Shopping with the Enemy

by Carmen Reid

  ‘There is still some way to go,’ Svetlana answered but then folded her arms and carried on gazing straight ahead.

  Probably best not to know exactly. Just slow into the bend, steer, steer, steer, straighten out and enjoy the little bit of straight road before the next one.

  ‘Do you think you should try emailing Michael again?’ Annie asked once another ten bends were under the bonnet.

  Svetlana looked for a long time at the phone and then suddenly began to tap out a message at speed.

  ‘Now we wait,’ she said as soon as she’d hit send.

  ‘Are you sure? Are you sure this is right?’

  For the past twenty minutes they’d been travelling along a tiny road; a road so small it had potholes, loose gravel and even the odd goat. They were high up in the mountains with bare rocky terrain all around and a panoramic view of … more mountains, making Annie wonder just how many they would have to cross.

  ‘We’ve seen no one else – not one other car since we got on to it,’ Annie said anxiously.

  ‘This is the right road,’ Svetlana insisted. ‘I read the map. This will take us into Austria.’

  If we don’t ground the Bentley on one of those craters first, Annie couldn’t help thinking.

  There was another pressing problem.

  The coffee stop at the service station had been hours ago. Annie double-checked the clock face on the dashboard. Could that be right? Could it really be nearly one o’clock? Weren’t they supposed to be near Vienna by now?

  In short, Annie needed to pee. Badly. Badly, badly, badly. So badly that just thinking about how much she needed to pee was causing cramp.

  ‘What are our chances of finding a toilet out here?’ she said out loud.

  Svetlana turned her head: ‘If you need to go, you must go. Is bad for the kidneys to hold on too long.’

  ‘Well, what about you? You’ve been holding on as long as me.’

  Svetlana considered.

  Annie whacked into another pothole and the Bentley groaned.

  ‘You are right we must go,’ Svetlana replied.

  ‘But where?’

  ‘Au naturel.’

  For a multimillionairess with a Mayfair mansion, bespoke Hermès luggage and several hundred thousand pounds of diamonds scattered across her fingers, Svetlana could be practical and surprisingly earthy. Maybe it was her army nurse training.

  Annie didn’t really want to bare her bottom on the top of an Italian mountain, but the growing pain in the pit of her stomach told her that she must. She slowed the car down to a stop. The road was so small and so deserted she didn’t see any point in steering the Bentley to the side.

  Then she was squatting between two opened Bentley doors, while a shaggy grey goat watched from a safe distance.

  ‘Come to Milano,’ she whispered to herself, imitating Svetlana’s accent. ‘A luxury break, totally pampering, all expenses paid. This is what you need to recharge the batteries.’

  Ha! And now where was she? She was squatting with a goat audience, on the remote and deserted peak of an Italian mountain, trying not to let a puddle of wee creep into her sandals while she wondered how to manhandle a vintage Bentley beast safely down to the other side.

  ‘Annah! Annah! Get back into the car. Quickly!’

  Annie did not like the note of urgency in Svetlana’s voice.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she called over to the other side of the car where Svetlana was relieving herself.

  ‘Quick!’

  Annie finished, snapped her knickers back into place and jumped into the driving seat. Svetlana was already in the passenger’s seat with the door closed and locked, her face upset.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Drive! Just drive – hurry!’

  Annie fired up the engine and set the car going over the lethal potholes once again.

  ‘What is it? Have you had news?’ she asked.

  ‘You have to go faster, I think they are coming.’

  ‘Who?!’

  Annie, anxious herself now, risked a move up to third gear.

  ‘I see these men; a group of men – in the distance still, but when they see car, they start jogging towards us.’

  ‘A group of men?’

  Annie considered. A group of men could mean anything. Hillwalkers, goatherds – it didn’t have to be a threat.

  ‘Maybe they’re in trouble?’ she suggested. ‘Maybe they need help. Maybe their car broke down, or they’re climbing and someone’s been hurt.’

  Svetlana gave a snort at this.

  ‘You are too nice. No! These men are not in trouble. These men are trouble. I can tell. I have seen this kind of man before. They are always Serb.’

