The Wreckage

21

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 full of imported lagers. The menu has also been tarted up: a ham-and-cheese toasted sandwich is called 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 chill, 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 billions 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 cliched. 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 walls 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 will 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 all?”

“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 shallow 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 collar, 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 collar that has collapsed 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 all 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 small 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 small pillbox 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 called 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 cafe. The images were sent to him as a warning or a threat.

“The man wanted an address for Polina,” says Miss Lindop. “I told him that I might have one upstairs. I thought if I could distract him I could use the phone and call the police. But he followed me.”

“How did you get away?” asks Luca.

“He was searching the spare bedroom when I locked him inside.” She looks at her hands. “He was yelling terrible things and kicking at the door, but I ran… I have a bicycle; I know the cycle paths and shortcuts. I can pedal pretty fast for someone my age.”

Behind them a door opens and an elderly man in a homburg dips his hand in the holy water, making a sign of the cross, before taking a seat in the shadows. Kneeling. Praying.

“Why didn’t you call the police?” asks Luca.

Miss Lindop frowns. “Afterwards, I thought maybe he was a detective and I was going to be in trouble for locking him up. I didn’t go to work today. It’s the first day I’ve missed in eight years, but ever since Mr. North went missing I’ve had nothing to do. They took everything away.”

“The police?”

“The lawyers. They went over his appointments book and diary, wanting to know who he spoke to and where he went…” She glances at Luca. “They asked me about a journalist: Keith Gooding. Is that you?”

“A friend of mine.”

“They wanted to know if Mr. North had ever spoken to him.”

“What did you say?”

“I had no idea. I don’t think so. Then they made me sign a confidentiality document. They said I’d go to prison if I talked to anyone. Am I going to get into trouble?”

“No,” says Ruiz.

Elizabeth squeezes the older woman’s hand, surprised at the shallowness of her own grief. Ruiz glances over his shoulder. The man praying in the rear pew has gone. The church is empty again.

Outside the sun is coming and going, giving little warmth. Ruiz pauses on the pavement. Ponders his next move. Every new detail comes back to the notebook. The murder of Zac Osborne. The break-in at Elizabeth’s house. The search for Holly Knight. Richard North had been investigating certain accounts, according to his secretary. That was his job as a compliance officer, but these inquiries were private. Hidden.

Elizabeth lets out a cry of pain and muffles the sound with her fist. Another contraction, this one is real. It forces her to lean back, legs splayed slightly, trying to take pressure off her cervix.

“How often are they coming?” asks Ruiz.

“I don’t know.”

“Since the last one?”

“Ten minutes maybe.”

Ruiz holds his hand to her forehead. “You’re burning up.”

“I’m fine. Claudia isn’t due for three weeks.”

“I don’t think Claudia is going to wait.”

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital is less than fifteen minutes away. Ruiz parks and waits as Elizabeth fills in a form and changes into a hospital gown. A midwife is summoned, bell-shaped with blue trousers and a white blouse. Ruiz feels clumsy and out of place.

“I can wait outside,” he says, fidgeting with his car keys. “Is there someone I can call?”

“You can give me my phone back,” says Elizabeth, who is sitting on the bed, her knees together and hands flat on the mattress. Ruiz puts the SIM card in her mobile.

“How long since you’ve been in a place like this?” she asks.

“Thirty-two years. My wife was having twins. They wouldn’t let me stay. Not that I minded. I didn’t really want to see the business end of things.”

“The business end?”

“You know what I mean.”

The midwife pulls the curtains around the bed and asks Elizabeth to lie back and part her knees.

“You can stay away from my business end,” says Elizabeth, motioning him to the top of the bed.

Grimacing slightly at the intrusion, she stares at the ceiling, letting her left hand reach across the gap and take hold of Ruiz’s fingers.

“You’re six centimeters,” announces the midwife. “Call who you have to call-this baby is coming today.”

Fifteen minutes later Ruiz watches as they wheel Elizabeth along the corridor and into the lift. Her father and brother are on their way. They’re going to welcome a new addition to the Bach family-another limb to the family tree, a dynasty in progress.

Ruiz uses a payphone in the visitor’s lounge.

“Capable.”

“Mr. Ruiz. Sorry. Shit! No names. Stupid of me.”

“Relax.”

“OK. Yeah.”

“Any messages?”

“Your friend called. Is he really a professor? I’ve never met a proper professor.”

“What did he want, Capable?”

“Ah, I wrote it down, he said, ‘Holly remembers the notebook’ and he gave me an address.”

Ruiz jots it down on the back of his hand. “Another favor, Capable, I want you to find someone for me. Polina Dulsanya. She might be working as a nanny. You could try the agencies.”

“What do you need?”

“An address.”