Scorpion Trail

by Geoffrey Archer

  ‘Why don’t we order some food,’ he suggested quickly. ‘Then we can start this conversation all over again.’

  Lorna dabbed at her hair with her finger tips as she looked up at the blackboard. She was still at war, but the battle was inside her own head.

  She chose the soup and a spinach and goat’s cheese lasagna. Alex went for the same. The waiter moved off.

  ‘So . . .’ Alex said, fumbling for a place to begin. He pulled out his cigarettes, then remembered he’d reserved a non-smoking table for her sake. He put them back in his pocket.

  ‘So . . .?’

  He took a deep breath.

  ‘Would it help if I said “sorry” for what happened in Belfast? Like an official apology?’

  She chewed her lip. She felt as if she were caught in quicksand.

  ‘I don’t know whether it’ll help. But I guess it’s nice to hear you say it. If you mean it,’ she added a little too pathetically.

  She’d been through a lot, he could see it clearly sitting across the table from her like this. She wore the vulnerability of someone not sure where the next punch was coming from.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he suggested, ‘why don’t we pretend we’ve never met before?’

  Her look said ‘you have to be kidding’.

  ‘Hi. My name’s Alex Crawford,’ he began, smiling theatrically.

  There was a gleam in his eye which made Lorna suspect this was a game she was not going to enjoy.

  ‘I’m aged . . . oh, somewhere in the middle of life,’ he continued. ‘I was born Alex Jarvis, but it’s been Crawford for twenty years, for reasons beyond my control. I’ve been married for eighteen of those years. We’ve lived in Scotland.’

  At the revelation of a wife her eyelids flickered. A good sign, he decided.

  ‘Her name is Kirsty. She was a widow when I met her. She’d been married for just three years to her first husband, then he died in a climbing accident.’

  He took a deep breath.

  ‘Now it’s your turn.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m up to truth games,’ she told him huskily. ‘If that’s what this is?’

  ‘If you refuse to play, it means I have the right to ask you questions,’ he pressed.

  The waiter thumped soup bowls in front of them.

  ‘Okay. So what d’you want me to say?’ she boxed, desperate for him to reveal more than she did.

  ‘Tell me about Mister Sorensen.’

  ‘Oh, that. Well . . . after I got back from Belfast twenty years ago, I found there were some nasty men who wanted to kill me? You know the sort of guys I mean? Well, they got paid some money to lay off, but I had to go hide someplace, like you. You may remember I was a qualified attorney already, and somebody fixed me a job at a practice in a small New England town called Shelburne Falls.’

  Alex saw anger flicker in her eyes. He guessed why. ‘Somebody’ would have been her father, the man whose influence she’d spent much of her life trying to escape.

  ‘And there I met a guy called Rees Sorensen, who was one of the partners in the firm where I worked. We got married. We lived in a white-painted, clapboard house with maple trees in the yard, and I had a daughter called Julie. Now you,’ she concluded. ‘Your turn again.’

  Too brief for him. Too sanitized.

  ‘Is Rees still around?’

  ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘Leastways, not around me. And that was cheating.’

  He smiled, but only for an instant. The hard part lay ahead. It felt like walking into a tunnel not knowing what time the next train was due.

  ‘Well . . . what else shall I tell you?’ he swallowed. ‘Um . . . Kirsty, she had a child, by her first husband. A boy . . . called Jodie. And I helped her bring him up. He was a lovely lad. I thought of him as my son. Unfortunately, a few weeks ago, he was killed . . . There was an accident – his first parachute jump. His mother believed it was my fault for letting him do it, so she turned her back on me . . . Which is one reason I ended up in Bosnia.’

  Lorna swallowed. She could see it was no trick this time. The pain in his eyes reached out like floodwater.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she heard herself say.

  She’d wanted him to be punished, and now she knew he had been, but in a way more devastating than she could ever have wished.

  ‘Now you,’ he insisted. He wanted to know everything, to lay the whole past out in the open, so they could put it behind them.

  She dipped into her soup, not ready to say more.

  ‘You still love Kirsty?’ she pressed.

  ‘Now who’s cheating . . .’ He took a deep breath. ‘The answer’s yes, but there’s love and love, isn’t there. Kirsty and I just happened to need what each other could give . . . at the time we met.’

