Through Every Human Heart (12 page)

Irene grew tired of fresh air, and got back into the car. Automatically she checked in the mirror for stray hairs. There was nothing else to do then but stare out at the bleak moorland. In the fading sunlight it was a miserable, uninviting expanse of greenish grey.

Pulling in to the side of the road, he'd got to her handbag first and answered the call.

‘Who is it?' she'd asked.

‘Our other foreign friend,' he'd whispered. ‘Don't worry, my dear. I'll take care of this,' he'd told her, as if he was used to locking people in the boots of cars. As if it was nothing. And now there was no sign of either of them, and she couldn't do a thing because he'd taken the bloody keys with him.

She'd been shocked by the brutal way he slapped the man. But what should she have done? If he was telling the truth, all the talk about the home country was meant to deceive her. These foreign men intended to hurt her. How passionate he'd sounded, telling them he'd never let her be harmed.

She studied the ring. Impossible to guess how much it might be worth, but in any case, she would never part with it. It was so very, very beautiful. Emeralds were full of good luck. In the old tales, they protected you from evil spirits. They were meant to protect your chastity, she remembered. A little late for that.

The minutes dragged on. The inside of the car began to feel distinctly chilly. There were cars passing, not many, but some. Should she try to stop one? She could say that she'd broken down, and ask to be taken to civilisation. A glass of hot lemon tea would be heaven. She was on the brink of getting out again when Charles reappeared. Of the foreign man there was no sign.

How well he moved. His legs curved ever so slightly outwards, ugly in a woman, but so appealing in a man.

‘All right?' he asked.

‘No. Where is he? What did you do with him?'

‘Oh, I let him go.'

‘What!'

‘He doesn't know anything. He's harmless.'

‘You said he was dangerous. You said he wanted to kill me.'

He'd already started the car. He pulled out onto the road, accelerating fast. ‘Are you feeling hungry?' he said. ‘We've missed lunch, but there must be somewhere around here where we can get a quick bite.'

‘How could he be harmless? Does that mean the other one's harmless too?'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘You said the one with the scar wanted to assassinate me. I don't understand how you can know that and let this one go. I really think we should stop and call the police, in case he – '

‘I'm sorry. Please don't be angry. This isn't easy for me. I'm making this up as we go along – there should have been two of us, remember. There's just no way I can explain all this to you right now. But I will, once everything calms down. Once I get your little secretary back, we'll all have time to sit down and talk. I'm not forgetting about her.'

Was this a reproach? She wasn't sure she liked his tone. Nor did she like being told to wait. She hadn't been told to wait since she'd stood in the queue to go into class at Primary School. Briefly she considered Dina. It was frustrating not knowing what was happening. Oh well, what could she do? Dina had got herself into a mess, and would have to get herself out of it.

His skin had a lot of irregularities. Tiny little pockmarks. Either she hadn't noticed or they were more obvious than before. She wondered if he'd been using a concealer, which had now been sweated or rubbed off. How satisfying. It was a tiny bit comforting to know that someone who spent his life ordering people in and out of car boots had flaws.

‘What was that?' she exclaimed, startled by a pale brown heap at the side of the road.

‘Roadkill. Poor thing. Fallow deer, from the size of it. And by the way, the one I just let go, he wasn't the one who killed your cat. I questioned him about that.'

After a few moments she found herself in tears. Poor beautiful Bebe. She hadn't seen the body, would never have to remember him dead. When she pictured him, she would always see him as she'd last seen him, lying on the window ledge, licking his paws, the sun making his creamy fur luminous.

He dropped a handkerchief on her knee, then took hold of her right hand. His was cool, smooth and reassuring. As the miles passed, and his hand remained lightly around hers, she began to regret her earlier anger and her unseemly glee at his skin problems. He said nothing at all, as if he knew that words didn't help when women cried. She liked him the better for it.

When Feliks woke, they were still moving but the world had turned grey. He checked his watch and cursed silently. Nearly an hour gone. He hadn't intended to close his eyes at all.

