Acquainted With the Night (9781101546000)

by Maitland, Piper

  “What is this place?” she asked Jude.

  “A photography studio. But Mr. Kudret runs a tidy business on the side.”

  “Fake passports?”

  “He’s honorable. Plus, he’ll want my recommendations.”

  Caro opened her door and turned back to Jude. “Wait, how much will this cost? I only have a few hundred euros.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m taking care of this.” He touched her cheek.

  “But I do worry. This will cost a fortune. Do you have enough money?” She hadn’t meant to sound blunt, but she needed to know.

  “My stepmother wires money to my account in Zürich.”

  “Will it take long to get a new passport?”

  “Mr. Kudret works fast. I met him last year when I was trying to get out of Bulgaria.”

  “Why were you here?”

  “Buying titanium stakes.”

  “For a man in hiding, you get around.”

  A bell dinged over their heads as they stepped into the building. A short man in a blue smock scurried down the hall. He smoothed back his dark hair and grinned, revealing an endearing, gap-toothed smile.

  “This is Mr. Kudret,” Jude said.

  Jude said something in Turkish, and the man’s face split into a wider grin.

  “Come, come,” he said, waving them behind a curtain. The kitten leaped out of the window and followed the man down a hall. Mr. Kudret stepped into a square room that was filled with photography equipment.

  “Sit here, please.” He ushered Caro to a chair and stepped over to a camera that sat atop a sleek metal tripod. The flash blinded her for a moment.

  “You have beautiful eyes,” he said, peering into her face.

  Jude picked up a bus schedule and quizzed Mr. Kudret about border crossings. Caro lifted the kitten and paused beside a dusty bookcase, its shelves overflowing with rumpled leather volumes. She set the kitten on the floor and pulled out a book. In the margins, Mr. Kudret—or someone—had written notes in Ottoman Turkish script. From the tiny studio, she heard voices, and she slid the book into the shelf.

  The kitten shot ahead and climbed up Mr. Kudret’s trousers onto his apron, its claws pricking the heavy fabric.

  “Ah, there you are, madame.” Mr. Kudret lifted the kitten and set it on his head. “I have a question—which languages do you speak?”

  For a moment, Caro thought he was talking to the cat. Then she realized he was waiting for her answer.

  “French, Italian, Spanish—all of the Romance languages, actually.” She paused. “A little German and Russian.”

  “Yes, but fluently?”

  “French, Italian, and Spanish.”

  “Impressive.” He smiled. “You must have a soaking mind—no, that isn’t right. How do you say it? I mean, your brain is like a sponge.”

  “Thank you,” she said, repressing a smile. “But the truth is, I traveled with my uncle. He spoke many languages, even Turkish. He taught me your Latin alphabet. The extra vowels confused me.”

  “There are eight vowels. Come, I will give you a lesson over lunch.” He touched her elbow and led her toward the curtain.

  “I noticed some of your books,” she said, pausing beside the shelves. “They seemed to be written in Ottoman script. I couldn’t read the titles.”

  Mr. Kudret drew his hands over the tattered volumes. “Are these the ones you saw?”

  “I hope I wasn’t snooping,” Caro said. Her love of books was not an excuse. Back in Oxford, she was always curled up in the window seat with one of her uncle’s volumes.

  “Not to worry. These books on the bottom shelf detail the life of Kazıklı Voyvoda.” Mr. Kudret pulled out a thick volume and ran his stubby fingers over the worn edges. As he thumbed through the pages, a faint musty odor rose up, and the kitten sneezed.

  Mr. Kudret flattened a page and pointed to an old painting of a man with a beaked, pointed nose and long, almond-shaped eyes. “Ah, here he is.”

  “Was he a chronicler of the Ottoman Empire?” Caro peered down at the book. The man in the painting stared back.

  “No, no,” Mr. Kudret said. “He was a prince of Wal-lachia. Perhaps you know him by his Romanian name—Vlad Ţepeş? Ţepeş was added after the prince’s death.”

  “Better known as Vlad the Impaler,” Jude said, pointing to a drawing that showed Ottoman soldiers impaled on stakes.

