by Will Adams
III
Olympia's arms were aching as she looked up Ayiou Konstandinou for any sign of her bus. The schoolbooks she'd borrowed from Demetria were growing heavier by the minute, but the pavement was too wet from the recent shower to set them down. She longed to take the weight off her feet, but there was only one bench nearby, and the man sitting there was watching her out of the corner of his eye, his hand in his lap, tickling himself with his thumb. And while it excited her when handsome young men stared at her that way, creeps like this merely left her feeling soiled.
The gold Ferrari caught her eye at once. It wasn't just that it was absurdly sexy with its low deep growl and long bonnet and polished bodywork, it was the way the driver handled it, straddling lanes and dawdling like a parade lap, showing off his trophy. She watched enviously as he drew nearer, for she liked nice things, Olympia. It gave her something of a shock, then, when the car swerved across traffic and pulled up alongside her. She stooped by the window, assuming the driver wanted directions. But he got out instead, slammed closed his door, smiled pleasantly at her.
'Do I know you?' she asked.
He didn't answer directly. Instead, he walked around to join her on the pavement, his hands held unthreateningly down by his sides. He was a little taller than medium-height, burly and blessed with the kind of tough good looks that made her feel a little strange inside. Mid-to-late twenties, from the look of him, perhaps ten or twelve years older than her. A high forehead and a flat nose and a thin goatee beard, his dark hair cropped short as a soldier's-though how many soldiers could afford cars like that? Wolfish sharp canines and eyes of such dazzling pale blue that she assumed he had to be wearing contact lenses. A perfectly tailored suit over an open-throated white silk shirt, his shoes soft sheathes of calfskin-leather, his gold watch a little loose around his left wrist, so that it jangled like a bracelet. 'Let me help you with those,' he said in correct yet heavily-accented Greek, taking the top two books from her.
'What are you doing?' she protested. But she couldn't exactly stop him, not while still holding the rest of her stack. Besides, there was just something about him, the kind of man who'd do exactly as he wanted, whatever anyone said. He popped his small boot, stowed her books inside and came back for the rest. She watched as he packed those away too, then slammed the boot closed. 'What are you doing?' she asked again.
He rejoined her on the pavement, still smiling blandly, as though this was all the most natural thing in the world. But the hammering of her heart assured her that it wasn't natural at all. 'What's going on?' she asked, her voice crumbling just a little. She looked around for someone to help, someone from the world of adults. But they were all involved in their own business: even the creep on the bench was now looking the other way. 'Please give me my books back.'
'They won't come to any harm in there,' he said.
'But they aren't even mine.'
'They'll be fine,' he told her, taking her hand. 'Trust me.' His skin was faintly scratchy to the touch, like the finest imaginable sandpaper. He smiled into her eyes with a directness and self-assurance that made her feel ridiculously weak, like on those mornings when her pillow fell to the floor and she couldn't even grasp it to pick it back up. He nodded as if he understood exactly, and wanted her to know that she shouldn't worry, because it was going to be okay. Then he opened the passenger door of the Ferrari and made the tiniest gesture for her to get in. She hesitated, aware she'd have to be crazy to comply, but somehow she found herself doing so. He slammed the door emphatically, walked around to the driver's side, climbed in beside her. 'Your seat-belt,' he said, reaching across her to click it into place. 'We wouldn't want you coming to any harm, would we?'
'Who are you?' she asked.
'My name's Mikhail,' he told her. 'And yours?'
She hesitated a moment. 'Olympia.'
'Charmed to meet you, Olympia,' he said. He looked at her in that unblinking way he had, reached across and brushed a strand of hair on her temple back behind her ear, then gently stroked her cheek with his thumb. Her skin tingled where he touched her, her heart twisting and dipping on a fairground ride. There was a moment of almost complete stillness as he smiled more broadly and she found herself smiling in response, unable to help herself. 'You're very beautiful, you know, Olympia,' he said. 'You're going to break a lot of hearts.'