  ‘Svetlana, you can’t say that! If you don’t like the look of someone, you can’t say they’re bad and they must be a Serb.’

  ‘But I know this kind of man. Bad. Very bad.’ She glanced over her shoulder: ‘Can you see anyone?’

  Annie’s anxiety kicked up a level, even though she didn’t want it to. She glanced in the rear-view mirror.

  ‘No. There’s no one there. Maybe you imagined it.’

  ‘Imagine it? No way. Maybe they wait for us further down. You must drive on, Annah, even if someone jump out in front of us.’

  ‘What?! Run someone over?’

  ‘Annah, I know this kind of man,’ she repeated urgently. ‘Hungry, dirty, desperate, very far away from home and looking for anything. We have to get away. This is a bad situation. I know.’

  Annie felt her heart begin to thump in her chest. She clicked the door lock button and pressed on the accelerator, pushing the Bentley to 40 miles an hour, sending it thudding and thumping over the rough road.

  As the first tight bend approached, Svetlana sucked in her breath: ‘Try not to slow down, they could be here. They could be hiding, waiting for us.’

  ‘Please Svetlana, try not to get carried awaaaaa—’

  A man leapt to his feet at the side of the road and ran towards the car.

  ‘Drive!’ Svetlana shouted, sounding panicked. ‘Don’t stop! DRIVE!’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  New York

  Lana channelling Gracie-style:

  Floral sundress (Century 21)

  Cropped cotton cardigan (Old Navy)

  Wooden soled clogs (thrift store)

  Cloth messenger bag (craft stall)

  Total est. cost: $55

  AFTER BREAKFAST AT the café, Lana had turned down Gracie’s invitation to wander round a favourite flea market, which sprang up in a vacant lot on Sunday. Instead she’d gone back to the apartment, holed up on the sofa and looked again and again at the message from Parker on her phone.

  When she’d read and reread it about one hundred times, she still hadn’t worked out how to reply to it.

  A fresh, new, horrible thought flew into her mind – what if Parker had sent it to the wrong girl? What if he’d meant to send this message to Gracie? What if it was Gracie he wanted to see?

  But no, wait a minute … he’d said: ‘sorry you left early,’ hadn’t he? And she’d been the one to leave first – but then maybe Gracie had left earlier than lots of other people there.

  Lana chewed at the skin around her nail and tried to make a decision. Could she say yes and meet Parker? Should she meet Parker? She knew she might die of disappointment if she didn’t.

  Impulsively, before she could change her mind, she hit the button to call him back. This was super-cool, super-confident New York Lana, she told herself, the kind of girl who called boys back, just to get things straight.

  The dial tone purred in her ear. Just as she became convinced this was the worst idea she’d ever had, Parker picked up.

  ‘Hi, Parker here.’

  ‘Hi Parker, I got your message.’

  Lana tried to channel: sexy, casual, seductive.

  ‘Hey, did you enjoy the club?’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  ‘So why did you run out on me?’
/>   ‘I didn’t think you were paying me enough attention,’ Lana dared.

  ‘Whooo, sorry!’

  ‘So are you going to make it up tomorrow?’

  ‘I think so, Miss Lana from London.’

  When he finally said her name, she felt she could relax. So it was her he wanted to be with.

  ‘What’s your plan?’ Lana asked.

  After he’d outlined his suggestion, she managed her coolest ever: ‘Hmmm … I guess I might like to do that. Sounds kinda cool.’

  As soon as the call had finished and Lana, cheeks blazing with excitement, had jotted down the details of where and when they were to meet, she heard a key turning in the lock and within moments, Elena was in the apartment.

  Setting a bag of groceries down on the floor, Elena asked: ‘Why are you inside? It’s a beautiful day. Outside is Manhattan, everything is going on out there. And I warned you, you must enjoy your day off before I work you to the bone tomorrow and for the rest of the week.’

  Lana smiled and shrugged.

  ‘You’re not worrying about something, are you?’ Elena asked with a look of concern.

  ‘No, nothing. Really.’

