Free The Lazarus Hotel by Jo Bannister Page A

People are killing one another, with guns and knives and bombs and famine, over half of Africa. Then there’s the mad bastards in sheets.’
    Miriam considered. ‘Who?’
    Richard grinned tightly. ‘Sorry, journo shorthand. Muslim fanatics. You know, the ones who torture opponents and stone women and bomb tourists in order to show that Allah is merciful. There’s so much mayhem round the world I don’t know where to go for a holiday.’
    â€˜And it sickened you.’
    He chewed his lip. ‘Maybe. I mean, yes, it’s always sickening. There’s something wrong with you if you don’t feel sick and angry when there are people literally dying at your feet. You stand there with your well-fed face and your typhoid jabs and your flak jacket, and you know all you can contribute is a four-minute soundbite for the evening news. You want to shout at someone. You want to bang heads together. You want to take one of them – just one – put her under your coat and take her home, get her out of the madness and make her safe. And you can’t even do that.
    â€˜So yes, I was sickened. But it wasn’t the first time. It’s worse at the start till you learn to do your job in spite of it. You tell yourself – maybe it’s not true but you tell yourself – that you don’t care any less, you’re not growing hard, but you’re a professional and the best you can do is a good job that might wake the world up while there’s someone left to benefit.’
    He paused, long enough for Miriam to wonder if he’d finished. But she thought not, and finally he forced himself to the point he’d been circling. ‘It wasn’t feeling sick that stopped me. It was feeling scared. For seven years I accepted the risk. It was the price I paid for doing something that mattered to me. Because even when it makes you crazy, when you’d like to grab a gun and do some shooting of your own, reporting it well gives you a sense of achievement.
    â€˜Then one day I couldn’t do it any more. Nothing had changed. I’d had close calls before, got drunk and moved on. But now every shot I heard, I felt the bullet. Every shell that burst I felt the shrapnel. If a bombardment started while I was on air, even if it was miles away, it was all I could do not to dive for the nearest doorway and bury my head in my arms. Sometimes I was shaking so much the cameraman couldn’t hold me in focus.’
    â€˜Sounds a pretty healthy reaction to me,’ said Miriam.
    â€˜After seven years? In seven years you’ve seen all there is to see. Chickening out then is like a heart surgeon starting to faint at the sight of blood.’
    Miriam didn’t change the subject although for a moment she seemed to. ‘Why did you tell us about the girl in the river?’
    Surprised, Richard struggled to answer. ‘You asked about letting people down. You can’t let someone down worse than letting her die.’
    â€˜You tried to save her. You risked your own life. What are you ashamed of?’ His eyes avoided hers. ‘Was there more to it than that?’
    Almost inaudibly Richard whispered, ‘Yes.’
    â€˜Tell me.’
    So he did. ‘I could have saved her. I had hold of her and help was on its way. But I started to slip. I let go of her. I promised I wouldn’t, but I did.’
    She let her eyes shut for a moment, feeling his pain. ‘Richard, you did the best you could. Your own life was in danger. You held on for as long as you could.’
    He would have given anything to believe it. He shook his head. ‘I could have saved us both.’
    â€˜You didn’t know that. You don’t know it now. It’s easy to be brave after the event. It’s also easy to be wrong. You’re not a coward. You did everything for that girl except die with her.’
    â€˜But I let her go!’ The passage of time had done nothing to