City of Strangers

by Louise Millar

  The doctor nodded. ‘I was reminding Mitti that I was lucky to find this apartment.’

  The concierge nodded. ‘That’s right. You came to see Anna’s apartment on the ground floor . . .’

  ‘. . . and this one came free the same week. We weren’t sure if the piano would come up the—’

  ‘Anna?’ Grace interrupted.

  ‘Yes.’ Mitti nodded. ‘Anna lived on the ground floor. For three years.’

  Grace froze. ‘Did she have a son?’

  ‘Yes. Valentin.’

  Trying to stay calm, Grace pulled out the missing poster of Anna and Valentin. ‘Mitti, is this them?’

  Mitti took it. Fear crossed her face, and she dropped it. ‘How do you have this? What is happening here?’ she wailed.

  Dr De Jonker fetched some water. They waited till she’d drunk it.

  Grace knelt down. ‘Mitti, I’m sorry, but when I was here last time, I asked you if Lucian’s wife, Anna, lived here and you said no.’

  Mitti pointed at the missing poster, with a befuddled frown. ‘This Anna, you mean? This Anna was not Lucian’s wife.’

  ‘But she’s Romanian?’

  ‘Who has told you these things?’ Mitt exclaimed, hand flying. ‘Anna is Danish. A paediatrician at the central hospital. She was never Lucian’s wife! Why would you say that?’

  ‘A doctor?’ Grace persevered. ‘Mitti, what was her surname?’

  ‘Johanssen.’

  ‘Johanssen? And she and Lucian definitely weren’t together?’

  ‘No!’ Mitti cried, crinkled fingers visibly shaking now. ‘They were just neighbours. They spoke in the hall, or in the garden. Yes, maybe Lucian made the tree swing in the garden for Valentin, but . . .’ The tone of her voice drifted into doubt, then returned, cracked and defensive. ‘But Lucian was friendly with everyone. We all liked him.’

  Grace persisted. ‘But Anna and Valentin moved out the same week?’

  A shadow of doubt entered Mitti’s eyes. ‘Well, yes. Anna was offered a job in Copenhagen. Lucian left to look after his mother in Bucharest.’

  She spoke anxiously in Dutch again, and the doctor patted her arm.

  Grace tried again. ‘Mitti, no one’s come here recently, have they, asking to speak to Lucian or Anna, or to ask about me?’

  Mitti shook her head. That was something at least.

  Grace stood up. ‘OK. Listen, please don’t worry. We are getting closer to the truth, and the police will speak to you, I’m sure, when we know more. Please bear with me till then. Do you have a forwarding address for Anna?’

  Mitt stood up, flustered. ‘Yes.’

  The doctor helped her to the door, and promised to keep an eye on Mitti. Grace followed the concierge to the ground-floor apartment. It was a modest flat, in comparison, but with a comfortable rear sitting room. Mitti rifled through a drawer to retrieve a Copenhagen address. With it came a brown envelope.

  ‘This arrived for Anna only recently,’ she said. ‘I forwarded it to Copenhagen, but it was returned. Will you visit Anna now? Will you take it?’

  It was a brown business envelope, with a typed address label and a London postmark.

  ‘Of course,’ Grace said, knowing she now needed to do one of the most difficult things she’d ever done.

  She explained her request to Mitti.

  For a moment, she thought the concierge might fly at her.

  Instead, she acquiesced quietly.

  Grace led her to the window. Then she photographed Mitti from behind, looking into the rose garden, the pain of her confusion and betrayal visible in the fingers clamped behind her back, and the sagging shoulders.

  ‘Mitti, I’m leaving Amsterdam soon,’ Grace said, packing up, ‘but here is the number of a friend of mine, Nicu. If anyone asks about me or Lucian, in the next few days, please ring him.’

  Feeling bad for the pain she’d caused, Grace said goodbye with another hug and returned to the Jeep, checking around for the gold car. The road was clear. She placed Anna’s forwarding address on the seat and rang Ewan.

  ‘Hey – whassup?’

  She explained about Mitti and the positive ID.

  ‘Good God, missus – this is spectacular. Help! I’ve created a story monster.’

