What Will Survive (6 page)

‘Don't think so, I've got to finish those plans.' He looked at Amanda. ‘Clients always want everything finished yesterday, you know how it is. Nice meeting you — Amanda, did you say?'

‘He's an architect,' Aisha explained, lowering her voice again as the door closed behind him. ‘His work was — is very original. Ahead of its time, which doesn't make it easy for him.'

Amanda had inferred from this that Tim Lincoln was not as successful as he would like to be. Who paid for the house, she wondered, and was Tim one of those men who resented living off his wife's earnings? She recalled that she had looked for cuttings about his work next time she went into the office, and most of them had been discoloured with age. She had even looked him up in
Who's Who,
discovering that he had done nothing of note — no awards, no big projects or none that he had chosen to mention — for at least ten years.

Amanda returned the letter from Aisha to the file and opened out her own article. It was from the papers Saturday edition, so she had been given plenty of space. As well as the main photograph, which had been taken in Aisha's office, there was a library picture of her in a dark red dress with a fitted bodice and sarong-style skirt at a show staged in London by a group of young Asian designers. One of them had immediately been employed as an assistant by Asian, the Turkish designer whose lion's head logo had become well known since he won a major award during London Fashion Week a few years back. Another picture, much smaller, showed Aisha in jeans and an open-necked shirt, sitting cross-legged on the floor of a hut in an unidentified country. She had been photographed in profile, listening as a woman addressed an audience of half a dozen people in Western clothes, all of them concentrating so intently that they seemed unaware of the presence of the camera.

And now she was in hospital in Lebanon, with God-knew-what in the way of injuries. Amanda did not know much about the Middle East, although she had written a piece about Princess Diana's campaign for a ban on landmines. She had visited a charity organisation that had been set up in London to clear mines in former war zones and had seen ghastly pictures of amputees in Africa; she had also interviewed one of their volunteers, an ex-army officer who had been injured while clearing mines in — she had to think for a moment — Sri Lanka? No one had shown much interest, he told her wryly, until Princess Di got involved, but this was his fourth interview in ten days.

Amanda shivered and folded her article, sliding it back into the file so she could no longer see Aisha's face. Her phone rang again and she hesitated, not knowing whether it was Simon with more news from Lebanon or someone she didn't have time to talk to. She was relieved when the answering machine cut in and she recognised the voice of the editor of the paper's Saturday magazine, asking plaintively whether Amanda could file her profile of the actor by Friday morning at the latest. She pulled a face: Aisha Lincoln's accident might be a very big story indeed, especially if her injuries were serious.

Already a long fax had started to arrive from the newsdesk on her other fine, coiling into a heap on the floor. Tearing it from the fax machine,
Amanda scissored it into manageable sections, beginning with the agency copy. As her eyes flicked down the closely-typed columns, she saw that the information coming out of Lebanon was confused, although it appeared that at least one person, a man, had died instantly in the blast. Amanda drew in a sharp breath as it occurred to her for the first time that Aisha might have been travelling with her husband. Was Tim Lincoln injured as well or even dead? She kept reading but the victims had still not been named.

Amanda scanned the last few sheets, a compilation of recent articles which mentioned Aisha Lincoln, including — by some macabre coincidence — one about cosmetic surgery with the headline: ‘Why I'll never go under the surgeon's knife.' Reaching into the drawer where she kept her old notebooks, her hand slightly unsteady, Amanda quickly found the one she wanted, with Aisha's name and the date of the interview written on the cover. She always noted down the important parts of her interviews as well as taping them, to save time, and on this occasion Aisha had said lots of things Amanda hadn't been able to use in her original piece.

She carried the notebook into the kitchen, reading her notes as she filled the kettle. The first page was made up of observations she had made in her car as soon as she arrived and she skimmed her description of Aisha's house, with its wide front lawn set behind a low stone wall; Amanda, who was still with Patrick at the time, had thought it was the kind of place she would like to live in one day, especially if they had children. Now she could not hold the picture in her mind for images of — what? Twisted metal, shattered glass, perhaps even an exploding petrol tank — it didn't bear thinking about. She poured boiling water on to a tea bag and added two teaspoons of sugar, twice the amount she usually took in hot drinks.

In the bedroom she used as her office, the fax machine whirred into action again, reminding Amanda that she did not have much time. She hurried back to her desk, noticing the time on the bottom right-hand corner of her computer screen. Reaching over to the radio, she turned on the news and the room filled with jeering voices, which she immediately recognised as coming from the House of Commons.

‘The Prime Minister angrily denied claims of a conflict of interest,' the newsreader said as the recording ended, ‘pointing out that ministers'
partners were not covered by the code of conduct. But Opposition MPs were not satisfied and the row, which has caught the Government off balance, according to our political editor, looks set to continue.' She paused and said in a tone of studied neutrality: ‘Reports from Lebanon suggest that a British tourist is among the injured after a landmine exploded underneath a vehicle in Lebanon yesterday. One man is believed to have died at the scene, and two survivors have been flown to hospital in the capital, Beirut. More details are expected later.' The newsreader moved on to the latest developments in the trial of three footballers who had been involved in a fracas at a nightclub in Bradford, and Amanda snapped off the radio. She keyed a number into the phone, and Simon answered immediately:

‘Newsdesk.'

