by Henry Porter
‘What is this – the osteopathic seduction?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I am trained to observe people very closely. That’s all. An artist’s eyes do not stop noticing the shape of things or their colour when he leaves the studio. It’s the same with me. When I saw you in Albania I noticed these things immediately.’
They sat in silence for a while, then she picked some fruit from the basket and got up from the bench. ‘I have work to do now. I’ll see you in the morning.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Khan looked up into Loz’s face when he returned from grinding the pills into a solution. He was glad Sammi had found something to ease the pain that was growing in his chest, to say nothing of the constant throb in his feet.
‘No man has ever had a friend like you,’ said Khan. ‘I don’t deserve you. I cannot believe my good fortune.’
‘Don’t tire yourself, old friend.’
‘What’s the matter with me, Sammi? Tell me. What is it? Why can’t I keep my eyes open?’
‘Because you have had years of ill treatment and hardship. You need rest. I will give you this shot, then you will feel much better tomorrow.’
‘But you wanted to leave tonight.’
‘That’s okay. We can wait. The important thing is for you to get better. Then we’ll talk about what we’re going to do.’
While Loz wiped his arm and slapped it to bring up the vein, Khan’s mind returned to the hillside in Macedonia and the wonder he’d experienced one morning as he watched the sun come over the hill and saw the light filtering through the trees. Now he could smell the dying embers of the fire, mingled with the rich, damp scents of the morning; taste the mint tea that the young Kurd had made him. The memory of those moments had been clouded by the terror that had followed less than half an hour later, but now he understood that the completeness he felt when walking down the track was something important. He should remember it.
‘There was some kind of a bird there,’ he said suddenly.
‘A bird?’ said Loz as he slipped the needle into Khan’s vein. ‘What kind of bird?’
‘The smallest bird I have ever seen. It was almost round with a tail that stuck up. It had made its nest just where we camped. The fire was right below the vine where it lived… it stayed there all night and the next morning it was still there to feed its young.’
Loz smiled down to him. ‘And you liked this bird, Karim?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, it seemed very brave and determined.’
‘Like you.’
‘No, like you, Sammi. You never give in.’
Loz sat down on the stool. ‘Now, sleep, old friend. We need you to be strong in the morning.’
Khan nodded. There was much he wanted to say. He opened his mouth but then he felt his eyes close and could not bring to mind the words he needed.
Sammi seemed to read his mind and said it for him. ‘There was never true love like this before. Never between a man and a woman; never between two men.’ He picked up Khan’s hand and clasped it in his, then bent and kissed him on the forehead.
Khan smiled and opened his eyes. The smooth plane of Sammi’s forehead was broken with a single crease of anxiety, and there were tears running down his face. ‘Thank you,’ said Khan, and closed his eyes to a multitude of fleeting images: his mother opening her arms to him on a shady terrace; the mountains of the East and the dancing, spirited eyes of the fighters. His men, the men who’d fought with him and shared the hardship. His men.
Herrick climbed to the turret with her computer, satellite phone and digital recorder, and sat on the warm tiles to concentrate on the recording she’d inadvertently made. The machine had gone for a full two and a half hours before switching itself off. That time included the forty minutes she had spent watching Loz treat Khan, then a period during which Khan had been left alone while she and Loz talked outside, and finally about forty-five minutes of them alone together. She went through the recording, stopping at random, but found little of interest, so she copied it into the computer, encrypted it, then dispatched it to Vauxhall Cross. She would listen to it later when she was in the bath.
She logged off from the secure server and dialled Dolph’s numbers one after the other, each time getting a message service. She decided to try him again in a couple of hours and left the computer and satellite dish on the ledge surrounding the turret, knowing they would be just as safe there as in her room. Then she descended to the courtyard, where she smoked a cigarette and thought about her strategy for the following day.
