More Than You Can Say (17 page)

I saw there wasn’t any point in concealing anything from him. I needed this man’s help, now I knew for certain he was not the one who had taken Adeena. So I told him the full story: the kidnap; the ‘arranged marriage’; my escape. As I told it I felt a renewed sense of self-loathing. How could I have behaved like that? Nick Davies did not bother to hide the look of contempt that spread over his face as I talked.

‘So you married this girl for money, did you, Mr Gaunt? No wonder you’re not that bothered where she is. You’ve cashed the cheque, I suppose, had a bit of fun with her, so now she can just look after herself. Is that the idea?’

I shook my head. I wanted to object to this view of my behaviour, but I couldn’t find the right words.

‘So you really don’t know when she’ll be back? I can’t decide, Mr Gaunt, whether you are just another one of the people Aseeb has duped, or whether you are working for him. You tell me that he paid you ten thousand pounds. That puts you on his payroll, doesn’t it? A court might consider your evidence to be contaminated by that payment.’

He paused and looked at me.

‘We work in counter-terrorism. The girl appears to be an associate of someone we think organises and finances
terrorism so we need to talk to her as a matter of urgency. She will know something about Aseeb and what he is doing back in this country. She may not know she knows it, but she will know
something
.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We’ve been sat here for a quarter of an hour already. Is she coming back here?’

‘Adeena has disappeared,’ I told him.

‘How do you mean, she’s disappeared?’

‘I mean that one minute she was with me, in a supermarket, the next she was gone.’

I had to go over that part of the story again, in detail. When I had finished Nick Davies asked, ‘Why didn’t you call the police?’

‘Call the police? By the time I’d finished explaining everything to them they’d think I was mad. I’d probably have been arrested.’

‘So what
were
you going to do?’

‘I was just about to go back to Oxfordshire and look for her,’ I told him.

‘You were going to go and get her back? Who do you think you are? James Bond?’

Nick Davies stood up. He took a card from his pocket.

‘Leave that kind of thing to us. That’s our job. We don’t want civilians interfering. We’ll check out the house in Oxfordshire as soon as we can get a warrant. In the meantime, don’t go anywhere. We’ll keep an eye on your flat in case your friend Aseeb decides to come here, but you stay put. This is our business now, not yours. Here’s my phone number,’ he said, handing me the card. ‘If I don’t answer, someone else will. What’s your mobile number?’

‘I don’t have one,’ I told him.

‘Then go out and buy one as soon as the shops open
tomorrow. If the girl gets in touch, you need to speak to me straight away. Don’t go anywhere, don’t do anything; just call me. We’ll be looking for Aseeb, now that we know he’s in the country, and if we find him or the girl, we’ll let you know.’

A moment or so later the two of them left. I didn’t feel I had made a very good impression on them but I didn’t much care. At least they would be looking for Aseeb. They had the resources to do it. My own plan had been a little thin on the detail. Leave it to the professionals, I thought.

Just then the phone rang. I snatched up the receiver, wondering whether it was Adeena.

‘Don’t you have any manners?’ a voice asked. After a moment’s confusion, I realised who was speaking. It was Ed Hartlepool.

‘I’m sorry? Is that you, Ed?’

‘Yes, it bloody well is me.’

‘What’s all this about manners?’

‘Don’t you know how to behave?’ he asked, sounding annoyed. ‘You borrow my house, you borrow my horses, you even borrow my butler. Fine. We agreed you could stay at Hartlepool Hall for a few days. But then you up and leave – you and your girlfriend – without so much as saying thank you or goodbye. Horace was really upset. He rang me to say that Mrs Dickinson had gone into Darlington and bought some kippers for your breakfast, and you just disappeared without saying goodbye: without a word, in fact.’

‘Some people we didn’t want to see turned up. We had to leave in a hurry.’

‘Some people?’ repeated Ed. He sounded more and more angry. ‘They told Horace they were from the security
services. He nearly had a heart attack. What kind of people are you mixing with these days, Richard? Who was the girl?’

‘I’m awfully sorry, Ed. They were just some old army acquaintances I wanted to avoid.’

‘That sounds likely. What opinion do you think the staff will have of me if I let people like you stay in the house?’

‘I’m awfully sorry,’ I repeated. I was beginning to get annoyed with Ed. He hadn’t finished ranting.

