Written in the Blood

by Stephen Lloyd Jones

  ‘It still stands. Of course it still stands.’

  Etienne rose to her feet and enfolded Leah in a fragile embrace. Standing back, she laughed, the sound like a dam being breached.

  ‘Where exactly is this place you’ll take her to?’ Tuomas asked.

  ‘I can’t tell you that. Not yet.’ To Etienne, she added: ‘But I’ll be in touch soon. You’ll be available to fly out to us? At short notice?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Tuomas was still watching her. ‘Are you going straight back?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘As I said, I don’t think you realise how much danger you’re facing.’

  ‘I’m aware of it. Believe me.’

  ‘I don’t. I don’t mean to insult you, but I don’t think you’ve grasped the repercussions of what you’re doing. How many are there of you?’

  ‘Enough.’

  He nodded. ‘I’d be happy to accompany you back’

  ‘There’s no need. Really.’

  ‘I’d—’

  ‘Really, Tuomas. Thank you. But there’s no need.’ Time for a lie, she thought, although it made her uncomfortable to speak it. ‘I’m not in London alone. It’s kind of you to offer, but this isn’t the first time I’ve done this and it won’t be the last.’

  Tuomas studied her a moment longer, and then he moved away, hands clasped behind his back. ‘In that case, allow me to wish you well.’ For the first time, he smiled. ‘Who knows? Perhaps our paths will cross again.’

  CHAPTER 22

  Budapest, Hungary

  At ten o’clock in the morning, as the sun crept higher behind the clouds, the frost on the grass of Budapest’s Memento Park was finally beginning to recede.

  Anton Golias, coat buttoned against the cold, walked the figure-of-eight path, looking for his tanács colleague, Oliver Lebeau, and nursing the Styrofoam cup of coffee he had bought on his way here. The coffee was dreadful, the beans burned and bitter, and it did nothing to improve Anton’s mood. He had always found the park an oddly melancholic place, but he could think of nowhere better suited to this meeting.

  Built on an area of scrubland on the edge of a spartan residential district, Memento Park’s skyline was dominated by the stark metal skeletons of electricity pylons linked by endless loops of cable. It was not a place of landscaped gardens, exotic plants and flowers. The air was softened neither with the delicate scent of blossom, nor by the music of water spouting into fountains.

  When Hungary’s Communist rule collapsed in ’eighty-nine, its Budapest populace, free for the first time in over forty years, woke to a city still dominated by the statues and monuments of its servitude. Almost immediately they were taken down, but for a while, nobody knew where to put them. Most of them ended up here, where Anton now stood. Memento Park existed not as a tribute to the old totalitarian state, but as a celebration of its demise.

  He found his friend standing in front of an enormous bronze depicting a flag-waving Red Army soldier raising a clenched fist.

  Oliver turned as Anton approached, greeting him with a tired smile. ‘Remember this one?’

  ‘Of course. It used to stand on top of Gellért Hill. The Soviets stuck him up there to celebrate our liberation from the Nazis.’ Anton laughed sourly. ‘By Stalin and his dogs.’

  ‘Perhaps they should have melted it down.’

  ‘No. Better that it ended up here. People should remember.’

  Oliver shrugged. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘I suppose. Have they arrived?’

  ‘Waiting over there.’

  He saw the tanács adversaries they’d come to meet – Ivan Tóth and Krištof Joó – standing at the steps to Stalin’s Grandstand. ‘Come on, then,’ he muttered. ‘Let’s find out what this is about.’

  Tóth thrust out a hand in greeting and Anton shook it with a grimace. He had come to dislike the man intensely over the past few years, but at least Tóth’s smile – wide, welcoming and utterly false – seemed appropriate for their surroundings.

  ‘Morning, Anton, morning!’ he cried. ‘Good of you to come. Interesting choice of venue. The point isn’t lost on me, I assure you.’

  Anton grunted, then greeted Tóth’s sidekick with a nod. If Tóth was the natural diplomat – eloquent, loquacious and seemingly eager to find common ground – then Joó was his firebrand counterpart. The man was hardline, and habitually distrustful. Anton had not decided which of the two represented the greater threat.