From somewhere on the other side of the building came the faint sound of music – strings overlaid with the chant of a male singer. Occasionally she heard snatches of the same voice as the previous night. Foyzi had told her it was the CD player of one of his men, a Sufi addicted to his sect’s music. She listened until it stopped and silence fell on the island. Above her, the stars had been partly obscured by clouds moving from the north, which explained why the evening was still so stifling. She rose and took a few paces towards her room, then stopped in her tracks as she caught the sound of a motor some way off to the south. Her ears strained to the night, but she couldn’t tell if it was coming from the sky or the river. After a few seconds it died away completely. She listened for a further five minutes but heard nothing more and reached the conclusion that it must have been a boat.
Sleep was impossible because of the heat. Besides, she could not stop thinking about Loz and Khan. She gathered up her sponge-bag, a set of earphones and the digital recorder, and went with a lamp to the bath-house. It lay at the corner of the main building and was constructed from large granite blocks which even during the heat of the day retained a deathly chill. At the centre of the room was a square bath made out of porphyry, which in other circumstances might be mistaken for an ancient sarcophagus. She set down the lamp, but before plugging the waste pipe with a rag, she had to remove the insects and lizards that had accumulated in the bath, and kill a scorpion that scuttled into the light on the floor.
The water had a slight metallic odour, but she let herself down into it gratefully and found that she could lie almost fully stretched out. As the water rose, she noticed the light catch pieces of feldspar in the granite. She washed, then made a pillow for her head out of part of her robe and shifted the lamp so she could see the machine’s display. Having forwarded the recording to the seventy-five-minute mark, she began to listen again.
There was nothing for the first fifteen minutes, apart from the even noise of Khan’s breathing. Then she heard Loz come into the room. This must have been after he had lost his temper with her under the trees. Khan seemed to pick up on his mood and weakly asked what the matter was. No reply came, but then Loz moved close to him and began to whisper.
‘We have to leave, Karim.’
Khan replied, ‘Why?’
‘Because we have to. This girl is not so stupid.’
Silence followed. Then Karim said, ‘You go without me. I’ll be all right here… Does she know?’
‘Know what?’ His voice was far sharper than usual.
‘That you were…’
‘No… But now you are rested we must leave.’
‘I cannot.’
‘You must. We need to get away from here. It is too dangerous for us to remain. I have some help. You will be well cared for. A night’s rest and you’ll be fine, old friend.’
Both voices faded at that moment and for several minutes she listened to the muttering she had heard when she first sped through the tape before sending it to Vauxhall Cross. Then something suddenly occurred to her and she switched the machine off and sat up in the bath. ‘Jesus wept, I’m an idiot,’ she said aloud. She lay back again, this time not into the bunched material of her robe but into two hands which caught her head and then slipped to her neck. She looked up to see Loz.
‘I don’t think you’re an idiot,’ he said, relaxing his grip but not letting go.
‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ she demanded.
‘Get the hell out.’
He drew back and studied her without saying anything.
‘Get out!’ she shouted.
‘I have seldom seen such beauty in a woman – particularly in one who does not know it.’ He moved from behind her, one hand still holding her neck so that it pressed against the side of the bath.
She struggled a little, but the pressure of his hand increased. ‘Get out now.’
‘But we need to talk. I wanted to thank you for what you have done for us.’
She covered herself with her hands as best she could.
‘Don’t do that,’ he said playfully. ‘If you could see yourself, you’d understand why I am lost for words.’
‘But you’re not lost for words.’
There was something different about his expression. The easy charm was there, but also an odd, embarrassed savagery. His face was streaked with sweat.
‘I’m warning you. Please leave now.’
Loz pulled the robe from the end of the bath and felt the material. ‘Ah yes, I thought you had something in here.’ He pulled out and examined the pistol, then let go of her neck and drew back. ‘I mean it, Isis, I’m awed by the sight of you. The way the light surrounds your body, yet does not reveal you completely.’ He paused to contemplate her further. ‘They say that each woman experiences a perfect twenty minutes during her lifetime when everything – her skin, hair, body, the expression in her eyes – is perfect. Have you heard of this?’
