“They’re not my people, they’re my father’s people. And yes, I couldn’t just leave you here. But—”
“It’s all right,” I interrupt her gently. “You’re here, in spite of everything. Because of me.”
As I say the words, I realize, maybe for the first time since we fled from the terminal, what it would do to me if something happened to Joanna all because she stayed with me. The realization both terrifies and shames me in equal measure. I just accepted the fact that she’s putting herself in mortal danger. For my sake.
I sit up and lean against the padded headboard.
“Jo, I really think what you did is amazing, but…”
“But?”
“But I’d feel better if you were safe.”
“You want me to fly to Australia with Gavin? Without you?”
“No, I want the two of us to fly to Australia together, but it seems that’s not going to work. So at the very least I want you to be safe.”
I lean forward slightly, stroke her cheek. “I can’t bear the thought that something might happen to you.”
Joanna takes my hand, pulls it away from her face, and sits up. All trace of softness has disappeared from her eyes. “If I go back now, we’ll never see each other again. You understand that, don’t you? Is that what you want?”
“No, of course not. I’d be coming after you. On a normal flight. Tomorrow even.” I hope my words sound more convincing than they feel to me. Joanna shakes her head, giving a bitter laugh.
“You don’t know my dad. Once I’m back in Australia, he’s going to move heaven and earth to make me marry Matthew. Just like he planned. Everything either happens the way Dad planned it or not at all.”
“But you’re a grown woman, surely he can’t just—”
“I’ll say it again—you don’t know him. My father can do everything he wants to do. And he gets his way just about every time.”
Joanna’s words rouse a kind of defiance within me. I refuse to accept that this man on the other side of the world could determine our fate, determine our lives so easily.
“We’ll find a way, Joanna. If he disowns you, let him, we can take care of ourselves. I’ll find work in Australia, somewhere far, far away from your father. It’s a huge country, after all. We’ll look for a small house somewhere and—”
She interrupts, shaking her head. “No, Erik, there’s no way. I’m staying here.”
43
We sleep very little that night. Erik tries another three or four times to convince me to go back to Australia, but eventually gives up when I threaten to get my own hotel room if he doesn’t let it go.
I realize, of course, that my decision isn’t a very clever one. But I found it hard to ask Dad for help even when I still thought I’d be able to rescue Erik in the process. And now that the battle lines are clearly drawn, I wouldn’t want to take even a crumb of bread from my father from now on.
The chances that we would be able to make it alone aren’t that bad. Of course we have to get out of the city, if not the country too, and then … Maybe contact Bernhard. All the information you want is available, and if you stay alive long enough you’ll get it too, but for now you just have to believe me. Get yourself to safety, otherwise you’ll soon be dead, just like Erik.
We were still alive. How long is long enough?
I’ll call him first thing tomorrow, I resolve at around four in the morning, as tiredness begins to catch up with me after all. And after that we’ll get out of here.
When I open my eyes again, it’s light outside and Erik is already awake. He is lying next me, watching me, stroking my arm softly. Smiling. I snuggle up close to him. “What time is it?”
“Half past eight, almost.” His hand wanders down over my shoulders to my waist, and then down to my hips.
“No,” I say, in as firm a voice as I can manage in my drowsy state. “Not now. There’s so much we have to take care of.”
“Yeah.” Erik closes his eyes. “But who knows when we’ll next be able to be together like this. I don’t want to let you go, Jo.”
We give ourselves another ten minutes. Ten minutes in which I feel the fear and anxiety slowly growing stronger inside me again, despite Erik’s proximity. The fact is, we have no time to lose.
I have to really push myself to go down to the breakfast room and leave our room, where we were invisible to the world.
“There’s a computer with an Internet connection in the lobby,” Erik says as he stirs his coffee. “We can book flights from there. Maybe to Italy or Spain, to begin with.”
“Do you still have your passport?”
“Yes. It was in the inside pocket of my jacket.” Erik smiles. “Safe and sound.”
It could work. We would need to buy a few essentials—some clothes, toiletries, a suitcase—but then we could take a taxi to the airport. After all my calls to the police and the next-of-kin hotlines, his name was sure to be on the list of missing persons. Would they let him through regardless? I mean, he wasn’t a suspect, after all.
Unless, of course, my father had contacted the German police and reported my running away as a kidnapping. I wouldn’t put it past him, not in the slightest.
But fine. We’ll deal with each problem as it comes.
The computer in the lobby is in use, by a visibly irritated businessman who is trying in vain to call up his emails. I can see Erik’s impatience building, can see how hard it is for him not to interrupt the man. Maybe he’s feeling the same as I am—the people coming in and out of the hotel are making me nervous. As are the headlines on the newspapers laid out on a table next to the reception desk. They’re all about the attack. I pull Erik toward the elevators; one of them is already on this floor. “Let’s make a phone call first.”
“Why, who do you want to call?”
“Bernhard. Do you remember what he said? He knows something, and I want to know what it is.”
After we get to the room, I sit down on our rumpled bed and reach for the telephone on the nightstand. “Do you know his number by heart?”
