People Die (20 page)
Authors: Kevin Wignall
He stared at her, numb, ambushed, the fact only slowly sinking in. He was confused too by the way she looked, compassion where there should have been anger, hostility. JJ managed to say only, “How?”
“Ed,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Ed and me have always been kind of close. He trusts me, thinks I can deal with the truth and stuff, whatever. He told me about Dad a few weeks after it happened, even like, about him knowing and everything, about asking for the right guy to do it if it had to be done.” She looked away from him, staring out over the snowfield, JJ’s mind stalled by her composure, by the fact that a girl of her age had carried this around with her, shocked too that Holden had burdened her with it, a weight of knowledge that was an act of cruelty in itself. “Then last September, he told me that guy was coming to the inn, that he was coming to help him with a problem. He didn’t tell me until like, Christmas, you know, what the problem was. But you were the guy.”
She turned briefly, long enough to offer him another fleeting half smile, a nod to the strangeness of things. And as he stood there looking back at her he thought of the way she’d looked at him on the stairs that first time, and of her taking him to her father’s grave. It all seemed to add up now, the way she’d been with him.
“What about the others?”
She shook her head without looking at him. “They don’t know. Ed might seem flaky but he has people pretty well figured.”
They stood in silence until JJ said, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t ...”
She turned again, saying quietly, “Don’t. It had to happen. It happens. Maybe one day we can talk about it some more.” She paused, her eyes fixing him, her face ruddy with the cold air, her lips full and red. “I’m glad it was you, that’s all. I’m glad it was you.”
He offered her the same smile she’d given him, inadequate but the only response he could manage, his heart overfull with blood, his thoughts flooded, sodden with knowledge for which he could never have readied himself, not that she knew, but that she understood, that she forgave him or didn’t even see a need to forgive him. Without being aware of doing it then, he took his glove off, watching his own hand as it lifted and wiped from her cheek the single tear that had traced its path there, her face cold against his fingers, Jem smiling a little as his hand fell away again.
“Shall we move on?” she asked a few seconds later, as if they were done with it, or possibly as if she still didn’t want to dwell on it; the difficulty of the journey her own mind had taken to that point was something he couldn’t even guess at. He nodded but then, catching up with himself, felt like he had to say something else, at least something, to stop feeling the fraud he was by accepting her vision of him.
“Jem, I don’t know how Ed painted me; he’s a good guy, he means well. But I kill people, that’s all I do, your dad just one more job, and it doesn’t matter what light you put on it, I didn’t do anything good there in Moscow. All I did was kill someone; there’s no goodness in it, none.”
She smiled once more, this time like it was JJ who didn’t understand, and said, “I think you’re wrong. I think sometimes there’s a goodness where you’d least expect it.” She paused then and added, “Let’s not talk about it. I just wanted you to know, to know that I understand, and, well, you know, that it doesn’t change anything. I’m glad it was you. That’s all.”
He nodded thoughtfully at the repeated phrase, an understanding taking root between them, that it was enough for now, that it was at least in the open where they’d needed it, no longer the obstacle it would have been whether she’d known about it or not.
They stood in silence then as he put his glove back on, glancing at each other once more before pushing forward, down the gentle slope ahead of them, pushing on into the open spaces of the snowfield, heading into the elusive peace of being lost on the winter landscape.
He still wanted to speak at first, to tell her again that she was wrong, or to ask her to explain how she could feel that way, how she could find it within herself not to hate him for who he was. But he said nothing, humbled by her, knowing that he wouldn’t have been able to find the words.
It was hard for him to accept, this belief of hers that there was good in him where he could see none himself, but it didn’t mean she was wrong, perhaps only that she was looking in a different way, seeing more clearly. Because he had killed Bostridge cleanly, the thing he’d been chosen for, and maybe the goodness of this friendship had arisen out of that, and the goodness of everything that had come to him with it, a sense that there was something to head for, a reason to keep going.
So he kept silent, wondering how they could ever speak about anything else again, how they’d move on to another carefree subject. Once they were lost on the flat of the snowfield though, she let herself glide to a stop, and as he slowed and turned to see if she was okay he saw her smiling, almost laughing with exhilaration, like she’d already shed it, something she’d carried from the day they’d met.
“Isn’t this great?” she said, holding her arms out at the landscape, her words steaming skyward in vapor trails.
He nodded, easing back toward her, and said, “It’s what downhillers don’t understand.”
“I know.” She looked around, shaking her head as if in disbelief at the hazy expanse of snow surrounding them. “I’ve wanted to show someone this place for so long. I mean, it’s like a miracle, you know, that it’s so beautiful, but like, so transitory. I mean, I don’t think I believe in God or anything, but this makes you kind of realize, I guess, that ...”
