CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
She slept deeply that
night and woke at six the next morning. After bread and coffee she
went to Khan’s room, taking her recorder and the notepad on which
she had ordered a series of questions. Khan was propped up, smiling
tentatively, as if a dream was about to come to an end. Beside him
Loz worked in the morning light at a cane table, setting out the
medicine and throwing solicitous glances in his friend’s direction.
Foyzi stood by the door and nodded to her as she came
in.
‘I must congratulate
you on these supplies,’ said Loz. ‘I haven’t wanted for anything
yet, though we may need a little more of one or two drugs and I’m
running low on the ointment. Any chance of a fresh
delivery?’
‘Maybe we can get
something from Luxor,’ she said pleasantly, sitting down on the
opposite side of the bed from Loz. ‘You’re looking a lot better,
Karim. You seem to have put on a little weight.’
‘I hope so,’ he
said.
‘We were just
reminiscing about our life in London,’ said Loz. ‘We were trying to
think of a restaurant we used to go to where there was a very
pretty waitress that Karim took a fancy to. She was Polish. The
food and service were atrocious but Karim insisted we had to eat
there because of her. What was her name?’
Khan shook his head,
unable to help.
‘Katya!’ said Loz
triumphantly. ‘That was it. She was a real beauty. She’s probably
two hundred pounds today, five children and a vodka habit.’ He
paused. ‘The restaurant was in Camden High Street. We played
snooker nearby, then went round to order just before the kitchen
closed. You see, Karim wanted to walk her home at the end of the
evening but after spending all that money we discovered she was
having an affair with the owner.’
Karim was smiling,
borne along with Loz’s enthusiasm.
‘Actually, I also
wanted to talk about the past,’ Isis said.
‘If Karim feels
strong enough,’ said Loz.
‘I’m sure the rest
last night will have done him good. When you were on your way to
Bosnia you travelled together, is that right? In a
lorry?’
They both
nodded.
‘What date was
this?’
‘February 1993, I
think,’ said Loz.
‘And you were
prevented from going all the way to Sarajevo by Serb
troops?’
‘Actually the
Croats,’ said Loz.
‘I’d prefer it if
Khan answers,’ she said, switching the recorder on and resting it
against the chair leg.
‘Yes, the Croats,’
said Khan.
‘So you made your way
with UN vehicles into Sarajevo. What was the point of that?’ She
glanced at the recorder to check its light was pulsing in time with
her speech.
‘No, we got a lift in
a plane. We took all the medicine we could carry.’
‘Did you travel with
any fellow medical students?’
‘No.’
‘So this expedition
was your own idea?’
‘Yes, we felt for our
fellow Muslims. It was something we thought of together. I raised
the money and we took two other people, one of whom could speak the
language. But they both turned back with the truck.’
‘So you got to
Sarajevo and delivered your supplies. Then what?’
‘We both worked in
the hospitals. A lot of people were being injured by the snipers
and in the daily bombardment. Thousands of people died in the
siege.’
She nodded. She had
the exact figure in her head - 10,500.
‘How did you end up
on the frontline?’
‘It just happened.
Sammi met someone who said they needed ammunition at the front. A
big attack was expected. They asked us to help carry the
boxes.’
‘And…’
‘There was an attack
going on as we arrived. Many of our men were being killed and they
were over-running our lines. We picked up the guns of the dead and
started firing. It was as simple as that.’
‘As simple as that -
from doctors to fighters in a few seconds?’
‘Yes,’ said Khan. ‘
But we still helped out as medics. We did both.’
Loz nodded
approvingly.
‘When did the
incident take place when Sammi was injured?’ Herrick said, raising
her hand to stop Loz answering.
‘Sometime in the
winter of that year,’ Khan replied.
‘Of
1993?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where were you
treated?’ she asked Loz.
Loz replied that he
was taken first to a hospital in Sarajevo and then to Germany. He
recovered in London.
‘Which hospital in
London?’
A private
one.
‘Which?’
‘King Edward’s - this
was for the skin grafts. They didn’t do a very good job in
Sarajevo.’
‘But you, Karim,
stayed on, for nearly two years. Why?’
‘I was committed. I
couldn’t understand why Islam did not declare a proper jihad
against the Serbs. To leave those people when they had so little
help, no heavy guns, no fresh troops, would have been
desertion.’
