The Conor McBride Series Books 1-3

by Kathryn Guare

  “Yes, I’ve heard.” Eckhard nodded. “And for all of you, a rough night as well. How is Kate?”

  “It was harder on her than she’ll admit, but I think she’ll be okay. Kate’s not as neurotic as I am. She was still sleeping when I left.”

  “Are you staying here in the hotel, now?”

  Conor sighed. “No, we’re back at the Labuts, but there’s still no sign of them. We’re there with Sonia, and she’s the reason I called you.”

  Eckhard insisted they talk while eating, so over a second breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant Conor explained Sonia’s intention to go through with the recital. He also explained the plan to get her baby away from the Labuts and his intention to help her regardless of what anyone might think of the idea. Before leaving, he asked the conductor to pass the news along to Frank once he was awake.

  His errand had taken quite a bit longer than anticipated and the city’s church bells were ringing out the noon hour when Conor returned to the Labuts’ building. Entering the passageway he saw the security detail had disappeared. On the main floor he looked through the open doorways to the opposite end of the flat, and although it was empty, he sensed something had changed. Upstairs, he was surprised to see Kate awake and dressed, sitting on the bed with her back against the headboard and her hands wrapped around a mug of tea.

  “They’re back,” she said, after he’d closed the door.

  An important piece of news, but Conor initially ignored it. Putting his violin case on the floor he sat on the edge of the bed, assessing her appearance. She still looked a bit fragile, but the shivering, glassy-eyed exhaustion was thankfully gone, and her cheek felt cool and dry when he kissed it.

  “I’m worried about you,” Kate said, examining him just as closely. “You’ve had almost no sleep and you’ve been taking too many pills.”

  “No, you’ve scared me off them. I’ve not taken a single one today.”

  “Which means you’re in pain. I’m worried about that, too.”

  “Right. You’ve enough strength for wittering on at me, anyway. Slide over.” Conor gave her leg a poke. Kate shifted sideways and he settled down beside her. Taking the mug out of her hand, he sipped from it and made a face. Chamomile. Not likely to help him stay awake. “So, they’re back. Tell me about it, now.”

  At some point after Kate finished filling him in on the return of the Labuts, Conor did drift off, and strange, uncomfortable visions of Petra followed him into sleep. Awake, he’d taken no time to consider the effect losing the baby would have on her, but in a shallow dream her anguish was palpable, taking the shape of something that he couldn’t quite see. He bounced awake and nearly off the bed when a sharp rap sounded on their door.

  “Christ. That wasn’t a bit helpful. How long?” he asked Kate, rubbing his eyes.

  “Not long enough,” she sighed. “Less than twenty minutes.”

  She got up and opened the door a crack before swinging it wider to show Sonia on the other side, standing uncertainly in the doorway.

  Kate took her hand and drew her into the room. “Have you been in his study all this time?”

  “Yes. May I have a glass of water, please?”

  Conor vaulted from the bed to get it while Kate put an arm around Sonia and led her to the sofa in the corner of the room. She looked as though she’d been in a fight. Her silver hair, ordinarily smooth and flat as a polished helmet, stood up from her head in spiky peaks. The black cashmere sweater she was wearing had been twisted and stretched out of shape, and an angry, red welt had formed on her cheek.

  “What happened?” He handed her the glass and remained standing to examine her more closely, flooded with a cold rage.

  “We took turns telling lies.” Sonia accepted the glass of water with both hands and drank half of it before continuing. “He asked what went wrong last night. I told him the gun jammed and then misfired. He pretended to believe me, and I pretended not to notice that he didn’t. He wondered if I was still committed to the project and I assured him I was eager for an opportunity to make it up to him.” She flicked a strand of hair from her eyes, trying to appear indifferent. “He said I could begin that part immediately.”

  “Sonia.” Conor touched a finger to her cheek as a tear spilled down over it. “What happened?”

  “No, he didn’t strike me, Conor. He is more careful than that.” She brushed at her cheek, frowning. “This is from the rug in front of his desk. What happened was no more than the usual. I’m used to it.”