‘You didn’t even leave a tip for Horace. He didn’t say so, but when I asked if you’d left anything in your rooms he said, ‘‘Only their clothes, sir.’’ I could tell from his tone of voice that you hadn’t left anything for him. I call that thoroughly bad manners. Or are you going to tell me you were unhappy with the way he looked after you?’

‘He looked after us beautifully,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry to have left Horace in the lurch like that. I’m sorry about the kippers too. I’ll put a cheque in the post. What’s the going rate these days?’

Ed sounded slightly, but only slightly, mollified.

‘A hundred quid at least.’

‘I’ll send him a cheque today.’

‘What do you want done with your clothes?’ he asked. ‘I hope you don’t expect Horace to post them to you?’

‘Burn them,’ I told Ed, and hung up.

I sat by the phone, trying not to think about what might be happening to Adeena. I had a very bad feeling about Aseeb. If he was some kind of terrorist and if Adeena was in his way now, or a risk to him, then he might do anything to her.

Whenever I tried to empty my mind of unpleasant thoughts, it often happened that even more unpleasant ones came along and filled it. The medical officer had told me I might have flashbacks. ‘You’ll get over them,’ he had said.

*

We tried hard not thinking about what happened in the interrogation rooms, but it was no use. One of the men said he thought they were waterboarding people. He had seen Mr Harris going up the stairs one night with a roll of plastic film in his hand. It was used to wrap people from head to toe and then strap them to a board. The interrogators would then pour water over the subject so that he felt as if he were drowning. He
was
drowning, but the process allowed the interrogator to cause the sensation of imminent death to recur over and over again.

Sergeant Hawkes once had the courage to ask Mr Harris about it when he attended a briefing session.

‘You would like to join us?’ asked Mr Harris. He gave a comfortless smile. ‘We can train you in the work if you are interested. We only use information-gathering techniques approved by the US authorities, you know. You aren’t getting soft on these terrorists, I hope, Sergeant Hawkes?’

‘Just asking, sir.’ Sergeant Hawkes went on calling Mr Harris ‘sir’ and Mr Harris had given up correcting him.

If his answer was meant to be reassuring, it wasn’t. And anyway, I didn’t believe it. I had heard other noises through the music that still haunted me. Not just the screaming. Twice now I had heard the unmistakable whine of an electric drill. That didn’t sound like something approved by the US authorities. I hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, although I knew that if I had heard the sound, then some of the others probably had as well. But if we admitted we knew what was happening upstairs we would have had to say something, or else remain silent and be complicit. So we said nothing to each other. It didn’t happen, and we didn’t hear it happen. Yet the sounds that were audible at night haunted my dreams
so that sometimes I awoke covered in perspiration, sweating at the shame of my knowledge and my silence.

Then we started to take casualties ourselves.

The first had been a month previous: Corporal Gerrard had been shot in the back by a sniper while on foot patrol in Rashid Street. He died on the spot. The second was Trooper Samuelson. He went mad: that was the only way to describe what happened. Over the last couple of weeks, he’d become withdrawn and very jumpy. I’d noticed this and put in a request to Task Group Headquarters that the man should be allowed some leave or at least be restricted to duties in the villa for a while. Instead I was told that we were undermanned; request denied.

I nearly went and told headquarters to get a grip, but of course I didn’t. Then Samuelson had some sort of fit when we were leaving the compound one morning. He jumped out of the back of the jeep just as we were about to set off on a patrol, and ran back into the building. Sergeant Hawkes was after him like a cat. I followed a moment later. I found Sergeant Hawkes pinning Samuelson against a wall. A pistol lay on the floor.

‘He tried to put it in his mouth,’ said Sergeant Hawkes, breathing hard.

After a while a medic came and gave Samuelson a shot of something. A little later he was taken away to Ibn Sina Hospital. Or so they said. We never saw or heard from him again. But someone must have decided that the rot had set in. A few days after this incident, I was called to headquarters and told that our tour in Baghdad was over.

The next day, as we loaded our gear into the transport that Green Park was providing to take us back to Baghdad
International Airport, Mr Harris came into the yard and strolled over to us.

‘I hear you’ve done good work, boys,’ he said. ‘If ever you feel like coming to work full time in the private sector, just let me know. Six hundred bucks a day. Beats working for the regular army, don’t you think, Captain Gaunt?’

