Well done, Jack. You just fucking missed them by seconds.
Noah Abramovich
Present Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDpnjE1LUvE
Where The Wild Roses Grow
Frozen, she stares at me, her eyes bigger than I’ve ever seen them. So vulnerable. So childlike. And one step away from a murderer. If I’d waited one more second she would have pulled the trigger and the loveliest, purest human being I know would have been tainted with blood forever. In a daze she wipes her nose with the back of her hand.
‘I would have done it,’ she says in a strange whisper.
‘That sin is not for you,’ I say.
Her lips quiver. ‘But it shouldn’t be on you.’
I smile. ‘If I have to go to hell for anything let it be this.’
Fresh tears fill her eyes and start running down white cheeks. ‘If you’re going to hell then that’s where I’m going too,’ she sobs.
‘You won’t like it. It’s hot down there and the Devil lied when he said they have ice cream.’
Her eyes roam my body restlessly. She is still in shock. ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘I thought I’d stay around for a bit longer. See what setting up house with you will be like. Maybe move to Nice. Maybe have a couple of kids.’
She tries to smile, but the emotions pouring through her are too much and it comes out like a grimace. She sways as if she is about to faint, and I lunge to catch her. The movement makes my ribs fucking sing. Fuck. I feel sweat break out on my forehead as I hold her trembling body. Her hands grasp my jacket fearfully, and her eyes look at me anxiously.
‘Oh! My God! You’re hurt,’ she cries, pulling herself away. The panic in her voice echoes around the room.
‘It’s nothing,’ I brush off.
She reaches for the zip of my jacket and pulls it open. Her hands fly to her mouth. ‘Oh, God, you’re bleeding through the bandages,’ she exclaims, staring at the blood soaked mess of my bandages. I must have opened the wound in my rush to get here.
‘What the hell, Noah?’
‘Hey, it’s not as bad as it looks. I just need some fresh bandaging and I’ll be fine,’ I say in a calm voice.
As I watch, the delicate hot-house flower becomes that single scarlet rose growing wild amongst rock, daring men to brave her thorns and take her. I watch the transformation with awe. This woman never stops surprising me.
‘No, you’re not fine, Noah, you’re losing blood. No wonder you’re so pale. We need to get you to a hospital.’
‘I’m not going to a hospital. I have a doctor waiting to attend to me.’
‘How did you get here?’
‘I drove.’
She nods distractedly. Her mind figuring something out. She tilts her head back. ‘How did you find me?’
‘You gave the address to your grandmother. I called her.’
She nods again, frowning. ‘You’re not staying at your house, are you?’
‘No.’
‘Are you somewhere safe?’
‘Very. I’m staying with some Irish gypsies.’
‘Irish gypsies?’
‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell you all about it when we have the time.’
‘Fair enough. Will you be able to drive yourself back?’
‘Tasha. Stop right there. I’m not going anywhere without you. I’m staying right here. I’m calling some people. First thing we have to do is get rid of him, then get you back to the house with a credible story.’
She shakes her head. ‘No need. I’ve already made all the arrangements and I’ve got my story ready.’
‘You have?’ I stare at her with surprise.
‘You don’t rob a bank without a getaway plan,’ she says.
I smile, impressed and proud of her. ‘No you don’t. Tell me the plan.’
‘All right. First of all, I went to see Dimitri Semenov.’
I whistle with admiration. Dimitri Semenov. Her father’s most bitter enemy. He must have been cumming in his pants. When Tasha decides to do something she doesn’t do it in halves.
‘He gave me two of his men. They helped me bring Pa … him here and they are going to dispose of the car and body. All I have to do now is call them. I was going to get them to drop me off at a minicab company in town, but now that you are here you can do it.’
I frown. ‘Okay, so they get rid of the body and the car. What happens then?’
‘I wear a black wig. You drop me off at the first minicab company we come across. I then tell the taxi driver to drop me off two blocks away from my house. I jog to my house and call my grandma. She throws the rope ladder over the fence. I climb it and get into the house and pretend I’ve been in bed all night. Tomorrow morning, when the household discovers my father is missing, we’ll call the police.
I frown. ‘Didn’t your father install one of the best security systems with cameras all around the house and four guards day and night. How did you dodge the guards? And wouldn’t the cameras have caught you driving out in your father’s car?’
She explains exactly how Baba, Kiri and Vasluv did it.
To be honest, I’m impressed. Not bad at all for a little girl who never said boo to anyone in her life, but I still have to quiz her about the most important thing. ‘What will you tell the police tomorrow?’
‘I’ll tell them Papa went to bed after dinner and that was the last I saw of him. I sleep deeply and never heard a thing.’
‘You’re sure you’re not on any of the video?’
‘One hundred percent.’
I look closely at her then at the dead man on the plastic tarp. Can she really pull this off? ‘What if there are cameras in the streets that have recorded your journey here?’
‘I went to the garage and changed the plates earlier this evening.’
‘What about the phone calls you’ve been making tonight?’
‘Pay as you go mobile, and I’m dumping it later this morning in other peoples’ bins.’
