Through Every Human Heart (13 page)

He'd closed his eyes. The rain was darkening the pale brown of his jacket. His fists were clenched in his pockets. She wanted to know what exactly had happened, but didn't dare.

‘I will go back and stay with him. They have already sent for the police.'

Why am I doing this? Why do I want to help him?

So, what would you do, if he was yours to help, Dina? Get rid of the beard, buy him some nice aftershave? Would you insist on plastic surgery too, to make him beautiful?

From out of nowhere, Grandfather MacLeod's voice came, reverberating in the Gaelic, ‘Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised'.

And there he was, all of a sudden, on the road before her, as on one particular day when as a child she'd seen him, walking down the main street, walking slowly down the exact middle of it, in his relentless, tight-brimmed hat, defying all the cars, because it was the Sabbath, and people had no business to be driving. The locals, who knew the way he would take, avoided those streets at that hour, or bullishly drove without moderating their speed (though they kept well in to the side). Tourists, who didn't know who he was, and therefore presumed he was insane, slowed, swerved, or waited. Those few who agreed with him respected him for it; the rest of the world called it arrogance. She'd never been able to decide. Still didn't want to. Because this was the same man who told her she was the apple of his eye, who secreted mini-packets of Smarties in his study and smiled with delight when she found them after many hints of getting colder or hotter.

She'd have to move the car, but he refused to get back in.

‘Well, you could sit down on one of those rocks under the banking,' she suggested, ‘where there's a bit of shelter. I'll park a bit further on.'

The rock he chose was too high. She couldn't get up. If she did, her feet would dangle like a child's. He didn't sit, but leaned against it, so she did too. His head was down, chin on his chest. The rain grew heavier. She suggested again, in vain, that they go back to the car. He wanted to stay where he could see what was happening.

Later she would ponder how different things might have turned out if she had gone back herself, or asked questions or even spoken at this point, if she'd been her usual stupid, thoughtless self and twittered on because she wanted to know everything.

‘I think he was afraid all of his life,' he said. ‘Always unsure, always looking about him. We used to say he was waiting for the sky to fall. In the practices, at school, he could score goals, and we kept hoping he would, but in a real game it just never happened. But there were some things he could do really well. He could fix machines. From quite young. Mechanical things, a pump, or a boiler, you know? People used to ask him to come and fix things. And he could remember everything. He could look at a diagram. Wiring, circuits, the plan of a building, he could see it all in his mind. I don't know where this talent came from. They said his parents were as dull as wood. He should not have been here. He was afraid to refuse Boris. If I'd known I could have objected.'

‘Who is Boris?' she said.

‘My father. He is still the President of our country. How, I don't know. He made Lazslo come with me.'

‘Because you were friends.'

He let out a short, sour sound. ‘Because he knew we were no longer friends. It is the kind of thing Boris likes to do, you know? Take two starving dogs, put them in the cage, then wait to see them tear each other's throats. Did Lazslo say we were friends?'

‘I'm sorry, It's none of my . . .'

‘I didn't have friends. They were my . . . my chess pieces, you know? To move and manipulate, to sacrifice for glorious democracy. It is very odd. I hated my father. I gave myself to everything he hated, but now I find I am exactly like him.'

Fearful of his mounting distress, she looked away, trying to frame some kind of answer, some kind of comforting word. Abruptly his hand was on her chin, and the fierce pressure of his mouth on hers made speech impossible.

‘Is this a private session or can anyone join in?'

The journalist. Frank. Under a big golf umbrella. She was so dazed, so embarrassed and breathless, she couldn't say a word. Nor it seemed could Feliks. But he stood up and she was scared he was going to hit the other man, who must have thought the same thing, because he stepped back.

‘I'm sorry, that was uncalled for,' the man said quickly. ‘Miss MacLeod, you're drenched, take this,' It was the umbrella, black and white panels, a wooden handle. ‘Go and sit in my car. It's not locked. You know which one.'

