by Kim Fleet
He fell into the filth of the courtyard. Not dead but groaning. The woman peeled herself away from the wall, the knife pointed towards Lazarus.
‘You let me go or I kill you,’ she said.
‘Get out now before he wakes up,’ Lazarus said, moving to take her hand.
The knife was swift. A line of blood bubbled along his wrist.
‘You bitch!’ he shouted. ‘I was trying to save your life. Run, if you’ve a mind to live. Or stay here and let him kill you, if that’s what you want, I don’t care.’
He kicked the lump on the ground in the ribs. It slithered and grumbled.
‘You save me?’ she said, the knife wavering.
He held out his hand again. ‘Hurry,’ he said, and she grabbed his hand and together they fled.
She took him to her house, to bathe the wound she’d given him. Her home was a simple daub hut, homely enough with bright woven rugs and cushions on the floor. He sat, cross-legged and self-conscious, in the middle of the floor, while she poured scented oil into a bowl and wiped the blood from his hands.
Her hair was long and loose, and as she brushed past him its warm sandalwood scent entranced him. The tickle of it on his bare skin sent rivers of fire streaming through his veins and his mind blurred. To lie tangled in that hair. To feel its silken journey along the length of his body. To wake imprisoned within its scent.
‘You are mended,’ she said, and took the bowl outside the hut to toss the soiled dregs into the gutter.
Lazarus stayed on the cushion, loathe to leave yet unsure how to stay. As he sat, his warrior’s senses prickled. He was being watched. Slowly, he got up from the cushion and prowled round the hut. So many rugs and tapestries and hangings, there could be an army concealed behind them. He twitched them back in turn, the skin on the back of his neck alive. Hidden in a pile of cushions at the back of the hut, he found his observer.
A child. A little girl of about four, with dark solemn eyes and long black hair. She stared at him and he stared back. Then she started to whimper.
‘Hey now, mistress,’ he said, softly. ‘No need for crying. See what I have here.’
He dug in his jacket and pulled out a rag. He twisted the end of it into a knot and slid his finger into it, making a puppet. He bounced it along his forearm.
‘Mister Rabbit on his way to market, see child,’ he said. ‘You want to see him?’
He held out the rag to her, his finger still inside it. After a moment’s hesitation, she slid it from his finger.
‘Now you put your finger here. There, now there’s Mister Rabbit.’
The child crawled out of her nest and came to sit beside him, bouncing the rag along his arm and over his shoulder, bolder with every bounce. When the woman came back into the hut, the child was in his lap, and the rag puppet was exploring his beard.
‘Mariam,’ the woman said quietly.
‘Mama,’ the child answered, and held up the puppet.
‘You are kind,’ the woman said to Lazarus.
He’d never been called kind before. A good fighter, yes. Strong, of course. But kind? Never.
‘Can I come back tomorrow?’ he asked, dreaming again of the scent of her hair.
She shrugged.
Lazarus clambered to his feet. ‘Tomorrow, then,’ he said.
He was with her for two years. For two years he visited her hut, played with the child, and spent his nights tangled in the perfumed nest of her hair. She was not his alone, and his jealousy curdled and roiled inside him but he could not leave her. After a while he realised it was the joy of the child that drew him back and made him shove his jealousy aside.
There were many days when he and Mariam were alone in the hut while Theresa was out, doing what and with whom he cared not to contemplate. He pushed aside the thought of her with other men, and fought to think only of the time when he would be with her, trapped in her honey-coloured thighs and drowning in her dark eyes. When she was absent, he took the child out to explore the city, and hand-in-hand they went together to the gardens and markets, adventurers in a new land together.
‘A flower for you, my lovely,’ he said, plucking a rose from the garden and tucking it into her smock.
She bent her head to smell it. ‘Thank you, Dadda,’ she said.
Dadda. She had never called him that before. He must be an old man with an old man’s soft heart to be turned so by the sound of a single word, but turned he was. Dadda. He squeezed her hand and they walked to the market and he bought her a doll, just to hear her say it again.