  ‘So, Ewan?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Can I go to Copenhagen?’

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Edinburgh

  Back in the Scots Today office, quiet today with just the skeleton Sunday news crew working on Monday’s paper, Sula returned from the stationery cupboard with her cigarettes, eyeballing the old fanny at the PA’s desk frowning at her, and waited for Ewan to get off the phone.

  ‘Ewan, enough!’ she shouted. ‘Let that lassie do her own work. That’s the second out-of-date address you’ve got me for Colin McFarlay and his mother. Banister Road, and now that place she sold last October in South Queensferry. Sort it out.’

  He put down the phone, not listening.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Grace’s story. It’s going mad.’

  She rapped the desk. ‘I’m not bothered about that. I’ve just told you that . . .’

  ‘No, but she says—’

  ‘Ewan. Do I look interested?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Well then, will you shut up!’

  Her assistant went pale and sat back. ‘I’m telling my mum on you,’ he muttered.

  She took a breath. Reminded herself Joanne wasn’t this daft bugger’s fault.

  ‘Right,’ she said, dropping her tone. ‘What I’m thinking is, when this person or people put David Pearce and Colin McFarlay down this hole, why did they do it? There’s a bloody sign on the fence, telling you how deep it is. It’s not that deep. They know this is a route that dog walkers and hikers use. Why put the bodies somewhere concealed, knowing it’s just a matter of time before someone finds them? They hadn’t even tried to cover them with something. At some point, they must have known somebody was going to notice the smell.’

  Ewan stretched back, his pigeon chest broadening momentarily. ‘What if he wanted someone to find the bodies?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Say it was gangland. Send out a message. Nobody wants to die that way, do they? Gives them a few months’ breathing space to set up alibis, clean crime scenes. No forensics left after three months outdoors – footsteps, car tracks, witnesses’ll have forgotten everything.’

  Sula’s brow wrinkled. ‘So if that’s right, and they wanted them to be found to send out a message, what do these guys have in common to get them into trouble?’

  ‘Drugs. Debts. Gambling? The usual.’

  A thought hit her. ‘Hang on. Mr Pearce Senior told me his sons were furious he’d sold his house. How much did he sell it for?’

  ‘What was the address again?’ Ewan checked his notes. ‘Two hundred and thirteen thousand. Last June.’

  ‘How long did he own it?’

  ‘Bought it 1958. Rented it out when they were in Australia, then moved back in when they got back to Scotland in 1972.’

  ‘So we’re guessing his mortgage was paid off. Two hundred grand in the bank. That’s a lot of money.’ She typed into her own computer. ‘What about 66 Bowling Road, South Queensferry?’

  Ewan bashed away. ‘One point two million.’

  ‘And that’s her sitting in a wee bungalow in Stirling?’ Sula frowned.

  ‘So where’s all the money?’

  ‘She said they had business debts,’ Sula replied. ‘And all that private rehab doesn’t come cheap.’ She pointed at her notes. ‘Find out how much Brown Oaks Nursing Home in Colinton costs a month.’

  ‘Will they tell me that if I ring up?’ Ewan said, unconvinced.

  ‘Say you’re asking for your elderly mother.’

  ‘What if we just go up there and say you’re my elderly mother? Get them to show us round?’

  ‘Oh, you’re funny, son.’

  ‘Actually, my mum says I’m very funny,’ Ewan said, tapping away. �
��And very special.’

  ‘You said it. Keep looking.’ Sula picked up her cigarettes and headed back to the cupboard. Somewhere out there was a link and she could almost see it. It was that close.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Amsterdam

  Grace parked the Jeep back on the canal, checking again for the gold car, then stopped to pat Nicu’s ginger cat, thinking about what she’d discovered. It fell on its back this time, and she stroked it. The air smelt of summer, of possibility.

  Nicu’s bed was empty, the back door open. Through the boat window, she saw him, beer in hand, on his laptop. He was showered. A denim shirt covered his bandages and bruising. Despite the angry grazes and swelling on his face, he seemed brighter, more alert.

  ‘Oi. Is that a good idea with concussion?’ she called through.

