The Wreckage: A Thriller (51 page)

Opening the bedroom door, she peers along the corridor, left and right, deserted. There is a smel , something familiar yet disturbing. It fil ed her nostrils when Zac died. The man can’t have found her. He doesn’t know her name. She should wake Ruiz. He’l know what to do. Keep her safe.

She looks at her bare feet, her T-shirt and panties. She should have changed. Something moves in the corner of her eye at the far end of the corridor. It’s gone. It might have been nothing. This is crazy. She needs Ruiz.

Moving in the opposite direction, towards the stairs, she can feel the worn carpet, the pattern faded long ago beneath her bare feet.

She knocks on his door. No answer. Knocks again.

It opens suddenly, pul ing her inwards and she bounces off his chest. He grabs her by the hair and puts his hand over her mouth and nose. Not Ruiz, but a ghost who walks through locked doors. His lips brush against her ear. “Do you remember me?”

She inhales a breath.

“I am going to take my hand away. If you scream I shal kil you. Do you understand?”

He pushes her towards the bed and chains the door. He’s wearing a suit and white shirt without a tie and his hair is shaved at the edges, longer on top. The only light is from the window, a faint glow that paints the contours of his face in monotones, but not with detail or depth.

Words have turned to bubbles in Hol y’s throat. She looks around the room, searching for Ruiz.

“Your friend is not here. He seems to have abandoned you.”

His eyes drift down her body, hunger in them.

“Why did you kil Zac?” she asks defiantly. “He never did anything to you.”

“He would not communicate.”

“That’s not a crime. He fought for his country.”

“Maybe I am fighting for mine.”

Hol y looks at the bed. “Are you going to rape me?”

“I don’t rape women unless they’re whores. Are you a whore?”

“No.”

“Are you a virgin?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He smiles. “You think I’m evil, but it was a woman who betrayed the first man. Women are the sinful sex. You come to a man’s room in the middle of the night. Look at how you dress.

You are like uncovered meat, and then you wonder why the dogs come and feed upon you.”

Hol y sits on the edge of the bed, her knees close together, one foot on top of the other. The Courier takes the chair by the window. When he turns his head the light catches one side of his face. His eye is like an amber bead pressed into teak.

“Can you imagine al the germs that col ect in a place like this,” he says. “The acts that have been committed on that bed by women like you.” His eyes drop to Hol y’s loins as though drawn there.

“Come here.”

“No.”

“You need to, Hol y. Sometimes in life we are given a choice. This isn’t one of those times.”

Hol y crosses the room.

“Kneel.”

“Please.”

“Don’t beg. Did you find the notebook?”

“Yesterday.”

“Where is it?”

“The journalists have it.”

Dropping to her knees in front of him, she can smel his strange odor. He takes the back of her head, pul ing her closer. Running his fingers through her hair, he lets them trail down her face until his thumb brushes her lips and he pushes it against her teeth, smearing saliva across her cheek. Her eyes go in and out of focus.

His thumb passes her lips again and she opens them, taking his thumb inside her mouth, sucking it gently. He jerks his hand away.

“An offer like that is so typical of a woman like you. A manipulator. You claim victimhood, but you use your body and a man’s desire to get what you want. You think that if you can get me between your lips or your thighs that you can take control.”

“No.”

He pushes her away. “Get dressed, my little liar.”

“I don’t have any clothes.”

“I was going to wait here and kil your friend, but he has obviously found someone else to keep his feet warm.”

“Where are you taking me?”

The Courier stands and checks the corridor. “First we are going to get your clothes. I am not going to tie your hands and cover your mouth, but this gun wil be pressed against your back when we walk from the hotel. If you say anything, if you smile or nod or alert anyone, I wil kil them first and you wil be responsible for their death.”
32

LONDON

Ruiz walks across the empty supermarket car park to a dark-colored limousine that soaks up the light from an overhead lamppost. The driver, young, begloved, opens a door for him.

Douglas Evans is sitting in the back seat, his trouser cuffs rising up to reveal his pale ankles and black socks.

