by Peter May
‘That won’t work.’
‘Of course it will. I saw it in a film once. And it worked in Cahors.’
‘There probably wasn’t anyone following you in Cahors. And anyway, there are far too many people. There won’t be any room to get back on before the doors close.’
The train jerked and rumbled and swayed into the brightly lit London Bridge station, its platform choked with yet more commuters pressed up against the hoardings, girding themselves for the battle to get aboard. The doors slid apart.
Kirsty pushed the hesitating Enzo. ‘Come on, get off.’ And they tumbled out with dozens of others to fight against the oncoming torrent. Enzo strained for a glimpse of Bright above a sea of heads. And there he was, elbowing his way down on to the plaform. Enzo turned to grab his daughter, but she was gone. For a moment he panicked, then saw her pushing through the crowds to where two uniformed police officers on terrorist alert stood cradling short, black, Heckler and Koch MP5 machine guns. They listened intently as she stopped in front of them, talking fast, before turning and pointing back towards Bright. Enzo saw their expressions harden, and they immediately started towards him. One of them shouted, “Hey, you!’ The buzzer sounded, warning that the doors were about to close. Bright turned, shouldering his way back into the carriage as the doors shut. Enzo could see the fear in his face. If just one door along the length of the train had been impeded, they would all open again, and he would be caught.
But the train juddered and strained, picking up speed out of the station, and Bright allowed himself a tiny, frustrated smile through the glass as it carried him off into the night.
The policemen were talking to Kirsty again, and Enzo heard one of them say, ‘Sorry miss. All you can do is report it, but I don’t suppose it’ll do much good.’
She thanked them, and turned away towards the exit. Enzo caught up with her on the escalator. ‘What did you say to them?’
She looked at her father and grinned. ‘I told them he’d had his willie out on the train, flashing it at me all the way from Elephant and Castle.’
* * *
They came down the steps from the south end of Tower Bridge, and passed beneath a brick archway into the narrow Shad Thames. Streetlights barely punctured the dark of this ancient walkway between towering warehouses, where once the spoils of empire had been unloaded from the boats docked at Butler’s Wharf. Girdered metal bridges ran at peculiar angles overhead. A huge gateway gave on to the Thames itself. In the nineteenth century, workers had queued here each day in the hope of a few hours’ work. Now these vast brick edifices had been converted into luxury apartments, homes for the wealthy, serviced by wine bars and gourmet restaurants whose windows lit up the cobbled lanes.
The lights of Pizza Express blazed out in the dark, and they turned past Java Wharf, a freezing fog rolling up from the river, turning people into wraiths, and buildings into shadows. It seemed impenetrably dark. A barge sounded its foghorn somewhere out on the water, and the noise of the pubs and restaurants they had left behind receded into the night. Only their own footsteps, echoing back from unseen walls, accompanied them.
Enzo put his arm around Kirsty’s shoulder, and drew her to him for comfort and warmth. She yielded gratefully, letting her head rest on his shoulder. They were both weary and cold, exhausted by fear and apprehension. At the gated entrance to Butler’s and Colonial, Enzo tapped in the entry code that Simon had e-mailed, and they crossed the cobblestones to the entrance of what had once served as a warehouse for storing spices. He remembered Simon telling him that he had toured the building in a hardhat before work began, and that the whole place smelled of cloves. But if the scent of the past still lingered there, then neither Enzo nor Kirsty had been aware of it when they had collected the keys to drop off their bags that morning.
Enzo stopped at the gate and made Kirsty turn to face him. She looked wan and tired. He said, ‘You probably don’t remember, but when you were very young, I used to carry you up to bed every night. There was a Crosby and Nash album I was listening to then and a song on it called Carry Me. I used to sing it to you when I carried you up the stairs.’
Tears sprung instantly to her eyes. Carry me, carry me ’cross the world. Of course she remembered. She just hadn’t thought that he would. But all she did was nod.
‘If I could I still would. Carry you up the stairs, I mean. But you’re too big, and I’m too old.’
