To the Lions

by Holly Watt

  ‘Are you safe?’

  ‘Completely.’ It was what she always said, no matter what. And sometimes, at breakfast a few days later, he would look up from the Post and say, ‘You weren’t safe, were you? Not really. Not at all.’

  It was hard to hide when it was on the front page.

  And she would smile and fiddle with the toaster and say, ‘Well, I am fine now.’

  And they would both pretend that was normal.

  She knew he wanted children, to match that pretty house in Queen’s Park. And to match his successful job as a corporate lawyer. In-house now, more money, better hours. Tom had married his beautiful girl, straight out of university, and he’d thought she would fit into his dream. Neither of them had realised that his wife would turn into a huntress, a Diana who lived for the chase.

  Miranda struggled, now, at the barbecues. Hesitated when someone asked, ‘And what are you up to now, Miranda?’

  Because that couldn’t be answered with: ‘Well, this week I watched a toddler have his leg set, without anaesthetic, because – oh, you know how it is – they ran out of the stuff months ago.’

  No, you couldn’t say that when you were surrounded by three nice women and their coordinating husbands, all wearing school-gate smiles and last year’s Boden. But those were the children that interested Miranda. And the children Tom wanted would put a stop to all this, for ever. And time was running out.

  But she couldn’t think about that today. Not today.

  ‘Tell the Lyons I am really sorry,’ she wrote. And then almost an afterthought: ‘Love you.’

  And remembered, with a stab, the days when it was all she knew. I wish your dreams were enough.

  But what she had to do, right now, was plan for getting Ed and Casey back out of Libya.

  She put her thoughts aside, like an old love letter, and went over her notes one more time.

  They’d been lucky in some ways. Able to top up the fuel tanks of the Hilux here and there, at tiny stations along the road. They filled up the containers in the boot at the same time, making the car a mobile bomb, but it was better than being stranded miles from anywhere. And the Hilux could not outrun the black pickup. Miranda had seen that pickup as it shot past. The Hilux was at full stretch just to keep up.

  And then, a few hours ago, Casey had casually mentioned the pickups full of Tuareg bodyguards. Miranda looked up at the desert stars and contemplated the very real possibility that they might not be able to get out.

  ‘No story is worth dying for,’ she had told Casey a few years ago.

  ‘Some of them are,’ Casey had said, which worried Miranda even then.

  They had been talking about Marie Colvin, who died out in Homs, right in the heart of the battle for Syria. Refusing to leave the story even as her paper pleaded, knowing that this war was too close, far too close.

  Miranda had last seen Marie just outside the Radisson Blu in Tripoli, a few months before she died. The battered Radisson, a broken link in the sleek chain of hotels that wrapped around the world. The lifts had stopped working, of course, and they were laughing, rolling their eyes before Miranda climbed the dozen storeys to her room. ‘I’ll get fit, at least.’

  Miranda remembered looking up at the wreck of a hotel. They’d struggled with their BGANs out there, that time. The reporters had ransacked their rooms, to find a way of lining them up with the satellite to get the story out. So when they looked up there were ironing boards sticking out of every window. They’d found that funny, too.

  In Syria, Marie must have known, as the mortar fire got closer, that this was the story that might kill her. She must have chosen the story over the escape, must have decided the story mattered more than anything else.

  Miranda shook her head, concentrated. She had let Casey go in; there had to be a way out. Not Casey. It couldn’t happen.

  Although, of course, it could.

  She worked out all the assets to hand. She’d hung out at Tiska, the shabby airport. She’d gossiped in cafés, finding out who could be hired, and what they could do. She’d gone over the maps, again and again. Because it was Casey, Miranda had done everything.

  Her phone bleeped again and there was that sudden punch of joy. A message from Hessa. Casey had managed to send through the footage from Salama.

  Horror, too, but Miranda pushed that aside for the thud of relief. Miranda picked up her phone, typed out the plan, messaged it to Casey.

  39

  Ed took Casey’s hand as they walked down the stairs, feeling her tense as they got near Josh’s rooms.

  ‘Don’t,’ he whispered, holding her hand tightly. ‘Please don’t.’

