by Tim Adler
The Toyota went back up the twisty road towards the village.
The dashboard lit up Paul's face like a cruel mask. She didn't recognise him as the man she had once loved.
"Let her go," Priest said. "She's got nothing to do with this."
Paul gave a sarcastic laugh. "You know I can't do that."
"She's done nothing to you."
"This is all her own fault. It doesn't have to be this way."
Nervous tension thickened the silence. The car entered the village and they passed the first houses in the empty, rain-slicked street. No lights were on.
Kate caught sight of herself in the black passenger window. "I'm dead already," she thought. Her mind flicked back to what Paul had said in the taxi on the way to the funeral. "I feel like a ghost." She had a vision of her and Priest shot in the head and dumped in an oil drum or dissolved in lye until they were sludgy mush. Whatever way they decided to kill them, she hoped at least their deaths would be quick.
Suddenly Paul shouted, and the car turned crazily left. Kate caught a blurry glimpse of the unfinished apartment block, and the headlights threw up a brick wall. Priest had grabbed the wheel. Paul must have hit the wrong pedal because they were accelerating towards the brickwork. Teardrop had his hands round Priest's throat as the building loomed straight up. Kate shut her eyes, braced for impact.
They jolted as they broke through the diamond metal fence, and there was a terrific thump when they stopped. Kate's head bounced off the driver's headrest, snapping back. The car was tilted at an angle. There was a moment of stillness before the sound returned. Teardrop still had his hand's round Priest's throat and was attempting to strangle the life out of him. Paul, though, was slumped forward over the inflated airbag.
Now, before they do anything.
Move.
Kate's fingers scrabbled for the door lock, and she practically fell out of the car. The Land Cruiser had smashed through the security fence and had run aground on the dirt pile, hazard lights blinking. Lightning flashed, and there was a shattering boom of thunder as Kate stumbled downhill, not caring where she was going. Something told her not to run into the square, though: the block of flats would protect her. Stones and builder's rubbish bit into her feet as she hobbled towards the building. Her progress was painful. She glanced back at where the Toyota was haphazardly perched.
The passenger door swung open and Paul began struggling after her.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The block of flats was pitch black and smelled of cold as Kate groped her way in. A tungsten-blue lightning flash lit up the ground floor. A few plastic sheets had been stapled to a partition wall frame beside a central cement staircase. Apart from that, the ground floor was empty. That was her only glimpse of the building before everything went black again.
Kate reached out with her hands, feeling for the staircase. This was like an insane game of blind man's buff, her hands groping for something she could hold on to. The wind was really howling now. This was madness. Suddenly Kate barked her shin on sharp cement and realised that she'd reached the steps. Slowly, now. She edged upstairs, feeling for support. Her fingertips touched a solid wall on her right; she could feel nothing on her left, and she realised the steps rose up through the heart of the building, a winding stairwell. The banister hadn't been put in yet to stop people from falling.
She brought her foot down on nothing, and for a moment panicked, fearing she'd walked off the staircase. No, it was a landing. Kate trailed her hands along the wall, feeling her way around. Outside her name was being called. Paul. The wind swallowed his words. If only she could get up the stairs faster – there must be some builders' tools she could use as a weapon. She willed herself to pick up the pace, aware that one wrong step could mean death. Each footfall was a leap of faith.
"Kate. Where are you?" Paul's voice came up the stairs.
He was inside the building.
Fighting rising panic, she knew she had to keep going. She hugged the wall for support.
"Kate, come back. It's useless trying to run away. There's nowhere to run to. Kate, please. If you just let me explain, we could be happy again."
For a moment, she wavered. Then suddenly–
"Goddammit, you little bitch, come here. I'm going to stab up your cunt when I get hold of you. Liked his black cock, did you?"
Paul was incoherent with snarling, spitting rage, as if something had possessed him.