  ‘There’s more in the fridge,’ he said, eyes on the screen.

  Just for a second, she allowed herself to imagine this was her life, and recalled the envy she’d felt seeing the photo of the girl in his things, and knew it was a good thing she was leaving tomorrow.

  ‘So Lucian Grabole is definitely Lucian Tronescu stroke François Boucher? It’s all the same guy?’ Nicu said, when he came in to cook.

  ‘Yes, according to Mitti,’ she said, sipping her beer. ‘So now we just need DNA from a police match, or an e-fit to match his photo, to prove he’s definitely the dead man in my flat. Then I need to find Anna to establish why he was in Edinburgh. Then I need to verify the official stuff here, and in Romania and Paris. Maybe after all that, we’ll know why he was in my flat, and what the note meant.’

  The alcohol took the edge off the adrenalin rush of the past two days. She helped Nicu lift down a heavy casserole dish. ‘I feel awful for Mitti,’ she said. ‘Lucian tricked her for a whole year. It sounds like Anna ran because she suddenly became terrified of him.’

  ‘Maybe she witnessed him commit a crime,’ Nicu said, finding an onion. ‘Or even just picked up his mail, saw “François Boucher” on it? Then he tried to shut her up and she did a runner – maybe to Edinburgh.’

  Grace took the onion off him to cut. ‘I’m going to Copenhagen tomorrow to find out where she is, or where she went.’

  Nicu drank his beer. ‘You know I can’t come.’ He motioned at his shoulder. ‘I need to get this rested for Colombia.’

  ‘No, I know.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘I know. I’m just going for one day. I’ll fly home from there. So no more chance of night-time car chases on my own.’

  He threw her onion into the pot with one hand, then spices, and the delicious smell of something she’d never tasted filled the kitchen. She looked out onto this canal that she was starting to love, realizing that after tomorrow she might never see this place or him again.

  They ate late on the deck, then opened a bottle of wine and sat by the water. A piece of wood floated past, a bird’s nest on it.

  ‘God, I envy your life,’ she said, no longer caring what he thought, now she was leaving tomorrow.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘The freedom to live like this. Travel like this. Live anywhere you want.’

  He motioned with his wine glass. ‘What’s stopping you?’

  She stretched out. ‘Me, probably. I just never did it.’

  He leaned back on a giant plant pot, his legs stretched out near hers. ‘Well, you’re doing it now.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘Trust me, just once has caused enough trouble.’

  ‘At home?’

  She sat back beside him. ‘Mac doesn’t like me being away. He never has. And he hates travelling. The only way I got him to Thailand was by lying. I told him my dad had bought us a surprise honeymoon before he died.’

  ‘So again. You did it – that’s travelling.’

  She made a face. ‘Sitting on the beach and doing organized excursions to a temple and a night market?’ She shook her head. ‘I managed to get him to one of those backpacker areas in Bangkok, where everyone sits around talking about where they’re going next and perfect beaches and meeting other travellers. We were on our own, eating our tea in our holiday outfits. Honestly, we were like pensioners playing bingo.’

  ‘I couldn’t deal with that.’

  She bristled with historic protectiveness towards Mac. ‘I’m not saying he stops me. Not physically. I just let myself get talked out of things.’

  ‘Then don’t,’ he shrugged.

  It was easy for him to say.

  As night fell, they lowered their voices. She told him about her dad bringing her up after her mum died, and her first photography job after college ‘piling people up’ for a family photographer in Edinburgh, who liked to take quirky portraits of them leaning into each other on the floor, arms around each other, like a boy band. Nicu was, predictably, scathing. She started to laugh till her sides ached, as he came up with a system of weighing each family member and putting the heaviest on the bottom, layering them up in flat piles.

  As the temperature dropped, he fetched blankets and they talked on after midnight, her quizzing him about his travels and New Zealand.

  ‘Don’t you miss your family over there?’ she whispered as Hugo and Magriet’s lights went off.

  ‘I go home for a month at a time, so I probably see as much of them as if I lived there. They come and stay. My sister’s coming when I get back from Bogotá.’

  ‘But don’t you miss belonging somewhere? That’s what scares me. Not having friends or family around if you need them.’

