The Wreckage: A Thriller (46 page)

Hol y closes her eyes again and Joe takes her mind back to the house in Barnes. She has grown accustomed to describing scenes in detail, picturing them in her mind, not rushing the chronology of events, but slowing it down. Richard North had been quite drunk when they arrived at the house. He couldn’t get his key in the lock. She did it for him.

“He stil wanted to get into my pants. They’re al like that. They start off tel ing me I can use their phone and then they offer me the spare room and then they try for the big prize.”

“Is that what Ruiz did?”

Hol y opens one eye. “Not exactly.”

“What about Richard North?”

“He was Mr. Hopeful. He said he had condoms, but couldn’t find them. I poured him a drink, which I spiked. He slobbered al over me and then passed out.”

“Where?”

“On the sofa downstairs. That’s when Zac arrived in a foul mood because it was raining and miserable on a bike. I searched upstairs. He took downstairs. Cash. Jewelry. Mobile phones. Nothing too big, because we had to carry it on the bike.”

She describes the house, picking out colors and features, remembering the posters in the little boy’s bedroom and his bed shaped like a racing car. Joe doesn’t mention the coat again until Hol y describes putting their possible haul on the floor of the hal way and deciding what to leave behind.

“What about the jacket?”

Hol y purses her lips. “It was hanging over the banister.”

“Did Zac take it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember seeing it again.”

Something bothers her. She fal s silent, going over the events.

“He went to the kitchen to get a plastic bag.”

“Zac?”

“He must have wanted to protect the jacket from the rain.” Hol y opens her eyes. “He must have taken it with him, but I don’t remember seeing it again.”

“Relax. Go back there… to the house… you’re in the hal way, deciding what to take…”

“We were loading the panniers. I put on my coat. A helmet… We found a nice briefcase in the study. I had to carry it on my lap. Zac drove careful y. No point in taking risks. Being picked up by the cops would be sil y.”

“Where did you go?”

“Back to the flat.”

“Where did you park?”

“Zac has this lockup around the corner. That’s where he leaves his bike.”

“A lockup?”

“Yeah.”

“Where is the bike now?”

Hol y shrugs. “Stil there, I guess.”

Joe looks at the phone on the bedside table. First he’l leave a message for Ruiz.

“Come on,” he tel s Hol y.

“Have we finished?”

“Yes.”

“Where are we going?”

“To get a notebook.”

21

LONDON

The Shelby Arms had been one of Ruiz’s favorite watering holes when he was running the Serious Crime Squad in West London. Back then it had been a dive with decent beer and passable grub. Now it’s a gastro-pub with a dozen different boutique beers on tap and cooling cabinets ful of imported lagers. The menu has also been tarted up: a ham-and-cheese toasted sandwich is cal ed a
croque-monsieur
. Potato and leek soup is
vichyssoise
.

Elizabeth and Daniela are sitting opposite each other, sipping soda waters. Ruiz has ordered a Guinness and Luca the same, sipping it somewhat curiously but trying hard to win respect.

Ruiz studies him, scratching an eyebrow, giving nothing away. The journalist is carrying scars, mental, not physical, but he’s a tough son-of-a-bitch. Daniela is interesting. She has a chil , scientific detachment. Dynamite between the sheets, he suspects. The cool ones often are. Why does he bring everything back to sex? Hard-ons of the mind.

Through a picture window, he sees a line of schoolchildren wearing hats and holding hands. Two women teachers at either end, cajoling them to stay in line and “walk don’t run.” Advice for life.

Now Luca begins talking, starting in Iraq with the bank robberies and missing reconstruction funds. He mentions an attack on the Finance Ministry, people dying. Friends. Cash smuggled across borders. Mersey Fidelity. The name Yahya Maluk seems to electrify Elizabeth.

“I’ve met him,” she says. “I’ve been to his house. He lives in Mayfair.”

Everyone is looking at her. “North visited Yahya Maluk the day before he disappeared. I asked Maluk about the meeting, but he denied it ever happened.”

“How do you know they met?” asks Luca.

“I saw the photographs.”

Luca reaches into the pocket of his shirt and unfolds the photocopies that he made last night at the newspaper office. “Is that the man?” Elizabeth nods. “He’s on the board of Mersey Fidelity.”

Luca puts another picture in front of Elizabeth.

“What about this man?”

Three men in uniform are standing behind Saddam Hussein. She places her fingers around the face of the man on the far right, framing his portrait.

“That’s the other one.”

“Are you absolutely sure?” asks Luca, glancing at Daniela.

“I’m sure,” says Elizabeth.

“What is it? Who is this guy?” asks Ruiz.

Daniela answers, giving details of Mohammed Ibrahim Omar al-Muslit, the former Baath Party moneyman who helped Saddam Hussein steal bil ions from his own people.

“He should be in Abu Ghraib, but he escaped four years ago.”

“What’s he doing in London?”

“That’s a very good question.”

Ruiz silently places the details in context. A wanted war criminal, a terrorist—that could explain why the Americans are so interested.

Luca continues. “We’ve established a link between money stolen in Iraq and Yahya Maluk. Through him we have a connection with Mersey Fidelity and Richard North. That’s why I wanted to talk to Bridget Lindop.”

Sitting opposite, Elizabeth doesn’t leap to her husband’s defense by denying his involvement and arguing his innocence. Instead she remains quiet, gazing out the window at a sunlit afternoon that should be darker, stormier, less radiant. North was sleeping with the nanny. How prosaic of him, how clichéd. Men can be so bloody predictable.

