Michael Robotham - The Wreckage

Moving in the opposite direction, towards the stairs, she can feel the worn carpet, the pattern faded long ago beneath her bare feet.

She knocks on his door. No answer. Knocks again.

It opens suddenly, pulling her inwards and she bounces off his chest. He grabs her by the hair and puts his hand over her mouth and nose. Not Ruiz, but a ghost who walks through locked doors. His lips brush against her ear. “Do you remember me?”

She inhales a breath.

“I am going to take my hand away. If you scream I shall kill you. Do you understand?”

He pushes her towards the bed and chains the door. He’s wearing a suit and white shirt without a tie and his hair is shaved at the edges, longer on top. The only light is from the window, a faint glow that paints the contours of his face in monotones, but not with detail or depth.

Words have turned to bubbles in Holly’s throat. She looks around the room, searching for Ruiz.

“Your friend is not here. He seems to have abandoned you.”

His eyes drift down her body, hunger in them.

“Why did you kill Zac?” she asks defiantly. “He never did anything to you.”

“He would not communicate.”

“That’s not a crime. He fought for his country.”

“Maybe I am fighting for mine.”

Holly looks at the bed. “Are you going to rape me?”

“I don’t rape women unless they’re whores. Are you a whore?”

“No.”

“Are you a virgin?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He smiles. “You think I’m evil, but it was a woman who betrayed the first man. Women are the sinful sex. You come to a man’s room in the middle of the night. Look at how you dress. You are like uncovered meat, and then you wonder why the dogs come and feed upon you.”

Holly sits on the edge of the bed, her knees close together, one foot on top of the other. The Courier takes the chair by the window. When he turns his head the light catches one side of his face. His eye is like an amber bead pressed into teak.

“Can you imagine all the germs that collect in a place like this,” he says. “The acts that have been committed on that bed by women like you.”

His eyes drop to Holly’s loins as though drawn there.

“Come here.”

“No.”

“You need to, Holly. Sometimes in life we are given a choice. This isn’t one of those times.”

Holly crosses the room.

“Kneel.”

“Please.”

“Don’t beg. Did you find the notebook?”

“Yesterday.”

“Where is it?”

“The journalists have it.”

Dropping to her knees in front of him, she can smell his strange odor. He takes the back of her head, pulling her closer. Running his fingers through her hair, he lets them trail down her face until his thumb brushes her lips and he pushes it against her teeth, smearing saliva across her cheek. Her eyes go in and out of focus.

His thumb passes her lips again and she opens them, taking his thumb inside her mouth, sucking it gently. He jerks his hand away.

“An offer like that is so typical of a woman like you. A manipulator. You claim victimhood, but you use your body and a man’s desire to get what you want. You think that if you can get me between your lips or your thighs that you can take control.”

“No.”

He pushes her away. “Get dressed, my little liar.”

“I don’t have any clothes.”

“I was going to wait here and kill your friend, but he has obviously found someone else to keep his feet warm.”

“Where are you taking me?”

The Courier stands and checks the corridor. “First we are going to get your clothes. I am not going to tie your hands and cover your mouth, but this gun will be pressed against your back when we walk from the hotel. If you say anything, if you smile or nod or alert anyone, I will kill them first and you will be responsible for their death.”

Ruiz walks across the empty supermarket car park to a dark-colored limousine that soaks up the light from an overhead lamppost. The driver, young, begloved, opens a door for him. Douglas Evans is sitting in the back seat, his trouser cuffs rising up to reveal his pale ankles and black socks.

“This is an interesting choice of time and place, Mr. Ruiz, very cloak and dagger. We could have met at a more sociable hour.”

“At your club, perhaps?”

“I doubt if my club would have allowed you in.” His cultured accent is effortlessly condescending. “What can I do for you, Mr. Ruiz?”

“There is a man in this country-a wanted Iraqi war criminal called Mohammed Ibrahim Omar al-Muslit. He escaped from a prison outside of Baghdad four years ago. The Americans have him listed as having died in custody, but the Iraqis say he was accidentally released.”

Evans blinks his droopy eyelids and runs a hand over his forehead, pale as a cue ball.

“What makes you think he’s in the UK?”

“Elizabeth North identified him from a photograph. She saw him with Yahya Maluk, a banker on the board of Mersey Fidelity.”

“I know who Mr. Maluk is. Is Mrs. North certain of who she saw?”

“Yes.”

Evans tugs at his shirt-cuffs as though his arms have grown longer during the course of their conversation.

“You asked about the Americans,” says Ruiz. “You wanted to know what they were up to. They know about Ibrahim and Maluk.”

There is a flicker in the corner of Evans’ mouth. Just as quickly, he resumes his requiem mode, a marvelous silence that borders on deafness.

Ruiz hands him a file.

“What’s this?”

“A copy of a notebook belonging to Richard North and a file he collected. A forensic accountant will be able to explain what it means.”

“Perhaps you could precis it for me.”

“A banking scandal.”

“Another one.”

“This one is special. Iraq reconstruction funds, the proceeds of crime, tax avoidance, the sponsoring of terrorism-money that shouldn’t be in a UK bank. I’m assuming that you’ll pass this information on to the relevant authorities.”

Evans rolls the information around in his cheeks as if sipping sherry. He opens the envelope and leafs through the pages.

“Where are the originals?”

“Safe.”

“In the hands of your journalist friends?”

Ruiz has already reached for the door handle.

“They cannot publish,” says Evans. “We need time to study this.”

“Your problem, not mine.”

Arched like a bent bow, Joe O’Loughlin’s head is pulled backwards by the noose around his neck that leads to his bound wrists and ankles. Curled on the floor of the hotel room, he cannot straighten his legs without tightening the noose.

Using his hands, he tries to relieve the pressure on his neck, but eventually he gets tired and his legs drop, cutting off his air supply.

He endures on the edge of consciousness, picturing his own funeral, imagining the eulogies, putting words in people’s mouths. Julianne inconsolable. Wanting him back.

“You will not see the morning,” the man had said when he pressed the gun to Joe’s forehead, waking him from a dream. A good dream, Julianne had been in it. They were reconciled. Getting physical. Oxygen deprivation is supposed to heighten sexual pleasure.

Joe rolls on to his stomach feeling four gospels and two testaments of pain. He rolls again, resting his head against the inside of the door. If he loses consciousness he’ll suffocate. Raising his head an inch, he takes a breath and brings it down against the door. It rattles with a dull thunk. Back and forth he rolls, his bruises like burning charcoal.

The night manager is complained to. Summoned. The door unlocked. Ropes untied. Tape cut away. An ambulance called. The journey to the hospital made in a haze of opiates and questions. His voice box has been bruised. He can’t make them understand.