What Will Survive (38 page)

She sat down and he noticed that she had good legs, although one ankle was slightly swollen. ‘Get you a drink?'

She held up a plastic bottle. ‘I've got some water, thanks.'

It was a warm day and Amanda unbuttoned her jacket, gazing round the room with interest. She had expected an MP's office to be larger and she wondered how he managed when his secretary and researcher, both of whom she'd spoken to at various times, were in the room. Stephen himself was good-looking, with dark curly hair and intense blue eyes; he struck her as alert, watchful, and she noticed that he kept glancing at a piece of paper on his desk. There was a row of snaps at the back, propped against the wall, showing two boys and a younger version of the MP with various Party bigwigs. Two more photos had fallen or been placed face down. Above them, half a dozen political cartoons had been framed and hung on the wall.

Stephen shifted in his seat. ‘What can I do for you? You said something to my secretary about Aisha Lincoln — Aisha was a friend of mine, but that's all. If you've heard any gossip —'

‘Gossip?'

Amanda stared at him, her intuition confirmed: there had been something between them. Not that she cared, but it might make her task easier.

‘No, not at all. The thing is, I've just come back from Lebanon. Well, a couple of weeks ago, actually. I've lost track of time with all this Princess of Wales stuff.'

‘I was out of the country,' Stephen said with alacrity. ‘I didn't see any English papers till I got back. I thought it'd be all over now, to be honest.' He lifted his hands. ‘Sorry I know you've got your job to do.'

‘I wish it was,' Amanda said with feeling. ‘All over, I mean.'

Stephen raised his eyebrows, looking interested in her for the first time. ‘You're not a fan?'

‘Even my Mum's getting fed up with it, and she really liked Diana.'

He relaxed visibly. ‘I wonder what some of these people will do when someone they actually know dies. What did Chesterton say — when people stop believing in God, they start believing in anything? My researcher, who's very smart, thinks it's a modern version of a mother cult.'

‘Gosh, can I interview you about that? Another time, I mean.'

Stephen grinned, and Amanda got a glimpse of his impish charm. ‘You must be joking. I'm trying to rehabilitate myself, not get into more trouble. So, tell me about Lebanon.'

‘Mind if I —' She hesitated, then took off her jacket, folding it on the cushion beside her. ‘Gosh, where to start? I was supposed to be doing a colour piece for the magazine — what Aisha Lincoln was doing in Lebanon, finding her roots, that sort of thing. Were you going to say something?'

‘Her mother was Egyptian, not Lebanese.'

‘Yes, I knew that. Anyway, I went to Beirut and Damascus, which is a part of the world I don't know at all, and I walked into something I absolutely didn't expect.'

Stephen's eyes narrowed, his earlier wariness returning. ‘This is all very intriguing, but I'm not sure what it's got to do with me. I'm not an Arabist —'

‘I know. Look, I'm going to be frank, I'm having a bit of trouble getting this story into the paper.' Actually, she had encountered an apparently impenetrable barrier of scepticism each time she tried to bring up the subject, but Stephen didn't need to know that. ‘If you were willing to ask questions in the House, it would make all the difference.'

‘Questions about what?'

‘How Aisha died —'

‘It was an accident, end of story.' Stephen glanced at his watch. ‘If it's landmines you're interested in, I can put you in touch with my colleague Angus McSorley —'

‘No, it's not that.' Amanda turned aside and drew something out of her bag. ‘This is going to sound far-fetched to begin with, so I've put together a file. All I'm asking is that you read it — it won't take long.' Stephen said nothing and she pressed on: ‘It starts with some cuttings on targeted killings—'

‘What?'

‘There have been several documented cases, both in Lebanon and the Occupied Territories. There's one where they used a mobile phone, it was booby-trapped so when this Hezbollah guy turned it on... I've also found one where the Israelis killed someone from Hamas: they fired a missile at his car. It's all in here.'

‘Why should I be interested in assassinations? I'm not following this.'

‘Obviously it was a mistake, Aisha wasn't even the target and they made it look like an accident.'

‘You're not suggesting — my God, you are. Christ.' He stared at Amanda as though she was mad.