  “No, you’re not.” Kate’s grip on Sonia’s shoulder tightened. “Don’t ever say that again.”

  “You are both very kind. I hardly deserve it after the danger I’ve put you in, and the lies I’ve told.”

  “Rubbish.”

  Conor’s light remark succeeded in bringing a smile to her face. “Thank you for that. It reminds me we still need to prepare for this evening. Will you practice with me for a little while?”

  “Of course.”

  “I need to change first, but I can meet you in the library in fifteen minutes.” Sonia winked at him. “It will give you some time to get loose up here.”

  26

  It was his second performance in two days, so he thought it best to loosen up in more traditional fashion. He was running through a few of Rode’s Études when Sonia joined him in the library. Instead of beginning her own routine she sat at the piano, listening to him.

  “When did you first start playing?” she asked, when he stopped after the third caprice.

  “When I was five. I started with traditional Irish music and switched to classical when I was ten. What about you?”

  “I was twelve. My piano teacher lived next door to our flat in Sarajevo. I was sixteen when the war began. My parents were going to Israel, but he was coming here, and I chose to stay with him. Of course, at the time neither my parents nor myself realized he was a retired MI6 agent. He’d spied for the British in Prague and Budapest during the Communist years.” She smiled. “My music teacher. My recruiter. Bizarre, yes?”

  Conor shrugged. “No more than any other recruitment story I’ve heard. They all strike me as a bit bizarre.”

  “Yours as well?”

  “Mine especially. I’ll tell you about it over a beer some day.” He calibrated his bow, playing with the tension until satisfied, and took advantage of their new camaraderie to voice a concern he’d hesitated to raise earlier. “I think the second movement has the farthest to come. I’d say we should focus on it for an hour or so, and then run through the whole thing and call it a day. How do you feel about that?”

  Sonia nodded. “I know the second has bothered you. I’m playing it badly and have been hoping you would tell me what’s wrong.”

  “You’re not playing it badly, Sonia.” Conor pulled a chair over and sat in front of her. “It’s just too aggressive. I may have misled you with what I said earlier about Strauss falling in love as he was writing this piece. You know as well as I do that passion has more than one face. If we were trying to capture something about the heat of it, the obsession—the side that’s a bit mad, really—then we should have been doing the Kreutzer Sonata. The Strauss isn’t like that, and the second movement particularly isn’t. It’s expressing a more complicated side of love, the sweetness and the pain of it—lost and hopeful at the same time. It’s meant to sound improvisational, like you’re making it up as you go, trusting it to turn out all right because you feel it so much. If you can get yourself into that space, we’ll be killing it.”

  Turning to face the piano, she let her fingers travel over the keys without making a sound. “I think you are more familiar with this side of love than me. I’ve experienced its pain, of course, but never the painful sweetness of it.”

  “Of course you have.” He stood up, moving aside the chair and pulling the music stand forward. “I’ll wager my Pressenda against this piano that you felt it the minute you first held your baby in your arms.”

  After watching her for a moment, sit
ting motionless and staring at her hands, Conor reached his bow over the keys to press the end of it against the High C, releasing a light, pure sound. “I win,” he said softly. “Now, let’s get to work.”

  He was conscious of the obstacle they faced—and had faced from the beginning in that room. The destructive energy of the Labuts reached everywhere, a gelatinous hatred seeping into every open space and crevice. Summoning the right kind of emotion while suspended in it presented a musical challenge unlike any Conor had faced before, but in their final practice together, he and Sonia found the harmony they’d been missing. The finale achieved the heroic grandeur it was meant to, and when they’d finished he actually felt the atmosphere clear, as if they’d created a bubble of clean air to stand inside, allowing them to breathe more easily, if only for a minute.

  “I don’t care what it sounds like later. It was a pleasure playing that with you.”

  “I agree completely.” Sonia was hugging herself, her eyes shining, happier than he’d ever seen her. It seemed cruelly unfair that they didn’t get to enjoy it longer.

