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Squashed flat against the frozen earth, he crawls forward and swings himself into an Argentine trench. Then he sees a soldier wearing a grey poncho, a teenager, sitting in the mud, mouth open in a scream.

The soldier has taken a direct hit from a phosphorous grenade. His head rocks back and forth. Blood pumps from his stomach. Still he screams, the same word, over and over. “ Madre! Madre! Madre! ”

The Company Commander yells, “Will you shut that fucker up!” He’s talking to Hackett, who tries to make the boy be quiet, holding a finger to his lips. Covering his mouth. Making shushing sounds. Still the kid screams for his mother until Hackett puts a hand over his mouth and nose, squeezing them shut, telling him to be quiet, holding him until he falls silent.

The kid’s eyes are open. Watching. Welcoming the darkness.

11

LONDON

Elizabeth is late picking up Rowan from nursery. The center manager has heard all the excuses before. Polina is never late. Polina doesn’t leave Rowan’s raincoat behind, or forget to pack his painting smock, or leave his fruit salad in the fridge. Polina has wet wipes to clean his face after an ice cream. Elizabeth has to spit on a tissue.

Strapping Rowan into his car seat, she heads north to Hampstead to see her father. The gates are open and she parks opposite a garage that holds matching silver Mercedes side by side.

She follows the crushed marble path around the side of the house. The lawns are mown into green strips and the garden beds turned and composted. Rowan runs ahead to the rear terrace. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Elizabeth spies her father kneeling on the turf, turning the soil with a hand fork.

Alistair Bach looks up. As brown as a medicine bottle, with a tangle of grey hair poking out from an old hat, he dresses like a younger version of David Attenborough in chinos and a heavy cotton shirt rolled up to below his elbows. Soft spoken. Gentle. Conservative. Someone from another age. This is his life now-gardening. Planting. Watering. Trimming the topiary into geometric patterns that seem to float above the flowerbeds.

Bach takes a moment to rise from his knees. Rowan runs to him and is hoisted aloft, spun around until his legs are horizontal with the ground.

“Careful, he’s just had an ice cream.”

“The lucky sod!” He kisses Rowan’s cheek. “Let me guess. Chocolate?”

“Is you a magician, Granddad?”

“How do you think I made this garden grow?”

Elizabeth wants to smile but can’t make her face move. Hugging her father, she clutches him a little too tightly. Bach untangles himself.

“You haven’t heard from him?”

“No.”

She averts her eyes, determined not to cry. “The garden is looking good.”

Bach knows that she’s changing the subject. “My trailing violas are being eaten. Your stepmother won’t let me use insecticide. Everything has to be organic. You should see what she makes me eat.”

“You’ll live longer.”

“It feels like it.”

He’s doing this for Elizabeth’s benefit; pretending to be henpecked and harried. It’s a little boy’s plea for reassurance. She won’t give him the satisfaction.

Alistair Bach acts like an everyman but belongs to the truly wealthy. He has a beach house in Florida, a chalet in St. Moritz and a hunting lodge near Aberdeen as well as the house in Hampstead. It’s a far cry from his childhood when he grew up in a two-up-two-down in Liverpool, the son of a boilermaker and a seamstress, one of eight children, Catholics. He joined Mersey Fidelity straight out of school and in spite of having no banking qualifications rose to become chairman. One of his first decisions was to move the bank’s headquarters from Merseyside to the City of London. Since then he’s only been back to Liverpool a handful of times. Some working-class people are proud of their humble roots. Bach is proud of the climb.

“I’ll defend Scousers,” he once told Elizabeth. “I’ll support their football teams and I’ll give money to their charities, but don’t ask me to live with them.”

Elizabeth turns to gaze at the house. She can see her old bedroom on the second floor, the window surrounded by ivy. This is where she grew up, surrounded by bankers, financiers and money people.

Bach pulls off his gloves, flexing his hands as though fighting arthritis.

“Come inside. Let’s have a cup of tea.”

They leave Rowan running around the garden, chasing an overweight Labrador called Sally, who is the latest in a long line of “Sallys”-each one related to the one before. The Bachs keep everything in the family.

Elizabeth’s stepmother is in the kitchen talking to a tradesman on the phone. Wearing gym leggings and a tracksuit top, Jacinta is thirty years younger than Elizabeth’s father, with well-cut white blonde hair and breasts that cost as much as a small car. She gives Elizabeth a little wave but nothing shows in her eyes. It’s different when she smiles at Bach, who she treats like a sex god. All praise to the properties of Viagra.

Bach begins opening cupboards and drawers looking for the teabags. “You really don’t have to bother, Daddy.”

“Nonsense. I could use a cup.”

He calls out to Jacinta. “Have you seen the teabags?”

She goes straight to the correct cupboard without interrupting her conversation. Then she smiles at him with such total and unprompted love that it’s like a fourth person has walked into the room.

Bach continues talking to Elizabeth. “What do the police say?”

“They think he’s run off.”

“Who’s handling the case?”

“A Detective Constable Carter.”

“A constable! Sounds as if they’re not taking this seriously. I’ll make a few calls. Get them to re-prioritize.”

That’s how her father talks. It can be like listening to a management seminar.

“Have you talked to Mitchell?”

“He says North was leaking information to a journalist.”

Bach blows out his cheeks. “I don’t believe it for a minute.”

Elizabeth runs her finger along the curve of the sink.

“He’s more worried about the bank than about North.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“I was escorted from the building.”

“I’ll talk to him.”

Elizabeth turns away. On the opposite side of the lawn, past the pond, over the sandstone wall that surrounds the gardens, she can see the treetops of Hampstead Heath, an ocean of greenery in a broken landscape of rooftops, chimney pots, TV aerials and satellite dishes.

“You should come and stay with us-just until North shows up,” says Bach.

Elizabeth turns and sneaks a glance through to the sunroom where Jacinta is still on the phone.

Bach follows her gaze. “She’s not the wicked witch of the East.”

“Just Hampstead.”

Her father smiles wryly. “She cares about me.”

“I know.”

Elizabeth’s mother died of a brain aneurism ten years ago. Bach waited seven years before he remarried. Said he needed someone to grow old beside. Fine, thought Elizabeth, but did she have to be so young?

He’s pouring the tea, clutching the teapot in both hands to stop the lid from falling off. Elizabeth looks at her cup. He’s given her too much milk. She doubts if her father has made tea more than a handful of times in his life. Other people do it for him. Maids. Secretaries. Wives.

Elizabeth picks at her chipped nail polish.

“I think North was having an affair.”

The statement feels like it might scald her esophagus.

“You’re sure?”

She nods.

“How?”

Opening her bag, she takes out the photographs and places them on the kitchen table, not looking at them. Unable to.

“Who took these?”

“A private detective.”

“You were having him followed!”