‘It's Amanda. Is there any more from Lebanon? This man who's died — it's not her husband, is it?'

‘I was about to call you. No, she was travelling with a photographer, a guy who took some picture during the civil war? Fabrizio Terzano. Mean anything to you?'

‘Ye-es.'

‘Anyway, he's dead. Killed outright, poor sod. He took her photo for
Vogue
last year — Fi's trying to get a back issue.' He paused. ‘Maybe they were having an affair. You met what's-his-name, the husband, didn't you?'

‘For about five minutes.' Amanda was relieved Simon couldn't see her face. ‘They seemed like a perfectly normal couple to me, but then they would, wouldn't they? To a journalist, I mean.' It wasn't entirely true, she thought, admitting to herself that she hadn't warmed to Tim Lincoln. But she wasn't going to mention that when the poor guy's wife was in hospital.

‘Hmm. Just a thought. What? Can't it wait?'

There was a noise at the other end of the line, as though the phone had momentarily been put down. When Simon returned, he sounded irritable. ‘Sorry, Ingrid was on the other line. No more news, but I think you'd better make it fifteen hundred words. How are you fixed to get out there, if she's well enough to do an interview?'

‘To Beirut?'

‘Yeah, you're the obvious one to do it, seeing as you know her.'

‘Well, I—' She sat up straight. ‘Sure, if you want me to. Do I need a visa?'

‘I'll get Fiona to check all that. Tell her the minute you've filed. He what?' He paused. ‘Gotta go, the editor's called an emergency conference.'

Amanda put down the phone and pulled open the top drawer of her desk, rummaging inside for her passport.

Ricky had arrived at work with a hangover and discovered, when he took off his jacket, that his mobile battery was flat. He peered at himself in the small mirror in the staff toilet, groaned and ran his hands through his hair: usually it was wavy, like his mother's, but today it was lank and there were red blotches on his cheeks. He splashed his face with cold water, gulped down a black coffee and a Mars bar in the small kitchen and presented himself just in time for morning surgery.

‘Rough night?' Olivia asked, looking up from her preparations for the usual parade of domestic animals with infections, parasites and minor injuries. Ricky got through it like an automaton, coming to life only when two teenage boys opened a cardboard box to reveal a brightly-coloured marine iguana, which they said — shifting their feet and avoiding Olivia's gaze — they'd bought from someone called Baz. Olivia's eyes widened and she launched into a matter-of-fact explanation about the life cycle and habits of iguanas, alarming them to the point where they promised to take it to London Zoo. ‘The things people keep as pets,' she said, when they left in a minicab, and Ricky had to admire the skilful way she had manipulated the boys. He liked Olivia a great deal more than her partner, Tony, who seemed to regard having a veterinary student around the place as little more than a source of cheap labour.

When surgery had finished, just after eleven, Ricky asked Olivia if he could nip home and pick up the charger for his mobile, explaining it took hours to charge up. His girlfriend, Lerissa, was on holiday in Italy and the payphone at home in Shepherd's Bush ate up coins faster than he could feed them in. Olivia nodded, unclipping her shoulder-length dark hair and tying it up again with a flick of her wrist. With a grin, she added that she was glad to see he'd rejoined the human race in the last hour or so.

On his return, feeling quite a lot better and expecting to help Olivia during a couple of routine procedures, Ricky found the surgery in the middle of a full-scale emergency. Olivia and Alice, the older and more experienced of the practice's two veterinary nurses, were already bending
over a very large Alsatian-cross which had escaped from its owner and been hit by a car. Alice leaned forward, frowning with concentration as she anticipated Olivia's actions, and Ricky hurried to join them on the other side of the stainless-steel table. The dog's hind leg was badly gashed and not for the first time, Ricky had to concentrate very hard not to throw up, a terrifying reaction he had not yet dared mention to anyone: how could he finish his training, if watching anything but the most minor operation made him feel sick and faint? At one point, Olivia stopped to wipe sweat from her brow and caught sight of his ashen face; to his horror, Ricky saw a question forming in her eyes, but then Alice drew her attention to the dog's breathing and the danger moment, as he saw it, had passed.

The only person Ricky could face telling was his mother, when she got back from the Middle East — certainly not his father, who couldn't understand why he wanted to be a vet in the first place. He knew that Aisha would listen without going nuts or saying something sarcastic, and even if she didn't have an immediate solution he knew he would feel better just for talking to her. In the meantime, he made sure he'd thought up a couple of questions for Olivia as soon as the dog — stitched, bandaged and still deeply sedated — had been moved to the recovery room where Alice could keep an eye on him.