by RJ Bailey
‘She’s a sick grown woman. Christ. Maybe you should have sectioned her.’
Freddie clenched her jaws tight for a second before she spoke. ‘Not helpful.’
‘Sorry. You’ve looked outside?’
‘Yes, but I can’t exactly run in this fuckin’ boot. I’ve called her flat. No answer.’
‘How long has she been gone?’
Freddie glanced at the wall clock. ‘Probably only twenty or thirty minutes.’ It seemed far longer.
‘I’ll come over,’ said Nina.
‘No point. What can you do?’
‘I can move faster than you with that bloody boot on.’
‘There’s statues in the park that can move faster than me. Listen, just before I realised she had gone, Tom called.’
‘Lord. And?’
‘Well, he’s OK. He put me on to Leka. He said that the auction is due to take place at something called The Void.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Leka claims he doesn’t know.’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘I agree. But if he does, he’s not telling.’
‘The Void. Anything else?’
‘It’ll most likely be at a port. That’s what he said. For fast, untraceable getaways by sea.’
‘Have you asked Adam if it means anything?’
‘No,’ said Freddie. ‘It went out of my head once I realised the patient had gone.’
‘Christ knows what is going through her mind. Can you imagine?’
‘I’m trying not to.’ A deep booming sound bounced down the hallway. Someone was hammering with the brass door-knocker. It was followed by the shriller tones of the bell. ‘Hold on.’
Freddie hobbled down to the front door and opened it. Sam was leaning against the brickwork, her forehead covered in sweat, breath ragged. ‘Why didn’t you tell me my knee was fucked?’ she said as she barged by. ‘It went from under me. It’s taken me half an hour to hobble about a hundred yards back here.’
‘It’s Sam,’ Freddie said down the phone. ‘Or someone who looks like Sam.’
‘Where’s she been?’
‘I think she’s been out for a run.’
When she followed Sam to the kitchen, Freddie found her sitting on a stool with one foot propped up on the seat opposite her. She was massaging her knee.
‘You knew it was hurt. Your knee. The explosion.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Sam distractedly, as if almost being blown to bits was the sort of thing that could easily slip your mind. ‘How is Matt? Do you know?’
‘No.’ Matt wasn’t her concern. He had probably crawled under another rock.
‘I should get in touch,’ said Sam.
Freddie took another perch. ‘What’s going on, Sam?’
A shrug. ‘You tell me.’
‘I think we should go to see a doctor.’
‘I’m fine. I was . . . somewhere else for a bit. Now I’m back.’ She felt like her body had put itself into an induced coma to give it time to rest, recuperate and recover. And when it was sure it was the right time, it – some part of her subconscious, anyway – sent Jess to tell her to get off her lazy arse and come looking. She didn’t need to be asked twice. ‘Anyway, you’ve had doctors round. I remember.’
‘Yes. But you were like a fish on a slab. They wanted to take you to hospital for observation. I still think we should.’
Sam stared at her, as if she were seeing a human for the first time. ‘You have to be kidding me.’
‘No. I’m not. You have suffered some sort of collapse. I dunno, Buster, back when we were in the medical business it’s what we would have called completely losing your shit.’
‘And now I’ve found it again.’
Freddie looked into Sam’s eyes. She didn’t like what she could see in there. ‘I’ll just get you checked over.’
Freddie reached for the phone, but Sam snatched it off the marble top. ‘First things first. What have you discovered?’
‘About what?’
‘About Jess. Don’t tell me you haven’t tried to find out where she is?’
Freddie felt anger rush through her like a flash-fire. ‘Of course we have. Me, Nina, Tom, Adam—’
‘Adam?’
‘From Albania.’
‘Oh . . . The writer. Why him?’
‘He did some work on trafficking. Remember?’
‘Of course,’ she said, in a tone that suggested she didn’t. ‘And? Tell me everything, Freddie. And I mean everything. I can take it. I won’t go into . . . into that place again. Promise.’
