by Val McDermid
Rory laughed out loud. “You know, that’s probably the least seductive thing anybody’s ever said to me. ‘Come on, let’s get it over with, one shag with you and I’ll be cured,’ ” she spluttered.
The laughter was infectious. Lindsay couldn’t help herself. All at once she was chuckling too. Somewhere in the middle of the laughter, they fell into each other’s arms. Two hungry mouths connected.
Suddenly, sensible was history.
Chapter 14
Even at midnight, it was still warm in St Petersburg. Lindsay and Rory lay tangled together, the bedclothes in a rumpled heap on the floor. Unfamiliar scents and sounds drifted in through the open window, reminding them how very far they’d come. Rory ran a fingertip along the thin white line that ran down from Lindsay’s right ear to the corner of her jaw. Then, with the tip of her tongue, she traced the starburst scar above her left breast, tasting the sharp saltiness of her sweat. “Tell me about the scars,” she said.
Lindsay squirmed pleasurably at the sensation as Rory’s mouth moved down to her nipple. “Not very romantic for post-coital conversation,” she murmured.
“You want romance? You picked the wrong lover, doll. Anyway, who said anything about post-coital?” Rory teased. “I thought this was just the first interval.”
“Fine by me.” Lindsay ran her fingers along Rory’s side, learning this unfamiliar body. After eight years with the same woman, it felt strange to explore such alien territory. She’d thought the very exoticism of novelty would provoke guilt, but she’d been mistaken. Making love with Rory had taken her somewhere outside her past experience. Wild and dark, it had shown her a bewildering new side to her own sexuality, both scary and magical. But wrong was the one thing it hadn’t felt.
“So tell me about the scars,” Rory persisted. “I’d never even noticed that one under your jawline before.”
“They did a good job of stitching it up.” Lindsay’s hand strayed between Rory’s thighs, but she clamped them shut and pulled away.
“Not until you tell me about the scars.”
Lindsay groaned. “You’re so bossy.”
Rory chuckled. “Nothing like flipping the butch. You didn’t mind me bossing you a wee while ago. Come on, tell me. It can’t be that terrible.”
“The one on my jaw I got when I tripped over a wall and landed face first on a broken bottle.”
“Aw,” Rory complained. “That’s really boring.”
“If it helps, I was being chased by a guy with a baseball bat at the time,” Lindsay said, wincing at the memory.
“Now, that’s much better. What about this one?” She kissed the circular scar lightly. “Wounded in a duel over a beautiful blonde? Stabbed by a jealous lover?”
Lindsay’s face darkened. “I got shot by a murderous little shit who didn’t take kindly to the idea of being found out by me.”
“Bastard,” Rory said lazily, apparently unsurprised by the notion that someone might have taken a pot-shot at her new lover. “It looks nasty.”
“It didn’t hit anything important. I just lost a lot of blood. And my left shoulder hurts when the weather’s damp.”
“Ouch. I tell you, by October, you’ll be really sorry you left California. So what happened to the shooter?” Rory ran the palm of her hand over Lindsay’s body, letting her fingers trail tantalisingly over her stomach.
Lindsay shuddered with a pleasure that took all the pain out of the recollection. “Life for murder, ten years for attempted murder on me. You probably remember the case. Penny Varnavides’ murder?”
Rory nodded. “Only vaguely. She was killed a wee while before I won the money. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, so I rented a cottage on Skye for a month to try and figure out my future. I didn’t touch a newspaper or listen to a news bulletin. I must have missed the trial. Which would be why I never realised you were involved in that.”
“So now you know.” Lindsay rolled over suddenly and pinned Rory to the bed, her knee between Rory’s thighs. “Act two?”
“Mmm. I never had you pegged as a woman who would be turned on by talk of violence.” Rory’s voice was teasingly sexy.
“Trust me, it’s not the past that’s turning me on.”