‘Why did you let me sleep?' he asked. ‘We need to make the phone call.'

‘I know that. I was watching the time. Have some chocolate.'

‘Where did that come from?'

‘Frank gave it to me before we left.'

Meaning the reporter. He'd not protested when they told him they had nothing to say. He'd driven them back to the deserted warehouse without even asking what they intended to do. ‘It's you the police are interested in, not her. You do realise that,' he'd said, too low for Dina to hear.

‘Of course. She is innocent.'

‘So why are you taking her with you?'

‘I'm not forcing her to do anything.'

The man had shrugged.

Feliks wondered now if he was the one who'd tried to follow them out of the city, but said nothing. He hadn't been paying that much attention, confident that Lazslo would lose whoever it might be. Lazslo would have known, number plate and driver both.

He checked his phone. No reception. This was all going on too long. Maybe the reporter had been right.

‘We'll need petrol soon,' she said. ‘Have you got any money left?'

‘There is plenty. Could you stop somewhere along here?'

She did as she was bid.

‘Move over,' he told her, getting out and walking round to the driver's seat which she obediently vacated.

‘Now get out, please.' He drew out his wallet and extracted several large denomination notes. ‘I apologise about this, but I have to leave you.'

‘There's nothing here,' she protested.

‘I cannot help that. You will be safer here than you will be with me.'

‘No I won't.'

‘Take this, and get out. Do I have to throw you? You know I can do that.'

‘He said you hated everyone, and he was right. You're horrible, and disgusting. I don't believe you were ever a priest!'

‘You're right. I was never a priest. I just loved to get up before dawn, eat plain food, be cold all winter and sleep without a mattress. It was so disgusting and horrible it suited me perfectly.'

She grabbed the money and got out, slamming the door exactly as he expected her to.

A motorbike roared past. And another. Six seconds later, a third.

He counted the seconds, right up to ten, and nothing passed, and it was safe to pull out into the road, and still the fingers of his right hand refused to turn the key. When he got to eighteen she was opening the driver's door.

He got out and let her in. He walked round to the passenger side and took his former place.

Without a word, she started the car and they moved off.

He saw the next speed camera sign as an alien, a square head with a striped neck, one big eye and one little eye. It seemed to watch him as they passed, trying to read his thoughts.

They swung through a small village, with no one on its main street, and quickly out again into increasingly desolate countryside. White poles with pink tops marked the road. Snow markers, he guessed. Some sloped sideways, as if they'd been struck by passing cars. Away to the left one small tree was growing out of a boulder. Little else grew here, only straw-coloured grass, and clumps of old heather. Grey rock and pools of water, and mountains in the far distance.

Something was happening on the road. The cars in the distance ahead seemed to be slowing, their warning lights on. ‘It'll be a tractor probably,' she said, ‘or sheep being moved. Normal happenings in this part of the world. Just as well it's not rutting season or stags would be falling on us out of the hills. It's most likely another geriatric caravan.'

‘Geriatric?' he said.

‘People retire from work and go travelling in them. The older they get, the bigger the caravan and the slower they drive. Or else it's motorhomes.'

It was impossible to see the cause of the delay. The road curved with low hills on the right, and the moor on their left. She edged forward in second gear.

‘No, I think they are stopping the cars,' he said.

There was nowhere to go without making a dangerous u-turn. She was looking at the petrol gauge. Should he leave her, try to make his way somehow on foot?

‘What do you want to do? The nearest petrol is ahead of us,' she said.

He tried the phone again. Still no signal. They rounded the next bend. There was a little cluster of cars on the narrow left-hand verge, and a truck parked on the right, its nearside wheels in the ditch. Men were controlling traffic in both directions, stopping cars, waving them on. Ordinary men, he thought, although one wore an orange jacket. He couldn't see any police cars. She was very calm. Surprising. Maybe she was one of those people who could shut things into compartments in their minds. Or perhaps she was so used to normality that the last couple of days seemed to her like a temporary aberration that would soon be put right. He still hadn't asked her why she'd run from the police. And he was making things worse, making use of her, taking her further from the safety she deserved.

