Strangers (28 page)

After Amy had gone, Damien stayed by the fire in the hotel lounge. It was late afternoon, and the hotel was getting busier. He let the noise and bustle of the arrivals distract him from his thoughts as he sat staring into the fire. Amy’s story had left him with a feeling of weary disgust at the way she had been treated, and he was trying to lose the image of a vulnerable seventeen-year-old left to fend for herself on the streets of London.

He still had no idea what was happening, or if there was any link between Amy’s disappearance and the events in Riyadh. Roisin had described Amy as ‘frightened’ when she’d called to say she was leaving, and everything he’d seen told him that she was still afraid.

He went up to his room. The place depressed him–the pale walls and floors, the production-line bland art, the standard minimalism of the design. He was willing to bet that a thousand hotel rooms like this existed across the country and that
he could move from one to the other, barely aware of the transition. He’d preferred the shabby, rundown interior of Roisin’s flat–it was a home where a person lived, a person with individual tastes and a life to lead. This place was dead.

Amy had scribbled down her address before she left. She’d taken a flat on the Byker Wall, a temporary rental while she looked for somewhere to buy. ‘It’s central, and you can always get a flat in Byker,’ she said. ‘I had one there when I came out of care. It’s a nostalgia thing.’

He’d achieved everything he’d come up north for. He’d hoped to find a route to track Amy down; instead, he’d found her. And though he still wasn’t convinced by her story, it was no longer up to him to pursue it. If she needed his help, she would ask him. And if she needed him…He would talk to her again, once.

He felt weary beyond belief. His hand ached, sending hot wires of pain up his arm. He had a sudden longing to be back in his house in Riyadh, sitting in the spice-scented shadows of the upstairs room, watching the patterns from the blind moving across the floor.

Outside, he heard the sound of the wind rising.

By the time Roisin got back to the flat, it was already dark. Her mind was going over and over what she had just realized.

Yasmin had known something about Joe, and whatever it was, it had terrified her. And then her
baby had been taken. Now Yasmin was in trouble–excluded from work, separated from her friends, her e-mail contact apparently cut off. Why?

Joe had been called into work that day, that last day. He’d talked about it in the car afterwards.
They wanted me to review a death. A baby died a few days ago
. He’d done a post mortem, and he’d said that the baby had died because it was premature. And then he’d said…
there’s something I should…This fucking country. I don’t know what to do
. Maybe Joe had known something about Yasmin…And Yasmin’s baby had been stolen, and still hadn’t been found.

She looked at her computer, and saw that the
new messages
icon was showing. Najia. At last.

But the e-mail wasn’t from Najia. It was from Souad:

Roisin hit the
reply
button:

This time, the reply came within five minutes.

Damien was jerked out of a deep sleep by the sound of the phone. He sat up, reaching for the light switch. He was sitting in a chair in an anonymous room. Rain was battering against his window, and in the orange light of the street lamps, he could see the water running down the glass. The window rattled as the wind blew, and in the background, he could hear the low roar of a river running full.

For a dizzying moment he had no idea where he was. Then the ladder of memory lifted him out of his confusion and the events of the day came flooding back. The phone was still ringing. He checked his watch. It was only half past seven. He picked it up. ‘O’Neill.’

‘I have found something that is wrong.’

For a moment, he couldn’t make sense of what the speaker on the other end of the line was saying. There was an echo, and the voice sounded distorted, then he realized it was Rai, calling from the Kingdom. ‘Rai! What? What’s wrong?’ He realized he hadn’t called Rai about the odd message he’d left–he’d shelved it. He hadn’t been thinking straight.

‘Wait.’ He put the phone down and went and splashed water on his face to wake himself up. Then he picked the phone up. ‘Sorry. I was asleep. Tell me. What is it?’ It had to be urgent for Rai to have called.

‘I have checked at the hospital, because I hear there is trouble. They make a mistake. They look at the results more closely, the missing baby, and they find that this blood, the blood of the baby who is so unexpectedly ill, comes from a different child altogether. Not Majid’s child, not Yasmin’s child. But from one who die the day before Majid’s child was taken.’

