Through Every Human Heart Read online

  ‘Thanks for nothing,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, don’t be grumpy, Frank. It doesn’t suit you. We’re still digging. Stay there and I’ll call back as soon as.’

  Before very long the phone rang again. The signal was loud and clear, they told him. His car was stationary. He noted the co-ordinates. This encouraged him greatly. Of course there was the possibility that Berisovic and his companion had found another vehicle or were travelling on foot, but he liked to think that they’d merely stopped for the night.

  The young doctor again suggested hospital, but Frank declined. Then he offered a bed, which Frank accepted. Exactly how much pain relief had the doctor given him? He certainly wasn’t fit to ride a bike in darkness.

  ‘You wouldn’t have an Ordnance Survey map I could borrow?’ he said. They could be in a hotel, or an empty cowshed. They could be with aliens in a flying saucer for all he knew, but it was more likely they were simply sleeping in a lay-by. The map was produced. He circled the spot. It was always good to know where you were going even if you didn’t know what was waiting for you there.

  He checked for anxiety and oddly it wasn’t there. The medication probably.

  As soon as his head went down on the pillow, he began to slip away off into a strangely contented darkness. One thing would lead to another. Cristescu had died with the tracker from Miss Arbanisi’s car in his jacket pocket, for reasons unknown, but find Berisovic and he’d surely be a step closer to finding her, Pain woke him before five. He swallowed two of the capsules beside the bed before getting up. He got dressed without washing.

  The doctor, in pyjamas, came down the stairs as Frank opened the front door. It looked like being a sunny day.

  ‘Let me change the dressing.’

  Frank shook his head.

  ‘At least you should eat something. I wish you wouldn’t do this,’

  ‘I wish I didn’t have to. The phone didn’t ring through the night, did it?’

  ‘No. Look, you should have something in your stomach . . .’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘In my professional opinion, you’re an idiot,’ the young man scratched his head. ‘And you’re breaking the law, on that thing without a helmet.’

  ‘Believe me, I break the law all the time.’ Frank got astride the bike, not without crying out. The pain went right through him, right to his teeth and beyond.

  ‘Don’t overdo those pills I gave you. And don’t mix them with anything. Especially alcohol. I don’t want to be struck off.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘The fact is, I don’t want to read about you in tomorrow’s paper.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Frank called back, ‘It wouldn’t be in the newspaper.’

  Still, he rode with care. The cold air on his face helped. It seemed like a very long time since he’d tailed the two men from the airport to their rustic retreat, and to the Arbanisi woman’s flat the following morning. His bosses hadn’t anticipated trouble. ‘He’s the President’s son, estranged, he’s been off the grid for years.’ Where? They didn’t know. Apparently. Sometimes things were kept from people at various levels. Insurance, they called it. ‘We don’t think he’ll go looking for trouble, and the other one’s a lightweight, a civil servant of some kind.’ It looked like an odd pairing, a very strange choice for an undercover diplomatic mission – a son, out of favour, and a desk man, with no one along to protect them. He’d pointed this out, carefully, on more than one occasion, to more than one recipient, to cover himself by having it on record in more than one person’s files, but nobody had seemed bothered. So there it was, and there it would be, on record. A little insurance of his own. His misgivings and their decision to proceed, all waiting to be pointed out after the dust settled.

  He’d always been cautious, even when there was no double dealing involved. Bless their little slipper’d feet, they ought to have dug for more salient (their word) details from the very start, in wider, deeper circles. Bedlay or Bono or whatever his name was, nobody had anticipated him at all. Some of them were first-rate, but some weren’t so clever as they thought they were. Or maybe it was a lack of motivation. It was too much like a game for some of the young ones. They didn’t have responsibilities and bills to pay like his generation. He stopped on the crest of a hill, straightened the leg, circled his foot and relaxed it again. It felt a bit easier.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Charles let the car window down a fraction. It looked as if it was going to be a bright morning, from what he could see of the sky through the branches, though the air was cold. Condensation on the windows. He shivered. He was thirsty and hungry, but there was nothing to be done about that right away. He glanced in the mirror. Huddled in the back seat, Irene was still sleeping beneath her blanket, which struck him as little short of astonishing. Unless she’d died of shock. He listened very carefully, and was relieved to hear slight snoring sounds.

