Lost (25 page)

When he reached the wall of the hut, Karim turned again and walked back along the muddy floor towards the child. He was trying to think, but his mind seemed to be confined by the six paces it took to cross the room. He stood still and looked down at his orange cheesecloth trousers, spattered with mud at the hem. The rain had stopped but he was still cold and damp.

Denis was sitting in Garetta’s place on the tarpaulin, picking his teeth. He must have run out of toothpicks because he was using the point of his knife.

‘Think of something, for fuck’s sake, Denis.’

Denis took the knife blade from between his teeth, to show that he was trying.

‘He doesn’t trust us, right?’ Karim said. ‘So he could do anything.’

‘He doesn’t trust you,’ Denis said.

Karim looked at him.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘He took your phone. He didn’t take mine.’

‘You don’t have a phone.’

‘No, but he doesn’t know that.’

‘I’m getting out,’ Karim said suddenly. ‘You can do what you like, but I’m out.’

Denis scrambled to his feet.

‘I’m coming,’ he said, folding the knife.

Karim looked at Denis, then at the child.

‘How long’s he been gone? Five, ten minutes?’

‘More like ten,’ Denis said.

‘Why did he take my phone? What’s he planning?’

‘He doesn’t trust us,’ Denis said.

Karim moved him out of the way with his arm.

‘Okay, now listen. We’re going to take the kid. Santini wants the kid back to its mother.’ He approached the child and leaned over it.

‘Look at it. If it dies, we go down for sure,’ he said, looking at Denis. ‘We go down just about for ever.’

Denis scratched his eyebrow.

‘So what do we do?’

‘We take the kid and get out of here. I told Santini where we were. I don’t want to be around when Garetta gets back.’ Denis nodded like he always did when he didn’t understand. ‘We’re going to give the kid back.’

‘Good idea,’ Denis said.

‘Help me, you dickhead.’

Denis crouched down beside Karim and looked at the unmoving child.

‘Shit,’ Karim whispered. ‘All that money.’

‘What happens if –’ Denis began.

‘Shut it and help me. We’ve got no choice.’

Karim reached his arms under the child’s back.

‘Get his legs.’

‘He’s all stiff,’ Denis said.

They picked up the child, who stayed curled up in a ball. Karim looked at his face for the first time and wished he hadn’t. He did not know what he had been expecting, but the sight of the child’s eyes, wide open and knowing, scared him.

‘Fuck, man. You carry him.’

Denis turned and rounded his back obediently. Karim tried to lift the child on to Denis’s back, but the child seemed to stiffen even more and would not uncurl.

‘Fuck, Denis. Just take him.’

Denis turned and held out his arms.

‘It’s okay,’ Denis said to the child, speaking with a gentleness that surprised Karim. ‘We’re going to take you back to your mum now.’ The child did not move but went on staring
at God knows what. ‘Okay. Give him to me,’ Denis said. Karim passed him the child and Denis went on talking in his new voice. ‘That’s okay, now off we go.’

Karim backed out of the hut into the black night. He had never thought he would ever be grateful for Denis.

Sam knew someone was talking to him but he could not understand the words. It was as if there was a wall between him and the words and he was only getting the voice. He could not feel his body any more, but he knew he was moving. He was looking into the sky, which was far above him, and he saw that the sky was like the surface of the water for his fish and above was another world that he did not understand. He could hear feet brushing the grass and the trees moving in the wind.

He looked for the moon but it had gone. He knew that this was sad, but he did not feel anything.

He had flown before, in the bathroom in his flat in Paris, when everyone was asleep. He had held on to the shower rail and kicked his legs outwards like they did in swimming lesson. He remembered the feeling of sinking in the air and kicking harder to stay up. He would soon open and fly up to the surface. He didn’t want to be in a world where his mother wasn’t.

They were nearing Cortizzio and Karim’s call had still not come. When Mesguish’s voice, shrill with doubt, asked him for a decision over the radio Stuart simply told him to stand by. He did not want Alice to detect his apprehension.

He was crouching on the floor in front of the passenger seat. He knew the road so well, he could visualise it, identify every turn and every straight line, without having to ask her. She had her window open a little and he could hear the route: the emptiness of the valley and the sound intervals between the pine saplings as they passed the Cortizzio plantation. In the changing quality of her silence Stuart could feel her fear rising and falling.

‘Remember,’ he said. ‘When you’ve taken the call you get back into the car and drive into the village. In the square, park and call me. You’re okay about the radio?’

