Kitabı oku: «Those Whom the Gods Love»

Chapter 1

The Jeep bounced over a pothole and a broken spring rammed into Ginty’s thigh. They’d blindfolded her at the checkpoint, so she had no idea where they were going. She could feel them, excited and tense, and she could smell them. Stale tobacco and acrid sweat made her gag, but it was the alcohol on their breath that worried her. She knew it wouldn’t take much to tip them over the edge.

Once, all she’d wanted was to be taken seriously. Now that seemed mad. This was serious, and she hated it.

The tyres spun as the Jeep skidded round a tight bend. She was flung sideways into the lap of one of the men. His hand came down on her back, pressing her breasts into his groin. She could feel his prick, thrusting up through the coarse cloth of his trousers. A sharp, unintelligible command sounded from the front seat. The hand moved from her back and she breathed again. Other hands grabbed her shoulders and pushed her upright, like a doll, balancing her against the lumpy seat. Someone knocked against her left breast, then hard fingers grabbed and twisted. One of the men laughed.

This is nothing, she told herself, remembering yesterday’s interviewee.

Only one of a whole string of women who’d been raped by a gang of men like these, Maria had refused to say anything for a long time, but she hadn’t walked away. Ginty had stood in the background, while her interpreter spoke gently, earnestly, sometimes pointing at Ginty, sometimes gesturing around the rest of the refugee camp. At last Maria had begun to talk, her voice steely, punching out the words like a machine. In every pause, Anna gave Ginty a softly delivered translation that made her shiver.

‘She is fifteen. They raped her last year. She did get pregnant. The child was born in a bombed-out cellar. It was a boy. She was alone. She smothered him, then cut the cord. She left him there in the rubble. Her family does not know. I have promised her anonymity. And no photographs.’

Ginty would have promised a lot more than that, but Maria hadn’t asked for anything else. As she felt the hands again, Ginty bit her lip to keep herself quiet. Infuriating tears wetted the scratchy cloth around her eyes. She couldn’t sniff or they’d know they’d got to her. She thought of her bodyguard, forced to wait behind at the roadblock with Anna, and wished she’d never agreed to write this story.

A rock cracked against a hubcap and the Jeep lurched, crunching over it. The muscles in the men’s thighs were taut beside hers, as they braced themselves against the swinging movement. She kept her legs crossed. With every lurch, she was terrified she might wet her knickers. Her head felt hollow and her ears were ringing.

Sharp braking flung her forwards. Someone gripped her shoulder before she could hit her head. Voices called from outside. The hands were back on her body, tugging and pushing her out. Swaying as she put her foot to the ground, she reached out for a handhold. Instead of metal, she felt folds of cloth. Someone laughed. Other hands were pulling at the blindfold. As they wrenched it off, they ripped out some hair that had caught in the knot. More involuntary tears made a blur in front of her eyes.

As the damp fog cleared, she saw blue-grey mountains shining in the sun, trees, grass, and a low, white house with a great hole in the roof. Split and blackened beams showed through the gash in the orange tiles and smoke stains spread up the walls like fungus. Few of the windows still had glass and most of those were cracked.

The splintered door crashed open. Two men, as young and dark-eyed as the ones who’d picked her up that morning, dragged out something heavy. Ginty wiped the back of her hand against her eyes and saw it was a man. They were holding him by the slack of his checked shirt. She couldn’t see his face, which was hanging down a foot above the ground. His bare, bloody feet dragged against the rocks in the path.

Ginty’s escorts yelled something to the two men. One of them put his free hand in the victim’s hair and jerked up his head. Ginty wished she were shortsighted, blind even.

There were bruises and blood all over his face. His eyes were swollen and his lower lip lolled, showing a broken tooth. She couldn’t tell whether he was alive or dead. His guards let his head drop again and dragged him off.

She was propelled forwards by a hand on her back. The doorway into the house looked very dark against the white walls. Everything she’d heard in the camps about Rano and his men pulled at her heels, slowing her down. But she’d come this far, and she had work to do, work that might be the passport to a world where she mattered. If she wimped out now – even if they’d let her go – she’d never get it.

When they reached the doorway she bent down, as though there were whirling helicopter blades that might decapitate her. Straightening up, she found herself in a long, whitewashed room. There were bullet holes in the inner walls, too, and more smoke stains, but someone had given the place an air of makeshift comfort. To the right was a table with food on it, glasses, and a wine bottle; to the left, another table laden with guns and grenades.