‘Don't . . .' Feliks tried to stop her.

‘Trust me, I'm a policeman,' Frank said. ‘I'm on your side, OK? Have mercy on her, man,' this to Feliks. ‘She's soaking wet and shivering like a drowning lamb. Have some sense. Let her go.'

When she looked back, they were really close together, but not fighting. There was a red fleece rug bundled up on the back seat. She got in, putting the closed umbrella on the back shelf. The fleece smelled of fabric softener. She pulled it around herself, but the more she tried to stop shivering, the colder she felt. The outside world was a blur behind the rain-battered glass. Then after what seemed an age, the front passenger door opened and Feliks got in. He put the plastic bags from their own car on the back seat next to her. She waited and waited till she could wait no more.

‘This is insane, he can't be a policeman, can he? What's he doing? Should we just be sitting here? And you were supposed to phone that man again. Are you going to phone him? If he's a policeman why hasn't he – '

‘Stop!'

She stopped.

Frank got into the car and set it in motion.

‘They've sent for an ambulance. He's unconscious, but he's breathing, so there's no need to despair.' No need for the harsh truth, Frank figured, when a lie would calm everyone down. ‘There's a couple of chocolate bars in the side door. You take one, and give her one.'

‘I demand you tell me who you are.'

‘OK. No need to yell, I'll tell you all you want to know,' Frank said. ‘You're scaring her,' he added. ‘If I said that Dimitar sent his regards, would that reassure you?'

Berisovic's face changed, as if he'd been slapped.

‘Let's just drive for a bit, shall we?' Frank said, and to his relief, there were no protestations. Berisovic passed chocolate to the girl but took none himself. There were mountains a short distance from the road on either side now, so bare and smooth they looked as if they might slide down at a given signal onto the narrow strip of tarmac. Sheep nibbled at sparse grass behind fencing.

When they'd gone a fair distance, he began, ‘I'm not a reporter, but you knew that from the start, right? My apologies, Miss MacLeod.'

Time for the clincher. He glanced in the mirror, reduced speed to be on the safe side, then, from under the dashboard, pulled out a gun.

‘This is real,' he held it up, ‘but it's perfectly legal and I haven't had to use it for a long time. Here, you can have it.'

Berisovic exclaimed in surprise, and fumbling, dropped the weapon onto the floor.

‘Don't worry, Miss Macleod, the safety's on.'

This time he made proper eye contact with her.
Convince her, convince him. Both or neither
. He spoke to Berisovic, but was careful to glance often at her in the mirror as he drove, keeping her with him.

‘I am a policeman, of a sort. I work for . . . let's just say I work for people who want to make sure that you and Miss Arbanisi come home together.'

‘Show me your identity card.'

‘We don't carry one. This isn't America.' He didn't look down to see where the gun had gone. All this would only work if he put no pressure on Berisovic at all.

‘Who is the man who has taken her?'

‘I don't know yet, but it's being looked into.'

It annoyed him how slowly the desk boys worked, despite all the gadgetry at their disposal. He'd caught a glimpse of their strange world a few times. ‘We don't let them meet normal human beings,' he'd been told. ‘We just open the door and throw a few buns at them now and then.' Of course, they were all in the same boat; he couldn't tell normal human beings what he did either. Now and again, particularly when he was absent from Brenda and the boys for too long, he was becoming afraid that he too was merely part of a machine.

‘How do you know Dimitar? You have conversed with him?'

Thin ice. All he knew was the name.

‘Not personally.'

‘How did he look? Has he cut his hair yet? I told him to cut it. It was a ridiculous length.'

‘I don't know. Let's just say he's a friend of a friend.'

‘An English friend? But I think his English is very poor. His accent is bad.'

‘Yours is excellent. But then, you studied English Literature didn't you, when you were . . .'

‘And have your friends spoken to my father also? Did he send his regards?'

