Nightingale

by Andrea Bramhall

  Charlie softly probed the puffy cheek. “Let me get you some ice for that.”

  Hazaar grabbed her hand and kept her close. “In a minute.”

  “What else did your dad have to say then?”

  “Nothing, why?”

  “Well, it’s a long way to go just to tell you that.”

  “Oh, well,” she said, “they’d been to a meeting not far away so they just popped in.”

  Charlie stared at her. The words made sense, but Charlie felt there was something missing. “Nothing else you want to tell me?”

  Hazaar smiled sadly. “No, baby.”

  She hated to think Hazaar was keeping something from her, but she refused to pry into Hazaar’s family business.

  “I’ll go and get that ice now.” She quickly gathered the supplies from the kitchen and went back to the bedroom. “I brought some painkillers too, sweetheart. I can’t believe he hit you. What gives him the right—” She dropped everything on the bed when she saw Hazaar crying. “Oh, baby, I know it hurts.” She wrapped her arms around Hazaar’s shoulders. “Here, take these.” She handed her the pills and a glass of water while she wrapped an ice bag with a towel and gently held it against her cheek.

  “Thanks.”

  “I can’t believe he did this to you. Little bastard.”

  “Charlie—”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Charlie sighed. “I just hate that you’re hurt. It’s not fair.” She moved the ice pack slightly and grimaced as Hazaar winced. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I love you.”

  “I love you too, baby, with all my heart. So much it hurts sometimes.”

  “That’s not good. I don’t ever want to hurt you.” Charlie smiled and shifted the pack on her cheek. Hazaar pushed the ice pack away and pulled her into a deep kiss.

  “I love you so much.” Hazaar’s voice was thick and husky, and Charlie couldn’t tell if it was desire or emotion that caused it.

  Charlie frowned. “Hazaar, baby, what’s wrong?”

  Hazaar tugged at Charlie’s clothes, her hands clumsy with desperation. “I love you so much, baby. I need you. Please. Please, just let me touch you.”

  She couldn’t understand what was driving Hazaar or the speed with which Hazaar was moving, but her body responded effortlessly. Hazaar’s passion pushed them both quickly toward climax, as their frantic hands caressed every inch of skin they could find while hungry mouths devoured pleas for release. Charlie shouted Hazaar’s name as she came and stared into Hazaar’s eyes, and the image of a deer popped into her head; a wounded deer, caught in a trap, eyes so soft and soulful that it made your soul bleed.

  “I love you so much, Charlie. You are my life, my hope, and I need you to know that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that I want more than to spend the rest of my life with you.”

  “I love you too, baby.” Why does this feel like good-bye?

  Chapter Twenty

  Pakistan, today

  “Charlie, do you have a minute?”

  Charlie looked up and smiled at Kenzie. “Sure, take a seat.” She pointed at the chair. “What’s up?”

  She waved a file. “I was looking into the case you gave me.”

  “The Atkin Chutani case?”

  “That’s the one. I’ve got some questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  Kenzie laughed. “That’s not an invitation you should make to someone with a military background.”

  “Ha. Funny girl.” Charlie held her hand out for the file. “Let me try that again. What are your questions?”

  “Okay, I’ve got an address for this guy in Peshawar, but I can’t find the boys registered at any school in the city. Would they be homeschooled?”

  “Unlikely. Has the father remarried?”

  “I can’t find any record if he has.”

  “Check the newspapers. You may have more luck trying to find an announcement of the joyous occasion than an official registration.”

  “That’s how you found information in your last case?”

  “Yeah, it’s a very useful way of finding information.”

  “Guess I’m gonna have to brush up on my Arabic reading skills then.”

  “Well, it won’t hurt, but none of us have the time to pore over everything. Hillary set up a database of all the newspapers digitally.” She twisted her laptop around so that Kenzie could see the screen and opened the search field. “Chutani isn’t a common name, but you may still have a ton of records to go through.” She clicked a few more buttons. “I’ve routed the results to your terminal. You can thank Hillary later for setting up the translation program that’s embedded in this little beauty.”

  “I will. The woman’s a genius.”

  “That she is.” Charlie rearranged her computer and closed the program, a little uncomfortable under Kenzie’s stare. “Do you have some more questions?”

  “Tons of ’em.”

  Charlie laughed at the cocky grin on Kenzie’s face. “Well, go ahead then.”

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Almost three years now.”

  “How many cases have you worked on?”

  “Actively?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Last count was over three hundred.”

  “How many cases have you closed?”

  “Personally, I’ve closed forty-three.”

  Kenzie looked baffled.

  “I never consider a case closed unless the woman or child is back on English soil, regardless of how many times the husband or father refuses to listen. It only matters when it works.”

  “Don’t you find that frustrating?”

  Charlie laughed. “Oh, hell yeah. But things don’t always change quickly, and I’ve learned that patience can be the greatest asset we have in this job.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her hands over her belly. “It may not sound like we have much success, but every single one makes me hungry for the next one. The little girl I brought home to her mother just yesterday, Horia? Just knowing that she’ll grow up with a mother who loves her and has the chance at a future where she can be anything she wants to be makes every day that I spend frustrated more than worth it.”

