‘How long have you been here?’ Frankie asked, after a while, hoping it was safe ground given the diversity of the group. Their answers surprised her, given their level of adoration for John and their commitment to their new lives.
‘Some of us came yesterday,’ Alex said. ‘A couple were already here when we arrived.’
‘And everyone feels good? I mean it feels like a home? I don’t even remember what home feels like.’
‘It feels like this,’ Alex said. ‘Alina’s finding it a little harder than the rest of us, but she’ll get there.’ She nodded to the smallest girl, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen, which gave Frankie a serious case of the creeps. The girl seemed to shrink behind her neighbour, not wanting Frankie to look at her.
Just like with the soup kitchen, all the women around the table had a similar look about them. The resemblance between Alina and another girl in the circle, Tania, however, was so striking they must have been sisters. Surely?
Her hunch was confirmed a moment later.
‘Hi, Alina,’ Frankie said, smiling.
The girl didn’t answer her.
‘I’m sorry, my sister doesn’t speak a lot of English.’ Tania spoke up for her.
‘Ah, that can’t be easy.’ She didn’t want to think about what could have put two sisters on the streets.
‘It isn’t. We’ve been told we’re only allowed to speak English here. It is the language of the world. If we don’t, we won’t be able to stay here. And we want to be here. We all do. We want to be part of One World.’
She wasn’t going to get much out of them when they were all together. The trick was going to be getting to them when they were alone. No one was going to admit to any doubts or fears in front of the rest.
She looked at the faces around the table.
Her new family.
Even just the thought of it, the enforced bond, was all a bit Mansonesque for her taste. That or Children of the Corn. She wasn’t sure which.
Frankie was still trying to weigh her new sisters up and get a feel for which was likely to talk when the third door opened.
Everyone around the table fell silent.
‘You must be Ceska,’ said the man standing in the doorway. He looked like a preppy Harvard reject with slicked-back hair and pebble glasses. He had a grey stubble that gave his slightly chubby face some definition. ‘My name is Charles. Why don’t you come through so we can get to know each other?’
THIRTY-NINE
Maksim Kask knew he needed to disappear.
The problem was he didn’t believe in magic.
He’d done everything The Shepherd had asked of him. He had been true. But somehow his plan had been flawed. He couldn’t stay here. Not when they were already looking for him. He couldn’t understand what he’d missed. But they were already beginning to unpick things.
He had thought about staying and trying to brazen it out. He was a decorated cop. He was respected. Tamm was filth. Tamm was the kind of filth that masturbated into dead girls’ panties.
But it wasn’t the police he was afraid of.
It was The Shepherd.
If he believed Kask was a weak link, or he posed a risk of betrayal, then Kask would suffer the same fate as the girl.
So he needed to go. To get as far away as he could and hope to disappear.
He needed to find sanctuary.
That was the only way The Shepherd would ever believe he wasn’t a risk: if he returned home to the bosom of the family.
It had been a good plan.
Maybe not foolproof, but solid.
And Karl Tamm deserved to be behind bars. He was filth.
He couldn’t understand why everyone was so fucking interested in Irma Lutz. She was nothing. A nobody. Why had it flagged all the way up to Eurocrimes?
He’d been so unlucky.
He was a good man.
He didn’t deserve this shit.
He didn’t deserve them rooting around, asking questions, undermining all the years of good service he’d given the force. But they were gunning for him. He knew it. He could feel the noose closing around his neck. He didn’t know who was playing executioner, but he’d find out, and if he had to, he’d kill them. Fair payback for ruining his life. But for now, he had to leave that life behind.
His police radio squawked into life, reminding him that the car had a GPS transponder built into it. He was running with a bright flashing sign above his head. He needed to dump the car and move on.
Fast.
He looked at the clock on the dashboard, trying to decide how much time he realistically had. Enough to risk the airport and a flight out of the country? Maybe. But more realistically not. He had to assume they had people in place waiting for his passport to flag up so they could swoop down on him. And even if they didn’t, Eurocrimes were involved. Touch down anywhere within the twenty-eight member states and they’d have people waiting for him at the other end.
He was fucked.
He hadn’t thought this through enough.
He wouldn’t be able to run for ever.
So then what?
He pulled over to the side of the road, still in the outskirts of Tallinn, and not a million miles from where he’d dumped Annja Rosen’s body.
He needed to make a call.
‘You’re calling to tell me that you’ve taken care of everything?’ the voice at the other end said.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re lying to me, Max. I always know when you are lying.’
‘People are looking for me. I don’t know if they know, or just suspect, but I’m in a bad place here.’
‘Can you ride it out?’
‘I don’t think so. I need to get out. And quickly.’
