“The night before last.”
“Did they steal your phone?”
“No.”
“What about all your phone numbers?”
“No.”
“So you could have called me?”
Ruiz hesitates. Claire keeps landing verbal blows. “You forgot, that’s the truth of it. You missed dinner because you forgot.”
“I didn’t forget… I mean, I would have come. I was planning to, but they stole important things…”
She gazes at the ceiling. Sighs.
“I thought you’d been in some terrible accident. I started calling hospitals… the police…” Her eyes narrow. “Did you report the robbery?”
“No.”
“Where did you sleep last night? I came round here looking for…”
Claire stops in mid-sentence. Holly is standing in the doorway, slightly pigeon-toed, holding a plastic bag against her chest. Claire looks at her as if unsure of the protocol and who should speak first.
“Holly, this is Claire, my daughter. Claire, this is Holly.”
Neither woman speaks.
Ruiz turns to Holly. “There’s a bath upstairs and you’ll find some of Claire’s old clothes in a wardrobe in the spare room. She’s about your size. I’m sure she won’t mind.”
Claire looks bewildered. Holly steps past her and climbs the stairs.
“Who is she?”
“The girl who robbed me.”
The look of confusion on Claire’s face changes to one of disbelief.
“She doesn’t have anywhere else to stay,” says Ruiz, aware of how little sense he’s making. “She took your mother’s jewelry. I’m trying to get it back.”
Claire shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter, Dad. I don’t know why I expect anything different from you. You didn’t turn up at parent-teacher nights or at ballet recitals or Eisteddfods. When I auditioned for the Academy, when I had my car stolen, when Michael got himself arrested…”
“When did Michael get arrested?”
“He brought that bag of coca tea back from Peru.”
Ruiz nods, remembering.
Claire hasn’t finished. “You were always too busy or too selfish or too self-absorbed in your police work or rugby or your womanizing. Michael and I raised ourselves.”
“And look how you turned out.”
“This isn’t funny, Dad. The only smart thing you ever did was marry Miranda, and then you went and divorced her.”
“ She divorced me.”
“And whose fault was that? You keep spouting the same tired old crap, Dad. Same excuses. Same jokes.”
She pushes past him, pulling on a cardigan, ignoring his apologies. Ruiz can imagine her talking to a therapist ten years from now, recounting how her father was only a shadowy presence in her life. He didn’t bake cakes on cake day. He couldn’t put her hair in a bun. He didn’t take photographs or home movies. He didn’t understand ballet.
For a brief moment he contemplates telling her about Laura’s letter to her and the importance of the hair- comb, but if he can’t get the items back maybe it’s best that Claire doesn’t know.
Ruiz turns to Phillip. “Tell your parents I’m sorry. Maybe we can reschedule the dinner.”
“Absolutely,” he says, saying no without using the word no.
Claire is on the doorstep. She turns suddenly, kissing Ruiz on the cheek.
“Daddy.”
“Yes, Claire?”
“Sometimes you make it very hard to love you.”
19
Daniela Garner opens her eyes and finds herself alone. She listens for a time, thinking he might be in the bathroom. The digital clock reads 7:15. His semen has dried on her thighs and she can still feel his weight pressing her into the mattress.
She had seduced him. He hadn’t objected. He had held her like a drowning man clinging to the wreckage. She should be full of regret. She should be cursing her stupidity. Instead, she feels a sense of empowerment.
Out of bed, she opens the curtains. A haze hangs over the city, softening the light.
Why had she let him come to her room, this troubled man, this good man? Is he a good man? She thought so last night. Maybe all men change when they get what they want. They put on a persona to attract a woman but after the sex it peels off like a bad paint job.
So what if he’s gone? They would only have woken and made meaningless small talk, each being ultra-polite while wishing they were somewhere else.
Luca Terracini might call her later. He might not. The slight bruising between her labia will act as a reminder all day of last night’s events. It will make her ovaries shiver and something soft and ripe inside her want to see him again.
Showered and dressed she meets her security detail downstairs. The man called “Edge” is doing close protection. Daniela prefers Shaun, who doesn’t look at her like he wants to do a cavity search.
There is a young woman in the security detail, Hispanic looking, with dark hair pulled into a ponytail and her fatigues tucked into heavy boots. She smiles at Daniela and opens the car door. Shaun is behind the wheel of the lead SUV. Glover is already in the back seat. Sulking.
An effete twenty-something who dresses in stovepipe jeans and blue cotton shirts, Glover is from Hamburg but looks and sounds English because of his clipped English accent and the way he stands with an arched back as though someone is pressing a gun into his spine. A computer programmer and IT specialist, he has spent his entire time in Iraq complaining about the heat and the food.
The convoy moves off. Edge leans over the front seat.
“How are my favorite geeks today?”
Glover and Daniela don’t acknowledge him.
“Did you sleep well, princess?”
“Very well.”
Maybe he knows, she thinks. Maybe he can read the signs. When she lost her virginity at seventeen she was convinced her parents could see it in her eyes.
Edge belches. “I feel rougher than hessian underpants. That’s the problem with Haji food.”
They drive in silence, weaving at high speed between traffic and sometimes crossing on to the wrong side of the road. Daniela hates these transfers-the bullying and heightened sense of fear.
At the Ministry, the bodyguard ballet is repeated, this time in reverse. Daniela goes straight to the technology center in the basement of the building. Badly ventilated and poorly lit, the rooms are at least functional and the hardware is good quality.
She checks her emails and then looks at the results from overnight. The data-mining software has been running for forty-eight hours. Every ministry has provided details of spending, savings and revenue since 2006. What contracts have been awarded. Completion dates, compliance certificates, inspections, operating budgets, invoices, planned spending, cash flow, staffing levels and security. Millions of transactions are being crosschecked and