  “How did you end up here?”

  “In Pakistan or doing this job?”

  “They aren’t the same thing?”

  “No. I started in Pakistan working as a visa coordinator.”

  “Doing what exactly?”

  “Making decisions on visa applications. Granting or denying people access to the UK.”

  Kenzie frowned and shook her head. “Were you in negotiation before that or something?”

  “Nope. I was a music student before that.” She couldn’t help but laugh at the look of confusion on Kenzie’s face. “It was pretty much my first job out of university.”

  “So how did you go from music student, to working for the embassy on visas, to being the top negotiator in Pakistan?”

  “Would you believe me if I told you it was a long story?”

  “Erm, probably.” Kenzie laughed. “I can’t imagine it being a quick story.”

  “So, that being the case, it’s probably not best covered on work time.”

  “Okay. How about dinner tonight then? I’ll pick you up and we can go to the Ambassador Hotel.” Kenzie winked, her smile spreading to a grin.

  Is she flirting with me? “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not? Two colleagues grabbing a bite to eat, you telling me your long story, maybe a drink or two. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Well, when you put it like that, nothing, I guess.”

  “So where do I pick you up from?”

  “Why don’t we go straight from here? I’ve still got a little digging I want to do on this case.” She pointed at the notes she was making on Maya’s phone call. A niggling voice at the back of her head was badgering her about it. Badgering? Hell, it’s downright screaming at me.

  Kenzie shrugged. “Sure.” She glanced at the clock o
n the wall and laughed. “A metronome clock. I should have guessed you were a musician.”

  Charlie shrugged. “It was a gift from my sister years ago.”

  “It’s cute. So it’s almost five now. Another hour? Or do you need more time?”

  “That should do it.”

  “Okay, catch ya in a bit, boss lady.” Kenzie stood with a fluidity and grace that made Charlie take a second glance.

  “I’m not your boss. I’m just Charlie.”

  Kenzie turned at the door. “That’s even better then.” Kenzie’s voice dropped in pitch and she smiled a crooked little grin. “Catch ya later, just Charlie.”

  Flirting. Definitely flirting. Fuck.

  Charlie grabbed the phone and punched the number for Luke’s desk, pushing the thoughts of Kenzie out of her mind. In the past three years, she had learned to trust her intuition. It had kept her working cases long after others had told her to give up, and instead she’d gotten results. They’d also saved her life, so she trusted that gnawing feeling in her gut.

  “Odoze’s desk.”

  “Luke, it’s Charlie.”

  “Hey, C, what’s cooking?”

  “Need a favour.”

  “Hit me.”

  Charlie laughed down the line. “You’ll be shocked when I take you up on that, one day, Luke.”

  “Yeah, yeah. What do you want?”

  “I had a call about an hour ago. It came through reception and the woman called herself Maya.”

  “You want the recording?”

  “Yeah. And anything else you can get on the call. If you can get me the number and location, I’ll love you forever.”

  “You do anyway, C.” Luke laughed. “I’m on it. Is this a rush?”

  “Quick as you can.”

  “Is this an open case?”

  Charlie punched a few buttons on her computer. “It is now. Reference number MA2013.”

  “Got it.”

  Charlie hung up and started typing up her notes, including her suspicions that Maya wasn’t the woman’s real name, the fact that she said she was locked in the house, and that her daughter had been born in Pakistan. Her email pinged, and she opened the file attachment of the recording from Luke. She listened to the call, noting each pause in the woman’s dialogue, every time she had started to speak normally and then reverted to a whisper. She heard the gasp at the beginning when Charlie had said her name.

  It can’t be.

  She played it again, listening carefully to those whispered tones. She pulled her wallet from her pocket and fished out a picture that had been folded in half, worn down by the number of times it had been opened and closed over the years. She smoothed out the crease as she placed it on her desk. They faced each other, smiling, their foreheads touching, and their happiness and love for each other unmistakable.

  “What are the chances of that happening, sweetheart?” she whispered to the photograph. “What are the chances? Million to one? Maybe a billion.”

  The phone rang. “You’re gonna love me, C.”

  “Already do, Luke, now spill it.”

  “I’ve got a number and an address on that landline. I’m emailing it over to you now. It’s in the old city of Peshawar.”

  “Just like she said.”

  “Yeah.”

  Charlie waited for him to elaborate, tapping the edge of the picture against the wooden desk as she did so. “And?”

  “I’m emailing the address to you now with a street map. It’s totally in the maze, C. Anything else you need?”

  “Not right now, thanks.”

  She looked at the picture again. Was she hearing what she wanted to hear? After almost four years, was she imagining that it was Hazaar’s voice? A pause here and there could be caused by her listening for her husband coming home. It didn’t mean that she was pausing because she recognized Charlie’s name. Did it?

  “Knock, knock.” Kenzie leaned against the door frame. “You ready to go, just Charlie?” She smiled and her eyes lit up.

  “I don’t know—”

  “Oh, come on. You can’t just stay in here all night.”

  “I’m working on a case.”

