by David Mark
‘Molly!’
She shakes the dust from her thoughts and focuses on the car that has pulled to a stop in the middle of the quiet side road. The driver has bleached blond hair. He is not looking at her. The voice comes from the far side of the vehicle. Karol is leaning across. His face is pale and his eyes dark.
‘She’s not there,’ says Molly, and her voice breaks. ‘I know she’s in danger, Karol, I know it …’
Molly thrusts her hands into her hair and grinds her teeth as she forces herself not to dissolve into panic. She focuses on his words. Hears him, over the sound of the city. His repeated plea to get in the car. She finds herself walking across the road towards the vehicle before she has even made up her mind to do as he asks. She has only a moment’s hesitation, hand upon the handle, one foot in the warmth of the vehicle. She pays the voice in her head no heed. It is the calling of her blood that she listens to. She drags herself inside and slumps into the back seat of the car. Karol immediately turns around. The driver does not even glance at her in the mirror. From where she sits, Molly can see that his jaw is locked tightly at the hinge. He is holding in anxiety, or temper. His whole body language screams with displeasure at the presence of the sodden, sobbing ex-cop in the back of his car.
‘I tried to shout you back,’ says Karol, urgently. ‘You got up and ran when the call came through.’
Molly is shaking her head, not really hearing him over the din of her thoughts.
‘Lottie has taken Hilda somewhere,’ she says, shrill and desperate. ‘She should be at the Bonnet. Or at home. Or here, with me. But I did this. Karol, I put her in this position. Tried to make life exciting and now look …’
‘Molly, stop all that.’ Karol’s voice is not unkind but there is no doubting the firmness of the command. ‘Molly. This is important. We know. We know, yes?’
Molly is pulling on her lower lip, squeezing it, misshaping it. She catches sight of her reflection in the dark window of the car and has to stop herself giggling as she notices that her lower lip looks exactly like a fortune cookie. She wants to show Hilda. And then she is wondering why her thoughts have taken her here. Wonders what she is doing here, in this strange car, with a man who steams the skin from those who displease his boss.
‘What do you know?’ she asks, as his words penetrate the fog. ‘Karol, where is she? Please.’
There is a low muttering in a language Molly recognises as Lithuanian. The driver is grumbling. Karol snaps at him. His gestures are aggressive. Molly senses there is more than tension between them. There is something akin to a battle for dominance. She can smell impending violence as surely as she can feel her daughter’s need for help. She wants to grab Karol by the hair and shake answers from him. Memories smash into her like a fist. She suddenly realizes how little of himself Karol has shared with her – how much his stilted accent has dropped to be replaced by near word-perfect English. She realizes that he is a lie.
‘The company that tested the skin cells,’ says Karol, quietly. ‘They have a match.’
Molly sits forward in her seat. She can smell him. Lager and cigarettes and sweat. She tries to force the chaos from her mind. She was a copper once. She caught a killer. She has done things with her life. She has achieved things. She is clever and creative and is not this feeble thing in a mess of terror and tears. She takes a breath. Thinks of all that has come before. Of Meda. Of the conversation with Karol, just minutes ago. Of the sudden realization that the person who took her daughter’s friend has targeted the girl who looks like her. That they have targeted Hilda. She glances out of the window and realizes they are heading away from the Bonnet. They are drifting towards Stepney. She suddenly understands and a wave of battling emotions floods her.
‘You’re going to tell him. To tell Steppen. Karol, it’s gone far enough. The police need to know. You can’t sort this all out. Not if he has her. What if Hilda is already there!’
Karol holds up a hand. ‘We are only here for Steppen. What he wants is as it must be. I do not make the code, Molly, but if I do not follow it then I have no code at all. And to be without code is to be like all weak men.’
Molly bites back tears. She needs to understand. Needs to shake all of Karol’s secrets from his skull and pick through them until she finds something that tells her that her daughter is safe.
‘Lottie has been trying to get in touch with this private collector of surgical antiques. The other day Hilda was on Lottie’s show. Tara says Lottie has taken Hilda with her for something to do with her web programme. What do you know? Do you know where she is …?’
