by Karen Swan
You’re the best friend I ever had, Fitch, and I’ve missed you.
I’ll see you again soon, I hope,
Cunningham x
The letter fell from her hand, a dove’s feather lilting softly to the ground. Not an apology then, but vengeance?
She felt the world stop spinning, felt herself become light, unanchored. She had wanted him to suffer, yes; she had punished him over and over because his quest for glory had come at the ultimate cost to her. There was no doubt she had dreamt of the revenges she would take if she found herself back in that schoolroom again, but for Cunningham to actually go back out there, looking for him . . . It would be ‘kill or be killed’, he knew that as well as she did.
She began to shake, the tears falling in sheets.
If she’d only opened the door . . .
If she’d only read the letter . . .
If she’d only told him – that he only knew half the story.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘I know they’ll kill him.’
Dr Hansje let the words hang in the air, making no effort to catch them. ‘How do you know that?’
Lee stared into space, seeing nothing. There seemed to be a time lapse between the doctor’s mouth moving and the words reaching her ears. She hadn’t slept, lying on the sofa all night and watching the same images run on a loop, coloured banners running along the bottom of the screen with other headlines, none of them telling her what she needed to know. Mila had got hold of Dr Hansje for her and set up this appointment, but what was the point, when there was only one thing that could make her feel better? ‘Because it’s personal. Because it’s a game. They know Washington will never meet their demands, but they’ve got themselves a nice poster boy to attract the world’s attention. And when they think they’ve hit peak viewing figures . . .’ She looked back at the doctor, her eyes glassy and cold. ‘A Christmas Day slaughter, striking at the heart of the infidel calendar, would send out a big message, don’t you think?’
Even Dr Hansje – unflappable, inscrutable, the person whose phrase ‘I see’ could cover everything from ‘Good heavens,’ all the way up to ‘Holy shit!’ – looked taken aback. ‘You think they would do that?’
‘Of course,’ she shrugged. ‘They call for increased attacks against their own during Ramadan. They even call it the “holy month of jihad”.’
The pen in the therapist’s hand twitched as she considered her words. ‘. . . How do you know it’s personal?’
‘Because he sent me a letter, explaining everything. He’s gone there for revenge. After what happened to me.’
‘Did you ask him to go?’
Lee’s eyes flashed. ‘Of course not.’
‘So why has he taken it upon himself to avenge you?’
‘Guilt.’ There were many things she could have said: Honour. Principle. Justice. But it was guilt that had made him get on the plane.
‘You think he feels responsible?’
‘He knows he’s responsible.’
There was a pause. ‘And how does that make you feel, knowing he felt that level of guilt?’
‘Pleased.’ The word glittered like a chandelier, attracting attention, demanding to be noticed. The therapist’s head tilted, her scrutiny dialling up a notch as her eyes narrowed. Lee looked back, defiant. Making sure he suffered the guilt of his actions had always been her intention and she wasn’t going to deny it now, water it down into something more palatable. The very least she owed him was the honesty that she had wanted him to suffer.
‘And how does it make you feel knowing he’ll soon die because of that guilt?’
How does it make you feel . . . how does it make you feel . . . The question drifted to her like a cloud, but knives were hidden within it, cutting her. Because words couldn’t answer this question and she sank back into herself again, hiding in a screaming silence, her face shining with hot tears.
Dr Hansje let the silence expand, filling the room. ‘. . . Lee, it’s time now. It’s time you tell me everything.’
Lee nodded, resisting it no more, though her heart fluttered in her chest like a frightened bird.
‘Close your eyes for me,’ Dr Hansje said, putting down the pen. ‘We’re going to go back there, back to the end . . .’
. . . On her stomach, on the desk, she watched him walk out, casually picking up the gun as he passed. He was sideways, the world tipped on its side, the world gone to shit. A bright rectangle of light flashed on the floor as he opened the door and passed through it. As though nothing untoward had just happened.
