But it did when he saw it. The burnt out car was still smouldering and two firemen were spraying water on the smoking shell. Two police cars were parked, blocking the road, their blue lights flashing. He joined a group of three or four lingering onlookers.
“What happened?”
“Bomba.”
“Bomba? Bomb?!”
“Mallister. Sure. Somebody bomb.”
“But why?”
“Who knows? Maybe he owe somebody; maybe mafia, Russian or Serbs; maybe gambling.”
George noticed two policemen strolling towards the group, getting notebooks out of their pockets and obviously about to start taking details of witnesses, half an hour after the explosion. He slipped backwards and casually walked back towards the hotel. As he entered the car park his mobile telephone rang.
“Mr. George? That you?”
“Yes, it’s me. Is that you Stelios? I’ve seen the car. People say it was a bomb. Why would somebody want to blow up your car?”
“Who knows? Maybe it’s a mistake. Did you talk to the police?”
“No. I thought it better not to.”
“Good, good. My son is coming with a friend. He will say he was driving the car last night and he parked it because he got a ride in a friend’s car. You understand? Do not talk to police.”
“Okay, Stelios, okay. But why did somebody blow up the car? Do you owe money or something?”
“Only to family. And the bank. But they don’t make bombs. Did you upset someone? Are you mixed up with any foreigners? Any mafia people?”
George gulped and was glad it was still dark so nobody would notice if he was pale. “No, no. Of course not. It must be a mistake. What about your car, Stelios? I’m afraid it’s a write off; burnt out, a shell.”
“No problem. I am insured. So is my son. But don’t talk to the police, okay? I forgot to pay the premium to put you on insurances. Go back to the hotel. You want a lift to Larnaca? I will tell my son. His name is Stelios, like me. Say nothing to police, okay?”
George sat in the back of the car with his seat belt securely fastened and his overnight bag on the seat beside him. Stelios junior and his friend sat in the front. Neither bothered with their seat belts but both chattered to each other and on their mobile telephones without any apparent concern for the effect on young Stelios’ driving. George fidgeted uneasily. He did not like feeling frightened in cars and, glancing at the instruments in front of young Stelios, noticed they were travelling well over the speed limit and only slowing when approaching bends or deep shade under bridges that might conceal police radar traps. One bridge did but the boys cruised past without seeming to take any notice and without interrupting their conversation. He had been much happier in the backs of other cars. Between ‘A’ levels and university he and three mates had embarked in someone’s mother’s elderly, apple-green Vauxhall on a lads’ holiday on the Isle of Wight. He had a clear memory of a shared room in holiday digs run by a middle-aged and tolerant peroxide blonde who had only lost her patience with the four boys when one of them somehow managed to block the toilet with newspaper. Every day they had driven in the old, green saloon to the beach and every evening they had driven to one or another of the local pubs offering live bands or, if no live gig could be traced, a disco and then applied their energies to pissing the night away. Two of his companions had already started work as articled trainees in local solicitors’ offices. Steve was earning some cash in a summer gardener job for the local council. George was sponging off his parents and making the most of an unusually fine summer. These different lifestyles were apparent on the beach and in the bars. On the beach the two would-be lawyers immediately fried their office pallor to lobster-red and spent the rest of the holiday dabbing calamine lotion and peeling each other’s backs. George and Steve experimented with olive oil – obtained from a local chemist – as a tanning agent. By night, George was the pauper who relied on his mates for most of his drinks. Their preferred tipple had been brown ale and the principal aim each evening was to see how many empty bottles they could cram on to their table by the end of the session. Meals were straightforward. They had bought with them a sack of potatoes and a case of baked beans. Every afternoon, potatoes were peeled, boiled, mashed and fried on the increasingly greasy cooker; this being the only way one of the trainee solicitors would eat them. The beans were usually heated but that was optional. On most days their diet was supplemented with a bag of chips on the way back from the pub. At the age of eighteen or nineteen, they could and did eat anything and everything without any thought about the effect on their weight but the potato, bean and brown ale diet did have consequences. Long before environmental considerations concerned them or anybody else, they had devoted time every day to flaring off surplus methane emissions.
