want to talk to you.”

“But you
are
talking to me. You don’t trust them, do you? You’ve spent time in custody. Did something happen to you?” She’s not looking at him now. Her lips are thin lines.

“Can you real y tel when someone is lying?” he asks.

“You don’t believe it.”

“I keep an open mind.”

“Things get pol uted if you leave them open. They col ect rainwater. Litter. Leaves.”

Joe has had people like Hol y in his consulting room. Patients unwil ing to trust or frightened of what their thoughts and words might reveal about them. Sometimes Hol y acts as though she has al the self-awareness of a hairdryer, but she’s picking up on every detail of their conversation, his unspoken signals, mannerisms and micro-expressions.

Hol y asks him what time it is.

“Does it matter?” he asks.

“Is everything with you a question?” She bounces off the bed and walks to the window, her bare feet making the floor creak. “I need to get out of here.”

“Vincent said you should stay put.”

“Nobody knows I’m here. Just for half an hour. A walk.”

He agrees. They stop at a café on Edgware Road with metal tables and chairs on the pavement. Hol y is hungry again. She orders a muffin and a cappuccino. Joe pays. He’s stil trying to fathom this girl, whose piercings seem to multiply in her ears, three in her left ear, four in her right; another in her navel, which he glimpses when she yawns and stretches her arms above her head.

“Get a good look?” she says. She flips up her T-shirt, showing her bra. Her breasts. He looks away. Wrongly accused. Within moments, Hol y acts as though the entire incident never happened. She flicks through magazines on a wooden rack. A newspaper lies open on a table. The headline: ROGUE BANKER FLIGHT RISK. Hol y turns to the ful story and reads about Richard North, her lips forming the words.

“How does somebody spend that much money?” she asks. “He could buy an island or his own plane. If I had fifty-four mil ion quid I’d go to Jamaica and spend the rest of my life on a beach.”

“Do you remember him?”

“I guess.”

“What do you remember?”

“He was married. His wife was away for the weekend. They had a smal boy.” Hol y breaks her muffin into pieces, picking at the crumbs with her fingertips. “He asked me if I had ever done something wrong. He meant il egal. I thought maybe he knew we were going to rob him.”

“Where did you meet him?”

“He picked me up.”

“Just like that?”

Hol y fixes him with a pitying look. “That’s what married men do—they look at someone like me and they want to know what I’m like in bed, what I look like naked, what I’l do with my pretty little mouth. You’re doing it now.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you are. Al men are the same. They either hit me or hit on me or do both.”

“That’s a very sad view of life.”

“It’s the truth.”

Joe doesn’t want to argue with her. He sticks to his questions, asking what she stole.

“The usual stuff—phones, laptops, cameras, jewelry—things we could carry in the saddle bags of Zac’s bike.”

“What did you do then?”

“We fenced it.”

“Where?”

Hol y rol s her eyes. “There’s a guy I know in the East End. Bernie Levinson. He owns a pawnshop. Bernie bought the stuff from me. He’s tighter than a duck’s arse but sometimes he lends me money when I’m short of the rent.”

Hol y brushes the crumbs from her lap and looks around for something else to do. She’s sick of answering questions. “Now it’s my turn,” she says. “Are you married?”

“Technical y.”

What does that mean?”

“I’m not divorced.”

“Separated?”

“Presently.”

“Why is your hand shaking?”

“I have Parkinson’s.”

She remains silent.

“Is that it?”

Hol y shrugs. “It’s no fun unless you lie to me.”

2

ISTANBUL

The hotel in Istanbul is in a filthy side street between a Chinese wholesalers and a factory where African workers make knock-offs of European labels for Russian tourists. Globalization in a microcosm; profit as god.

Inside the arched gateway, along a narrow passage, there is a courtyard fil ed with apricot and orange trees around a rectangular pool with water the color of green moss.

Daniela emerges from the bathroom, dressed in a robe, her hair dripping and the ragged curls fal ing around her neck. Luca is stil toweling off.

“I’m probably going to regret this,” she says.

“What happened to the post-coital glow?”

“I’m not talking about the sex.”

Luca holds out his arms and she comes to him, tucking her head beneath his chin, her breasts against his ribs. He can feel the warmth of her breath against his neck.

“Are you real y going to London?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to ask Yahya Maluk why one of his companies is smuggling stolen money from Iraq. I’m also going to ask him if he knows Mohammed Ibrahim—a man who helped Saddam steal bil ions of dol ars from his own people.”

“Just like that?”

“Yep.”

“And I suppose he’s going to throw up his hands and confess everything.”

“That would be nice.”

“You have the word of a one-armed former truck driver and a series of coincidences.”

“They’re more than just coincidences.”

“Yahya Maluk has unlimited funds and an army of lawyers. He’l get injunctions to stop any story. He’l sue you for defamation.”

“I know that.”

“Why then?”

“Sometimes the only way to rattle someone like Maluk is to shake his gilded cage.”

“That’s a dangerous game.”

“I’m just fol owing the money.”

“You could stop.”

“What if it’s funding the insurgency?”

“Nobody is going to be surprised.”

Luca feels like a mediocre gambler trying to bluff an expert. Daniela has slipped away and gone to the latticed window. It has grown dark outside. The courtyard is strung with fairy lights that fol ow the contours of tree trunks and branches. Over the rooftops, the dome of Santa Sophia is bathed in gold.

“Come to London with me,” he says.

“Why?”

“I don’t want you lose you.”

“We’re different people, Luca. I deal in numbers and balance sheets. You deal in hunches and hearsay.”