Karol swears in his own language. He turns to his associate and bares his teeth, as if daring him to reprimand him. He spins back to Molly, looking grimly resigned.
‘The skin cells on Meda’s face have been analysed,’ he says, flatly. He looks at his phone, reading from a document on the screen. ‘The presence of plaster particles alongside the skin cells has led to speculation that a mask has recently been in place upon the victim’s face. These are speculated to be in the form of a “death mask” – a memento mori that immortalizes the visage of the deceased …’
Karol scowls and flicks onwards with his thumb, seemingly refusing to look again at Molly, whose hand has gone to her mouth. She is chewing on her index finger, trying not to shake.
‘… DNA extracted from the cells has been tested by specialist private sector company—’
‘Karol, please!’
‘There were no direct matches on the database but a familial match resulted in a hit. The cells are linked on the paternal side to a Domonkos Farkas. The sample was taken when Farkas was arrested four years ago for assaulting a doctor at a private medical facility in the Thames Valley Constabulary region …’
‘Who is he, Karol? Does he have her?’
Karol turns angry eyes on her. ‘Listen to me! His daughter had been receiving treatment there. The police report is clear. His daughter. Beatrix. Twelve years old. Tall. Big for her age. Suffering from acute myeloid leukaemia. She was dying. He wanted to take her home to die. Home for her final days. The doctor advised against it. Farkas lost his temper. Assaulted the doctor and two nurses. Police arrested him. No charges were brought because the doctor declined to cooperate further. Understood Farkas’s emotional state. Let it slide.’
Molly bites her lip. Says nothing. Hopes to God there will be more.
‘I’ve been looking him up, Molly. He was a university lecturer. A Ph-Fucking-D. Emeritus Professor of Health History. Published textbooks. Says on an old page at UCL that he was research supervisor on the history of the classical tradition in medicine, from antiquity to the present … Fuck, why am I telling you this shit? Look, his daughter got sick, yes? He couldn’t take it. She died and now he’s trying to – I don’t know – somehow make her alive again. It’s like fucking Frankenstein. But we know who he is. He owns different properties in London. Another overseas. Partner in a limited company set up to administer earnings from a side business concerned with the buying and selling of art and antiques. Partner, research student Selina Berry …’
‘Enough!’ The driver loses patience. Speaks in English, so Molly can hear how much he disagrees with his partner’s actions. ‘Fuck man, tell her everything, yeah? Scream it out the window too. What you think Steppen’s going to say?’
‘She won’t speak, I told you,’ hisses Karol. ‘She helped us. Keep your mouth shut and Steppen doesn’t need to know he was second in line.’
‘This from the man with the code, yeah? You’re sworn, Karol. He’s a fucking captain. He’s killed people for less than this. I’ve seen it! His own two hands. I took the face and fingertips myself, Karol. Dumped him in a suitcase in the Grand Union Canal. You’re getting her killed, Karol. It wasn’t bad enough to fuck her, no? Not bad enough to—’
Molly feels the vehicle lurch to the left as Karol lunges at the driver. She topples against the glass and bangs her head, crying out in pain. Eyes wide, she sees Karol pushing the driver�
��s face up against the window, shouting something she cannot make out, and then she is looking past him, at the rear of the blue van that grows suddenly huge as she opens her mouth and bellows a warning …
She hears tyres screech on the wet road; the crunch of metal on metal; of glass shattering and the incongruous whoomph of the airbag exploding.
Molly is thrown forward, head slamming into something solid, and she hears a crack and tastes iron and pewter and sees something black skewer directly through the centre of her vision like a lance and she is already blacking out as the smashed carcass of the vehicle comes to land on its side; sparks and terrible squeals emerging from its ruined shell as it grinds along the unyielding road.
There is silence for a moment. A silence filled with pain and bewilderment and a sense of being wrong way up then right way round, and then somebody is saying her name and a warm hand is holding hers and a nice policeman with a name like Barry or Scott is telling her that she is going to be OK.