Nine o’clock in Glasgow, and Bernie Gourlay was alone with a glass of Johnnie Walker and a half-smoked cigarette. She’d been a prisoner of fear for so long now she had almost forgotten it was possible to entertain any other emotion. It had hit her all the harder because for years she thought she’d escaped the cold claw of terror. How stupid had that been, she told herself bitterly.
She should have known Patrick would never have resigned himself to letting her out of his grasp. But as time had passed and he hadn’t materialised in her new life, she’d allowed herself to be lulled into a false sense of security. She had her fallback plan in place, so she thought. And for whole months at a time, she’d been free of the very thought of him. But now he was back, and there was no telling how bad things would get before they righted themselves. If they ever could.
It had been bad enough when she’d only had Jack to be afraid for. At least she’d had Tam’s strength to draw on. But now Tam had gone off on this crazy mission to get her son back, and all she could feel was anxiety. She knew she should be proud that he loved her enough to take such insane risks for her happiness, but instead she was overwhelmed with guilt that she’d brought this nightmare to his door in the first place.
No outcome offered her any relief. If they failed to snatch Jack successfully, Tam could end up in a Russian jail. Even if he avoided that worst case scenario, she knew he would never forgive himself for letting her and Jack down. Remorse like that could be slow poison to a relationship, her presence in his life a constant reminder of his perceived inadequacy. And if they did bring him home, what prospects were there of happiness with Patrick Coughlan on the horizon? Patrick would do whatever it took to get his own back. Neither compunction nor compassion were concepts he’d ever embraced.
Bernie crushed out her cigarette as the phone started ringing. She turned her head and stared at it. It couldn’t be Tam; as far as she knew, he was on a chartered yacht somewhere between Helsinki and St Petersburg. There was nobody else she wanted to talk to, and at least one voice she definitely didn’t want to hear.
She drained her whisky in one swallow and waited for the ringing to stop.
When the alarm clock drilled through her dreams at half past six, Lindsay had been asleep for less than four hours. But when her eyes snapped open, she was as alert as if she’d had a full night’s sleep. Great sex would do that every time, she thought, turning her head to watch Rory struggle into wakefulness. “So, do you still respect me?” she said.
Rory yawned. “I think so. But I might have to fuck you again to make sure.” She snuggled into Lindsay’s side, her fingers slithering down her stomach. “Do you do mornings?”
Lindsay squirmed away. “Any other morning, but not this one. We’ve got work to do, remember?”
“Bo-ring.” Rory planted a warm kiss on her shoulder. “OK, Splash, you win. Race you to the shower.” She rolled over and jumped out of bed.
Lindsay laughed. “We’ve got two showers, dozo.”
“Damn,” Rory said, heading for the en suite.
Half an hour later, they had said goodbye to Sasha and set off down the Seventh Line towards the Vasileostravskaya metro station, fuelled only by a snatched cup of execrable coffee in the hotel breakfast room. As they passed a street kiosk selling fruit, Rory looked longingly at the peaches and bananas. “I don’t suppose you could manage to buy us a couple of bananas?” she asked wistfully.
“Absolutely right. I’m keeping my powder dry for the metro station. Besides, I don’t know how you can think about eating. My stomach’s churning like a cement mixer.”
“I always eat when I’m nervous. And believe me, I’m nervous,” Rory replied. The morning was warm and humid, the sky a washed-out blue. The metro station was on the corner of Sredny Pros
pekt, an ugly glass and concrete structure that glared across at the McDonald’s diagonally opposite. “Soviet architecture meets Western capitalism,” Lindsay commented as they climbed the short flight of stairs that led into the station.
“Now what do we do?” Rory said, looking apprehensively round the foyer. On one side were automatic turnstiles coping with a constant stream of morning commuters who thrust plastic cards into the slots.
“According to my guide book, we buy a ten-journey ticket for forty roubles,” Lindsay said.
“Ten journeys for a quid? Hey, I could live like a king here. On you go then, Splash. Show me how it’s done.”