She laughed, and laid her head on his chest and put her arms around him. ‘Oh, shut up, Dad.’
He grinned and she took his hand, and they hurried through the gate to the door. Enzo unlocked it, and they stepped gratefully into the warmth of the tiny hall at the foot of a flight of steep, narrow stairs. The ground floor was for parking, accessible from the street. Simon’s apartment was one up. Kirsty laughed and said, ‘You’d have had trouble carrying me up these stairs, even twenty years ago.’
But Enzo stood stock still and raised a quick finger to his lips.
Her smile vanished. ‘What is it?’
‘I turned all the lights off when we went out this morning.’ His voice was low and brittle with anxiety.
She looked up to see the cold light issuing from the naked yellow bulb hanging in the stairwell, and her eyes drifted upwards to the top landing. ‘The door’s open.’
Enzo saw that the door to the apartment at the top of the stairs was fractionally ajar. There was a seam of light around two of its edges. He looked about him for a weapon of some kind. A golf umbrella in a coat stand at the foot of the stairs was the only thing to suggest itself. Not much protection against a professional killer. He reached for it, all the same, and held it in both hands. ‘Stay here.’
‘No.’ Her voice was insistent. ‘This is crazy. We can still get out of here and call the police.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. There comes a time when you have to confront your fears. If I get into trouble, go for help.’
‘Da-ad…!’ But he wasn’t listening. He pulled himself free of her grasp and started slowly up the stairs, trying to make as little noise as possible. By the time he reached the landing, he could hear someone moving around inside the apartment. But only just. The sound of blood pulsing through his head was drowning out almost everything else. Very gingerly, he pushed the door open. The long hallway that led to the vast, open-plan space at the far end, was in darkness. The light came from an open door leading to one of the bedrooms. A shadow crossed the oblong of light that fell out into the hall, then loomed large as a figure emerged from the doorway. Enzo grasped the umbrella so that he could use its stout wooden handle as a club, and raised it level with his head.
The figure turned towards him, startled by the movement caught in his peripheral vision. A switch was flicked, and the hall flooded with light. Simon stood staring in astonishment at Enzo clutching his golf umbrella. He said, ‘Is it raining out?’
Chapter Thirty-Four
It was apparent very quickly that Simon had been drinking. There was a slight glaze about his eyes, and he enunciated all his words too carefully to avoid slurring them.
There was a lack of warmth in his greeting for Enzo, a cursory handshake, before giving Kirsty an extravagant hug, almost lifting her from her feet. She was both pleased and relieved to see him.
‘What are you doing here? I thought you had a court case in Oxford.’
‘Prosecution dropped the charges. Right out of the blue. Seems they had misplaced a piece of vital evidence and were unable to produce it in court. So my client walked free, and I was able to come home to see my favourite girl.’
One side of the huge open floor of the warehouse had been closed off to build bedrooms and a bathroom. The rest of the space was divided only by furniture, creating defined areas for eating, relaxing, cooking. It was punctuated by enormous potted plants with fleshy leaves and fronds and flowers that breathed out oxygen to the keep the air sweet. Concealed lighting picked out the redbrick wa
lls and steel beams. Tall windows on one side looked out onto the street below, with patio doors leading on to a wrought iron balcony at the back. Simon had lived here on his own for most of the fifteen years since his divorce, entertaining a succession of younger women, none of the relationships lasting beyond the initial flush of sex and enthusiasm.
There was a twelve-string acoustic guitar hanging on the wall. Enzo nodded towards it. ‘Do you still play?’
‘Only to entertain my lady friends.’
‘Ah. That explains why you go through so many of them.’
Usually Simon would have laughed. It was the kind of friendly insult jousting they had indulged in all their lives. But he turned away to conceal his irritation. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to feed you.’
‘We could go out somewhere,’ Kirsty said.
But Simon was quick to spike the idea. ‘No, I’ve got cheese in the fridge and wine in the rack. That should be French enough to keep your father happy.’