I nod with approval.
‘Don’t worry, Noah. I have planned this very carefully.’
‘I can make it easier for you. I can arrange a fake kidnapping attempt. This way it won’t look like such an inside job.’
‘No,’ she says, and her voice is very sure and calm. ‘I don’t want anyone else to take the blame for this. In fact, I am very sad that I was too gutless to pull the trigger, and that you were the one who had to do it. I don’t want you to go to a different place than me. If you’re going to hell, I want to go there too, ice cream or no ice cream.’
‘Fine. Shall we get the ball rolling?’
She fishes her mobile from her pocket and hits a button. ‘It’s done,’ she says into it. Then she closes it and looks at me. ‘I’ve so many questions for you, but they can wait. However, there is something very important I have to say to you now.’ She stops to clear her throat.
‘Go on,’ I encourage.
‘If something goes wrong tonight and for some reason I don’t make it, I want you to know that I love you, Noah. I love you more than life itself.’
I hold her beautiful face between my palms. ‘Nothing will happen to you. I’m not trusting you to any minicab driver. I’ll call Sam and ask him to meet us somewhere. He will drive you to the end of your road and wait until he has seen you climb the ladder.’
A single tear flows from one of her eyes. I wipe it away. ‘And just in case anything happens to me and I don’t make it, I want you to know that I love you, Tasha. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone in my whole life. I’d die for you, girl.’
Tasha Evanoff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n-2lPzH7Do
Anak
I put the rope ladder away and go into the kitchen. Baba is sitting in front of her customary pot of tea. Her face is pale and sadder than I have ever seen it.
‘Is he … gone?’
I nod.
She closes her eyes and swallows violently as she tries to regain control
of her emotions.
I kneel beside her and cover her clenched fist with my hand. Even though I’m the one who was out in the cold all night, her hands are freezing.
She opens her eyes and nods. ‘You did well, my child. You did well.’ Her voice breaks on the last word and I throw my arms around her neck.
‘It wasn’t me. I was too cowardly. I couldn’t pull the trigger.’
A ghost of a smile appears on her lips. ‘I’m glad it wasn’t you. A child shouldn’t have to kill her own father, even if he is a monster.’
‘Noah did it.’
‘So he made it there. How is he?’
‘He’s wounded, but he’s alive.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘I don’t know the full details, but it’s some kind of safe house run by Irish gypsies.’
She nods distractedly. ‘Where is your father now?’
‘They’ve taken his body away.’
Her lips press down so hard they are a thin straight line. ‘To be disposed of how?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask, but it has to be in such a way that it is never found.’ I don’t tell her about the pig farm and greedy pigs.
She looks down at the floor. ‘Did he … suffer?’
‘No. It was instant. One bullet.’
‘Was he angry with me?’
I stroke her hair. ‘He died not knowing you helped me.’
A great sob racks her body. It comes from her very core and makes her hands tremble so uncontrollably I become scared.
‘Oh, Baba,’ I cry helplessly. ‘Don’t cry so hard. Please. You’ll become ill.’
She makes a great effort to calm herself, but tears flow down her cheek ceaselessly.
‘I’m sorry, Baba. I made you choose between him and me.’
‘You didn’t, my child. I made that choice myself.’
‘I wish there could have been another way.’
‘There wasn’t. Don’t you think if there was I wouldn’t have taken it? He was my son, my flesh and blood. I carried him in my belly for nine months. Nine months. I never told you that when he was born he was small and sickly, always crying with colic. He would cry for hours and his father would get so annoyed, sometimes I’d wrap him up tightly and take him out to the garden in the middle of the night. I’d sit for hours in the cold just rocking him until he was so exhausted with crying he fell asleep.’
She sniffs.
‘Then I’d try to get up and find my legs were so cold they wouldn’t work. When he was four he got inflammation of the cornea and the doctor said he could become blind. I took him to the church every day. I fell on my knees and prayed for him to be able to see again. When he was older and he went into this life, I got on my knees again to beg forgiveness for the terrible things he was doing. I asked that his heart be shown the path to repentance. Most of my life I’ve been praying for him, but I never felt any of it was a sacrifice. I loved him so much. He was my life, my heart, my soul.’
‘I’m so sorry, Baba.’
She smiles sadly. ‘Once when he was only a boy and he was being naughty I told him, “Do you know I carried you in my belly for nine months and this is how you repay me?” You know what he said?’
I shake my head.
‘He said, “Tell me how much rent you want for those nine months and I’ll pay it. This way I won’t have to listen to you going on about how you carried me in your stomach for the rest of my life.” He was only seven-and-a-half years old then, but I should have known that day. A child who shows no gratitude is not going to turn out well.’
I look at her sadly. It is impossible to comfort her. Her love is deeper than I realized.
‘What will happen now?’ she asks.
‘I will lodge a police report that Papa is missing. We will all, including Mama, help the investigators with all their queries, but as none of us know anything we won’t be able to help much.’
‘What about this house and the servants?’ she asks.