Fear made it difficult to breathe. She told herself not to cry, but nevertheless a tear formed. He was so close now. Worse, Paul had switched on a torch and its needle light was like a stiletto blade as he kept on coming. The moment his torch found her she might as well be dead. For God's sake, Kate, keep moving. The torch was slashing and scything its way up the staircase. Come out, come out, wherever you are. A game of hide and seek. A childhood memory: holding her breath inside a wardrobe as other children hunted her down. She was about to take another step when something told her to stop.
There was nothing in front of her.
She could feel the void where the staircase ended. One more step and she would have fallen to her death. Frozen, she stood there as Paul's stabbing torchlight got nearer. Think, for God's sake, think. There was a terrific lightning flash and almost instant answering thunder. The storm was right overhead.
In that instant, she saw that the staircase hadn't run out but that there was a gap between this flight and the next landing up. About half a body's length. Paul's builders had left the staircase unfinished, and she would have to jump up and across in utter darkness. Kate couldn't do it. Her legs refused to move. Hesitantly, she reached out, feeling for the lip of the cement landing, sensing the chasm beneath. Frightened to let go, she had no choice but to lie across the void and somehow haul herself up. As she willed herself forward, everything was telling her to stop. Her muscles trembled as she let go and dangled, her legs hanging in space.
With one supreme effort, she hauled herself up and lay gasping on the cement. She got onto her hands and knees as Paul emerged onto the landing below. The only thing she could do was to show herself. If he kept his torch on her, there was just a chance he might not see the void. "Up here," she called. What was he doing? The torch was roving around the floor below: Paul was looking for something. Then, to her horror, a strip light propped against a wall flickered into life.
Now he could see everything.
Paul called up the stairs, "Come down, Kate, it's over."
"What are you going to do with me?"
"Do with you? I'm offering you a new life. You'll live in the finest hotels, have anything you want. All you have to do is go along with it."
Paul kept on climbing the stairs.
"Or what? You'll get rid of me, like you did that informer. Have me killed like that man from the hotel."
"It doesn't have to be this way."
"Do you really think we're going to have a life together?"
"There's no place to go now, Kate. Nowhere to hide. I never wanted to hurt you."
Another voice shouted down below. Teardrop. He must have struggled in from the car. That meant that Priest was probably dead. Her shoulders slumped: she'd had the faintest hope that at least one of them would get away. It really was all over now.
"She's up here," Paul called out in English.
They both stood there breathing heavily, each caught on the Escher staircase. Teardrop emerged at the foot of the steps. "Bring her to the car," Paul said. Teardrop started walking upstairs, looking as if he meant business.
Suddenly he shoved Paul hard. There was a horrible crack as Paul hit his head on the cement. Kate's brain pulsed with a dizzying shock, but she could not move. Paul had grabbed onto the overhang and was clinging on for dear life, as the livid redness where he'd hit his head widened. He looked up at her beseechingly. "Kate," he said. All she could do was look on in appalled horror; her limbs wouldn't obey her. Casually, almost nonchalantly, Teardrop took a step back and swung a massive kick at Paul's h
ead.
What happened next she would remember forever.
Teardrop trotted down the steps to retrieve the pencil torch that Paul had dropped. As he shone the light down into the chasm, she saw Paul lying at the bottom like an abandoned doll, his arms and legs at funny angles. Just like the first time. She thought about that moment, a week ago – when she thought he'd killed himself, except this time Paul really was dead. When Teardrop looked up, he was smiling strangely. "I was the one who loved him, not you," he said.
One week later
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Surely Venice had to be the most beautiful city in the world. A feast for the eyes. Kate walked along the quay wrapped up against the cold, taking in the delightful mosaic of terracotta, biscuit and weeping pistachio up ahead. It was a bright, sharp day in mid-December, one of the last good mornings before winter set in. She had been living in a small hotel for the past three days, seeing nobody and having her meals sent up. It was good to be outside.