  Mr. Kudret patted the kitten. He spoke to it in Turkish, and the animal began to purr. “Come, let us eat,” he said.

  Jude and Caro ate chickpea soup and cucumber salad while Mr. Kudret worked on the passport. The kitten walked cautiously across his desk, then leaped onto his shoulder. Caro lifted a red crystal glass and sipped rakia. She hoped she looked calm on the outside because her mind was racing. Thoughts passed through her the way light hits a prism and refracts into colors. Her life had intersected with Jude’s at a tragic event. They had been thrust together into a strange adventure and now they’d become physically and emotionally involved. Not that she was complaining, but . . . could anything lasting arise from such a dark beginning? It could, right? Well, maybe not. Unless mutual exile bound them together.

  Mr. Kudret pushed away from his desk, and the cat leaped to the ground. He held out Caro’s passport. “For you, my dear.”

  Caro rubbed her fingers over the dark red cover. UNION EUROPÉENNE, RÉPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE was stamped on the cover.

  “Is it satisfactory?” Mr. Kudret asked.

  “Perfect.”

  “It even has biometric RFID technology,” he said. “All new French passports must have them. And yours does, as well.”

  “What’s RFID?” she asked.

  “Radio frequency identification,” Jude said. “The chip has your digital image.”

  “Remember, you are Noelle D. Gaudet,” Mr. Kudret said. “And you were born in Aix en Provence.”

  “What does the D stand for?” she asked.

  “Désirée.” Mr. Kudret held out two bus tickets. “If the border police make questions to you, answer in French. And memorize the information on your passport. I hope you will never need to recite it. But it is best to be prepared. Keep your other passport in a separate place so you will not mix them up.”

  Mr. Kudret glanced at his watch. He placed the cat on a red pillow and spoke softly in Turkish. “No matter what happens, do not give them the stink-eye. Smile—but not in provocative way.”

  Mr. Kudret turned, staring directly at her. “Time to leave,” he said.

  Caro walked outside, blinking at the empty space where Jude’s car had been. She looked around frantically.

  “Do not be alarmed,” Mr. Kudret said. “The car is being painted. It will be sold in Turkey next week. There will be no trace of it. And the rental company in Sofia can file insurance. Do not feel bad for them.”

  Jude and Caro climbed into his van. As Mr. Kudret drove to the bus station, the sun followed the car, moving through the skeletal trees. The sidewalks were deserted, except for bits of trash.

  “The Makaza Pass just opened,” Mr. Kudret was saying. “The border crossing has been in place for several months. You should have easy passage to Greece.”

  The van sped by the hotel and down a hill where a woman’s purple house slipper lay in the street. Caro glanced over at Mr. Kudret. He wore a tweed Bond cap, and it was perched low over his forehead. She glanced back at the house slipper. She didn’t know what was going on in Momchilgrad, but she hated to think of anything happening to the old man.

  “Mr. Kudret?” she asked. “You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

  “Do not worry.” He reached across the seat and patted her hand. “I am not afraid.”

  CHAPTER 26

  GREECE-BULGARIA BORDER

  NEAR KOMOTINI, GREECE

  The bus to Thessaloniki was packed with teenagers and their chaperones from a province in northern Bulgaria. Their chatter made Caro relax, and she felt playful.

  “See any vampires?” she whispered to Jude,
then she cringed. Vampires. She’d meant it humorously, but saying the word out loud felt strange and embarrassing, like she was playing at a fantasy game.

  Jude smiled. “I don’t see marks on their necks.”

  “Not yet,” she said.

  “When this mad quest is over, let’s go somewhere warm and sunny,” he said. “We’ll lock ourselves in a hotel room for six weeks.”

  “Sounds heavenly.” She tucked her hand into his pocket just as the bus lurched out of the Momchilgrad station. She still had questions about the odd happenings in Momchilgrad, but they would have to wait. She couldn’t risk being overheard, even by kids.

  She laid her head on Jude’s shoulder. She was dimly aware of humming tires and the teenagers’ chatter. She fell asleep, dreaming that she was back at Norham Gardens, sitting in the drawing room. Her uncle and several students were discussing a dig in Wales. Three more students showed up for tea. They’d just returned from the Languedoc region in southern France. Her uncle had been jovial all evening, but his face turned white as the students described the ruined Cathar castles and how one of them had supposedly housed the Holy Grail.

