“Mr. Pearl will be extradited to the Netherlands where he will face charges related to prostitution, people smuggling and murder,” he explains. “In addition, Mr. Shawcroft has agreed to relinquish all involvement in his charities, including the New Life Adoption Center—effective immediately. The center’s license to oversee adoptions has been revoked. The Charities Commission is drafting a press release. Early retirement seems to be the agreed terminology. The CPS will also make a statement saying the charges are being dropped due to lack of evidence.”
There is a tone of finality to the sentence. Greenburg’s job is done. Getting to his feet, he straightens his jacket. “I promised my wife lunch. Now it will have to be dinner. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Samira shrugs me away, pushing past people, stumbling toward the lift.
“I’m sorry, Alisha,” says Spijker.
I can’t answer him. He warned me about this. We were sitting in his office in Amsterdam and he talked about Pandora’s box. Some lids are best kept closed, glued, nailed, screwed down and buried under six feet of earth.
“There is a logic to it, you know. There is no point punishing the guilty if we punish the innocent,” he says.
“Someone has to pay.”
“Someone will.”
I gaze across the paved courtyard where pigeons have coated the statues with mouse-gray excrement. The wind has sprung up again, driving needles of sleet against the glass.
I phone Forbes. Gusts of wind snag at his words.
“When did you know?”
“Midday.”
“Do you have Pearl?”
“Not my show anymore.”
“Are you off the case?”
“I’m not a high-enough grade of public servant to handle this one.”
Suddenly I picture the quiet man, standing by the window, tugging at his cuff links. He was MI5. The security services want Pearl. Forbes has been told to take a backseat.
“Where are you now?”
“Armed-response teams have surrounded a boarding house in Southend-on-Sea.”
“Is Pearl inside?”
“Standing at the window, watching.”
“He’s not going to run.”
“Too late for that.”
Another image comes to me. This one shows Brendan Pearl strolling out of the boarding house with a pistol tucked into the waistband of his trousers, ready to fight or to flee. Either way, he’s not going back to prison.
Samira. What am I going to say to her? How can I possibly explain? She heard what Greenburg said. Her silence spoke volumes. It was as if she had known all along it would come to this. Betrayal. Broken promises. Duplicity. She has been here before, visited this place. “Some people are born to suffer,” that’s what Lena Caspar said. “It never stops for them, not for a second.”
I can see Samira now, smudged by the wet glass, standing by the statue, wearing Hari’s overcoat. I want to teach her about the future. I want to show her the Christmas lights in Regent Street, tell her about the daffodils in spring, show her real things, true things, happiness.
A dark-colored car has pulled up, waiting at the curb. Photographers and cameramen spill out of the court building walking backward, jostling for space. Julian Shawcroft emerges flanked by his barrister and Eddie Barrett. His silver hair shines in the TV lights.
He laughs with the reporters, relaxed, jovial, a master of the moment.
I spy Samira walking toward him in a zigzag pattern. Her hands are buried deep in the pockets of her coat.
I am moving now, swerving left and right past people in the corridor. I hammer the lift button and choose the stairs instead, swinging through each landing and out the double fire doors on the ground floor.
I’m on the wrong side of the building. Which way? Left.
Some track athletes are good at running bends. They lean into the corner, shifting their center of balance rather than fighting the g-forces that want to fling them off. The trick is not to fight the force, but to work with it by shortening your stride and hugging the inside line.
A Russian coach once told me that I was the best bend runner he had ever seen. He even had a video of me that he used to train his young runners at the academy in Moscow.
Right now I don’t have a cambered track and the paving stones are slick with rain, but I run this bend as if my life depends upon it. I tell myself to hold the turn, hold the turn and then explode out. Kick. Kick. Everything is burning, my legs and lungs, but I’m flying.
The 200 meters was my trademark event. I don’t have the lungs for middle distance.
The media scrum is ahead of me. Samira stands on the outside, rocking from foot to foot like an anxious child. Finally she burrows inside, pushing between shoulders. A reporter spies her and pulls back. Another follows. More people peel off, sensing a story.
Samira’s overcoat is open. There is something in her hand that catches the light—a glass elephant with tiny mirrors. My elephant.
Shawcroft is too busy talking to notice her. She embraces him from behind, wrapping her arms around his waist, pressing her left fist against his heart and her head against the middle of his back. He tries to shake her loose, but she won’t let go. A wisp of smoke curls from her fingers.
Someone yells and people dive away. They’re saying it’s a bomb! How?
The sound of my scream disappears beneath the crack of an explosion that snaps at the air, making it shudder. Shawcroft spins slowly, until he faces me, looking puzzled. The hole in his chest is the size of a dinner plate. I can see right inside.
Samira falls in the opposite direction, with her knees splayed apart. Her face hits the ground first because her left arm can’t break her fall. Her eyes are open. A hand reaches out to me. There are no fingers. There is no
People are running and yelling, screaming like the damned; their faces peppered with shards of glass.
“She’s a terrorist,” someone shouts. “Be careful.”
“She’s not a terrorist,” I reply.
“There could be more bombs.”
“There are
Pieces of mirror and glass are embedded along Samira’s arms, but her face and torso escaped the force of the blast, shielded behind Shawcroft.
I should have realized. I should have seen it coming. How long ago did she plan this? Weeks, maybe longer. She took my elephant from my bedside table. Hari unwittingly helped her by buying the model rocket engines full of black powder. The fuse must have been taped down her forearm, which is why she didn’t take off her overcoat. The glass and mirrors of the elephant didn’t trigger the metal detectors.
The frayed lining of her coat sleeve is still smoldering, but there’s surprisingly little blood. The exploding powder seems to have cauterized her flesh around a jagged section of bone.
She turns her head. “Is he dead?”
“Yes.”
Satisfied, she closes her eyes. Two paramedics gently take her from me, placing her on a stretcher. I try to stand but fall backward. I want to keep falling.
I thought I knew everything about friendship and family; the happiness, simplicity and joy within them. But there is another side to devotion, which Samira understands. She is her father’s daughter after all.
One hand is enough to sin. One hand is enough to save.
Epilogue