  A gust of wind snatched at the leaves at the side of the path, and for a moment he thought he smelled something rancid on the air, as if some creature had crawled into the undergrowth and died. ‘Well,’ he said, feigning a smile of his own. ‘We may have our disagreements, but I’m always willing to talk.’

  ‘That’s good, that’s good.’ Tóth placed a hand on his shoulder, and Anton allowed himself to be pivoted and steered back along the path. ‘So how are things going? Generally?’

  He frowned. ‘What exactly are you asking?’

  ‘Well, I suppose I’m asking you, first, for an update on this fertility programme our Főnök has established. Is it continuing to bear fruit?’

  ‘It’s not the Főnök’s programme, as you well know. It belongs to everyone. We voted it through.’

  ‘Not all of us.’

  Fifteen years earlier, after hearing Hannah and Gabriel’s proposal to arrest the hosszú életek’s decline, the eight member tanács found themselves split. Anton and Oliver supported the plan, along with two other modernisers. Tóth and Joó, strict observers of traditional Vének Könyve doctrine, were its most outspoken opponents. With the tanács at an impasse, the Főnök cast the deciding vote, and the project was born.

  ‘Is that why you asked me here?’ he asked. ‘To debate a decision reached over a decade ago?’

  ‘Of course not. Te jó ég, you’re prickly this morning. It must be these old relics. Oppressive, aren’t they?’

  ‘Relics of an oppressive regime usually are.’

  The flecks of silver in Tóth’s eyes betrayed his irritation. This time, when he smiled, his lips were tight against his teeth.

  Gotcha, Anton thought.

  ‘But is it going well?’ the man pressed. ‘Surely that’s a reasonable question?’

  ‘I understand they’ve had a number of recent successes.’

  ‘I’ve heard differently.’

  He shrugged. Perhaps the Főnök’s greatest coup, all those years earlier, had been not the creation of the centre, but her insistence on its secrecy. The location would not be revealed to the eight members of the tanács. Nor would any detailed news be communicated of the programme’s performance, nor the names of its volunteers or associates. The political situation was tense enough, but there were darker threats to guard against.

  Tóth appeared to realise he would receive no answers to his probing. His arm fell away from Anton’s shoulder. ‘I’ve heard that some of the women are dying.’

  Now he felt a coldness in his stomach, radiating outwards. If Tóth had learned of the centre’s problems, the situation was graver than he had imagined. Still he said nothing. He recalled Hannah Wilde’s words back in Calw.

  We’re fighting a war here, in that building behind me. Fighting a grim, backs-to-the-wall last stand: against nature, against the consequences of the Eleni outrages all those years ago. It’s messy and it’s horrific, and believe me if you stayed here a week and watched what we do you’d see how we suffer – and how we rejoice – with every inch of ground we advance or retreat. Do you think we don’t grieve for each volunteer we lose? Do you think we don’t live with their loss every day? Tell me a better way and I’ll listen.

  That was just it. There was no better way. He had pushed Hannah hard that day, had needed to hear for himself how she viewed their situation. And he had walked away from that meeting with his opinion cemented that what she was doing was the right thing; the only thing.

  And now this.

  Tóth came to a halt.
‘We have a duty, do we not, to protect those who appoint us?’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. And what greater obligation could we have than to avoid our own extinction?’

  ‘Extinction? A rather dramatic choice of words, don’t you think?’

  ‘Would you deny that’s what we face?’

  ‘I certainly don’t deny that if these reports of the programme’s failings are true, then we’re marching ourselves far closer to that kind of outcome.’

  ‘Please. I know what your objections are, and they aren’t that.’

  ‘Perhaps not,’ Tóth replied. ‘It’s difficult to form an objection to anything these days, when the truth is kept hidden like this. I remember a time when the tanács was empowered to debate issues openly, with all the facts in clear sight. I remember when the Főnök observed the tenets of the Vének Könyve and relied on her tanács for guidance, rather than shrouding herself in secrecy and ploughing her own course.’

  ‘Ah. So that’s what this is about.’

