The Mak Collection

by Tara Moss

  What is he looking for?

  ‘My name is Makedde,’ she told him. ‘Makedde Vanderwall.’ There was no point in being anything but honest about her name, and it was good to identify herself, to let this man know she was a personality, a human. She hoped she could build up some rapport so that it would be more difficult for him to dehumanise her later. And if there was someone he was holding her for—a second party, a friend, a client, a partner—perhaps she could get him to side with her. There had to be a reason he hadn’t hurt her yet. She hoped the reason might set her free.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked him gently, as if this were a normal exchange in polite company. ‘May I ask?’

  His eyes moved to her again, but he didn’t respond.

  ‘I don’t mean to be any trouble, but I’m very hungry. Is there anything I can eat? I can pay for the food. There was some money in my coat. Or I can make it myself, whatever is easiest for you. I can make something for both of us if you like. I don’t want to be any trouble.’

  Makedde felt disgust run through her at the sound of her pleading, the reality of her pathetic situation. Daddy, I’m hungry. Please can I have some dinner? She felt like she was six years old.

  ‘I remember you,’ she said, hoping to forge a bond.

  At this the man reacted visibly. He backed up a pace and a kaleidoscope of emotions rippled across his uneven features. She could not be sure what he was thinking. Had she said something that would help or hinder her?

  ‘Yes, I remember you,’ she repeated. The elevator. She remembered now.

  Does she recognise me?

  Could she?

  Had Makedde felt his eyes on her back when he’d seen her undress in the apartment in Sydney? Was there any way that she could have known it was him hiding there, watching her? Did she know that it was he who’d been wearing the balaclava and had been sent to kill her, he whom she had smashed in the face with her motorcycle helmet, he who had—with a broken nose—pursued her on her motorcycle through the streets of Sydney. He had watched her come off her bike with mixed feelings. He had been sent to kill her, and she looked like she would not survive the fall. It would be a positive result for his client. And yet, he was aware of something else. How unsatisfying it would be to have her gone, and even to have her death escape him, to have it come accidentally, dealt by fate.

  But she didn’t die. Fate brought her here instead.

  Luther had never been an attractive man. His physical size was imposing, his features beaten up. He’d already once had his nose straightened in Bangkok by a surgeon who owed him a favour. After Mak broke it with her motorcycle helmet, it had the shape of a crooked potato. He had not bothered to fix it. He had been reminded of Makedde Vanderwall every time he had looked at his face since.

  Makedde.

  She was shackled, hungry, helpless. Still, her presence—in his care—both fascinated and troubled him. How could all of these occurrences be coincidence? How could one woman have eluded him? Why did she keep crossing his path? What was her role in his life fated to be?

  Now here she was, more mythological creature than woman. She had escaped his clutches too many times. No one else in his career had ever done that.

  Mak cocked her head to one side, appearing more curious than fearful. ‘I do remember you. Hello,’ she said.

  And no woman had ever looked at him with that curious gleam in her eye. Not fear. Just curiosity.

  Does she know me?

  CHAPTER 52

  Bogey stepped out of the taxi on the slanted and narrow Rue Cardinal Lemoine with his mobile phone in one hand and his suitcase in the other. He had been holding his phone the entire journey, hoping it would ring.

  Mak is in trouble. She must be in trouble…

  He placed his case on the kerb and handed the driver a fistful of euros, barely paying attention to the counting of the notes. Makedde had given him instructions to take the Metro from Gare du Nord to the hotel, but she was still not answering his calls, and he had wanted to get to her as soon as he could, and in his worry had run to the taxi stand and grabbed the first available car. He had been so relieved to be in Paris, and closer to her, and on the way to her hotel, that he didn’t care about the added expense. He had called her from the plane, and from Heathrow, and since arriving on the Eurostar he had called again twice, and left her further text messages, sure that she would call him any moment to explain that she had been struggling with the kind of difficulties that plague travellers abroad with a frequency explained only by Murphy’s Law—a misplaced number, a stolen wallet, a lost phone or wiped SIM card; something to explain the silence.

