by Susan Lewis
Hating even the idea that it would be necessary, Laurie wandered into the dining room where the desktop computer she and Elliot often shared was set up on the table. She pushed the power button, wanting, needing, to bring it to life.
‘Why don’t you come and join us for dinner?’ Rachel said. ‘Anna and Robert are on their way home. We’re having pizzas delivered.’
Laurie’s smile was faint. ‘Thanks, but I couldn’t eat a thing,’ she answered.
‘Then would you like me to come and keep you company?’
‘No. It’s OK. But thanks for the offer. I’ll keep myself busy with some work.’
Rachel’s voice was curious as she said, ‘I wonder if Chris knows anything about Elliot.’
‘It’s crossed my mind, more than once,’ Laurie confessed. ‘Anyway, I take it all the noise is Robert and Anna getting home, so I’d better let you go. We’ll keep in touch by phone and email, and maybe I’ll try to get down to Killian by the end of next week.’
‘Let me know if you hear anything, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ Laurie promised, and quickly ending the call she put a hand to her mouth, to block the wretched fear that was making her want to cry and sob and do any kind of deal it took with God, or the devil, to bring him home now.
Taking a deep breath, she dashed a hand through her hair and reminded herself firmly that she wasn’t going to fall apart over this. She was just going to keep calm and carry on, the way Rachel was somehow managing to do, though God only knew how, considering everything she was dealing with. She just wished she didn’t feel so responsible, but how could she not when Elliot had vanished almost immediately after she’d interviewed Landen? He’d tried to get word to her, to warn her not to mention Bombola, but she hadn’t heeded Max’s urgent request that she call first, and now Elliot was paying the price.
Leaving the phone next to the computer, she went back to the kitchen and filled the kettle. By the time this has boiled he’ll either have rung, or walked in the door, she told herself. Then feeling foolish and afraid, she put her hands to her head and cried, ‘Oh God, Elliot, where are you? Why don’t you call?’
Her despair fell into the growing darkness of the room as the sun sank behind a far horizon, and lights around the city started to come on. Staring down at them from her twentieth-floor window, she could feel her anguish and impotence growing – nightfall was a symbol of another day passing.
Turning away she walked into the bedroom where his clothes were still hanging in the wardrobes, next to those she’d left behind. The bed was covered by the huge, maroon coloured quilt that he’d always preferred, rather than one of the lighter colours she’d insisted on. It hurt to know that he’d made the change; he obviously hadn’t felt the need to keep something of her present. The big mass of pillows had gone too, which shouldn’t be a surprise, because he’d always complained about how they got in the way. Had he been as glad to get rid of her, she wondered? Maybe not, because the photographs were still on the dressing table: the two of them laughing at the celebration of her parents’ fortieth anniversary, and another gazing into each other’s eyes during what should have been a private moment in the South of France, but had been captured by the friends they’d been holidaying with. Her heart suddenly filled up with so much longing that she could hardly bear it. She banged her fists against the wall, then buried her face in her hands. No one, but no one, had heard from him – not an email, or a phone call, or even a coded message to Max.
Remembering Max, she went back into the dining room and picked up the phone. Then turning on a lamp in the sitting room, she curled into the chair beneath it and dialled Max’s number.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ she said, when he answered. ‘Where are you?’
‘Having dinner at Pont de la Tour. Why don’t you come and join us?’
‘No, but thanks for asking.’
‘Ellie’s saying hi.’
‘Hi, Ellie,’ she said, momentarily wanting to be there, rather than here, all alone. It would only take a few minutes in a cab, but then the will subsided and she said, ‘So who have you spoken to today?’
‘Enough people to have learned that Patrice Bombola is apparently at home with his family in Brussels, and that Franz Koehler left Zurich yesterday for Rome.’
‘No sign of Elliot?’ she said dully.
‘Not yet.’
Glancing up at the sound of someone leaving the flat opposite, she said, ‘I know you two were planning to go undercover in Angola, and I’d have been dead set against it, but frankly, I wish you were there now. At least I’d have some idea where he was.’