In front of her was a tall man, thicker set than the ones who’d brought her up from the roadblock; much older too. As he came towards her he was wiping his hands on a towel.

‘Ms Schell?’ he said in a deep, very British voice.

‘Yes.’ She was proud of the way that came out, neither croaking nor in a squeak.

‘Ronald Lackton,’ he said, throwing the towel to one of his men and holding out his right hand for Ginty to shake. She saw that the small greyish cloth was thick and covered with brown splodges. She looked at the hand she was supposed to shake. There was blood under his nails and clinging to his cuticles. He hadn’t even washed.

She heard her father’s voice in her head: ‘You must look confident even when you are sick with terror. It does not matter what your work is, or how great your talent, if you cannot persuade other people to believe in you, you will fail.’ As I nearly always have, she thought, then tried to brace herself so that it wouldn’t happen again.

Her mother had put the instruction rather differently: ‘Never show fear, Ginty, or the rest of the tribe will destroy you. They have to if they’re to protect themselves against your weakness. Fear of weakness is at the root of all bullying.’

Obedient to the voices in her head, she put her hand into Rano’s. His skin felt warm and dry. He held onto her for much longer than necessary, smiling down into her face as though they were old friends. His smile seemed more sinister than anything his men had threatened. All her life she’d hated being small, but never as much as now.

‘I’m so glad you could come,’ he said. They might have been at a London party. She couldn’t help looking at his hands, at the blood caught under his nails. ‘Would you like something to eat? Drink?’

‘No, thank you.’ She knew she’d choke on anything he gave her, but she had to hide that, too. Always look confident, Ginty, she reminded herself in her father’s voice. And try to make everyone like you, she added in her own.

‘Your men wouldn’t let me bring a notebook or tape recorder, so I’m not sure how effective this interview will be.’ Her voice wobbled on the last few words and she saw Rano smile.

‘I’ve got a tape recorder,’ he said. ‘Double cassette. I’ll give you your tape before you leave.’

‘Great. Then do you think we should start?’ Ginty was pleased with her voice; it had sounded polite but firm, with the kind of English firmness that could seem tentative to anyone who didn’t know the code. She hoped Rano was still English enough to appreciate it.

‘In a minute. First, tell me how the Harbingers are. Has the divorce come through yet?’

Ginty stared at him. What kind of psychopath would you have to be to make gossipy London conversation here?

‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, wishing he’d let her do her job and get out. ‘I hardly know John Harbinger, and I’ve never met his wife.’

‘But he’s your editor.’ Rano forgot to smile, and for a moment looked as dangerous as she knew he was.

Ginty’s skin prickled. She remembered Harbinger’s call yesterday, and her own shaky protests that she didn’t know enough to interview the most notorious of the local warlords.

‘Didn’t he tell you I’m freelance, that I’ve only just started writing for him?’

‘Yes.’ Rano relaxed and the smile oozed back around his lips. ‘But he says your work’s impressive for someone so inexperienced.’

Anywhere else and Ginty would have been flattered enough to ask questions.

‘Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat? You must be starving.’

This is surreal, she thought. There were villages in these mountains where the inhabitants had truly starved before Rano’s men had burned them out of their houses. But she realized she’d have to go along with him or challenge him into doing something even more unpleasant.

‘How do you know the Harbingers so well?’ she asked in much the same, party-going voice he’d used.

‘I was at university with him, which is why I offered him this interview in the first place. We were never close friends, but I occasionally used to run into him and Kate in London. I must say I was surprised when she married him. A man’s man, I’d have thought. Ah, good, they’ve got the tape going.’ He added something in his own language to the young men who were messing about with a large black-plastic tape recorder.

One answered, laughing. Rano laughed back and waved them away. One stayed, leaning against the wall behind the commander, and set about picking his teeth with a grubby fingernail.

Ginty heard the others moving to the far side of the long room. She didn’t let herself look away from Rano, but she could hear metal clattering and cloth tearing. She wondered what they could be doing until the sharp smell of chemicals and oil told her they must be stripping down the guns. Someone began to sing almost under his breath, a peculiar plaintive, wailing song full of nasal sounds. Someone else lit a cigarette. Ginty coughed.

