by Carla Banks
‘I know about my sister,’ Yasmin spoke in Arabic, a language that must have been alien to her when she first arrived in Saudi as a child. ‘My father called my husband. They say it was the right thing to happen to someone who would kidnap a child.’
‘And you?’
‘Me? I have to sit quietly and be a good Saudi daughter and a good Saudi wife. This is what Amy would have wanted. Otherwise, she died for nothing, Mr O’Neill.’ It was the low, quiet voice of the submissive Saudi woman, but underneath, he could hear the steel. She was warning him off.
‘I know enough to guess some of it, but not enough to work it all out. If you can’t tell me, I’ll go on looking. Roisin deserves to know.’
There was silence as she thought about it. ‘How is Roisin?’
‘If she’s going to survive this, she has to understand why her husband died.’
‘And so you will endanger what my sister fought for? She told me that she loved you.’
‘And I loved her. Yasmin, I saw her the day she died. She knew you owed Roisin. Will it help if I tell you what I know? It starts with Haroun Patel, doesn’t it?’
There was silence again, then he heard the breath of a sigh. ‘All right. But it starts earlier than that. It started when my mother took me away from my father. I had been Yasmin, and I lived with my family. Then suddenly I was Jesamine and we were living in the middle of a housing estate in the north with a man I didn’t know and didn’t like, where I didn’t understand the way people talked and the way people lived. Then my mother died and my father brought me here. I was Yasmin again, but not the real Yasmin. He left me with strangers and they told me everything I did and everything I knew was wrong. I wanted my mother and I wanted my sister, but they told me they were haram, evil, because they rejected the faith my father showed them. It was as if the desert had stolen everything I wanted or cared about. I didn’t see England again until I was twenty. My father had left Europe by then, but he wanted his child to attend a European university. I studied in Paris, and in my last year, I took a semester in London. In Paris, my sister found me. And in London I found…Those years brought me the greatest happiness of my life, and the worst sorrow.’
‘So Amy came to Riyadh.’ Damien thought of the other people who had been drawn, fatally, to the city: Haroun Patel, Joe Massey–and Amy. Amy had surely found her death in Riyadh.
‘Yes. She always believed I would leave Majid, and I would need her help. I don’t know. I didn’t know how to be independent like Amy, not then. That’s why I did what my father told me. But I loved Haroun, Mr O’Neill. You know that, don’t you?’
He could remember his own first experience of love, the conflagration whose brilliance outshone all rational counsel. He had been caught in it when he had first taken up with Catherine. And the fire had burned out, leaving something grey and dead where love had been, as dead as Catherine herself was now dead. ‘Yes. I know.’
He could hear the faint breath that was Yasmin’s sigh. ‘I thought I would never see him again. But then he wrote to me. It was a long time later. He said he was sorry if he’d caused me trouble, but his sister needed help and I was the only person he knew who had contacts with people of influence. He meant my father, of course. She had run away from her Saudi employers, and she’d stolen from them. She needed to get away. I was so glad to have his letter; just to hold it, something he had written, made me feel alive again. There was no hope, I knew that. I was married. He was married. I didn’t want to think about that. But I tried to help him. I told my father, said the girl was a friend of my maid, and he said he would do something.’ She laughed, a short, bitter sound. ‘It was like my wanting a doll when I was small or a new dress when I was a teenager–anything like that, I could always have, but the people I loved? I was not allowed those. But he did it and I felt good because I had helped Haroun.’
A road to hell that had been paved with so many good intentions. ‘Jesal Patel?’ he said.
