Running, barely feasible for an adult, was almost impossible for a child. Marwa’s tiny legs could not navigate the treacherous terrain and she fell, banging her knee on the sharp protruding edge of a bent and contorted piece of metal that sliced into her flesh with the ease of a knife. There was a long pause before the first bellowing screech exploded out of her, far too loud for such small lungs, a yell laden with fear and pain and uncontainable panic. Fatima had no words with which to console her, nothing to say that would make it any better, no will in her body to tend to her daughter’s injury, the seeping gash in her baby-soft skin. Marwa howled and sobbed without cease, on and on, whilst Maryam whimpered and Fatima’s tears erupted from her eyes and poured unstoppably down her cheeks. She hauled herself and her children onwards.
A single gunshot rang out, close by, coming from behind one of the half-standing buildings of what had, until so very recently, been a peaceful and affluent middle-class street. Wiping snot from her nose with a filthy hand, Fatima’s legs froze, paralysed by terror. Her gaze darted from side to side. The sniper fire had prompted forth shadowy figures from other nooks and crannies, creeping, scuttling creatures, the undead, fleeing like prey escaping an unseen enemy.
What have they done to us, Fatima’s soul cried out. What have we become?
‘Run,’ a voice, dust-coarsened and gravelly, urged. ‘Run, now.’
Swept up in his wake, driven by the urgency in his voice, Fatima grabbed up Marwa and placed her on her hip, took Maryam’s hand in a vice-like grip and ran. She did not falter when the second shot came and her companion stopped in his tracks and languidly, as if in slow-motion, fell to the ground.
She just ran, on and on, through the dirt and destruction, between the mountainous heaps of boulders and rubble, iron and steel, traversing every obstacle, as if it were possible to ever truly get away.
Ripping off her pyjamas, Edie pulled on her bikini, then tied a sarong around her waist. She needed to think clearly, banish the fug that was clouding her mind. Grabbing a towel from the pile of stuff on the floor, she left the room, quelling the need to be sick; her temples pounding afresh from the sudden activity. She marched through the olive grove, where people were stirring, coming out of their cabanas in search of breakfast or, for those with children, heading for the beach even at this early hour. She should be at work already, collecting the cleaning equipment from the store and starting to scrub however many effing cabins Vlad had assigned to her. Sod that.
Veering off the path, she took a short cut that skirted through the trees and close to one of the plunge pools. A man stood there, casting a long shadow over the water, his net extended, capturing the silver-grey leaves that had fallen in the night. Zayn. Why couldn’t it be Vuk? The trips he ran constantly denied them the time together that Edie yearned for. She waggled her fingers towards Zayn in a half-hearted wave. He made as if to say something but stopped as he noticed that her pace did not falter. His gaze followed her as she passed, fixated, Edie was sure, on her breasts that were only just contained by her tiny bikini top. She sighed to herself. Poor Zayn. She turned and gave him another, more enthusiastic wave. She didn’t want to be cruel, but he simply couldn’t hold a candle to Vuk.
Zayn had been the first person she’d got to know when she arrived on the site, basically because he’d hung around her like a moth around a flame. They’d had a fleeting dalliance but he’d got too keen and she’d had to cool the whole thing down, which was lucky as the next thing that had happened was that Vuk had shown up, back from a sailing trip and Edie had fallen for him, hook, line and sinker. He was more suitable in every way, apart from anything else because he was only a few years older than Edie, whereas Zayn was about thirty-five, Edie reckoned. Way too ancient to be taken seriously.
There was something intriguing about him, though. He was pale-skinned, paler than the local people, with heavy-lidded, dark eyes that were soft and forgiving. He wasn’t from here, he came from somewhere else; he’d told Edie a bit about himself but she hadn’t really been listening and now it slipped her mind, but she knew the place he was from he could never go back to for all sorts of complicated reasons from blood feuds to civil war. He had numerous ideological opinions that he liked to air, despite the fact that Edie had made it quite clear that she didn’t do international politics; in fact didn’t do politics at all. She left causes to Laura, who was always marching or fasting or writing letters for something.
Edie reached the tree-shaded concrete path that skirted the beach and headed for her favourite swimming spot. Come to think of it, she pondered as she meandered along, doing her best to avoid a pair of butterflies involved in an elaborate mating ritual, Zayn and Laura would probably get on like a house on fire and he could be a useful diversion, steering Laura well away from Vuk. She happily skipped a few paces off the back of this thought, threw off her sarong and, balancing on a protruding rock that just had room for her size 5 feet, dived into the cool, clear water. Laura might fancy Zayn, she always had a soft spot for the underdog, and she liked older men, viz the Slovenian guy – and if she did, that would kill two birds with one stone; provide a girlfriend for Zayn, who clearly really wanted one, and also ensure Laura would not be making eyes at Vuk. A marvellous solution, though Edie said it herself. Sorted – or it would be if Laura were here.
It was just so typical of Laura to disappear at precisely the moment that Edie had everything worked out and under control. She was, quite simply, the most unpredictable person on the planet. Once they’d left school and home and supposedly become independent adults, Laura had developed a habit of sauntering in and out of Edie’s life – although Edie couldn’t help but admit that it was a tad unusual that on this occasion, Laura had said absolutely nothing at all about her plans. She would probably materialise in a few hours and come over all affronted if Edie pulled her up on her unexplained desertion.
Coursing through the water, Edie concentrated on her breathing and then dived down, deeper and deeper. The underwater world was blue and green and grey, fish flitting between clumps of seaweed and submerged rocks, the occasional bright glint of some sunken litter the only discordant note. She relaxed her body, shut off her mind. She had spent some time with free-divers in Greece and tried to learn their techniques. Although she’d only managed to hold her breath for just over three and a half minutes so far, she was constantly working on it. Swimming was her passion – she’d been in a squad in her school days, won tournaments and medals. At one point it had been thought that she might compete nationally, perhaps even internationally. But then she’d become a teenager, discovered boys, got ill … and those ideas had faded away into the distance. She was still a better swimmer than Laura, though. That was one thing – the only thing – she’d always been best at, and what better place to show off her prowess than here at this idyllic seaside resort?
Now all she had to do was sodding find Laura.
Distant relatives in a nearby town that had so far avoided attack took them in. Fatima and the children, together with Ehsan, Fatima’s dead husband’s younger brother and his son Youssef, who had been at a football match when the bombs hit the house and so survived. Ehsan’s wife Noor had died of breast cancer eighteen months ago, about the same time Fatima’s own parents had been killed in a car accident, and he and Youssef