He was sent away to fight, and was gone for three months. He returned alive but scarred, both in body and mind at the horrors he had witnessed. Other men’s wars, he thought grimly to himself, as the image of a pile of bodies filled his mind. The crones digging through the corpses, stripping them of rings, clothes, teeth: anything they could sell, until all that was left was a stinking pile of flesh without dignity who no one cared to bury.
As he approached Theresa’s hut, a man lumbered out, fastening his breeches. Theresa was in the doorway, tucking coins into a purse, and in the back of the hut was Mariam, eyes huge and tears trickling into her mouth.
‘What’s this?’ Lazarus said.
‘You know what I am,’ Theresa said, wrapping her hair around her hand and tying it back from her face with a scarf.
‘You, yes, but the child!’
Theresa shrugged. ‘She needs to learn.’
Her words felled him harder than any sword.
‘What?’
‘She has to make her living. I cannot feed us both.’
‘But I’m here now. I’ll take care of you.’
Theresa fixed him with a look, and he shuddered at the hardness in her eyes. ‘You have been away, fighting, killing. I do not know when you will return, or if you are dead. We need food. I cannot wait for a man who might already be dead.’
‘You sold her?’
‘She will go when she is seven.’
‘You sold her?’
Theresa squared up to him. ‘She is my daughter. She is mine. I will do as I wish.’
‘She is too young!’
‘She is the same age I was.’ Theresa bent to rearrange the floor cushions. They released the stench of male sweat.
‘No,’ Lazarus said, catching her arm. ‘How much? I will buy her myself.’
‘You can’t. It is arranged. If I do not give her they will kill me.’
‘Give them the money back. Say she is sick, dying. Don’t do it, Theresa.’
Her shoulders slumped. ‘You think you can hide her? Here? Where everyone knows what everyone is doing? And if you take her away, where will you go? Who will protect her while you are fighting?’
The truth of what she said only fired his desolation. ‘I’ll give up fighting, set up in my own business.’
‘Doing what?’ she said. ‘You know of nothing but death.’
It was all he had known his whole life: death. Of pitiful creatures, of other men’s enemies, of strangers he was contracted to kill. His blood raged, churned by impotence into a frothing despair. He didn’t know what he did; only that Theresa’s head snapped back and she fell to the floor. Her teeth ground against her lips as she struggled, and when it was done her mouth was bloodied. A squeal from the back of the hut brought him to his senses.
‘Mariam,’ he said, gently. ‘Come to me. I shall protect you.’
He coaxed her from her nest of cushions and she came to sit on his lap, her head against his chest. He crooned to her and wiped the tears from her face, sang her silly stories until a smile dawned at last. Beside them, Theresa lay limp and still.
‘You know I love you more than life itself?’ Lazarus whispered to the child.
‘Yes, Dadda.’
‘And that I would do anything to protect you, my precious?’
‘Yes, Dadda.’
‘Go to sleep now, then, and may the angels guard your rest.’
And he put his hands on her head as if in bened
iction and with a quick twist snapped her neck.
When it was done, he sat for a long time with her in his arms, weeping. His tears fell onto her face and washed her tiny hands. Safe with Jesus, he repeated to himself. He could not protect her, only send her to one who could protect her for eternity. He prayed hard over her body, the words remembered from another lifetime in an Abbey in Gloucestershire, echoed now in a hut in a hot and dusty country, far from home, over the dead bodies of the only people he loved in the world.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
Sunday, 1 November 2015
05:46 hours
Aidan groaned and whimpered in his sleep, startling her awake. She rubbed his back and soothed him into sweeter dreams, but sleep eluded her and she lay staring into the darkness, thinking over the case and worrying what to do next. By the time early morning light crept at the edges of the curtains, she was sweaty and narky, and knew the only thing was for her to get up and run herself into a better mood.
Eden slipped from the bed and found her running gear. She stroked Aidan’s shoulder until he stirred.
‘You OK?’ she whispered.
‘Hm-mm,’ he groaned. ‘Head hurts.’