  ‘You are not allowed to worry about the Mothers, OK? We will solve these problems in time, I promise.’

  ‘I hope so. You do really think NY Perfect Dress is going to work, don’t you?’

  ‘I can’t promise you yet,’ Elena admitted, ‘we take a big risk. We could upset everyone, including the Mothers. But we have to do something. By the end of this year, if we do nothing, the business might die anyway and our careers in fashion would be finished, before they’d even begun. I hope that the Mothers will get over this.’

  ‘I don’t know … you’ve not known your mother for as long as I’ve known my mother,’ Lana warned.

  ‘Shhhh. I think it will work. Sometimes … you just have to do things,’ Elena added with a little smile, ‘and worry about the consequences later.’

  Ha. Lana thought about her date with Parker tomorrow night, despite the fact that her New York best friend had a huge crush on him too. Yes: sometimes you did just have to do things and worry about the consequences later.

  Just then, the apartment phone began to ring. Elena and Lana looked at each other with surprise because this was so unusual.

  ‘Maybe the landlord?’ Elena asked with a shrug.

  ‘On a Sunday?’

  Elena picked up: ‘Hello?’

  For a few moments Lana watched as Elena’s face went through a range of emotions. First surprised, then confused, shocked … even angry.

  ‘Yes, it’s me … hello … oh. I’m sorry, I’ve not answered calls from Svetlana, we are having big argument about the dress company,’ Elena told the receiver.

  Then came a gasped: ‘WHAT?! Oh no. NO!’

  Followed by: ‘No! This is all wrong … Igor has … OH! Harry, you know me. You know that I would never, ever …’

  Elena fell into the metal chair beside the tiny café table, grabbed for a pen and a scrap of paper. She was listening intently and firing off questions too.

  ‘So when did this happen?’

  ‘Oh my goodness … oh my goodness … why did no one tell—? Messages? No, I didn’t listen to my messages. Oh no!’ Harry … of course I did not know. Please, you must believe this.’

  As Elena pushed the hair from her face, the anxiety written across her features was plain to see.

  ‘This is terrible. The poor boys … poor Svetlana …’

  The boys? Svetlana? This was the first inkling Lana had of what the call was about. Now she grew anxious.

  ‘Please, Harry, just tell me what can I do to help you?’ Elena asked. ‘There must be something. We need to think. There must be something we can do.’

  When at last the call was over, she put the receiver down and turned to Lana, a shocked expression on her face.

  ‘What on earth has happened?’ Lana asked. ‘Is everyone OK?’

  ‘That was Harry, Svetlana’s husband,’ Elena began, her voice unsteady. ‘The boys, Michael and Petrov, they’ve been kidnapped.’

  Lana was so startled by this news, she couldn’t think of an appropriate reply.

  ‘Almost certainly by Igor,’ Elena added. ‘Harry believes Igor has taken them out of the country, although he’s not allowed to, and they think he’s going to put them in some military school in Russia.’

  ‘What?!’ Lana exclaimed. ‘But can’t the police stop him? Can’t they do something?’

  ‘The boys are out of Britain now and as soon as they are out of Europe, it becomes much more complicated. But, of course, the police and the lawyers are all involved. Harry didn’t have time to go into all the details, but the worst thing, the reason he was phoning me …’ Elena rubbed her fingers over her eyes, ‘is that they thought I knew.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘They thought I might be in on it. The day the boys went missing was my last day in London. The person who handed them over to their tennis coach – with their passports – was me!’

  Elena hid her face in her hands.

  ‘But, you told him, didn’t you? You told him it was nothing to do with you? They wouldn’t really think that?’ Lana insisted.

  ‘Oh, the poor boys! I can’t imagine how terrible this must be for them.’ Elena now began to cry: ‘Of course, I tell Harry I would never … but Svetlana is furious with me. She says she will never forgive me.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Italy

  Randall on the road:

  Tropical print board shorts (O’Neill)

  Surf-bleached pink T-shirt (gift from a kindred spirit)

  Rubber flip-flops (beach shop)

  Full-sized surfboard (Pete’s Surf Shack)

  Total est. cost: $580

  ANNIE RAMMED HER foot down on the Bentley’s accelerator to get away from the man who had leapt up at them. He was waving his arm, shouting at them.

