by Chris Ewan
‘I’m sorry, Miller. Really, I am.’
‘Forget sorry. I need answers. I have to know what you talked about.’
‘Just . . . nothing.’ Her lip trembled. ‘The life, you know. We understood each other, I guess.’
‘Did you talk about me?’
‘A little.’
‘And Hanson? Becca?’
‘I don’t remember too well.’
‘Try, Christine. What else?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve been pretty messed up. Look, I’ve been taking some stuff. I don’t think it’s been good for me.’
The tears were starting. They might have been genuine, though Miller doubted it. She wiped at her face with the hand holding the cigarette.
‘Your personal stories?’
She shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t tell him that. Why would I tell him that?’
Because you just told Kate, he thought. You just opened up to her right away. As if your story was there to be shared. As if the secret wasn’t keeping you alive.
‘How did Clive contact you? It wasn’t in the Dungeon Creeper forum. We’d have seen.’
‘That was stupid. I should never have replied to him.’
‘Replied to him how?’
‘Look, I was dumb, OK? I get that now. But there was this one time I used my username on another site. A chat site, for soap fans.’
Miller groaned and pounded his fist into the stone step.
‘I know. I screwed up. I’m sorry.’
‘And Clive found you there how?’
‘He said he googled my username. It came up, so he sent me a message.’
‘And you just replied? Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?’
Her shoulders bunched and she curled in on herself, crocodile tears rolling down her cheeks. She stubbed her cigarette out on the stone steps.
‘I was lonely, OK? And he sounded nice. He knew all about you. I could tell he was one of us. I could just tell.’
‘Jesus.’
‘I wouldn’t have replied otherwise.’
‘What about the others? Did he try and contact any of them? Did you?’
‘Not me.’ She snivelled and wiped at her face again. ‘I wouldn’t know how. I deleted my account from that other website after I met him. He told me to do that. He was careful, see?’
‘And Clive? Did he say if he’d contacted anyone else?’
‘I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him instead of me?’
‘Because he can’t speak, Christine. He’s in a coma. He’s probably going to die.’
He was being aggressive but he didn’t particularly care. She’d risked her life. Risked all of their lives. And for what? A chat. A moan. Maybe even a quick, sad tumble with a sad and lonely man.
‘Please, Christine,’ Kate cut in. ‘If Clive told you anything you have to tell us so we can stop this before anyone else gets hurt.’
Christine looked between them, lifting her face to stare up at Miller, then bowing her head and reaching for her shoe, tugging idly at the laces.
‘I haven’t spoken to anyone else. I don’t know anyone else. I don’t think Clive did, either. Nobody else had used their username online. You’re right. I’m probably the only one daft enough to do it.’
So maybe the rot hadn’t spread as far as Miller had feared. Maybe the rest of the system really was safe. For now.
But Hanson would need to fix things. He’d have to sweep the Web for their usernames. He’d have to change all their logins. Find a new forum, too, probably.
‘What happens now?’ Christine asked. ‘Where am I moving to?’
‘I honestly have no clue.’
‘When will you know?’
Miller shook his head, scanning the shimmering rooftops, lifting his eyes to the piercing white sun that was burning down and pinning him there.
‘I’ll never know, Christine. You’re on your own now. I can’t help you any more.’
Only her eyes moved, growing wide in her head.
‘You made it so that I can’t trust you, Christine. And if I can’t trust you, I can’t work with you. None of us can. You broke the rules. You’re out.’
‘But . . . you can’t do that.’
‘It’s already done. You did it yourself.’
She looked at Kate for help.
‘I don’t understand. What am I supposed to do?’
‘I taught you the life, Christine. Now you have to live it for yourself. I won’t be around any more. There’ll be no Hanson. No Becca.’
And no photos of Danny. No updates on her son’s life. He saw the brutal reality of it hit her then. The stupidity and the absoluteness of what she’d done. She started to cry again and this time he had no doubt the tears were real.
‘No. No.’ She was shaking her head over and over, shaking it like she had when Miller had told her they couldn’t get Danny out, that she had to leave the UK without him. ‘Don’t do this to me. You can’t do this to me.’
Miller didn’t respond.
‘You can’t. I’ll die without Danny. You won’t do it. You won’t.’
But he already had, and she saw that now. Saw it in his face. In the way he glanced away from her.
She sobbed and flailed her arms, batting his legs.
People were beginning to look. A lot of people.
‘Stop it, Christine. Stop. Listen to me.’
But she wasn’t listening and the audience were getting restless. Men and women were murmuring, shaping up to approach.
‘Christine,’ Kate told her. ‘Christine, it’s OK. He doesn’t mean it. He’s just angry. We’ll help you. We will.’
Miller fixed his jaw and glared at Kate but she leaned over and took Christine in her arms, stroking her hair.
‘You’re not alone. We’re here for you. You’re not alone.’
‘Your life is in her hands,’ Miller reminded Kate. ‘Think about that.’
‘You’ll help her. I know that you will.’
‘I’ll just stay here.’ Christine wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘I don’t care any more. I’ll just stay where I am.’