Molly isn’t sure whether she imagines the voice. She is only halfway sure of where she is. She tries to move her arms but they seem to be pinned to her sides, and when she manoeuvres her head, the scene in front of her stays still. She half hears a voice she recognizes. She manages to inch her way left, and then she is looking into the dark eyes of Karol. Karol, who put them all in danger. Karol, who was on his way to see Steppen. To waste this information on revenge.
Hilda.
A gasp catches in Molly’s throat and when she swallows she tastes the iron flavour again. She coughs, trying to clear the blockage, and hears her own voice, feeble and distorted.
‘My daughter. He has my daughter!’
Karol is shaking his head. His eyes are softer now. He looks sad. His expression seems to ooze regret.
‘Don’t worry about this now, Molly. You’ve done so well. We’ve got him, do you understand? It will make sense, I promise.’
Molly feels firm hands tugging at her neck. Somebody is trying to put a tube into her throat. She swats with her hand and the movement pains her.
‘The man who took Meda?’ she gasps. ‘You have him?’
‘You will understand,’ urges Karol. ‘It was an operational decision. It was an opportunity. Anything unearthed in this investigation will be shared with the Major Incident Team when the investigation into the missing immigrants is given over to a particular team …’
‘The missing immigrants?’ gasps Molly. She is starting to understand. Through the pain, through the gathering darkness, she is putting it together. ‘Farkas?’
‘He’s a viable suspect,’ says Karol, lightly. ‘Steppen won’t get to him, either way. There’s time to build a case.’
‘My daughter. What about Hilda?’ She begins to thrash at the arms that hold her. She rolls left and tumbles with a painful thud on to the road. A woman in a yellow coat is bending over her, trying to help her back on to the stretcher, but she lashes left and right with arms that have recovered their strength and then she is dragging herself upright, battered and cold, and reaching out for Karol’s throat as the full weight of it all hits her like a fist. Strong arms grab her by the waist and she swings wildly, fists and feet, hissing at anybody coming near her.
‘Molly, please, we’ll get him.’ Karol is patting the air, trying to calm her. ‘I’ve told you more than I should. I needed to keep him talking. Needed the confession. We have it now. We’ll start building a case against Farkas. Do it properly. There’s some compelling evidence …’
‘You bastard!’ She screams it, turning her face up and into the moonlight and rain. ‘You fucking bastard! You’d let a girl die to catch a gangster? You have to knock on his door. Find out where he is. I know he has her!’
Karol turns at the sound of running feet. Molly sees uniformed officers arriving alongside plain clothes. She hears curses in English and Lithuanian. Hears a crackle of static from a police radio. Imagines the platoon of officers who will be smashing in the doors of Steppen’s home and arresting him for murder and participation in organized crime based upon the recordings of an undercover operative who used his niece’s abduction as a way to ingratiate himself into the organization.
‘We can’t knock on his door or we lose all the evidence,’ says Karol, as if explaining to a child. ‘There’s no investigation team. We don’t know if it’s what you think.’
‘But the cells! The blood. Farkas …!’
‘We will examine it all,’ says Karol, and Molly can see how much it hurts him to repeat the words of senior officers who had overcome his own misgivings with the self-same speech.
‘You must have been watching the Bonnet,’ gasps Molly. ‘Where did they go? Are they really going to see him? Why have you told me this?’
‘Why is she asking about Farkas?’
Molly starts at the sound of the new voice. She traces it to the tall, shaven-headed man to her right, standing in the glare of a flashing blue light that turns the rain into a million daggers. He is staring at Karol angrily, questions in his eyes, anger on his face.
‘Please, Karol, just tell me you know where she is … I’ll call Lottie, you can trace it, that’s that … Why would you let her go and see him? Why haven’t you protected her?’
Karol glances at the senior officer who stands between them. She understands what is crackling, unsaid, between them. There are those up the chain of command who are unconvinced that there is even a case to investigate. It is not an operational priority. All that is known is that a girl found on the ring road had come into contact with some dead cells that had belonged to a relative of a noted professor who had made a solitary mistake. There was no need to keep tabs on the child of an ex-cop whom the undercover operative had come into contact with.
