going?’
‘Just that he had something he needed to do before the baby was born.’
‘Like what?’
Gisele shrugged helplessly. Hopelessly. ‘He wouldn’t say.’
Lee felt her heart race. Something he needed to do? Not an assignment. Not an exclusive. Something he needed to do?
She realized Gisele was waiting for her to say something, to offer some crumbs of comfort. She cleared her throat. ‘He’ll be back, Gisele, don’t worry about that. Cunningham knows the risks; he won’t do anything stupid. Not now. You’re his world, he won’t leave you and the baby alone.’ But even as she said it, Lee knew her words were hollow. He wasn’t fighting fit; he was lame still. Compromised.
‘So then, why did he go? Why now, when the baby’s almost here?’
Lee’s mouth opened but for a moment nothing came out. What could she say? ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he felt this was his last chance to do the only thing he’s ever known? Because everything will change once the baby’s here. It always does.’
It certainly had for her. She had known she couldn’t be a mother and expose herself to that life. Jasper had no one in the world but her; she had a responsibility to keep herself safe, for his sake.
‘But he’s spent thirty years putting his neck on the line. He told me he’d quit and that he’d turned his back on that world, that all he wanted now was to be a father. So why go back to it? This makes no sense.’ She stared straight at Lee. ‘I need someone to explain it to me. Someone who understands.’
Lee stared back into her coffee. It was an almost impossible thing to explain. There were lots of stock answers she could give – that he was driven by a need to show unspeakable truths, reveal genocides hidden behind government propaganda, to bring justice to people robbed of liberty, human rights and basic dignity? For all the journalists out there, faces down in the dirt every day, those were certainly the motivations that had propelled them to pick up their cameras and voice recorders and run onto military planes in the first place. But there was a darker truth too. How could she explain that somehow you felt most alive when you were surrounded by death? That you felt the intensity of life pulse through your veins when the ground shook beneath your feet? It was selfish. Reckless. Vainglorious. Cunningham had been doing this for too long to be able to settle in a picture-postcard city, pushing a pram along a canal. She knew it now, just like she had always known it, but how could she tell that to his doll-like wife, the one who thought she’d tamed him?
‘What he does out there . . .’ She faltered. ‘It’s more than running through rubble, interviewing casualties and witnesses. It’s not just been his life’s work, it’s been his life’s purpose. He knows a new chapter is coming; he’s got a baby on the way, he’s got you. But I guess he must have felt he just had to . . . do a farewell lap. Goodbye to all that, you know?’
Gisele nodded, trying to believe, to understand, but Lee could read her easily – she felt inadequate, not enough. She hadn’t been enough to stop him from going, in the end.
‘Have you heard from him since he went?’ Lee sipped the frothy coffee again. It was like drinking foam.
‘Saturday night. He’d landed and checked into the hotel.’
Hotel? Lee felt her antennae twitch. There were precious few hotels in Syria any more. She cleared her throat. ‘Where is he exactly?’ The question was casual but she felt her body stiffen, an automatic bracing of her muscles.
‘Palmyra.’
She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘Right.’
‘Do you know it? Is that bad?’
Lee forced a smile. ‘No worse than anywhere else. If I had to choose between a package holiday there, streaking down the Gaza Strip or a night out in Magaluf? Tough call, they’re all strong choices.’
Gisele gave a frozen smile, not quite getting her humour. Then again, not many did. ‘I know he was sorry to miss you before he went. He said he was going to drop by your house.’
Lee felt a twist in her guts. ‘Oh. I must have missed him. It would have been—’ The lie died in her mouth. She had left him standing on her doorstep, and not for the first time. ‘Did he say when he’d be back?’
Another shake of the head. ‘Not