“I search for the facts.”

“But you never have them al . You gather just enough, write a story and move on.”

“You make me sound like a gigolo.”

“No, you’re not
that
good.”

Luca can see what she’s like—her father’s daughter, practical to the point of impracticality. He leans forward, brushing his lips against hers, holding the kiss.

Later, lying naked in the air-conditioned room, his heartbeat returning to normal, Luca wonders what it’s like for a woman, that moment when pleasure overcomes self-control and the wave breaks inside her.

“Do you stil want me to come to London?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Then I’l come to London.”

3

LONDON

Rowan has to shake Elizabeth awake. She is twisted in the sheets, lying on a bed shaped like a racing car with a Green Goblin toy wedged under her hip.

“Why did you sleep here, Mummy?”

“I had a nightmare.”

“What about?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

There is a faint pervasive scent in the room that transports her back to last night and she feels her stomach cramp and the vomit rising. A man had wanted to kil her. Her life meant nothing to him until he saw that she was pregnant. Maybe he drew the line at murdering an unborn child.

Why hadn’t she cal ed the police? She had lain awake thinking about it, ashamed of how he had touched her; embarrassed by how her hands had hung stiff and useless at her sides.

This time the vomit reaches her mouth and she has to swal ow hard.

She picks up the phone and starts to dial. Stops, uncertain what number she’s cal ing. She puts the receiver back in the cradle. What would she say? What would
they
say? They’d want to know why she waited. It would al come back to North’s guilt, just like the needle of a compass.

Elizabeth goes to the bathroom and scoops water into her mouth. Rinsing. Then she turns on the shower, keeping her head under the hot water for a long time, scrubbing at her skin.

Dressing in her elasticized denim skirt and a cotton shirt, she strips the beds and washes the sheets. She shouldn’t be doing any of these things. There might be DNA. Fibers.

Evidence. She doesn’t care.

As she takes the mattress protector from Rowan’s bed, she notices a large white envelope sticking out from between the base of the bed and the mattress. Pul ing it free, she recognizes North’s handwriting on the cover. A message is written in thick black capitals, half an inch high:
KEEP THIS SAFE LIZZIE

Tearing open the flap, she pul s out a folder containing a dozen sheets of paper, written in North’s hand. A list. Deposits and withdrawals. Accounts that have numbers instead of names. Some of them are circled or underlined. Grouped. He was hiding it from someone. Leaving it for her to find.

There is a name and phone number scrawled on the inside cover of the folder. North’s handwriting is messy at the best of times. She spel s out the letters: G.O.O.D.I.N.G.

Instead of being intrigued, she’s annoyed. Why the secrecy and the cryptic message? This is North acting like a criminal. She hurls the file in disgust, sending pages into the air where they rock and turn and settle like fal ing leaves.

Claudia chooses that moment to kick Elizabeth in the cervix and she doubles over. Punishment delivered from her unborn child. Breathing through the pain, she goes downstairs and pul s back the curtains. The reporters have returned, fewer than yesterday.

An early model Mercedes pul s up beneath the branches. The driver gets out and walks towards the house. He’s dressed in a shabby raincoat with stretched pockets. Unkempt.

Bear-like. He rings the doorbel .

Elizabeth shouts from within. “Please leave me alone.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I don’t talk to reporters.”

“I’m not a reporter. I may have information about your husband.”

A tremor passes through Elizabeth, a hopeful surge. “Do you know where he is?”

“No.”

“Then I have nothing to say.”

Ruiz tries again. “You were robbed a week ago. You lost a jewelry box, a camera, a laptop… and they took a smal crystal swan from your dressing table, which held some of your rings.”

There is a pause. Elizabeth opens the door.

“I didn’t tel the police about the crystal swan.”

“I know.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m just trying to help someone.”

Ruiz waits in the lounge while Elizabeth makes tea. He notices the broken window, sealed with a sheet of plywood. The sound of a children’s TV show drifts from another room. It’s a nice place with polished floors and oriental rugs. Tasteful. Homely. The bookcase is ful of holiday reads by Marian Keyes and Michael Connel y. On the mantelpiece there are several framed photographs. A wedding shot of a bride sitting on her husband’s lap. He’s tipping her back and she’s laughing.

Elizabeth North is haughty and beautiful in a cultured way, like a woman captured in a painting. She sits upright, hands on her lap, nervously appraising him.

“When are you due?”

“Three weeks. How do you know what was stolen?”

“I’ve met the person who took it.”

Ruiz tel s her the story of meeting Hol y and Zac. Seeing them argue. Stopping their fight. Consoling Hol y. Letting her use his phone. Taking her home.

Elizabeth grows impatient. “Why are you tel ing me this?”

“I was drugged and robbed. I believe the same thing happened to your husband.”

Elizabeth is staring straight through him. “What does she look like—this woman?”

“Blue eyes, black hair…”

“Cut short?”

“Yes.” Ruiz knows something is wrong.

“She met him at a bar in the City.”

“How did you know?”

Rising unsteadily, Elizabeth crosses the room and stands for a moment at the broken bay window, wrestling with a thought. Anguish in her voice.

“A private detective took photographs of North leaving a bar with a girl and bringing her home.”

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“You were having him fol owed?”

“I thought he was having an affair.” Her eyes meet his, looking for understanding. “But you’re saying that he tried to help her. And she stole from us?”

“She did.”

Elizabeth sharpens her tone. “Did she do something to North? Does she know where he is?”

“No.”

“Did she sleep with my husband?”