‘So you were moved by
very much the same emotions as The Poet. You were both men of peace
who were turned into soldiers by the extreme conditions in
Sarajevo. Tell me exactly where you met him.’
‘On the front. He was
just an ordinary soldier like me then.’
‘Was that in the
lines to the north of the city?’
He looked surprised.
‘Yes - north-east actually.’
‘Near where Sammi was
wounded?’ she said quickly.
‘Exactly there. It
was during that period.’
‘At the same
time?’
‘No…’
Loz got up and said,
‘Karim, I think I need to change the position of your legs. The way
you have them will do no good to your hip. I’ve told you about this
before.’ His tone was gently admonishing.
Herrick sat back as
though she hadn’t noticed the diversion. ‘So you came across The
Poet before Sammi was wounded?’ she said.
‘I don’t remember
now,’ he said. He winced as Loz moved him.
‘Maybe another
painkiller,’ said Loz, reaching for the table.
Khan shook his head.
‘I’m okay.’
She
waited.
‘Yes it was sometime
about then… before or after, I’m not sure.’
‘But it is perfectly
possible that Sammi met The Poet during that time.’ She paused and
looked at Loz. ‘Did you?’
‘Yes,’ said Loz,
looking unsettled. ‘I told you that we met him but I can’t remember
exactly when.’ He got up again and started fussing over Khan’s
feet.
‘I’m sorry, this is
not going to work,’ said Herrick. ‘I think I’d prefer to talk to
Karim alone.’ Foyzi moved from the top of the bed and steered Loz
from the room.
She smiled at Khan
reassuringly. ‘Sammi has told me about the brave way you saved him.
I must say it’s an extraordinary story. Was The Poet there to
witness that?’
He shrugged
helplessly.
‘Let’s say he was,’
she said. ‘What date was that - roughly?’
‘It was winter -
November 1993. I think.’
‘Not after
Christmas?’
‘No, definitely
not.’
‘I just wanted to
make sure, because we’re looking for pictures taken by an English
photographer at that time.’
Khan absorbed
this.
‘In fact, it would be
helpful if you could identify as many people as you can when I
eventually get the picture.’
Khan
grimaced.
‘I’m sorry. You’re in
pain.’
‘Yes, my feet hurt a
little.’ He stopped. ‘Maybe Sammi could help with the
pictures?’
‘That’s a good
idea.’
Gradually she
returned to the subject of the winter of 1993-94. She made notes,
taking particular care over places, dates, weather conditions and
names. Khan’s memory was hazy, and it didn’t work in a linear
fashion, so building a chronology was difficult. He relived the
terror of that winter in epic flashes - the din of bombardment from
all directions; the incursions of the Serbs into the streets of
Sarajevo, the danger from snipers and the hunger and cold. It was
in the account of this time that he made several mistakes. She made
a note of them, but her smile did not fade as he stumbled between
what actually happened and what Loz had prepared him to
say.
The air was
oppressively heavy and with each blink his eyes stayed closed for
seconds at a time. She rose and left the room, at which Loz
returned with a slightly exaggerated look of concern.
She returned at four,
sat down and placed the recorder in its usual position. Loz had
straightened Khan on the bed and was holding his legs just above
the ankle bone with his thumbs and forefingers. The rest of his
fingers were splayed out so that they didn’t touch the bruised
flesh below the ankles. Then he lifted the legs, almost as if
comparing their weight, and tugged each one gently. He moved to the
knees and thighs with a gentle stroking motion, pulled up the shift
and covered Khan’s groin with a cloth.
She made to
leave.
‘Stay, I’ve already
examined him there.’
His hands moved to
the hips and he again seemed to weigh Khan’s body. Then he went
round to the side and slipped both hands under his back, working
his fingers into place while looking away to the corner of the
room. Herrick was struck by the concentration in his
face.
‘You see,’ he said
after a little while, ‘by hanging him from the ceiling they
stretched his body so everything went out of line. Apart from the
damage this did to the muscles and ligaments, there are various
skeletal problems. These will take longer to heal.’
‘Have you treated
this kind of injury before?’
‘Yes, a young man - a
New York cab driver from Cameroon. He had been tortured very badly
three years before I saw him. The damage was hidden for most of the
time, but came out at moments of stress. The man was mystified
because the spasms seemed to be unconnected with the method of
torture.’ He paused. ‘The body does not forget, you
see.’