This had to be stopped. Berisovic's voice was rising, his sarcasm edging into anger. ‘Look, I'm not telling you what to do. You can do whatever you want. But if you trust me, we can work together, we can deal with the bastard who attacked your friend Cristescu and get the Countess back safely.'

Berisovic reached down, picked up the gun and pointed it at him. ‘Bang,' he said loudly.

The girl squealed from the back seat. Frank braked, managed not to swerve. When nothing else happened, he gradually increased speed. It was getting late. He'd have to find somewhere to keep them overnight. Easy does it, old son, he told himself. One thing at a time. He's been through too much. His world's breaking apart. Give the man some hard facts to stick it back together.

‘You don't really know why you're here, do you?' he said. ‘The real reason you've to bring the Countess home? Let me tell you. One word. Oil.'

Berisovic said nothing. Did he know or not?

‘Apparently there is a whole lot of it in your northern provinces. The Russians want the deal. Predictably, so do one or two others.'

‘What has this to do with Miss Arbanisi?'

‘Your father wants her support. It's all very touch and go. He wants the nationalists behind him, whatever decision he makes.'

‘I was in the north. I heard nothing about this oil.'

‘Only a few people have.'

‘Including your friends. You are very coy about them. Is it the Americans?'

Berisovic was alternately looking down at the gun and back at him. With equal dislike, it seemed. But at least the rage had died. Clearly he was the sort who liked to have something to worry at, like a terrier at a rabbit hole, the kind of man who, whether he knew it or not, preferred questions to answers.

‘Let's just say I'm on your side.'

‘That is certainly a comfort. However, it is still strange to me that Boris sent
me
to bring her back, you know? Perhaps your employers know the answer to that also?'

‘They might, but they don't tell me everything.'

Berisovic took time to digest this. Then another question occurred to him. ‘And they don't know who is this man, this bastard we must track down?'

‘They do not. I was hoping you could tell me. It's like he dropped in from the moon.'

‘Have you tried asking Uncle Janek?'

‘Who?'

‘Never mind. Could I ask you to pull in here?'

‘Here' was a small lay-by with a heap of gravel at the far end.

‘Miss MacLeod, please stay in the car. Now, you will go to the rear,' Berisovic told him, gesturing with the gun. ‘Leave the key where it is, please.'

Out of the car, Frank immediately noticed how the temperature had fallen. The rain had gone, but there was a cool wind. He glanced at their surroundings. Gorse bushes, growing through the usual wire fence. Further along the road on the brow of the next hill, a small white house with outbuildings. No washing on the line and no lights on. No way to tell if it was inhabited.

He had to be very careful. The last thing he needed was to have them wandering off to try to find the Countess and her kidnapper on their own. The girl wasn't a problem. Berisovic was another matter. His antipathy to authority of any shape or colour was well-documented. But it was doable. With care Berisovic could be managed.

‘You will go over that fence and begin to walk away from me.'

‘Don't do this. You're scaring her again,' he said.

But Berisovic didn't so much as glance at the girl, whose face against the window evidenced shock and utter disbelief.

‘You're not equipped to deal with this. You need me, especially with Cristescu out of it. Don't be ridiculous.'

‘But I prefer to be ridiculous. Take your wallet and your phone out and throw them towards me. Be very careful how you remove them. Throw slowly. Good. Now the fence.'

Astride the wire, he tried again. ‘Look, this is not going to do any good. There's more chance of us sorting things out together. I've already got the police off your back twice. Haven't you wondered why they've not caught up with you?'

He knew with a calm certainty that this posturing with the gun was all bluff. The next moment, he was on his back, spread-eagled in coarse wet gorse. The pain in his left leg was so intense he couldn't focus or right himself for several minutes, and even then he didn't believe what had happened. By the time he pulled his mind back from the void, the car and its two occupants had gone.

‘This seems half decent.'

Irene looked at the building Charles was pointing to. He'd been complaining of hunger pangs for the last hour and a half, overtaking every car in sight. It didn't look like much to her, just a long white building close to the loch shore, but she didn't say anything.