She turned into St Mark's Square and walked along the colonnade, past bored-looking tourists inside Florian's, who seemed more interested in their mobile phones than in the city around them.
Teardrop had turned himself in to the police. What he wanted was a new life in exchange for betraying the Octopus, and to her surprise the authorities had gone along with it, agreeing to hide him in a witness protection programme. When Kate protested, Priest said grimly, "We've got bigger fish to fry."
Teardrop had pleaded for his life when Priest was fighting with him in the car. Paul had murdered his father, he said, while his mother watched. Teardrop had then made a run for it, and they'd got into a fight on the building site before the gangster left Priest for dead. The rest of the story Kate knew.
Zogaj, meanwhile. had gone to ground. The police came up empty-handed when they raided her farm. Paul's aunt, realising that her organisation had been destroyed, had simply fled.
Over the next few days, Teardrop laid bare how the gang operated. The air became blue with cigarette smoke as Teardrop stubbed butts out, occasionally daring Priest to believe him, as he explained the whole operation. Zogaj was meeting an Italian customs official in Venice on Sunday, he said, to discuss smuggling rocket launchers across Europe. These RPGs were being used in bank robberies: Dutch banks were being robbed to fund Islamic extremism. A bank teller had been clubbed to death only last week. That was why Kate and Priest had come to Venice: police would swoop in and arrest Zogaj as the deal went down.
"He gets a new life, just like that?" Kate asked incredulously. She thought with a pang of the dishwasher. Maybe none of this would have happened if she hadn't thought he'd been on their balcony. She had wanted to say something when she passed the dishwasher's girlfriend in police headquarters, but the woman had snubbed her. Anyway, what could she say? She had been wrong about her own husband as well. She'd been wrong about everything.
"He's sick of thug life. You get older, you start thinking about things."
"He's not even going to prison."
"There are still plenty of people who want him dead for betraying the syndicate. Think about it. Every morning he wakes up, he'll wonder if today's the day somebody recognises him. Imagine checking your car each morning to see if somebody has put a bomb under it. He's in prison for the rest of his life."
She had pleaded with Priest to be allowed to see the arrest: she wanted that poisonous old woman to go away for a very long time. She had never really thought of people being evil before, but now she knew it was a fact. All right, he said eventually, but you do exactly what I tell you.
They had flown to Venice after briefing the Europol office in Rome. Priest had told her to lie low, although they spoke every day on the phone. It would only be over once they arrested Zogaj.
Kate sidled past gawping Japanese tourists in an alleyway flanked with jewellers and sweet shops, their windows stuffed with bonbons and carnival masks. She could smell the salty, briny Adriatic as she crossed over the deep moss green of a canal.
Kate emerged into the square and spotted Priest sitting outside a café. She realised that she wanted Priest to be waiting for her for a very long time.
He was idly stirring a cappuccino. There was bubbling conversation around them in French, German and Italian as she drew up a chair.
"This coffee's amazing. It's not like that rubbish back in England with half a litre of milk in it."
"The Italians did invent it. The sandwiches are good, too. They serve them up at the counter."
"Do you want one?"
She shook her head. "I'm too nervous to eat. What if she doesn't show?"
"Don't talk like that. All she knows is that her nephew's dead and that her son is under arrest. The Albanians kept it out of the papers."
"Surely she'll pull out."
"Her buyers are people you don't want to disappoint. The customs official has been under surveillance and she hasn't made contact, so we can only assume it's still on. There'll be lots of arrests after this one. You'll hear about it on the news. We're lucky that your husband still had the memory card in his pocket."
Kate turned and looked at the statue of a bearded nineteenth-century figure on a pedestal. The black streaks from his sightless eyes reminded her of the dishwasher looming through the net curtains.
"You have to understand how difficult this is … somebody you loved, somebody you thought you knew, capable of such–" she searched for the word. "–cruelty."