  It had sounded callous, but he could see she knew only too well what he meant.

  ‘Tell me about Julie.’ He saw a cloud pass over her eyes.

  Lorna felt she was fighting for breath. In the past she’d blamed him for all the disasters in her life, but she couldn’t any more. Not now she knew what he himself had been through. She bit her lip and steeled herself.

  ‘Julie’s thirteen. She’s autistic – can’t relate to anybody. I gave up my job to look after her and managed it until the beginning of last year, but it was real hard. She was like a . . . some sort of porcelain figure under a glass dome, you know? I could look at her, I could touch the glass, but I couldn’t reach her.’

  She chewed her lip again.

  Julie never learned to talk. A couple of years back she began to develop, physically. All the same feelings as a normal kid in puberty, but didn’t know what to do with them. She got so moody and hollered all the time, I couldn’t handle it any more. Rees – he wasn’t Julie’s real father, but that didn’t matter to him – well, he decided to put her in a home for the handicapped.’

  She grimaced, close to tears.

  ‘It broke me up. It broke us up too. Rees and I split.’

  Alex expelled the breath he’d been holding. Strange parallels in their lives.

  ‘That’s terrible. I’m so sorry. She’s still in the home?’

  ‘Oh yes. As happy as she’ll ever be.’ Her fingers twisted and untwisted the gold chain round her neck. ‘I always carry around with me a few things that were hers. Like this chain. And her passport. That’s why I had it with me in Bosnia.’

  ‘I wondered.’

  Suddenly she sat up straight and folded her arms.

  ‘You know something?’ she remarked. ‘This is a pretty heavy conversation for people who’ve only just met. You treat all your women like this?’

  ‘No. Only the vegetarians.’

  She laughed. Inside, she was smiling.

  2.05 p.m.

  South of Frankfurt

  Milan Pravic had the map spread across his knees and told Gisela to take the next turning from the Autobahn. Pfefferheim was just a few kilometres away.

  ‘What do we do when we get there, Milanchen?’ Gisela asked for the third time. ‘I’m really tired, I tell you.’

  Still no answer. He was looking for signposts.

  Gisela was certain of one thing – whatever Pravic had in mind to do in Pfefferheim it was evil. Somebody was going to get hurt.

  For the last two hours it had been raining. Pools of water lay in the uneven side road as they drove through pinewoods towards the village.

  ‘Stop! Stop here,’ Pravic barked suddenly. He pointed to the right, where a muddy track led to a clearing in the trees. Gisela swung the wheel and they bounced to a halt.

  ‘Why’re we stopping?’ she asked, irrationally fearing he’d decided to kill her.

  ‘Further a little. Away from the road . . .’ he gestured. Her fears grew.

  ‘Why, Milan? What for?’ she wailed.

  ‘Here. Here is okay.’

  Gisela looked over her shoulder. They were invisible from the road. Pravic got out and walked to a point where the ground was particularly soft. He dug his fingers into t
he earth and returned with a handful of dirt. Then he crouched down at the front of the car, smeared some onto the number plate, then took the rest to the rear to repeat the process.

  He stood back and inspected his work. Satisfied, he wiped his hands on the grass, and got back into the car.

  A few minutes later they passed the sign marking the village boundary.

  ‘Mühlweg,’ Pavic announced. ‘Ask someone where it is.’

  ‘Going to see someone there?’ Gisela pressed. ‘Some friend of yours?’ She felt close to hysteria.

  Again, no answer.

  They were entering the centre of the village – half-timbered houses, a church, a small shop selling bread and groceries, and a telephone kiosk.

  ‘Stop,’ he growled, pointing to the right. He’d spotted a map of the village mounted in a timber-framed glass case beside the church.

  He got out and studied it.

  A voice niggled inside Gisela’s head, a voice urging her to run, to jam her foot down and drive off, leaving him there without the sports bag which he’d nursed throughout the journey as if his life depended on it.

  She depressed the clutch and engaged first gear. Pravic heard the crunch and looked round with stiletto eyes. She slipped it back into neutral. Couldn’t do it. Hadn’t the guts. If she left him now, he’d chase her to the end of the earth to get his revenge.

