Michael Robotham - The Wreckage

Luca’s father loved the English poets. Donne and Blake were his favorites, but he didn’t like Wordsworth, who he said was a rock star poet, famous in his own lifetime, as if that were his worst crime.

More time passes. Luca closes his eyes and tries to doze. Daniela will be through the airport by now. She’ll call Gooding. He’ll pull strings.

The door opens. It’s not Douglas Evans this time. Two airport police officers escort Luca along stark corridors and through swinging doors until he emerges into the arrivals hall. Daniela and Keith Gooding are waiting. Gooding gives him a bear hug. Their bodies don’t fit well together.

“You didn’t tell me you were bringing someone,” Gooding says. “Daniela wanted me to call out the Queen’s Guard.”

“I inspire loyalty.”

Daniela shakes her head. “You attract trouble.”

The cafe has three computer screens at the rear of the far wall, squeezed between shelves of canned goods, breakfast cereal and soap powder. Internet access is four pounds an hour. The Bangladeshi owner, Mr. Rahman, has three unmarried daughters and has already quizzed the Courier about whether he needs a wife.

Ibrahim is twenty minutes late, sweating profusely. Big pores, he explains. A bad diet, thinks the Courier.

Coffee is ordered, double espressos with the consistency of tar.

“Why haven’t you found the notebook?” Ibrahim asks.

“Maybe it doesn’t exist or the ex-soldier threw it away. He died slowly. I gave him every opportunity to tell me.”

Ibrahim grunts and spoons four sugars into his coffee. Across the road, through a first-floor window, he notices a girl making a bed. She’s wearing a black skirt and a blue apron. Something about maids, he thinks. He once offered a hotel housekeeper three hundred pounds to sleep with him. A Filipino girl. She got offended. It was more than she earned in a week. Foolish pride.

“Are they ready?”

“They’re boy soldiers.”

“They can still be ready. Soldiers or dogs, they all obey.”

Ibrahim studies him for a while. He expected more of the Courier. Average height, average looks-only his eyes are predatory. Normally, they communicate via internet cafes, logging into an email account. Instructions are left as a draft message in the draft folder: a message that is never sent. Untraceable.

The Courier returns his gaze and Ibrahim looks down, touching the collar of his shirt. Outside a long-legged woman, dressed in black, is buying fruit from a stall. She steps around a couple sitting on the curb sharing a bottle, a beggar on one corner, a drunk on the next, invisible to her.

Ibrahim can feel his heartbeat increase as the caffeine and sugar fire up synapses in his brain.

“The operation is brought forward.”

“I don’t have the materials.”

“They’ll be provided.”

“The payment is double.”

Ibrahim mumbles in agreement.

“And the notebook?”

“If it falls into the wrong hands, we clear the accounts.”

“How long will that take?”

“A keystroke.”

Rowan likes the old Mercedes. The smooth leather bench-seat in the back is perfect for sliding across when they turn corners. Elizabeth keeps telling him to sit still and buckle his seat belt.

“This is the way to Granddad’s house,” he says, recognizing his surroundings. “You said you were going on a venture.”

“An ad venture,” she corrects him.

As they near the house, Ruiz pauses at a set of lights.

“There’s Polina,” says Rowan, pointing out of the window. Elizabeth catches a glimpse of the nanny in a smart VW Golf that crosses the junction and disappears from view.

“Maybe she’s visiting Granddad,” says Rowan.

“I don’t think she knows Granddad.”

The electronic gates glide open and stutter to a stop, revealing a long, sweeping driveway and verdant lawns that slope down to a pond. Ruiz notices the security cameras and broken glass embedded in the perimeter wall. How the other half lives: the rich and the anxious.

As the Merc pulls up in front of the main house, Alistair Bach emerges from inside and jogs down the steps. Fit for his age, with teak-colored forearms and a full head of hair, he hoists Rowan aloft and holds him giggling and kicking above his head.

Elizabeth touches Ruiz’s shoulder. “Don’t tell him about what happened. Not until we’ve talked to the police.”

“Someone broke our window,” Rowan announces breathlessly. “And Mummy slept in my room because of the monsters.”

Bach glances at Elizabeth looking for confirmation and then back at his grandson, who has spotted the Labrador and is squirming to be put down. Soon he’s running across the grass calling Sally’s name.

“Does he ever take off that costume?” asks Bach.

“When he has a bath,” replies Elizabeth.

“I don’t know if it’s a healthy obsession.”

“He doesn’t want to save the world… just his daddy.”

Bach notices Ruiz for the first time.

“This is Vincent Ruiz,” explains Elizabeth. “He’s a former detective.”

Bach shakes hands. He has the sort of handshake and “look-’em-in-the-eyes” attitude that has been practiced in a thousand business meetings.

“What’s this about a broken window?”

“A glazier is coming today,” says Elizabeth, pulling an overnight bag from the boot of the Merc. “I just saw Polina. Was she visiting?”

“She came to see Mitchell.”

“Is he here?”

“Upstairs. He wants to talk to you.”

Elizabeth doesn’t show any emotion. “I thought Rowan and I might stay for a few days,” she says. “If that’s all right.”

“Of course it is.”

He pries Elizabeth’s fingers from the handle of her luggage and carries it inside. She goes through to the sunroom where she can watch Rowan from the French windows and wait for Mitchell to finish his phone call.

Ruiz feels he shouldn’t be here. This is a family matter. He wanders on to the terrace, overlooking the garden where Rowan is throwing a ball for Sally to fetch. Elizabeth and her father are arguing inside. Loud whispers. Pleadings. Recriminations. A door slams and the dog looks up towards the house.

Alistair Bach joins Ruiz on the terrace. He’s carrying two long-necked beer bottles. Imported lager. Cold.

“Thank you for bringing Lizzie.”

“That’s OK.”

Bach’s nostrils swell with air and he looks genuinely unsure of what to do. Like a lot of powerful men, every word he’s ever spoken and every action he’s ever taken has been an attempt to control his environment, but now he’s frustrated by his inability to comfort his daughter.

“Lovely place,” says Ruiz.

“I bought at the right time.”

“When was the right time?”

“The eighties.”

“Early 1800s I might have had a chance.”

Bach chuckles hollowly. “It’s not rocket science.”

“What isn’t?”

“Being a banker.”

Ruiz doesn’t respond.

“You don’t like bankers, do you?” says Bach.

“I don’t know any,” says Ruiz, which is a diplomatic answer. Even before the recession he had never given much thought to whether bankers were the architects of global prosperity or the sackers of civilizations. He had always been more worried about gangbangers dealing crack to black teenagers and bikers selling crystal meth into school playgrounds.

“You don’t like what we represent,” says Bach. “What you perceive we’ve done. You think we’ve caused nothing but grief.”

“I try not to judge people.”

“You’re a lousy liar, Vincent. Once upon a time we were the good guys. People admired us. They wanted to be like us. When Gordon Gekko said, ‘Greed is good,’ people lapped it up. They wanted our Italian silk suits, our Porsches and our penthouse flats. The tabloids wrote stories about East End barrow boys without an O-level who were pulling in six-figure salaries and seven-figure bonuses. We made money. We created jobs. We paid most of your taxes. We turned the City of London into the second biggest financial capital in the world.”