She didn’t know how long she lay there for. Maybe only a few minutes, possibly days, but she cried out in pain as she tried to move, immediately retching, heaving over and over. She clutched her shirt, trying to close it, but the buttons were ripped off, and as she tried to step into her trousers, she saw they were inside out from when he had wrenched them off her. Her hands went to her chest, aware of a dull pain, and she saw a dark bruise already forming on her sternum from the camera that had been trapped beneath her, trapped beneath him.
‘Fitch??’
Her head lifted, slowly, painfully, ears still ringing from the bomb, his fists, and she realized she could only see out of one eye, the other one closing up and reducing one side of the world to a narrow slit.
Cunningham gave out a sound as he saw her, his legs buckling at the knees, and he had to grab the door to keep from falling to the floor, a shout that became a wail escaping from him. ‘No!’
He had been beaten too; there was a wound to his head, blood trickling down, a split lip. Limping, he staggered over to her, shaking off his jacket and wrapping it around her shoulders, trying to cover her up, his hands smoothing her hair and taking in the battered sight of her as tears flowed down his cheeks. ‘My God Fitch, what . . . who . . . who . . .?’
She couldn’t speak; only a tiny shake of her head could convey that she didn’t know who. He had been covered whilst she had not. He had walked out of here. Sauntered. Strolled. Having a good day . . .
Cunningham held her so tightly to him she thought her ribs might crack, his sobs convulsing his body in rolling waves. She felt his anger. Felt his love. She felt safe again.
He kissed the top of her head, pulling back. ‘We can’t stay here. They’re everywhere, taking the town. We’ve got to get back to the car.’
She closed her eyes in defeat. It was too much to ask. She couldn’t run, she couldn’t even walk. Her body had turned against her – leaden and helpless. But he didn’t ask her to; with a strength that seemed improbable given his own injuries, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her like a baby, past the overturned desks and toppled chairs, past the poem on the blackboard, out through the golden rectangle and into the light, running past clumps of dead grass, over red earth, plumes of smoke still drifting into the skies above Kobanî. She saw the Coke can Moussef had thrown, rolled to a stop outside the walls of the destroyed shack, caught a glimpse of the walls inside saturated with the deep, dark red of arterial blood.
Carefully, like she was made of china, he put her down on the passenger seat, covering her with a rough, patched blanket and fastening the seat belt for her, his teary eyes travelling over her face, seeing her blank stare and distorted, swollen features. He limped into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition on, wheel-spinning as he pulled away and sending a shower of earth high up in a spray behind them, the village at their backs.
They drove for miles, over roads that could scarcely be called tracks, only a few wild goats watching their progress, the car bouncing erratically on old springs, throwing her about and making her battered body burn harder. He kept looking over at her, resting his hand upon hers and squeezing it, checking she was still there, still with him and not sinking into some deep, dark place inside where he wouldn’t be able to reach her.
‘They were dead, Lee,’ he said eventually, his voice choked. ‘Raped, mutilated. Murdered. The baby too. There was blood everywhere . . .’ Another sob escaped
him and he smacked his hands hard against the steering wheel, shaking himself against it, like he was trying to rattle the memories free.
He stared at the horizon, his breathing heavy and laboured.
‘. . . One of the girls, Virginie, was still alive. Just. As soon as Moussef saw the scene, he ran to find you and I tried to get from her what I could. It was the only . . .’ He sobbed again. ‘It was the only thing I could do for her.’
What?
His words sounded far away but they still registered. If he had come to find her instead of Moussef, if he hadn’t hung back trying to get the girl’s dying words, her final testimony for his story . . . He could have helped her, saved her. They never should have separated in the first place; they always went in everywhere as a team, both for the sake of the story and their safety.
He looked over at her again, oblivious, angry tears shining in his eyes. ‘It was a set-up, Lee. Someone knew we were coming. They wanted us to find them like that. They were waiting for me. For both of us.’
She turned her head slowly to him, even that making her feel dizzy. She stared at him, feeling a pressure begin to build inside her, something uncomfortable. Painful. Wasn’t it obvious? Didn’t he get it? ‘. . . Moussef.’
He looked confused, glancing over at her like she was raving. ‘No, Moussef was with me. He came to find you, to make sure you were okay.’
Lee blinked, hating him suddenly for his stupidity, his ambition. How could he not see it? ‘Moussef told Him I was in there. He sent him in to me.’