Her words fell away, like she couldn’t pin down what she wanted to say, and JJ said, “That we’re part of something bigger, that there’s a reason for things.”
She smiled, staring at him. “That’s it,” she said, adding with a note of curiosity, “Do you believe in God? I don’t know why I didn’t ask before.”
“No, I don’t, but I see this, and I understand why people do.”
She nodded in agreement, looking around, awestruck by its beauty, JJ doubly awestruck that he was there with her. She pointed then and said, “Do you wanna go all the way across?” He nodded and turned and they moved off in silence again, talking only sparingly.
And as they headed into the white escape, he became lulled by the feel of the snow, the sound of their skis as they sheared its surface, the cold air as it streamed against his face. His thoughts began to die away, lost in each passing winter moment, until his mind was stripped bare, and then in that vacuum a simple truth arose, from something he’d said to her just a few minutes before, that some people saw all of this and explained it with a belief in God.
It made him realize something he’d almost lost sight of, that maybe some other good too had come of that killing in Moscow. Because he had to believe now, as Naumenko did, that hidden in another winter landscape, a continent away, already sunk in darkness, was an icon, beautiful perhaps, valuable, an Annunciation. It meant more to those people than it ever could have elsewhere, representing to them what it did, representing everything.
They’d kept it through centuries of history’s ebb and flow before its theft, refusing to let it go even then, their faith making them determined to retrieve it from people whose motives were alien to them. And at the last, perhaps only a day away from losing it forever, it had been found and taken back.
That was where JJ had played his part, because it had been returned to the place it belonged by a girl who’d seen him kill a man, a witness, someone who by rights should never have survived herself. She’d seen inside him though, had seen something which in her own silent way she’d tried to communicate.
And at the time he hadn’t understood, but he’d been moved by her all the same, a girl he’d had no reason to spare but who, in a moment of weakness, he’d chosen not to kill. It was a scant gift but all he’d had to offer, and on that night perhaps, few could have offered much more.
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1
Seventeen-year-old boys die in car crashes, they die of meningitis, rare forms of cancer, suicide. Mostly, they don’t die at all. They pass through the age, shedding awkwardness and anger and self-loathing on the way.
Ben Hatto was a seventeen-year-old close to bursting with anger. He was angry with his parents for stifling just about every plan he’d had for the summer ahead, angry with his sister, too, for spending the second successive summer traveling with someone from college, angry with school and life and everything else.
There was no teen awkwardness about him, but he made up for it in self-loathing, centered at the moment on his hopeless infatuation with Alice Shaw, a girl completely out of his league, who thought of him as a friend if she thought of him at all. And today someone had asked him outright if he had a crush on her, and that’s where he was now, one feeble panicky denial away from total social humiliation.
He lay on his bed as the light faded, head propped up on a pillow, headphones with metal pounding, holding the world at bay. He’d eaten early, pasta. His parents had probably just finished their own dinner downstairs, hardly aware that he was even in the house with them.
His eyes were closed and he was thinking how he’d just have to ignore Alice completely through the final couple of weeks. If one person suspected something, so would others and he’d become a laughing stock. So he’d play it cool with her, and over the summer he’d get his act together and then maybe it wouldn’t seem so ridiculous that he liked someone that beautiful. Maybe.
It was something he could believe in for as long as he lay there, that he could be good-looking enough, cool enough, interesting enough for someone like her, that he could speak to her and say what he wanted to say, what he felt, and not the mess of words that actually came out. Lying there he could be everything he needed to be.
The trouble came when he left the security of his room, the posters, music, books, as though his personality was locked up in those familiar surroundings. He just wished for once that he could walk out of there, leave the house and not have everything fall apart, to be able to express himself, to be cool.
A track ended, and in the two-second digital hush he heard his door open. He kept his eyes closed, let the next track explode into his ears, wanting whoever it was just to go away. Then for one hopeful moment he imagined it being someone other than his parents—it was crazy, but if she were to come there, she might get to know him for who he really was, and then things might be different.
He opened his eyes. It wasn’t one of his parents. It took him another second or two to take in the man standing there. Ben didn’t know who it was and couldn’t work out the expression on the stranger’s face, either, one of regret, or like someone about to break bad news.
Their eyes met. Confused, Ben reached up to take off the headphones. The stranger lifted his arm swiftly at the same time, and the headphones were still in place, the music still pounding, when Ben felt something hit him hard on the head.
That was the last thing he felt, because Ben Hatto had just become a statistic in a subgroup almost entirely his own, seventeen-year-old boys killed in their own homes by professional hit men.
The killer made his way back down the stairs, bypassing the kitchen where Pamela Hatto lay on the floor in front of the open dishwasher, her blood speckled across the freshly rinsed dishes she’d been stacking.
He passed through the hallway, stepping carefully over the pool of Mark Hatto’s blood that had crept and expanded across the tile floor in the few minutes since he’d shot him. He eased the front door shut behind him, got back in his car, and drove away.
The house he left was silent, the only noise the faint tinny racket of Ben’s headphones, a false life sign, like the lights that were on here and there around the place. From the outside that’s how it looked, like nothing was wrong, an affluent family home at peace on a summer’s evening.
That affluence was visible too in the distance between the Hattos’ house and those of their neighbors, the growing number of lights isolated from each other in the lightly wooded garden landscape. This wealth was private, unobtrusive, the kind that would leave the deaths unnoticed for the night, the dead undisturbed.
But an earth tremor had taken place here, and however slowly, the shock waves would ripple out from the epicenter of the Hatto household, undermining the stability of people’s lives at ever greater distances.
A few hundred yards away their immediate neighbors were going about their own business, oblivious of the ghoulish adrenaline rush that would sweep them all up in the next twenty-four hours as the legion of TV crews, journalists and photographers would make this quiet neighborhood its own.
Further off, but still less than two miles away, the Shaw family was enjoying a barbecue with friends. Alice was there; happy, a little drunk on red wine, unaware that her feelings for Ben Hatto, confused as they were, would soon take on a lifelong significance, a mantle of sadness and regret and lost opportunity.
Five miles away in the nearest town, the CID unit had no idea they were about to have their first murder case in two years. Nor could they yet know who’d been living among them, or that within twenty-four hours they’d be announcing to the media that Mark Hatto’s business affairs had been “complex,” a shorthand way of telling the public not to worry, that this guy had brought it upon himself.
And thousands of miles away, in a small town in Italy, the place where the true force of the tremor would be measured, a daughter, a sister, someone the police would need to contact to break the tragic news. And too late, it would be the detective who turned off Ben Hatto’s music who realized that perhaps the boy’s sister was also in danger.
He’d stand there dwelling on the pointlessness of it, the fact that the kid clearly hadn’t disturbed anyone, that the killer had known he was there, sought him out. And he alone would realize that this feud was total and that Ella Hatto, wherever she was, if she was still alive, was perhaps in as much danger as if she’d been in this house herself.
2
They were people watching, sitting on either side of the small table but with their chairs turned facing the street. There was plenty to look at, people sitting outside the other bars and cafés across the way, the
passaggiata
in full flow along this and the other main streets.
passaggiata
in full flow along this and the other main streets.
Every now and then Chris would point out someone in the crowd, a classic medallion man or a woman dressed like a hooker or transvestite, and they’d laugh about it. For the most part, though, they didn’t talk, satisfied with watching, sipping at their drinks, winding down after the heat and hassle of the day.
The last few days had been hectic—Rome and Florence—but even so, Ella was pretty happy with the way things were going. Thailand with Susie the previous year had been a nightmare, and a few people had warned her that traveling with a boyfriend was a classic recipe for a bad holiday and a wrecked relationship.
So far, though, things had gone well, and she was glad she was there with him. If she’d gone with anyone else she’d have spent the whole time wishing Chris was with her, anyway. She looked at him now, hair unkempt, his skin already tanned. He turned to meet her gaze, a quizzical smile on his face as he said, “What?”
“Nothing.” She smiled and moved her head toward him. He leaned in for the kiss and gently pushed his tongue between her lips. She laughed a little and kissed him back for a few seconds before becoming self-conscious and breaking away.
“Later,” she said, facing back into the street, “without the audience.” She scanned the crowd, reassuring herself that no one had been looking, anyway.
“You’re so Anglo-Saxon,” said Chris, joking.
“And you’re such an Italian stallion.”
“Oh, yeah. Trust me, before the night’s out I’m getting a medallion and a chest wig.”
She laughed and they went back to watching. Her eyes were snagged immediately by a man sitting at the café directly across from them. He didn’t look Italian, but apart from that he was nondescript, average looking, a guy in his forties maybe, short hair, medium build, a face that seemed designed to be lost in a crowd.
And that was the intriguing part, because she’d singled him out, and now Ella was certain she’d seen him before. She closed her eyes momentarily but couldn’t picture him and had to open them again to remind herself what he looked like.
He seemed to be studying the
passaggiata
, so she took the opportunity to study him in turn, staring as she tried to recall where she might have seen him. Maybe it had been in the railway station in Rome, or on the Ponte Vecchio perhaps, or at the Duomo.
passaggiata
, so she took the opportunity to study him in turn, staring as she tried to recall where she might have seen him. Maybe it had been in the railway station in Rome, or on the Ponte Vecchio perhaps, or at the Duomo.
