The Wreckage: A Thriller by Michael Robotham Page B

morning.”
    Scowling, she slips out of bed and pul s on a G-string, stuffing her bra in the pocket of her long black coat. She bends to buckle her sandals and notices a prayer mat in the corner.
    “Are you one of those?”
    “What would that be?” There’s a jagged edge to his voice.
    “Nothing.”
    “I’m a Muslim—does that bother you?”
    “No.”
    He smiles and rol s on to his feet. She backs away, holding her jacket to her chest. He raises his hand slowly, palm spread, reaching for her face, tracing two fingers down her throat.
    Stops. Her windpipe pulses beneath his thumb. Rocking forward imperceptibly, adding pressure, he seals off her airway.
    “Do you ever pray?”
    She shakes her head.
    “Maybe you should.”
    Hoarsely, “Please let go.”
    Releasing his fingers, he laughs. She ducks under his arm and out the door. He can hear her running down the hal and hammering the button on the lift.
    Out the window he can see the Tai Chi class on a patch of ground in the park. People in tracksuits, moving like puppets in slow motion. Stopping. Moving again. Ignorant people.
    Fearful people. People who wake up every morning of their lives scared about something.
    Chewing on a hangnail, he removes a piece of skin and spits it on to the floor. Then he looks into the mirror and fingers the bruise on the side of his head. The girl left it there. He thinks of her again, her dark hair and the pinkness of her lips.
    His mobile rings. He listens rather than talks, letting his fingers slide over the tautness of his stomach. He closes the phone and goes to the bathroom, where he wets a towel and washes the smel of sex from his genitals, before splashing water over his face and neck. He wil pray before he eats. He wil eat before he kil s.

    17

    BAGHDAD

    Luca Terracini orders a beer and a whisky chaser. He downs the shot-glass in a swalow, feeling the alcohol holow out his cheeks and scour his throat. He orders another whisky.
    The TV is on above the bar. CNN. Footage of a US Senate hearing; Carl Levin, the committee chair, has wire-framed glasses perched on the end of his nose. He stabs his finger at an executive from Goldman Sachs, saying the firm’s own documents show the bank was promoting investment products it knew would fail while at the same time betting against them.
    Luca orders another drink and takes it outside. Most of the journalists are upstairs on their satel ite phones, filing the story of the day: the US Ambassador in Baghdad, Christopher Hil , has final y commented on the fact that Iraq doesn’t have a government five months after the elections. He cal ed it the “growing pains of a nascent democracy,” making Iraq sound like a pimply teenager whose voice would break soon.
    Luca’s hands have stopped shaking, but he can feel the gun oil between his thumb and forefinger when he rubs them together. Men died in the burning pickup; men who had wanted to see him dead; men with no reason to hate him, yet who did so completely and irrational y. Men with families; men who woke this morning and ate breakfast and washed and prayed and did al the normal things… yet before the day had ended their lungs were ful of fire instead of air. What a waste.
    Right now Luca’s life doesn’t seem worth very much. At some point in the evening he decides to go home, but changes his mind. He doesn’t remember getting upstairs. He must have asked reception for her room number.
    Now she is standing in front of him, wearing a bathrobe cinched tightly at her waist.
    “Wel ?”
    “Do you want a drink?”
    “I think you’ve had enough already.”
    She doesn’t shut the door. She doesn’t open it any wider.
    “Can I come in?”
    “No.”
    “Do you want to go for a walk?”
    “We’re in Baghdad. I don’t think it’s very wise to go walking.”
    “No, you’re right.” He sways slightly. “We could walk around the pool.”
    “That’s a very short walk.”
    “We could do it more than once.”
    Daniela hasn’t