She said nothing.
‘I believe I am witnessing that moment in your existence. You’re truly radiant. I am overwhelmed.’
Herrick took stock. There was absolutely nothing she could do. The question was, what did he plan?
He smiled and moved to sit on the side of the bath. ‘In my culture the use of water – the preparation and purification of the woman’s body – is part of the act of love. Properly, there should be no division between the two.’
‘In my culture you are committing a crime and behaving like an arsehole.’
‘I mean you no harm. I took this away from you so that you didn’t shoot me as we talked. That’s all.’ He pulled up his sleeve and slid his hand into the water, then ran it up and down the inside of her calf, stroking her other leg with the backs of his fingers. ‘What were you listening to when I came in? Can I hear it too?’
‘Please stop doing that.’
‘What were you listening to?’
‘One of the recordings I made of our conversations. You were there.’
‘There’s nothing to hear. We have done nothing. We are what we seem.’
‘In which case you don’t have anything to worry about. Would you please stop touching me?’ She lifted his hand out of the water and placed it on the side of the bath. He dried it on his sleeve, then touched her face.
‘Another place and another time, Isis, and we…’
‘Give me my towel and my clothes, then leave!’
‘We haven’t had our talk,’ he protested. His hand went to her face and played on her forehead and cheek, then slipped round to her neck. ‘You know, this would be as great a pleasure for you as it would be for me.’ His finger traced a line round the depression at the base of her throat. ‘I could do so much for you.’ He paused. ‘After all, we may never see each other again and I for one would regret that we did not take the opportunity that has been given to us here.’
Herrick shifted her position in the bath and tried to read his expression in the light of the lamp. ‘Look,’ she said, her tone softening. ‘You are an attractive man. Anyone can see that. And yes, in other circumstances I might be tempted. Even now I find myself drawn to you. But threatening me is no way to seduce me, and you are threatening me.’
‘I am not,’ he said with a note of injury.
‘But you must see that to walk in here, take my gun and then use your advantage to touch me is very threatening behaviour.’ She paused. ‘Now, I am going to get out of this bath and I want you to hand me my clothes.’ With this she stood up and faced him, without bothering to hide herself. He picked up the lamp and stood.
‘Really, you’re quite beautiful.’
‘My towel,’ she said, putting out her hand.
He did not move.
She lifted her foot to the flat rim of the bath.
‘Stay,’ he said. ‘Stay there. I want to look.’
‘For God’s sake, give me my towel!’
Instead he reached out and touched her right breast, then moved to her left side. They looked at each other for a few seconds. She shook her head and removed his hand. ‘No.’
‘Let’s start this scene again,’ he said with a sudden boyish enthusiasm. ‘Believe me, it will be worth it. This is how we will do it. I will come in again and you will be dressed, and then we will take our ease together. You can drink a little of the whisky – but not too much – and we will talk.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But you will have to stop pointing that gun at me.’ She stepped onto the damp floor and made for the towel herself, feeling ridiculous and very angry. As she bent down he seized her and held her in both arms so that the gun reached round to the back of her head. Then he placed his lips on her mouth and kissed her with incongruous tenderness. She did not return his kiss but pulled her head away and looked into his eyes.
‘You’re not going to do this. It’s against everything you stand for. You render yourself a criminal in the eyes of God and a pathetic creep by the standards of the American society you profess to love.’
‘No,’ he said, in a tone that seemed to mock her unreasonable behaviour. ‘This is what we both want. You do not understand yourself, Isis. I know this.’ He bent down and kissed the top of her breast then moved to her neck with his lips. But he did not relax his grip on the gun.
‘Stop,’ she said, as his free hand began to explore her behind and the top of her leg. ‘Why don’t we talk for a while? That’s what you said you wanted to do.’ She shivered suddenly, knowing she would now have to scream or attempt to beat him off.