So Freddie did, watching Sam carefully as she digested the information about Tom going to confront Leka and the phone call that gave them The Void. As the tale unfolded, Sam’s expression became more and more grim.
‘And you don’t know what happened to Tom?’
‘No, I’ve tried calling . . . straight to voicemail.’
‘I wish we could go over and help him . . .’
‘It might be too late, Buster. We were in good shape when we took on Leka last time. Look at us now: barely one pair of good legs between us.’
‘I can strap this knee. But you’re right. And Tom knew what he was doing. He might be OK.’ She didn’t sound too sure about that statement. ‘Did you believe him? About the rape?’
‘I think if he was lying, he’s just committed suicide by going over there.’
Sam nodded. She closed her eyes and squeezed the lids. ‘Can I have a drink of water?’
Freddie fetched one. After she had sat back down she released the straps on the boot and scratched under the hard shell. She couldn’t wait to get it off. Meanwhile, Sam gulped down the water.
Nina’s words came back to Freddie. About sectioning. ‘I’d still like you to see a doctor, Sam.’
‘Doctor or shrink?’
‘Both?’
Sam made a dismissive noise. ‘I’ll tell you what I need. Really need.’
‘Go on.’
‘A good curry. I’m starved. What the fuck have you been feeding me?’
‘Whatever you wouldn’t dribble down your front or spit all over me.’ Freddie didn’t try to hide her irritation at the ingratitude.
‘Sorry. But a curry would hit the spot. There’s Monsoon.’
‘Give me the phone and I’ll call the order.’
‘And some cigarettes.’
Freddie sighed. ‘Really?’
‘I could really do with one. And there’s fifteen per cent off if you collect your order at Monsoon.’
Freddie put her hands on her hips and tilted her head to one side. A quizzical eyebrow went up. ‘Do I look like a dick? Or just act like one?’
‘What?’ Sam asked. ‘Neither. Of course.’
‘Then why are you treating me like one?’
‘Fred . . .’
‘You are up to something, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, trying to get a plate of curry and rice.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Trust me.’
‘I don’t do that, either. You’re trying to get rid of me. I know you, Sam Wylde.’
Sam put her hands up in surrender. ‘I just want to make some calls. I’ll phone Adam while you get the grub.’ That much was true. ‘Hyderabad chicken for me and the usual gubbins.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ Freddie re-strapped the boot. ‘It’s a good job I love you.’
‘Thank you.’
She flashed a smile. ‘And you’ll be here when I get back?’
‘Of course.’
She looked doubtful. ‘I must need my head testing as well as the rest of me.’
Once Freddie had dragged her bad leg out to visit the local Indian takeaway and the convenience store, Sam dialled Adam. Freddie would be gone at least thirty minutes at the speed she moved. Sam calculated that she had plenty of time to do what she needed to and get out of there. She shivered when she heard the words in her skull: clear as if Jess was standing at her shoulder.
‘Why didn’t you come and get me, Mummy?’
Shame she would miss the curry.
PART FOUR
‘There’s no place left where I can be dealt fresh wounds’
THIRTY-SEVEN
It was a woman who answered the phone. The wife, I assumed.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi. Is Adam there?’
‘Yes . . .’ Suspicion stretched out the word. ‘Who is calling?’
‘Sam Wylde.’
‘Sam . . .?’
‘Wylde. Tell him it’s one of the women from Albania.’
He took a long time to come to the phone. I could sense the tension at the other end of the line. Eventually, he came on. ‘Sam?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good God. How are you?’
‘If I said tickety-boo, would you believe me?’
‘No.’
‘I’m as well as could be expected.’
‘Good, I’m glad. You had us frightened. Listen, I am so sorry about—’
I cut him off. I didn’t need platitudes about Jess. ‘We all are, Adam. But I need to ask you something. Ever heard of The Void?’
‘Confused poet faces vast emptiness.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Sorry, crossword clue. Force of habit. Confused poet – Void is an anagram of Ovid. Emptiness is a void.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘I’m sorry. How is that relevant? Void, I mean, not Ovid.’
