unutterably bleak as it seemed. That at the end Alex had found something good to cling to. That she had, in her own way, died happy. That’s what Freya wanted to believe; needed to believe. The alternative – that she haddied alone, in agony and despair – was just too terrible to contemplate. There had to be something more. Some flicker of hope.
She reached out and touched her sister’s cheek: the skin was cold and smooth to the touch, like alabaster. She remembered the time when, aged thirteen and out on one of her extended rambles around Markham, she had stumbled across Alex and Greg – the boyfriend who would later become Alex’s fiancé – lying asleep in each other’s arms in the corner of a hayfield. They had been on their side, bodies curved into each other like spoons in a drawer, Greg’s arm clutched around Alex’s waist, a faint smile tweaking the corners of her mouth. That same expression as she now wore in death. Greg and Alex – Freya started to sob.
‘I’m sorry,’ she choked. ‘Oh God, I’m so, so sorry. Please, Alex … please …’
She wanted to say ‘Forgive me’ but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, leaning forward, she kissed her sister’s brow and laid her cheek momentarily against her forehead. Then she drew the sheet back up and hurried from the room.
C AIRO
The US Embassy compound is a walled, heavily guarded affair just off Midan Tahrir. More akin to a high-security prison than a diplomatic residence, it is dominated by two buildings.
Cairo 1, as staff call it, is an ugly dun-coloured tower rearing fifteen storeys from the centre of the compound and home to most of the Embassy’s core services: the Ambassador’s office, governmental liaison, military affairs, intelligence gathering.
Cairo 2, just a short hop across the compound, is altogether less obtrusive than its sister building, with a façade of pale cream stone, slit-like windows and a pair of satellite dishes sitting on its roof like giant jug-ears. Here are housed the back-up departments that keep the Embassy functioning – Accounts, Administration, Press, Information. And here, on the third floor, was where Cy Angleton had his office.
Sitting behind his desk now, the door locked and the blinds drawn, he slotted a needle into the insulin-dispensing pen. Lifting his shirt he grasped a handful of rubbery flesh, the compression causing the skin to turn even whiter than it already was.
Things had moved on since he was a kid growing up in the sixties in Brantley, Alabama. Back then injections had involved a vial, a syringe and a needle the length of his finger. Now it was a neat little cartridge and a dispenser no larger than a fountain pen. If the technology had improved, however, some things never changed. As a lifelong Type 1 diabetic he still had to inject himself four times a day, regular as clockwork (‘Pincushion pig boy!’ the kids at school had used to chant at him). And even now, after almost forty years, he still hated doing it.
He gritted his teeth and started humming Hank Williams’s ‘Your Cheating Heart’, giving it a few bars before banging the pen down firmly onto his stomach. The needlepierced the skin with a sharp, transient sting. He held it there a moment as the insulin pumped out into the fatty tissue, keeping him alive; then, with a sigh of relief, he returned the pen to its holder. Buttoning his shirt he waddled across to the window, raising the blind. Sunlight flooded the office.
It was a small, cramped space, the furniture – desk, chair, sofa and bookcase – bland and ugly: GI furniture, they called it. He would have been more comfortable over in Cairo 1, where the offices were bigger and better appointed, but his secondment was to Public Affairs, and Public Affairs was in Cairo 2, so that’s where he was. Fewer questions that way. It wouldn’t be for too long, hopefully. Once the whole Sandfire thing was resolved he’d pack up and be on the first plane out.
Below him two
She reached out and touched her sister’s cheek: the skin was cold and smooth to the touch, like alabaster. She remembered the time when, aged thirteen and out on one of her extended rambles around Markham, she had stumbled across Alex and Greg – the boyfriend who would later become Alex’s fiancé – lying asleep in each other’s arms in the corner of a hayfield. They had been on their side, bodies curved into each other like spoons in a drawer, Greg’s arm clutched around Alex’s waist, a faint smile tweaking the corners of her mouth. That same expression as she now wore in death. Greg and Alex – Freya started to sob.
‘I’m sorry,’ she choked. ‘Oh God, I’m so, so sorry. Please, Alex … please …’
She wanted to say ‘Forgive me’ but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, leaning forward, she kissed her sister’s brow and laid her cheek momentarily against her forehead. Then she drew the sheet back up and hurried from the room.
C AIRO
The US Embassy compound is a walled, heavily guarded affair just off Midan Tahrir. More akin to a high-security prison than a diplomatic residence, it is dominated by two buildings.
Cairo 1, as staff call it, is an ugly dun-coloured tower rearing fifteen storeys from the centre of the compound and home to most of the Embassy’s core services: the Ambassador’s office, governmental liaison, military affairs, intelligence gathering.
Cairo 2, just a short hop across the compound, is altogether less obtrusive than its sister building, with a façade of pale cream stone, slit-like windows and a pair of satellite dishes sitting on its roof like giant jug-ears. Here are housed the back-up departments that keep the Embassy functioning – Accounts, Administration, Press, Information. And here, on the third floor, was where Cy Angleton had his office.
Sitting behind his desk now, the door locked and the blinds drawn, he slotted a needle into the insulin-dispensing pen. Lifting his shirt he grasped a handful of rubbery flesh, the compression causing the skin to turn even whiter than it already was.
Things had moved on since he was a kid growing up in the sixties in Brantley, Alabama. Back then injections had involved a vial, a syringe and a needle the length of his finger. Now it was a neat little cartridge and a dispenser no larger than a fountain pen. If the technology had improved, however, some things never changed. As a lifelong Type 1 diabetic he still had to inject himself four times a day, regular as clockwork (‘Pincushion pig boy!’ the kids at school had used to chant at him). And even now, after almost forty years, he still hated doing it.
He gritted his teeth and started humming Hank Williams’s ‘Your Cheating Heart’, giving it a few bars before banging the pen down firmly onto his stomach. The needlepierced the skin with a sharp, transient sting. He held it there a moment as the insulin pumped out into the fatty tissue, keeping him alive; then, with a sigh of relief, he returned the pen to its holder. Buttoning his shirt he waddled across to the window, raising the blind. Sunlight flooded the office.
It was a small, cramped space, the furniture – desk, chair, sofa and bookcase – bland and ugly: GI furniture, they called it. He would have been more comfortable over in Cairo 1, where the offices were bigger and better appointed, but his secondment was to Public Affairs, and Public Affairs was in Cairo 2, so that’s where he was. Fewer questions that way. It wouldn’t be for too long, hopefully. Once the whole Sandfire thing was resolved he’d pack up and be on the first plane out.
Below him two
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