  “It’s a document,” said the student. “Not a cup.”

  Uncle Nigel had shooed Caro off to bed, but she hadn’t been able to sleep. Her mind whirled with the idea of treasure hunts. She crept back into the hall and knelt beside the banister. Snatches of conversation drifted up. Whoever these Cathars were, they’d gotten into a lot of trouble with the French, and a crusade had been organized to kill them. The students were just getting to the juicy part when her uncle stepped into the hall and glared up the staircase. She shrank back. After a moment, she saw him cross the hallway into the drawing room and shut the pocket doors with a bang.

  She awoke with her head in Jude’s lap. She lay there a moment, trying to call back the dream. The bus slowed, and the gears whined. She sat up, pushing hair out of her eyes.

  Jude squeezed her arm. “Checkpoint,” he whispered.

  The driver got out of his chair and walked crablike down the aisle, collecting passports. He carried them off the bus, into a building. Near the front of the bus, the Bulgarian teenagers laughed and sat in the aisle. Caro squeezed Jude’s knee. He seemed calm, except for a faint ticking in his neck.

  “What’s wrong?” She scooted closer.

  “Checkpoints make me nervous.”

  “Then talk to me.” She rubbed his hand. “Tell me more about your research. You can whisper.”

  “There’s nothing to say.” He shifted in the seat. “Except that I worked round the clock. I slept at the lab. But I’ve already told you that, haven’t I?”

  “If your research hadn’t been interrupted, what would have happened with your mice?”

  “Additional research,” he said. “I published a paper. My supervisor asked me to assemble a team. Our company had a contract with a Scottish pharmaceutical firm. We were developing an antiaging compound. It had the potential to be a billion-dollar drug.”

  “Isn’t that a bit steep?”

  “Viagra and Lipitor are five-billion-dollar drugs. The profits from an antiaging pill would be unlimited.” Fresh lines etched across his forehead.

  She looked up into his eyes, sensing passion and regret for the career he’d left behind. “You miss your work?”

  “A bit.”

  “Maybe you’ll do it again.”

  “Not bloody likely.”

  “Well, I hope you do.” She glanced out the window. “What’s taking the driver so long?”

  “It’s Bulgaria,” Jude said. “They cling to bureaucracy.”

  The driver finally returned, the passports stacked to his chin. Walking at a slant, he moved down the aisle, distributing the booklets. When he was finished, he settled behind the wheel. The engine sputtered, and the bus rolled forward.

  Jude’s face relaxed, then he drew her hand to his lips. “I can’t wait until we’re alone.”

  “Me, either.” Her bite wound prickled, and she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

  A whistle blew, and a border policeman stepped in front of the bus, one hand raised. The gears shifted again, and the bus rumbled to a stop. The side doors creaked open, and the policeman climbed inside. He spoke to the driver in Bulgarian, flashing a stack of computer printouts, then started down the aisle, his dark eyes scrutinizing each passenger.

  Toward the middle of the bus, he spoke sharply to a chaperone with frizzy brown hair.

  She handed over her passport and averted her gaze.

  The policeman looked from the passport to his printouts; he peered at the woman and spoke again. She nodded and stared at the floor.

  Caro slumped down, but Jude pulled her up and slid his arm around her shoulder. “Your hands,” he whispered. “The ink.”

  Her breath hitched. Anagrams covered her palms. She tugged her sleeve over her fingers, trying to keep her face impassive, but her pulse thundered in her ears.

  “Relax,” Jude whispered. He leaned forward and kissed her. From the corner of her eye, Caro saw the policeman pause beside their row and study the printouts. He fanned the pages, and she glimpsed her picture.

  Caro broke the kiss and turned to the window. She no longer resembled the girl in the picture. Her old self hadn’t had cheekbones, and her face had been dwarfed by her Medusa-like curls. However, her eyes were the same, and she hoped the policeman hadn’t noticed.

  Go away, damn you.