Erik nods, closes his eyes briefly, then writes the number down on a notepad with the hotel logo, rips off the page, and gives it to me.
I dial zero for an outside line and then the number. But the phone is unreachable. I try it four times, and get the same result each time.
“Did you and your coworkers usually keep your cell phones turned off at work?”
Erik shakes his head. “No, just on silent mode during meetings.”
That’s not a good sign. I replace the phone handset. Silently we make our way back downstairs, where by now the computer has become available. Erik browses to the booking page for Lufthansa. “Where to?”
Rome is my first thought. But Dad knows that I’ve always wanted to go there. The same applied to Barcelona. “Florence,” I say.
Erik enters the requested details, chooses a preferred return date, albeit only for show. We both know that we won’t be coming back to Munich.
“There’s a flight at ten past three this afternoon,” he says. “Four and a half hours from now.”
“Great.” I take my purse out of my bag. Four credit cards, three of them belonging to accounts which, although they may have my name on them, are funded by my dad’s money. For me to use whenever I wanted. The fourth is different, that’s where I put my savings. Gifts, earnings. The balance on this account is by far the least impressive, but it could still allow a family of four to survive a year without any problems.
I press the card into Erik’s hand and he enters the number. Clicks on Secure Payment.
We wait for the confirmation. I’m just looking around for a printer where we can print out our online tickets and boarding passes, when the error message appears. In red.
Your credit card has been declined.
I feel my pulse quickening. Erik looks at me; his hand moves up in front of his mouth.
Maybe he typed in the number wrong? I check the card number, but no, it’s all corr
ect; I start from scratch, and enter the details myself this time. With the same result. That means there’s no point in even trying the other three cards.
We’ve gone through far worse in the past few days, but for some reason this, right now, is the moment I feel like giving up. I don’t know what to do, I don’t even have the strength to hold back the tears that are welling up in my eyes.
Erik closes the browser window and takes me in his arms, guiding me out of the lobby. He’s right. A crying woman would only attract attention.
“We’re trapped,” I whisper once we’re back in the elevator. “We can’t even pay for the hotel, let alone leave the country; we’re done for.”
Erik looks down at the floor, his expression solemn. He is frowning, as though he’s in pain. “Listen to me, Jo. You’re calling your father now and telling him that you’re coming home. You have a little cash still, right? If it’s not enough for the taxi, then Gavin will have to wait in front of the General Aviation building for you and pay.” He looks at me. “It’s the only sensible thing to do. I’m not going to let you risk your life here in Germany.”
I don’t think Erik realizes it, but his words are a huge help to me. Differently to how he intended, but that doesn’t matter.
By the time the elevator doors open, there’s barely any trace of my despair left; instead I’m filled with such an intense rage it almost takes my breath away. I hang the Do Not Disturb sign on our room door, take out my phone, and ram the battery back in, despite Erik’s protests. As soon as I get a signal, I dial the number. He picks up after the second ring.
“Damn it, Joanna. It’s about time you called. Where the hell are you?”
I take a deep breath. “That no longer concerns you. So you blocked my accounts? Even the one with the money I earned myself?”
“Yes. I warned you I would. Do you really think I’d waste my time with empty threats?”
“But you don’t have access to my account!”
He laughs. “Jo, darling. The account is with our family bank. Do you really think they would say no if I asked them for a favor? Do you think they would take the risk that I’d transfer our money to their competitors?”
I feel an intense desire to destroy something, yet at the same time, I have never felt so helpless.
“Right, listen to me now.” My father no longer sounds amused, but businesslike. “You make your way to the airport, Gavin will meet you there, you’re flying home. End of discussion.”
He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Otherwise he wouldn’t destroy the very last chance he had to win me back.
“No, Dad.” My voice is calmer than I even dared to hope. “I’m staying here, and I might soon be dead because of that. The people who are after Erik and me are the same ones who blew up Munich station, and they’ve already nearly succeeded in killing us a few times. And by cutting me off, you’ve considerably raised their chances. Congratulations. But you know what? I’d rather get shot than spend my whole life being blackmailed by you. Good-bye.”
I hang up before he has the chance to say anything. Imagining the look on his face right now, I begin to laugh. A laugh which just about holds back the tears beneath the surface; nonetheless, it feels liberating.
Erik doesn’t laugh with me. He looks at me skeptically, shaking his head gently. “That was a bit dramatic, what you just did.”
My phone rings: Dad, of course. I reject the call. “Yes, you’re right. I acted like a fourteen-year-old. Possibly because that’s what I should have done when I was fourteen.”
Erik points at the phone. “It’s possible he might give in, now that he knows how serious the situation really is. Joanna, don’t throw away your chance of safety because of spite. Or our chance, even.”
I understand Erik’s thought process, but he doesn’t understand my father’s. Giving in just wasn’t in his programming. Not at any price. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough,” I say. “If he’s worried about me, he’ll unblock the accounts, right? That’s what any other loving father would do in his position. But I’ll bet anything that he won’t.”
