The Wrong Girl by David Hewson Page B

There was evidence to suggest he’d radicalized a good number of young men, sent some of them to madrassas in Pakistan which had links with extremist groups, among them the network led by the shadowy figure Barbone. But he’d never been found with weapons or accused of violence himself.
    ‘Fine,’ he said and they walked into the cell. A single bed, neatly made. A tiny window looking out onto the recreational area. Seated cross-legged on the sheets was a small, unremarkable man in a bright orange boiler suit. In spite of the overlong beard he seemed younger than fifty-one, the age the reports gave, with a quick and mobile face and brown eyes that watched and judged them as they entered.
    ‘Where’s my lawyer?’ Alamy asked in good English.
    ‘You don’t need one,’ Vos said, showing his ID. There was a small TV set in the opposite wall. ‘Do you know what happened yesterday? The attack? In the city?’
    The Moroccan laughed and gestured at the cell.
    ‘In case you didn’t notice . . . I have an alibi.’
    Hanna stared at him.
    ‘Who is this woman?’ Alamy asked. ‘She doesn’t look like one of you.’
    ‘She isn’t,’ Vos said and started to tell him the story that wasn’t on the TV.
    Natalya Bublik had slept somehow. When she woke she could just make out daylight leaking through the cracks in the deck above her. The girl was no stranger to confined spaces. In Oude Nieuwstraat she’d shared the tiny gable room with her mother. Before that they’d moved around Georgia, never staying anywhere long. Skipping overnight sometimes. To avoid men who wanted money. She was old enough to understand that.
    Tall for her age, smart, observant. There’d been a game she’d played for as long as she could remember. One that took her out of the world when it was bad.
    Now seemed a good time to recover it. So she used the portable toilet in the corner of the tiny cabin, washed her hands and face in the bowl using the small lump of soap they’d left. Ate the bread she found on a plate, drank the orange juice. Then went back to the bed, lay on the hard mattress and closed her eyes.
    Imagine.
    Ducks. She could hear them quacking close by, bickering like the younger kids in the playground at the school her mother found for her. Sometimes she thought she even heard their tiny webbed feet strike against the hull.
    Boats moving. Small engines, ripples through waves. The smell of diesel and dank water. This wasn’t a busy place, she thought.
    A railway line. Lots of trains moving to and fro. Not near but not so far she couldn’t identify the sound. And in her head imagine the people on them, going to work, to school, into the city for all the reasons she knew too well and never mentioned. It wasn’t just the black monster that followed them everywhere, lumbering through the night. Sometimes it was men. Embarrassed, awkward men shuffling up to the red-light windows along the street. There was a connection there, one that left her mother both happy and sad.
    It involved money. A present for her once. The pink jacket with the ponies. Expensive her mother said. All the more reason to sell it, Natalya thought. They needed the money and she hated pink, had no idea what use a pony might be.
    The thing was the warmest clothing she had. And didn’t much keep out the cold.
    Outside she heard footsteps. A sudden angry flash of guilt hit her. All the time she’d been listening for things that might comfort her. The birds. The distant sounds of the city. Not taking note of the fact there was a man in the next room. Had been all along.
    Just one at that moment. She felt sure of that. He spoke on the phone sometimes, too softly for her to hear. And once, she thought, he’d gone outside. There’d been the sound of steps on stairs, on a deck above, then a walkway. Then he came back.
    Or another one did. She’d no idea and that was maddening.
    Some time later he started moving things around.
    Another one. That was what her imagination