I kept staring down at the yearbook photo, trying to recall the members of the squash team. One guy was called Dexter Corcoran – a big creep; everybody hated him, I remembered that. The others – even bigger assholes – I couldn’t even remember who they were. Deliberate suppression, a psychologist would have called it.
‘Maybe Dr Murdoch was thrown out of the secret world or his soul just got tired of it – I don’t know,’ Bradley was saying. ‘But he entered France on Campbell’s passport, wrote a book to pass on what he knew and published it under the name of Jude Garrett, a dead FBI agent.’
When I still didn’t respond, he shrugged. ‘And so the two of us end up here.’
Yes, and there was no doubt about it: it was a brilliant piece of work by Bradley and his wife but – like I said – it was their discovery today, somebody else’s tomorrow.
There was only one thing left for me to do, so I stood up. It was time to start running.
Chapter Ten
BRADLEY CAUGHT UP with me at the doors leading from the hotel’s beautiful courtyard into the grand gallery, moving surprisingly fast, given his limp.
I had said a curt goodbye and headed out, but he managed to grab my arm before I knew he was following. ‘I have a favour to ask,’ he said. ‘That’s why Marcie and I came to Paris.’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said.
‘Listen – please …’ He took a breath, struggling with what he was about to say. But I didn’t give him a chance. I pushed his hand away and started to leave.
‘No,’ he said, in that authoritative voice. I looked around and saw that people at the nearby tables were watching us. I didn’t want to create a scene and it gave him a moment.
‘Go down deep enough into darkness and nothing’s ever the same,’ he said quietly. ‘Being injured made me think differently – about life, my relationship with Marcie and my work. Especially my work. If there was one positive—’
I’d had enough. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘the injury must have been terrible and I’m glad you came through okay, but there are things I’ve got to arrange.’ I didn’t have time for a sob story or to hear reflections on life from a man I would never see again. I was getting out of Paris, running for cover and maybe my life, and I didn’t have time to waste.
‘Just one minute – one more,’ he said.
After a beat I sighed and nodded – I suppose I owed him some small courtesy for telling me how my former life could be laid bare so effectively. But I didn’t bother moving, and everything about my body language told him the Wailing Wall was in Jerusalem and to just get it over with.
‘You never asked about how I got my injuries – and I want to thank you. Professionals usually don’t, of course. Most of us have been in bad situations so there’s not much point in talking about it.’
Yeah, yeah – enough about correct professional conduct. What do you want to ask me? I thought.
‘I told you I was trapped in a building. It was a little more than that – I was in the North Tower of the World Trade Center when it went down.’
Chapter Eleven
BRADLEY KEPT TALKING but, to this day, I have no idea what he said. Somehow we returned to our table, but I was too preoccupied with cursing my stupidity to listen. No wonder he had post-traumatic stress disorder, no wonder he had weeks in intensive care, no wonder he was suffering from survivor guilt, no wonder he needed an impossible investigative project to bring him back from the dead.
Bradley had said he was holding some guy in the dark, listening to him die. Meanwhile, outside their concrete tomb, Lower Manhattan was on fire. And yet I was so smart I had worked out it was a gunshot wound to the hip and another one that took out his lung. If that was the best I could do, it was probably a good thing that I had retired.
I was shaken from my harsh self-appraisal by his voice – he’d taken his cellphone out and was asking me something. ‘Mind if I make a call? I want to check in with Marcie.’
I nodded. He waited for her to answer, turned away, and said a few brief words I couldn’t hear. As he hung up, he motioned for more coffee and pastries. I hoped he had a credit card with no limit.
‘I only mentioned September eleventh,’ he said, ‘because it’s the basis for what I want to ask you.’
‘Go on,’ I said softly, trying to make up for even thinking the poor mother should have gone to the Wailing Wall.
‘As part of my recovery, I finally went back to Ground Zero, to the spot where the North Tower had stood,’ he said. ‘I looked at it for a long time – God, it was cold – and I finally realized that I was so damned angry I had no hope of ever making a full recovery.