‘I didn't believe it to begin with but I've spent the last fortnight on the phone to Lebanon... In between doing vox pops about Diana, which really is mad.'

‘She was a model, in case you've forgotten. Who'd want to kill a model? Sorry to be blunt, you don't look crazy...'

‘Oh, for God's sake, you're as bad as the rest of them!' Amanda's hand flew to her mouth. ‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean...' She rummaged inside the file and pulled out two pictures. ‘Have a look at this, please. Please. This is Fabio Terzano, the photographer who —'

‘I know who he is.' Stephen's mouth turned down.

Amanda thrust the picture towards him and Stephen gave it a cursory glance. ‘So?'

‘And this is Abu Thaer. He's Syrian, he makes bombs for Hezbollah. Don't they look alike?'

‘Yes, but —' Reluctantly Stephen took the pictures and held them side by side.

‘So Fabio takes Aisha to see this kid he knew during the war, right down in the south — practically in the bit of Lebanon that's occupied by the Israelis, it's absolutely crawling with militia.' Amanda had a brief vision of the soldiers she and Ingrid met on the road, the SLA men with their AK-47s. ‘He's taking pictures all afternoon, that's when they first see the helicopter, according to Aisha. Or it sees them, more to the point. Next morning it comes back, so low it damages the roof of the house they slept in...'

‘The what?' In his head, Stephen heard Aisha's voice, repeating words he had listened to many times in her last message without assigning them any importance: ‘Sorry, I thought the helicopter was coming back — I can't imagine what it's doing in the middle of nowhere.' His mouth was dry and he swallowed a couple of times.

‘Are you all right?' His colour was rising and Amanda felt a spurt of anxiety, thinking he might have a medical condition. ‘Shall I go on?'

Stephen made an impatient gesture with his hand.

‘OK, this boy they've come to see, Marwan Hadidi — I shouldn't say boy, he's in his late twenties by now. Anyway, they discover he's been arrested, that he's in a place called Al-Khiam. It's notorious in Lebanon.'

‘You mean he's a terrorist? He took Aisha to meet a terrorist?'

‘No. They got the wrong person. Marwan's best friend, someone he was at school with — this boy does seem to have some connection with Hezbollah. Marwan was working in a law centre in Tyre, his boss is trying to bring a legal case —'

Stephen slammed a hand down on his desk. ‘Christ. Christ. He should be strung up by the balls.'

Amanda stared at him.

‘Stupid fucker.'

Stephen put his face in his hands and it took Amanda a few seconds to realise he was talking about Fabio Terzano.

‘I don't think he realised — they hadn't been in touch for years, not since the civil war.'

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.'

Amanda waited. Eventually Stephen lifted his head and said dully: ‘What have you done about this? Who knows?'

‘I've tried talking to Sandra, she commissioned the piece, but she's working on a special Diana issue. Simon, the news editor, he isn't totally hostile but he hasn't got the final say and the editor's obsessed with Diana.' Amanda rolled her eyes. ‘But I'm working with someone in Beirut, this is the good news, and she knows where the driver is. He's got a nephew in the government, he got him into this private hospital in Ladhiqiyah, and he's incredibly suspicious. The nephew, I mean — typical of the Ba'ath party. But if you could ask questions, get the Foreign Office involved...'

He croaked, ‘Give me the file.'

She handed it across. Stephen's face was still flushed and his breathing was laboured as he glanced at each page. There were a couple of photographs of Aisha at the back, Amanda wasn't sure why she'd included them, but Stephen looked at them for a long time without speaking. Eventually he said, ‘Can I keep these?'

‘Yes, didn't I say? I can stand it all up, most of it anyway, but obviously we do need the driver. If the British embassy —'

Still not looking at her, Stephen pulled a desk calendar towards him. ‘The House isn't back till next month, Foreign Office questions are on a Tuesday...' He flipped over a page and ran his finger along the dates, his hand trembling.

He stopped, lifting a hand to his forehead. ‘Politically, I mean, how to handle... the Shadow Foreign Secretary... I'll grab him in Blackpool next week, I'm not his favourite person but she was a Brit — a British citizen.' He paused. ‘I don't — have I got your numbers?'

