LITMIR.BIZ

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him to look out for her and their daughters. He told her of his promise, reiterated it now. Her sobs abruptly stopped. ‘Layla?’ he said. He’d lost signal. He felt sick and bruised and drained and guilty all at once as he walked around trying to reacquire it. When finally he succeeded, to his shame he couldn’t bring himself to call Layla again. He called the London office instead, asked for Maria. Maria had known Mustafa a little, had a wonderful gift of empathy. He braced her for bad news, told her what had happened. He asked her to get in touch with Layla, arrange for her and her daughters to fly down to Antioch if she so wished, plus whatever else she needed; and also to start the paperwork on Mustafa’s life insurance.

      ‘Are you okay?’ Maria asked. ‘You yourself, I mean?’

      ‘I’m fine,’ he assured her.

      ‘You don’t sound fine.’

      ‘I just watched Mustafa die,’ he told her. ‘I thought I was past all this shit.’

      ‘I’ll talk to Layla,’ she promised.

      ‘Thank you,’ said Iain. ‘And put me through to Quentin.’

      ‘Now?’

      ‘Now.’ He went on hold. His boss picked up a few moments later. ‘Maria told me,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe it. Are you okay?’

      ‘I’m fine.’

      ‘What are you going to do? Are you coming home?’

      ‘No. I need to be here for Layla.’

      ‘Layla?’

      Iain clenched a fist. ‘Mustafa’s widow.’

      ‘Ah. Yes. Of course. Layla.’

      ‘Listen, Quentin,’ said Iain. ‘Before Mustafa died, he asked me if we had anything to do with the blast. I promised him I’d find out.’

      ‘How could you even think such a thing?’

      ‘Because I don’t know who our client is,’ said Iain. ‘Or what they wanted from this job.’

      ‘You do know our client. Hunter & Blackwells.’

      ‘They’re lawyers, Quentin,’ said Iain. ‘Who do they represent?’

      ‘They had nothing to do with this. Take my word for it.’

      ‘No,’ said Iain.

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘I said no, I won’t take your word for it. Not on this. I need to know who they are and why they’re so interested in the Bejjanis.’

      Silence. ‘Very well,’ said Quentin, finally. ‘I gave them a pledge of confidentiality, but under these circumstances, I think I can ask permission to share. Though I make no promises.’

      ‘I do,’ said Iain angrily. ‘Either you tell me or I’ll make it my business to find out. And they really don’t want me going after them, not in the mood I’m in.’ He ended the call, rubbed the back of his neck. His first few months at Global Analysis had been such a relief after the army: stimulating, demanding and rewarding, yet no one getting killed or even hurt. This past year or so, however, it had turned increasingly sour. The secrecy. The offshore accounts. The relentless push for profits. The downright nastiness of some of their clients. That was why, for several months now, he’d been making vague plans to set up on his own, maybe invite Mustafa and a few of the others to go with him. Yet he’d done nothing concrete about it.

      And now this.

      II

       Turkish Nicosia, Cyprus

      Taner Inzanoğlu made a point of walking his daughter Katerina to and from school every day he possibly could. He did it partly because his car was old and unreliable, and partly because petrol was so expensive. But mostly he did it because it was such a relief to get away from his writing and other work for a while; a relief to spend time with Katerina and not feel guilty.

      The afternoon was sunny and warm, yet pleasantly fresh. The perfect spring day. He bought them each a raspberry-flavoured ice-lolly. They licked them as they walked through the park, tongues sticking to the frosting and turning ever redder. She told him about her day, her friends, the lessons she had taken, the inexplicable splinters of knowledge that had somehow lodged in her mind. They finished their lollies. He took her wrapper and stick from her, put them in a bin. Then he broke into a run. ‘Race you,’ he shouted over his shoulder.

      The course was well known to them both. Through the trees, around the swings and the exercise machines, back to the path. ‘I can’t believe you beat me,’ he protested, as he collapsed panting onto the grass. ‘What kind of daughter would beat her own father!’

      The way her eyes crinkled when she laughed reminded him so vividly of her mother that his heart ached almost as though it had just happened. With the pain came the usual premonition: that something calamitous would overtake her too, that he’d be equally powerless to stop it. He reached up and hugged her and pulled her down onto the grass beside him. ‘What is it, Father?’ she asked.

      ‘Nothing,’ he said. His anxiety wouldn’t go away, however. If anything, it grew worse. They’d barely left the park before his mobile rang. He checked the number, was relieved to see that it was only Martino. ‘Hey, my friend,’ he said. ‘Don’t tell me you’re cancelling tonight?’

      ‘Aren’t you watching?’ asked Martino.

      His heart stopped. ‘Watching what?’

      ‘The bomb. In Daphne.’

      Taner turned his back on Katerina so that she couldn’t see his face. ‘How bad?’ he asked.

      ‘Bad. Really bad.’ He paused a moment, then added what Taner had most feared. ‘And they’re saying that a warning was called in. They’re saying it was us.’

      III

      The police had already started taking statements from possible eye-witnesses. Iain gave his name, details and a bowdlerized version of his day to a slab-faced officer with an implausible belly. A few paces away, the woman he’d earlier joked about with Mustafa was struggling to make herself understood by an officer with limited English. When he was finished, therefore, he went across and offered to translate. Her name was Karin Visser. She was twenty-seven years old. She was Dutch but had been studying and working in America for the past four years, which explained both her accent and her impeccable English. She’d been travelling around Turkey with her boss Nathan Coates, a retired oil executive, and his head of security Rick Leland. The two of them had been in Nathan’s room all morning, in some kind of meeting. No, she didn’t know who with. No, they hadn’t been in Daphne long. They’d only arrived from Ephesus late the night before, had been due to fly on to Cyprus the day after tomorrow, then back to the States at the end of the week. No, she hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. She’d gone for a long walk that morning, had returned to the hotel thinking the meeting would have finished. But it had still been going on. She opened up her day-pack to show the manila package inside, and explained how her boss had given it to her to have couriered, insisting that she see to it herself rather than merely trusting it to reception. She’d been on her way when she’d heard the blast and run back. That was when … She waved an expressive hand to indicate the destruction. The policeman thanked her wearily and asked her to let him or his colleagues know before she left the area, then went off to conduct his next interview.

      ‘Are you okay?’ Iain asked her.

      ‘I’m fine,’ said Karin. But her hand was trembling slightly and her eyes glittered. ‘It’s just, they were my friends, you know. And I’ve never been through anything like this before.’ She shook her head. ‘I feel so useless. I feel like there are things I should be doing.’

      ‘Like

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