‘Have a seat, Ms Schell, and we’ll get going.’ Rano sat at the food table and poured himself a glass of wine.

His shoulders looked very broad in the bulky camouflage jacket that hung open over a clean khaki T-shirt. The cleanliness bothered her, especially when he idly scratched his chest and she saw the blood under his nails again. He swallowed some wine and swung his legs up to lie on the corner of the table. The camouflage trousers were tucked into the top of gleaming black boots. He pressed the red button on the cassette recorder and nodded to her.

‘So,’ she said, and heard her voice high with nerves. She tried again: ‘So, tell me first how you, an Englishman, became involved in this war.’

‘My mother was born here. Most of her family still live here. She brought me up to speak the language, sing the songs.’ He jerked his smoothly shaven chin towards the singer in the corner. ‘I’ve never felt completely English, whatever my passport says.’

‘Did she come back with you?’

He looked at her as though she was mad. ‘Of course not. She’s in her seventies.’

‘Is she glad you’re here?’

‘She knows it’s necessary. Once this war started, I knew I couldn’t hang around, living in Pimlico and doing deals in London, while my people were dying only a few hours’ flight from the City airport. This is what matters, here and now, not making money.’

He paused, waiting for a comment, sympathy perhaps. Ginty was prepared to wait him out. He must have understood because he picked up the unlabelled wine bottle and held it towards her, raising his eyebrows.

‘Sure you don’t want some?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘OK. So, I left my job and came over here, planning to sort out some aid, or help them organize a proper international appeal for medical equipment, drugs, that sort of thing; but when I saw what was going on I knew I had to get involved. Have you any idea what they – we – have suffered over the centuries?’

Ginty nodded, but that wasn’t enough for him. He started to describe the sacking of villages, the burningsalive, the rapes, the killings, the desecration of holy places, deaths of babies, torture of fighting men, starvation, disease and exile. She listened, feeling battered by his remorseless stream of stories and remembering all the others she’d heard in the last two weeks.

‘You can see why it’s important that everyone in England knows the truth, can’t you?’ Rano was saying. She nodded. ‘International opinion has swung away from us again. Supplies of arms and money and everything else we need have almost dried up. We’ve got to mobilize all our support in the west.’

‘So this interview is part of a PR campaign,’ Ginty suggested, needing to show that she wasn’t a complete doormat. She wondered what his leaders thought about his private enterprise, this murderous miniature army that had topped every excess committed by anyone else.

Rano put down his glass, swung his feet to the floor and leaned across the table. His face was only a foot from hers. She moved back instinctively, remembering that being a doormat was safe as well as humiliating.

‘It’s rather more than that, as you very well know, Ms Schell.’ He waited for some acknowledgement. She despised herself for nodding again. ‘Good. All we’re doing is demanding justice. You have to understand that.’

‘Oh, I understand all right,’ Ginty said. He moved back, but that didn’t make her feel any easier. She forced herself to add: ‘But I’ll have to be fairly even-handed in what I write. If I pretend it’s only your people who’ve suffered, I become … the Sentinel becomes partisan and therefore automatically untrustworthy. I’ll have to include some balance. Do you understand that?’

Rano said something to the man behind him, who straightened up and stopped picking his teeth. Ginty couldn’t withdraw a single word. She just sat, watching them both, hoping she didn’t look too much like a rabbit in the headlights.

‘I know what you’re getting at, yes,’ Rano said at last, his eyes softening a little. Ginty tried to keep her own confident. ‘And it’s a reasonable point, but don’t overdo it. You have to make your readers see that we’ve had no alternative when we’ve hit back. I’ll need your agreement to that before you leave.’

She was very much aware of the other men in the room. Rano was waiting for her response, impatient, his hand clenched around his wineglass.

‘I’ll do my best.’

‘That’s not enough, Ginty.’

She hated the intimacy, and she wondered what Harbinger had said to make Rano feel he had the right to use her name like that. ‘It might help me write convincingly if you could make me understand why what you’re doing to them now – particularly the rapes – is any different from what they have done to you in the past. Aren’t you just fuelling the next bout of revenge?’

Rano frowned and said something over his shoulder to the guard, who stepped forwards. Pictures flashed through Ginty’s mind as her body seized up: the man who had been dragged away as she arrived; the burned villages; the fifteen-year-old who had killed her own child rather than live with the knowledge that he was theirs too.