  ‘You look wonderful,’ he’d told her, when she came back from her prettifying session. ‘God, how do you do it?’ he’d added, after a suitable pause. ‘You’re still gorgeous, after all I’ve put you through.’

  It worked every time. The eyes softened, the head went just a fraction to one side, the hand went briefly to the hair. It was hilarious. She didn’t object to the cancellation of their walk along the shoreline, and they were several minutes on the road before it dawned on her that they were going north, not south. He’d thought for a moment or two, and when no plausible explanation came to mind, he’d decided to stop being a secret agent. It had been fun, but he was tired of it. She’d not been best pleased, but the first little flurries of disbelief, indignation, and anger had melted like snow in summer after a few hard slaps. Her collapse was so easy, it took him by surprise. No need for the knife. He’d taken the emerald ring off her finger without a cheep of protest. Who’d have thought?

  He got out to relieve himself, and when he turned round, she was awake. The inrush of cold air or the noise of the car door opening, he supposed. She wasn’t quite so lovely now. To be fair, he recalled, he’d had to slap her about quite a bit before she saw sense.

  ‘Sleep ok?’ he said, opening the passenger door.

  No answer. What was wrong with her? Where had the feistiness gone? If she stayed as submissive as this to the bitter end, it would be a bit of a let-down.

  ‘You brought this on yourself, Irene,’ he reminded her. ‘I trusted you, but you didn’t trust me. Now see where it’s got you.’

  ‘Please . . .’

  ‘Please what, my love? Please don’t hurt you? I’m not going to hurt you. I had to hurt you a little last night because you were being silly. But you’re not being silly anymore, are you?’

  She gave a tiny shake of the head.

  ‘Good girl. You see, I like to keep things simple. Life is meant to be simple, don’t you think? I wanted your nice stuff, but people kept getting in the way, and making everything confused, which just isn’t right. Even your stupid cat got under my feet. This is better, isn’t it? I wanted the ring, you gave me the ring. That makes me happy. And when Dina called last night, you had a little chat and she was happy too. And today we’re going to meet her and the foreign guy, and everybody’s going to be very happy. Well, not for very long, but some happiness in this life is better than none at all. God, I’m hungry. Are you hungry?’

  Her eyes told him nothing at all.

  ‘Well, that’s good. That’s a simple thing,’ he looked at his watch. ‘We’ll get out of this forest and find something to eat.’

  He had no idea what would happen next, but in his heart he knew it would be fine. The police might be around sooner or later, thanks to her foolish phone call at the hotel, which might make things merry. Once they were on the main road he’d rehearse some options. He’d always liked lists, and Mind Maps even more, where you could colour in circles and join them with curly or straight lines. He’d had a gold felt tip pen once, and a silver one, just for drawing lines. Where had they gone? Making l
ists was fun, but sometimes it was even more fun just to take what life gave you. Like Irene making her phone call and that fat dimwit of a receptionist dropping the message in his lap.

  Essentially, life was very much like driving. If you looked too far ahead all the time, you’d lose sight of the car in front, when it was that one that caused the danger. In just the same way, if you thought too much about the future, things got so complex you couldn’t live today. Of course you had to keep half an eye on the car behind, particularly if it was a police car, but not too much. Just half an eye. He never held grudges. He could still remember that prefect, Trevor, who’d reported him for stealing way back in his short trouser days. A word or two in his ear, and he’d been eager to retract his accusation. They’d got on well after that, with a constant supply of chocolate biscuits, Trevor’s father being the manager of a biscuit factory. Happy days.

