Daniela emerges from the bathroom, dressed in a robe, her hair dripping and the ragged curls falling around her neck. Luca is still toweling off.
“I’m probably going to regret this,” she says.
“What happened to the post-coital glow?”
“I’m not talking about the sex.”
Luca holds out his arms and she comes to him, tucking her head beneath his chin, her breasts against his ribs. He can feel the warmth of her breath against his neck.
“Are you really going to London?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to ask Yahya Maluk why one of his companies is smuggling stolen money from Iraq. I’m also going to ask him if he knows Mohammed Ibrahim-a man who helped Saddam steal billions of dollars from his own people.”
“Just like that?”
“Yep.”
“And I suppose he’s going to throw up his hands and confess everything.”
“That would be nice.”
“You have the word of a one-armed former truck driver and a series of coincidences.”
“They’re more than just coincidences.”
“Yahya Maluk has unlimited funds and an army of lawyers. He’ll get injunctions to stop any story. He’ll sue you for defamation.”
“I know that.”
“Why then?”
“Sometimes the only way to rattle someone like Maluk is to shake his gilded cage.”
“That’s a dangerous game.”
“I’m just following the money.”
“You could stop.”
“What if it’s funding the insurgency?”
“Nobody is going to be surprised.”
Luca feels like a mediocre gambler trying to bluff an expert. Daniela has slipped away and gone to the latticed window. It has grown dark outside. The courtyard is strung with fairy lights that follow the contours of tree trunks and branches. Over the rooftops, the dome of Santa Sophia is bathed in gold.
“Come to London with me,” he says.
“Why?”
“I don’t want you lose you.”
“We’re different people, Luca. I deal in numbers and balance sheets. You deal in hunches and hearsay.”
“I search for the facts.”
“But you never have them all. You gather just enough, write a story and move on.”
“You make me sound like a gigolo.”
“No, you’re not that good.”
Luca can see what she’s like-her father’s daughter, practical to the point of impracticality. He leans forward, brushing his lips against hers, holding the kiss.
Later, lying naked in the air-conditioned room, his heartbeat returning to normal, Luca wonders what it’s like for a woman, that moment when pleasure overcomes self-control and the wave breaks inside her.
“Do you still want me to come to London?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll come to London.”
3
Rowan has to shake Elizabeth awake. She is twisted in the sheets, lying on a bed shaped like a racing car with a Green Goblin toy wedged under her hip.
“Why did you sleep here, Mummy?”
“I had a nightmare.”
“What about?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
There is a faint pervasive scent in the room that transports her back to last night and she feels her stomach cramp and the vomit rising. A man had wanted to kill her. Her life meant nothing to him until he saw that she was pregnant. Maybe he drew the line at murdering an unborn child.
Why hadn’t she called the police? She had lain awake thinking about it, ashamed of how he had touched her; embarrassed by how her hands had hung stiff and useless at her sides. This time the vomit reaches her mouth and she has to swallow hard.
She picks up the phone and starts to dial. Stops, uncertain what number she’s calling. She puts the receiver back in the cradle. What would she say? What would they say? They’d want to know why she waited. It would all come back to North’s guilt, just like the needle of a compass.
Elizabeth goes to the bathroom and scoops water into her mouth. Rinsing. Then she turns on the shower, keeping her head under the hot water for a long time, scrubbing at her skin. Dressing in her elasticized denim skirt and a cotton shirt, she strips the beds and washes the sheets. She shouldn’t be doing any of these things. There might be DNA. Fibers. Evidence. She doesn’t care.
As she takes the mattress protector from Rowan’s bed, she notices a large white envelope sticking out from between the base of the bed and the mattress. Pulling it free, she recognizes North’s handwriting on the cover. A message is written in thick black capitals, half an inch high:
KEEP THIS SAFE LIZZIE
Tearing open the flap, she pulls out a folder containing a dozen sheets of paper, written in North’s hand. A list. Deposits and withdrawals. Accounts that have numbers instead of names. Some of them are circled or underlined. Grouped. He was hiding it from someone. Leaving it for her to find.
There is a name and phone number scrawled on the inside cover of the folder. North’s handwriting is messy at the best of times. She spells out the letters: G.O.O.D.I.N.G.
Instead of being intrigued, she’s annoyed. Why the secrecy and the cryptic message? This is North acting like a criminal. She hurls the file in disgust, sending pages into the air where they rock and turn and settle like falling leaves.
Claudia chooses that moment to kick Elizabeth in the cervix and she doubles over. Punishment delivered from her unborn child. Breathing through the pain, she goes downstairs and pulls back the curtains. The reporters have returned, fewer than yesterday.
An early model Mercedes pulls up beneath the branches. The driver gets out and walks towards the house. He’s dressed in a shabby raincoat with stretched pockets. Unkempt. Bear-like. He rings the doorbell.
Elizabeth shouts from within. “Please leave me alone.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“I don’t talk to reporters.”
“I’m not a reporter. I may have information about your husband.”
A tremor passes through Elizabeth, a hopeful surge. “Do you know where he is?”
“No.”
“Then I have nothing to say.”
Ruiz tries again. “You were robbed a week ago. You lost a jewelry box, a camera, a laptop… and they took a small crystal swan from your dressing table, which held some of your rings.”
