“What day is it today?”
“August twenty-eighth.”
Holly looks at her watch and remembers the wedding.
22
WASHINGTON
Chalcott is on the sideline, watching his teenage son play football. His phone is ringing: Sobel from London.
“I tried you in the office.”
“It’s my day off.”
“You’re outside.”
“My boy has a game.”
“Who’s winning?”
“Forty minutes and no score—foreplay shouldn’t last that long.”
A whistle blows. Chalcott shouts at the referee, “The kid dived—are you blind?”
“What position does your boy play?”
“There are positions?” Chalcott finishes his takeaway coffee and crushes the paper mug. “What news?”
“According to the bank Richard North ran off with fifty-four million.”
“Dollars?”
“Pounds. All sorts of theories are being bandied about.”
“ ‘Bandied’? You’ve been in Blighty too long. You’re starting to sound like a Limey shirt-lifter.”
Sobel laughs hollowly. “We’ve intercepted a phone call from Holly Knight to the ex-detective. She left half a message on his answering machine. The call was traced to a shopping mall in Richmond.”
“Did you pick her up?”
“She was gone by the time we arrived, but we’ve managed to get CCTV footage of her talking to some guy. The Brits may have an ID. He’s a tramp. No fixed address.”
“What about the ex-detective?”
“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 the last location?”
“I dropped it on the back seat of a dark blue Audi in Primrose Hill.”
“Turned on.”
“Of course.”
Capable is already tapping on a keyboard, listening to some techno beat on his sound system. Ruiz can picture him in his pokey flat in Hounslow, surrounded by computer screens and hard drives; dressed in jogging gear and sporting one of those droopy Mexican bandit moustaches that nobody—not even Mexican bandits—sport any more.
Most of his “security” work is done on the wrong side of midnight when internet speeds are faster and less people are monitoring their machines. He can piggyback off other systems, working through proxy computers, leaving no electronic trace.
Ruiz has a limited understanding of the technology, but he knows that mobile phones can be tracked because they constantly send out a signal looking for the nearest phone towers. Signal strength and direction can be triangulated to pinpoint the location of a handset down to as little as fifty yards.
“I need one more favor,” says Ruiz. “I want you to reroute my calls.”
“What number?”
“Use this one.”
Ruiz hangs up and wanders back towards the wedding party. Claire and Phillip are being photographed beneath a fig tree with the canal in the background. Miranda drags him into the next picture: The bride and her father. Smiling stiffly, Ruiz looks past the camera to the main doors of the church. That’s when he sees her in the shadows, her arms wrapped around herself and her feet splayed slightly inwards.
He wants to raise his hand. He wants to call out. The photographer demands that he smile. Just one more… look this way…
Ruiz slips his hand around Claire’s waist and gives her a squeeze. “This is not my sort of gig. Do you mind?”
“Away you go,” she says, not surprised.
As Ruiz gets nearer, Holly glances over her shoulder, as though ready to run. Something makes her stay.
“Did you send those men?” she asks.
“No.”
“Who were they?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did they want?”
“They think you stole something.”
Silence. Holly looks over her shoulder again.
“I tried to call you,” he says.
“I lost my phone in the river.”
“How did you get away?”
“A boat. I slept on an island. Did you know there were islands on the Thames?”
“Yes.”
She nods and glances at the wedding party. Claire and Phillip are being posed beneath the arch. The photographer has set up reflectors to soften the light.
“She looks beautiful,” says Holly, wistfully.
“Yes.”
Another silence.
“There’s something you should know. I saw a story on the TV about a banker who stole lots of money.”
“What about him?”
“That’s one of the guys we robbed, Zac and me. You asked me who they were. He was one of them.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
“When was it?”
“About a week ago, maybe longer.”
“Where?”
“He had a place in Barnes.”
“Could you find the house again?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Ruiz takes a pen from his pocket. He doesn’t have any paper. He takes her hand, turning her wrist so he can write on the pale skin of her inner arm. The name of a hotel. An address.
“Call yourself Florence. Take a room at the back on the first floor. There’s a fire escape. Don’t make any phone calls. Don’t talk to anyone.”
“What about money?”
Ruiz gives her sixty pounds.
“I’ll send someone to see you tomorrow. He’ll ask for Florence. Don’t open the door for anyone else.”
“How will I know him?”
“You’ll know if he’s lying.”
24
LONDON
It is after dark by the time Elizabeth is allowed to leave the police station. Campbell Smith says a car will drop her home, but she chooses a cab instead, sinking into the vinyl seat, smelling the sneaked cigarette the driver has just stubbed out.
Halfway home she glances at the meter and checks her purse. She doesn’t have enough money to pay the fare.
“Do you take debit cards?” she asks.
The driver has a big head and a short neck, making it hard for him to turn. He uses the mirror.
“No, love.”
“Could you find me an ATM, please?”
He sighs and pulls over in Knightsbridge, blocking one lane. Elizabeth crosses the pavement to a cash machine, where she inserts her card and follows the instructions.
Nothing happens.
The card emerges from the slot. She tries again, slowly retyping her PIN. The result is the same. Choosing a credit card, she requests a cash advance. The screen freezes for a moment and then says, “Transaction Canceled.” This time her card doesn’t reappear.
Each card. Every account. How is that possible?
Elizabeth glances over her shoulder at the cab driver. She can feel his impatience growing just like the cold creeping into her toes. There is a helpline number on the ATM screen. Elizabeth opens her mobile and follows the automated instructions. In the meantime, she searches the pockets of her coat and the compartments of her purse, hoping to find cash.
