Free Old Enemies by Michael Dobbs Page A

where. There’s some important deal he’s trying to tie up, it’s all ridiculously hush-hush. He’s even taken his head of corporate security with him. I didn’t know who else to call and . . . Meeting up with you again the other day seemed like a sign. Call Harry Jones! Why not? Everyone else does.’ She tried to make light of it, came to sit on the far end of the sofa, her lips struggling to shape themselves into a brave smile. ‘I didn’t know who else to call, Harry.’
    He wanted to leave, but couldn’t. She wasn’t the only one at war with their emotions. ‘That cry,’ he said, ‘are you sure it was him?’
    ‘Yes. A mother knows.’ Her voice snagged on something sharp inside. She began trembling.
    ‘ Don’t, Harry ,’ he told himself. ‘ Don’t you dare touch her . . . ’
    She wrapped her arms around herself as though she might burst apart.
    ‘And what do you want me to do?’ he heard himself saying.

 
CHAPTER SIX
    The message that had capsized Terri’s world and left her drowning had its origins earlier that morning. Ruari had woken from a sleep disturbed by many ghosts to find a guard watching him, impassively and without a word, and it wasn’t long before he found the silence even more oppressive than the pain from his broken nose. He tried to engage the Romanian in conversation but wasn’t even sure the dumb-ass understood him properly. He tried his French in case the guard found that easier than English, but that had fallen on equally barren soil. So when de Vries made an appearance Ruari tried a different tactic, asking if he might have something to read – ‘you know, a comic, book, newspaper, anything. It’ll keep me quiet,’ he promised. But de Vries ignored him, too.
    Then the South African returned to the bleak bedroom cell accompanied by another guard, named Nelu, the youngest of the guards, a skinny, gangling youth who wore a crumpled Disney T-shirt and torn jeans and carried a laptop under his arm. For a moment Ruari’s spirits rose. Perhaps they had relented, he thought. It was the last time he would make that mistake.
    ‘Pity about you throwing that phone of yours away,’ de Vries began, rubbing his stubble-red chin with a knuckle. ‘Could have saved us a lot of trouble. You, too. No need for that busted nose of yours. How is it, by the way?’
    ‘Still hurts,’ Ruari muttered cautiously, although in truth the pain had subsided to a dull throbbing ache.
    ‘I’m sure it does. Nasty things, noses. Anyway, we need your parents’ contact details – you know, their private phone numbers and email addresses. And since you’ve thrown your phone away, you’ll have to give them to me.’
    ‘I’ve forgotten,’ Ruari replied. ‘I just sort of punch buttons, you know?’
    ‘No, no, I don’t think so,’ de Vries said in his clipped voice, ‘not good enough, Little Shit.’ They all seemed to have taken up the habit of calling him that, never Ruari. He had a name, an identity, but they refused to acknowledge it. His captors knew it would slowly wear him down. ‘Kids like you are sponges, you soak up everything. So don’t pretend you can’t remember. Give.’
    ‘You can ask.’
    ‘And I shall receive.’
    Ruari glared back and ran his tongue across his injured lip. His defiance seemed not to affect the man, whose tone remained casual.
    ‘Come on, Little Shit, don’t make it any more difficult than it needs to be. Don’t you want your folks to know you’re OK?’
    Ruari, who was on his mattress, stretched himself out full length as though he was going to sleep.
    ‘That’s a pity, one hell of a pity,’ de Vries announced in the manner of a disappointed schoolmaster. He was standing over the bed. ‘Change your mind?’
    Ruari closed his eyes, trying to blot out the sense of fear this man always instilled in him, and turned away, stretching the arm by which he was manacled to the bed. Suddenly de Vries had grabbed his shoulder and was kneeling on his other