  Revenge. That was the fire that burned inside him, the fire she’d never dared probe.

  He got back in and closed the door.

  ‘Two turnings on the right,’ he told her, and waved his hand to show they should move on.

  ‘Second on the right?’ she checked.

  ‘Mmm.’

  There was nobody about. Never was on a Sunday afternoon in these dormitory villages. All at home watching television or sleeping off their lunch.

  Gisela turned the car where Milan had said. New houses here, VWs and Opels parked on driveways.

  ‘Left here.’

  She obeyed, driving slowly. Two children on bicycles careered past on the pavement, wrapped up in anoraks against the rain.

  ‘Now right.’

  Mühlweg. She read the sign on a post at the junction.

  ‘What number?’ she asked.

  ‘Just drive. I look.’

  The road sloped upwards. About a dozen houses, then it curved to the right. Larger homes now, with garages. She motored slowly past them. Pravic suddenly craned his head round. The house he was looking at had its garage door open and a Vectra parked inside.

  The road brought them round in a circle, back to the junction with the sign.

  ‘And now?’ she asked.

  ‘Again up the road, but not far. I tell you when.’

  Up the gentle rise, the curve to the right and the bigger homes . . .

  ‘Here. Stop. Switch off engine.’

  She did as she was told. They’d parked beside a plot that had not been built on yet. She looked up the road ahead. Three houses down was the one with its garage door open.

  3.46 p.m.

  Pfefferheim

  Lorna turned the Land Cruiser into Mühlweg and as she rounded the bend at the top of the slope pulled out to avoid a VW parked by the curb. Alex noticed it was a woman behind the wheel of the Polo.

  He felt wrung out after the catharsis of their lunch.

  ‘Nice houses around here,’ Lorna remarked. ‘Similar to what Americans have at home. I guess that’s why they’re popular with USAF families. Say, I wonder if Vildana’ll be surprised to see you? Or maybe she thinks we’re all part of her new, extended family.’

  ‘It’ll be great to see her again. She’s a sweet kid.’

  It had been Lorna’s idea that he should come out to meet the Roches. He was delighted, particularly since it meant they would be together.

  ‘Here we are.’ She stopped the Toyota on the drive in front of the garage doors.

  Irwin Roche appeared in the porch, grinning.

  ‘Hi. You’re back. And it’s stopped raining. Oh, hi to you too, sir,’ he added, seeing Alex for the first time.

  ‘This is Alex Crawford,’ Lorna announced. ‘He’s the guy who smuggled Vildana out of Bosnia in the back of his truck. You remember I told you?’

  ‘I certainly do. Let me shake your hand, sir. That must’ve been some hair-raising drive.’ He looked at Alex with something like awe. ‘So, I guess it’s you I have to thank for our beautiful new daughter . . .’ he added, laughing.

  ‘How’s she doing?’ Alex asked.

  ‘Great. Just great. Ella’s going to take her for a bike ride when the rain stops – which I do believe it has!’ He held his hand out flat, then turned back into the house, shouting for his daughter to come out with Vildana.

  ‘Nice guy,’ Alex whispered to Lorna.

  ‘Nice family,’ she replied.

  Within seconds they’d all bustled out of the house into the front yard, with Irwin pulling his wife by the arm so he could introduce her to Alex.

  ‘Hey, Vildana,’ Lorna shouted, as she ran past with the twins, chased by Nataša. The girl stopped at the sound of her name and looked back. All self-consciousness about the strawberry mark on her face had evaporated.

  ‘Look who’s here!’

  Fifty metres down the road the engine started in the Volkswagen. In the hubbub of bicycles being retrieved from the garage, no one heard it.

  ‘It’s Alex!’

  A smile spread shyly across Vildana’s face as she recognized him. Alex gave her a hug.

  ‘Good to see you,’ he grinned. Nataša translated.

  Vildana grabbed hold of a pair of handlebars that had been thrust at her, then she and Ella wheeled their bicycles out to the road.

  ‘Watch out for that car,’ Nancy shouted.

  Alex glanced up. A muddy, white Polo creeping towards them. Just a car, yet something about its slowness made it menacing.

  Suddenly bells rang in his head. The woman driver was dithering like a kerb-crawler – why? Her male passenger stared like a snake at the girls wobbling on their saddles – why?