‘Of course we will continue to live in this house for a while. Then, I will move out and go to live with Noah, and after a couple of months you will come to live with me. I don’t want any of Papa’s wealth so I won’t be declaring him dead. Let the lawyers sort it out in time. Have you eaten, Baba?’ I ask.
‘No. I’m not hungry.’
‘I heard you being sick in the bathroom when you went up to your room.’
‘Yes,’ she admits. ‘I threw up everything I ate last night.’
‘I’m going to make some dried mushroom and barley soup and you’re going to try to eat some, alright?’
She nods.
‘I’ll be back.’
First I take the battery out of my mobile phone. I’ll throw the pieces away later. Then I go into the larder to find the ingredients. As I start to prepare the soup Baba comes to me and helps me.
I smile at her as we cook together, filling the kitchen with warm smells from Baba’s past.
Tasha Evanoff
After I have fed Baba and helped her back to her room, I square my shoulders and go to my father’s room. It is big and strangely still. The shutters are closed and it is dark. For a moment, I stand at the doorway and feel a sensation of remorse. I took a man’s life. Even if I did not pull the trigger, it was I who orchestrated him into that position, and would have eventually completed the execution I was a hair’s breadth away.
My father was right. I will never be the same again.
Then I shake off the dark sense of disquiet and switch on the light.
His bed is crumpled and clearly shows the marks of his body being pulled out of it. I have to be out of here before the servants start arriving. I pull on my rubber gloves, walk to the bed, and rearrange it so it looks the way it would if someone got out of it naturally.
Then I collect his wallet, his belt, his money clip and his shoes, and put them all into a laundry bag. I take one last look then I switch off the light and go to my own room. I add my clothes and shoes to my father’s things and lock the laundry bag in my safe. I will burn everything later.
Then I go into the shower.
While I am standing under the strong cascade of warm water, I have a strange sensation. As if what is happening to me can’t be real. My father is dead. Sergei is dead. Noah told me he loves me. My grandmother is completely devastated. Noah is alive. I’m a murderer.
After my shower I go downstairs to the kitchen.
‘Where’s Rosita?’ I ask the chef.
‘I think she’s in the laundry room,’ he says.
I run down to the basement and find her folding some sheets.
She smiles broadly. ‘You’re up early.’
‘No, I’m not,’ I deny guiltily, then I stop myself. ‘Yeah, I drank a lot last night and slept like a log. I woke up with a headache, but thank God it’s gone now that I’ve had a shower.’
Rosita smiles politely while she waits to hear what I want from her.
‘Hey, you know the puppy I gave you the other day, where is it now?’
Her smile suddenly widens to a big, toothy grin.
‘Come, come. It is good that you have come to take him. He’s very naughty. Impossible to work when he is around,’ she says, and takes me to the corridor.
Just outside the cellar door is a cage with the poor puppy inside it. He is sitting upright and staring at us curiously. I open the cage door and take him into my arms. He is ecstatic to be free and licks my face with his tiny little tongue.
‘I’m so sorry. It’s not your fault at all. You’re a good little boy,’ I say, kissing his soft ears.
Then I take him with me upstairs to Baba’s room.
He’ll never take Sergei’s place, but he deserves better than being locked up in a cage in the basement. One day I’ll learn to love him.
I put him on the floor in Baba’s room. He starts running around like a mad thing. Just like Sergei used to.
I look at Baba. ‘If you don’t mind, I’m going to call him Niki. He will be Papa�
��s gift to us. He will be one of the good things that Papa gave to me.’
I wait until 2.00pm when it has become certain among the servants and everybody in the household that Papa is missing. Something is wrong. Then I call Oliver. He doesn’t pick up and I am about to leave a message when he comes on.
‘Hello, Tasha,’ he says. How I could have thought I could marry him or live with him seems incredible now. I must have been a different person. Not truly living at all.
‘Oliver, I’m calling to give you the bad news that my father is missing.’
‘What do you mean missing?’
‘He left in his car in the middle of the night and now neither he nor his car can be found.’
‘Are you joking?’
‘Of course not,’ I say coldly.
‘Sorry,’ he apologizes, taken aback by my coldness. ‘It just seems so incredible.’
‘Anyway, the reason I’m calling is to tell you under the circumstances there won’t be a wedding.’
‘Not so fast. Your father and I had a deal.’
‘Yes, I know. You’ll have to take it up with him when he shows up. Goodbye.’
‘Hang on a minu—’
I end the call. ‘That’s that,’ I say, and a smile comes to my lips.
My phone rings. It is him. I reject the call and block his number.
It is time to go to the police. I buy a new pay as you go, throw my old cell phone in a bin on Park Lane and the battery in a bin outside the police station just before I go in to make a missing person report.
That night I sleep in Baba’s room with Niki.
Jake Eden
You could have knocked me down with a feather when my brother Shane called while on holiday in Guyana. He told me he needed a safe house for a man hiding from the Russian Mafia.
‘You better not be fucking involved with the Russian Mob,’ was my first reaction.
He assured me he was not.
Blackmailed by the beast Page 30