She didn't reply to that. She didn't know what to say. He settled in his seat, turned on the ignition. The engine made a glorious roar, like some savage beast caged at the zoo. He released the hand-brake, glanced over his shoulder for a gap in traffic. Unfamiliar sensations cramped inside her, hot and icy, sharp and sweet. Strange thoughts had been coming to her at night recently, thoughts of men just like this. But not for a moment had she imagined that one would come into her real life. A voice in her head, her mother's voice, beseeched her to get out while she could, yet she knew she wouldn't. 'Where are we going?' she asked. But really she was asking: 'What are you going to do with me?'
'You'll see,' said Mikhail, as he pulled away.
FOUR
I
A young man with flaming orange hair watched intently as Knox was led into the holding cells. He frowned and sat forward, the strangest expression on his face, as though he recognised Knox and had something of vital importance to tell him. Then he promptly vomited onto the floor.
A mop was brought, but the orange-haired youth simply lay shivering on his side on the wall-bench. None of the cell's other occupants seemed bothered, so Knox cleaned it up himself. The main door opened at regular intervals, police escorting suspects in and out of the various steel cages. A forty-something man arrived, struggling with his police handlers, accusing them of stitching him up; but, the moment they left him there, he laughed and winked as though it were only a game. A youth with a swollen lip kept testing his front tooth to see if it was loose. An elderly man in a shabby suit wiped his face with his handkerchief in an effort to hide the fact that he was crying. But then the main door opened one more time and Gaille came in, talking intently with a policeman. Knox's heart leapt, he jumped to his feet and hurried over to the cage door, waited impatiently for the policeman to open it.
'Christ!' he muttered, taking her in his arms, hugging her tight, not realising until now quite how much he'd needed to see her. 'What news of Augustin?'
She gave a little grimace. 'He's in intensive care at Evangelismos Hospital. He hadn't regained consciousness last I heard. Claire's out of her wits. I promised we'd go straight over, if that's okay?'
'I'm free to go?'
'You will be any moment. Nico called in his sister-in-law.' She glanced around, lowered her voice, wary of being overheard. 'Her name's Charissa. She's only about two foot tall, but my god! We were getting nowhere until she turned up, and suddenly the police were jumping through hoops and barking like seals.' Her brow knitted. 'It is seals that bark, isn't it?'
'Dogs have been known to, as well.'
She took his wrist. 'Listen, I had to make a promise on your behalf. I'll explain later, but I gave my word you'd stand in for Augustin tomorrow morning and give his talk. Is that okay?'
'Is that how you got the seal-trainer to come?'
'Sort of.'
'Then it's fine,' said Knox.
Nico appeared at the door, dabbing his throat with a green-and-white handkerchief. He was about the unhealthiest-looking man Knox had ever met, fat to the point of caricature, mere stubs of arms and legs, so that in his dark shirt and suit he looked like some gigantic anthropomorphic beetle, a character from a children's book brought miraculously to life. 'My dear Knox!' he exclaimed. 'I can't believe they put you in such a place!'
'Don't worry about it. And thanks for coming.'
'Of course. Of course.' He stepped to one side, revealing the woman hidden behind him. She was short, slim, stern and unmistakeably formidable. 'This is Charissa,' he said. 'My dear brother's wife.'
'Gaille just told me what you've been doing,' said Knox. 'Thanks so much.'
She waved his gratitude aside. 'I spend too much time in conference rooms. Places like this do my heart good.'
'Not mine,' said Knox. 'How soon can I get out?'
'At once,' she told him. 'It's a disgrace they brought you here at all.'
'Thank Christ!'
'I'm afraid that concludes the good news, however. The police seem to have it in for your friend Pascal. They intend to charge him the moment he regains consciousness.'
'Those bastards!' scowled Knox. 'They started it. One of them groped Claire, I swear he did. They're just covering their arses.'
'I'm not talking about that,' said Charissa. 'I'm talking about Petitier.'
'How do you mean?' frowned Knox.
'You may not know, but he was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. And the police are planning to charge your friend with his murder.'