There were periods of
inactivity over the next half-hour during which Loz’s slender hands
simply rested on Khan’s chest, under his neck or at the back of his
cranium. At other moments they became animated, brushing and
pressing the skin and then once or twice flicking it with a
screwing motion of the finger knuckles. The way he moved around
Khan’s bed was so precise and fluent that it had an almost hypnotic
effect on her. When he had finished, it was clear Khan was having
difficulty in keeping his eyes open.
Loz shook his head
apologetically.
‘That’s okay,’ she
said. ‘I want to talk to you anyway. We’ll go under the
trees.’
They walked out into
a second perfect sunset.
‘It’s been
interesting to hear about Bosnia,’ she said conversationally. ‘I’d
forgotten about the brutality of it all.’
‘People do,’ he
said.
‘Of course, both
sides did terrible things. People forget that too.’ She was on more
certain ground now.
‘No, just one
side.’
‘There were Muslim
war criminals too.’
‘We were the
defenders of Sarajevo,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘People were
being killed every day by the snipers and artillery.’
‘Even so, atrocities
were also committed by the Bosniaks. Raiding parties on the Serb
lines. Men were butchered and tortured.’
He continued to shake
his head. ‘You’re mistaken.’
‘It’s true,’ she
said. ‘The War Crimes Tribunal has the names.’
‘Yes, but there were
no indictments of Muslims. The only Muslims who appear at the
tribunal are victims - women from the rape camps; men who saw their
friends and family murdered.’
‘But it did happen,’
she said. ‘We should always remember that Muslims are as capable of
crime as Christians.’
‘Not then,’ he
rounded on her, a startled look growing in his face. ‘The market
square bomb - what about that? What about those
people?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she
said. ‘I don’t recall…’
‘These things are in
the news for a few days and then forgotten, but for anyone who was
there... One shell aimed into the central market place at midday.
Seventy people killed. The carnage…’
‘Yes of course, I
remember. You mean, you saw that?’
‘This is what I am
saying.’ The veins in his neck and in his forehead were
bulging.
‘That must have been
terrible.’ She knew the exact details of the massacre. The round
had killed sixty-nine people and injured two hundred when it
impacted on a plastic canopy just above the heads of hundreds of
shoppers in the central market. More important to her was the date
- Saturday February 5, 1994 - at least two months after Sammi Loz
said he had been injured in another mortar attack and airlifted out
of Bosnia to Germany and then London. How could he have made such
an elementary mistake?
She nodded as though
it was all coming back to her. ‘There was some suggestion that
mortar came from the Muslim side to gain sympathy from the
world.’
‘No, no. I was there!
I was standing just a few streets away. The Serbs fired it from the
hills above.’
‘But you can’t tell
where a mortar comes from,’ she said. ‘It’s lobbed up in the air
with very little noise.’
‘Listen! What Muslim
would do this to his own people? Tell me that.’ He was shaking. ‘I
was there. I saw it. Men and women blown to pieces - decapitated.
Arms, legs everywhere. ’
‘I’m sorry… but that
was the rumour at the time. I think our people in Sarajevo even
investigated it.’ She wasn’t going to pursue the point because
she’d got exactly the information she wanted: Loz was still in
Sarajevo in 1994. And that meant his entire account of the last
decade had to be called into question.
She wrote an email to
Teckman at Vauxhall Cross with a series of terse requests, pretty
certain it would end up with Andy Dolph. There was no need to
outline her theory to him - he would get it straight away from the
drift of her questions - she just prayed that he’d have the
resources to follow up the idea. She stayed on line but nothing
came, so she hung up and put the phone away, realising as she
unplugged the leads that she had failed to send the latest
recording of her interview with Khan. She’d left the damned
recorder in with Khan and Loz.
She went again to the
room and sat down beside Khan. Loz’s composure had returned, but he
was evidently worried about Khan, whom he was attempting to feed
with small pieces of bread and goat’s cheese. There were plates of
tahini and sliced fruit on the bed, untouched. Khan’s head moved
from side to side, avoiding the food as a child would do. He wasn’t
hungry, he said, and there were pains in his chest and stomach. Loz
explained this was indigestion and that he must eat if he was to
build up his strength. The tussle went on until at length Loz set
down the plate and turned to a bottle of vitamins. As he did so,
Herrick’s hand slipped down to the leg of the chair where the
recorder was. She glanced down and noticed the flashing light that
indicated that the memory was full.