‘Let me give you my card.' Amanda felt in her bag, then a thought occurred to her. ‘This boy, Marwan, I really don't think he's a terrorist — his girlfriend, this is off the record, all right? His girlfriend is half-Jewish.'

‘Leave it with me, OK?' Stephen stood up, the interview clearly over.

‘I'm incredibly grateful to you for seeing me,' Amanda said, also getting to her feet.

‘No, you did the —' He made an effort to pull himself together. ‘Thanks for coming in.'

‘If I find out any more, I'll give you a ring.'

Stephen mumbled something and she sidled out of the room, throwing her jacket over her shoulders. Til be in touch.'

Amanda closed the door and started along the corridor towards the lifts. She felt a little guilty, thinking how badly Stephen had taken it, but what else could she do? The paper would have to listen, if Stephen got the Shadow Foreign Secretary involved...

The lift doors opened and a man stepped out, his face so well-known that even Amanda recognised him as a backbench MP and minor TV personality. His hair was too long and his skin as worn as old leather but she gave him a huge smile as they passed each other. In the lift, she pulled out her mobile, eager to let Ingrid know how well her meeting with Stephen had gone.

The MP turned the corner and walked down the corridor she had just left, congratulating himself: he'd just turned sixty-four and he was still able to impress a pretty women. He stopped at Stephen's door and knocked loudly, cocking his head when he heard faint noises inside. Nothing happened and he rapped again, calling Stephen's name. Next he tried the handle, rattling it impatiently when he found it locked. What the hell was Massinger playing at? Of course there had been rumours about his marriage... The MP remembered the pretty girl and wondered whether she'd just come out of Stephen's office. Lucky devil, he thought, shaking his head in envy. His mobile rang and he answered it, his good humour restored as someone from the
Today
programme asked if he would be available to come on at twenty past seven the following morning.

Amanda wrote Patrick's name and address on an envelope, stuck a stamp in the corner and sat back in her desk chair. Two or three months ago, she would never have believed she'd be so glad to have the flat — and a rather alarming mortgage — solely in her name, but now it felt like a rite of passage. She took the envelope into the hall and put it in her bag, one end sticking out as a reminder to post it next morning. In her office she heard the fax machine, went to see what was arriving and found a drawing from Samih, a sketch of the view from his first-floor flat in Beirut. Underneath was a couple of lines of writing in Arabic, another instalment of a poem he was working on and could not translate into English, he said teasingly, until it was complete. She grinned, tore the fax from the machine and pinned it on the wall with a couple of others, then turned off her computer and printer for the night.

The air was slightly chilly, promising the imminent arrival of colder weather, and she pulled down the blind. There was a movie on TV she wanted to see and she went into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of wine and took it into the living room. She closed the curtains and curled up on the sofa, tucking her bare legs under her skirt. Then she picked up the remote control, trying to remember whether the film was on BBC One or Channel Four.

Her mobile rang. The film was just starting and she decided to let the caller go to voicemail. The phone beeped a moment later, telling her that someone had left a message, and soon after that a text arrived. Amanda looked at her phone and saw it was from Sabri, who was up in Blackpool this weekend at a party conference. ‘Call me. Urgent,' it said. She frowned, muted the sound of the TV and called his mobile number.

‘Did you get my message?'

‘No, sorry, I'm watching an Almodóvar film on TV. What's up?'

‘Your friend Stephen Massinger — he's totally blown it.'

‘What? I know he got into a bit of trouble on Friday...'

‘Now he's made it a lot worse. Look, Amanda, I know you were counting on him for help —' Alarmed, she said, ‘What's he done?' ‘I don't know what's wrong with the guy, it's like he's got a death wish. Hang on, Amanda.' She heard him talking to someone. When he came back, he
lowered his voice: ‘I can't talk now, I'm at a fringe meeting. I've written a piece for tomorrow — give me your fax number and I'll get one of the subs to send you my copy.'

She gave him the number, her neck and shoulders already tight with apprehension. She finished her wine, poured another glass and waited impatiently for the fax line to ring. When the paper started churning through the machine, she was already bending over it, trying to read Sabri's words upside down. The story was short and she ripped it from the machine, holding it in both hands. She read: