A Love Like Blood

by Marcus Sedgwick

  When I arrived, I found I was too late.

  I knew something was wrong as soon as I stepped from the train, because I saw packs of men, obviously journalists and photographers, standing around the station – on the platforms, in the ticket hall, on the pavement outside. There was even a TV camera crew.

  There were raised voices and passers-by were stopping and staring. Something had happened and it didn’t take me long to find out what it was.

  Giovanna had gone missing.

  Chapter 11

  She’d been collected from Rome by two clinicians from Lausanne, a man and a woman. They were to bring her to Switzerland for her treatment to begin.

  The train travelled overnight, the girl sharing a sleeping car with the lady from the clinic.

  In the early morning, as the train climbed through the Alps and stopped for Swiss border checks at Brig, the woman had woken to find the girl not in the bunk beneath her.

  She’d woken her male colleague, and they’d alerted the conductors, who were fully aware of the precious passenger they had on board. A search ensued. She was not found. Finally, massively delayed, the train had rolled on to Lausanne, minus three passengers: the staff of the clinic, who were being held for questioning by the Swiss police, and little, fragile Giovanna herself, who had vanished into the night, as if some supernatural force had simply spirited her away into the mysterious mountains that towered on each side. But I dismissed these ideas as soon as they came to me. He was clever, very clever. I knew that. He’d found a way to take the girl, that was all.

  That was all there was to know, for the time being. The journalists at the station were sending the news of the abduction worldwide, and by now there was probably no one in the West who had not heard about it. The whole town seemed to be in uproar over the news. Lausanne, I soon started to feel, was a very different place from Avignon, or Paris, or even London. This was Switzerland. Nothing bad happens here, that was the message. Nothing bad happens. In fact, nothing happens at all, and certainly not the abduction of a young, sick girl. Lausanne was an elegant place of large, austere buildings set on steep hills and the occasional long flat street parallel to the lakeshore.

  Aside from the station, it was obvious that there was one other place where some news might be had, and that was at the clinic itself. It turned out to be only a short walk down from the station, in the Boulevard de Grancy, one of those long quiet level streets with shops at ground level and flats above, and altogether an unlikely place for a world-leading research clinic. But there, at the end of a row of old apartments, was a modern block of straight lines and wide windows. The steps were thronging with another gaggle of journalists. The doors were firmly shut, and it was clear that they had been camped out on the street for some time.

  It was twenty-four hours since Giovanna’s disappearance. The clinic had had nothing to say. I began chatting to one of the reporters, a stooping young man standing by himself having a cigarette. I played the innocent but nosy tourist, and found out what I could. The police were due to make a statement to members of the press that afternoon. Knowing I would not be able to get into that announcement, I was at a loss as to what to do.

  I thought about staking out the clinic, but I could see it would be hard. It was a well-to-do residential street; I couldn’t get into the flats either opposite or above. There were one or two shops at street level that faced the steps to the clinic, a dry-cleaner’s and an insurance office. Neither offered me the chance to hang around for long. The only hope was to loiter with the reporters, but first I needed to find somewhere to stay, somewhere to dump my case.

  And that was what I was about to do when the door to the clinic opened and a stern-looking man in a dark suit emerged. He held a sheet of paper in his hand.

  He was immediately surrounded by the journalists, who began shouting questions at him and taking his photo, while he held up his hand for quiet.

  He stood waiting for a long time, saying nothing, and finally the reporters fell quiet as he made his announcement. He introduced himself as Dr Sforza and said he was the director of the clinic. He read a short statement regretting the situation and the extreme distress that he personally felt at the disappearance of Giovanna, and explained that they, the clinic, were as short on information as everyone else. They were in constant contact with both the Swiss and Italian police, and would do everything that was in their power to help find Giovanna. They were at a loss to explain what had happened, and then, in a rather sour end to the statement, he defended the role of the two staff from the clinic, asserting that the door to the train compartment had been locked from the inside by the female clinician, and that there had been no signs of damage to, or tampering with, the lock from the outside.

  There were shouts and further demands from the journalists then, but Sforza merely turned his paper over and waited for the silence to descend again.

  He would also like, he said, to read a statement from the ‘deeply saddened’ and ‘kind benefactor’ who had paid for Giovanna to be brought to Lausanne, a man who still wished to remain anonymous, but who was likewise helping the police with their investigation.

  Dr Sforza read, and I listened hard. My French not being perfect, I didn’t understand everything, but I understood enough.

  ‘My heart is heavy,’ he said. ‘I only wished to bring comfort to poor little Giovanna, and now this terrible event has descended on us all. I shall not rest again until she is found, and I shall blame myself for ever if she is not.’

  There was some more after that, but I didn’t hear it.

  I don’t know what made me look up, up into the window on the second floor of the clinic, way above my head. Maybe I saw something, a slight twitch of the net curtain that shrouded the windows. Or maybe it was just the sudden realisation that if Sforza had just prepared his own statement, inside the clinic, then there was every possibility that he was in there too. Verovkin.