  So far there had been nothing.

  His brow knitted with worry, Bogey stepped from the street through a large doorway to the charming cobblestone courtyard of the Hotel des Grandes Écoles, where a three-storey pastoral cottage welcomed him. He took only a moment to register the beauty of it, before making his way up a series of steps to the door. He found himself in a small lobby where a young woman with silken brunette hair pulled into a neat ponytail was talking on the phone in quick French. She did not look up when he entered. Bogey placed his suitcase in front of the wooden desk and looked around worriedly. He could not see Makedde. Hopefully she was in her room waiting for him, and there was nothing amiss. Perhaps she was playing a joke on him. He wouldn’t put it past her to play some sort of joke. Her humour was at times left-of-centre, even morbid.

  ‘Parlez-vous Anglais?’ he asked, when the receptionist placed the phone back in the receiver.

  She raised her eyes and appraised him and his jet-black hair and ripped jeans with a look of frank curiosity. ‘Oui, monsieur,’ she replied. ‘How may I help you?’

  ‘I’m Humphrey Mortimer, here for Makedde Vanderwall. She is staying with you.’

  ‘You would like to call one of our guests,’ she said more than asked, and pushed a house phone across the desk towards him.

  ‘Well, I am to stay in her room.’ He held up his suitcase. Makedde had said he could stay with her. ‘May I have a key and drop my suitcase off?’

  She paused. ‘Monsieur, I cannot give you the key to a guest’s room.’

  The tiredness from his long flight from Australia, then the train under the Channel, came crashing over him. He took a breath. ‘Is there a note for me, perhaps? My name is Humphrey Mortimer, or it could be for Bogey Mortimer.’

  ‘Bogey?’ she said with a little smile, pronouncing it Bow-Gay.

  ‘Yes. Is there a message for a Mr Mortimer, or a Bogey?’

  She shifted some papers around on the reception desk. ‘Non.’

  ‘Okay, I would like to call the guest, Makedde Vanderwall, please.’

  She gestured to the phone and he raised the receiver to his ear. ‘I’ll put you through.’

  There were a number of clicks and tones, making it sound as if the system had not been upgraded since France first installed telephone lines. He held the phone tensely until it had rung in her room twelve times.

  ‘The guest is not in,’ the receptionist said.

  He hung up and took a step back, wondering what to do. The dread he had felt since the flight had increased to a sharper, more focused alarm. He asked again for the room key, and when she refused he felt defeated. ‘I will wait for her,’ he said simply.

  Desperate for a shower and a rest, Bogey made his way back to the courtyard of the Hotel des Grandes Écoles in a fog of worry and weariness. He positioned himself at one of the cold outdoor café-style tables, beneath a closed striped umbrella. A light snow drifted in tranquil poetry before melting on the cobblestones. He let it land on him and melt, while he tried to think of what to do. Outside the large doors of the courtyard, the Latin Quarter buzzed with university students, shop owners and tourists. Hopefully, somewhere nearby, Mak was okay.

  Bogey did not want to believe that Makedde would forget his visit, but the alternative reasons for her silence were even worse. He sent her a carefully worded text message.


  HI MAK. AT HOTEL AND CAN’T FIND YOU. PLEASE CALL AND LET ME KNOW YOU ARE OKAY EVEN IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE ME. PLEASE CALL. BOGEY

  CHAPTER 53

  On the morning of the third day, Luther Hand woke to sunlight gleaming on the rolling hills of the Burgundy countryside.