‘You can’t. Clive compromised you. There’s a man here looking for you. He’s already been to the hotel. He could be watching us right now.’
‘So help her,’ Kate urged. ‘One more move, Miller. Set her up somewhere new. A new name, new identity, all of it. Then you walk away. That’s fair, isn’t it? That’s reasonable.’
Miller knew he shouldn’t have looked at Kate in that moment. He knew he shouldn’t have let himself see how badly she wanted to believe in him. Probably, on some level, she was comparing Christine’s situation with Danny to her own aborted search for her brother. Perhaps, because of that, she couldn’t stand to see Christine cut off from her old life completely.
But what did Kate know about reasonable? What did anyone?
‘One more move.’ He grunted and pushed up to his feet, dusting off his hands. ‘But that’s it, Christine. That’s all I can do for you. You’ve chosen your own path.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Galleria Porta di Roma, located just off the A90 ring road to the north of the city, looked like most of the shopping malls Wade had visited back home. The complex was a low-level concrete box surrounded by austere landscaping, acres of tarmac, and thousands of parked cars.
It was just as familiar inside. About the only thing that told Wade he was outside the UK were the Italian signs on the shops that surrounded him. But the store he was interested in had a sign that didn’t rely on any language. It was a symbol of an apple with a bite taken out of it, and he found it on the first floor of the mall.
Wade didn’t own many Apple products but he’d been in plenty of their stores over the years and this one looked much the same as all the others. There was a lot of glass at the front, then a series of pale wooden tables loaded with iMacs and iPhones and iPads and i-Whatevers. There was a scrum of customers hanging about. Some were testing products, some were making
use of the free wifi. And some were gathered at the back of the store where the Genius Bar was located.
Wade was no Luddite. He was familiar with the standard four-digit security code that protected most handheld Apple products, so he was aware that the system blocking his access to the stolen iPad was something more specialised. And no matter how clever some of the nerds working in this particular Apple Store might be, Wade was pretty sure that classing them as geniuses was playing fast and loose with the term. So he had no intention of queuing up for the supposed expertise of some pimple-faced kid.
But there was one thing Wade was relying on, and that was simple human nature. In his experience, like-minded people tended to stick together. Wade was a thug and a crook, and because of that, he knew lots of thugs and crooks back home. So it stood to reason that geeks in Rome would know other geeks. And somewhere in the city, just waiting for Wade to come find him, there had to be a kid who was so good with computers that working in an Apple Store for him would be like Ronaldo selling football boots in Foot Locker. And just like Ronaldo, this kid would have fans. He’d have admirers who’d recognise that he was the absolute best at what he did. And some of those admirers would be working here, for Apple, masquerading as geniuses while the real genius lurked in the shadows.
‘Can I help you?’
A chubby teenager who didn’t look quite old enough to shave was smiling at Wade. He had on thick-frame glasses, a bulging blue T-shirt and a lanyard hanging from his neck. Maybe Wade should have been insulted that the kid could tell he was English just from his appearance, but right at that moment, he was grateful for it.
‘I’m looking for someone.’
‘Someone who works here?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘I don’t understand.’ The teen blinked. ‘Who are you looking for?’
‘See,’ Wade said, pressing a hand down on his shoulder, ‘that’s what I’m hoping you can tell me.’
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Renner waited until Adams had made his way to the bottom of the steps – the two women tracking his movements precisely, as if following him through a minefield – then stood up from behind a screen of carnations, brushed the dirt off his shorts and set off in pursuit.
He couldn’t tell for sure why Christine was so distraught because he hadn’t been close enough to hear what was being said. He guessed Adams had told her she could be being watched and he’d probably let her know some of what Wade had done to Clive Benson in Hamburg. Maybe the two of them had been closer than Clive had let on, or maybe she was afraid of the same thing happening to her. But on balance, Renner suspected it was something more – some kind of fight or disagreement with Adams. There was a tension between them. A physical distancing they seemed unable to bridge.
Not that Adams appeared inclined to try. He was busy forging a route across the piazza into a cobbled shopping lane. The street was narrow to begin with but it was made narrower still by the displays of postcards, T-shirts and baseball caps outside a series of souvenir shops; by the pavement seating for a line of restaurants; by the congealed mass of tourists lurching on.
Just ahead of Adams, a white taxi nosed out from a concealed side street, the driver beeping his horn, gesticulating at people to get out of his way. The crowds swelled and parted, separating Adams from the two women. Renner saw Adams signal at them to head down the alley the taxi had emerged from, and when they failed to move right away, he lost patience and clambered over the bonnet of the taxi, the driver blasting his horn, yelling out of his window.
Renner shoved and elbowed his way forwards, but by the time he entered the side street, he’d lost a lot of ground. The alley was empty aside from a line of dusty city cars parked bumper to bumper. There were no shops or restaurants, and by extension, no people. Without the pedestrian congestion, Adams and the two women had raced ahead.
I just need some time.
Renner thought of Wade. He thought of the iPad he’d taken and the information it might contain. It was possible it could give them a lead on Anna Brooks; a surer lead, perhaps, than trying to force the information out of Adams or taking a chance that either of the women knew where he’d hidden her.