“She’s a devout Catholic,” says Elizabeth, almost thinking out loud.

“Who?” asks Ruiz.

“Bridget Lindop—she goes to Mass every day.”

Our Lady of Grace and St. Edward Church is a listed building with red-brick wal s darkened by soot, exhaust fumes and the sins of the forgiven. An old woman is dusting the pews. Her skirt is tucked up in her apron revealing pale calves that are bulging with veins like a fleshy Rorschach test.

She’s Polish. Ruiz speaks to her in German, asking after the priest. He’s in the presbytery. She fetches him, complaining about the interruption. Some people wil find their own grave too crowded.

“Where did you learn to speak German?” asks Luca.

“Where did you learn to speak Arabic?”

“My mother.”

“We both have one of those.”

Daniela has gone to meet Keith Gooding and get the latest news on the search for Richard North. Police divers entered the river at first light, using sonar equipment in the zero visibility.

A row of candles is burning beneath a statue, the wax almost glowing from within, creating flickering shadows on the skirts of the Virgin Mary.

Ruiz leans back in a pew, feeling his muscles let go. High above his head there are dust motes drifting in a shaft of sunlight and a strand of web clings to a beam, moving back and forth as though the entire building is inhaling and exhaling.

“Do you know any prayers?” asks Elizabeth, struggling to kneel.

“I’ve forgotten the only prayer I ever learned as a kid,” says Ruiz. “That one about dying in your sleep.”

“You’re scared of dying.”

“Better than being scared of living.”

Elizabeth lowers her eyes and clasps her hands. “What makes a man who has a woman who loves him risk it al ?”

“Are you asking me or Him?”

“You.”

Ruiz rubs his forehead. “Sometimes when a man feels bad about himself, he doesn’t want to be with a woman who looks at him with nothing but love. Instead he wants to lie on top of a woman who knows how nasty and shal ow and faithless he can be… a woman who doesn’t put him on a pedestal or expect him to be a knight in shining armor… a woman who’s happy with the
worst
he can be.”

The priest appears. Young. Frizzy-haired. Dressed in a multi-colored shirt with silver crosses on the col ar, he looks like a Woodstock wannabe, forty years too late for the party.

“I’m Father Michael,” he says, bowing slightly from the waist as though his spine is hinged on a spring. He notices Elizabeth’s pregnancy and is trying to place Luca and Ruiz in the picture as either a husband or a father.

Elizabeth speaks. “I’m looking for Bridget Lindop. I know she comes here.”

“What makes you sure she’s here now?”

“Is she?”

“I’m not in a position to discuss—”

Elizabeth interrupts him. “I’m sorry, Father, but they found my husband’s car in a river last night. Some people think he’s dead. Some think he stole a lot of money. I have a little boy at home… a girl coming. Please don’t lie to me or treat me like an idiot.”

Father Michael passes his hand over his jaw. Before he can answer there is a movement from deeper in the church. Bridget Lindop emerges from the shadows where she’s been kneeling in prayer.

The two women embrace. Elizabeth’s shoulders are shaking, but there are no tears. This is an English middle-class grief. Reserved. Contained. They sit down, holding hands, their knees touching, as though drawing strength from each other. Miss Lindop’s dress has a ruffled col ar that has col apsed like a chain of wilting flowers around her neck.

Father Michael offers to make tea. He and Luca retreat to the sacristy.

“I come here every day,” says Miss Lindop. “Father Michael gives me chores to do.”

“We’ve been to your house,” says Ruiz.

“Is Tinker al right? I’ve been worried about him. I didn’t leave him any milk.”

“He found some,” says Ruiz.

“Did he open the fridge again? He’s learned how to do that. He’s very cheeky.”

“He’s very fat,” adds Ruiz.

Miss Lindop stiffens, less than impressed. “He’s
not
fat. He’s big boned.” She turns away from him and seems to be talking to the shadows. “A man came and said he was a detective. I asked to see his badge and he held something up in front of the peephole, but it was too quick for me to read. He knew about you being pregnant, Lizzie, and about your little boy, so I let him in.”

“What did he look like?” asks Ruiz.

“Dark hair. Medium height. Foreign looking. I couldn’t place his accent. There was something different about him. His eyes. Something cruel. It was like he
hated
being in his own skin.”

Ruiz presses her again, wanting more detail, but she gives him a disapproving scowl. “I don’t have a photographic memory, sir.” He apologizes. “What did this man want?”

“Mr. North had a smal Moleskine notebook about this big. It was black with an elastic strap.” She uses her fingers to show the dimensions.

“What was in it?”

“Lists of some kind.”

“Lists?”

Miss Lindop cocks her head to one side. Her opinion of Ruiz isn’t improving because he keeps repeating things that she’s said.

Luca and Father Michael have returned with a tray of mugs. Miss Lindop delves into her bag and produces a smal pil box of saccharine tablets. She smiles at Luca, perhaps imagining having a son his age.

“North was always scribbling notes,” she says, “but he stopped whenever I walked in.”

“This man that came to your house—did he say anything else?”

Miss Lindop gazes sadly at Elizabeth. “He said Mr. North was sleeping with someone. He wanted to find her.

“I cal ed him a liar and said Richard was a good husband and father, but the man just laughed.”

“Did he mention a name?” asks Elizabeth.

Miss Lindop hesitates, not wanting to inflict more heartache.

“What name?”

“Polina.”

Ruiz checks himself. How did this man know about North and the nanny? The police only made the connection in the past twenty-four hours. At some point during the winter, somebody photographed North and Polina together at a café. The images were sent to him as a warning or a threat.