  ‘Oh, hey, you guys.’ Josh was in the study, door ajar. ‘Head on over to the terrace. I’ll be out in a sec.’

  They were watching the stars appear against velvet blue when Josh emerged, carrying a bottle of rum. Oliver was beside him.

  ‘What an amazing day.’

  Leo and Rory appeared as Josh opened the bottle.

  ‘We found this rum in the basement, gallons of it.’ Leo nodded happily. ‘Old Gaddafi knew his stuff. There’s literally everything you could ever want at Euzma. It’s paradise.’

  He lit a cigarette, breathed out contented smoke.

  They drank together, watching a sliver of moon rise over the desert. The Milky Way stood out clearly. Starry path, peaceful glitter. Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Perseus: nightly familiar.

  Although she could have drunk herself to oblivion, Casey drank slowly, with Ed waving the bottle away.

  ‘Not too much before tomorrow,’ he laughed. ‘I won’t know which way to hold the gun.’

  ‘Go on.’ Rory nudged the bottle closer. ‘You can go in the afternoon. You’re going to the water tank, aren’t you? There are people there all day.’

  The evening wore on. Abayghur went back and forwards from the kitchens, bringing olives, ice, crisps. Rory jumped up and down, pacing about, too energetic to sit for too long. Ed and Casey would be missed too quickly, far too quickly, if they stood up, made their excuses, escaped.

  Oliver was going over the day, blow by blow, pulling apart every detail. Josh was drinking, angry, fast.

  ‘Do you remember that stupid game, we played back in Djanet?’ Oliver asked. ‘Feels like a million years ago now.’

  ‘But you have to keep this a secret,’ warned Josh.

  ‘I will,’ said Oliver. ‘I will, I promise. I’m in it too, don’t forget.’

  ‘How are you feeling now, Oliver?’ Casey hated herself for the brightness in her voice. She could feel exhaustion slipping over her, like a tide.

  ‘It’s another thing ticked off the wish list,’ Oliver grinned.

  ‘No Ferrari sadness for you then,’ said Leo.

  ‘What’s Ferrari sadness?’ Ed managed.

  ‘This one guy, who came out here,’ said Rory. ‘Said when he was younger, he’d always wanted a Ferrari. Worked like shit, you know. For years. He finally got this Ferrari, and then on the very first drive, it hit him: it’s just a car. And he’d worked all that time, and sacrificed so much, and wasted so many years, and it was just a car. Just a lump of metal.’

  ‘So he came out here?’ Ed asked.

  ‘And the same thing happened again,’ said Leo. ‘He thought he would be ecstatic, after all that. And he was just sitting in that chair right over there, saying, “But I just feel the same. Nothing’s changed.”’

  ‘I,’ said Oliver, ‘don’t feel like that at all.’

  ‘He was having,’ Leo laughed, ‘one hell of a mid-life crisis.’

  ‘And no one feels guilty afterwards?’ Casey asked. ‘No regrets?’

  Rory’s eyes were on her, crocodile at the watering hole.

  ‘No,’ said Rory. ‘No regrets.’

  ‘You ever been big-game hunting?’ Josh asked Ed. ‘Out on safari?’

  ‘Never,’ Ed said, ‘and I suppose it will be spoiled for me after this.’

  Josh was pouring more drinks, clumsier now.


  ‘They’re a different challenge, the big five. The rhino, the buffalo, the elephant . . . You have to hunt them in particular ways.’ Josh was drunk now, showing off. ‘For the leopard, you have to bait them. You kill an impala or a warthog first, and then hang it, up in a tree. Out somewhere in the leopard’s territory, so that slowly, slowly, he’ll learn to come to you. You build a blind, and you wait, and you wait, and you wait. It can take days. You have to learn patience, to bag a leopard.’

  He poured another glass of run, splashing the table.

  ‘But leopards are so beautiful,’ Casey managed eventually.

  ‘They make lovely coats,’ Josh teased, eyes glinting. ‘That much is true. And it takes skill. Some of the parks, down in South Africa, they do canned shooting, for the lions.’

  ‘What’s canned shooting?’ asked Ed.