With a feeling of trepidation, Lindsay crossed to the ticket booth where a slab-faced middle-aged woman in a polyester flowered dress sat glaring out at the world. Lindsay smiled and held her hands up, fingers splayed to indicate ten. Then she proffered a fifty-rouble note. The woman said something in Russian. Lindsay told her she didn’t speak Russian and stretched the smile wider. The women grunted, took the note and exchanged it for a card and a ten-rouble note. “Spasibo bolshoi,” Lindsay said, relieved.
Once they’d negotiated the turnstiles, they found themselves on the longest escalator Lindsay had ever seen. “This is bowels of the earth stuff,” Rory muttered in her ear.
“I suppose it’s got to be deep, it goes under the river.”
“Hey, so does the Clockwork Orange, but you don’t have to penetrate the planet’s crust to use the underground in Glasgow.”
The escalator deposited them in a hallway. On either side, there were rows of closed doors that resembled large lifts. The only indication as to which side of the hallway their train would arrive at were two small illuminated signs hanging from the ceiling. “It’s got to be the left-hand side,” Lindsay said, frowning up at the station names.
“Hey, you’re really good at this funny alphabet,” Rory said, impressed.
“Hardly. This is the second to last stop going north, and there’s only one name on the right-hand board. Whereas there’s a whole list of stations on the other one. Ergo . . .”
Rory tutted. “You’d never make it in the Magic Circle, giving away your tricks like that.” As she spoke, they heard a rumbling, and the doors on their side of the hallway slid open, revealing carriages that looked remarkably spacious compared to the familiar ones in Glasgow. They boarded the crowded train and grabbed a metal pole as it pulled out of the station.
“How do we know where to get off ?” Rory asked when they stopped at the next station to the accompaniment of an announcement so corrupted by static that even a Russian speaker would have been hard pressed to figure out its content.
“We count. It’s the third station. Ploschad Aleksandra Nevskovo,” Lindsay said, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar name. To take her mind off the nervous butterflies fluttering in her stomach, Lindsay practised her reading of Cyrillic on the handful of adverts on the carriage walls. She couldn’t help smiling when, after a struggle, she finally deciphered one as being a transliteration of “internet”.
They emerged at the other end of the journey in a courtyard lined with kiosks selling soft drinks and alcohol, flowers, fruit and CDs. Lindsay took her map out of her backpack and pored over it. “I think we’re on Nevsky Prospekt,” she said uncertainly. “If we go up here and take a left, then left again, we should end up on the street where the school is.” She looked up at the corner. “At least they seem to have street signs.”
Since this was the less fashionable end of the long street that sliced through the heart of the city, the pavements were relatively quiet. Most of the people who were out and about were walking briskly with a sense of purpose, focused only on their own business. To Lindsay’s amazement, they ended up on Konstantinogradskaya Ulitsa at the first attempt. The street was lined with tall nineteenthcentury apartment buildings and shaded with trees. They strolled along, trying to look casual as they scanned the buildings for any sign of an international school. Two thirds of the way along, the apartments gave way to a walled courtyard with tall wrought iron gates. There was nothing to indicate what went on in the rosepink building beyond the gates and they carried on to the end of the street.
“Do you think that was it?” Rory asked.
Lindsay shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see where the kids go when they start to arrive.”
“We’re going to look a bit obvious, standing around on a street corner,” Rory objected. “Look, there’s a bar on the opposite corner. With the tables outside. It looks like they’re open for business. We could get a coffee and keep an eye open.”
Lindsay looked doubtful. “It’s too far away to be sure of identifying Jack. We’ve only ever seen photos of him. Kids all look the same at that age.”
“Can I have a look at the map?” Rory asked. Lindsay handed it over and waited while Rory studied it. “OK, here’s the plan,” she said. “We go to the café and as soon as kids start arriving, I shoot off round the block so I can come into the street at the other end. You give me a minute or two, then you amble slowly up towards the school. Then we bump into each other outside the school and act like we’re old friends who’ve just met by accident. We can stand having a blether and keeping an eye out for Jack. What do you think?”