  ‘We made a mistake with Catharina’s appointment. You know that, I’m sure. In our grief over Éva’s passing, we acted with our hearts instead of our heads. We appointed the daughter without questioning ourselves hard enough, and now we’re witnessing the result. She takes her brother’s counsel over our own, and she’s far too invested in this Hannah Wilde to remain impartial. Catharina was the wrong choice, Anton. You can’t refute it.’

  ‘Of course I refute it. I’ll grant you she made a few missteps in the early days, but—’

  ‘Missteps?’

  ‘But every Főnök needs time to carve out her role.’

  ‘Yet time is exactly what you suggest we lack. And on that point, at least, I agree. Look, I know you’re fond of her. We all are. But that must not cloud our judgement of what is required.’

  ‘What exactly is required?’

  ‘A change,’ Tóth said, his eyes gleaming. ‘Now’s the time to force it. The tanács has been split for too long, and the Főnök has failed to bring unity. With new leadership . . .’

  Anton’s mouth dropped open. ‘What are you saying?’

  His colleague took a breath, drew himself together. ‘I already speak for half the tanács. With one more vote we could end this disunity. Elect a new leader: someone with the strength to forge change, yet with the humility to listen to reason.’

  Anton could not hide his anger just then. He felt his blood surging in his arteries. ‘And who would you choose? You?’

  The man’s lower lip curled back. ‘Despite what you might believe, I hold no thirst for power. Just a desire for the right leadership.’

  ‘Who, then? Gabriel?’

  Tóth snorted. ‘He’d be my last choice. Gods, man, Gabriel would be his own last choice. No, if the tanács were to elect a new Főnök, my choice would be you.’

  Anton flinched, shocked. ‘Me?’

  ‘I can think of no one better. We’ve had our differences over the years, but I’d be the first to vouch for your integrity, your strength of vision. Even though the tanács might be split on the issue of Hannah Wilde, you have friends on our side. Oláh, Saári, they’d both support your appointment. I’ve already sounded them out.’

  Anton halted in the middle of the path. He turned, studied Tóth’s face. And then he laughed. ‘You’ve been busy.’

  His old adversary smiled, lizard-sly.

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ he continued, ‘and traitorous. While Catharina concentrates her efforts on saving our people, you slink around in the shadows, trying to unseat her. And why? Because she won’t share with you the finer details of a plan that might just save us all? Or because you’re unhappy with some of the smaller parts you’ve heard? You come here talking of duty, when what you’re really suggesting is a betrayal.’

  ‘How dare you!’

  ‘How dare you?’ Anton exploded. ‘There hasn’t been an insurrection in the tanács for more than five hundred years, and you would plot one now? You, Ivan Tóth, and your poisonous cabal of whisperers? I’ll mark this day, you’ll see I will. Our Főnök has presided over the most difficult period we’ve ever faced, and she’s done it with grace, strength and conviction.’

  Such was the nimbus of fury surrounding the two men that their colleagues began to back away.

  Tóth’s eyes flared. ‘Our Főnök is contravening the most fundamental laws that govern us. She’s allowed herself to become the puppet of Hannah Wilde and Gabriel Szöllösi—’

  ‘Hannah Wilde and Gabriel Szöllösi are doing something remarkable, you fool!’

  ‘The woman’s a kirekesztett.’

  ‘She is not kirekesztett!’

  ‘Look at her blood! For a thousand years or more the purity of the great families was sacrosanct. And now we’re allowing Hannah Wilde’s tainted blood to—’

  ‘What about your blood?’ Anton shouted. ‘Is it pure? And what of your ethics, Ivan? Are they pure, too? You’ll make no devil’s pact with me. Nor with any I represent.’

  Tóth’s eyes, livid, bulged in his skull like a frog’s. And yet somehow the man calmed himself. ‘Don’t be so sure of that,’ he whispered. ‘Just remember, when the time comes, that I gave you a choice. Clearly you’ve fallen under this Wilde woman’s spell just as completely as the Főnök.’

  Anton stabbed his finger towards the park’s gates. ‘Go on. Get out of here. Crawl out of here. Your plan will fail, I assure you.’

