092709
Bank of Iraq:
US$5.3m
020710
Rasheed Bank:
US$15.6m
021210
Iraqi Trade Bank:
US$1.8m
Luca adds another robbery to the list:
082310
al-Rafidain Bank:
Amount Unknown
Half a billion US dollars stolen in four years. This is on top of dozens of smaller robberies that netted Iraqi dinars. The amounts seem almost inconceivable, but so many things in Iraq defy belief. Billions have washed through the country since the invasion, funding reconstruction, repairing infrastructure, paying for security. The robberies have become so commonplace that banks have stopped using armored vans because they draw too much attention. Instead they use private couriers in ordinary cars loaded with sacks of cash, making high-speed dashes across the city.
Opening a file on the laptop, Luca continues writing a story, using two fingers to type.
IRAQ: Three bank employees are dead and four are missing after the latest armed robbery to rock Baghdad- the eighteenth this year in a city that has become the bank robbery capital of the world. The robberies and ransom demands in Iraq are escalating but nobody can say if this is the work of insurgents, criminal gangs or sections of the Iraqi security services…
Luca’s mobile rattles on the tabletop. He catches it before it topples off the edge. It’s Jamal.
“They found the missing bank guards in a village outside of Mosul.”
“Are they under arrest?”
“Their bodies are in custody.”
Luca takes a moment to consider the news. He closes his laptop. “I want to go there.”
“Mosul is dangerous. The Kurds and Sunnis are killing each other.”
“I can ask Shaun for security.”
“No, it’s best we use our own cars.”
They make a plan. Jamal will call Abu. Civilian clothes. Concealed weapons. First light.
11
Ruiz has been five hours at the police station. Five hours with another man’s blood on his shoes. When he closes his eyes he can picture the scene in miniature, precisely detailed like a scaled down model built by a stage designer. A trashed apartment. A torture scene. A distraught girlfriend. Images he thought he’d left behind in a past life when he still worked for the Met and was being paid to care.
Someone flushes a toilet. The cistern empties and fills. Water rushes through pipes within the walls. The interview room doesn’t offer a view or ventilation or natural light. Incumbents aren’t supposed to be comfortable.
Ruiz looks at his shoes again, wanting to clean them.
The door opens and a detective enters. Tall and stoop-shouldered, Warwick Thompson has a beak-like nose and breath as stale as vase water. Their paths crossed once or twice when Ruiz was with the Serious Crime Squad, but they were never friends. Thompson was a churchgoer, one of the Christian mafia in the Met, who married a vicar’s daughter. Her name was Jackie, a very charitable woman who spent her Sundays in church and the rest of the week delivering comfort to the needy, including two of her husband’s colleagues in the drug squad.
Thompson survived the humiliation and the jokes. He even forgave Jackie and the marriage survived. Not long afterwards he busted a string of minor celebrities for drug possession. The tabloids had a field day. Unfortunately, during the subsequent trials it emerged that Thompson’s snitch was supplying most of the stuff in the first place. The cases collapsed. Red faces all round. Thompson was transferred out of the drug squad. His career flushed. This is where he washed up.
“Tell me again how you know this girl?”
“I met her last night.”
“And took her home?”
“I tried to help her.”
“Did you give her one?”
Ruiz rolls his eyes. Was he ever this predictable when he was interviewing people?
Thompson hasn’t changed much over the years-put on a few pounds, lost some hair, but his wardrobe is the same. He has a habit of tilting his head as though he’s deaf in one ear. Maybe he is, thinks Ruiz. He’s certainly not listening.
Going over the story again, he describes the argument in the pub, the sting, the robbery. Thompson doesn’t seem any more convinced than the first time.
“Why didn’t you report any of this to the police?”
“I decided to recover the property myself.”
“By taking the law into your own hands?”
“I followed a lead.”
“Did you kill Zac Osborne?”
“I didn’t even know his name.”
“Why is his blood all over you?”
“I checked to see if he was breathing.”
“Was that before or after you put a bullet between his eyes?”
Ruiz holds out his hands. “You want to test me for gunshot residue?”
Thompson doesn’t appreciate the sarcasm. “You see how it looks? They robbed your house. Took personal stuff. You were pissed off. So you followed this girl home…”
“You think I tortured this poor sod because he took some of my dead wife’s things?”
“I think you know more than you’re saying. What did you say to the girl? Why won’t she talk to us?”
“Maybe you’re not asking her nicely enough.”
“Did you see anyone else leaving the flat?”
“There might have been someone on the far stairs. It was dark.”
“Convenient.”
“I’ve told you all I know. She set me up, stole my stuff and I went looking for her. Then I followed her home and found her boyfriend dead. That’s the blood, guts and feathers of it. Maybe if you told me who this guy was, I could actually help you.”
Thompson weighs up his options.
“Zac Osborne. War vet. Iraq and Afghanistan. Wounded twice, won the Queen’s Gallantry Medal. After his second spell in hospital he became addicted to painkillers and the military discharged him. He was arrested eighteen months ago for breaking into a pharmacy in Kew. Given a good behavior bond because of his military record.”
“What about the girl?”
“Holly Knight. Nineteen. In and out of foster care since the age of seven. She has two convictions for shoplifting and others for criminal damage, resisting arrest and anti-social behavior.”
“What did she do?”