‘Where is she now?’ begs Molly. She rubs her forehead and her hand comes away bloody. She stares at the crimson stain on her pale skin. She lets her feelings bubble up and is suddenly awash with understanding. For an instant she can feel the anguish that must have throbbed within Farkas’s heart as he prepared to say goodbye to his child. She understands it. Can imagine the brutal insistence deep within himself; the command that he keep her alive, somehow. To keep a part of her. To let there be more …
Karol steps forward. ‘You’re bleeding. Here. Let me …’
She freezes as he puts the paper to her head. Feels heat coming off him. Feels wave after wave of some magnetic force, urging her to keep her mouth shut. She puts her hand upon his and the paper upon her brow feels wrong. It is printer paper. A document, not a handkerchief or napkin. She catches his eye as she steps back. Pain shooting down her side as she pushes aside the girl in the yellow coat.
‘They don’t care,’ whispers Karol. ‘I don’t know if she’s there, but try. Push me. Run.’
It only takes an instant. A burst of adrenaline and a shove in the chest, and then she is pushing through paramedics and skipping past the open door of a police van, and now she is running back towards home, pulling the paper from the open wound. She reads the name through a veil of blotted blood. Reaches into her pocket for her phone and realizes she has left it in the ruins of the car. She does not stop. Puts her head down and feels warmth run down her cheek. She tastes it again. Her blood. The blood that beats in her daughter’s veins. The blood that cries out for her.
HILDA
There was pain, of a sort. More a brutal sort of numbness, the way your fingers go a little after you’ve slammed them in a door. It was an emptiness, too. As if I was a half-made thing. I had the sensation of being a vessel, somehow. Through the blur of ripped-up memories I saw myself as a suit of skin. A costume; a wetsuit hanging on a peg, waiting to be unzipped and worn. I don’t remember fear. It felt like coming round after an operation – that sensation of being wrapped too tight in thick damp wool. I remember fragments. Tangled ribbons of something intangible.
‘Do you remember the car with the bubbly leather seats, cica? You said they always made you want to eat chocolate. Perfect lines, stitched so intricately
. You used to run your finger over the seams, stroking the stitches, stroking, stroking, so softly, so rhythmically. I would see your little fingers, pale, like twigs stripped of their bark; the little sea shells of your fingernails, and I would glance at your face and wonder where your mind had gone – which great adventures you were having behind your eyelids. You were so brave, my love. You never allowed the pain to win. Your cries were tiny things – an animal trapped behind glass. I never knew whether it was better to let you find your own peace, or to hold you and give you my strength. So many times I got it wrong. I woke you from nightmares only to pitch you into a world of pain. Or I would let you rest only to learn at daybreak that you had fought demons in your sleep. We have both fought so hard, my darling. We deserve these moments of peace. These times of bliss, when it is just you and I, alone in the quiet; safe in our cave, father and daughter, blood of my blood …’
I couldn’t breathe. The thing on my face was too heavy. It felt like there was a hand on the bridge of my nose. When I opened my mouth my lips touched something hard and brittle, like the bottom of a baking dish. I poked out my tongue and explored the ridges. I tasted dust. Clay. A foulness, like water left still for too long. There was a dampness at the crook of my arm and a precise, silver-coloured point of pain somewhere near my belly button. I couldn’t move. My limbs seemed to belong to somebody else. I could feel myself shaking though there was a heat within me that was so intense I fancied I could burst into flames.
‘You will need more medicine, cica. This is our time. Our special time. Father and daughter, blood of blood. Please, try and hush. Should I tell you a story? A favourite? Do you remember the Musicians of Bremen, my love? How you would laugh at the different animal voices. If people had seen what I became in your presence! I, fusty, dusty – the grump of the halls. I simply saved my smiles for you. I became a clown for you. I would do anything to make you smile. Still, that is all I seek. Though I love these moments of peace, these quiet moments of togetherness, I yearn for your resurgence. I long to hear you laugh. Long to hear you call my name. I want to hear your feet upon the stairs above my office. I wish to scold you, then melt as you scolded me with your big sad eyes. We have lost much, my love, but we will regain it. You will find your strength.’