‘Look,’ she said with
a certain amount of irritation. ‘I think we’re probably done for
the day. We need to have a good session tomorrow though. I’m going
to eat now.’
‘Thank you for being
so understanding,’ said Loz softly, without looking
up.
Khan nodded
goodnight.
She found Foyzi by
the oven with the old man. A pile of flat breads was fast
accumulating in a palm-leaf basket balanced on top of the
oven.
‘I’ll be eating with
my men,’ said Foyzi, gesturing into the dark. ‘There’s food for you
on the table. I won’t be far away.’ He adjusted the strap of a
machine pistol over his shoulder, picked up a box of provisions,
put the bread on top, then padded off into the dark, followed by
the old man who was wheeling a container of water on a little
carriage.
Isis set a lamp on
the table and remembered the whisky, still lodged behind a stone on
the ground. There were also some cigarettes there. She bent down,
took one from the pack, lit up and tipped the chair so that she
could rest her head against the wall and look at the necklace of
stars strung across the tops of the trees.
A few moments later
Loz appeared. ‘Can I join you? Karim’s asleep.’ His tone was
ingratiating.
‘Yes, do. He didn’t
seem too good to me.’
‘It’s to be expected.
He has got a slight intestinal reaction to the antibiotics. We have
to remember what he’s been through. It’s not just the torture, but
months of not eating or sleeping properly. But he will
recover.’
‘Thanks to
you.’
‘No,’ he said,
sitting down opposite her and placing his hands on the table. ‘This
is all due to you, Isis. You saved him and we are indebted to
you.’
‘Where will you go
after this?’
‘I’ve been thinking
about it,’ he said, surveying the food on the table. ‘I have
contacts and some money in Switzerland. I shall probably take Karim
there, and after that … well, we will have to see.’
Did he really believe
they would let him slip away like that? ‘I thought you would be
tempted to disappear into South America for a year or two,’ she
said.
‘I’ve never been, but
I’m certain it wouldn’t suit Khan.’ He paused. ‘And
you?’
She pushed herself
from the wall and stubbed out the cigarette on the ground. ‘I’ll go
back to work in London.’
He massaged his neck
and looked up at the sky. ‘You know, in an odd way the time spent
here has done me good. I may change my life after
this.’
‘You may be forced
to,’ she said sharply. ‘The FBI want you in New York and they
expect you to explain about the money you sent to
Lebanon.’
‘I don’t think so,’
he said simply.
‘Will you continue
with your practice?’
‘Who knows what
happens. Did you have any idea a week ago that you would be on an
island in the middle of the Nile with us?’ He paused for an answer
but got none. ‘I read an article in the newspaper a few weeks back
about a man who was driving along a road near his home in
Connecticut. He had been to the local stores; the weather was fine;
there was no traffic on the roads. As he reached the driveway of
his home, a tree that had stood for hundreds of years suddenly fell
down on his car and set it alight. His family and neighbours were
unable to rescue him, and watched as he burned to death. In the
newspaper, there were expressions of puzzlement from his family.
Why should this good man - a loved and loving man - be taken in the
prime of his life? Why? Who was behind it?’
‘Do you believe in
God, Dr Loz?’
‘Yes,
naturally.’
‘How do you explain
the wisdom of dropping a tree on an innocent man?’
‘I don’t need to.
That’s not for me to understand.’
‘But you must try to
fit it into your system of belief?’
He shook his head. ‘I
don’t. And you, Isis, do you believe?’
‘Maybe, but I don’t
think God intervenes in human affairs.’
‘Why?’
‘Compare the
intricacy and scale of the universe,’ she looked up at the sky,
‘with the mess and pain of human life. There’s no one running this
thing except us, and we should take responsibility for it. When we
do, things will improve.’
‘That’s an atheist
speaking.’
‘No, a
rationalist.’
‘Surely you believe
in fate - destiny?’
She picked up some
bread. ‘They’re words used to explain chance, luck, accident and
coincidence. I don’t believe in a pre-ordained life.
No.’