Before he had time to mount the stairs to his apartment, Maria called his name from the kitchen and scurried out to hand him an envelope.
“This just came for you, George; with a courier. I said I do not know when you come back. He said ‘today, this morning’. And you see? He is right! Did you have a good holiday in Limassol? I think we are more friendly in Larnaca?”
“Thank you, Maria. It was okay and you are right. I went to Lefkara too.” He was learning how to address these things. “It’s a lovely village. So quiet and peaceful and the air is so clear.”
Maria beamed and cooed and he guessed that, at that moment, she would have been ready to kill on command if he had asked. As he climbed the stairs he opened the envelope, expecting something from Stelios about the Pajero but what he saw made him stop outside his door and catch his breath. There was just one small piece of paper torn from a newspaper. It was a headline, judging from the size of the print, from an inside page. It read ‘Tragic death of tourist.’ There was no note or explanation but the hairs prickled on the back of George’s neck. The message was clear: we can find you and we have shown you what we can do so this is what you’ll get if you mess with us.’ His hand was shaking and he fumbled with his key. He closed and locked the door behind him. His instinct said ‘run, hide’ and his inclinations was to flee but he tried to think clearly. There was nothing to hold him now. He had done what he said he would do; nearly. He had a file with some names and a lot of more general information. Could he find more or better data if he stayed? Maybe, but probably any gain would not justify what was now a very real risk, an explicit risk. Should he go to the police? And say what? He had entered as a tourist, used a false name for part of his stay and spent the time trying to find evidence to support some half-baked idea that at least one criminal gang used Cyprus as some kind of staging post to traffic girls to the UK and that had something to do with the death of Susanna, an enquiry about which to the British police would produce the information that he was a suspect. And he had been hanging round with nightclub dancers and a novice masseuse. And he had been driving a non-hire, hire car without insurance. He would be there for a year trying to explain even if they didn’t lock him up. Could he do anything to protect Anita, Dora and Eva if he stayed? No. If they were in trouble, they were in trouble already and he could do nothing to help. He should at least warn them. He would do that. So he should leave, run away. They would know he had run and think him a coward. Did he care? No. They would smile and think they had won. Would they try to stop him? No, almost certainly not, but if they knew about it, they might try to stop him carrying his file of notes. He could do something about that. Where should he go? Back to Deborah? Back to the island? The island did not appear very inviting. Not only was it empty, it was isolated and exposed and anyway, he would be leaving his adopted work unfinished. So it had to be the UK but on top of his anxiety about the bank’s reaction to his having made a substantial amount of money out of it, he now had to worry about whether the police wanted to interview him again about Susanna’s death. All in all, in the UK there might be trouble. But if he stayed it could be double.
He had a hot shower to get rid of the trickles of cold
sweat down his chest and sides and the chill fear that gripped him. This was real. He put his sheaf of notes in an inside pocket of his overnight bag and, on his way out of the building, he knocked loudly on the door of the apartment occupied by Anita and Dora. They had only been in bed for a couple of hours and his gabbled warning that they should be careful, deny having told him anything and that he was getting out left them frightened and confused but at least they knew. Leaving by the back door, he walked briskly towards the town centre, grateful that his earlier explorations – was it only last week? – allowed him to go straight to his destination. At the copy shop he made two sets of photocopies of his notes. In a daze, he bought a pack of large envelopes, two newspapers, a child’s storybook and a greeting card in a nearby stationer and took his copies and purchases to the post office. Sitting at one of the tables, he wrote meaningless words in the card. When a middle-aged man sat down next to him, he took fright and changed tables. He wrapped one copy of the notes in the book and joined a short queue at the counter to have his package weighed and pay the postage. While queuing, he wrote Maurice’s address on the envelope. He addressed the card to Deborah. Sitting over a coffee outside an adjoining bar he watched for half an hour to see who came and went, who came and stayed and who seemed to be passing repeatedly along the pavement. He felt calmer now but he was still not sure whether or not he was being watched so he paid his bill and went to the toilet. While there he wrote Deborah’s address on another large envelope and sealed the second photocopy in it. He made himself stay in the toilet for twenty minutes and as he left he took careful note of who was still in the café. Several people who had been sitting there when he went into the toilet were still there so he walked around the corner and into a small department store, waiting within sight of the door to see if anyone familiar followed him in. Nobody did; it was his paranoia. Nevertheless, he left by a side door and went straight to an international parcel and package courier office opposite the main police station where he paid the express service charge to have the envelope delivered to Deborah the following day. Round the corner, a travel agent sold him a return ticket to Beirut. Outside, he made sure he could not be overheard then, suppressing his fear, telephoned Deborah to tell her to expect a package the next day and him and an unnecessary child’s birthday card a day or two after that. He had forgotten the time difference and that Deborah was working into the early hours and had to apologise for waking her. His telephone card ran out of credit before he had finished. He would try to contact Eva, to warn her, some other way.