  ‘It’s when they release the lions just to be shot,’ said Josh. ‘People fly down to Africa, with this big dream of killing a lion. They’ve always wanted to do it, you know. Be the man. Get the photograph. Have something to tell the neighbours. Trophy wives and trophy kills. But, often, there aren’t enough wild lions in the area. So the operators catch them, breed them, let them out to die. In some places, they even drug them, so they can’t get away.’

  ‘You can always tell, though,’ said Leo. ‘If a lion has spent most of its life in a cage, it won’t have the scarring the wild ones have. Or the fear, or the arrogance. The lions, they have to fight all the way through, just to survive.’

  The candlelight ran down the long scar edging his face.

  ‘Canned shooting is considered poor form,’ Rory mocked. ‘Sometimes, those lions even wander towards the tourist, because they think they’re going to be fed.’

  Leo poured them all more rum, and looked around for another bottle.

  ‘I wonder,’ Oliver said almost pensively, ‘whether Salama would be considered canned shooting?’

  They all laughed, Ed forcing a grin.

  ‘The refugees have got their scars, man,’ said Leo. ‘They’ve had to fight all the way through.’

  ‘The big six, dude.’ Josh was shaking his head. ‘It’s the big six.’

  40

  They fell asleep, somehow, just for a few hours. Casey’s alarm went off at 4.30 a.m., when the house was in its deepest sleep. They were bleary, just for a second.

  ‘We should just go,’ said Ed. ‘Straight out the front door.’

  ‘But I have to try,’ Casey whispered.

  They had packed a few things, the night before, in a couple of rucksacks. They were leaving enough clothes behind so that if someone glanced round the door, it would look like they were still there. Ed threw a towel over the mermaid corpse.

  Now they pushed their way through the silence, down to the huge entrance hall. The silence felt as if it could shatter into a million pieces.

  ‘Go.’ Casey nudged Ed towards the front entrance.

  She turned, alone. Step by step. At the wild Arab horses, outside the room, she hesitated, electric with fear. Anything; she’d do anything to stay outside.

  The suite was quiet. No light showed under the door.

  Very slowly, Casey turned the handle, feeling a burst of relief when the door gave, just slightly. They hadn’t locked themselves in.

  Bait over a pitfall.

  She edged the door open, very carefully. It mustn’t bang against the wall. Mustn’t.

  She crept into the room. It was very dark, the air heavy with sleep. The double doors to Rory’s room were closed, but she could hear Josh breathing in his room.

  It was fifteen feet to the desk.

  Five more steps to the desk . . .

  Three . . . Two . . . And Josh half sat up, and muttered something.

  Casey froze, ice down her spine.

  But he settled back down, pushing a pillow away, grumbling. She crept on, quiet as snow, mind like a glass bridge that could shatter at any moment. The silence deafening.

  Three diaries. Reaching up for them, feeling for them. For fuck’s sake, don’t drop one. Lifting them so very slowly, and waiting for the alarm to scream.

  The silence echoed on.

  She turned towards the door, a split second of dread that there would be someone standing there, a new silhouette.

  But there wasn’t and, step by step, she edged back towards the door. Now she was holding the diaries, there could be no excuse.

  ‘I’ll go in,’ she had said to Ed. ‘Just me. It has to be just me. Because if Josh wakes up, I can say . . . I was looking for you . . . I came to your room . . .’

  ‘You can’t say that.’

  ‘But I can,’ she said. ‘I can.’

  Now she was inching back towards the door, a nightmare version of grandmother’s footsteps, the diaries in her hand, so there could be no pretending.

  Don’t hurry. Don’t rush. Don’t snap.

  I am Malak.

  At last she was at the door, carefully putting the diaries down on the marble. Don’t rush, Casey, you always rush.

  She edged the door closed, flinching at the tiniest clunk as it slotted back into place.

  Then she picked up the diaries and forced herself to walk slowly, slowly, down the long corridor.

  She crossed that huge entrance hall like a dream.

  Ed was waiting by the Hilux.

  ‘Don’t slam the doors,’ he didn’t need to say.

  They’d parked as far from the palace as possible, but as the engine roared into life, the silence shattered like a mirror.

  ‘Go,’ Casey begged. ‘Let’s go.’

  The sky was starting to lighten in the east, thin pinstripes of grey streaking the sky. Casey’s nails bit her palms. The scream in her head.