II
An apartment, Tbilisi, Georgia
The thumping started again in the flat above, Rezo and his wretched home improvements. Nadya Petrova glared up at her ceiling. She kept going up to remonstrate with him, but there was something about him in his dungarees, with his dusty, paint-spattered hair and his crinkled, cheerful smile, that made her forget her indignation. Until she came back down again, at least, and he resumed his banging.
She sighed and finished her article a little more abruptly than she might otherwise have done, read it through and posted it on her blog, then turned off her laptop. That would have to do for the day. She'd been working monstrously hard this past week, had promised herself the night off. She sat there a moment longer, staring out of her high window, contemplating the rundown yet beautiful buildings on the steep hillside beneath her, their twisted brick chimneys and sloping roofs overrun by ivy and those violet flowers that hung there like bunches of grapes: and for a moment she glimpsed a metaphor for her beloved city that she might use in one of her upcoming newspaper articles, but her mind was too tired to hold onto it, and then it was gone.
She pushed herself to her feet and made her way through to her kitchen. Her limp, the result of riding pillion with an idiot biker trying too hard to impress her, was always more pronounced after a day at her desk. She had soup left over from lunch. She turned on her gas stove to heat it up, then took a bottle of white wine from her refrigerator. She didn't open it at once, savouring the moment. Remarkably, it still gave her a mild illicit thrill to uncork the first bottle of the night. The promise of happiness, or at least of respite. She looked thoughtfully back up at her ceiling. Maybe Rezo would like a glass. At least it might keep him quiet.
Her telephone began to ring before she could decide. Her nape instantly stiffened; she hated her phone. She told herself to ignore it, let voicemail do its work. But she was a journalist at heart, and you never knew. 'Yes?' she sighed. 'Who is this?'
'It's me. Gyorgi.'
'Gyorgi?'
'From Airport Operations, remember?'
'Forgive me,' she said, reaching for her notepad and pen. 'It's been a long day.'
A mirthless laugh. 'Tell me about it. I came on at six this bloody morning. And what time is it now?'
'Is he coming home, then? Is that why you called?'
'No. But the Nergadze Gulfstream is about to leave for Athens again. I thought you'd like to know. Four passengers out, no return yet scheduled. You want details?'
Nadya uncapped her pen with her teeth. 'Please.'
'Same terms as before, right?'
'Sure,' she said. She couldn't remember what she'd paid him last time, but he sold himself cheap, she remembered that much. Gambling problems, so Petr had said. But who was she to criticise?
'Okay, then. Departing Tbilisi International 6.45 p.m. our time. Flight time ninety minutes, arriving Athens Eleftherios Venizelos private jet terminal 7.15 local, thanks to the time difference. Passenger names are Boris Dekanosidze, Edouard Zdanevich, Zaal Markizi, Davit Kipshidze. Mean anything to you?'
'No.' In fact, Nadya recognised three of the names, but she had no intention of telling that to a man this indiscreet. 'I don't suppose I can get to Athens before them, can I?'
'What am I? Your travel agent?'
'I was only wondering.'
'There aren't any direct flights from Tbilisi to Athens,' he sighed. 'You'd have to change in Istanbul or Kiev. And you won't get there tonight, not setting out this late. Maybe tomorrow morning.'
'Thanks. I'll see you get your money.' She put down the phone and sat there a minute, massaging her temples. The wine was beckoning. She was exhausted, and fully entitled to her exhaustion too. She'd earned tonight off. There was no way she could beat the plane to Athens, so what could she hope to accomplish? But then she remembered that salty look in Mikhail Nergadze's eye at the press conference, and it was like touching the shallow puddle around her kettle and jolting from the shock.
She sat up straight. Maybe she couldn't get to Athens before the Nergadze plane, but that didn't mean she couldn't have someone waiting when it landed. It was what the Internet had been invented for. With a sigh, she put her white wine back in the freezer, then limped through to her study to switch her laptop back on.