  The farmhouse he had made his own was south of the town of Vézelay, on the edge of the Monts du Morvan, the ‘Black Mountains’ of the Celts of old. Now that the weather had cleared, Luther could see expanses of green fields, vineyards and forest undulating towards the horizon, where low granite slopes and plateaux were set against a cloudspotted blue sky, shrouded in places by a thinning wreath of mist. He could just make out the spires of the Romanesque basilica of Sainte-Madeleine in Vézelay rising above the distant treetops, and catch glimpses of the trail of old buildings sloping down the hill below the church. This was one of the most remote locations in central France, about three hours’ drive from Paris, and he had chosen it both for its isolation and its familiarity. Luther had recently eliminated the fleeing London financier, Nicholas Santer, in this very stretch of land. Luther had tracked Mr Santer here with ease, at the leastcared-for and most remote of his many European properties. He had been fast asleep as Luther sliced his throat open—the wound had gaped like the smile of a jack-o’-lantern, Luther recalled—before neatly dismembering him and locking the remains into a small crate buried beneath a garden of fragrant lavender. His body had not yet been found, and the investigation into his whereabouts had not been particularly heartfelt. Evidently the man’s wife had discovered that her missing husband’s will allotted a large portion of his fortune to the mother of his bastard child. She would rather her husband continue his ‘extended vacation’ while she lived comfortably with unfettered access to his millions. Luther was generally unaware of and happier without such intimate knowledge of his targets’ affairs and the crumbling world their pathetic lives left behind. From one corner of the rundown property he could see the bright hedge of lavender several hundred metres away, bordering the Santer holding. It always brought to mind for a moment that grinning red jack-o’-lantern the London banker had become.

  Luther had known he would return to the area, though he had not thought it would be so soon. He didn’t know that it would be with Makedde Vanderwall.

  The grounds surrounding his small farmhouse were lush green with winter rainfall. An old car in the gravel drive appeared to have been sacrificed to wet weather and rust. As he had anticipated, there had not been any foot traffic in the immediate area over the previous two days. No cars. No one to disturb him. A semi-feral calico cat was flicking its tail and preparing to lunge at a rodent alongside the house. Otherwise the world was quiet and still.

  Luther looked across at the clock as the hand clicked to the hour. It was still early, just seven in the morning.

  Today.

  You have work to do today.

  With the effort required of a man whose shoulders were unusually broad, Luther rolled over. The old double bed creaked under the weight of him. As with most European beds, its dimensions were unsuitable, and his feet dangled over the end. A soft beam of sunlight fell across him as he lay still once more, and for a time he didn’t move out of it. The winter rays felt pleasantly warm on his skin. He found he liked the sensation. Luther did not care for the sun in Mumbai, where he kept a scarcely used apartment in Colaba, a place he’d begun avoiding in favour of his recently acquired flat in Plaça de Catalunya, Barcelona, about eight hours south-west of where he was now. As in his native Australia, the sun in India bit. The air there was excessively dirty too, polluted with fumes and grit. But here, the sky seemed to have a soft green glow. The sun was gentle. Luther did not spend much time in natural daylight. His work involved a lot of movement at night, a lot of time in planes, hotels, always moving. He was rarely in one place for even a week, such were the demands of his chosen occupation. He did not often spend a week in the French countryside. He did not lie about in a small bed enjoying the morning sun through dusty windowpanes.

  For a stretch of time Luther lay with the sun draped over his skin, feeling strange.

  A rabbit bounded past the window, and suddenly Luther had the feeling that he was unravelling. He sat up and tried to shake it off.

  That’s it. You need to finish this. Finish it by sundown and fly out. Madame Q will have new assignments for you.

  He had not heard back from his agent. That was unusual.

  Luther was beginning to feel peculiarly disconnected from the outside world.

  CHAPTER 54

  ‘Drayson, it’s Bogey. Have you heard anything from Mak? Has Loulou heard from her?’

  Through the phone, Humphrey Mortimer could hear loud guitars, and the noise of a crowd. Drayson and Loulou would still be in party mode.

  There was a long pause before a reply. ‘Mak? No, man. What’s up with her?’ He didn’t wait for Bogey to explain. ‘The festival was rockin’. You should have come with us.’

  Bogey passed a sign indicating Musée Minéralogique and Rue Jussieu, neither of which felt helpful. Nothing about his surroundings was familiar or comforting, and the unexplained absence of the woman he had flown so far to see was a continuing shock to his strung-out nerves.

  ‘Drayson, listen to me,’ he pleaded. ‘I’m in Paris, and I’m supposed to be meeting Mak here. I can’t find her.’