Chapter 42
The news of George’s imminent return presented Deborah with two problems. She could see how to deal with the practical problem but the emotional one was more difficult. Five young women sharing one bathroom was already awkward – especially as four of them were relying on their looks for their livelihoods. That practical problem would be partially solved when Natasha moved into her new West End flat, actually a bedroom with a cooker, toilet and shower. The emotional problem, however, had been aggravated. Natasha had maintained her stony-faced silence but Deborah had managed to extract some of the details of her meeting with the man Mario had introduced her to. She had been questioned closely about her background in Albania and what she was doing in London. Natasha had acted her part and given an impression of vulnerability tinged with greed and that seemed to be the right combination to get her a backer… okay, let’s be blunt, a pimp, Deborah reluctantly admitted to herself. She was still struggling with the idea and more than once tried to persuade Natasha to change her mind. Natasha’s only comment, when pressed, had been to say that her father had once told her that you need something you are prepared to die for, to make it beautiful to live. Deborah had not known what to say. In the days while she waited for her flat to be cleared of its previous occupant, Natasha was withdrawn and her old air of amused irony had become bitter. She greeted Irma’s suggestion that the previous occupant was probably worn out or earned too low a return on the investment with a shrug of indifference. Deborah felt Natasha was building mental defences, walls against what was to come. She spent long hours just watching the hard-faced blonde. In fact she found she could not tear her eyes away. Only once did the Albanian acknowledge Deborah’s longing gaze and then she held her eyes for long seconds without any sign of emotion until Deborah had been forced to drop her gaze, blushing and uncertain whether she had given offence or revealed an emotion she did not herself understand. Self-searching analysis as she lay awake at night only led to deeper confusion and unhappiness.
Conrad and Lydia would be home any day and were paying rent and would expect a room and some privacy. Marianna was still reluctant to leave the house unaccompanied and needed to be somewhere safe with people she knew. Irma and Anna were already doing well on the door of the club and had developed the knack of spotting targets and working together but they had not yet started to earn at the top end of the range. Without savings they had little chance of finding somewhere else to live. Even after a few days they had decided that taking all-night, trains home to Croydon was too much travelling and they wanted to live closer to their work and commute by black cab. Deborah viewed their future with mild despair, sure that very little money would find its way back to Tirana or Skopje. Despite all that, she was looking for a flat for the two girls and was prepared to put down a deposit or pay rent in advance. If a reference were needed, she would ask Jill to ask Nicholas. Until they found somewhere, the little house would just have to be overcrowded. Or maybe Marianna could share with Anna and Irma. And maybe she could share with George. Maybe that would break the Natasha fixation: or maybe not.
Chapter 43
It was well past midnight and George did not leave the terminal at Beirut airport, strikingly modern after Larnaca. As soon as he had cleared immigration and collected his bag he headed for the ticket desks and after studying the departure boards for several minutes, bought a single ticket for an early flight to Nice before settling down in a waiting area to try to get a few hours’ rest – the first since being woken by Stelios’ telephone call. To his surprise he dozed fitfully until finally disturbed by a cleaner’s machine, polishing the floor around his feet in the first pale grey of the new day. The policeman who checked his passport gave him a bad moment when he looked at the arrival stamp. In response to the raised eyebrows, he brandished his creditless mobile telephone and mumbled a few words about ‘business’ and ‘problem’ that seemed to satisfy the official.