‘Sure. Why not? We will talk. There’s no hurry.’
‘Then let me get my clothes,’ she said. Without waiting for an answer she picked up the robe and put it on. Then she reached for the recorder, unplugged the earphones, and placed it in her pocket.
‘What do you want to talk about?’ he said indulgently.
‘It was you who came to speak with me,’ she said, ‘but since you ask, I would like to talk more about your past.’
‘You never give up,’ he said.
She began to make for the door. ‘Let’s go and have that drink.’
‘No,’ he said sharply, then modified his tone. ‘It’s good in here. More romantic, don’t you think?’
She turned. ‘You said you wanted to thank me. That is exactly what you should be doing, instead of threatening me. You owe me. Without me, Karim would never have been freed. And now… well, this is a very strange way to show your gratitude.’
Loz thought about this. ‘I am grateful to you. But you were doing it for your own ends as well. You wanted to know about Karim, just like the others did.’
‘With good reason,’ she said. ‘We’re fighting a war and Khan made some connections we’re interested in.’
‘Is this the way to fight your so-called war against terror? With torture, holding people without trial or legal representation, bombing innocent civilians? You know those people being held by the Americans? Nobody even knows their names.’
She shook her head. ‘You know what I think about torture and that goes for the whole of the British government and scores of other countries in the West. Whatever the deficiencies of the war against al-Qaeda, it must be obvious that we did not start this thing.’
‘But you did. Don’t you see that?’ Again the sudden flash of temper. ‘Look at the conditions of the Middle East, the people in Palestine. Look at the poverty here in Egypt. Look at Africa. These people are suffering because of the West’s greed and selfishness. No one can ar
gue against this truth.’
‘Look,’ she replied quite calmly, ‘we all understand that the West must help less wealthy nations and that we all have to do something about the social problems, but let me just remind you that in Arab countries torture is routine. Remember why the CIA brought Khan here – because he was being strung up to the roof of a prison cell by an Arab government. So don’t give me a lot of bullshit about the mistreatment of suspects in the West. Torture and imprisonment without trial is the norm in your world.’
‘You do not understand! You have not seen how our people suffered in Bosnia, in Palestine. Everywhere. That’s what we are fighting for.’
‘Fighting for, Dr Loz? Who are you fighting for? You’re a US citizen and you enjoy all the delights and riches of the West, yet you say you’re fighting. For whom? Against what?’
‘No… I mean, the Arab peoples. This is what they are fighting for. They struggle for… justice.’
She exhaled heavily, realising that he was on the point of making an admission, and once he had there would be no turning back. He would have to kill her. At the moment there was still a residue of the urbane Manhattan doctor, the pretence of reason and consensus, but it had slipped twice already that day and she was certain he would not leave that room without getting what he wanted. ‘Let’s go and sit down utside,’ she said quietly.
He shook his head.
‘Look, it’s you who needs to relax. You’ve barely had any sleep in the last three days.’
‘I am fine,’ he said. ‘We will stay here.’
‘Then let me get a cigarette.’
‘No.’ He raised the gun. ‘Sit there.’
She wiped the edge of the bath with her towel and sat down.
‘Let’s not pretend any more,’ she said. ‘We’re on different sides. You know what I do and I now have a pretty good idea of what you are. For example, I guessed you were injured in Afghanistan, not Bosnia, and that Karim Khan saved you there and took you to Pakistan to be treated. All along you have been worried not about Karim – poor, misguided Karim – but about what he might reveal. You knew you couldn’t rely on him because, let’s face it, he’s really quite naive, and the only reason he didn’t tell them about you was because his interrogators didn’t know precisely what questions to ask. Until you got the first postcard, you believed that the only man who could harm you was safely tucked away in Afghanistan, maybe even dead. Then the card came and you realised he was on the loose and – more dangerous to you and your organisation – untraceable in the shifting population of migrant workers coming from the East.’