‘Jesal. And then Haroun wrote again. I can remember when my mother-in-law gave me the letter. A lot of letters she said, and her eyes were hard. Just students, I told her. They ask for help. I was frightened because I thought she would insist on seeing the letter, but I was happy as well, just to see his writing. But it was bad news. His sister had vanished. He thought she had gone to London, but he had heard nothing from her. I asked my father, but he got angry so I tried to find out in other ways. I asked who I could, I asked the women in our groups, and I asked Amy. I think Amy may have guessed what had happened, but she didn’t tell me. What could I have done? Anyway, one day I was feeling unhappy so I went to her flat to see her. Majid didn’t know she was my sister, but he knew we were friends and I was allowed to visit her. But Amy wasn’t there. Instead —I can still remember how I felt. I walked into her flat, and he was there, Haroun was there, like a dream. He was just the way he used to look, the way I always saw him in my mind.
‘Amy had given him her key so he could use her phone and her computer. He didn’t have anything like that. He started getting his things together, he said he had to go, but he…We…He hadn’t forgotten. We met there, times when Amy was working. We were happy, just for that short time we could be together.’
Damien could work out the rest, or most of it. ‘The baby–it’s Haroun’s, isn’t it?’
He could hear that same faint breath. ‘I didn’t know…then. Part of me prayed it was Majid’s, but so much of me wanted it to be Haroun’s. I was happy. I was terrified. I didn’t know what to do. I even thought–Haroun and I, we can be together. He won’t leave me. He’ll leave this wife he has in his own country, and we’ll go to Europe and…But that could never have happened. And then…Haroun was dead. The desert kingdom took him away from me. Then, when my baby was born, I looked at him and I saw Haroun looking back.’
‘Did Amy know?’
‘I didn’t tell her, not until the end. I kept hoping Majid would let me go to Europe, let me get away, but he wouldn’t. I didn’t tell her until the baby was close to being born and I knew I couldn’t escape.’
‘And she took the baby. Yasmin, I don’t understand why. Why not wait until you could just leave?’
‘Because when they took the baby’s blood–they do that to test for diseases–Majid asked them for our son’s blood group. He likes to have all this kind of thing on record and he knew we would need it for the baby’s passport.’ Damien heard the short, hard laugh. ‘I had asked so often to go to Europe. He did it to please me.’
The trap had closed on Yasmin suddenly. Amy had had to improvise, and to move fast. And she had done it. She had succeeded. But it had cost her her life.
‘She had to keep my son in hospital, and she needed him to be in the ward where she worked–she could get him away from there. She took the samples from the lab and destroyed them. Then she took the blood of another child, one who was very ill. She labelled it with my son’s name and took it to the laboratory. As soon as they saw the results, they moved him into the ITU. I was so afraid. I was afraid they would find out, or that they would give him treatment he shouldn’t have, treatment that would harm him, but Amy said she’d take care of it.’
Damien remembered the incubator that had been found with the oxygen switched off and the drip detached. Amy had done what she had promised. ‘And now? Where did she…?’
‘Please don’t ask me. I can’t tell you. He is safe.’
There was a moment of silence, then she said, ‘Now I have to tell you what Roisin has to know…’
Damien listened as she told him the story he’d already worked out, but had hoped, up to this moment, was wrong.
52
When she opened the door to him, Roisin saw that Damien still looked drained and exhausted. The only improvement his visit to the hospital had made was that the hectic flush had gone from his face and his eyes were clear. ‘You should be resting,’ she said.
He grimaced as if he’d heard this already. ‘I’ll be all right,’ he said.
‘Amy–she called me, last night. Damien, what happened?’
He closed his eyes and seemed to be marshalling his resources. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger. ‘Nazarian sent his men after her. He wanted answers to questions that Amy wasn’t prepared to give. But they got one bit of information out of her–that she was coming here.’
She looked out of the window to the place where the white van had been. ‘They were watching the flat,’ she said. ‘They saw me with the baby.’
‘They were watching me, as well. They were waiting for Amy to get in touch.’ He shook his head. ‘I was stupid. Careless.’
‘What were they looking for?’ She knew the answer, but she didn’t understand the way it had happened.