At Nice he bought a single ticket to Stansted for the following day on a budget airline and trusted a taxi driver to take him to a hotel so he could shower, change, sleep and regain his composure. Slightly light-headed with fatigue and relief from strain, he had checked into the quiet, back street hotel as George Firethorn. Bushed, he hung the ‘do not disturb’ sign on his doorknob and, feeling safe for the first time in two days, slept until late afternoon. In the moment between waking and sleeping, he realised he had been dreaming about Susan. It was a pleasant dream and he struggled to recover it but it had slipped away. Showered and rested, he went for a stroll, looking for a restaurant where he could book a table for dinner. Even this late in the season, there were still plenty of tourists on the streets, most of them French, he thought. The sun was already behind the mountains and to avoid the growing chill he went into a seafront bar and ordered a kir. Out of habit, he took note of people who followed him in or seemed to pass more than once along the pavement outside the open door but he told himself that it was unnecessary. If someone planned to do him harm it would not happen here and, in any case, it would have been almost impossible for anyone to follow him from Cyprus or to have predicted his movements so as to lay a trap. He told himself firmly that he was worrying about nothing, let out the long breath he had been holding inside, relaxed and ordered another drink. An hour and a half after he had left his room, he returned to the hotel, collected his key from the concierge and took the lift to the second floor. Still a little too early for dinner, he put on th
e jacket he had come to collect, poured himself a duty free whiskey and stepping out on to the narrow balcony, he leaned lightly against the wrought iron balustrade to watch the cars stopping and starting at the traffic lights below him. Just before he allowed his full weight to bear on the railing he felt it shift and a slip beneath his elbows and stepped back. One end of the railing had come loose from the wall sending a small shower of pebbles of mortar on the pavement below and generating an angry expostulation from a passer by. The railing hung precariously, one end free in the evening air, the other barely held by crumbled mortar and stonework. George was breathing heavily and felt a prickle of sweat. An accident; of course it was an accident. He peered at the end of the railing. It was rusty but showed no sign of interference. The fragments of mortar remaining in the broken angle of the wall just looked like old concrete that had crumbled with age. Of course it was just an accident. Nobody would know that he would lean on the railing. Come to that nobody could even know that he would go on to the balcony. The dried pigeon droppings on the balcony swam into sharp focus and he stepped back into the room and tipped his head back to swallow the whisky in a single gulp that made him cough. His room had been serviced while he was out, the bed was smoothed, the clothes he had tossed on a chair had been folded and hung over its back. The curtains he had closed to sleep had been opened. It had been nearly dark when he had gone out. It must have been fully dark by the time the chambermaid had serviced the room. He pulled himself together and went down to the concierge’s desk. In his halting French he managed to explain about the broken balustrade. He had half expected a reaction that implied that he had carelessly damaged hotel property but before he had finished speaking, the concierge broke into a fulsome apology and expressions of relief that his guest had been fortunate to escape any injury. He would send someone immediately to make the railing secure until it could be properly repaired. Even in French, the apology sounded rehearsed, like a script. Perhaps the aging hotel had many mishaps. Ten minutes later, the concierge himself appeared with a length of string and, tutting his dismay at the damage, secured the railing to the handle of the balcony doors which he closed firmly with instructions that Monsieur was under no circumstances to go on to the balcony again. George went to dinner. Returning an hour and a half later, he carefully checked all the equipment and appliances in the room and bathroom before double locking his door and carefully balancing a glass on the door handle. Waking with a start in pale light and with the sound of traffic filtering through the curtains his first thought was that he had not checked on the safety of his file of papers. In a panic he leapt out of bed and went straight to his bag. The file was not in the back pocket. Frantically he rummaged in the other compartments and almost cheered with relief when his hand found it in the outside, zipped compartment. Surely he had not put it there? He must have. And the glass was still balanced on the doorknob. It was okay; he had been exaggerating his danger. Again. He wanted very much to go home but he did not know where that was. Stansted was the next stop.
Say You Never Met Me Page 23