‘Freddie spoke to Leka—’
‘Christ almighty. I knew Tom was going over. Is he OK?’
‘I hope so. I don’t know. He said that Jess will probably end up at somewhere called The Void. Some sort of auction room. It’ll be at a port. A lot of these people have boats.’
A whistle, forced between clenched teeth, came down the line. ‘That’s a tall order. Could be anywhere. Nothing else?’
‘Not that Freddie told me. But let’s assume, given Bojan’s background, that this is happening in Eastern Europe . . .’
‘Look, it happens all over the world, Sam.’
‘But Bojan isn’t from all over the world. He’s from Serbia.’
‘Serbia is landlocked. Most sea traffic goes through Montenegro.’
‘I know Serbia is landlocked,’ I said, annoyed he was missing the point. ‘What I mean is, he’s more likely to be operating there than in the Philippines or Mexico.’
‘So, where then?’
‘Albania, Croatia, Romania . . .’
‘Romania, yes, a possibility. Given the cam-girl racket.’ A little laugh came down the line. ‘You know that . . .’ Then, silence.
‘Adam?’
‘Wait. I’m thinking.’
‘Then think faster.’
‘This is . . . well, it sounds ridiculous.’
‘Try me with ridiculous,’ I said. ‘No sensible offer refused.’
‘What do you know about Ovid? The poet?’
‘Roughly about as much as Melvyn Bragg knows about field-stripping an SA80.’
‘You are feeling better.’
‘Come on, Adam, I haven’t got much time.’
‘Ovid was exiled from Rome by the Emperor Augustus to somewhere called Tomis.’
I tried to place it but failed. ‘Never heard of it.’
‘Neither had Ovid. He was thoroughly miserable there. It was the end of the civilised world, a remote part of Thrace, where the locals spoke a sort of pidgin Greek.’
‘Melvyn,’ I reprimanded.
‘OK, OK. He died there. There’s a statue. It’s now part of Romania.’
My heart quickened a little. ‘Go on.’
‘Does this seem likely? An anagram?’
He likes to play games.
‘Yes, it does,’ I prompted. ‘Go on.’
‘Tomis is now called Constanta. It’s a port on the Black Sea.’
I limped over to the work surface where Freddie had left her laptop. I flipped it open and typed in the password. I opened Google Earth and entered the modern name. There was a marina and a proper port, a beach area. It looked like a holiday town.
‘Listen, Adam, I’m going it alone.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m ditching Freddie. She would only slow me down.’
‘This is a job for the police, surely.’
I didn’t answer.
‘Sam?’
‘If Freddie remembers to call you, tell her that Void means nothing, OK? Don’t tell her about Ovid or Constanta.’
‘Sam.’
‘I know it’s an unreasonable request, but consider this: if you do tell her I will break both your fucking legs. Clear?’
‘Sam . . .’
‘OK, how about this: You tell Freddie where I have gone, Freddie, the loyal friend, follows me out, but that boot means she isn’t as nimble as she might be. I have to keep one eye watching her back. In having to look after her, I lose my chance to get Jess. In which case, the fuck-up is your fault, because I wanted Freddie kept out of it. You think I’d stop at your legs?’
His voice was much smaller. ‘I would imagine not. But what are you going to do?’
I was going to go home, grab my RTG bag and spare passport – I didn’t have time to find where Freddie had put mine – my cash reserve, activate a new credit card and head out. I was just about to close the page, delete history and log out when something on screen caught my eye.
He likes to play games . . . Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen . . .
And I knew where Bojan was, or where he was going to be, and where I just might find Jess.
‘Sam?’
‘Sorry. Thank you, Adam. I really do hope I don’t have to carry out that threat.’
‘Me too, Sam. Of course, there is always a chance Freddie will find out I wasn’t entirely honest with her and do it to me anyway.’ That was very, very true, but I kept quiet. ‘In which case, it’s lose-lose for me, isn’t it? Good luck.’
