Through Every Human Heart Read online

  . . . she heard whimpering, the sounds of a small, hurt animal. Then she understood that she was the one making the sounds, that she was on her back on a steep tile roof, that the blueness filling her eyes was sky, that if she moved the slightest fraction she was going to come apart and be concertina’d into a heap of bones on the gravel below.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Someone was talking somewhere. The world beyond her tightly-shut eyes was bright with shining points of light, then went darker. There was a weight on top of her, over her face. She couldn’t breathe. It shifted. She screamed, or tried to. No sound emerged from her mouth. More weight, across her middle. Then a voice right in her ear, telling her to be still. When she opened her eyes, Feliks’s face was inches from her. She could smell his sweat. His beard was touching her forehead.

  ‘I have you. Don’t move.’

  He said it again. A strange high, mewing noise came out of her.

  ‘Put your arm around my neck. All the way round.’

  She couldn’t. Her arms were rigid at her sides, fingers pasted to the burning roof tiles.

  ‘Listen to me. I have a secure place. I’m not going to fall. If you hold onto me, you will be all right. Do it now.’

  She found his neck, embedded her fingers in it.

  ‘Now, the other hand.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. You can do this.’

  But she couldn’t. Not till his hand was on hers, prising it off like a starfish, finger by finger, then placing it over his shoulder to meet and clutch the first hand. At least the high whimpering sound had stopped . . .

  Now they were moving slowly, her body beneath his, the tiles scraping her back, and the back of her head, but they were moving, sideways, and all the time he was talking, telling her all was well, she was safe, all would be well . . .

  When she could open her eyes, she was standing upright facing a stone wall. Light all around her. So she was outside. He was behind her, supporting her, his arms locked around her. They were, she realised, on the second tower, separated from its twin by about twenty feet of steeply sloping roof. She had evidently fallen on this. Somehow he had reached her and covered her, moved the two of them sideways to safety. If she had fallen more to the right . . .

  ‘Miss MacLeod!’

  She looked towards the voice.

  ‘Stay where you are, please.’

  It was a man she didn’t recognise, standing across from them on the ledge of the upper tower.

  ‘She is not hurt!’ Feliks called to him. ‘I’ll bring her down.’

  He more or less carried her across a landing to a stairwell. They stood for a while, then she managed a few steps down, with him going backwards, holding her by both arms.

  ‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘You can’t go down. I think he’s a policeman.’

  ‘Yes, I believe so. It’s all right.’

  ‘But you can’t let them get you.’

  ‘Unless we can quickly grow wings, I think we have not much choice.’

  ‘But what . . . what am I going to say to them?’

  ‘Whatever pleases you. The truth.’

  Her left foot went sideways. He steadied her.

  ‘Whatever they ask you, you must tell them,’ he said, guiding her onto the next step, and the next. ‘There’s one thing I’m curious about. Who is that man, whose eyes are bluer even than Lazslo? Why was he there with you?’

  She stopped. ‘He was in Irene’s flat when I got there. I don’t know him. And I don’t think Irene knows him either.’

  The sound of voices rumbled up from below. From here on down the steps became wider. There was a metal handrail. Feliks kept her other hand, turning to face the way down, finally letting her go. She hesitated for a few moments, pushing her hair behind her ears, trying to dust her brand new shirt front, trying to straighten her skirt, but it hurt her hands too much.

  The entrance hall was full of people. Feliks was being talked to by the man who had shouted at them. There were men in police uniform, and a stout woman in plain clothes, and the custodian and another policeman trying to get a couple of ordinary people not to come in. I need to sit down, Dina told herself. I need to lie down, really. Abruptly there was the stout woman holding her by the arm, saying her name. Out of the blur, someone offered her water in a bottle, which she drank greedily. They were all being ushered out into the courtyard. She tried to see where Feliks was, but the detective woman held onto her, which was annoying. The water was so beautiful. She’d forgotten cold water could taste so good. She could see it running down her throat like a long silver line . . .

  ‘Can I sit down, please,’ she said.

  ‘Just a moment.’

  ‘I need to sit down.’

  Her legs felt like jelly. So ignoring them all, she sat down on the grass. She put her head between her knees as they’d been taught to. It helped a little.

  ‘Where’s the Arbanisi woman?’ the stout woman asked, bending down to her. ‘Where is she? Is she inside?’

  Dina raised her head. The custodian lady was standing on the path, talking to a dark-haired man in a navy sweater. They were both watching her. And there was Feliks, not so far away.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

  Feliks called to her, ‘Have you seen Lazslo?’

  ‘He wasn’t here when I came out with Irene.’

  ‘What’s that?’ the woman asked sharply. ‘Was she here? Who is this Lazslo?’

  ‘Something is wrong,’ Feliks called again. ‘He wouldn’t leave without me. And the car is still there.’

  He was right. Dina’s hand went to her skirt and felt the keys. She looked round for the blond man, but he was missing too. And no Irene. What was happening? Had aliens beamed everyone up?

