The Wreckage

23

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.”