Harry looked back at her, confusion and denial flickering over him in a dance. ‘No . . . That’s not . . . He’s Abbad’s cousin . . . He owes me . . . He’s our friend.’
Friend? This was a war. Moussef was a stranger, the cousin of another stranger. He had already physically assaulted her. Was Harry really questioning her, taking that man’s side over hers? Could his pride not accept that he’d been played? Could he not admit that his mistake had meant such a high price for her?
She saw the way his head shook side to side, refuting her words as he drove, and she felt something break deep inside her, a dam collapsing, a tide of bile rushing into her blood. Dismay. Despair . . . Betrayal.
Slowly, swinging her legs to the other side, she turned her body away from him in disgust.
‘. . . Lee?’ His hand could no longer reach her knee.
She tuned him out, resting her head against the seat and closing her eyes, sinking into her mind and drifting far away from here. It was all too late now anyway – those girls were dead, the village had fallen, she was broken – all in the space of an hour. What did it matter what he believed? It wouldn’t change anything. Moussef was still the informer. Moussef was still IS, no matter what Harry tried to tell himself.
‘Coffee?’ Mila asked, already filling up the water in the coffee machine. She was wearing the frilly apron, succulent smells of roast lamb drifting over to the sofa area.
Lee was lying curled up on her side, seeing and hearing nothing as Aladdin played on the TV, Noah and Liam sitting cross-legged on the floor playing Ludo with Jasper. They were taking it in turns to stay with her during the days, all convening here in the evenings and trying to keep things steady for Jasper whilst she silently fell apart. It had been eight days since news of Harry’s capture had broken across the globe, and no matter how many times news networks discussed and analysed the story, nothing had been heard since.
It had been three days before she’d noticed Mila had disconnected her landline, keeping the house in a state of relative quiet as reporters scrambled to try and get hold of her mobile number, wanting an interview, a comment, a line. Her photographs had been reproduced in almost every newspaper in the world as Harry’s capture drew international attention, but it was the Pulitzer images, the perceived high point of his career, which were reissued again and again. No one realized those very images were the reason he’d gone back out there, why he’d risked this predicament; no one, not even Cunningham, understood what it did to her every time she glimpsed those brown eyes. Dita certainly hadn’t known when she’d submitted them for the Pulitzer jury’s consideration.
Dita was a fierce gate-keeper, mostly managing to keep the press at bay and ringing in regularly with updates, even though there was nothing meaningful to tell – reports came and went that he might be being held in Sarrin, or he’d been moved to Idlib, that he was as close as Mistanour Hill or had been smuggled over the border to Iraq. In truth, no one seemed to have a clue. In spite of the order that had gone to US units to arrest him on sight, he hadn’t been spotted since Blasenberg’s sighting. He had spent too many years running from artillery fire, trekking over mountain passes, hitching rides on tank and aid convoys, not to know how to avoid capture. He’d stayed below the radar for weeks and although he had started his search in Khrah Eshek – beginning with their ending – she could only imagine where his investigations would have led him by now. He could be on the opposite side of the country. Had Moussef finally blown his cover to fellow villagers? Did he too ride openly on vehicles dressed all in black, with the caliphate’s flag flying and a rifle slung over his shoulder? Or was he still a wolf in sheep’s clothing, hiding behind his big friendly giant smile? Six years had passed, IS had lost almost ten thousand fighters. Was he even still alive?
She had given Dita Moussef’s name. Literally just that. He’s called Moussef, his cousin, called Abbad, lives in Raqqa. That was the sum total of what she knew about the man who had destroyed her life. Dita had passed it on to American Intelligence but they both knew it was like searching for a grain of salt in a sea of sand.
She closed her eyes, hearing the fire crackle. Harry might be dead already, Gisele a pregnant widow, and her left without the one person in the world who had truly and completely known her. She had only hated him because she’d loved him so much; he knew that, right?