  At the back of the library, the door to Martin’s study opened and he entered, applauding.

  “Sneaky, sleeveen bastard,” Conor muttered.

  “A spellbinding performance,” Martin enthused. “I only hope you’ve saved something for the audience tonight.”

  With his back to the minister, Conor placed the Pressenda in its case before turning to him with a forced grin. “I won’t speak for Sonia, but I can tell you a violinist always has a few tricks up his sleeve.”

  Lobkowicz Palace stood on a promontory high above the city, inside the castle walls of Hradčany and in good company with many of the most famous attractions in Prague, but it was easy to miss. In the narrow lanes behind St. Vitus Cathedral, an area closed to vehicular traffic, Kate and Conor had already strolled past its unassuming doorway when Sonia called them back.

  “This is it? I thought it was a museum,” Conor said.

  “And I thought it was a restaurant,” Kate added, finally seeing the name of the building on a banner next to the door, in print much smaller than the enormous word “Café” below it.

  “It’s both,” Sonia said. “The family has put a great deal of money and effort into its renovation.”

  They’d arrived at the palace ninety minutes before the recital to ensure enough time for Sonia to get comfortable with the piano, and for Conor to get the Pressenda tuned to its particular tone. Kate’s assignment during these preparations was to stay within the physical range of his comfort zone. If he couldn’t keep her directly in his line of sight, Conor was apparently determined to at least keep her within shouting distance until they were safely back in Vermont. Assuming his mantle of authority as “agent in charge” (firmly, but gently—he’d learned his lesson in that department), he’d preempted any scheme she might have been entertaining about keeping an eye on the Labuts and coming to the palace with them later. In fact, Kate hadn’t even considered the idea. Judging from their attitudes when Petra and Martin arrived home, further outbreaks of hostility seemed certain, and she had no intention of staying behind to witness the ongoing battle. She’d been relieved to leave the flat and shut the door behind them, only wishing it could have been for the last time.

  The three of them had discussed Martin and Petra as they set out on foot for the palace, an uphill hike along Nerudova, a street lined with souvenir shops and restaurants.

  “I wonder how much he’s told her and what she’s figured out on her own,” Conor had mused.

  “I believe she knows more than Martin realizes,” Sonia said. “He’s exploited her weaknesses, and in some ways Petra is in thrall to him, but she is not a stupid woman, nor an entirely helpless one.”

  Sonia theorized that by becoming the creature he controls, Petra had created a dependency in Martin as well. He needed her as confirmation of his own megalomania, which gave her leverage to manipulate him just as he did her. Sonia hadn’t bothered to add what Kate knew they were all thinking as they continued up the steep incline. She hoped Petra’s leverage would be enough to force Martin to accept his son, or at least to allow her to bring Leo home after the recital. If it wasn’t, they were going to need a new strategy.

  Passing through the doors of the palace, the first person they saw in the entrance hall was Lukas Hasek. He was again out of uniform, but stood at parade rest in a gray business suit, looking every inch the titled heir to the House of Lobkowicz—even if he wasn’t.

  Conor was wearing a darker version of the same suit—recitals were less formal affairs, which was just as well because his tuxedo was still in a heap on their bedroom floor. Switching the violin case to his left hand, he extended the other to Lukas.

  “Thanks for having us over. Should we throw our coats in the bedroom?”

  Lukas laughed. “My flat is more modest than this, but you are cordially invited to come for dinner one night before you leave Prague.” He offered a hand to Kate, who pushed it aside to give him a hug instead.

  “Thank you for your help last night.” She stretched to reach her arms around his broad chest.

  “You did all the work, Kate.” He gave her a tight, bone-cracking hug and released her. “We just mopped up what was left.”

  “I think she’s talking about me,” Conor said. “Thank you for helping to stop her partner from going up the wall.”

  Kate confirmed his hunch with a smile.

  “Who sent you this time?”

  They all turned to look at Sonia, who’d reacted nervously at the sight of Lukas, reminding Kate that the officer’s mission had formerly been to scoop her up and put her on a plane to London, whether she wanted to go or not.