“This is an interesting choice of time and place, Mr. Ruiz, very cloak and dagger. We could have met at a more sociable hour.”

“At your club, perhaps?”

“I doubt if my club would have al owed you in.” His cultured accent is effortlessly condescending. “What can I do for you, Mr. Ruiz?”

“There is a man in this country—a wanted Iraqi war criminal cal ed Mohammed Ibrahim Omar al-Muslit. He escaped from a prison outside of Baghdad four years ago. The Americans have him listed as having died in custody, but the Iraqis say he was accidental y released.”

Evans blinks his droopy eyelids and runs a hand over his forehead, pale as a cue bal .

“What makes you think he’s in the UK?”

“Elizabeth North identified him from a photograph. She saw him with Yahya Maluk, a banker on the board of Mersey Fidelity.”

“I know who Mr. Maluk is. Is Mrs. North certain of who she saw?”

“Yes.”

Evans tugs at his shirt-cuffs as though his arms have grown longer during the course of their conversation.

“You asked about the Americans,” says Ruiz. “You wanted to know what they were up to. They know about Ibrahim and Maluk.” There is a flicker in the corner of Evans’ mouth. Just as quickly, he resumes his requiem mode, a marvelous silence that borders on deafness.

Ruiz hands him a file.

“What’s this?”

“A copy of a notebook belonging to Richard North and a file he col ected. A forensic accountant wil be able to explain what it means.”

“Perhaps you could précis it for me.”

“A banking scandal.”

“Another one.”

“This one is special. Iraq reconstruction funds, the proceeds of crime, tax avoidance, the sponsoring of terrorism—money that shouldn’t be in a UK bank. I’m assuming that you’l pass this information on to the relevant authorities.”

Evans rol s the information around in his cheeks as if sipping sherry. He opens the envelope and leafs through the pages.

“Where are the originals?”

“Safe.”

“In the hands of your journalist friends?”

Ruiz has already reached for the door handle.

“They cannot publish,” says Evans. “We need time to study this.”

“Your problem, not mine.”

33

LONDON

Arched like a bent bow, Joe O’Loughlin’s head is puled backwards by the noose around his neck that leads to his bound wrists and ankles. Curled on the floor of the hotel room, he cannot straighten his legs without tightening the noose.

Using his hands, he tries to relieve the pressure on his neck, but eventual y he gets tired and his legs drop, cutting off his air supply.

He endures on the edge of consciousness, picturing his own funeral, imagining the eulogies, putting words in people’s mouths. Julianne inconsolable. Wanting him back.

“You wil not see the morning,” the man had said when he pressed the gun to Joe’s forehead, waking him from a dream. A good dream, Julianne had been in it. They were reconciled. Getting physical. Oxygen deprivation is supposed to heighten sexual pleasure.

Joe rol s on to his stomach feeling four gospels and two testaments of pain. He rol s again, resting his head against the inside of the door. If he loses consciousness he’l suffocate.

Raising his head an inch, he takes a breath and brings it down against the door. It rattles with a dul
thunk.
Back and forth he rol s, his bruises like burning charcoal.

The night manager is complained to. Summoned. The door unlocked. Ropes untied. Tape cut away. An ambulance cal ed. The journey to the hospital made in a haze of opiates and questions. His voice box has been bruised. He can’t make them understand.

Later he wakes in hospital, his neck smothered in ointment where the nylon rope chaffed and broke his skin. Ruiz is outside his room, bel owing something at an unfortunate nurse.

“This is me calm, OK. You don’t want to see me upset.”

The door seems to narrow as he enters with the nurse hanging on to his left arm, but not in a romantic way.

Joe looks at him for the single longest second of his life. Tries to speak. The sound is a strangled croak.

“What’s wrong with his voice?” Ruiz asks the nurse.

“His voice box was damaged.”

“Is he going to be able to talk?”

“In a few days.”

Ruiz pul s up a chair and reaches across the sheet, taking Joe’s hand in both of his. Squeezes. It’s the most intimate physical contact they’ve ever shared.