  Tóth stared. His chest rose and fell. Straight-backed, he turned and marched towards the exit. Joó followed, lips pressed tightly together.

  Anton watched the two tanács leaders pass through the gates and puffed out his cheeks.

  ‘More coffee?’ Oliver asked him lightly.

  ‘I think I’ve had enough, don’t you?’

  ‘Perhaps. This changes things, I’d suggest.’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘They only need one more name.’

  ‘Like yours?’

  ‘Of course not. But while we’re on the topic, you should know I’m not entirely comfortable with the way Catharina has—’

  ‘Enough, Oliver. Please. I don’t want to hear it. Not today.’ Anton raised his nose to the air. ‘Do you smell that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something. I can’t place it.’

  ‘I can smell your coffee.’

  He sighed. ‘Yes, it’s not good.’ On their way out of the park, he threw the Styrofoam container into a rubbish bin and rubbed at the back of his neck. For some reason he could not dismiss, he felt as though he was being watched.

  With barely a glance at his driver, Ivan Tóth slid onto the Range Rover’s back seat. As soon as Joó was inside, the vehicle pulled out into traffic.

  Removing a handkerchief from his pocket, Tóth blotted his face. He snapped out directions and sank back in his seat, loosening his shirt. ‘Arrogant sertés!’ he spat.

  Joó glanced at him. ‘He’s stubborn, I’ll grant you, but hardly arrogant. You offered him power and he rejected it. Politically, he still holds all the cards.’

  ‘Not for much longer, he doesn’t.’

  ‘You have a plan?’

  Already Tóth’s anger was fading. Now he began to smile once more.

  CHAPTER 23

  Snowdonia, Wales

  As Leah Wilde drew closer to the place where she had once experienced so much loss the light began to fade, as if the day read her memories and chose to slink away.

  The mountains of Snowdonia slumbered beneath a granite sky that bled away their colour and left a landscape painted in ash. Leah did not recognise the road she drove upon, but she recognised the hill in front of her and knew what lay behind it. Her limbs felt heavy. A weight pressed her down in the seat.

  She slowed the car as she approached the summit of the hill, and where the forest revealed a patchy clearing, she glimpsed – or thought she did – the old whitewashed building, waiting for her at the bottom of the valley.

  Leah turned her eyes away. She
would not look at it. Not yet.

  Cresting the top of the rise, she took a turning and found herself negotiating a steep slope, its stones wet and slippery beneath the Mercedes’ tyres.

  Trees on either side formed a dense canopy, and inside it seemed as if the night had already come.

  She gripped the steering wheel tight, knuckles whitening. Fifteen years of thinking about this place, attempting to exorcise its ghosts; and now, finally, she was here.

  Leah had not wanted to return but she’d always known she must. She needed to say goodbye, needed to wash off the years of grief that even now still clung to her.

  Below, the track flattened out, breaking free of the trees and curving towards the crumbling stone bridge that crossed the river.

  There, beyond it, pale in the leadening light, stood the old farmhouse itself.

  Llyn Gwyr.

  She had expected it, like many of the revisited places of childhood, to look smaller than she remembered. But the building defied her expectations. If anything, it appeared larger than before: more formidable; more unyielding. Although the ground-floor windows had been boarded up, the plywood slimy with mould, the upstairs windows remained untouched. They watched her like a row of dead eyes, and she felt an itch break out across her skin, as if she’d brushed through a stand of nettles.

  You’ve come this far. Don’t back out.

  Leah brought the Mercedes to a halt. When she switched off the engine, the mountain silence flooded in. She opened the door and climbed out.

  Immediately the wind dragged at her, its fingers damp and insistent. She pulled up the collar of her jacket, folded her arms and walked towards the bridge.

  How long since anyone had been here? A decade? Longer? She knew her mother still held the freehold to the property and its land. Before their arrival here all those years ago, her grandfather’s friend Sebastien had maintained a watch over the place. But the old man was dead and gone, and whether anyone still communed with Llyn Gwyr’s ghosts, Leah did not know.