  “Good to see you, Sonia,” Lukas said, unperturbed by her accusing tone. “Fancy you being a spy. Don’t worry, I’m not here to grab you unless absolutely necessary. I met with Frank at his hotel a little while ago and he asked me to come here, in service to the belt-and-suspenders theory that you can’t be too careful. I’m also looking forward to seeing Labut’s face when he realizes his Iranian hit man isn’t showing up.”

  His reassurance didn’t diminish Sonia’s suspicious glare, but he dismissed her concern with a shrug. “I assume you’re armed?” He cocked an eyebrow as Sonia and Conor nodded in unison and then looked at each other, surprised. “Lord, what a duo. Let’s hope you won’t have to interrupt the music to draw down on anyone.”

  “Is Frank coming to the recital?” Kate asked.

  “No. He’s gone back for another chat with Ghorbani at the safe house we stuck him in, but Frank’s friend, the conductor … Eckhard? He’ll be here.” Lukas turned back to Conor. “I came straight from the hotel because he said you’d probably be here already, prowling around the corners of your performance space. Do you want to go up and have a look?”

  He led them past the museum’s ticket desk, up a red-carpeted staircase to the Concert Hall on the first floor. Contrary to the image its name implied, the space was not a large, intimidating chamber; it felt more like a formal drawing room. It had two ornate fireplaces at one end and a magnificent Baroque ceiling decorated with vibrant painted scenes trimmed in white stucco. The piano had been placed at the other end in front of three windows framed by lemon-chiffon drapes. With a seating capacity of just over a hundred, the hall promised an intimate musical experience for its guests.

  Sonia sat at the piano and began experimenting with a loud flourish of scales, while Conor did indeed move into a far corner of the room to listen to the sound quality.

  Lukas watched them, and then turned to Kate in mock alarm. “It’s like watching sausage being made. I think we should get out of here until the finished product is ready. Would you like a tour of the family homestead? We have one or two rather good paintings in the galleries upstairs.”

  “I’d love to see them,” she agreed immediately. “It would be a relief to act like a tourist for a change.”

  Approximately eighty-five minutes later, Conor wa
s sequestered with Sonia in a tiny room adjacent to the Concert Hall. It was a crimson-walled space that had once served as a family chapel, unfurnished except for two chairs brought in for their comfort. The events director for Lobkowicz Palace—a severely efficient woman whose sturdy black pumps braced a heavy stride—had placed them in this backstage area when the audience members had begun arriving. At the time, she’d acted breezy and self-assured, but now she was turning her elegant necklace into a string of worry beads. Conor watched her twist and rub at the pearls, which seemed in real danger of breaking and scattering, while she explained her predicament.

  Close to one hundred invited guests were seated in the Concert Hall. Champagne and light refreshments were being prepared in the ornate Balcony Room for the post-performance reception, but the program’s master of ceremonies was nowhere to be found. With five minutes to go, the Minister of Culture had not yet arrived.

  Conor and Sonia exchanged a startled glance but offered only vague words of sympathy. When the events director marched out to make one last search through the hallways, Conor held the door open a crack and peered into the Concert Hall. Seeing Kate in the front row with Lukas and Eckhard, he motioned for all three to join them.

  “They’re not here,” Kate said, coming in first.

  “We heard.” Conor closed the door when they were all gathered, and after a brief silence Eckhard ventured a question.

  “You saw the Labuts before you left to come here?”

  “We saw Martin,” Conor said. “I told him we were coming over early, and he said they’d be along in another hour, which means they should have arrived a half-hour ago.”

  “I’ll call the house.” Sonia plucked her phone from the handbag next to her chair and went to stand near the window.

  “Could be he thinks it’s too big a risk,” Lukas said. “Look at it from his perspective and what he’s expecting to happen here. Within a twenty-four-hour period, he’s on the scene of two separate shootings, both of them the result of a hit job he set up himself. Maybe he decided it would be better to stay away from the place.”