He began eating also,
smiling as though in possession of superior knowledge. ‘With your
name, Isis, you could have guessed that you would eventually end up
here. That’s fate.’
‘Actually, I wasn’t
named after the Egyptian goddess,’ she said. ‘My name comes from
the end and beginning of my mother’s first two names - Alazais
Isobel.’
‘From two beautiful
names comes one beautiful name - like a child.’
‘Right,’ said
Herrick.
‘But seriously, here
you are on an island in the Nile. Did you know that Isis’s greatest
temple is on the Nile, somewhere south of Luxor, and that she is
associated with the river and the growing of corn?’
‘Yes, I did,’ she
said without interest. ‘How come you know so much about
this?’
‘I find Isis the most
appealing of all the ancient deities because to begin with she used
her magic to heal the sick. She brought her husband Osiris back to
life, and nursed her son Horus. Also, she is made of contradictory
passions: on the one hand she was ruthless and cunning; on the
other, a loyal and devoted wife who went to the ends of the earth
to find her husband’s dead body. She is like all interesting people
- a paradox. In her case, both deadly and caring.’ With this he
broke a piece of bread and scooped up some tahini.
‘If anything, Dr Loz,
the paradox is nearer to your character. I mean here you are
healing your friend but in other lives you are, or have been, a
soldier and fundraiser for a terrorist organisation. So perhaps the
lesson is that we should never judge someone by one observation,
but wait until the whole picture emerges from many observations,
then decide which is the dominant trait.’ She stopped. ‘Would you
like a drink?’ she asked.
‘I don’t drink,’ he
said.
‘Well, I’m going to
have one.’
Loz wrinkled his
nose.
‘When I was at
school,’ she continued, ‘I did read something about Isis, in
particular about her relations with Ra, the sun god. Do you know
about Ra, Sammi?’
He shook his
head.
‘Ra’s might depended
on his secret name, a name that only he knew. You see, the ancient
Egyptians believed that if someone learned your secret name they
gained power over you. Isis made a cobra from Ra’s spittle, which
had fallen to the ground on his journey across the sky. The cobra
bit Ra and injected poison. Only when Ra told Isis his secret name
did she agree to relieve his pain.’
‘In other words, she
tortured him. I told you she was ruthless. ’
She smiled. ‘I was
wondering whether you had a secret name. Something that would give
another person power over you if they knew it.’
‘Why do you do this
job? This spying.’
‘It’s very simple. I
believe in the freedoms that we have in the West, and I am happy to
work against those who want to destroy them.’ She paused to sip the
whisky she had mixed with a little mineral water. ‘Also, I’m good
at it,’ she said, putting the glass down. ‘Very good at
it.’
His forehead puckered
with disbelief. ‘You want nothing else in your life?’
‘You’re making the
assumption that I don’t have anything else in my
life.’
‘You lack something,’
he said, ‘possibly love.’
‘Oh, give me a break.
Let me tell you I’m happy and utterly fulfilled in what I
do.’
‘No, I think
not.’
‘On what
evidence?’
‘Your body. The
tension in your shoulders, the way you stand and move, the set of
your mouth, the expression in your eyes. There are a hundred signs.
You’re a very attractive woman, but neither happy nor
satisfied.’
‘I guess that’s the
line you use on all the girls in New York,’ she said.
‘I’m serious,’ he
said. ‘You should take more care of yourself, maybe visit an
osteopath when you return to London.’
‘There’s nothing
wrong with me.’
‘Except your hip,
which hurts when you get up in the morning, and your shoulders,
which rise up during the day and cause you headaches, and perhaps a
difficulty at night when you try to find a comfortable position for
your neck on the pillow.’ He sat back, satisfied. ‘You could
certainly use some help.’
She reached for a
carrot and sliced it lengthways into strips.
‘I would guess you’ve
been very seriously ill at one time in your life. There seems to be
some residue in your body of that sickness. When was
that?’
‘What is this - the
osteopathic seduction?’
He shook his head.
‘No, I am trained to observe people very closely. That’s all. An
artist’s eyes do not stop noticing the shape of things or their
colour when he leaves the studio. It’s the same with me. When I saw
you in Albania I noticed these things immediately.’
They sat in silence
for a while, then she picked some fruit from the basket and got up
from the bench. ‘I have work to do now. I’ll see you in the
morning.’