She nodded.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘You’re going to slow down to twenty. Good. Now stay at twenty. On the next bend I’m going to jump out. You’ll have to reach over and shut the door behind me.’

He looked up at her face leaning close to the steering wheel, at her chin thrust forward. He opened the door with one hand and with the other gripped the radio to his chest.

‘Now,’ he said, and he rolled out.

Alice pulled the door closed behind him, veering only slightly as she did so. She breathed slowly and deeply, concentrating her mind on the road ahead of her. The road curved and revealed the lights of the village. When she saw the neon light of the call box, she caught her breath. She read
the signpost carefully, trying to pin her mind to its perceptive function only and calm herself. She pulled over, feeling her hands on the steering wheel and listening to the road beneath the wheels. She looked at her hand as she turned the ignition key. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘Keep it running.’ She restarted the engine then climbed out. She slammed the door for the noise it made, but the night seemed to absorb the sound. ‘Here I am,’ she whispered to whoever was watching her. She pulled open the door to the call box. It did not come easily but ground on its hinges. She heard her step on the metal floor. She put her hand on the receiver and waited.

Stuart walked along the side of the road. He rubbed his shoulder, which had been bruised in the fall. Around the next bend he would be in sight of the village. To his right the forest climbed steeply; to his left was a drop to the valley. He looked for access into the forest, but the rock face was a wall covered in wire mesh to protect the road. He crossed over to the other side and looked down. The trees straggled thinly out of the dark. It was too steep; he would have to stay on the road. He gave thanks that there was no moon.

The village was up ahead. He could see the call box and Alice’s shape inside it. He thought he could see from the tilt of her head that she was holding the phone. The sight of her so far from reach made him anxious. If Karim had not called, it meant either that he was unable to or that he had decided not to co-operate. Perhaps Santini had given him some signal during the conversation. The reassuring constancy of his hatred of Santini settled him.

He spoke into the radio: ‘Come in, Gérard. Still nothing? Over.’

‘Nothing, Stuart. Over.’

‘Okay. I’m calling Mesguish. We’re moving. Tell Santini he screwed up. Remind him. If anything happens to the child, he dives. Over.’

He looked at Alice, perfectly vulnerable in the glass box.
She had picked up the phone. They had to move now; they would not get a second chance.

‘Come in, Mesguish,’ he said. ‘Move now. Do you copy? Move now. Put the dogs in front. Over.’

While Mesguish was making the appropriate response, his voice charged with excitement, Stuart saw Alice turn and step out of the call box. He gripped his radio until his fist hurt. He watched her walk over to the car and climb in. She moved off immediately. It was at least ten minutes’ walk to the village from here. Mesguish was still talking.

‘Call,’ Stuart whispered. ‘Call, Alice.’ The car disappeared. He stood in the dark and closed his eyes. ‘Alice,’ he said again.

The radio went quiet. Stuart heard an engine not far off.

‘Come in, Paul. I’m standing by the road five hundred metres before the village. Is that you I can hear? Where are you? Over.’

‘We’re coming very slowly. It’s hard to see. It’s dark as hell.’

‘I can see you. Slow right down. I’m fifty metres ahead of you. Pick me up. Over.’

Paul’s car stopped. Joachim climbed smartly out of the passenger seat and greeted him with a pat on the arm. Stuart ushered him into the back, closed the door quietly behind him, then climbed into the front. Paul’s car smelled of women’s perfume and stale fags. The pump-action shotgun, the weapon Paul always chose, lay across his knee.

‘Just stop here a moment until we get her call,’ Stuart told him.

Paul leaned forward, resting his elbows on the steering wheel, and rubbed his eyes. Driving with no lights on a mountain road was tiring.

‘Stuart?’ The radio cut out.

‘Hold the button down,’ Stuart urged.

‘Can you hear me, Stuart?’

‘I can hear. Go ahead. Over.’

‘He wouldn’t let me talk to him.’ Her voice was high pitched. ‘I thought they’d let me hear him.’

He waited. But there was silence.

‘Alice, come in. Tell me what he told you to do. Try and remember his words. Over.’

‘He said to go up to the Col du Palomba Rossa. He said drive through the village and take the only road out. He said it’s twenty minutes away. It’s marked with a blue sign. Just next to the sign there’s a lay-by. He told me to put the bag down in the centre of the lay-by; he said dead centre, then drive back down the way I came.’

Paul was unfolding a map.

‘Wait there, Alice. Paul’s driving me into the village.’

The radio hissed.