He opened a bottle of Wolf Blass Australian cabernet sauvignon. ‘Sorry, got none of the French stuff. I prefer Australian or Californian. Even Chilean. You’ve got to pay through the nose for a decent French wine these days.’
They sat around the table in the kitchen area, a lamp drawn down from the girders above to contain them within its bright circle of light, and Simon put out several different cheeses on a board, and some bread reheated in tinfoil in the oven. He filled their glasses and took a long pull at his, before sitting back to look at them both. ‘So you never told me what brings you to London.’
Kirsty said, ‘Dad recovered DNA from an old crime scene and tracked the killer to an address in Clapham.’
Simon flashed Enzo a dark look. ‘And you brought Kirsty with you why?’
But Kirsty answered for him. ‘I was the only one who’d really seen him. He was the same guy who tried to kill me in Strasbourg. Only it turned out not to be him at all. He has a twin brother who thought he was dead. The brother was pretty shaken up to find out he wasn’t. And then we saw the real killer outside his twin’s apartment.’
‘What?’ Simon turned his concern towards her.
‘He was waiting for us in the street, and followed us into the underground. But we lost him at London Bridge.’ She laughed and reached for Enzo’s hand, giving it a squeeze. ‘Dad was so funny. He wanted us to jump back on the train. But I told these cops with machine guns that the guy had been flashing at me, and it was him who had to jump back on the train. You should have seen his face as the train left the station with him in it, and us still on the platform.’
But Simon didn’t share her amusement. He leaned across the table towards Enzo. ‘You fucking idiot! I thought I told you to give up all this shit. You’re putting people’s lives at risk, you know that?’
Kirsty was shocked by Simon’s sudden outburst. Enzo met his old friend’s eye. ‘This guy’s trying to destroy me, Sy. And everyone close to me. You know that. The only way I can stop him is by tracking him down and exposing him for the killer that he is.’
Simon stared at him hard for several long seconds, before sitting back in his seat and draining his glass. He refilled it.
‘It’s not Dad’s fault, Uncle Sy. He’s got all of us in a safe house in the Auvergne. And he didn’t make me come to London. I wanted to. That guy tried to kill me. I want to see him caught.’
Simon took a mouthful of wine and pursed his lips. Thoughts that flashed through his mind behind sullen eyes remained unspoken. He seemed to relax a little. ‘Yeh, well, it might be an idea if you went back to that safe house and stayed there until all of this is over.’
‘That’s exactly what she’s going to do,’ Enzo said.
‘Am I?’ Kirsty seemed surprised.
‘I’m putting you on the first flight to Clermont Ferrand in the morning. I’ll call Roger to pick you up at the airport.’
‘And where are you going?’
‘Spain.’
Simon looked from one to the other. ‘I’m not even going to ask.’
An intangible tension hung over the rest of the meal. Kirsty tried her best to ignore it, to be bright and chatty, as if nothing had been said. But Simon remained sullen, drinking more wine than was good for him, and opening another bottle when the first one was empty. Both Kirsty and Enzo refused refills, and Simon made a start on it by himself. Enzo asked if he could log on to Simon’s wi-fi, and Simon flicked his head towards his own laptop and told him to use that. It took Enzo less than ten minutes to track down a flight for Kirsty, leaving from Stansted the following morning. And a cheap Czech Airlines flight to Barcelona from the same airport. He bought e-tickets and printed them off, and when he returned to the table said, ‘We were lucky to get you one for tomorrow. There are only three flights a week to Clermont Ferrand.’
Kirsty stood up. ‘I’d better go to bed then. Try and get some sleep.’ Both men rose and she gave Simon a perfunctory kiss, and her father a big hug. ‘See you in the morning.’
Enzo and Simon sat for a long time in silence. They heard Kirsty getting ready for bed, and then it all went quiet. Finally, Enzo said, ‘What’s wrong, Sy? What’s all this about?’