It took Damien a moment to understand the implications of this. Somehow, in the hospital system, there had been a terrible mistake. The hospital had mixed up the blood samples and diagnosed a healthy child as gravely ill.

Yasmin’s child had been healthy when he was born, then there had been a blood test and the child had been whisked away to the ITU for sick and premature babies. He could remember Majid’s face when they talked in the car park, his grief and his dawning suspicion that there was something wrong at the hospital. And Damien’s own visit and the technician’s puzzlement as he looked at the report.

He wondered how long it had been before anyone had thought to check that the blood test that ruled Majid out as the father of the child also ruled out Yasmin as his mother. This wasn’t just
a mistake, it was a mistake that could have proven fatal.

Maybe it had. They would have treated Majid’s child for an illness he didn’t have, treatment that could have seriously damaged or killed him.

And then the child had vanished.

Not the father of Yasmin’s child
…

Roisin stood at the window watching the light starting to fade. The last cars were leaving the building site, and the street was quiet. The white van was back in its niche by the disused gate. She decided it must belong to one of the residents in the flats. She wished it was spring. She wanted the light evenings back. And summer. Maybe by summer she would know what she wanted to do. Maybe by summer she would be able to see beyond the next few days. Not the father of Yasmin’s child…No wonder Yasmin had been so afraid–but she hadn’t been frightened for herself. She’d been afraid for a woman she barely knew, a runaway maid called Jesal.

Roisin thought about the e-mail address that no longer worked, and wondered if Yasmin was still alive. She shook her head to clear the thoughts away and picked up the phone. She wanted to see if Damien had called while she had been out.
She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to talk to him about Yasmin, and tell him what Souad had said about Najia. There was no message, but one person had phoned. She checked the number–someone had called her from Newcastle.

With a tug of anxiety about her mother, she called back and waited as a phone rang at the other end. She was just about to hang up, when a voice said. ‘Hello?’ It was low and cautious.

‘Hello. This is Roisin Massey. You called this number earlier.’

There was silence, then the voice came back more clearly. ‘Roisin, it’s Amy.’

For a moment, surprise took her voice away. ‘Amy! My God.’

‘I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch before. And I’m so sorry about Joe.’

‘Yes.’ She felt her throat tighten and spoke quickly. ‘You’re in Newcastle! I told Damien that was where you’d be. Did he find you?’

‘Yes. I saw him today. And I’m coming to see you.’ Amy’s voice was fast and breathy, the same as it had been when she made that last call from Riyadh. ‘There’s a train that leaves in forty-five minutes–it gets in just after ten thirty. I was calling to make sure you were there.’

‘You’re coming to London tonight?’

‘Yes–is that OK? I can get a hotel room when I…’

‘You don’t need a hotel. You can stay here.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I am.’

‘Roisin, I…OK. Thank you. I’ll call you when I get to King’s Cross.’

After Amy had rung off, Roisin forced her mind on to practical things. She went and got some clean sheets, and made up the sofa bed in the tiny study. Then she went into the kitchen to see if there was anything to eat. She knew she was using these domestic details to stop her from thinking about Amy’s impending visit. What had Damien said to bring her racing down to London with such urgency?

Was it just concern about her welfare? She and Amy had been close friends in the past, but that had been a long time ago. Did she know more about Haroun Patel? Damien said she, like Joe, had been asking questions. Or was it something else? Roisin concentrated on slicing onions and putting them to soften in some warm oil.

The phone rang, jerking her out of her reverie. ‘Hello?’

‘Roisin?’ It was a woman’s voice, and she sounded strained and shaky. A baby was howling in the background. ‘It’s Mari. From downstairs. I’ve fallen. I think my leg…’

‘Hang on. I’m on my way.’ Roisin grabbed her keys and ran down two flights of stairs and along the walkway to number 13. Unlucky for some. She rattled the handle, and heard the sound of someone moving on the other side. She could hear Adam’s howls reach screaming pitch, and Mari’s
voice saying effortfully, ‘It’s all right. I’m coming…Oh shit. Jesus.’ And then the door opened and Mari, white faced, was standing there supporting herself against the doorframe.