‘Thanks.’
Already my mind was on the logistics and I missed his next question.
‘What? Sorry?’
‘So you’re going to Constanta?’ Adam repeated.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m going to Bratislava.’
I felt guilty about ditching Freddie. And lying to her, of course. It was breaking up the team once more, but it had to be done. Anyway, she knew. Even as she left to fetch me a curry, she knew I had something up my sleeve. She was not, after all, as she so succinctly put it, a dick. Freddie just couldn’t think of how to stop me. Or whether she should. But I owed her an explanation.
So I’d left a message for her explaining my reasons for doing what I had done. The explanation lay in the trail of the damaged and the dead: Matt, with a new hand, but other injuries; Nate Segal, blown to pieces; an innocent delivery driver murdered in Normandy; the Colonel’s son driven to suicide, or murdered; Tom, walking with misplaced nobility into the jaws of Leka’s hell, hoping he could talk his way out of a bullet to the head. Or worse. And Jess. Poor Jess.
‘Why didn’t you come and get—?’
I had to suppress those words. I couldn’t operate with my stomach in knots, my brain boiled with anger and pain, my heart almost bursting in my chest. I’d let it overwhelm me once. My breakdown was both physical and mental. I’d watched it happen to soldiers in the field. Men and women who had seen friends and colleagues blown to pieces, eviscerated by machine-gun fire, hacked to death by machetes. Soldiers who found their limit; their breaking point.
‘There’s no shame in it,’ I told them.
But I was lying.
As far as I was concerned, my body and brain had betrayed me, delayed me, and I found that hard to forgive.
But the self-loathing could wait. And there was always the possibility that my body had been right. I needed a time-out, a breath, a chance to get match fit.
A calm before the storm.
If that were so, the storm was certainly coming now. A shitstorm.
It was snowing as I
drove over the bridge crossing the Danube, the water close to the river’s banks already mushy and opaque with ice. I was pointing east, leaving the drab outskirts of Bratislava behind. I was heading for the town of Smolenice, all castellated manor houses, cobbled squares and red roofs. It sat at the foothills of the Little Carpathians. In fact, I would stop short of that picturesque town, diverting to a farm on the outskirts I had first visited more than a decade ago. I hoped the welcome was still warm.
The snow began to thicken so I turned on the wipers. Traffic was light and I kept the speed down. I was fairly sure nobody had tailed me from the airport. Why would they? I reckoned they knew where I was going. Not this stop, perhaps, but eventually.
All roads led to Jess.
A truck overtook me with a blast of its horn and the car became skittish in its wash as the tyres struggled for grip. I wondered if I should have insisted on winter ones. There were chains in the boot, but I didn’t want to waste time fitting them. I decided it would be OK.
The peaks of the mountain range were on my left and, although I was climbing, I reckoned I would avoid the deeper drifts that dotted the higher slopes. To my right was flat farmland, dusted with the snow. The blots on the windscreen seemed less substantial now. It was turning to sleet. I’d manage without the chains.
I drove through a series of utilitarian hamlets, houses that were neat, freshly painted but with no memorable features apart from tree-lined pavements and window boxes. A couple of bars on the edge of one town had lights on, and through the window of one I saw a huge open fire flickering invitingly.
I kept my foot down. Twenty minutes to go.
What had happened to me in Thailand? Was it a retreat from what I had done? In my selfishness to get my daughter – to have her as mine, to hold her again, to feel that love – I had put her in harm’s way. There, I could say it now. It was me, me, me – selfish me.
Jess was in Bojan’s hands because of me.
This helplessness, this despair, worse than any physical pain, was what he wanted me to feel. I knew that, but I could use that knowledge to ameliorate the pain I was feeling. For now, anyway.
All I knew is the promise I made to myself as I was rising from those depths, back to life. I said: If I get Jess back, I’m done. No more bodyguarding. No more pampered rich people. No more guns, knives, fast cars. Give me domestic, give me boring. Give me Jess.