A Division of the Light Read Free Page A

she were unable to break her fall and instead smashed her head against the pavement. He did not want to have to photograph those injuries. As always, Cassie had allayed his fears with a breezy confidence.
    Twenty minutes later he had just picked up his bag and was about to leave when the landline rang again. Gregory paused by the door. His own voice rasped from the answerphone. The caller hung up without saying anything.
    He wondered if he should go back and check the incoming number, but then decided that this would be madness. If the callhad been important then either a message would have been left or he would have been phoned on his mobile. Gregory closed the door and tried to put the incident out of his mind, but all the way to the airport he wondered if he had done the right thing.
    The flight was delayed and made unpleasant by turbulence. By the time it landed Gregory could feel the tensions of the journey in the muscles at the back of his legs. He was jaded and cynical and felt that he was getting old. Around him the airport was featureless and unwelcoming, with armed security guards in illfitting uniforms and a luggage carousel that creaked and squealed as if about to seize up completely.
    Carla from the agency was waiting in Arrivals. Her name was all that he had been told about her. She was in her early forties, had angular features and an unwavering stare, and spoke English as if she had spent time in the States. An ignition key was held in her hand like a valued possession.
    A shower of heavy rain passed across the airport before they reached the car. Droplets pocked the gray dust on its surfaces so that they resembled NASA studies of lunar plains. Gregory sat with one camera on his lap and the equipment lodged behind the passenger seat. He was already telephoning his journalist contact as Carla drove away from the airport.
    Within a few minutes Gregory knew that they would spend most of their long journey in a silence that both he and Carla understood, just as he was confident that she would offer him the opportunity to sleep with her that night. He was not sure that he wanted to. Even if he did, he wondered if he would be doing so just because it was expected of him. Perhaps it would be wiser to remain alone in his hotel room and hunt through the satellite channels.
    In this part of the world even the best roads were narrow. Military vehicles moved along them in short convoys, but so did overloaded lorries that left a smell of burned diesel in the air and tiny cars that looked as if they would fold up under the slightest impact. In litter-strewn lay-bys alongside spruce forests prostitutes stood at intervals of two or three hundred yards. They ignored Carla and, as if under a conditioned reflex, lifted their skirts as the car passed. One stood at the corner of a fenced area, as immobile as a mannequin, her heavy coat left open to show a pale body wearing black knickers and nothing else. Dark glasses covered her eyes like shields, like targets. Momentarily Gregory thought again about Alice and the way she had scrabbled on the pavement for the camouflage of smoky lenses.
    They drove to a tiny village that was two hours away along potholed zigzag roads and so high above the central plain that the air was permanently cold and damp. Tall conifers dripped rain. Below the village a few tents had been pitched on a level band of earth sheltered by a thin line of broadleaf trees. At the edge of the houses a tall cross of raw pine had been erected. The heads of nails gleamed like silver against the wood. A tractor’s rusty hulk stood nearby, stripped of all usable parts. Just beyond it a series of cars had been parked on a stretch of mud. One had its window open, and behind its wheel the driver was talking excitedly into his phone. In another a woman in a fur coat snoozed with her chin sunk on her chest.
    It was here that they met the journalist. He guided Gregory and Carla up through the village while its people gazed