  He reversed the car carefully down the track. It was narrow and the ruts were deep and the pine branches threatened to scratch the paintwork. ‘Put your seat belt on, my love,’ he reminded her. Money did grow on trees, no matter what anyone said. He didn’t want to take it from people, but it was just so easy. He glanced at her in the mirror. Possibly her collapse wasn’t so surprising. She lived in a bubble of vanity. One prick and she deflated. Nobody loved her anymore. He tried to imagine what that might feel like.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Feliks woke soon after dawn. There were no curtains in the attic bedroom. The window, set into the sloping roof, allowed no view of his surroundings, but the sky was clear. And the room was warm. She had switched on the heating the night before and turned it on full. He pulled the covers over his head and tried unsuccessfully to get back to sleep.

  He had slept naked. His underpants, socks and trousers on the radiator had thankfully dried enough to be wearable. He found his shirt and jacket next to the radiator in the bathroom on a wooden frame, very like the one from his childhood. He was reminded of how his mother had hung clothes over it in front of the stove, on winter mornings warming them item by item before he put them on. The shirt was ok but the jacket was still completely sodden. He turned it outside in and draped it back over the rail. His shoes beneath were still wet too.

  There were a few pairs of black rubber boots in the porch at the rear of the house, but none big enough for him. He took off the socks. Easier to go barefoot.

  He knew already that the front of the small house was separated from the road by a low stone wall, with no garden to speak of. At the back was a steep garden accessed by a flight of five stone steps. He liked that. It made the house seem to sit comfortably in its space as one might sit in an armchair. There were beds edged with stones, growing nothing but weeds, the paths between a mixture of bare earth, moss and broken tarred surfacing. He climbed over a low fence into a steeper grassy field. The grass was wet, misted with dew. Sheep marked with blue dye on their heavy fleeces stopped feeding to stare at him and bolted as he came closer. He stepped carefully to avoid their droppings. How fat and healthy-looking these animals were. Life was easy when you were too dumb to know there was a future, grew your own clothes and could chew your bed the whole day long.

  He scanned the long sweep of the bay. No shops at all. She’d said there was nothing to eat in her house, so they’d paused the previous evening at a supermarket, a large one, right beside the water. She’d gone to pay for the ticket. The car park was busy. Vans, a tour bus. A surprising number of small children running about freely with no parents around. Houses behind tall bushes on the other side of the road. Lots of traffic. He heard foreign voices. Hungarian he thought. He knew some Hungarian. The man was on his mobile, telling someone – a son or daughter – what time to come back, asking what they would eat, and what they wouldn’t. His wife was checking a map.

  When he hung up, Feliks got out of the car.

  ‘Excuse me, are you from Hungary?’ he asked in Hungarian.

  Smiles of pleasure. Where was he from? What was he doing here?

  ‘I’m working,’ he said, ‘It’s good money. You’re on holiday? The weather’s not so good for a holiday. Look, it’s cheek of me to ask, but could I make a quick call from your phone? I’ll pay you for it. It’s just a local call. Mine’s dead. Here’s my girlfriend coming. It’s for her, in fact. She needs to make a call. You can see how miserable she is.’

  They didn’t need to look twice to see he was telling the truth. And of course he could make a call. No question of payment. No, don’t be ridiculous.

  They passed the phone to Dina.

  ‘Call Irene,’ he told her.

  She dialled the number.

  So, had he been in the country long? What did he think of it? They were camping, with their son and daughter. The people were friendly but the English food was terrible.

  Absolutely, he agreed. He missed goulash and proper chicken soup. And Hortobagyi pancakes. There was a place in Budapest in a back street near the castle, he said, where they did wonderful pancakes, and the best peach palinka. Ah, yes, they thought they knew it. (Interesting, since he’d just made it up.) The place with the violinist who always played just slightly out of tune? Yes, he remembered that one. Just as well the tourists hadn’t found it yet or the prices would shoot through the roof.

  ‘Irene? Where are you? Are you all right?’ Dina’s voice interrupted the exchange of happy memories.

