Christmas at the Island Hotel - Jenny Colgan Page 0,61

on the picture.

“I do not understand what this means,” he croaked.

Quietly, the man placed another picture on the table. She was there again, but this time standing next to someone: a man with a large mustache and a small beard. He was dressed plainly in a thobe but he had a large gun and a sword hanging from his belt.

“This is from a little earlier,” said the man. “We believe . . . We think that it’s a wedding photo.”

Saif stared at her face.

“But she is already married,” he said numbly. Neda put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“There are forced marriages,” she said. “You understand this?”

But Saif was staring at the wedding photo. The woman in the picture was smiling.

TEA WAS BROUGHT and the situation outlined, although he could hardly take it in, none of it. It appeared that Amena Hussein, née Abboud, had remarried a Syrian freedom fighter two years after the disappearance of her husband and sons.

Which led to many problems. Not least of which whom the freedom fighter was believed to be fighting for.

“We cannot . . . In the situation it would be extremely difficult to extricate her to the UK. In the current political climate . . . I’m afraid it could get extremely awkward.”

Saif looked up and stared straight into the officer’s eyes. The man was not unkind, he knew. This was a profoundly bitter truth.

“She. Is. Not. A Daesh. Bride,” he said, as carefully and calmly as he could manage.

The man merely nodded.

“And her two sons are here. You would deny her her sons?”

Again the man did not speak. Then: “If you can make a positive identification—”

“What?”

Saif’s eyes were brimming over with misery. His first thought was could he go back, find her? But what was there to go back to? The war wasn’t over. Who knew what kind of hellscape was happening in Damascus. Who knew what effect it would have on his children, his entire world. How could he pull them out of their wonderful environment, their fabulous school, and, most important of all, most important, more important than anything in the world, their safety?

Mure might be small, chilly, out of the way.

But oh my goodness, it was so safe. Nobody would be harmed. Nobody would be pulled out of bed by soldiers; there weren’t any, unless you counted the occasional Russian nuclear submariners who secretly resurfaced from time to time and emptied the grocers of vodka, but Saif didn’t, seeing as they weren’t meant to be there at all, and when they were there, all they wanted to do was drink vodka and chat up the café girls.

His children were safe. What could be more important than that?

Well. Their mother. Seeing their mother. What child would not brave the whole world to be in his mother’s arms?

But what if there was another baby already in her arms?

Chapter 43

It didn’t take long, this time of year, to wait for dark, but they had decided, through some unspoken agreement, that they really needed to wait until everyone had gone to bed, and the men all skulked about, Hamish unable to stifle his giggles. A farmer through and through, it was extremely unusual for him to be up and about after nine o’clock at night.

The great metal sculpture was hollow, otherwise it would have been completely unliftable—but they were still going to have to get it to the hill and set it in concrete.

“You realize,” said Joel, “that this means it’ll be here forever?”

“I hope that councilwoman fancies you as much as Flora says she does,” said Innes, confusing Joel, who didn’t have a clue.

Nonetheless it weighed an absolute ton, and they sweated and panted loading it onto the island’s only flatbed truck, which belonged to Anndra the builder, who fortunately had four stout children, so hadn’t needed much persuading; it was a dang sight easier than having to fly them all to Inbhir Nis to see the Christmas lights. Now all they needed was a Santa. Politely, nobody mentioned to Anndra that with his rotund belly and fine beard, he was almost certainly the best specimen they had.

Isla came out with hot toddies for everyone, partly because it was freezing, partly because everyone else was insane with curiosity as to what they were up to and it had fallen to her to try to wheedle it out of them.

“No chance,” said Konstantin, rushing up to her. “Stay there!” he commanded, then came up behind her and put his hands over her