  And as I looked up, while everyone else’s eyes were firmly on the beleaguered Swiss doctor, I saw him through a crack in the curtain, half his face and no more, standing sideways, looking down on the scene in the street below. That hard face, the long nose and wide mouth. His eyes.

  I looked down at the pavement, tried to slide myself out of sight behind the young journalist I’d spoken to before, tried to make myself invisible.

  Had he seen me? I wasn’t sure, but in the briefest moment that I’d seen his face, I’d seen his eyes again, and terror welled up inside me like never before.

  Sforza was finishing, turning, and going inside.

  I was frantic, unable to decide what to do. The journalists were pressing in on the doctor, who was even now pulling the door shut behind him, aided by some staff.

  Should I try and hide myself in their crowd, or should I slink away? Unable to decide, I did neither, and was left frozen to the bottom step, suddenly feeling cold and desperately scared.

  My head jerked up, and I found I was looking at the second-floor window again. He had gone. The curtain was redrawn, and he was gone, and still I didn’t know if he’d seen me. And if he had, would he have even recognised me?

  The journalists were banging on the door of the clinic, shouting questions that stayed unanswered, and finally I decided to move.

  Still clutching my case, I walked off down the boulevard, until finally I found a café at a street corner, and ordered black coffee and brandy. I sank the brandy, and then began to sip my coffee, my eyes staring at nothing through the window.

  I lost track of time as I sat there, but not much could have passed, for I was still sipping my coffee when a police car came down the street, its lights flashing. I was not the only one in the café to get up and watch it, and I headed out on to the street to see it stop by the crowd of journalists.

  Even at a distance it was clear what was happening. The clinic had called for help, and a few scuffles broke out as the police forced the reporters to move off the steps.

  I shook myself.

 
The shock of seeing him again had been too much for me, even though I had been hunting him. I hadn’t expected to see him so soon, even if it was for a split second and no more.

  But I had found him and this was my chance. I cursed myself because even sitting in the café I had wasted precious time, time in which he might already have let himself out of the back door to the clinic and away into the city.

  I paid for my drinks and asked to use the lavatory. Inside I quickly took the rest of my money from my case, and the revolver. I stashed both in my jacket pockets and then closed the case again, which now contained nothing but a change of clothes. There was nothing in it that could identify me, and I knew already there was a chance I might not be coming back for it.

  I asked the waitress if I could leave the case behind the counter for a short while. She seemed a little puzzled but I smiled at her, explaining I wanted to go for a walk and didn’t want to carry it. I bought a pack of cigarettes from her, and some matches.

  Things were already calmer at the clinic, and this time I was being more professional about my work. I walked past slowly, being careful not to stare but checking the building as I did.

  The block stood on its own, and it was not big. I walked past the front steps and turned down the side. Here a small access road led to a large garage door, large enough for ambulance cars to enter, but currently firmly closed. I turned the corner again at the back of the block and found no other door. Completing my circuit, I emerged on Grancy once more, knowing that there were only two ways out of the building.

  As I came around I saw something I hadn’t noticed before. There was a steep, narrow street that led up to the back of the station, and on the corner the building opposite the clinic made a kind of dog-leg back from the pavement. I could tuck myself in there, unseen, and be able to keep a close enough eye on both the front door and the access road.

  I stood there, as nonchalantly as I could, pretending to smoke cigarette after cigarette, nodding as people passed by, and trying to look as if I was perfectly happy, enjoying the late evening sunshine.

  From time to time I would take a peek around the corner of the building and check on the clinic, but it was just the same scene as before: the journalists staking it out, the odd local stopping and staring for a while before moving on. The police car had vanished, but I now saw there was one gendarme left, preventing any further unwelcome attentions to the clinic’s front door.

  I cursed under my breath, and leaned back against the wall, and wondered what I was doing, what I was intending to do.

  Was I really waiting for him to emerge from the building? Would I walk across the street, calmly, and levelling the Webley in front of me, put a bullet straight into his head?

  No, I wasn’t. I knew I wouldn’t do that, couldn’t do that, for then I still had some idea of returning to life. Of getting my old life back, or something like it. Of getting back to England, and waiting for my name to be cleared in relation to Hunter’s death. I would confess to living as a recluse, scared of implication in the Hunter Wilson case, and I might be fined for not aiding the police with their enquiries. Maybe even a short custodial sentence. I doubted it would be bad; I had done nothing seriously wrong, assuming, that is, that no one ever found Hayes’ body, or Dyer’s, and made any connection to me. It was a risk I was prepared to take, but one that would be lost to me entirely if I shot an apparently innocent philanthropist in the usually peaceful streets of Lausanne.

  I couldn’t shoot him. I could follow him if he left on foot, but with the journalists outside I thought the only likely way out for him would be by car, from the garage door on the side of the building. Then I would be stuck.

  So I stood, letting the cigarette ash pile up at my feet, trying to work out what to do, until, without warning, all the reporters began to leave, almost as one, and it was then that I saw my chance, and without even thinking, I took it.