What did you expect? You fail every woman in your life.

Hiding in his bedroom, hardening his heart, reading Wild West stories behind the striped green curtains, with the cold glass of the window against his spine. Pretending to hear nothing but the whoop of Indians, the crack of cowboy guns, to feel only the heat of campfires burn his cheeks. Hardening his heart. Refusing to hear his mother crying.

What could I do? I was only a child.

But later? When you were taller than he was? When you began to doubt him? If you didn't see it, did that mean it wasn't happening?

And Anna. More devotion he hadn't deserved but had done nothing to discourage, even though he knew it was dangerous for her to boast about having him in the group.

Because it pleased me.

He stared at the barrenness surrounding them. A strange, melancholy landscape. Looking out of the plane, he'd been struck by how green this country was, how ordered its landscape compared to those at home, but here in the north there was little to please the eye. Low wiry bushes, and boulders and towering hills. The sky had grown dull, one all-covering mass of grey.

I am perverse
.
I only want what I have no right to have.

If the journalist was correct, if this was in fact a police roadblock for him, he would go to them, not crawl forward, waiting to be hauled out in view of all these people. Better to get it done. There had been too much running and hiding and stupidity. Without warning her, he exited the car, and walked quickly towards the tall, red-faced man in the orange jacket.

‘Who is in charge here?' he asked.

‘Not me, pal. There's been a bad accident. And here's the rain now.' He held his hand palm up. ‘Just what we need.'

‘Are there no police here?'

‘On their way, I think.'

Feliks looked back at the girl. In the stationary line, it seemed every occupant of every car was straining to see what was going on. Only a few cars were being let through at a time. The air was tainted with exhaust fumes, thrumming with frustrated engines. There was a bearded man in a bright butter-yellow shirt on his knees beside a prone figure. Beside him, on a strip of weeds at the foot of the rocky outcroppings, lay a bicycle, with a pony-tailed fellow crouching over its chain. A middle aged woman with unnaturally red hair stopped him, barred his way.

‘There's nothing to look at. Go back to your car please.'

‘What is wrong?'

Then he saw the protruding boots, recognised the shape and colour. A blue and green checked rug covered most of Lazslo's trunk. For a split second he hesitated, then, ignoring her and other voices around him, he went forward.

‘I know him,' he said, pushing away hands that tried to stop him. Voices buzzed like disturbed wasps round his head.

‘Lazslo. Can you hear me? What happened? Lazslo, speak to me. Wake up.'

He said none of it in English, bending down closer to the bruised, bleeding face.

‘Who is he? D'you know him?'

‘What language is that?'

‘Don't move him.'

‘Leave him alone, you're not helping.'

They were all speaking at once.

He stood up, and the people didn't make any move to stop him. At the car he motioned for her to roll the window down.

‘He's dying. I should never have let him come. He trusted me and now he's dying.'

She stared up at him.

‘It's Lazslo. I think he's dying,' he told her, in English this time. The words were even emptier in this alien language. Flat, senseless noises with no meaning. Butter. Why was he thinking of butter? Suddenly he remembered. It was his birthday. Laughing, drinking too much beer, the whole crowd huddled together for warmth like winter birds. Or like penguins, someone said, though none of them had ever seen a live one. Lazslo arrived late with an oblong shape in white paper, tied with brown string. He'd missed classes, waited for hours in a queue, and when Feliks took off the wrapping paper to reveal the bright, beautiful slab of yellowness everyone had applauded, slapping Lazslo on the back. He'd blushed, overcome by their approval. ‘Squirrel! Squirrel!' they had chanted. Viktor had composed one of his instant poems, honouring Lazslo's achievement, declaiming it upside down, his huge hairy feet planted like bizarre white fungi against the wall.

You didn't deserve this, Lazslo. Not even for the years you spent kissing Janek's bum.