‘From what I’ve been hearing Dubai’s the place to be,’ Max responded. ‘Apparently something big’s about to go down over there.’
‘Any idea what it’s about?’
‘Considering the terrain I’d say money. I might take a trip over there, see what I can find out.’
Not interested enough to ask any more, she said, ‘I spoke to Murray at Elliot’s office today. He told me you went over there.’
‘Did he also tell you that we decided to leave Elliot’s Porsche at the Brize Norton airfield?’
‘Yep,’ she answered. ‘The police will need to check it out, once we’ve told them.’
‘That’s right. The plane he flew out in, by the way, is registered to a Dutch manufacturing company. The pilot was someone by the name of Rudy Forester. We don’t have much on him at this stage, but Elliot’s team is working on it. Could be a false name.’
Not knowing what to say she remained silent.
‘What time do you want to meet up tomorrow to go to the police?’ he asked.
Though everything inside her was rebelling against it, she said, ‘Ten?’
‘OK. I’ll come by and pick you up in a taxi.’
‘I’ll be at the office,’ she said, looking up at what sounded like a key going into the door. Her heart started to race, for she suddenly realized what it meant. ‘Max,’ she cried. ‘Oh my God, Max, he’s here.’
‘What?’
‘There’s someone coming in.’ She was about to run to the door, when a sixth sense, and Max’s voice, stopped her.
‘If it’s him, why hasn’t he called us?’ he said darkly. ‘Has anyone else got a key?’
‘Not that I know of.’ She was reeling towards panic now, for someone was definitely trying the lock. But it wasn’t a key she was hearing. ‘Oh Christ, Max,’ she murmured, ‘someone’s forcing the lock and I’m in here.’
‘Waiter! Waiter!’ she heard him cry. ‘Is there another way out?’ he said to Laurie.
Her eyes fixed on the door, she began edging round the chair, towards the kitchen. ‘Oh my God, Max, who is it?’
‘I don’t know, but you’ve got to get out of there.’
‘It’s the only door.’
‘Fuck! Listen, I’m going to call the police …’
‘No. Don’t ring off,’ she said, gripping the phone as though it were a lifeline.
‘It’s OK, Ellie’s going to do it,’ he said. ‘Just find somewhere to hide. I’ll be there as fast as –’
‘Max! They’re about to get in.’
‘Just hide!’ he shouted.
Galvanized by the words she spun round into the kitchen, ran through and along the short hall to the bedroom. At the door she looked wildly around, then quickly sliding open one side of the closet, she climbed on to a small chest of drawers and squeezed herself into a corner behind Elliot’s suits.
‘Are you OK? What’s happening?’ Max said, sounding as though he was running.
‘I’m in the closet,’ she answered, her heart thumping so hard it was like a bomb in her chest.
‘Stay put. Don’t talk unless you have to.’
For a long moment all she could hear were the muffled sounds of Max talking to Ellie, while trying to flag down a taxi. Moving the phone from her ear, she became aware of male voices inside the flat. ‘Oh my God, Max, they’re in,’ she whispered in terror. ‘You
’ve got to get –’ She broke off, as the heavy thuds of furniture overturning and glass breaking jarred her nerves like physical blows. Then suddenly there was silence again.
She didn’t dare to speak as she peered out at the bedroom. It was in darkness, but she could see light from the sitting room spilling into the kitchen. More terrified than she’d ever been in her life, she reached for the closet door to slide it closed. It moved only a few inches, then jammed. Oh no! God, no. She jumped as a resounding crash came from the dining room.
Quickly drawing back she sat huddled in the darkness, fear drumming so hard in her ears she could barely hear. After a while she picked up the murmur of voices again, along with more furniture being moved, then a phone ringing. It stopped abruptly, and one of them spoke into it. It wasn’t a language she knew. More fear erupted inside her heart. She was finding it hard to breathe now, but as the intruder carried on talking, and more things were beaten and smashed, she made another attempt to close the closet door, forcing and willing it to move. This time it slid all the way.