‘Yasmin’s baby. Nazarian knew that Amy had taken Yasmin’s baby.’ He told her the story as Yasmin had told it to him. ‘Once Amy had got the baby safely hidden away, she left Saudi via the Bahrain causeway and flew to Europe. Everyone thought she’d already left–even me. It was vital that no one suspected her, because that would put the focus back on Yasmin. She had to find a job, get a house, somewhere Yasmin could bring the baby once she managed to get out. Only she reckoned without Nazarian. One of his people saw her at the hospital the day the baby vanished.’
‘Where is the baby? Where did Amy take him?’
He shook his head. ‘Yasmin wouldn’t tell me. To be honest, I don’t want to know. He’ll be somewhere Yasmin can get him, when she leaves.’
‘How can she have him with her? Her father would find out–and her husband. Even if she leaves…’ Nazarian had had Amy followed from Riyadh to Newcastle to carry out his revenge.
‘She’s with Nazarian now. Of her limited choices, he’s the best. She’s going to divorce Majid; after this, her father won’t be in a position to stop her. Once she’s divorced, she can get her father’s permission to leave the country. I don’t know how she’ll get the baby out. But Amy must have thought of a way.’
‘And Joe? How did Joe…?’ She could hardly bear to ask the question. This was the bit she dreaded hearing, and the bit that she had to hear.
‘He knew there was something wrong. He spotted an anomaly in the blood tests. I’ve seen his report–someone e-mailed me a copy. According to the test results, the sick child was rhesus negative. Yasmin was rhesus positive. It should have been flagged up–rhesus positive mother, rhesus negative father–potential for trouble. But it wasn’t. So he checked again, and that’s when he saw that Majid was rhesus positive as well. He couldn’t have been the father of that child. Joe had no way of knowing that the blood samples had been switched. They showed him the truth, but for the wrong reasons. I asked at the hospital that afternoon, and the pathology technician indicated that there was something missing from the medical records. I think your husband must have taken something out until he had a chance to think about it. But once the child went missing, then all the information had to go back.’
She could remember Joe in the car, looking worried, saying, there’s something I should…and then, This fucking country. I don’t know what to do. He had been worried that he’d be forced to reveal something that would convict a Saudi woman of adultery and place her in the hands of the Mutawa’ah. ‘And Nazarian killed him? For that?’
Damien, watching her face, wished he could give different answers. ‘It wasn’t Nazarian, Roisin. And it wasn’t for that. Majid should never have been at the hospital that night. He wasn’t allowed to investigate the kidnapping of his own child. But he went there anyway. He couldn’t stay away. He was already suspicious that the hospital had got something wrong. He thought they’d made a fatal error and were trying to cover it up. He went to the labs to ask some questions about the tests and he found your husband, apparently altering the records, destroying the evidence–as far as Majid was concerned–of a mistake that had killed his son.’
Yasmin had told him that Majid had come back late the night of Joe Massey’s death. He had told her that their son was dead, but the killer had been brought to justice. And then he had refused to tell her any more and had forbidden her to leave the house or to contact anyone. He had paid no attention to the rumours that were starting to circulate about the child’s paternity. He knew those records were nothing to do with the child he thought was his. Yasmin had been under virtual house arrest until her father’s return. All she had was the mobile phone Amy had given her in secret. She had hardly dared to use it.
‘Majid assumed his son had died, and your husband was responsible. He thought the “abduction” was part of a cover-up and he knew that a Westerner would never pay what he saw as the appropriate price for the fatal error. He took Joe to the desert. I don’t know what story he used, or how he persuaded him. I don’t know why he went there. It may just have been a suitably isolated place, or he may have wanted to question him, to get the story out of him. Then he killed him.’
Her voice shook as she spoke. ‘Mad. He must have been mad. Crazy. And all Joe was doing was trying to protect Yasmin. We were so close to leaving. We were going to go in a few weeks. Oh, God. There was no need.’ The tears were streaming down her face. He hadn’t seen her cry for her dead husband before. He touched her hair, and when she didn’t resist, he pulled her against him and held her. He was praying to the gods he didn’t believe in that she wouldn’t ask him the questions he didn’t want to answer.