  Kenzie threw her hands in the air. “Well, bring the file with you. We’ll make it a working dinner. You are my mentor, after all.”

  “Yes, I am. That’s why this isn’t a good idea.” Charlie slipped the photograph back into her wallet.

  “What isn’t?”

  Charlie looked her in the eye and cocked an eyebrow. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “Okay, I get it. You’ve made it clear. This is just a friendly dinner, Charlie. You have my word. Now can we please go and get some food?”

  Charlie laughed. “Fine. You’re buying.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, God, you’re going to be really annoying, aren’t you?” Charlie pushed her chair away from the desk and grabbed the file as she stood.

  “I have been told that on more than one occasion.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” She pushed Kenzie out the door. “I have a very long story to tell you. You want to drive?” She tossed her keys to Kenzie and pointed to the car. “I’ll direct you.”

  “Direct me? The Ambassador Hotel is two minutes away in pretty much a straight line from here.”

  “Exactly.” Charlie grinned as she got in the car. When they arrived, the waiter seated them and took their order for drinks before leaving them to look over the menu.

  “So, you were going to tell me how you ended up in this job?” Kenzie sipped her beer.

  “Well, I started working for the embassy straight out of university.”

  “How? I mean, how do you get to the embassy by doing music?”

  “I guess you don’t, really. I mean, they do try to recruit from a wide selection of the populous, but it isn’t the usual route. I get that. But I speak Urdu and read Arabic. I started out translating documents after I graduated, and when I saw the internal advertisement for visa coordinator here in Pakistan, I applied.”

  “So you wanted to be in Pakistan?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  Charlie laughed. “That’s a whole other long story. Why don’t I finish this one first?”

  Kenzie shrugged. “Sure.”

  “I was working in the Karachi office. We’d deal with literally dozens of applications a day. Sometimes it was the same people applying again and again. Nothing on the form would change and the answer was always the same. We couldn’t give them visas for perseverance alone, and I understand that it was frustrating for them. I do. All they wanted to do was go to the UK and work. They wanted a chance to earn a decent living, a chance at a better life. I do understand. But there has to be a line somewhere, and the rules are what they are. I was just putting them into practice.”

  She waited until the waiter put their plates down before she carried on. “One day, a man walked in. He’d been through the application system six times in the ten weeks I’d been there. He’d escalated his complaint higher up the chain, and he still wasn’t having any luck. So he thought he’d try the sledgehammer approach.”

  “I hope you don’t mean literally.”

  Charlie laughed. “Almost, but not quite. How’s your steak?”

  “Pretty good, thanks.”

  “So, he was at the security gate and he refused to walk through the metal detector. But instead of asking him to leave, the security guard was arguing with him.” She shook her head remembering the smell of the wet paint that hung in the air from the overnight decorating the maintenance crew had done. The heat that was still oppressive, and she was drinking water like it was going out of fashion. “In the end, the guy pulled a gun from under his robe and shot the security guard.”

  “Shit. Did he make it?”

  Charlie shook her head. “He killed three other people too, and then locked all the doors and windows. Some people had run out screaming already, but there were twelve of us in there with him.”

>   She could see him just as clearly as if he was standing there with them now. Thin and wiry, not an ounce of fat on him, his turban wound around his head and his robes loose about his thin shoulders. The machine gun had looked so big in his hands. The air was filled with the scent of iron as blood pooled on the floor, and the sound of crying echoed off the bare walls. It wasn’t until later that she realized that she’d been crying too.

  “Were you hurt?”

  “No, I wasn’t, but my boss was. I had my hands over the wound in his chest and he kept telling me to just let him go.”

  “I take it all he wanted was his visa? Did you sign it to get rid of him?”

  Charlie shook her head. “I talked to him. He didn’t speak any English and no one else seemed to be able to understand him.” She laughed. “They usually spoke better Urdu than me, but I think in the chaos they stopped thinking.”

  “Happens.”

  “Yeah. You must have seen that a lot.”

  Kenzie shrugged. “I saw a lot of things while I was with the army, but we’re talking about you here. I’m sure we’ll get round to me later.”

  “Nice deflection.”

  “Not that nice. You saw it. So you talked to him?”

  Charlie laughed and took a sip of her drink. “Yeah, I talked to him. I couldn’t really tell you what I said. We talked about his family, about his work. He was a blacksmith. He loved it too. When he talked about it, you could really see the pride and the love of it in his eyes.”

  “You got to know him.”

  “Yes. His daughter was sick. He wanted to go to the UK for medical treatment. By refusing the visa, we signed her death warrant. He couldn’t afford treatment for her here.” He had wept when he’d told her about his Jasmina, how she cried in pain and all she wanted was to sleep without the hurt waking her in the night. “He was desperate. That’s all. In the end, I told him that he would get to see his little girl one last time if he gave up his gun and let everyone else go. I told him he could say good-bye to her.” Charlie wiped the tear from the corner of her eye.

  “What happened?”

  “He put the gun down and opened the door. We’d been in there for three hours by that time. My boss, Mark, had passed away, and the others were in varying states of shock and distress.” She sipped her drink again. “They took him into custody and dragged him off.”