  The printouts rustled, then he walked briskly to the front of the bus and climbed down the steps. The doors creaked shut. Jude’s hand closed over her knee. As the bus lurched forward, Caro pressed her forehead against the window and watched Bulgaria blend into the Greek frontier. Her relief changed to sorrow when she thought of Uncle Nigel. Who had taken his body? Was he still dead—or had he become like that man who’d bitten her in Momchilgrad?

  No matter what, she could never return to Bulgaria to search for him. The police were looking for her. She’d killed a man, and she wasn’t sorry. Not one bit.

  Jude peeled back the wrapper from a roll of mints and offered her one. She held it between her fingers. “How long till we arrive in Thessaloniki?”

  “After sunset. But don’t worry. Greece is safer.” He reached into his pocket and handed her a garlic clove. “Don’t say that I never gave you a present.”

  CHAPTER 27

  SOFIA, BULGARIA

  Two Royal Guards escorted Ilya Velikov through a line of protesters outside the British embassy in Sofia. A man held up a sign that objected to the guards’ fur hats. Velikov clutched his briefcase and followed the guards to Thurston Hughes’s office. A plump secretary looked up from her desk and waved him through.

  Velikov walked into the paneled room. Hughes sat behind a massive walnut desk, surrounded by folders. Behind him, silver-framed photographs lined a shelf, each picture showing a laughing, silver-haired woman with two black Labrador retrievers. Hughes rose and shook Velikov’s hand.

  “Lovely to see you, Ilya. Please be seated. I haven’t had any luck finding Miss Clifford.”

  “Perhaps this will help.” Velikov opened his briefcase and pulled out photocopied documents. “When Professor Clifford’s body was found, he was holding his passport. Apparently he spent his last moments leaving notes for his niece. I made a copy of the pages and returned the passport to the niece.”

  “This is amazing, Ilya. Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

  “I was waiting for the cryptologist to decode the notes.”

  “And did he?”

  Velikov slid the documents across Hughes’s desk. “They were anagrams. Miss Clifford is headed to either Greece or Italy. But I do not know what is waiting for her in either place.”

  “Brilliant work, Ilya.” Hughes lifted the papers. “Just brilliant.”

  “Is your MI5 involved?”

  “My official answer is: no comment,” Hughes said. “But off the record, yes. Field agents are looking for Miss Clifford.”

 
“To protect her? Or is something else afoot?”

  “Miss Clifford may have murdered her flatmate.”

  “I cannot believe that. And I am shocked that you do.”

  “I didn’t say what I believed, did I?” Hughes’s face reddened. “I’m simply reporting facts.”

  “Whose facts?”

  “I’ve said too much already. Naturally the embassy won’t be involved in any criminal investigation. I’m here to assist British nationals.”

  “But she is one.” Velikov ran his thumb along the edge of his briefcase. “I pray she is still alive. If not, her death will not end this.”

  “How dare you threaten me.” The tips of Hughes’s ears turned scarlet. He picked up a sheaf of papers and swiveled in his chair. “You know the way out.”

  Velikov left the embassy and steered his Astra through the clogged traffic in Sofia. He listened to Bulgarian National Radio as he drove down the empty highway to Kardzhali. At twilight he pulled up to his stone house and went inside.

  He hung his jacket and holster over the back of the dining room chair, then walked to the kitchen. Ursula had died two years ago, and their daughters worried about Velikov’s nutrition. They often sneaked into his house and left soup bubbling on the stove.

  He turned on his television and listened to the news while he rummaged in the kitchen to see what his girls had left. The media offered blandness. The citizens of Kardzhali would not hear about murdered tourists.

  Velikov found a roasted chicken on the counter. While he carved thin slices of white meat, he thought of the professor’s missing body and pieced together a list of suspects. Not even the Bulgarian Mafia would steal the mutilated body of an elderly gentleman. The black market had no use for postmortem organs.

  Either the professor’s body had been stolen to lure his niece or he had risen on his own. Of course, he could voice the latter theory to no one. To the Interior Ministry, vampirism was the elephant in the room—bad for tourism. Sometimes the lines were blurred, as with the wild dog attacks near the Black Sea. It was impossible to know if the attacks were animal or vampiric in origin. Everyone from law enforcement to the coroners looked the other way.