FIVE
I
There was one advantage working for the Nergadzes, reflected Edouard, as he and Boris were chauffeured out from Tbilisi International's Jet Aviation Terminal to the waiting Gulfstream 550. They knew how to look after themselves. The co-pilot welcomed them aboard and escorted them back to the luxurious main lounge, where two more Nergadze toughs were playing cards. Boris introduced them all briskly. Zaal was a short, lithe man with restless, suspicious eyes, as though he'd lived his whole life on the run. Davit, by contrast, was a smiling giant with cauliflower ears and a Zorro nose. There was something distinctly familiar about him too, though Edouard couldn't work out why.
He hesitated after shaking their hands, expecting to be invited to join their game, as Boris was. But no invitation came, so he shrugged and sank into a white-leather seat across the aisle, stretched out his legs, watched the crew go into departure protocol. They were taxiing almost at once, no nonsense about waiting for other aircraft, before launching into the twilight skies above Tbilisi. He watched through his widescreen window the scattered bonfire of the city gradually going out beneath him, doused by a few thin wisps of cloud. Then lamb cutlets were served on silver plates by a disturbingly androgynous flight attendant, along with vintage champagne in black crystal Faberge glasses.
His sinuses began to squeeze as they approached Athens, his ears blocking, his eyes watering: he held his nose and blew gently to equalise the pressure until they were safely down. Two immigration officers came out to the plane to process them. His ears were still plugged, he had to lean forwards and frown to make out what they were saying. A pair of Mercedes SUVs with tinted windows were waiting on the tarmac, keys already in the ignition. Boris took a folded sheet of note-paper from his pocket. 'This is Mikhail Nergadze's address,' he told Edouard. 'We'll meet you there.'
'But I don't know Athens. How will I find it?'
'The cars have SatNav,' said Boris. 'You do know how to use SatNav, I trust.'
'Yes, of course. But where are you going?'
'None of your damned business.'
Edouard flushed. It was one thing to be treated rudely by Ilya and Sandro Nergadze, another by their staff. 'I asked you a perfectly civil question,' he said. 'If you can't answer it in a manner that-'
'Your mobile and wallet,' said Boris, holding out his hand.
'I beg your pardon?'
'You heard me,' said Boris. 'Your mobile and wallet.'
'But what if I need them?' protested Edouard.
'We're here on a sensitive mission,' said Boris. 'Secure communications only. Your mobile isn't secure, so give it to me.'
'What about my wallet? Isn't that secure either?'
'Please don't make this harder than it needs to be,' said Boris. 'It won't do you any good.' He nodded to Davit, who wrapped him in the straitjacket of his arms while Zaal rifled his
pockets, pulled out his mobile and wallet, handed them to Boris.
'What if I break down?' asked Edouard feebly.
Boris reached into his back pocket for a wad of euros, peeled off two twenties that he stuffed contemptuously in Edouard's breast pocket. 'I'll want them back,' he said, 'or a receipt showing how you spent them. Understand?' He didn't wait for an answer, just climbed into the back of the first Mercedes, while Davit and Zaal went up front, and then they were gone, leaving Edouard standing there, with only humiliation for company.
II
There was an awkward moment as Knox was being discharged from the police station, when Theofanis tipped up the translucent pouch into which he'd earlier placed Knox's belongings, so that they all spilled out across the varnished pine counter: his mobile, his wallet, his keys and the little red-leatherette ring box he'd been carrying around these last few days. He glanced at Gaille; she feigned distraction long enough for him to slip it away in his pocket. Then it was down the steps and out the front, wending between parked police cars and bikes.
Night had fallen. The pavements gleamed from a recent shower. A party of students engulfed them for a moment, boisterously shouting out competing plans for the evening. An elderly lottery-ticket salesman lowered his notched stick like a car park barrier across Knox's chest, promising him a great fortune for a mere five euros. Exotic birds squawked outside a pet shop, while dogs lay listlessly in small cages behind the windows, like so many Amsterdam whores. They reached a silver BMW 5-Series; a lawyer's car, not an archaeologist's. Charissa duly unlocked it and took the wheel, her seat moved as far forward as it would go, so that she could reach the pedals. Nico climbed in the passenger side, while Knox opened the back door for Gaille, then got in alongside her, taking and pressing her hand to thank her for being there.