  The music took over the line momentarily and then faded back when Drayson spoke. ‘Oh, man, that sucks. You mean Paris, Europe?’

  ‘Yes. Paris, France. This is serious. I think something has happened to Makedde. She didn’t check out of her hotel room. She is just missing.’

  Static.

  Bogey stopped on the street. The air was cold and unwelcoming, his leather jacket, wool sweater and scarf not enough to offset the penetrating winter chill. French men and women passed without making eye contact, busy on their way to familiar places in a familiar routine Bogey was not part of. He did not speak the language. He did not know whom to ask for help, or what to say. My maybe girlfriend hasn’t shown up?

  ‘Dude, I can barely hear you. I’ll pass you to Loulou.’

  There were the sounds of shuffling and more static. Bogey felt so tense he thought he might explode.

  ‘Bogey? Oh, darling, you should have been there! The bands were awesome!’

  As he heard these words, he saw a waiter coming towards him enquiringly. He was so distracted he had blundered into the outdoor area of a café. He turned away from the establishment, and the man, and walked the other way, shivering, cupping the phone to his ear. He had not eaten since he’d arrived, he realised. It would not be helping his mental state.

  ‘Loulou,’ he pleaded. ‘Where’s Mak? Have you heard from her?’

  ‘Isn’t she at my place?’

  God, she doesn’t even know?

  ‘She came to Paris for an assignment,’ he explained.

  There was a pause. ‘Yeah. I think she said something about that. She isn’t back yet?’

  Hopeless. This is hopeless.

  ‘Do you have the number for her friend…Mahoney? The cop?’ he asked.

  ‘Hang on.’ Even the notoriously scatterbrained Loulou seemed to realise from his voice that something must be wrong. ‘I’ll see what I can find.’

  CHAPTER 55

  Distantly, Mak was aware of a stabbing pain in her lower back, like a sword impaling her lumbar region and extending out her abdomen.

  God help me.

  She stood, arranged her coat and a blanket around herself, and began her ritual walk. In a grim semicircle, she shuffled across the cold floor of the cellar in her dirty socks, one leg weighed down by the heavy cuff, its chain sliding across stone with an eerie rattle. The stabbing pains in her back continued, joined by the ache of knee and elbow joints, and the throb of her head. She tried to keep the pain distant. She needed her head to be clear to think of a way out, and giving in to pain would not help. She tried to imagine the streets of Paris just beyond the walls of h
er cellar prison. Perhaps she was not so far away from her hotel? Perhaps she was just across from the Catacombs, and hundreds of people were passing on the streets only metres above her. If she could convince her strange captor to take off her cuff, she could flee. She would be up that set of creaking stairs in a flash, out into the day, and into the crowds, absorbed into the movement and life and chaos of Paris. She would be carried to safety by well-meaning Parisians. She would be saved.

  You will not be saved.

  Mak had to save herself. Somehow.

  Back and forth she moved, pacing bleakly in her bonds, cold and on the edge of hunger. She passed her chamberpot, her water dish, her plate speckled with breadcrumbs. She was alone with her quiet fury, disconnected from normality, dignity, common decency, and even from fear. Perhaps fear, like breath, was rationed out, and it was only very few who ran out of one before the other. Yet here she was, alive, breathing, and absolved of fear, like a soldier after too many battles.

  It was strange that life would bring her chronic trouble that seemed never to fade, no matter the skills she learned, no matter the introspection she indulged in. She thought of Arslan, she thought of the Cavanaghs, the Stiletto Killer, those who wished her ill. She shared the earth with dangerous people. Mak had received so much unwanted attention over the years that she could in an instant switch from being relaxed to a hyper-alert survival mode. Her father, the retired Detective Inspector Les Vanderwall, had nicknamed her ‘The Hawk’ for her tendency to survey her surroundings with coplike attention to potential danger. She found it uncomfortable to sit anywhere except the ‘Clint Chair’ in a restaurant or any public venue. The Clint Chair was the seating position that let her keep her back to the wall, an eye on entrances and exits, and preferably had a view of the activity at the cash register as well; it was named thus because it was the seat Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry would choose.