Roisin caught her as she collapsed and eased her back down to the floor. One foot was still encased in a high-heeled sandal–presumably the cause of her fall. Her ankle was swollen and misshapen and her breath came in sharp gasps. She was shivering. ‘Have you called an ambulance?’

Mari shook her head. ‘I can’t go to hospital. I can’t leave…’ Her normally pale face was bleached of colour. Roisin ran through to the main room and saw the screaming baby in a cot. OK, Adam was safe. She found the phone and called an ambulance, giving them the information as quickly and concisely as she could.

She went into the bedroom and pulled the cover off the bed. Then she went back to Mari. She put the cover over her, holding it away from her injured ankle, then pulled off her own sweater and rolled it up into a makeshift pillow. Mari’s foot was swelling rapidly so she unbuckled the strap of the shoe, eliciting a groan and a barrage of swearing from Mari, but she didn’t attempt to do anything else. She didn’t have first-aid training.

‘Adam’s fine,’ she said. ‘He’s just had a fright.’

‘See to…’ The tears were streaming down Mari’s face. ‘I can’t go to hospital. I don’t want the social…’ Roisin didn’t know anything about
Mari’s background, but she had the same brittle independence that Roisin could remember in Amy at that age. Was Mari another refugee from care, aware of the hovering system that might take her baby away from her?

‘Adam’s fine,’ she said firmly. I’ll see to him in a minute. Don’t worry. ‘I’ll take care of him for now. Is there someone…?’

‘No one. There’s no one. You’re not to…’

‘Don’t worry,’ Roisin said again. Her mind was working fast. If Mari’s leg was broken, it would need setting. She would probably need a general anaesthetic which would mean at least an overnight stay in hospital. OK. Roisin didn’t have anything better to do. ‘I can take care of him.’

The ambulance was there in less than twenty minutes, but it felt like for ever. Mari’s eyes were beginning to look glazed. Roisin, worried she was going into shock, sat with her, talking about anything that came into her mind, about the way Mari had decorated the flat, the poor state of the staircases and walkways in the block…anything to stop Mari drifting into unconsciousness. She watched as the paramedics strapped the injured girl into a chair and carried her out of the flat.

The baby’s howls had barely abated, and Roisin found herself alone in the sparsely furnished rooms in sole charge of a baby who was less than two months old. Adam had had a bad fright and he wasn’t easy to soothe. She jogged him gently in her arms, and sang to him. She found a feeding
bottle and gave him some milk, and gradually his crying quietened to hiccups and then silence.

She had to decide what to do. Adam would be happier in familiar surroundings, but Roisin had things she needed to do, and Amy would be arriving in just over an hour. She hunted round the flat. It was very different from the days of shabby clutter when George lived here. There was little furniture, but the space was filled with baby equipment–a chair, a padded playpen, stuffed toys, baby clothes hanging over drying racks and over the radiators, a huge teddy bear that must have dwarfed Mari, never mind Adam.

Working one-handed, she found a bag and packed it up with nappies, baby milk and some toys. She looked at the pushchair, which was as beautifully upholstered and sprung as a top-line car, but decided not to use it. She could remember its weight. It would be a nightmare to drag it up the steps. There was a detachable carry-cot–that would do.

She pocketed Mari’s keys and slung the bag across her shoulder. Adam was well wrapped up in a hooded sleeping suit, but it was freezing outside. She wrapped him in a blanket and tucked him into the carry-cot, then, almost impossibly burdened, she set off along the walkway. She noticed that the security door wasn’t properly shut. The ambulance men must have forgotten to close it. She couldn’t leave it like that–not round King’s Cross.

She pushed it to shut it, but it seemed to be
jammed. There was a stone stuck under it and she had to step out into the street to free it. A vehicle switched on its lights catching her and the baby in the dazzle. Then they went out, leaving her in darkness. She blinked the afterimages away, feeling the door start to swing free. She stepped back and heard the lock click shut behind her.

When she got into her flat she dumped everything on the floor and lifted Adam out of the cot. He’d stopped crying. She sat on the settee, cradling him. His eyes were fixed on her face. The world must be an amazing place until familiarity turned its regular miracles into the commonplace. Roisin smiled at him and touched his nose with the tip of her finger. His eyes opened even wider and he kicked his legs.