  His limbs tensed. The man’s eyes – the eyes of a killer . . .

  He leapt forward, but too late. A fist snaked from the car window like a cobra’s head, gripping a cold, grey automatic.

  Two sharp cracks. The weapon kicked twice. Vildana’s bicycle clattered to the tarmac. Alex ran towards the car, which tore off with a squeal of tyres. For a micro-second the gunman’s eyes met Alex’s. Then the car was gone. As it turned the corner of the road, a woman’s scream shrilled through the open window. Alex stopped.

  Gisela heard the scream, unaware it was from her own throat.

  ‘Go! Quick, quick!’ Pravic yelled, yanking the handle to close the window. ‘And shut up woman!’ He hit her on the shoulder with the pistol.

  Shaking with shock, Gisela accelerated out of Mühlweg, back through the centre of the village.

  ‘You . . . you . . .’ she babbled, sobbing, ‘Milan, you shot a girl! That girl on the bike . . . Why? What you do that for, eh? Tell me! Tell me!’

  ‘Shut up!’ He scrabbled with the map, trying to work out the way back to Frankfurt as his mind played back what he’d seen. He’d hit her. Yes. Killed her? Didn’t know. Aimed for the heart, but the girl had turned.

  ‘Why?’ she screamed at him. ‘Tell me why!’

  Irwin Roche sprinted to where Vildana had fallen. The girl’s legs were twitching with shock.

  ‘Vildana! Oh my God, what’s happened?’ Lorna hollered. The twins began to scream.

  ‘She’s been shot,’ Alex mouthed. ‘They’ve bloody well shot her!’

  ‘No . . .’ moaned Nancy Roche, arms hanging limply by her sides.

  Roche knelt on the ground, pressing on Vildana’s shoulder.

  ‘Scott!’ he ordered calmly, ‘get that T-shirt off and bring it here fast.’ The child began to obey.

  Alex dropped down beside him. Vildana whimpered like a wounded animal.

  ‘Jesus!’ he gasped, seeing the
blood oozing from under Roche’s fingers.

  ‘Somebody call an ambulance,’ the colonel shouted.

  His wife dived back into the house. Nataša began to cry.

  ‘Hit in the pectoral,’ Roche said to Alex out of the side of his mouth. ‘I wasn’t watching. I thought it was a backfire. Where’s that T-shirt son?’

  The boy dropped it in front of him then backed away, colour draining from his face at the sight of all the blood.

  ‘You’ve got to fold that into a dressing, right?’ Roche told Alex. ‘Then press it onto the wound. Can you do that?’

  ‘Sure,’ he answered, grateful that Roche had taken charge.

  ‘We’ve got to stop the haemorrhage, so press hard.’

  The girl moaned with pain.

  ‘Sorry,’ Alex winced, fearful of pressing too hard. ‘Feels like something’s broken in there.’

  ‘Probably a rib. But keep pressing while I see if she’s hit anywhere else.’

  Alex felt the girl’s body quiver, saw her eyelids flutter as she teetered on the edge of unconsciousness. Behind him he heard Ella and the Bosnian girl comforting each other.

  Roche gently probed Vildana’s chest and stomach, then ran his hands down her legs.

  ‘Seems okay,’ he said half to himself. ‘Nataša!’ he called. ‘Get over here and talk to her, will you? Tell her she’s going to be okay.’

  Nataša didn’t move.

  ‘Nataša? Come on, honey,’ he repeated soothingly.

  The girl kneeled beside them, but turned her head away.

  ‘She’ll be okay, I mean it,’ Roche said, touching her on the knee. ‘It’s just a flesh wound. So quit that crying, for her sake, okay? You have to calm her. And somebody go in the house and get Nancy to find a blanket.’

  Lorna hurried inside and reappeared with the one she’d used on the sofa last night.

  ‘Alex,’ she murmured breathlessly, her lips close to his ear, ‘do you think that was . . .’

  ‘Pravic?’ he breathed. ‘Can’t be. Not here. You think?’

  ‘But who else for Pete’s sake?’

  ‘You two know something?’ Roche demanded. ‘Hey, don’t let up the pressure on that dressing,’ he added.

  Alex pushed down again.