‘Very bad?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘I’ll get your painkillers.’
She fetched a glass of water and his tablets, and helped him sit up and take them. His skin was clammy and the musty scent of illness clung to his pyjamas.
‘Will you be alright for an hour while I have a run?’ Eden asked.
‘Yes, I’ll be fine. Just need some rest.’
She tucked him back in and watched him surrender to sleep, then left the flat. She froze at the entrance, Hammond’s phone call echoing in her mind. He was out to get her; had a network of scum that would be only too happy to scoop her up and deliver her to her fate. Was he behind Aidan’s attack? For a moment her courage failed and she half turned to go back inside, then a spurt of anger fired her. Damn him! If she cowered inside, too afraid to leave the flat, then he would have won. A life half lived was no life at all. She wouldn’t let him crush her.
She stretched her legs then set off at a steady pace, keeping her senses on high alert. The Sunday streets were silent. She pounded down to the university campus through streets of large, elegant villas set in mature gardens. Painted shutters, amber stone and lilting ironwork all attested to the continued wealth of the area. The university campus itself was a delight: swathes of lawn clouded with early morning mist, and punctuated with stately trees. She ran a circuit of the lake and ornamental gardens until a stitch in her side brought her up short, and she did some stretches until it eased, surveyed by a pair of bright eyes.
‘Hello, pussycat,’ she said, and the green eyes blinked.
She and Nick had wanted to have a cat, but somehow the time was never right. That was the problem with undercover work: the hours were irregular. She never knew when or even if she’d be home. Nick hated that. And now he had a new wife, and a little girl. Holly. Underneath the hurt, she was pleased for him, glad he’d managed to create a normal life after the train wreck of their relationship.
‘You know what I want, pussycat?’ she said, doing some side bends and feeling a nip in her back. ‘One of those pastries from the café in Budapest.’
As she set off running again, she wondered if they really did do international orders?
She headed down the narrow streets behind the town hall and made a few laps of Imperial Gardens. There had been a party in the gardens that night, judging by the pyramid of empty beer bottles in the centre of an empty flowerbed. She passed the litter bin where she’d found the half-burned poison pen letter to Lewis Jordan and headed for home.
As she approached the Imperial Hotel, she saw Jocasta and Xanthe huddled on the pavement. Xanthe had her arms crossed, hugging a faux fur jacket about herself. Jocasta was sucking on a cigarette. Eden jogged over.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d gone back to London.’
‘The others have,’ Xanthe said. ‘We decided to stay a bit longer.’
‘Oh?’
‘We had a spa day, a bit of pampering, just us two,’ Xanthe said. She turned to gaze at Jocasta and her eyes moistened.
‘That sounds nice,’ Eden said.
Jocasta dropped her cigarette butt and ground it out with the toe of her boot. ‘It was. After everything that’s happened.’
Her words choked and she looked away, blinking rapidly. She fumbled with her cigarette packet and drew out a fresh cigarette and a silver lighter with trembling fingers.
‘Oh babes!’ Xanthe cried, putting her hand on her wrist. ‘Sweetie, don’t get upset.’
Jocasta replaced the cigarette. ‘I can’t believe he’s gone.’
An anguished look haunted Xanthe’s face. ‘I know,’ she said, her voice catching. ‘That’s why I wanted us to have a nice couple of days.’
‘I’m glad I’ve bumped into you, actually,’ Eden said. ‘You remember you lent me Lewis’s laptop?’
‘Yeah,’ Jocasta replied.
‘How long had Lewis had it?’
‘Not long,’ Jocasta said. ‘Two, maybe three weeks before he …’ her voice caught.
‘And was it bought new?’
‘No, it was my work laptop,’ Xanthe said. ‘He commandeered it when he left his in a pub somewhere.’
‘And how long had you had it?’
She shrugged, thin shoulders moving inside the coat. ‘A year?’
‘So why is Jocasta’s name down as the document owner?’
‘Jocasta installed all the software,’ Xanthe said. ‘I’m useless at that kind of thing.’