  Chapter 12

  First blood. Bad blood. Hot-blooded. Cold blood. My blood ran cold. Fresh blood, young blood, new blood. Royal blood, blue blood, true blood. Blood on your hands, blood is thicker than water. Blood ties, blood money.

  Blood. An old word, one of the very oldest. Like the man I followed, I had become an expert in it. It was a word that stalked through my mind all the time, day and even at night, in my dreams, which would sometimes become horrific, saturated as a bloodbath. A bloodletting.

  Blood, from an old word, from the first words spoken on the Continent, in a language that never was, the Proto-Indo-European assumed to be the mother of us all. Blood, in that assumed language, meant something that gushes. Something that spurts and wells, and that was how it always appeared in my nightmares, not as something still and calm, but something hot and rushing, something frightful and fearsome, something violent and virulent, too, something that possesses, infects, and commands. Something that controls us, unseen, from inside, carrying our life force through our bodies, carrying the chemicals within it that cause us to become afraid, or to feel excitement or sexual desire, to swell inside our lips and our genitals, to pound through the chambers of the heart, causing our pupils to dilate, our skin to break sweat, our libido to be unleashed.

  Blood is our master.

  It was undeniable, and all these blood-soaked thoughts ran through my head as I watched the reporters hurrying away, plus one more thought: that if blood was controlling his life, it was now also controlling mine, because my sole intention and desire in that moment was to be alone with him for one short second, and shoot him. Just as blood was his unseen master, it had become mine too, and I hated him for that, for making me part of his perversion, of his hideousness. If Hayes’ death was an accident, and Dyer’s unfortunate, I knew I would be happy to pull the trigger on Verovkin, and it would provide me with satisfaction.

  As the journalists moved away, I guessed what was happening. It was ten to seven; probably the police were about to issue a statement, on the hour, somewhere else in town, maybe at the police station, somewhere I had overlooked till that point.

  Some of the reporters were hurrying off on foot, one or two on scooters, but I noticed the stooping one from before heading for a beaten-up Renault parked across the street from the clinic.

  The policeman looked relaxed, paying little attention, relieved that the siege of the place seemed to be over.

  I headed towards the young reporter, meeting him just as he reached his car. Everyone else had gone; the policeman was looking the other way down the street; and I struck up conversation with the journalist.

  ‘You speak English, I assume?’ I said.

  He turned and stared at me, but I could see he was paying me little regard, which angered me for some reason.

  He opened the door to his car and began to get in.

  I stepped smartly forward into the space of the door, so he couldn’t close it.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he said.

  ‘You want a really big story?’ I asked.

  That straightened him out a little, but his eyes narrowed nonetheless.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The big story is in that building,’ I said. ‘Not at the police station.’

  He stared at me for a moment.

  ‘Get out of my car,’ he said. ‘I’m going to be late.’

  Then in a single motion I showed him my gun, and showed that I was pointing it at him, and swiftly pulled the rear door of the car open and got in behind him.

  ‘Shut your door and do nothing,’ I said, briskly, and he did just as I said. I touched his back with the tip of the barrel, so he knew not to be stupid.

  ‘What do you want?’ he asked, and I could hear the fear in his voice.

  ‘You’re all right,’ I said. ‘Just sit still and quiet and do what I tell you.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I will.’

  ‘It’s very simple. All you have to do is wait. And then, if I’m right, you will need to drive a little. Can you do that?’

  ‘Yes.’

 
; His voice was even quieter and for a moment I thought I might have scared him so much he would be unable to act when the moment arrived.

  ‘There’s nothing to be worried about,’ I said. ‘Just do what I say.’

  I glanced over his shoulder, towards the clinic. The policeman was speaking to someone through a crack in the door, nodding as he did so. He turned and came down the steps as the door closed again, and set off along the street.

  I shoved the revolver a bit harder into the young reporter’s back, just above the top of the driver’s seat. I pressed hard enough to feel his spine against the muzzle of the gun. I wanted to remind him to be careful.

  Then the policeman was gone, and we were left, waiting, and there was not long to wait.

  Maybe half an hour later, a car pulled out from the access road and turned into the boulevard. I slid down as far as I could behind the driver’s seat, but I had seen enough to know it was him inside.

  It was a large dark grey Mercedes. There was a thickset man at the wheel, and a tall shape in the rear seat. The car turned away from us and set off down the street, and I pushed the gun into the reporter’s back once more.

  ‘Follow him,’ I said.

  Chapter 13

  We drove along the lake road, heading east.

  I told the reporter to keep his distance, but that he should on no account lose sight of the Mercedes, and at first that was easy enough.

  Our way took us along roads that were flat for the most part, along to the corniches of Lake Geneva. We passed through a few small villages, surrounded by long narrow strips of vineyards that rose in terraces from the lakeshore up to the mountains on our left.

  The views grew more and more magnificent, though I saw nothing but the car ahead of us, and the reporter’s hands on the wheel. Every time he moved even to change gear I nudged him a little with the revolver, but I began to realise he was terrified and would do anything I said.