‘Pretty cool, hey?’ Roisin said.

He made an
ah ah
sound and kicked his legs again.

They played like that for a while. She found he liked big, bright things that he could focus on and make an attempt to grasp with his hands. He seemed to like peek-a-boo games, and when she blew in the soft folds of his neck, it made him chuckle. She changed him, and put him back into the hooded sleeping suit. The night was cold, and she was suddenly aware of the chill draughts from the poorly fitting windows. He was becoming fretful and she had to walk up and down rocking him until he fell asleep.

She could hear the wind starting to blow,
rattling the windows and clattering the spilled rubbish around in the air well. But the flat felt secure against the stormy night, and the baby was a warm weight in her arms.

For the first time since that night in Riyadh, she felt happy.

Damien made himself go to the hotel bar and order something to eat. He sat in the fashionably minimalist expanse of polished floor, steel-topped tables, dim lighting, listening to the voices of the evening drinkers echoing round him, the sound perceptibly rising as the evening went on and more and more people piled in.

The past few weeks were catching up with him. He felt as though he’d reached the end of his resources. Fatigue was like an ache inside him, and his arm felt heavy and cold–or hot? He couldn’t tell. He looked at his hand. The skin was white with a bluish tinge, except for his fingers which were swollen and painful.

The wrong blood. He wondered what treatments had been given to Majid’s child before the error was spotted. Unnecessary drugs? Too much oxygen? More radical treatment? And what would the result have been? A hospital error that harmed–or proved fatal–to the child of a high-ranking police officer. The penalties would have been severe for all those implicated in the mistake. So severe that it was worth the risk of removing the child? Or the child’s body…

He thought about the face he had seen in the window that day. That face had haunted him from the moment he had first glimpsed her looking down from the window. Yasmin. He wondered if she knew that her child was probably dead.

The waitress put a plate in front of him. He couldn’t remember what he’d ordered; it looked like some kind of elaborate sandwich, garnished with an assortment of leaves. She fussed round him for a minute, offering him a choice of dressings, waving a pepper grinder at him, then hurried off. He had no appetite.

Something was nagging at him. Damien shook his head to clear it. He felt hot, and his mind wouldn’t focus. Before…There had been something…Rai’s message. Rai had left that odd message that had been pushed out his mind by the news about the mistake at the hospital.

He drank some water, grimacing at the slight bitterness of the lemon that was floating in the jug. He hadn’t asked, and Rai hadn’t said what it was that he had found. It was after eight. Rai would be asleep by now.

But Damien needed to know. He had half a picture–any bits that were available might help to complete it. He took out his phone, but the noise in the bar was rising. He paid his bill, leaving the sandwich untouched on the table, and went into the lobby where it was quieter. He keyed in Rai’s number and waited as it rang.

‘Damien?’ Rai sounded bleary.

‘Yes, I’m sorry to wake you. I…’

‘You are OK?’ Rai’s voice sharpened with sudden anxiety.

‘Yes, yes, I just needed to check…’

‘You do not sound OK,’ Rai said flatly.

‘I’m tired. I’ll be fine once I can get this sorted out and get some sleep. You left a message a few days ago, something about “revolver doors”, something you were going to check. What was it?’

‘I am not certain yet. I want to…’

‘Yes. But I need to know what it is.’

Rai stopped arguing. ‘I look at who leaves the country that day.’

Damien waited. The police had already done this. There can’t have been a name on those flight schedules that rang any alarm bells.

‘I look at flights, but I also talk to the drivers,’ Rai said. ‘And that night–the night of the bomb–one driver takes someone we know from Riyadh to Bahrain, someone who leaves the country by road across the causeway.’

The King Fahd causeway that linked Bahrain with the town of al-Khobar in the east of the Kingdom, a five-hour drive from Riyadh.
Someone we know
. ‘Who was it?’

‘This is why I want to check it. It has to be mistake, because this person has already left the Kingdom.’

‘Who
, Rai?’

‘It is Amy Seymour.’