  He poured them both more wine. ‘There’s a community here. You saw it after the fire. Some of the guys sorted the tarpaulin. Hugo and Magriet took the cat. Kiki and Madra helped with the deck. I do the same for them.’

  She smiled, the wine loosening her tongue.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The night I arrived, I didn’t know this was a garden. I thought Kiki and Madra were in your bedroom.’

  It took him a minute. ‘Hang on. You thought I was getting it on with both of them – you’d stumbled on a den of iniquity.’

  She giggled, and he punched her arm gently.

  ‘God, they’ll love that. No, trust me, anyone goes near Madra and Kiki would have them.’

  The moon shot a white streak down the inky water. They moved closer to hear each other in the still canal, as they discussed more photographers they liked.

  At one point, Nicu went in and brought out a stack of photobooks, and a lantern. They lay back against the pot and flicked through, discussing them. At the end was a portfolio of his own photos from America.

  ‘My first project after college in New Zealand – I did it on the way to London,’ he said. ‘Flew to LA and drove across America staying in a tent. I photographed people on campsites, asked them why they were there.’

  ‘Weren’t they just on holiday?’ she teased.

  He rolled his eyes. ‘This guy was good.’ He pointed at a photo of a man with a beard leaning on a camping table, smiling, an unnatural brightness in his eyes. A Great Dane leaned beside him. ‘He was in his early sixties and his wife had just died. His parents were in their eighties. They’d bought a camper van and were taking him – and his dog – on a six-month trip to help him get through the worst.’

  ‘That’s really moving,’ Grace said. She flicked on to a photo of two middle-aged women in bikini tops and shorts. They had similar scars on their bodies.

  ‘These two met every year – they were strangers.’ Nicu pointed. ‘She donated a kidney to her. They went camping one weekend a year together to celebrate it.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘You should do this.’

  ‘What?’ she said, topping up their glasses.

  ‘Take a month out. Three months. Go somewhere on your own. Do one project. Give a story the chance to breathe.’

  She picked at a leaf. ‘Nicu. You just shut up the boat, give the cat to Hugo and Magriet. Go. Get paid. I can’t.’

  ‘People who are successful in this
business have to make it happen. They find the stories. Shoot them. Sell them. Hope to get commissioned again.’

  A low moan and creaking drifted out of Hugo and Magriet’s boat. Grace and Nicu’s eyes met, aghast. She put a hand over her mouth, as a giggle burst out. Nicu threw a blanket over her head, and kept her there, in a headlock, till she stopped.

  As the night drifted on, she lay on her front, and told him about Mac, the boy at high school everyone fancied, and how lucky her friends like Anne-Marie considered she was to snare him.

  ‘So you’ve only been with each other?’ Nicu asked.

  ‘Been with. Yes.’ She checked his reaction. ‘Oh God. You look horrified.’

  ‘No, no.’ He caught her hand. ‘I didn’t mean that. I just. No, it’s cool. Loyal,’ he said, grimacing.

  She sat up. ‘It’s OK. I can tell you think it’s a horrendous idea.’ She sipped her wine, thinking she should stop soon.

  ‘No. I just . . . Are you not curious?’

  She punched his arm. ‘I’m not answering that. And, actually, to be precise, I haven’t been with anyone else; he has.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last July.’

  ‘Shit.’

  She screwed up her face. ‘I haven’t told anyone this.’

  He rolled onto his side, shifting his injured shoulder. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He told me he freaked out that I’d be the only person he’d slept with. He met this girl in a club.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘We had a huge fight for weeks. We were in the middle of trying to sort it out when I found out my dad’s illness was terminal. He was so worried about me being on my own, as he called it. So Mac proposed in front of him, in this grand gesture of apology, and I said yes.’

  ‘But you didn’t want to?’

  ‘I wanted to make my dad happy before he died. I thought it would work out.’

  ‘Did it?’

  She emptied her glass. ‘I’ve been with him since I was sixteen.’

  They fell into silence.

  The deck drifted gently, till the clouds broke pink above the bridge and the dawn arrived. By now they were wrapped in the blankets, huddled for warmth.