‘Thank you, Mr Harris,’ I told him. ‘I think I’ve had enough of Baghdad for now.’

‘Well, we’ll get you back as far as Basra safe and sound, and then you can all sit in the airport until they send you home. Just one thing, boys?’

We all looked at him.

‘What goes on at Green Park stays here,’ said Mr Harris. He wasn’t smiling now. ‘You don’t ever talk about it. Not to anyone. Not to your colonel, not to your comrades, not to your wife, not to your sister. We don’t like people talking about us. Isn’t that right, Sergeant Hawkes?’

‘Of course, sir,’ said Sergeant Hawkes politely.

On the trip to the airport Sergeant Hawkes was very nervous every time the Humvees slowed down in the traffic. The highway was busy that day.

‘I wouldn’t put it past that bastard Harris to blow up one of his own cars as long as we were in it,’ he said. ‘He won’t want us to talk to anyone about what goes on in that villa.’

‘He knows we can’t talk about it,’ I said. ‘He knows we wouldn’t want the grief of spending the next two years of our lives mixed up in some sort of inquiry. Anyway, they’re Americans. It’s up to the US Army to keep their contractors under control. It’s not our problem, Sergeant Hawkes.’

‘If you say so, sir,’ said the sergeant, in his most wooden voice.

We reached the airport without incident. From Baghdad
we flew to Basra, expecting to be put on the next flight back to Brize Norton. That was not what happened. Our commanding officer was waiting for us. He had news.

‘We’re all very pleased with the work you did. I’m sorry about your losses.’

‘Any news of Samuelson?’ I asked.

‘Samuelson? Oh yes, Samuelson. He’s been shipped back to a specialist hospital in the UK. He’s not very well, I’m afraid.’

‘Perhaps we can go and visit him when we get home,’ I suggested.

‘Perhaps you can. But that won’t be for some time yet. You’re off to Helmand tomorrow, via Camp Bastion. We’ve been rather caught out by operational requirements and we’re under strength there until the next rota comes in from home, so I’ve had to scratch together what I can from here. There’s a C-17 leaving tomorrow at six in the morning, and you’re on it.’

Talking about kippers with Ed Hartlepool had reminded me that it had been a very long time since food had passed my lips. It was all very well sitting around in my flat, but it wouldn’t do anyone any good if I starved to death. It wouldn’t do me any good, at any rate.

I put on my jacket, left the flat and started looking for somewhere to eat. After five minutes I came to the little Indian restaurant that I sometimes favoured. But that was where I had intended to take Adeena for supper and I didn’t feel like going in there now. I walked on. Next came a short row of restaurants: a Chinese; then a Thai; then a Greek café offering all-day breakfast. Instead of making me feel hungry the smell of food that wafted out from these places made me feel sick. I hurried on.

Presently, as had happened before, my footsteps led me down a familiar road. It was as if I had no will of my own, but was programmed to return to this place. After twenty minutes I found myself outside the empty glass windows of Emma’s restaurant. ‘Emma’s’ was what we had called it, after many arguments. After all, it had been her idea, her planning, and mostly her money that had made it all happen. The name of the place had been painted out on the fascia board, and ‘To Let’ signs were plastered across the windows, with an estate agent’s board fixed above the door. I pressed
my face against the glass. Inside was just an empty room with concrete floors and a few bits of rubbish. Two years ago these windows had blazed with light on our opening night. Now it was hard to see inside.

After I came home from Afghanistan, I had stayed for only three days at home, then I moved in with Emma. Emma would make everything all right. She had been expecting me to come to her after I had stayed with my parents for a few weeks. Then we were going to look for a bigger flat to live in together.

The speed of my arrival took her by surprise. I was at her door just as she was leaving. She was beside herself with excitement at seeing me again. She rang her work, which was cooking boardroom lunches for various banks in the City, and told them she was sick. I could tell she felt bad about letting them down, but she wanted to show me she would drop everything for my sake. We went to bed five minutes later. Then we spent the rest of the day talking and catching up. In the evening we went out to dinner and celebrated my return, then came back to Emma’s flat in Parliament Hill. In the middle of the night I got out of bed feeling restless and suddenly I was violently sick. I just managed to get to the bathroom in time. I did not wake Emma. The next morning we breakfasted together before she went off to work.