Michael Robotham - The Wreckage

“Meaning?”

“Some of them are running passengers, six at a time in SUVs, charging about twenty bucks per person. They take people out and come back with boxes of stuff that’s hard to get in Iraq-laundry powder, dishwashing liquid, that kind of thing.

“Others are still smuggling oil. They take old station wagons and turn them into fuel tankers carrying five hundred liters of diesel. Mad fuckers.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The TCNS travel without protection, unlike the military convoys. One stray bullet or errant spark and boom, they’re decorating the desert with body parts.”

“If I wanted to talk to some of these drivers, where would I go?”

“The trucking camps,” says Jimmy. “That’s where they live when they’re not driving. They get food and water; live behind barbed wire; compare bullet holes.”

Luca asks Jimmy if he can make a few enquiries-ask about drivers who might be prepared to make a border run carrying cash.

“And if I find someone?”

“Let me know.”

Luca hitches a ride to the Republican Palace, which has been renamed the Freedom Building. Within the walls it is like a small city with tree-lined boulevards, shops and offices-a small corner of Iraq that will be forever American.

After changing some money, he gets a haircut. Then he calls Daniela Garner. This time she picks up.

“It’s me,” he says.

“Hello.”

“About last night-”

“I’ve never done that before.”

“No you haven’t, I would have remembered.”

“It was a random act.”

“Of kindness?”

“Of lust.”

“Which you now regret?”

“I always regret things. It’s my automatic response to almost every decision I make.”

“You’ve come to the right place. This is a country full of regrets.”

Silence. He should say something.

“Well, I don’t regret a single moment of it. I was sort of hoping it might happen again some time… in the future… which could mean tonight.”

“ That soon?”

“Strike while the iron is hot.”

“Is it that hard.”

“Like a crowbar.”

“Now you’re just boasting.”

She feels her face flush and blood rush to other places.

“I have a question and it’s not about the thing you do with your pelvic floor muscles.”

“The thing?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your question?”

“You remember the story I was following up.”

“The bank robberies.”

“There was another one a couple of days ago in the financial district of Baghdad. Seven people are dead including six bank guards. They took US dollars in aluminum boxes, larger than briefcases.”

“How many cases?”

“At least sixteen.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Cases like that can hold up to four million US dollars each, depending on the denominations.”

There is a pause. Both of them have done the calculation.

“No bank branch should hold that sort of cash. There’s no need,” she says.

“Iraq is still a cash economy.”

“Even so.”

“It was the eighteenth bank robbery this year.”

“You’re going to ask me to do something.”

“The cash must have been provided by the Central Bank. There must be a record of the transfers.”

“I don’t know if I can help,” says Daniela, typing as she speaks. She calls up information on cash deliveries to banks. The list runs to six pages. She narrows the search by including only US dollar deliveries.

“What were the dates of the robberies?”

“I can text them to you.”

“No promises.”

“I understand. I still want to see you later.”

“You want my body.”

“We could eat first… or not.”

She laughs. “You know that second dates are trickier.”

“How so?”

“Traditionally, they’re about getting to know each other better. You might discover I’m a selfish, controlling, overbearing and difficult woman.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. And I think you’ve seen enough of me already.”

“There are places I haven’t seen yet.”

“Now you’re just being dirty.”

Ruiz walks alongside the river, smelling the briny stink of low tide. Fat-bellied boats, canted drunkenly to starboard, are stuck fast in the mud. When he first came down to London from Lancashire he was posted with the Thames River Police. On average they pulled two bodies a week from the river, mostly suicides. Rivers seem to draw people to them, cleansing souls, christening them, or dragging them to the bottom.

Holly Knight fascinates and appalls him. Full of fuck-you apathy and repressed anger, she lies almost compulsively yet recognizes when people are deceiving her. An actress. Intense. Volatile. Disconcerting. She trusts nobody and treats every question like it’s wired to go off.

Taking out his mobile, he searches for a familiar name in the directory. Calls. Waits. Joe O’Loughlin answers.

“Hey, Professor, how does a cow know it’s not a butterfly dreaming of being a cow?”

“It can’t fly.”

“Makes sense.”

The professor is a clinical psychologist who spends too much time in other people’s heads. He looks exactly like you’d expect an academic to look-slightly disheveled, unkempt, undernourished-only he has Parkinson’s which means he shakes it like Shakira when he’s not medicated.

Ruiz met him eight years ago, when he was investigating the murder of a young woman in London, one of O’Loughlin’s former patients. The professor was a prime suspect until he proved that another patient was setting him up. That’s what happens when you deal with psychopaths and sociopaths; it’s like trying to hand-feed sharks.

“How are things?”

“Good.”

“The girls?”

“Fine.”

“Julianne?”

“We’re talking.”

A posse of thin androgynous cyclists sweeps past him in a blur of latex and brightly colored helmets.

“Claire is getting married at the weekend.”

“Congratulations.”

“You want to come to the wedding?”

“Why?”

“I can bring someone.”

“Don’t you want to bring a date?”

“I’m too old to bring dates.”

“What’s the real reason?”

“There’s someone I want you to meet. She’s nineteen. Damaged. Angry. Her boyfriend was killed two nights ago but she won’t talk to the police. Doesn’t trust them.”

“What’s her name?”

“Holly Knight. D.O.B. twelfth December 1992. You still got any contacts in the DHSS?”

“One or two. Where is she now?”

“Staying with me. I’ll explain when you get here.”

“You’re assuming I’ll come.”

“Of course.”

The conversation hits an air pocket and lurches into silence. The professor is an expert at reading the pauses. “Something else on your mind?”

“She says she can tell when people are lying.”

“Why does that bother you?”

“I think maybe she can.”

Ruiz walks back to his Merc and pauses for a moment, considering how he got into this. The stolen jewelry. Holly said she dropped the hair-comb when she was attacked in the flat. Maybe it’s still there.

Crossing the river, he drives east through streets that are dotted with “For Sale” and “To Let” signs. People selling up, selling out, downsizing, belt-tightening, admitting defeat. The atmosphere in London has changed in the past two years. People are postponing retirement, driving older cars, eating out less; they’re less conspicuous in their spending, less confident in the future. The city is circumspect rather than diminished.

Ruiz parks the Merc and squints through the windscreen at the Hogarth Estate. It looks different in daylight. Dirtier. Poorer. Some balconies are being used to dry clothes, others to store broken furniture.