When she stepped out into the rain, she was surprised by the salt tang in the air. Was this the sea, or a sea loch? She had no idea where they were.

‘Where are we?' she asked. He went on ahead. The place looked rather run-down, despite the two AA stars on the wall. She followed him inside. No one at the reception desk. He was at the bar already, looking at a menu. The room was ghastly – low, dark and airless. Gold-framed paintings of highland cows standing in shallow water, muddy green wallpaper, subdued lighting. She felt herself struggling to breathe. Far, far worse was a stag's head on the opposite wall. Its woeful brown eyes stared at the room in search of some explanation.

‘God, not here,' she said loudly. The few people at the low tables looked round at her. Was there perhaps somewhere else, Charles asked, less crowded? The barman suggested they might prefer the conservatory.

Here there was more light. The curtains lacked charisma, and the dark-stained wooden tables each had a brass number hammered into the surface, but one wall was completely window, and everything felt much cleaner. Outside, the afternoon light was recovering from the rain. They were very near the water's edge, separated from the shore only by a lawn, two Scots pines and a low drystone wall. The waves looked rough, but thanks to the double panes of glass they broke soundlessly on the shingle. On the far side of the water, a ridge of mountains went on without any visible end.

A very tall young waiter with ginger hair and absurd mutton chop whiskers materialised beside them. She said she didn't want anything, then, pressed by Charles, she ordered lemon tea. He took his time, finally deciding on lentil soup and a toasted cheese sandwich, exchanging pleasantries, asking about the local fishing. Apparently she and Charles were both keen on fishing.

At a corner table, a middle-aged couple were eating in silence with no sign of pleasure, looking at nothing. Grey tweed, grey faces, grey hair. Irene accessorized the woman with a deep rose silk scarf and matching earrings, gave her attractive white tones in the front of her hair, used make-up on her sad face, removed the laced shoes and gave her black patent ones with a large matching messenger bag. The man, she decided, was a lost cause.

Outside on the lawn, a boy with a bullet-shaped head was gathering twigs and other detritus, carrying them to a nearby wheelbarrow. A young girl in tight blue jeans appeared, holding a closed umbrella. She had good straight shoulders. Her shiny brown hair swung in a ponytail. Watching how the girl angled her body towards the boy Irene felt a surge of annoyance.
No, not him,
she told the girl,
not this one
.
You can do so much better
.
Don't waste energy on this one. Not even for practice.

The two of them walked away, the boy pushing the barrow.

Irene stood up. She felt old for the first time in her life.

‘What's wrong? Where are you going?' Charles said. He caught her sleeve.

Where the hell did he think she was going? For a swim?

‘I'm going to the loo. Is that allowed?'

The carpet throughout the place was Black Watch tartan. Absolutely typical. She hated tartan carpeting so much she felt like ripping it up with her fingernails. She was not in the least old. It was absurd to feel like this.

There was a payphone in the corridor. No handbag. It was in the car. What was happening to her? She asked the receptionist, could she borrow some change, and add it to the bill? As she waited for the call to go through, she watched the doorway, but allowed herself to take fleeting glances at the emerald. It looked completely perfect on her hand. The one good thing in all this absurdity.

When her own recorded voice asked her to leave a message, she was sorely tempted to yell.

‘Paul, if you get this, I'm at a hotel in the middle of nowhere. Apparently someone is trying to kill me.' Why had she said that? It sounded ridiculous. ‘Anyway, phone me the moment you get this. We have to talk. Here's the number.'

She read it into the phone, and hung up, greatly relieved that she was still on her own. Charles would probably not approve. In fact, she decided, it was probably better not to tell him.

‘Thank you so much,' she gave the girl her most winning smile. ‘I'm expecting someone to phone me here. It's very . . .' She took a business card from the stack and borrowed the desk pen to write her name on the reverse. ‘Very confidential. So when my friend calls back, could you come to the conservatory and ask me to come to reception without saying why?'

