Jacobson pre-empted him. ‘That any dealings with the Soviets would be premature while our own sea search is under way.’
Newhouse nodded. ‘Premature, yes.’
There were gestures of assent from the others.
‘What if the sea search proves… unfruitful, sir?’ Jacobson asked.
‘Impossible,’ Copeland interjected. ‘There’s enough radar painting the Eastern Med to bring it to the boil.’
Jacobson coughed. ‘I would remind you, General, there has been no sign of anything that fits the description of that boat so far.’
Newhouse sat back and brought his hands together. ‘See that the Soviets are informed of our gratitude, Joel. But tell them there will be no need for any co-operation this time.’
Jacobson closed his clip file. ‘Yes, sir.’
Girling awoke suddenly, his mind filled with images of terrible violence. He switched on the bedside light, noticed the time — past four o’clock — and threw back the bedclothes.
A black and white movie was playing on the TV. He killed the picture as he walked past to the kitchen.
The glare from the kitchen strip-light accentuated his curious existence: remains of a late-night take-out and dregs of an unfinished whisky sat on the table beside Alia’s cup, the one emblazoned with the picture of the cartoon pony.
He grabbed a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and swigged deeply. When he closed the door he noticed her red gumboots in their niche between the fridge and the wall. He thought he’d remembered to pack her off with everything, but the suddenness of the call from RAF Marham had claimed some casualties after all. Neither Alia nor her grandmother had mentioned their absence during his last phone call, which meant she was being spoiled. Alia hated walks. Whenever they did go out together on the common, Girling usually relented and lifted her to his shoulders. Somehow she knew how to get round him. Not having a mother around had given her a resourcefulness beyond her four years.
Although the flat wasn’t big, it seemed to rattle without his daughter there.
At nights, after he had put her to bed, he felt the tempo of her breathing around him; whether he was cooking, working to music in the sitting-room, or talking business on the telephone.
To say evenings gave him a feeling of rapt pleasure was an understatement. They brought out protective instincts in him which were lion-like in their intensity. He supposed that the absence of a woman in the house had contributed to the depth of feeling. He was father and mother to the little girl now, which explained the cocoon he had wrapped around her.
Evenings with Alia were precious. They imbued him with a sense of calm that he found nowhere else in his life.
As for their daily routine, it seemed to teeter constantly on the edge of disaster. He dropped her off at school on his way to work and relied on a neighbour to collect her, give her tea, and look after her until he returned from the office. Then there was a quiet period — comparatively speaking — when he would read to her for an hour, or talk. Sometimes Alia would ask questions about her mother, questions he always answered truthfully. She never pressed him on the subject, seeming to sense his vulnerability.
Soon after his return to England, Girling placed photographs of his wife on the shelves, chests, and tables of the apartment. He felt a need to be surrounded by them. Then, one day, he gathered them into a box and consigned them all save one to a dark corner of the cupboard beneath the stairs. He put the lone photograph in Alia’s bedroom so she could be near her mother. The pain was all the reminder he needed.
Whenever he could, Girling would work from home to stretch time with his daughter. When foreign assignments called, his parents were only too willing to come to the rescue and look after her. The Stalwart Divider trip was typical of the time he would spend away from home on any one occasion.
Girling’s parents lived in a small village outside Oxford, their home since his father retired from the diplomatic service several years before.
He had called them shortly after his return from work. Girling discussed arrangements for collecting Alia with his mother. He promised to drive over the next evening, the precise timing of his arrival dependent on the usual last-minute complications that accompanied press-night. He anticipated he would be there for a late supper. His mother was delighted. Visits from him were so rare. There would be grumbles about promptness from his father. Some things never changed. His father was the last person to understand that he was the reason his only son rarely came visiting.
Outside his second-storey apartment, London slept. Almost two thousand miles away, the ashes of a five-hundred-seat airliner would still be smouldering. And within the hospitals of Haifa and Tel Aviv doctors would be working through the night to save lives.
Girling had fallen asleep to the pictures of American Navy helicopters shuttling survivors to hospitals in Israel, thoughts of James Cramer’s fate in his head. But his dreams were filled with images of a killing on a dirt road in a provincial town between a majestic, sweeping river and the barren wastes of an endless desert. He accepted the dream, because it was part of the price of his sanity. The dream was a vent, through which the feelings he denied himself by day were allowed to escape.
The pain hit him in the stomach and he doubled over, the bottle falling from his hand and smashing on the tiled floor. His arms came down instinctively, hugging a point below his midriff, where the feeling was focused in all its fury.
A word, forgiveness, sprang into his mind, and for a moment, the pain stopped.
He shook his head violently, swore out loud he would do no such thing, and the pain hit him again, harder this time.
Girling held himself until the serrated knife that had been plunged into his gut was pulled through and the agony dissipated.
He got up, avoided the shards of glass that mined the floor, and wandered back to bed.
The pains were getting worse. As if two competing forces were wrestling for supremacy. He could not account for that because nothing had changed. Nothing had altered at all. He accepted it as part of his life. Pain and work; the only things he had besides his little girl.
CHAPTER 6
The day started badly. Girling heard the news on the radio: the Washington Post had scooped Dispatches’ story about the aborted plans to use the F-15Es. It made the second slot, just below the lead item detailing the disappearance of the hijackers and their captives.
As he walked to the station, Girling felt a genuine sense of loss. The feeling was accompanied by a dull throb in the pit of his stomach. The pain was a reminder that he had already flown too close to the flame. Prudence suggested it was time to lay off the ball-grabbing exclusives.
Approaching the tube station he felt the tearing sensation intensify.
The thrill of his old work — once his stock in trade — drew him like a bottle pulls a drunk. It would be so easy to indulge himself. Technical journalism kept him on the right side of the tracks, but it was no compensation for the adrenalin that accompanied the reporting of world news.
Girling had to remind himself how many times in the past he had wrenched a story from the front page of some unsuspecting publication to claim his exclusive. As Mallon liked to say: it happens. It was just one of those things.
After all these years, Girling still found he didn’t like it to happen to him.
When he entered the building, the workstations lay idle, a sign there was another news meeting in progress.
Girling went straight to the conference room to find Kelso calling the meeting to order. He took a seat at the back of the room.