‘They’re smashing the place apart,’ she said shakily to Max. ‘Where are you?’
‘Just getting into a taxi,’ he answered. ‘The police are on their way. Hold on. We’ll get there.’
Hunched in tightly to the wall, she pressed the phone hard to her ear, while her other hand curled around a sleeve of Elliot’s jacket. She could hear them still moving about, turning cabinets over and ripping curtains from rails. It hardly seemed real, yet it was more real than anything she’d ever known. Her mind pitched and swayed in the darkness, while her heart raced like thundering hooves. Oh God, Elliot, please come back now, she silently pleaded. Please, please, wherever you are, come home now.
Suddenly she realized the voices were closer. She thought they were in the kitchen, but no, they were coming into the bedroom. She stopped breathing, her body so tense it might break. She could hear them talking. Then she tensed even harder as something crashed to the floor. Drawers were dragged out and the bed was shoved aside. Lamps and mirrors smashed, fabric was torn. It could only be a matter of seconds before they opened the closet. Her eyes were closed tighter than her fists. Then the door at the other end slid open.
She was paralysed with fear. A torch beam was sliding over the shoes and clothes; hangers scraped the pole as they were swept aside. She couldn’t escape this. There was just no way. Her head was spinning, her heart was on fire. The search at the other end continued, until suddenly the door next to her was wrestled brutishly open.
‘Turn the phone so I can hear what they’re saying,’ Max whispered in her ear.
But she couldn’t move. The torch beam was on her. She hunched into the wall. She could hear him breathing. His hand knocked her as he moved the suits. He began emptying the drawers she was sitting on. Her mind was buzzing, her body rigid. He began tugging the chest, trying to turn it over. The suits parted again and she almost screamed as his hand found her leg. He paused for a moment, then began groping down towards her ankle. She didn’t dare move. Then his fingers closed in a vicelike grip, and as he wrenched her from the closet, the chest fell with her, so that her back slammed into it and her head smashed against the wall.
Through a daze of terror and pain she heard a curse, then he grabbed her again and dragged her to the middle of the floor. The room flooded with light as the other man hit the switch. Two men were staring down at her through the slits of their knitted masks.
‘No,’ she whimpered. ‘Please …’
But already she was being grasped by the throat and thrown against the foot of the bed. Then they were both slamming their feet into her, kicking her so hard that she could only grunt with the pain.
‘Please, stop,’ she somehow managed to choke. ‘Just take what you want …’ she cried out as she was grabbed by the hair. Her legs were lifted and they dumped her on the bed. A fist banged into her face, then another into her chest. Someone was sitting on her legs, pinning her down. She felt a fumbling at her waist. She tried to protect herself, but her hands were grabbed, then one of the men wrenched her finger back and broke it.
She screamed with pain, then sobbed and gasped as they laughed. Their hands were all over her, grabbing her shoulders and breasts, her waist, thighs, buttocks. Certain they were going to rape her she kept her eyes closed, as panic and fear overpowered her. Please God let it be over soon, she cried. Please don’t let them kill me.
Suddenly everything changed. She could hardly make herself think as she tried to register what was happening. She opened her eyes. She was blinded by tears, half unconscious with pain. Someone was shouting, screaming at the top of his voice,
‘Get away from her! Get away now! Drop the torch!’
The torch thudded to the floor, as both men lifted their hands.
Max came into the room, clutching a gun in both hands, aiming it straight at them. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he shouted. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
Neither of them answered as they started backing away.
‘Take the masks off!’
Suddenly one man dived at Max’s feet and knocked him to the ground. Max quickly rolled over, but he’d lost the gun. Frantically he looked round, then grabbed a foot as one of them leapt over him. His grip wasn’t good enough. The man staggered, then the other was jumping to his feet, and by the time Max was up too, they were dashing out the front door.