She became uneasy at the possibility of him having been in Rome
and
Florence, and after trying to shake the thought for a while she said, “Chris, see the guy sitting across from us, short-sleeved blue shirt, forties.”
and
Florence, and after trying to shake the thought for a while she said, “Chris, see the guy sitting across from us, short-sleeved blue shirt, forties.”
“What about him?”
“I know it sounds weird, but I’m pretty certain he was in Rome and Florence.”
“So who do you think he’s stalking, you or me?” She laughed. “Look, somewhere like Italy, everyone goes the same places. There’s probably loads of people here who were in Rome and Florence.”
He was exaggerating, ignoring the fact that Montecatini was hardly one of the most obvious stops on a tour of Italy. And yet he was probably still right; in Thailand last year she kept bumping into the same people, sometimes in the most unlikely places.
She looked at the man again, annoyed that it was troubling her, finally making an effort to dismiss it altogether.
“It’s nice here, isn’t it? More relaxed.”
“Doesn’t seem as hot, either. Maybe we should stay here a few days, take in one of the spas, chill out.”
“Suits me,” she said. “Venice can wait.”
She looked back across the street. It took her a moment or two to pick him out again, and when she did, she noticed he was looking agitated, an edginess that rubbed off on her. He was looking up the street and she looked in the same direction, but nobody stood out from the crowd.
She glanced back and jumped nervously. He was staring directly at her now, getting out of his seat. She began to panic, thoughts crashing into each other. A group of kids walked in front of her, and by the time they’d passed he was halfway across the street and looking up it again.
He was reaching under his shirt for something as he walked, and then it was there in his hand, a gun. This couldn’t be happening. This guy had been following them, she knew it, and now he was heading toward them with a gun. Her heart stalled, and for a second she couldn’t speak.
“Shit! Chris!” She didn’t have time to say any more. She heard Chris respond but couldn’t make out what he said. The man was almost on top of her, and then she heard the gunshots, deafening, followed by screams, shouts, panic.
He was standing in front of her, his back to her. He’d fired two shots, and a few yards away in the street, two men had fallen. He looked around quickly, took two steps forward, aimed at the head of one of the men, and fired again. Another shocked chorus from the crowd.
Ella heard Chris again, some garbled expletive, and the man was back with them, his face close, no longer edgy but calm and authoritative.
“Come with me.”
Ella got to her feet but heard Chris saying, “No fucking way.”
“Come with me or I’ll kill you right now.” He was pointing the gun at him.
“Do what he says, Chris.”
They walked quickly through the panicked street, and it took her a while to notice that the gunman was leading her by the arm. They were all mute, a tight ball of silence moving swiftly away from the chaos behind them. She looked at Chris a couple of times but in the shock and confusion of the moment he wasn’t taking anything in.
They’d just seen two people killed, and now they were walking away with the killer, a man who’d threatened Chris too, and yet they were going quietly, unquestioning, putting up no resistance. They were all moving with a shared sense of urgency, because somehow in the time-lapse nightmare of the last few minutes, it had seemed as if he was protecting them.
“You get in the passenger seat,” he told Chris. “Ella, in the back, lie down.”
They got into the car he’d led them to, and Ella lay down as he drove away, the movement of the car adding an extra layer of disorientation to the mix. She could hear sirens now, and this man knew her name.
“What the
fuck
is going on?” It was Chris, his voice too loud, burning off the adrenaline. “And who the fuck are you? And what ... Just ... What’s going on? Fuck!”
fuck
is going on?” It was Chris, his voice too loud, burning off the adrenaline. “And who the fuck are you? And what ... Just ... What’s going on? Fuck!”
At first it seemed like he wouldn’t answer, but after a brief pause he spoke, his voice still calm and low, sounding subdued after Chris’s shock-fueled rant.
“Probably an attempted kidnap. I’m Lucas. Mark Hatto asked me to watch Ella in case of something like this.”
“So I
did
see you in Rome and Florence.”
did
see you in Rome and Florence.”
“You can get up now.” She sat up. They were away from the town and it was darker.
“Where are we going?”
“Florence for tonight. I’ll call your dad from there.”
Chris turned in his seat and looked at her, his features shadowy and indistinct. “Why would someone wanna kidnap you?”
“I don’t know.”
“And a bodyguard?” His tone was accusatory. “I mean, what the hell is that all about?”
“I don’t know, Chris! I don’t fucking know, okay?”
“Okay! Jesus!”