‘No! Stuart. They’ll see you. You can’t. They were watching me.’

Stuart counted three seconds.

‘How do you know they could see you? Over.’

‘He told me. He said, “I’m watching you.”’

‘Alice, listen to me. They’ve gone to get Sam. We must give them time. Now sit there and start counting. No one’s going to see me. You just count and I’ll be there before you get to two hundred. Do you understand? Over.’

‘Yes.’

He could hear the tears in her voice.

‘I’m coming. Just count.’

Karim walked along the ridge. Without Garetta ahead of him and without the moon, he moved more slowly than the night before. He advanced, feeling the cliff wall with his fingers, listening to Denis, who was a few paces behind, talking continually to the child. Karim felt like he was in a dream; the unfamiliarity of Denis’s tone made it worse.

He thought of home, of his hanging wardrobe with all his clothes, arranged according to colour, starting with black from the left, moving through the greys, then white, then red, then orange. He would not wear any other colours. Nadia wanted to move in; maybe he would let her, on a trial basis. He had only been up here for one night but it seemed like months since he had seen home, his car, Nadia. He would surprise her – crawl into her bed and fuck her, gently, from behind – and she wouldn’t know whether she was awake or dreaming. If she tried to turn and talk to him he would cover her mouth with his hand and hold her still and whisper in her ear. He imagined her back arching and her arse moving; then he remembered he didn’t have his key.

‘Hey, Denis. You’ll have to let me into Nadia’s flat.’

He turned and saw that Denis had disappeared.

‘Hey, Denis!’

‘I’m here.’

In the grey darkness, Karim could just make him out – Denis and the bundle in his arms.

‘Get a fucking move on.’

When Denis had caught up Karim said, ‘You’ve got to let me into Nadia’s flat. I want to surprise her.’

Denis was panting and Karim could smell cough lozenges on his breath.

‘All right?’ Karim said.

Denis nodded. Karim looked down at the kid, still curled in a ball in Denis’s arms. Its face was buried in Denis’s filthy jacket.

‘Poor kid,’ Karim said. ‘You must stink. Let’s go.’

‘Where are we going?’ Denis asked, his voice normal again.

‘To meet Santini. We go to Cortizzio and we call him from there. Now listen: when we get off this ridge we head for the woods and hide until Garetta has passed. Then we head down to the village as quick as we can. Right?’

Denis nodded and Karim had the sudden impression that Denis dragged him down. It was not a good thing to spend too much time with an idiot. When this was over he’d cut Denis loose.

When they reached the end of the ridge Karim stopped to take a gorse needle from his socks. His trainers were damp and ruined. The thought of having to buy more trainers brought a flash of anxiety: he was giving up three million francs. He had three million francs within reach. He could buy a villa with a crescent-shaped pool in The Hesperides compound and he would be set up for life. But then he would lose Santini and without Santini he would get nowhere. He stood up and walked on, bringing to mind Nadia’s swaying arse to banish the thought of the money.

When they came in sight of the woods below them, Denis asked for a rest.

‘You can rest in the woods,’ Karim told him. He looked at the woods, a black cloud stretching out below him, the last band before real life, he thought. He kept on walking down the narrow track. He could hear Denis was tired. ‘Pick your feet up, you’ll fall.’

Suddenly Denis stopped.

‘Listen.’

Karim had already heard, but the nature of the sound only revealed itself to his consciousness now, as he watched the two shadows emerge from the forest, moving towards them
up the hill, not fast but smooth and unrelenting.

‘Dogs,’ Denis said. Karim saw the fear in Denis’s face and adrenaline rushed into his body. ‘No, no,’ he heard. ‘Don’t run!’

But Karim did run. He ran back up the path, moving so quickly it felt as if he was being pulled up the hill. He had seen a tree, a tall tree, on a bend in the path. It was not far. If he could reach it he would be safe. But he could not see the tree and the path steepened, his trainers began to slip in the mud and he was using his hands too, clawing at the path, looking for the tree. He was still scrambling up the path but he had stopped breathing, for everything had suddenly gone quiet. Then up ahead he saw the tree and he breathed again, and at that moment he heard men’s voices and now behind him, instead of barking, was the sound of dogs panting closer, but the tree was closer still and he reached up for its branches that stretched out over the path and he heard a sound, not like an animal sound but human, like a man with water in his throat, drowning, and he knew where they’d get him and he put his hand there and thought, I can lose a hand for stealing, but it was too late and he felt the fur against his fingers and a hot pain between his legs and everything flooded with red darkness.