Max went after them, leaving Laurie alone. She rolled on to her side, then forced herself to sit up, holding her injured hand, and moaning with the pain that throbbed all over her. She stayed on the edge of the bed, staring down at the gun. She could hear someone sobbing, and dully realized it was her. Then Max was back.
‘The police are on their way up,’ he said, stuffing the gun into the back of his jeans. ‘I don’t want them to find this. Are you OK?’ He was kneeling in front of her now, brushing the hair from her face.
Her lips were swollen and bleeding, making it hard to speak. ‘My hand,’ she said. Then, ‘Did they get away?’
‘I don’t know how many cops are down there. With any luck they’ll run straight into them.’
She looked at his face, still red from the adrenalin rush, and damp with sweat.
‘Just thank God you’re OK,’ he said, pulling her against him.
She leaned into his shoulder and closed her eyes. She had never felt so afraid, or vulnerable, or unable to cope in her life. ‘I want Elliot,’ she said brokenly.
‘I know,’ he answered. ‘I know.’ Then at the sound of the police entering the apartment, he said, ‘I guess now would be a good time to report him missing.’
‘Hello?’ Katherine said, hunching into the roadside phone booth, with a finger pressed to her other ear to block the sound of the traffic. ‘Elke. It’s Katherine. I need to talk to Franz.’
There was a moment’s stunned silence, before Franz Koehler’s PA said, ‘I’m afraid he’s not here, but if you can give me a number …’
‘Where is he?’ Katherine broke in.
Elke told her, and Katherine hung up.
Half an hour later she was moving through the crowds on the Stresa landing stage, on the southwestern shore of Lake Maggiore. When she reached the end she stood gazing out at the glistening blue beauty of the lake and lush green mountains beyond. After a while the noise and people around her seemed to melt away, and not for the first time, when confronted by one of nature’s more dramatic displays, she began experiencing a sobering sense of her own smallness and impermanence, and wondering why anyone, including her, could even think they mattered. So maybe she should stop now, and just accept that she was going to die in the end anyway, and that, in fact, it would make no earthly difference. All this would carry on regardless, it was nature, it wasn’t dependent on man. Not even Franz could control it.
By now he would know she’d called, and would be intrigued by the new twist in what he no doubt viewed as a game, and already trying to calculate her next moves. But until she heard from Xavier there co
uld be none. So the phone call was no more than the opening gambit of a strategy that was probably already doomed to fail.
With untold sadness spilling from her heart, she turned to look back along the short pier to where the splendid five star hotels were lined up across the street, like silly vain women whose beauty would fade, and in some cases it had already started. One of them, she’d learned from the guidebook, was the hotel that Hemingway had written about in A Farewell to Arms. Like Fowles, Hemingway was an author Franz greatly admired, though his true fascination, as the name of his company bore out, was with The Magus. However, it wasn’t so much his taste in literature that she was thinking about now, as she watched a small stream of tourists disembarking a pleasure boat, as his home at the other end of this lake, in Locarno.
Allowing her eyes to travel northwards again, across the shimmering blue miles that seemed to go on for ever, she wondered if she might be seeing as far as the place where the waters merged from one country into another, and the Italian Alps became Swiss, but even if she were, Locarno was still a very long way away. Not so far, though, as Xavier, nor so unfamiliar as this wretchedness that was devaluing her existence to the point where it was hard to care about anything any more. So maybe she should just make the decision now, that if she didn’t hear from Xavier by tomorrow, then it really would be time to stop running. She could throw fate to the wind, send an email to Rachel Hendon and be damned if it got there, and damned if it didn’t.
But then she returned to her small hotel, connected her computer to the Net, and there, at last, was the long-awaited message from Xavier telling her that he was going to support her, even against his better judgement, for he’d always insisted that she needed to allow at least six months, if not an entire year, to elapse before even attempting to contact Rachel Hendon. It was barely three months now, but she just couldn’t go on like this. The fear, the loneliness and despair were too overwhelming.
So Franz, she was thinking to herself as she closed down her computer, you’re going to be seeing me a lot sooner than you might think. And so, Rachel Hendon, are you.