A bird landed on the back of a chair, unafraid of humans. Priest placed a reassuring hand over hers. Once again, the touch of another person felt so good.
"Kate, listen to me. You did nothing wrong. Paul always had choices. He could have walked away, but he never did. You have nothing to feel ashamed of. There are only two things that matter in life: how much did you love, and how well did you let go? And you did love your husband..."
He was right, of course. It was time to let go of the past, but there were too many false memories, moments when she still believed she and Paul had been truly happy.
The competitive tolling of church bells echoed across the square, signalling that it was noon. "It's time," he said.
Priest stood up from the table, and she noticed that he was using a stick. "How does your leg feel?" she asked.
"It only hurts when I laugh," he replied.
Priest and Kate walked into the hotel behind the café, where the receptionist was running the front desk like a practised traffic warden. Priest limped up the art nouveau staircase to the second floor, where they turned right. The Europol agent knocked once, paused and then rapped twice on the door at the corridor end. A man looked at them suspiciously through the door chain.
The room stank of body odour, greasy food and the unpleasant tang of cigarettes. There were two other men, Europol agents, in the Venetian-style bedroom, both standing beside the curtains. Both were bent over cameras on tripods, their fat telephoto lens peering through gaps in the curtains. One stood up and spoke into a walkie-talkie, "Repeat. Target one is in place. Target one is in place. Over."
"You're just in time," the other agent said. "He's only just sat down."
"Still no sign of the woman, though."
The motor shutter whirred as the agent kept his finger down.
Priest gestured for Kate to make a space among the rubbish on the bedspread. Instead, she said: "I would like to see."
"Kate, we can't do that. We're bending the rules even allowing you in here."
"None of this would have happened if it wasn't for me. I just want to see what he looks like."
"Three minutes to go," said the agent bent over the other camera.
Priest touched one of the agents on the shoulder. "Just let her look. This is my operation, I'll take responsibility."
The Europol agent went and lay on the bed beside an empty pizza carton. Kate wondered how long he had been up.
She took her turn at the viewfinder. The back of the hotel overlooked another square with a café. How iro
nic, she thought, how it ends is how it began. A pudgy middle-aged man with a moustache was studying a menu. She zoomed out to see what else was going on. The buildings above the café were either apartments or offices, she guessed, as she scanned the rows of balconies. Some windows were open, others shut. Kate panned back to the customs official sitting at the café table, enjoying the winter sunshine.
"One minute to go," said the agent, pushing her gently aside.
"All units get ready to intercept. We want a hard stop on the suspect."
God damn you for all the misery you've caused in people's lives, Kate thought. She and Priest had visited Phuong in a detention centre, where she was being kept before being deported. Sitting there in the interview room, the Vietnamese teenager was barely more than a frightened child.
A burst of static from a walkie-talkie interrupted Kate's thoughts.
One minute went past, and then another. You could feel tension like fog in the bedroom as Priest started pacing, his stick tapping the floorboards. The Europol agents poised over the cameras kept snapping away, but it was clear Zogaj wasn't coming. "Goddamn it," said Priest. "Something must have spooked her."
"He's signalling for the waiter to pay the bill," said the agent with the telephoto lens.
"What do you want to do, sir?"
"I don't know. All units stay in position."
"The waiter has come over and he's paying the bill. Target is standing up to leave."
"Sir, you need to make a decision."
The moment gathered like a drop of water about to fall. Priest nodded and the agent beside the curtains spoke urgently into his walkie-talkie: "All units move in. Repeat. Arrest suspect."
Kate put her eye to the viewfinder without being asked as the man behind her carried on talking. Black-uniformed riot police were converging on the café, forcing the government official onto the ground. She zoomed out and whipped the image back up to the balconies overlooking the square and there, just for a moment, she glimpsed Zogaj. The old woman had dyed her hair blonde and was wearing a headscarf and sunglasses, but there was no doubt in Kate's mind. Her apartment curtains fell back into place.