The girl didn't understand.

‘Just come for me, don't say there's a phone call. I'm in the conservatory. It's . . . a special surprise for the gentleman I'm with.'

This time the girl smiled and nodded.

 

‘Your tea's getting cold,' Charles said. ‘I thought you'd got lost.'

She took a sip. ‘Oh it's not too bad.'

They'd brought shortbread with the tea, not home-made, but edible. She finished both small biscuits. Was there actually someone out there wanting to kill her? She hoped Paul would call back quickly. Or Ronni. They were both reliable. The phrase ‘joined-up thinking' might have been invented to describe them. If they were here, they'd be telling her not to worry. The tea was lukewarm, but not unpleasant. She wanted to show them the ring, and tell them about the offer, tell them about all the possibilities that might lie ahead. Paul had always been interested in her heritage, in Byzantine art and architecture. She wanted them all here to recognise what was happening. By phoning, she had done the right thing, and they would come.

‘Tell me, Charles, what happens next? What's the master plan?'

He was chewing his crusts.

‘You said that man with the damaged face wants to kill me, but you let his friend go. So now he's roaming free. So why are we sitting here in a public place? And why are we going further and further into the depths of nowhere? I'm getting very weary of all these endless lochs and mountains. Hello? Are you hearing any of this?'

He pushed his plate away, leaned back in his chair and half turned to look at the view, as if he was trying to work out why on earth she could be tiring of it.

‘Are you going to . . .?'

‘Do you want your secretary back unharmed, Irene?'

‘Of course.'

‘Good. I just felt we might have lost sight of her for a minute. Stopped caring, as it were.'

Who the hell did he think he was?

‘I haven't stopped thinking about her for a single moment,' she said.

He swung back to face her. ‘What do you see when you look at me, Irene?'

‘What the hell does that have to do with anything?'

He took her right hand in his left. His steady blue gaze made her uneasy. She hadn't given Dina a thought for a long time. He didn't let her hand go. He stroked the finger with the emerald ring.

He glanced at the others in the room. His voice dropped almost to a whisper. ‘Let me answer for you. You see one man. I, on the other hand, when I see my sorry self reflected in this large, though not impeccably clean window, see not one man but many. I see an organised body of men. Team players, for want of a better phrase. People I trust. People who trust me. This is the way I live.'

He squeezed her hand gently and let it go. ‘Our foreign friend should have phoned by now and he hasn't. I'm going to call my boss. Wait here for me, won't you? Order coffee for me. Double espresso. I won't be long.'

He stood under the dark maroon canopy at the doorway. Although it wouldn't be long before the light began to fade, some of the sky was showing blue again. He took deep breaths of the fresh salty air. How wearisome all this was becoming. It had been amusing at first, pretending to be some kind of James Bond figure, watching her varying reactions, but the fun was fast wearing thin. She was possibly the most self-absorbed, vain woman he had ever met. If she patted her hair one more time he might scream and pull it all out of her dumb head.

He slipped a piece of mint gum into his mouth and begin to chew, avoiding the left side of his jaw which was still tender. She was right about one thing, they were going further and further into the wilderness, no nearer the foreign guy, no closer to payback time. It should be done and dusted by now. It should have ended on the roof.

He checked her mobile. Nothing. That was seriously annoying. So much depended on them phoning. No phone call opened up too many possibilities. He didn't like clutter. The scarred man and the MacLeod girl could both identify him and he believed the man actually did want to get the bitch back. If they didn't call him, the likeliest thing was that the police had caught up with them. In which case, he himself should be sensible and cut his losses. But leaving loose ends had never been his way. It made life harder, but that was the way it was. Some people tidied up after themselves, others didn't. The matter of Dan, for example – that wasn't something he'd had in mind. Once only in the past had he been compelled to tidy up in that fashion. Twice if you counted the nervous foreign guy's recent fall. And that time in Gibraltar . . . But that had been an accident, more or less.