A voice answers, an Indian accent, half a world away. Elizabeth tries to explain. The operator wants her password. The cab driver toots his horn. Elizabeth holds up two fingers and shouts, “Two minutes.”
“Your accounts have been frozen, Mrs. North.”
“But we have sufficient funds.”
“It has nothing to do with the account balances.”
Elizabeth can hear her voice growing shrill. “What about my credit cards?”
“Suspended.”
“Who did this? Let me talk to your manager?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to visit your branch.”
“But I need money now.”
“Talk to your branch.”
“It’s nearly ten o’clock at night. I have a cab fare to pay.”
The call center operator apologizes for the inconvenience. Elizabeth argues, demands, yells down the phone, but the line is dead.
The cab driver is standing on the pavement now, hands on hips, tattoos on his forearms.
“The machine just ate my cards,” she explains. “I only have fifteen pounds and thirty-five pence, but I’ll find some money at home. Polina will have some.”
“Polina?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just take me home.”
The driver gets back in the cab, not bothering to open the door for her. They travel in silence along King’s Road, which is still busy on a Wednesday night. Elizabeth once worked in a boutique here during a summer holiday. One jacket cost more than a week’s wages. She wishes she had that money now.
They cross Putney Bridge and turn along Lower Richmond Road. A group of young men spill from a pub. One of them jumps into the road, waving his arms. The driver swerves. Misses. Takes his hand from the wheel.
“Morons!” he yells, and then to Elizabeth, “Idiots!”
Familiar streets now, turning left and right. There are more vehicles than usual parked in Elizabeth’s street. The cab pulls up, engine running. A dozen car doors open in unison. Reporters, cameramen and photographers close around the black cab like baying hounds on the scent of a fox. The cab driver is shouting at them to “watch the motor” and “give the lady some room.” He opens the passenger door for Elizabeth and shields her, shouldering people aside as she makes her way along the front path.
Someone grabs at her arm. She pulls away. A tape recorder is thrust in her face.
“Has your husband contacted you?”
“Do you think he took the money?”
“Why has he run?”
Elizabeth reaches the front door. Pushes it closed. There are two suitcases in the hallway. Polina is sitting on the stairs, texting on her mobile.
Elizabeth asks breathlessly, “Do you have any cash? I need twenty pounds.”
Polina pulls a bundle of loose bills from the pocket of her jeans, a twenty among them. Elizabeth notices the suitcases.
“Is everything all right?”
“I’m leaving.”
“What?”
“Rowan is asleep. The ironing is done. I have made his lunch for tomorrow. I cannot stay.”
“Why?”
Polina motions outside. “They have been ringing the doorbell. Phoning. Yelling through the letterbox.”
“I’m sorry.”
The nanny shakes her bobbed hair. “I cannot stay here. I cannot.”
Elizabeth follows her gaze. She notices a dustpan and brush. Broken glass. The bay window has been smashed. A broken paver sits on the phone table, along with a single-page note. Three words.
Bankers are scum!
Polina squeezes past her, struggling with her suitcases. The cab driver gives her a hand. The reporters and photographers step aside.
“Please don’t go,” says Elizabeth. “What about your money?”
“You can owe me.”
25
LUTON
The old motel is boarded up with plywood on the barred windows and padlocks on the doors. The Courier waits for the young men to arrive, watching from a distance. One of them will be late—Taj. He’s older and more level-headed than the others, but he lacks conviction.
The one called Rafiq has shown promise. He killed when he was asked. Held his nerve. Pulled the trigger. He has been quiet since then, looking at himself in the mirror as though expecting to see some visible change in himself like the notch between his eyes grown deeper.
Two of the young men have arrived. They are arguing and joking, throwing fake punches and kicking at a soft-drink can in the gutter. How many others are there like them—white, black, Asian, rich, poor, educated, u
neducated—praying in Madrasahs, surfing the internet, dreaming of Jihad?
Syd is the youngest. He runs his fingers over the contours of the dark-colored BMW parked at the rear of the motel screened by an overgrown hedge.
“This would be such a sweet ride, you know. I reckon Jenny Cruikshank would go out with me if I had a ride like this.”
“Jenny Cruikshank still won’t do the business,” laughs Rafiq, “not even in a BMW. She’s a prick-tease, man.”
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
Rafiq laughs even harder, his cheeks etched with tiny acne scars like needle marks. “Don’t let the Courier catch you leaving your prints on that thing.”
Syd bunches his sleeve in his fist and begins wiping the car.
Built on either side of a tarmac courtyard, the red-brick motel has two stories with an open walkway along the upper floor. The Courier lets himself into the dining room, which is stripped of furnishings except for a dozen chairs and a tea-urn. There are boxes of donated clothes and blankets—some for disposal, some for sale.
Rafiq and Syd are in Room 12, setting up a digital camera. Folding a magazine, Rafiq jams the pages under one leg of the tripod, which is shorter than the others. Syd sits cross-legged on the floor wearing cargo pants, trainers and an Arsenal strip.
“Should the light be blinking?” he asks.
“It’s still charging.”
“You got the lens cap on.”
Rafiq checks, then glares at Syd.
“You’re a funny prick.”
Syd giggles and adjusts the shemagh on his forehead. His round face is made rounder by an attempted beard that sprouts from his cheeks like alfalfa in wet cotton wool. His father calls it bum fluff. Says it out loud to embarrass Syd when girls come into the shop. He hates his father then. Hates his braying laugh. Hates how everything is a competition.
“We should have crossed swords in the background.”
“We don’t have any swords.”
“Well, I should be holding a gun. We’re supposed to look like soldiers.”
“You got khaki trousers.”
The Wreckage: A Thriller Page 25