Eden made a rapid calculation. ‘Can you give me a minute in private with Xanthe please, Jocasta?’
‘If you want.’ Jocasta flicked her ponytail over her shoulder and disappeared into the hotel.
Eden watched her go, then faced Xanthe. ‘How long have you been in love with her?’
Xanthe’s face crumbled. ‘Too long. I know it’s hopeless – she’s straight. But …’ She shrugged to demonstrate the vagaries of the human heart.
‘Is that why you sent Lewis those poison pen letters?’
Xanthe recoiled as if she’d slapped her. ‘I didn’t … I wouldn’t …’
‘The drafts were in the recycle bin on the laptop.’
Xanthe tucked her hands up her sleeves. ‘He used her and dumped her like a tissue he’d sneezed into. And then when he started calling her Jo-Jo, well, it was just cruel.’ Her shoulders drooped in defeat. ‘I sent the first one as a sort of revenge because he’d been taunting her. Then I thought I’d send one every time he was a shit to her. Teach him a lesson.’ Her head jerked up. ‘I didn’t kill him.’
‘You were in his room, though, weren’t you?’
Xanthe sucked in a sharp breath. ‘How do you know?’
‘Because one of the letters was in Lewis’s room earlier in the evening, and I found it half-burned in a litter bin in the park here,’ Eden said. ‘There was a box of matches in with it, from the club you went to with the tech guys. It wasn’t Jocasta, because she smokes and has a lighter. I think you took the letter from Lewis’s room and tried to get rid of it.’ She paused to let the words sink in. ‘What happened?’
Xanthe swallowed. ‘I’d had too much to drink. I came back from the club, and when I walked past Lewis’s room I thought I’d tell him what I thought of him. I knocked on the door and it wasn’t shut properly, the door just swung open, so I went in.’ She hesitated.
‘Go on,’ Eden said.
‘He was on the floor, face down. There was blood all round his head.’
‘You turned him over, didn’t you?’
‘How …?’
‘You told me how shocked you were when you saw his eyes,’ Eden said. ‘But you could only have seen them if you’d been in his room. The police didn’t let you see his body.’
A tremor ran through Xanthe and she hugged her coat tighter. ‘It
was horrible. His eyes all burned and his mouth black. I dropped him, and he flopped back onto his face.’
‘What did the room look like?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Was anything knocked over?’
‘No. There was just Lewis on the floor,’ Xanthe said. ‘And then I saw the letter on the table. I’d pushed it under his door earlier, trying to frighten him, so I grabbed the letter and ran, and the door locked behind me.’
‘Was Lewis dead when you found him?’
Xanthe’s face worked and she was unable to speak for a moment. ‘Yes.’
‘What did you do with the whisky glasses?’
‘I thought …’ Xanthe’s voice cracked and she visibly pulled herself together. ‘I thought Jocasta had killed him, so I took the glasses and put them on a tray in the corridor so the police wouldn’t have her DNA.’ She looked up at Eden, her eyes dark with fear. ‘Did she kill him?’
Eden didn’t reply.
Aidan was still sleeping when she got home, and on a whim she powered up her laptop and ran the name of the Budapest café into a search engine, determined that if they did international orders she’d buy herself some of those honey cakes as a Christmas present. Judy would love them, too, she thought, imagining a girly evening with honey pastries and a bottle of sticky wine.
Tordai Street. That wasn’t right. It was in Oktogon Square. She’d argued with Nick that it was definitely in Oktogon Square. She’d talked about it with Gabor in the hotel, and he should know, it was his home town.
She clicked on the link. It was definitely the right place, she recognised the picture. Nick was right and she had got the street wrong. And that meant that Gabor had got it wrong, too. Alarm bells sounded. How had he got it wrong? She replayed their conversation and recognised that Gabor never volunteered information, only agreed with whatever she said. It was what she was taught to do when she went undercover: wherever possible, follow the lead of whoever you’re speaking to. And that’s just what Gabor had done, but they’d both got it wrong.