He looked at his shirt cuffs in distaste. And two days in the same underwear. All his stuff was in a suitcase in the boot of his own car, in a city street. Swings and bloody roundabouts, he told himself. Still, no need to be gloomy. There was always the ring. If the foreign guy and the girl were out of reach, the emerald would be compensation enough for the inconvenience and waste of time. He had to admit he'd made a bit of a mistake back there, not realising quite how close to the road they were. It would have been better if he'd fallen somewhere else, where his body might have lain undiscovered for days. Oh well, not to worry.

She might not let the ring leave her finger. In which case, he supposed, the finger would have to come too. He patted the firm line of Dan's knife in its sheath in his inside pocket. He'd always looked down on weapons, but it was good to be open to new possibilities in life.

He walked across the gravel, to where he could see the loch. The waves were still the colour of lead despite the clearing sky, and probably very cold. Would Irene like to take a brief reviving stroll along the shore? They might wander down to look for little fish, down the cracked concrete ramp where an upturned boat lay, its dark blue paint peeling like aged scabs. He didn't like the sea himself. He was a terribly poor swimmer, no use to anyone who might unexpectedly slip and fall.

He spat the gum back into its wrapper and dropped it on top of a flower tub on the steps. Pinks and gypsy carnations, sadly neglected. Why did people take the trouble to plant flowers and not give them the care they needed? All it took was a little effort.

His coffee was waiting.

‘Well, I've done what you wanted. I've taken advice,' he told her.

‘And?' she said, not looking at him.

‘And there may be one or two changes to plan.'

‘So we were following a plan?'

‘They're sending someone else to get Miss MacLeod back. I'm off duty.' He tried the coffee. It tasted of washing-up liquid.

She looked not altogether pleased. ‘What does that mean?'

‘It means we can relax,' he gave her his warmest smile. ‘It means you can go home.'

She didn't look happy at all. He wasn't entirely convinced by this new twist in the story himself. One secret agent on the loose was plausible. Others lurking about the hills waiting to leap like the deer into action was perhaps a little less so. She was playing with the handle of a teaspoon, pushing it back and forth on the dark-stained wood.

‘Of course, I'm not completely off duty. I'm still responsible for your safety so I'll stay with you to the finish.'

This was pure mischief. Being ‘responsible' was a concept he had never been able to fathom, though he'd pondered it more than once.

‘You said he wouldn't let Dina go unless I was there.'

Shit. He'd forgotten that. ‘I know, but the powers that be have decided your safety is paramount. That's the long and short of it. What's the matter?'

‘I'd like my phone back.'

‘Of course. I'm sorry. It's in the car.'

‘Have they found the other one? The man you turned loose. What if he turns up again?'

He would almost certainly have turned up by now, Charles thought, and he was almost tempted to tell her why, but really, maintaining the mystery was much more jolly. An explanation could be saved for another time.

‘Oh, I don't think he'll bother us again,' he said. ‘Now, if you'd care to accompany me, young lady, I think we might take a little fresh air before we turn around. Frankly, I'd like a hot shower, but that's not going to happen. You know, I wasn't told much about you before I was assigned, and I would really like to hear more. I'm not quite off duty, as I said, but I do feel I deserve to enjoy your company before I have to give you up.'

She agreed to the walk but wanted an overnight bag from the car boot, as well as her handbag. ‘To freshen up,' she said.

He brought them in, and off she strode, leaving him to his own devices. He went over to the reception desk to pay. That done, he took one of the black leather tub chairs just inside the door and sat with a newspaper. Everything was the same as always. Politicians caught with other men's wives or other men. Banks making excuses. Virus outbreaks all over the place. Middle Eastern rulers being rebelled against. Church leaders telling everyone how to live without ever explaining why. People were so stupid, so determined to make their lives complicated. If only they'd learn to live simply and control themselves. But then, he mused, what would the newspapers find to print?