  Ed turned the car, edging gently towards the long drive. Euzma turned in the mirror behind, the ogre giving up its prize.

  Maybe.

  Ed shifted the gears.

  Maybe.

  The avenue of broken cypresses was endless. Casey ticked off the cypresses one by one, as they were caught in the headlights for a second. Faster, she thought, faster.

  Maybe.

  She had almost begun to believe in escape, and they had almost reached the main road, when two headlights pierced the air.

  ‘Shit,’ said Ed. ‘Shit.’

  ‘We’ll be OK.’ Casey tried to believe it. ‘Let me do the talking.’

  The pickup, a red one, got closer and closer. It stopped in the middle of the road, casually blocking their way. The blood thudded in Casey’s ears.

  ‘You guys OK?’ It was Rory. Rory with the wolf-grey eyes, who would tear her apart in a blink. Casey’s heart pounded so hard he might hear it.

  ‘Bloody Ed couldn’t sleep.’ Casey stepped out of the car. ‘Too excited about today. Kept on waking me. And then I remembered I’d dropped my scarf up at the caves, so we thought we’d go and see them in the dawn. It must be gorgeous up there in the morning.’

  The words hung in the air, because there were too many for sense. She couldn’t tell if Rory believed her.

  Smile, Casey, smile.

  Maybe.

  ‘Why don’t I follow you up to the caves?’ said Rory, so friendly. ‘I’m not tired yet.’

  There was nothing to do except climb back into the Hilux.

  They watched as Rory moved the red car so they could pass, before whirling in a cloud of dust to fall in behind.

  Ed drove in silence. Casey watched Rory in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she tried, but Ed didn’t reply.

  At the rock with the splash of blue paint, he jerked to a halt. They stared up the hillside, as Rory slid to a standstill beside them. Above them the path wound up steeply towards the little plateau in front of the cave. To the left of the path there were dark fissures in the rock face, with cracks disappearing into the dark. To the right, large rocks had split away, crashing down and flattening everything. The boulders piled up at the bottom of the slope.

  Rory glanced across a
t them, and Casey shuddered.

  Smile, Casey, smile.

  Not hurrying, the three of them started towards the caves. The sky brightened imperceptibly.

  As they reached the first twist in the path, a flock of birds screamed overhead, making Casey jump.

  ‘What are those birds?’

  ‘No idea.’ Rory peered at the sky.

  They trudged on.

  ‘What were you up to,’ Casey asked at last, ‘out on the road at this time in the morning?’

  ‘Oh,’ Rory shrugged. ‘The others conked out, too much rum. I went out to where the Tuareg keep some of the women they traffic through . . .’

  He let silence take over, unembarrassed, but seeing no need for detail.

  They had been so close to escape, thought Casey. So near.

  Now, they were almost at the cave. The mouth yawned open.

  ‘Where do you think you dropped that scarf?’

  Casey thought about hitting him, suddenly. Over the head, a piece of rock, one of the large ones. They could kill him, quite easily, out here. And would anyone ever know? Ever care?

  But she knew Rory had survived more than most. Would fight for his life.

  She looked around for the scarf, trying to remember where she’d dropped it.

  ‘There it is.’ She almost ran to the scrap of white and blue cotton just inside the cave, her relief easy this time. ‘I thought it was just so pretty.’

  ‘She got it in the souk.’ Ed managed to roll his eyes at Rory. ‘The worst negotiating you’ve ever seen. The trader couldn’t believe his luck.’

  ‘He gave me some very nice peppermint tea.’ Casey tried to pout.

  ‘Glad you found it,’ said Rory.

  ‘Shall we watch the sunrise?’ Casey put her arms around Ed, locking out Rory.

  Leave, she willed. Leave.

  But Rory yawned, looking to the east, and sat down on a rock.

  After a second, Casey and Ed broke apart. Casey leaned against the rock face, kicking out at a stone.

  Although he was staring towards the sunrise, Casey sensed Rory knew their every move. She felt for Ed’s hand, and squeezed it. After a long moment, he squeezed back.

  Around them, the dawn was lifting. The gentle dark, with all its hiding places, was dissolving into the day. No safety out here, now, not for another day.