smirked in pseudo-embarrassment. ‘Sorry, Vuk. I forgot you were Mr Clean.’ She put her finger in her mouth and sucked it, long and slow.
She expected a reaction to her provocative action but Vuk merely lit a cigarette and began to smoke.
‘There’s something I need your advice on,’ she ventured tentatively, looking up at Vuk through her eyelashes and pushing out her chest in her skimpy T-shirt. Rather than dropping the flirting as a reaction to Vuk’s seeming indifference, she intensified it.
Vuk raised his eyebrows infinitesimally in response. Edie nearly snapped with exasperation.
And then he reached out and ran his thumb and forefinger around her cheek and chin and along her lips.
Finally! Satisfied that he wanted her and that she had his attention, she was able to say what was burning her tongue.
‘I don’t know where Laura is.’
Vuk’s eyes creased as they narrowed in perplexity. ‘Edie, you are talking in riddles. I don’t understand.’
Remembering again that Zayn was still the only other person who knew about Laura, she qualified her explanation. ‘Laura’s my twin sister, she came yesterday but now she’s gone. I’ve been half-expecting her to turn up all day but there’s still no sign of her.’
Edie put her fingertips to her forehead, covering her eyes. She shook her head, took a deep breath and slid her other hand down Vuk’s forearm.
‘So what do you think I should do?’
Vuk took a long draught of his beer.
‘Nothing.’
‘Uh?’ Edie’s surprise made her inarticulate. Surely Vuk could do better than that.
‘She has gone travelling again,’ he continued, laconically. ‘That’s all,’ he shrugged.
‘But I don’t understand why she would have done that without telling me,’ protested Edie, flinging her arms in the air. ‘Why would she? Why would she come one day and leave the next? It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘You are twins. Don’t you know?’ Vuk drained his glass and made as if to get up from the table.
‘NO!’ Edie slammed the palms of her hands on the table. ‘That’s all just bollocks. Of course we know each other inside out but we, like everyone else on earth, need a telephone or a computer to have a long-distance conversation. Cut the “twins are psychic” crap – everyone does it and it really annoys me.’
Her anger rolled off her like the hot breeze from the nearby fan. And then dissipated as Vuk pushed his chair back and picked up his sunglasses from the table.
‘Wait, where are you going? Is that all the help you’re going to give me?’
‘I have an appointment. See you later maybe.’ Vuk was already making his way towards the side path that led away from the beach and up into the resort. All he ever had was appointments, business to conduct. Where was the time for her?
‘You need to stop fussing, Edie,’ added Vuk as he retreated. ‘Laura is okay. You just look after yourself.’
Edie slumped into her chair, her head in her hands. And then sat bolt upright, her eyes widening with horror. No, no, no. Surely the thing she’d dreaded hadn’t happened? There had been something so strange about the way Vuk dismissed the whole story. He knew something, she was sure of it … could Laura possibly have got her hands on him so soon? But even if so, it still didn’t explain why she had completely vanished, he would hardly be keeping her prisoner.
Edie hauled herself out of her chair and started to make her way up the sandy brown slope of the hill towards her room. She was tired after such a short night’s sleep and, as well as her suspicions about Vuk and Laura, she couldn’t get his words out of her head. ‘Look after yourself.’ What had he meant by that? If anyone needed minding, it was Laura. Why on earth should she, Edie, need looking after – and if she did, why not by him?
‘I don’t understand,’ stammered Fatima, feeling her legs go weak. ‘It can’t be right. I – we – always have money, we – my husband was an accountant; he had many clients. Of course not the same as it used to be …,’ her voice faltered.
‘Maybe your husband was planning something,’ the bank clerk shrugged, half-bored and half-enjoying her discomfort. ‘I can see here that he withdrew all the money from this account and the associated savings account a week or so ago.’
Fatima leaned against the counter for support. She felt hot and sick and dizzy.
‘You better ask him why,’ continued the clerk by way of conclusion. ‘Now if you don’t mind, many people are waiting.’
Fatima inched herself along the counter just far enough for the next client to take her place. She rested her forehead against the cool glass of the empty booth in front of her. In that moment, she hated this war as she had never hated anything before and surely never would again. It had made Fayed do something which he would not have countenanced in any other circumstances – act in secret, without discussing his plans with her. Fatima knew his actions would have been driven by love and a desire to do the best for his family. But that was little comfort now that he was gone and all of their money with him.
All Fatima had was what she kept deposited in an account she had set up when the girls were born, that she herself managed and paid into. She took out every penny. The sum that had disappeared by the time she had bought the items on Safa’s list was frightening; prices of the most basic goods were escalating by the day. That evening, Fatima sewed a secret pocket into the waistband of her trousers and stashed the remaining money inside it. There was only one explanation for Fayed’s actions. He must have decided that they should leave; he probably hadn’t wanted her to know to prevent her from worrying or perhaps because these days, it was often best to know nothing in case of summary arrest and interrogation. Aware of what Fayed had had in mind, and believing in her husband’s ability to make the right decisions as he always had, she went to Ehsan to talk about their future.
It turned out that Ehsan had a fair amount of cash; between them, they might just be able to manage. Manage to get away, that was, not to stay. The widow Safa and the various members of her family who lived with her were kind but, like everyone, were struggling hard enough to keep themselves going in these terrible days. Often, there was not enough food, power supplies were intermittent and unreliable and the cramped conditions they were living in were bound to breed illness and disease. When the next winter came, everything would be a hundred times harder. By then, who knew what would be left of the country.
More and more bombs dropped by day and by night. Where they struck was random and indiscriminate. House raids could happen anytime; nobody knew when the door would be broken down and the men, such as were left, taken, imprisoned, tortured, killed. Towns in the north were besieged; starving residents reduced to eating grass and cats to stay alive. New threats arose all the time, bands of fighters more vicious than the last, their methods and ideologies
