‘Africa! Why did you send him to Africa to die?’
‘In this small world—’
‘He died for Africa. Who cares about Africa?’
‘I understand your emotion, Mrs Ackerman. I’m a mother—’
‘I can’t believe you threw his life away!’
Pauline wanted to say: I can’t believe it either, Mrs Ackerman, and it breaks my heart. But she remained silent.
After a pause Phil Ackerman came back on the line. ‘I’m sorry about that.’
‘No need to apologize, sir. Your wife is suffering terrible grief. She has my deep sympathy.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Goodbye, Mr Ackerman.’
‘Goodbye, Madam President.’
*
The debrief took the rest of the day.
The army suggested the whole thing had been a trap: false information lured them to the bridge where an ambush had been laid. Susan Marcus was sure of it.
The CIA disagreed with that interpretation, which reflected badly on Dexter. The implication was that he had trusted an informant who deceived him. On the contrary, Dexter argued, it had been a genuine tip-off and the jihadis on the pedestrian bridge had panicked when the army arrived in force and had called in reinforcements.
By six o’clock in the afternoon Tamara no longer cared which explanation was accepted. She felt mentally bruised. Back in her apartment she considered falling into bed, but she knew she would not sleep. She kept seeing Pete’s lifeless body and the destroyed head of the gaunt-faced man she had killed.
She did not want to be alone. She remembered that she had a date with Tab. She felt instinctively that he would know what to do. She showered and put on fresh clothes, jeans and a T-shirt with a cotton shawl for decorum. Then she called for a car.
Tab lived in an apartment building near the French embassy. It was not very swanky, and she guessed he could have afforded better, but he would be obliged to use diplomatic premises that could be vetted and monitored.
He opened the door and said: ‘You look dead beat. Come in and sit down.’
‘I was in a kind of shoot-out,’ she said.
‘At the N’Gueli Bridge? We heard about that. You were there?’
‘Yes. And Pete Ackerman died.’
He took her arm and led her to the couch. ‘Poor Pete. And poor you.’
‘I killed a man.’
‘My God.’
‘He was a jihadi, and he was about to shoot me. I’m not sorry.’ She realized she could say things to Tab that she had not been able to say in the debrief. ‘But he was a human being, and one second he was alive, and moving, and thinking; and then I squeezed the trigger and he was dead, gone, a corpse; and I can’t get him out of my head.’
There was an open bottle of white wine in an ice bucket on the coffee table. He poured half a glass and gave it to her. She took a sip and put the glass down. She said: ‘Do you mind if we don’t go out to dinner?’
‘Of course not. I’ll cancel.’
‘Thank you.’
He took out his phone. While he was making the call she looked around. The apartment was modest but the furnishings were expensive, with deep soft armchairs and thick rugs. He had a large TV screen and some kind of fancy hi-fi set-up with large floor-standing speakers. Her wine glass was crystal.
She was interested in two silver-framed photographs on a side table. One showed a dark-skinned man in a business suit with a chic middle-aged blonde woman, undoubtedly Tab’s parents. The other was of a small, fierce-looking Arab woman standing proudly outside a shop front: that would be his grandmother in Clichy-sous-Bois.
When he got off the phone she said: ‘Let’s talk about something else. What were you like as a boy?’
He smiled. ‘I went to a bilingual school called Ermitage International. I was a good student but I got into trouble sometimes.’
‘How? What did you do?’
‘Oh, the usual stuff. One day I smoked a joint just before math. The teacher couldn’t understand why I’d suddenly become completely stupid. He thought I was doing it to make the others laugh, a kind of stunt.’
‘What else?’
‘I joined a rock band. Of course we had an American name: the Boogie Kings.’
‘Were you any good?’
‘No. I was fired right after our first performance. My drumming was like my dancing.’
She giggled for the first time since the shoot-out.
He said: ‘After I left the band got better.’
‘Did you have girlfriends?’
‘It was a mixed school, so yes.’
She saw a faraway look in his eyes. ‘Who are you remembering?’
He looked embarrassed. ‘Oh . . .’
‘You don’t have to say. I don’t want to pry.’
‘I don’t mind, but if I tell you it might sound like boasting.’
‘Tell me anyway.’
‘It was the English teacher.’
Tamara giggled – second time. She was starting to feel more normal. ‘What was she like?’
‘About twenty-five. Pretty, blonde. We used to kiss in the stationery store.’
‘Just kissing?’
‘No, not just kissing.’
‘You bad boy.’
‘I was crazy about her. I wanted to run away from school and fly to Las Vegas and get married.’
‘How did it end?’
‘She got a job in another school and disappeared from my life. I was heartbroken. But heartbreak doesn’t last long when you’re seventeen.’
‘A lucky escape?’
‘Oh, yes. She was great, but look, you have to fall in and out of love a few times before you begin to understand what you’re really looking for.’
She nodded. He was quite wise, she thought. ‘I know what you mean.’
‘Do you?’
She blurted out: ‘I’ve been married twice.’
‘I wasn’t expecting that!’ He smiled, taking the edge off his expression of shock. ‘Tell me more – if you feel like it.’
She did. She was glad to be reminded that there were important things in life other than guns and killing. ‘Stephen was just an adolescent mistake,’ she said. ‘We married in my first year at college and separated before the summer vacation. I haven’t spoken to him for years and I no longer know where he lives.’
‘So much for Stephen,’ said Tab. ‘If it’s any consolation, I feel the same way about a girl called Anne-Marie. I didn’t marry her, though. Tell me about number two.’
‘Jonathan was serious. We were together for four years. We loved each other, and in a way we still do.’ She paused, thinking.
Tab waited patiently for a few moments, then prompted her gently. ‘What went wrong?’
‘Jonathan is gay.’
‘Oh. That’s awkward.’
‘I didn’t know it at first, obviously, and I guess he didn’t either, although at the end he admitted that he’d always been uncertain.’
‘But you parted friends.’
‘We haven’t really parted. We’re still close, or as close as you can be to someone who lives thousands of miles away.’
‘But you are divorced?’ he said emphatically.
That seemed important to him for some reason. ‘Yes, we’re divorced,’ she said firmly. ‘He’s married to a man now.’ She wanted to know more about him. ‘Have you ever been married? You must be, what, thirty-five?’
‘Thirty-four, and no, I’ve never been married.’
‘But you must have had at least one serious love affair, after the English teacher.’
‘True.’
‘Why didn’t you marry?’
‘Um, I think my experience has been like yours except that I never actually tied the knot. I’ve had one-night stands and disastrous affairs and a couple of really great women with whom I had relationships that lasted a long time – but not for ever.’
Tamara took another sip of wine. It was delicious, she noticed.
Tab was beginning to open his heart to her, and she wanted desperately for him to go on. The morning’s deaths still lingered darkly at the back of her mind, ghosts waiting to spring out at her, but this conversation was comforting. ‘Tell me about one of the great women,’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘All right. I lived with Odette for three years in Paris. She’s a linguist, speaks several languages, and makes her living translating, usually Russian to French. She’s really smart.’
‘And . . .?’
‘When I was posted here, I asked her to marry me and come with me.’