  Feliks couldn’t hear what Irene was saying. ‘Yes, on the island,’ Dina said. There was much more from Irene, to which Dina said, ‘Yes, of course.’ Then, ‘Park anywhere in the town square. It’s not far. That’s right. You’re sure he’s gone?’

  She handed the phone back to the woman, who talked to her in Hungarian.

  ‘She won’t understand you. She’s Scottish,’ he told them. ‘She lives here.’

  ‘Lucky man,’ the husband said, laughing. ‘Does she have a job too?’

  ‘Of course. Rich and beautiful. What more does a man need?’

  ‘Teenage children,’ the woman offered. Laughter and smiles all round. Perhaps we’ll see you again. Have a great holiday. Thank you so much. Yes, and take care on the roads. They don’t give you much space here. So, just like home really.

  ‘Well? Tell me,’ he said, when they’d gone.

  ‘It was Irene. She says she’s all right. She says she got rid of him.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘She said she told him one of the tyres felt soft, and he got out and she drove away without him. She wants to meet us tomorrow. You, I mean. She wants to meet you. I suggested a place.’

  ‘Did she sound like herself?’

  ‘She sounded tired, but she said she’s completely ok. She’s going to find a hotel and meet us tomorrow.’

  He let her believe it, though he didn’t. There were too many pieces missing, and he was certain a man like that wouldn’t be duped so easily. To persuade Dina otherwise right now seemed too cruel, like crushing a butterfly. She would work it out herself, given time. If they had time.

  ‘Why will she not come to your house?’

  She sighed. ‘That would have been better. I’ll phone her again when we get there. I’ve got tins, but as I said, there’s no fresh food. What would you like?’ she said. ‘Are you allowed to drink wine? Being a priest, I mean.’

  She had cooked pasta with a meat sauce. It was ready-made, and quick to heat. Then chocolate pastries, eclairs she called them. Cheese and biscuits, and a large bunch of red grapes, to have something healthy, she said. The pastries were good, but the grapes were very small and not particularly sweet. The wine was Italian. It went to his head very quickly which was intriguing considering how much alcohol he’d once been able to down without much effect.

  She had tried calling Irene again, but without success. Still believing that Irene was safe, she was cheerful, more so as the evening, and the wine, went on. Of course, she was in her own safe place. And of course, many momentous things were not mentioned. It seemed her mind had compartments. The burglars, the
fall from the tower, whether Lazslo was alive or dead, what had become of Frank, and the imminent possibility of being arrested had all apparently been assigned separate drawers in her memory, with the drawers pushed shut. And the kiss that so easily surfaced in his mind, had that disappeared from hers? They had sat in separate chairs on either side of the fire. The fire, he guessed, was for emotional comfort. The central heating had warmed the place up very quickly but the fire kept her occupied; watching the logs, moving and adjusting them. Her face relaxed, and she was pleased with herself when she had the wood burning just as she wanted.

  Her talk was mostly of her childhood and her grandparents, to whom the small house had belonged. About her parents she said less. Her father was dead, he learned, and her mother lived with a man in the south of Spain, but whether that had happened before or after the father’s death, he was not sure. He let her do most of the talking, in part because it was in fact interesting, but more because unlike her he couldn’t compartmentalise his mind. He wasn’t sure how much he could say about anything without slipping up and destroying her present happiness. When it was quite late she showed him the spare bed and went to her own.

  He’d gone back down to the sitting room, sitting there till the last embers turned black. Then he’d stepped out into the narrow front garden and the salted air. The night had become windy and he turned up his collar. But it was not cold, he thought, not yet. The winters here might be bad, so close to the ocean. But the house was made of stone, well-made, to withstand bad winters. He wondered how old it was. The wooden gate was rough beneath his fingers. It needed sanding and its hinges oiled.

  There were no street lights. Nor was there any sand on the shore beneath his feet, only shingle, then seaweed in waxy clumps, like strips of black rubber. There were no sounds except the rush and fall of the water, and the warm coursing wind. He stopped short of the water’s edge, took Frank’s gun from his pocket and flung it as far as he could into the waves.