  She threw him a glance but drove on.

  ‘Go! Go!’ Svetlana urged her. ‘There will be more, they will be waiting round the next corner. This could be a big trick.’

  A look in the rear-view mirror told Annie that the man was running after the car. She accelerated harder. But a second glance told her that he didn’t look hungry or desperate, or in any way evil.

  This man had shoulder-length wavy blond hair, a deep tan and a big white-toothed, friendly grin on his face. He was wearing board shorts, a faded T-shirt and a backpack. And on top of a mountain, hundreds of miles from the ocean, he was waving with one arm and carrying a surfboard under the other.

  Svetlana urged Annie on. But Annie caught the guy’s smile and instantly thought of Owen and his teenage friends. They would soon be old enough to backpack on adventures, hike through Europe, dare to thumb lifts from strangers. Her heart was already softening.

  When the guy changed his frantic wave to a hands-together pleading gesture, she was lost. She began to brake and he ran to catch up with the car.

  ‘Annah!’ Svetlana shrieked. ‘Don’t stop! I will not allow you to stop. If you stop and let this man in I will never, ever be your friend. Lana will be sent home from New York.’

  Annie turned to her friend.

  ‘What?!’

  ‘Drive!’ Svetlana said, sounding frightened. ‘It’s a trap.’

  The guy had already jogged up to the driver’s window and now grinned a wide, toothy smile at Annie. She slowed almost to a stop and wound the window down.

  ‘Hello, look, I am sorry, but my friend doesn’t want me to let anyone into the car. She’s very nervous about strangers.’

  ‘Hey, but I’m Randall … I come in peace,’ he said and stuck his tanned hand through the window, ready to shake. ‘See, I’m Randall, no longer a stranger to you. Peace, paix, mir, shalom – I know the word in 131 different languages.’

  His accent was broad, sunny American.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Randall asked, leaning down to the car window. ‘Wherever yo
u’re headed, I feel I should ride with you. You’re in a car, on a mountain, one of you goes in fear. I know I should ride with you. Think of me as a man of calm in the back of your car. A lucky charm. Your travel guardian.’

  Annie shook his hand and held his bright blue eyes. He was making her smile. In fact, she could even feel her heart flutter a little because he was so handsome, so muscular and such a big presence.

  ‘No, we must drive on!’ Svetlana insisted, looking over her shoulder anxiously, obviously expecting the bad Serbs to appear at any moment.

  ‘I’m sorry, is there anything else we can do?’ Annie asked. ‘Apart from a lift. Could we phone someone?’

  Randall smiled. ‘No. I need a lift and the karmic forces have brought you in your awesome car right up to the top of my mountain. So I think you should accept that I should travel in your car. I have bungee springs, the surfboard will attach to your roof in a moment. You are the first car that has come by in hours.’

  ‘In hours?’ Annie repeated. ‘But I thought we were heading to Austria?’

  In all honesty, her hope that this was the main road to Austria had evaporated with every mile they’d travelled along this rutted, deserted mountain road.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I think you’ve taken one serious detour. What did I tell you about the karmic forces? Do you have a map?’

  ‘Yes, we have a map,’ Annie looked at Svetlana pointedly.

  ‘We are on wrong road?’ Svetlana asked, even more anxious now. ‘But how far are we from Austria? We have to get to Vienna, and very quickly!’

  ‘It must be written in the stars. Our paths are meant to cross. You need me because I can read maps and I am fated to guide you to Vienna.’

  With that he pulled two elasticated ropes with clips from his pockets, attached them deftly to the car roof, slid his surfboard in under them, then popped open the rear passenger’s door and got in.

  ‘Wow! Look at this car,’ he said, settling back, hands behind his head, in the luxurious leather seat. ‘I’ve never been in anything like it. This is truly fit for a prince.’

  Annie and Svetlana looked at one another.