  The male detective barked instructions at the uniformed officers, who scattered. He took over from the woman. He steered Dina by the elbow a little further away from Feliks and the policeman beside him. He drew her to her feet. His fingers were hard, like steel pincers, right on the places that were already sore . . .

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Calm down. Nobody’s going anywhere . . .’

  Which was, she thought, a ridiculous thing to say, since everybody had already disappeared off the face of the earth . . .

  ‘This is going to be a lot easier if you just relax. You don’t need to talk to that guy over there, he’s doing his own thing, he’s not in any trouble. I’m the one here with you. Anything you want to talk about, talk to me.’

  She didn’t want to talk to him at all, with his bony fingers and bad breath. She wanted Feliks. He looked so miserable. All she could think was that Lazslo and Irene and the man called Charles had all gone off together, had abandoned him, abandoned them both, Irene with her head full of the stupid emerald, and Charles because he knew he was in trouble, and Lazslo because . . . oh, because he’d just had enough. It wasn’t fair. Everyone could run away except her . . .

  ‘Are you arresting him? He hasn’t done anything. It was that other man . . .’

  ‘Of course it was. No, stay with me, petal. No one’s being arrested. We’d just like to clear up some stuff. You’re in quite a lot of bother, you know. There’s a man dead, and we know you were there. You need to answer a few questions for me.’

  Later she wondered if it was the word ‘petal’ that did it, more than fear, mention of a dead man, or the shock of being accused, or the smell of him and the pain in her elbows. She pulled herself free and was running before he could stop her. She keyed the doors and jumped into the car. Suddenly Feliks was falling in at the other side, trying to wrestle the key from her hand, but already it was in the ignition, and the engine roared into life. Someone thumped on the bonnet. She jammed the car into reverse, then catapulted forward, too close to the wire mesh fence on one side, doing dreadful grinding damage to the paintwork, and the engine roaring, revving in too high a gear, out into the approach road, and Feliks clinging to the inside roof and the seat, his door open. A
t the main road, without even looking, she swung left, changed gear and floored the accelerator. The passenger door fell shut as she swerved. From somewhere behind them came a squeal of brakes and a loud bang, but she didn’t look back.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘Stop the car,’ Feliks yelled, above the engine roar and the sound of car horns beside and behind, and the persistent dinging sound that told them no one was wearing belts.

  ‘No.’

  ‘We have to. This is pointless.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  But to his relief she lessened speed.

  He looked back. ‘They don’t follow us. At least we should talk. Please.’

  At last she eased her foot from the accelerator, enough to turn off into what looked like a disused depot of some kind. Red brick buildings with broken windows, long purple weeds sprouting from the roofs, thin grasses growing through cracks in the concrete. Corrugated fencing. No sign of life.

  ‘Drive over there behind those buildings,’ he told her.

  When they stopped, he got out, walked a few paces away from the car, and sat down against a wooden fence. His heart was still thumping. His neck was sore where her nails had dug into it, and his body was now telling him in how many places the blond man’s fists had landed successfully. Nowhere to hide here, when the police came.

  Try, though. Walk away.

  Sure. I’ll do that. Once I start breathing normally.

  Let her do the explaining. Let them question her.

  It wouldn’t go that way. He saw himself, as in a line of reflecting mirrors, being quizzed by a succession of faceless men, his own face growing smaller and fainter in the distance until he dwindled into nothing. He would be lost. His friends, for whose sake alone he had agreed to do this, would be lost. It would all have been for nothing.

  What had possessed her? She could have killed them both. She was staring straight ahead through the windscreen. Her face was ghostly pale, streaked where tears had run through the dusty marks. He saw her fall again, felt the shock, and the heat of her body beneath him, the terror in her eyes, and how tightly she’d clung to him once they began to move towards the ledge and safety.

  He got up and walked slowly back to the car.

  He opened the driver’s door. ‘What possessed you?’

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘You could have killed us both. You are crazy,’ he told her.

  ‘And you’re normal.’

  He dropped his head on to his arm on the door frame, forcing himself not to swear.

  ‘All you had to do was tell them what happened. Did you think I would deny it?’

  Still she stared into space.

  He didn’t understand. She had done nothing wrong. Why didn’t she want to talk to the police?

  There was a half-full bottle of water at her feet. He reached in for it and drank till it was almost gone, pouring the last inch over his head and face. He flung it at the fence, startling a bird perched high and safe on the telegraph wire. Still no sign of police cars on the main road. Why had she wanted to run? Was it possible that she’d lied to him, that she did know the man in the suit? What had been going on in Miss Arbanisi’s house?

  He tried again. ‘I will not tell them what you were doing. That’s your business. Although perhaps you would be best to tell her yourself, even if your friend isn’t pleased.’ And who was he to judge in any case?

  She looked up at him.

  ‘I don’t have to know, Miss MacLeod. I’m not interested in what games you three were playing, why you were screaming . . .’

  ‘I screamed because of Bebe.’

  ‘Who is Bebe?’

  ‘Irene’s cat. I stood on him.’ She put her hands over her face. ‘I don’t know why. He said a man was killed. I can’t do this anymore.’

  She was sobbing properly, her shoulders heaving.