Joe tries to speak, mouthing the word “Hol y.”

“She’s gone. I’m going to get her back. How many?”

Joe raises one finger.

“Recognize him?”

He shakes his head.

“If he hurts her I’l kil him. I’l rip out his arsehole and stitch it into his mouth.”

A police officer appears, puffing, having run down the corridor. Uniformed. Nervous at the sight of Ruiz, he has one hand on his radio.

“Step back from the bed, sir. No visitors are al owed.”

Ruiz asks for a moment longer. Joe is trying to say something. “Where were you?”

“I fucked up. I’m sorry.”

He’s about to stand. Joe pul s him closer, mouthing words.

“Find her.”

“I wil .”

Ruiz nods to the police officer and apologizes to the nurse. Then he takes the corridor and the stairs. Crossing the foyer, he passes Campbel Smith, who is dressed in ful uniform, marching like he’s on parade. Ruiz doesn’t stop.

“Where are you going?”

No answer.

“What are you, Vincent? Not a police officer. Not a private detective. Al you do is make things worse.” Stil no response. The doors are closing. Campbel again.

“This is your fault. We could have protected her.”

34

LONDON

Luca and Daniela are waiting for Ruiz at the hotel, fear hanging over them like a curse. Nothing they say can make him feel any less responsible. His fault. His guilt.

They take a table at a café. The morning wel advanced.

“This should have been over,” says Ruiz. “People got what they wanted.”

“Ibrahim didn’t,” says Daniela.

“Nor did the bank,” adds Luca.

Studying his scarred hands, Ruiz closes his eyes, warding off a fresh wave of hurt. He should cal Julianne, Joe’s estranged wife. Explain. Apologies. What would he say? If Julianne had her way, Joe would never be friends with someone like Ruiz. She’d have him wrapped in cotton wool, safely tenured at some university, disconnected from the real world.

Daniela and Luca are talking about the money-laundering investigation. They have spent the past twenty-four hours tracing some of the transactions, fol owing the money trail between various accounts. They are so comfortable together they’re starting to finish each other’s sentences.

“We’re concentrating on the Middle East,” says Daniela. “We’ve linked twelve accounts to Saudi Arabia, eight to Syria, five to Pakistan, fourteen to Iran and six to Indonesia. We’ve found an indirect link between one of the accounts and the militant group responsible for the Bali bombing in 2002. ATM withdrawals.”

“What about accounts linked to UK addresses?” Ruiz asks.

“Not so much,” says Daniela. “There’s an address in Luton, but that looks like a dead end. We’re looking at others in Italy and Germany.” Ruiz is staring back at her. “What did you say?”

“About Italy and Germany?”

“Before that.”

“Luton. There were money transfers to a private postbox in Luton. A hundred thousand pounds.”

“Who owns the postbox?”

“A Muslim charity, but it looks legitimate.”

Ruiz is holding his breath. Exhales. “When Colin Hackett was fol owing Richard North he went to a postbox in Luton. He mentioned a charity. When I talked to Hackett’s niece she told me that her uncle was in Luton looking for the missing banker on the day she cal ed him and he came back to London. That was the day he died.” Ruiz is already moving.

Luca has grabbed his coat. “Where are you going?”

“To find a car.”

Charlton Car Impound looks like a World War I prison camp with razor wire atop an eight-foot-high perimeter fence. Spread over nearly four acres, the compound is covered by tarmac and a series of brick warehouses with iron roofs and rol er doors.

This is where vehicles are towed if they’re involved in serious accidents, or abandoned, or used in crimes, or seized by the police or the courts.

The office has a staff of three, hardened souls with a thankless job—a twelve-hour shift ful of abuse and insults from members of the public who find their cars have been towed from red routes or double-yel ow lines; or because they are unlicensed, uninsured, untaxed or being driven by a drunk. Thank you, sir/madam, that’s two hundred pounds—we accept cash or credit cards. No American Express.