He didn’t want to share his last piece of knowledge with her. Yasmin hadn’t challenged or accused her husband, and would never give evidence against him. By killing Joe Massey, he had removed the last witness to a story that would be fatal to her if it got out while she was still in Saudi. He didn’t blame her. She had her child to protect.
And Majid hadn’t been crazy. He hadn’t killed in a fit of rage or insanity. He had executed Joe Massey with clinical precision, with two deliberate cuts to the throat. The first one had disabled him, a cut that had opened the artery that carries the blood to the head. The second cut had opened the larynx and severed the tongue, leaving him speechless and choking as his lungs flooded with his own blood.
And then he had left Joe Massey to die.
53
Roisin said goodbye to Damien at the station. He’d decided to go back. He was taking the Heathrow Express and catching the afternoon flight to Riyadh.
Outside, the day had the freshness of early spring. She walked through the backstreets of Marylebone and through the shabby grandeur of Bloomsbury, following the route that she and Joe had always used when they walked back to the flat together. She knew she would never see him again, that the part of her life that belonged to him was over, but she felt as though he was walking beside her.
Riyadh, March 2005
Damien slipped back into the Kingdom quietly. He didn’t tell anyone he was coming, but the house greeted him like an old friend, the cool shade welcoming him home. Rai was waiting with his calm smile. ‘Welcome back,’ he said.
Damien wandered through rooms veiled behind the mashrabiyaat to the cool dimness of the hallway. He stood on the stone flags, remembering the day that Amy had called here, slipping through the door and into his arms, the blue of her dress and the vividness of her hair brilliant against the monochrome shadows.
And later, her hair had splashed across his pillow like blood.
Then he went back upstairs and waited for the visitor he knew would shortly arrive. Just after eight, the bell jangled. He heard the sound of the door opening and checked to make sure he had what was needed to hand.
He heard feet moving heavily on the stairs. The door swung open. Arshak Nazarian stood there.
‘Nazarian,’ Damien said.
The other man’s gaze travelled round the room. After a moment’s hesitation, he came through the door and sat down in the chair opposite Damien’s. ‘You might have been wiser to stay away,’ he said without ceremony.
Damien shrugged. ‘So might you. They tried to kill you, remember?’ The car bomb, indiscriminate though it might have been, had been t
argeted at Nazarian.
Nazarian dismissed this irritably. ‘It was just a warning. A business misunderstanding.’
‘They thought you were reneging,’ Damien said. ‘They’d taken a woman out of the country for you on a no-questions-asked basis, and suddenly there was your daughter stirring things up.’
‘As I said, a misunderstanding.’
A stab of anger pushed Damien into speaking. ‘Did you know that she died, the girl you gave them? She drowned herself in the Thames.’
‘I’m not responsible for what people choose to do, O’Neill. You of all people should realize that.’ He waited for a moment to see if Damien would respond. ‘Your wife. She committed suicide after you left her, am I right?’
It was the threat Catherine had held over him for the duration of their marriage, the threat she had carried out once he had gone. ‘Yes. She did.’
‘So you understand.’ He met Damien’s gaze. ‘I had no plans for Amy Seymour to be killed. I just wanted my grandson back.’
‘But she didn’t have him.’
Nazarian’s face darkened. ‘No.’
‘Do you plan to stay?’ The bomb had been the second attempt on Nazarian’s life.
‘I thought I might move to Dubai,’ Nazarian said after a pause. ‘I have some business interests there.’
‘And your daughter?’
‘She will come with me. She has left her husband. They’re getting a divorce.’ Once the divorce was through, Majid would no longer have control over Yasmin’s movements. That would pass to her father.
Damien could see the calculation in Nazarian’s eyes, the expression that said he was coming to a decision. He rested his fingers on the book in his lap and saw Nazarian’s gaze follow his hand. ‘I have no desire to do anything that might harm your daughter,’ he said.