The soldier walked deliberately round the table to stand just in front of her. Something glinted in his fingers. Her heart thumped, and her throat closed so that she couldn’t breathe. Then she saw he was holding a cigarette packet. He opened it and offered it to her. She shook her head, not trusting her voice. He took it to Rano, who put a cigarette between his lips and leaned forwards for a light. Sucking in the smoke with greedy pleasure, he leaned back in his chair and swung his legs up on to the table again, picking up his wineglass in the hand that already held the cigarette.

Ginty pressed on: ‘Won’t your actions now make them – or their children – try to do the same to you and yours as soon as they get the power back?’

‘If we do our job properly, they won’t get it.’ Rano paused, looked over her head, then added deliberately: ‘And even if they do, most of the next generation of children will be half ours anyway. This time we will sort it out once and for all.’

He looked directly at her. She knew he must have been told what she’d been doing in the camps, that her main job here was to collect stories from the rape survivors for a quite different magazine. And he must have some idea of what she – or any other woman who had heard them – would feel about him and his men.

She tried to listen to what he was saying, instead of the remembered voices of his victims, as he explained that rape of the enemy’s women is the natural response of men at war, and that people in the west made far too much fuss about rape in general. It had always been part of life, he told her, because of the way men have been genetically programmed to ensure a wide enough spread of their genes and prevent in-breeding within the tribe.

He could have been an academic lecturer, offering evidence from well-known scientists and anthropologists, adding as a clincher the observations of primate-watchers, who had seen males of one group raping and kidnapping females of another.

Work on the guns had almost stopped, and the singing with it. If Rano’s men really didn’t understand English, something outside her five senses was making them remarkably attentive to what he was saying.

Half an hour later, he switched off the tape recorder, ejected the two cassettes, labelled them, dated and signed them, and then passed both across the table towards Ginty. The blood caught in his cuticles had dried to a dull brown, but she was beyond horror. Concentrating on his lecture, while fighting her fear, had been more tiring than anything she’d done before. She hoped she’d lived up to Harbinger’s faith in her. But she couldn’t think of that now.

‘If you would just sign both, then we can be sure we’re dealing with the same interview.’

She did as he’d asked, making sure her fingers didn’t touch his. Her hand looked tiny next to his. She wasn’t sure that her legs would hold her up when he let her go.

He stubbed out his cigarette and signalled to the men behind Ginty. One of them came into her peripheral vision, holding a camera.

‘Harbinger will need an illustration. You and I will look good together. A nice contrast. Come on.’

Unable to fight him, Ginty let Rano usher her outside into the sun. Muscles in her knees were jumping, and she felt sick, but she could walk perfectly well. He carefully positioned her in front of a spray of bullet holes near one of the blackened windows, before standing beside her. The young soldier with the camera shot the whole film. Sometimes Ginty was made to smile up at Rano; at others direct to the camera. She felt his arm heavy on her shoulders and tried to show something of her real feelings.

When it was over at last, the man with the camera rewound the film, took it out, and handed it to Ginty. Her hand was sweating so much she thought she might drop it, but she got the little reel into her pocket. The young man fished in his pocket and handed Rano a bundle of black cloth.

‘We have to use this,’ he said, shaking it out and reaching towards her head. ‘As much for your protection as ours. If you were seen unblindfolded with my men, the other side could make you tell them where you’d been today. D’you understand?’

Making a supreme effort, Ginty said lightly: ‘They might try, but since I’ve never been able to read a map and can hardly tell my left from my right, it wouldn’t do them much good.’

He clearly didn’t like the flippancy. ‘That wouldn’t help you, I’m afraid. You see, Ginty, nothing that we have done – or ever thought of doing – is half of what they’re capable of. You do understand that, don’t you?’

There was no point trying to get courage from making a joke if he was going to take her literally.

‘Good. And don’t forget that we have many friends still in London. Some of our people, too. They will always be able to find you if you have trouble remembering what you’ve heard or seen.’

With the barely disguised threat echoing in the hot still air, she nodded again. Her last sight of him before his men tied the scarf around her head, this time taking more care not to rip out her hair, was of the warmth of understanding in his blue eyes. Blindfold, she felt a hand lie gently on her right shoulder so that the thumb could stroke her neck. She shuddered.