I let the phone fall onto the bed. The feeling I had a few moments ago, of having won the battle, even if it had been an empty victory, has now disappeared. “We’ll somehow have to manage without money. I’ve no idea how, but—”
“No, we don’t have to do,” Erik interrupts me. “You have money, don’t you remember? You threw it at my head the day before yesterday. Almost.”
My God, of course. The tapas cookbook. The twenty thousand euros. We had that much, except …
I look at Erik. “How are we going to get it?”
44
Yes, how are we going to get to the money?
The irony of the whole situation is hard to beat. Twenty thousand euros that could make the difference between life and death, just lying around in our house, in our very own kitchen. But the money might as well be lying around somewhere on the moon, for we have no chance whatsoever of getting our hands on it.
By now, Gabor’s people know that Joanna was in the house and that she isn’t there anymore. And they must assume she’s not going to be coming back, because she’s scared. Because she knows someone broke in. Are they still going to be lying in wait there? Or have they taken off?
In any case, there’s no way she can risk going there. The danger is far too great. And I’m dead, in their eyes, and need to stay that way if possible.
“I don’t know,” I say with frustration. “There’s absolutely no way we can go back to the house.”
Joanna starts chewing her lower lip. She always does that when there’s an important problem needing to be solved. There’s so much familiarity within that little quirk that, for a brief moment, it makes everything around us seem completely unreal.
But then her eyes widen, and I know she’s had an idea. “You’re right. There’s no way we can go back to the house. But what about if somebody else went to pick up the money for us?”
“Somebody else?” I echo, to give myself a bit of time to think. “That could work, maybe, but who did you have in mind? Besides, there’s still a risk Gabor’s people might be hanging around.”
“Ela.”
Ela. Of course. But a thought makes my euphoria evaporate the very next moment.
“It’s just that Ela thinks I’m dead.”
Joanna shrugs. “So we’ll have to fill her in. Or you can hide when she gets here.”
I don’t even need to consider that option. “No. If she’s going to be putting herself in danger for us, we’re not going to lie to her on top of it all. I already felt bad about doing that anyway.”
“Yes, you’re right. Once we explain the situation to her, she’ll understand that we had no other option. I’ll call her and tell her you’re still alive. And then—”
“No. Call her and tell her you’re in trouble and need the money. When she brings it here, I’ll be here as well and we can explain it to her together. OK?”
“OK. That’s probably best.” With one swift motion, Joanna leans forward and kisses me on the mouth. “Everything’s going to be all right. You’ll see, everything will be all right in the end.”
She already has her phone in her hand when something else comes to my mind. “Wait.” Joanna stops midmotion and looks at me with confusion.
“We have to think of something to make sure Gabor’s guys don’t intercept Ela when she arrives. I don’t really figure they’ll still be there, but you never know.”
Joanna quickly thinks. “The police?”
“What?”
“Just before Ela gets there, I’ll call the police for help saying I think someone’s breaking into my house. Ela will wait until after the officers have been in the house. Gabor’s people should have cleared off by then at the latest.”
That does sound like a good plan, but Joanna has overlooked something. “That’s not going to work. If you make a distress call saying someone’s breaking into your house, you’ll have to be there yoursel
f. But if they ring the bell and nobody opens the door, they’re going to assume something happened to you. What are they going to do then?”
“Damn.” The disappointment is written all over her face. “They’ll break open the door and turn the whole house upside down. And then it’ll take them forever to leave again.”
“Exactly. Unless…” I’ve had another thought while she was echoing my misgivings. Something that could be the solution. “Unless you’re in another city, at a friend’s place. Say you got a call from an acquaintance of yours who drove past our house and saw some men hanging around. You’re worried; after all, I’ve been missing ever since the bomb attack, and you already spoke to the police a few days ago and told them you were scared.”
She thinks for a few seconds. “Right, that sounds plausible. And the story checks out, too.”
“And if Gabor’s people really are still hanging around the house, the police will pay them a nice, friendly visit.”
“OK. But I’m calling Ela first.”
“Please tell her to be careful. If she sees anyone she thinks is strange or suspect, she should leave at once.”
Joanna doesn’t turn the phone on speaker, but from her reactions and replies I can more or less figure out what Ela’s saying. The conversation only lasts a few minutes. At the end of the call, Joanna explains where we hid the spare key, then hangs up. “She’s seriously worried about me, and about you as well. And yes, she said of course she’ll get the money. It’s going to be a real shock for her when she sees you here.”
“Yes, but she’ll understand we didn’t lie to her without good reason.” I try to pass off my hope as conviction.
Joanna calls the police ten minutes later. She sounds confused and anxious, afraid and distraught. The act she puts on is so convincing that my thoughts briefly stray in an unwelcome direction. Only for a few seconds, then it stops. I know I can trust her, and that’s that.
When Joanna puts away the phone, a smile flashes over her face. “They’re going to check it out right away. My goodness, the poor guy on the phone was so worried about me, he wanted to deploy a hundred uniformed officers around my hou—around our house.”
Strangers Page 28