Simon just stared into his wine glass. ‘You seem to be getting on pretty well these days, you and Kirsty.’
‘Yeh, we are.’
Simon grunted. ‘Funny how fast she just dropped her surrogate dad for the one who deserted her.’ He sucked in more wine. ‘You know, before all this shit in Strasbourg, I hadn’t heard from her in months. And then someone tries to kill her and it’s you she calls, not me.’ He looked up, and Enzo was shocked to see tears in his eyes. ‘All those years, I was the one she turned to. Always. And you were off fucking some woman in France. But the minute she’s in trouble it’s you she turns to. You.’
‘Well, why wouldn’t she? I’m her father, after all.’
‘Yeh?’ Simon fixed him with shining green eyes that simmered with resentment. Alcohol was releasing a flood of pent up emotion he’d kept to himself for years. ‘Well, that’s what you think.’
Enzo stared at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing.’ Simon avoided his eye now, refocusing on his glass.
‘That wasn’t nothing, Sy. If you’ve got something to say, you’d better say it.’ All the same, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to hear it.
Simon’s breathing had become erratic. He looked up again, holding on to his glass to stop his hands from trembling. ‘She’s not your kid,’ he said through clenched teeth.
Enzo’s world stood still. His whole body tingled with shock. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She’s mine.’
‘That’s a lie!’
‘No, it’s not.’
Hurt and anger and disbelief welled up through Enzo’s confusion. ‘You’re a liar!’
‘You remember how it used to be, when we were in the band? It was always you, me, and Linda. I always had a thing for her. You know that. But it was you she wanted. It’s always you they want. That’s why I left, went to study law in London. You guys were going to get married as soon as you graduated, then I don’t know what happened. You suddenly split up. I never knew why. It only lasted three weeks, but I wasn’t to know that. I came back up from London like a shot. Linda was in a state. I got her on the rebound. And I thought, this is it. Then suddenly you guys are an item again, and the wedding’s back on.’ The secret he’d held on to for all these years was out, like pus, and Simon’s release in finally lancing the boil was patent. ‘I never knew I’d made her pregnant. Not till you left, ran off to France and left the two of them to their fate. And there’s me back in Glasgow again trying to pick up the pieces.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘That’s when she got drunk and it all came out.’
Enzo was numb. ‘You bastard!’
‘Hey!’ Simon raised his hands in self-defence. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. Neither did Linda. When I slept with her, you guys had split up. Then, when she realised she was pregnant, and I was th
e father, you were getting married. So she kept it to herself. None of it came out until after you’d gone.’ He poured more wine into his glass. ‘Think how hard it’s been for me all this time. Knowing I was Kirsty’s dad and couldn’t tell her. And now, seeing you two together, like I don’t even exist any more.’
He took a mouthful of wine and leaned across the table. ‘But you can’t tell her, Magpie. You can’t ever tell her.’
Enzo sat in stunned silence. He remembered carrying her up the stairs when she was only five, singing to her as he went. He remembered standing outside Simon’s apartment less than two hours before, her head resting on his chest. He remembered threatening to do Raffin harm if he ever hurt her.
None of that had changed. She was still his little girl. He still loved her. He looked at Simon, and felt angry and betrayed, and knew that he could never think of his friend the same way again. If anything had been destroyed by the revelation, it was the friendship of a lifetime. He pushed his glass towards him. ‘You’d better fill that up.’
* * *
She had only settled in her bed for a minute, when she remembered that she hadn’t taken her pill. With a curse under her breath, she had got up to go to the bathroom, and only just opened the door when she heard her father say, Well, why wouldn’t she? I’m her father, after all. And Simon’s response. Yeh? Well, that’s what you think.
Now she stood with her back pressed against the bedroom door, their whole confrontation echoing in her head. Ending with Simon’s insistence, You can’t tell her, Magpie. You can’t ever tell her.
Too late, she thought. And she felt nothing beneath her feet. No floor, no earth, no world, as she dropped soundlessly into the abyss.