  His brain felt as if it had been dropped, dismantled and badly put back together. Who’d been killed? The one with the knife wound? Who was this blond man if he wasn’t known to either woman? What did he want with Miss Arbanisi? An intense weariness spread through him, as if the earth’s gravity had suddenly trebled. He dropped back into the passenger seat.

  ‘If you don’t believe me, ask Irene,’ she said, in a whisper.

  It was an excellent plan, if he’d known where Irene was. But he didn’t. In time, the police would find her too. He would tell the police as much as he could, and let them do the rest.

  They sat in silence for a long time. Beyond the rim of the yard, large birds, crows perhaps, were circling brokenly above a huddle of trees, wheeling and falling like torn pieces of black paper above a bonfire. And still the police didn’t come.

  She spoke first. ‘Was it true, all that stuff you told Irene? The ring and everything?’

  He nodded. Did they shoot crows to avert bad luck in this country?

  ‘So you’re really here from your government?’

  It was an excellent question. Strange that he’d not thought of it in those terms at all.

  ‘So you can go to your Embassy. They’ll talk to the police for you and . . .’

  ‘It’s not that easy.’

  ‘But it would be. That’s what Embassies are for. My friend Sophie lost her passport in Turkey and they were really nice to her, even though she’d just lost it, not had it stolen and they . . .’

  How very simple her world was.

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘I understand enough. I understand you’d rather faff around like a headless chicken feeling miserable than actually do something.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  ‘What exactly are we doing?’ Irene said.

  He didn’t answer.

  She couldn’t believe how easily persuaded she’d been, allowing him to take the driver’s seat so that she could lie back for a little in the passenger one because she ‘looked upset’. Well, she was well and truly upset now. She’d expected an apology, some kind of explanation. Instead, the moment her eyes closed he’d turned the key, letting the powerful engine move them quietly down the lane away from the newly arrived police cars and everyone else towards the open road.

  ‘Trust me,’ he’d said, ‘I’ll explain in a moment.’

  A great many moments had now come and gone. She didn’t feel they had done something criminal exactly, but she suspected the police would not be best pleased. Most of all she disliked his assumption that he was in control. Perhaps that was what Dina found attractive in him, but she certainly didn’t.

  ‘D’you hear me? Stop the car now.’

  ‘I’d rather not, but feel free to ask me anything else.’

  His voice was so untroubled, so bloody carefree, she felt as if she was biting into candyfloss.

  ‘What’re you doing?’ he glanced at her.

  She was unzipping her bag. ‘I’m phoning the police.’

  ‘No, not now,’ he stopped her with his left hand, grasped the bag and dropped it into the back of the car.

  She was so angry she couldn’t speak. Who the hell did he think he was?

  ‘Is this the way you always handle a crisis? Dina’s upset and confused, and you’ve just made everything worse.’ He tried to talk over her protests, but she was having none of it. ‘You should have been comforting her instead of going after that foreign man. I knew she’d be all right. He told me that, twice. But then you jump in, and start behaving like the playground bully. That man was merely trying to explain . . .’

  ‘Your secretary has nothing to do with any of this. I met her yesterday for the first time.’

  ‘But you said . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry. No, just listen to me. This is complicated, so you’ll have to bear with me.’ They were approaching a speed camera. He glanced at the speedometer and slowed. ‘I met Dina at your house yesterday. My colleague and I were there, dear lady, to protect you, to prevent you from being kidnapped.’

  ‘Kidnapped?’

  ‘We were waiting for
them, but her unexpected arrival messed everything up. My priority remains the same, so I’m not going to stop until we’ve put a little more distance between us. All right?’

  Did the foreign man really want to kidnap her? She sat back into her seat. Was this possible?

  ‘You’re a very important person, Miss Arbanisi.’

  The great emerald sparkled at her, the only constant light in the present confusion.

  ‘But he gave me this. It’s the Sisi emerald.’

  ‘It certainly is. He’d have taken it back from you soon enough. I’m sure you know your Macbeth, Miss Arbanisi. Sometimes to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths.’

  ‘If you’re not a friend of Dina’s, who are you?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, not just yet. You’ll have to trust me. But I assure you, I’m not her boyfriend. Men in my line of work aren’t good boyfriend material, I’m afraid. I had to say something when I was trying to find out what had happened to her. And I had to have some powerful justification for wanting to come here with you, when you said you’d been told to come alone. She’s a nice girl, I’m sure, but not exactly my type.’

  ‘Well I’m not having the police chase me halfway across the country. Turn the car round.’

  ‘You’re not thinking clearly.’

  ‘I’m thinking very clearly. Turn round please.’ She didn’t care whether Dina was his type or not. She’d lost patience. All this about-turning and confusion and nonsense, she’d had more than enough.

  He pulled off the road into the first convenient place, a tractor entry into a field, and switched off the engine.

  ‘Miss Arbanisi,’ he paused for a moment, as if he was considering exactly what to say, ‘let me elaborate. First of all, this conversation isn’t happening. You asked who I was. The short answer is, I don’t exist. And I work for people who don’t like it to be known that they exist either.’