“It’s worth a try,” Lindsay said. They crossed the street to the café, but just as they were about to sit down, a couple of cars pulled up outside the iron gates. Three children spilled out, followed at a more leisurely pace by their drivers. They exchanged glances, each recognising the flame of adrenaline in the other’s eyes. Rory took off at a fast pace down the side street that would bring her the long way round to the other end of the street, while Lindsay began to amble slowly back towards the school.
By the time she was a couple of dozen yards away, upwards of twenty children were milling around on the wide pavement of packed earth. As far as she could see, none of them was the right size, gender or colouring to be Jack Gourlay. As another couple of cars drew up, one of the gates slowly creaked open and the children flowed through, most without a backward glance at their drivers or their mothers.
Lindsay dawdled on, then, a few feet from the gate, with no Rory in sight yet, she stooped to tie her shoe-lace. She was overtaken by three children who looked around eight years old, then by a harassed looking teenager shouting something at them in German. Reassuringly, none gave her a second glance. Lindsay caught sight of Rory in a gap between what was now a steady stream of children, and stood up, surprised by the flash of delight that sparked inside her.
They achieved the planned rendezvous a few feet from the school gates, greeting each other with every appearance of surprise. While they pretended to make small talk, each was keeping an eye out for Jack. It was Rory who caught sight of him first. “Don’t look now,” she said conversationally. “But I think that’s him walking towards us. Let’s act like we’re going to walk back to the café.”
Lindsay turned and immediately saw the child Rory had identified. There was really no mistaking Jack. He looked exactly like the school photograph on top of Bernie and Tam’s TV except that then he’d been smiling and now he was scowling as he scuffed the toes of his trainers along the cracked pavement. The woman who held his hand in an iron grip had the same dark hair and beaky nose as she’d seen in photographs of Bruno Cavadino. It had to be them.
Lindsay and Rory set off in the direction of the café, passing the woman and boy without a second glance, but Lindsay was close enough to the woman to hear her say in the irritated voice of adults being embarrassed by a small child the world over, “I don’t care what your Papa told you, this is not a holiday and you have to go to school.” As soon as they were clear of the school, Rory glanced back. “She’s virtually dragged him into the playground. Looks like he’s not keen. Quick, let’s duck into this courtyard,” she said, yanking Lindsay by the arm and pulling her into the arched entrance to an apartment block.
“What are you p
laying at?” Lindsay demanded, staggering to stay upright.
“Chances are she’ll come back the same way and we can tail her. Otherwise we’ll have to stand around on the street corner and she might pick up on us.” Rory’s voice was sharp with excitement. Suddenly, she leaned forward and kissed Lindsay. “I haven’t had so much fun for ages.”
Lindsay grinned. “Me neither. But I don’t think snogging in public is a good idea in Russia,” she added hurriedly as an elderly woman turned into the courtyard laden with a basket of vegetables.
They didn’t have long to wait before Maria Cavadino passed the entry where they were loitering. She was walking quickly, as if she had places to go and things to do. “You go first,” Rory said. “I’ll follow you.”
Their little procession made its way through the back streets and courtyards, finally emerging on a street about half a mile further up Nevsky Prospekt. The woman was still walking briskly in spite of the humidity. Eventually, she turned into a refurbished apartment block, complete with a doorman who resembled one of those gigantic statues of Soviet workers.
Lindsay carried on to the corner and waited for Rory to catch her up. “No way we’re going to get in there,” Rory said.
“Even supposing we knew which apartment was the right one.”
“So what now?”
Lindsay glanced at her watch. “I’ll give Sasha a call, tell him we’ve struck lucky. He could meet as at that nice café, then we can see how the school day pans out?”
Rory groaned. “How I love stake-outs.”
“Look on the bright side. At least we’ve got a supply of coffee, and a toilet.”
Rory grinned. “And plenty of time for you to figure out the menu.”
“Why do you think I’m going to get Sasha to join us?”
Chapter 15