After a few seconds he said to Lucas, “What about you? Care to enlighten us?”
“They’re rich.” It sounded as if he’d go on to say something else but he didn’t, and they fell silent.
Ella tried to think back to the scene in Montecatini, putting it back together in her head, trying to make sense of it. Lucas had looked agitated, and he’d been looking up the street in the direction the two men had come from. The way he’d stood in front of her, surely that’s what a bodyguard would have done.
She still couldn’t process the fact that two men were dead, or the measured way Lucas had shot one of them in the head after he’d fallen; that hadn’t been defense or protection, that had been an execution. And she still couldn’t process that she was at the center of this, that she needed to be watched, that there were people out there who might want to kidnap her.
Why her? They weren’t rich. They were well-off, comfortable, but it wasn’t like her dad ever made the rich list or anything. That meant there were at least a thousand people in the country who were richer than they were, a thousand people with daughters or sons or grandchildren worth much more to a kidnapper than she was. So why her?
“Did you follow me in Thailand last year?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“I don’t know.”
Chris turned to him and said, “What about at college?” The question annoyed her, Chris sounding more concerned about his own privacy being breached than about her safety or what had just happened. Maybe he was right to be concerned, but it annoyed her all the same.
“I don’t know,” said Lucas, as if irritated by the questions. “I was just asked to keep an eye on you in Europe, that’s all.”
He slowed and pulled over next to a pay phone. There was a small supermarket across the road, a garage fifty yards away, lit like stage sets under the deep black of the sky.
“Stay in the car.” He got out and walked over to the phone. They couldn’t hear him talking, but he kept looking at them while he spoke.
“He took the keys,” said Chris. “For someone who’s meant to be on our side he doesn’t seem to trust us much.”
“Check the glove compartment.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know. ID or something.”
Chris reached down casually and checked but found nothing. “It’s a rental car.”
A scooter approached at speed from behind, the sudden high-pitched drone startling her. It sped past them, two good-looking Italian boys, the wind pulling at their hair and their shirts, giving them an air of sleekness and freedom.
The one sitting on the back was laughing and had turned briefly and looked at the car as they’d passed. For a second Ella imagined he’d looked at her, the smile for her, his eyes invitational.
And now they’d disappeared and she was envious, of their carefree night, their open road, a night that had been hers, too, just half an hour before, though she hadn’t appreciated it then. Maybe she would have if she’d known how soon it would end.
“I need to call my dad. Have you got your phone?”
“Yeah.”
Chris handed the phone back to her. She held it close to the window to pick up some of the street light, but before she could start dialing she noticed that Lucas had seen her and looked in a hurry to end his call. Within seconds he was back at the car, opening the door.
“Turn it off.”
“I was calling my dad.”
“Not on that. Turn it off. I’ll call your dad when we get to Florence.” She turned off the phone and handed it back to Chris.
Lucas got back in the driver’s seat and turned to face them both. “Keep your phones switched off. Don’t be tempted to make a call, don’t be tempted to use your credit cards, do nothing to give away your identity or location, not until we know what’s going on.”
Chris said, “What about you? Who were you calling?”
“Hotel in Florence.” He started the car and pulled away. “It’s high season, best to book ahead.” They didn’t respond, and a moment later he said, “That was a little joke there. Just trying to lighten the mood.”
Chris threw him a look of contempt. “After what we just saw you do, you expect us to laugh at your stand-up routine? When do you get to the jokes about shooting people?”
Lucas glanced across at him. “What did you see me do? Tell me. What did you see me do?” His voice was threatening, and Chris didn’t answer.
Maybe he’d saved them, but Ella couldn’t shake the memory of what she had seen, Lucas taking a step forward, shooting the main in the head.
Treading carefully with her tone, she said, “Lucas?” She caught his eyes in the rearview and felt confident enough to proceed. “Why did you shoot him in the head?”
“He was wearing body armor.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he didn’t bleed enough when I shot him the first time.”
Again, it sounded as if he was going to say something else, but he didn’t. He seemed to have a way with awkward conversation-ending pauses. None of them spoke for the rest of the journey.
It was after ten by the time they got to Florence, the traffic still fairly heavy and volatile, crowds of people spilling across the streets. Lucas parked on a side street and told them to get out, then opened the trunk. Inside were a large knapsack and an overnight bag. He gave the knapsack to Chris and reached into the other bag.
“Take these.” He handed them both a passport. “False passports, for the hotel. Okay, let’s go.” He picked up the bag, locked the car, and led them along the street. And they’d walked a good twenty paces before Ella thought of looking at the passport in her hand, bearing her picture but with the name “Emma Wright.”
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