She felt a hand on her shoulder and saw Mila setting down a coffee in front of her, a sandwich on a plate. ‘Eat.’ She jerked her head fractionally in Jasper’s direction, and Lee nodded, knowing what she was saying – she had to stay strong for him. If her friend only knew just how very strong she’d actually had to be these past five years, that he’d been born through trauma. It was almost part of his DNA.
She pushed herself up to sitting, beginning to tune in to her son’s chatter with his godfathers, blankly noticing how Liam’s gaze followed Mila as she walked back to the kitchen and checked her phone; a small smile spread on her mouth as she read something, biting her lip as she wrote something back. He sighed, looking away again.
Lee dropped her head in her hands, numb to such domestic dramas, raking her blonde hair through her fingers and wishing there was just something she could do. She had never been good with sitting around, much less waiting to hear whether her best friend and soulmate was dead or alive. She got up, needing to move, beginning to pace. She went and stood by the window. The canal was still frozen – the dreaded thaw had lasted only a day in the end – and there were still a few skaters out there, but it didn’t have the carnival atmosphere of that first weekend. She watched as a young woman practised double axels, an elderly couple gliding arm-in-arm, schoonrijden style, some teenagers having a race—
—Sam exploded in her mind’s eye again: his eyes bulging, his lips retracted in a sneer as he gathered his legs back in, Jasper’s terror, scurrying like a rabbit . . . She shook her head, throwing the images out. She would not think about him. Never again. She had blocked him on her phone, email . . .
She turned back into the room, noticing for the first time that there was now a multitude of beribboned presents behind the tree, and she felt a rush of love for these friends who had put their arms around her and her child in this moment of need. She felt desperate and besieged on all sides, but even in the midst of this despair, she knew she was not alone.
Liam was over in the kitchen now, holding his coffee and chatting to Mila, making her laugh. They looked good together, Mils relaxed and
at ease now that her attention was with someone else, clearly oblivious to Liam’s interest. Wasn’t it the most ironic thing? The moment she’d stopped trying to become the woman of his dreams, she became the woman of his dreams.
‘I’m going to get some air.’
Everyone looked back at her as she set her half-full mug down.
‘Okay, shall we all go for a walk?’ Noah asked with worried eyes.
She walked over and crouched beside Jasper. ‘No. Don’t worry. I can see Jasper is about to thrash you. I wouldn’t want to deprive him of that joy.’ She managed a weak smile, ruffling her son’s dark hair and kissing the top of his head. He had been sleeping in her bed every night since they’d come back, wriggling in close to her, subdued and downcast. They had left Ducky behind in their haste to escape the farmhouse but he hadn’t even asked her to get him back and she hadn’t offered, both seeming to understand it was easier to lose him than resume any sort of contact with Sam.
‘Damn,’ Noah sighed. ‘I guess it was worth a try.’
Jasper gave a little smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
‘We can come with you,’ Liam offered, ‘we’ meaning him and Mila.
‘Thanks, but I’d rather be alone; I just need to clear my head a bit.’ She looked at Mila. ‘Are you still happy to take Pabe’s dinner over for him and get tomorrow’s logs in?’
‘Of course.’
‘I can help you with that,’ Liam said to her.
‘Sure,’ Mila shrugged.
Lee kissed Jasper again. ‘I won’t be long, okay? I’ll just stretch my legs a bit and then we’ll run the bath.’
He nodded, watching her as she rose and walked away, still watching as she disappeared into the hall and down the stairs. She pulled on her tartan coat and her kitten hat and, pulling back the deadbolts, locks and chains, stepped outside.
The chill was immediate, nipping at her cheeks, and she set off at a brisk walk past the gingerbread houses with Christmas trees in the amber-glowing windows, over the little humped bridges stacked with bikes, below the trees sparkling with threaded lights. This was her town, the place she had chosen to call home when she’d fled her old life in search of a second chance, needing a new start and safety. Knowing Jasper was coming had been the motivation she’d needed to carve out a new world. She’d done it for him, but in doing it, he had saved her. He’d been her reason to keep going, to keep trying, when the memories crowded in on her, and the flashbacks and the panic attacks and the nightmares threatened to overwhelm her. Jasper needed her, he was the innocent in all this. If he was never going to have a father, then he’d need twice the mother.