The rapid click of a pair of high heels approached from close behind and Renner turned to see a chicly dressed woman skip by, trailing a cloud of perfume. The woman aimed a set of car keys at a red Fiat 500 nestled against a fire hydrant. The Fiat’s indicators blinked and the doors unlocked in a fast shuffle.
By the time the woman was reaching for the driver’s door, Renner was already moving towards her. He didn’t pause or think or analyse the situation. He reacted on instinct.
His instinct was to reach out and yank her backwards by her ponytail.
*
Miller heard a yelp, like a small dog’s bark, from somewhere far behind. He didn’t look back. He was focussed on the way ahead, preoccupied by his next move and the move after that. He was trying to decide if he should head to Christine’s apartment to grab her things, whether it was worth the risk, and how best to get there. He was asking himself if he should relocate Christine within Italy or introduce her to a new country altogether. He was contemplating the steps that Hanson and Becca would need to put in place to reinvent her once more. And he was trying to block out the yammer of Christine’s constant apologies.
‘I’m sorry,’ she was saying again. ‘I messed up. I’m an idiot. Will you forgive me? You have to forgive me.’
Would he? Miller wasn’t sure that he could. But he did know that it was too soon for her to ask, his anger too raw. Because the truth was that despite everything he’d experienced and seen in the last several years, despite the way his heart had callused and scarred, Christine wasn’t the only one who’d hoped that someday, no matter how improbably, Danny could be reunited with her again.
And yes, part of that was for the boy and for Christine, but the truth was that Miller had wanted it for himself much more than that. He’d wanted to be able to identify one clear and positive sign that the people he’d helped to hide and survive could do more than simply exist, that their lives could be rebuilt, that the fractured relationship between a child and a parent could be salvaged and renewed against all odds.
So Miller was hurting. He was upset. And because he was distracted he didn’t pause and turn back to investigate the source of that yelping noise or engage with the muffled whump of a car door closing, or the muted squeal of tyres, or the high-pitched whine of an engine during a snatched gear change.
But eventually, something did get through to him – a delayed awareness of the sequence of noises overcoming his sensory lag – and he spun around to see a red Fiat 500 bearing down on them, zeroing in, the driver in the straw sun hat hunched forwards over the steering wheel, his eyes locked on Kate to the exclusion of everything else.
Miller didn’t have time to shout out a warning. He didn’t have time to think through his response. He’d stopped so abruptly that Christine had moved ahead of him but Kate was much closer, just to his right, and he dived for her, thrusting his shoulder into her midriff, her upper body folding and collapsing as his hands clasped for the backs of her thighs and he leapt for the cover of a brown Peugeot estate.
Something clipped his left foot – the wing mirror of the Fiat, maybe – and the force of it twisted him sideways. He landed on the bonnet of the Peugeot, striking his hip and knee and elbow. He lost hold of Kate who flew out of his arms, smacking into the dusty wall ahead.
Miller didn’t see the Fiat strike Christine but he heard the awful thud, the crack of glass, the slap and crunch of her limbs hitting the deck.
He whipped his head round as he was sliding across the Peugeot’s bonnet, and he saw the Fiat veer left, throwing up sparks as it scraped the wall of a building. His skull glanced off the Peugeot’s windscreen as the Fiat jinked right, the driver overcompensating, heaving the wheel too hard and slamming into a parked Lancia, the light cluster popping, the wing mirror shearing off. The Fiat slewed
left again, then fishtailed and straightened, and finally sped away.
There was a brief moment of silence and then the first of many doors and windows opened along the street, followed by the shrieks and shouts of unknown voices, the wails of shock and dismay.
Miller pushed himself up on to his elbow, clutching at his side, his knee giving way as he dropped down and hobbled towards Christine. She was lying on her front, her face towards him, her legs bent and splayed. There was blood on the cobblestones. More blood trickling out of her mouth and her ear. She blinked at Miller, lips quivering.
‘Ambulance,’ he hollered, looking wildly at the faces that were watching them. ‘Somebody call an ambulance.’
The chant was taken up, repeated in Italian, rebounding off the walls that hemmed them in. Kate staggered out from behind the Peugeot, bent at the hip, bleeding from a cut on her head. And now Miller was down on his knees, squeezing Christine’s hand, brushing her hair from her face, telling her that everything would be OK, that help was coming, that she had to hold on because he would find a way to bring Danny back to her soon.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
It turned out the chubby kid in the Apple Store wasn’t able to provide Wade with the contact he needed, at least not directly, but he’d spoken with one of his colleagues who’d given Wade a long, sideways look, then made a call and written down an address on a scrap of paper that he traded with Wade for a crisp hundred-euro note.
Wade had left the mall immediately and climbed into another taxi, where he’d shown the driver the address on the shred of paper and watched as he frowned and shook his head and began to gesture at him to get out of his cab until two hundred euros changed his mind.
The journey took almost an hour through heavy traffic and then they arrived at their destination where Wade understood the real cause of the driver’s concern.
Decrepit high-rise apartment buildings towered over them, marred by dirt and blight, nestled up close to a raised stretch of autostrada that teemed with traffic.