There was a moment’s pause, thinking time. ‘Go to the airport. Leave your car in the long-stay car park. Make your way to the Departures drop-off point, and I’ll arrange for you to be collected. Someone will be there within the hour.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, feeling a sudden wave of relief.
‘Don’t thank me. I’m not doing it for you.’ The line went dead.
For the first time in what felt like for ever he didn’t have to think. Someone else was doing that for him.
He gunned the car back into life and pulled away.
When he turned on the radio the impossibly bright, impossibly perky voice promised him it was going to be a lovely day, lovely day, a lovely day.
FORTY
‘It really is lovely to finally meet you, Ceska,’ Charles said, as he ushered her into the small office. It was as spartan as the rest of the place. Very minimal, very functional. There was a plain desk and a plainer bookcase which contained several copies of the same few titles.
She detected an edge of French, or perhaps Belgian, to his accent, but his English was good.
‘I hear that you’ve been working with Tasha, helping out in the soup kitchen?’
‘You make it sound like a lot more than it was. I did a couple of shifts to thank her for her kindness the night before.’
‘I heard about that incident. Most unsavoury. People can be such filth.’
She nodded. ‘This, here, everything seems to be happening very quickly.’
‘That’s because you impressed John. He saw something in you, Ceska, and John is never wrong. He believes you have the potential to make a real difference to the work we do. Believe him, because he has a gift. When he says we need someone like you, then you are exactly the person we need to carry on our mission.’
‘I don’t even know what you do. How crazy is that? I’m here, and I don’t know how I fit in, or how I can fit in.’
‘You have to trust us, Ceska. You are good with people, I can tell that myself, already. It’s instinctive with you. A lot of the girls who come here are very badly broken and need putting back together again, but every now and then John brings home someone like you, someone who can help us help the others. We teach a lesson here, about communication,
how there are dynamics to it. I would ask you if you’ve ever tried to talk to someone in the depths of their anger – you know how hard it is to have a rational discussion with them. Their reality is distorted by rage. There is no communication, not really, no matter how much you like or love one another. Some of these lessons can take years to learn, but you are a natural. And that alone is a gift beyond measure. There are many things we can give you here, a world of opportunities we can provide, if you are receptive?’
Frankie nodded. ‘I just want to be a better person,’ she said.
‘And so you shall, my dear, but first things first, we need to talk, just you and me, to share and understand. I want you to trust me, to unburden yourself, so that we can get down to the real you. Do you trust me?’
Not in the slightest.
‘Yes.’
‘We need to get to the heart of what is troubling you – and before you tell me you’re fine, everyone carries a burden of troubles, things that stop us from being the best version of ourselves we can be. It’s not a test, not something you can pass or fail.’
‘OK. So what is it?’
‘Just a chat really, a conversation. We work on our communication to go deeper. We build a bond of trust. You will feel better for it, I promise. You got on well with Tasha, didn’t you?’
She nodded. ‘Without her I might still be on the streets.’
His smile widened. ‘That’s the way that so many people who come through these doors feel. Tasha has a special empathy, a way of doing or saying the right thing at the right time. She makes a difference.’
‘She does.’
‘And all we want is for you to make a difference.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ she said.
Now his smile was almost condescending, at least the part that made it as far as his eyes. ‘It’s not about best or worst, Ceska. It’s about being yourself. Only you can be that, and there’s only one real you. So I’m going to ask you some questions that should help us strip away the face you present to the world, the tough, street-smart kid who doesn’t need anyone or anything, and get to meet the real Ceska. How does that sound?’
Fucking terrifying, she thought.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Let’s get to know me, shall we?’
‘I’m excited to meet the real you, Ceska. So, first, I’d like to ask you what made you run?’
She’d rehearsed this story so many times she believed the lie, so she repeated the story she’d told Tasha on that first morning, but he shook his head. ‘No. That’s not it,’ Charles said.
She didn’t know what to say.
How could he know?
She’d been flawless in the lie, every last detail.
‘It is,’ she insisted.
‘No, it isn’t. Not really. You need to go deeper. Why did you run, really? What was it that made you finally say enough? What was the breaking point?’
He was asking for her secrets, she realized.
She resisted the impulse to look around the room, and assumed this conversation was being recorded, a spy camera somewhere capturing her confession.
So, she decided to give him what he wanted.
‘Can I really trust you, Charlie?’
‘Of course you can, Ceska. We’re a family now.’
She nodded, and proceeded to lie some more. ‘He used to come into my room at night.’
‘Who did?’
‘My father. He used to come into my room.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why.’
‘No. I don’t. Your truth isn’t mine. Only you know why, and if we’re going to unburden you, to clean your soul, then you need to share it with me. Why?’
‘Because I was his special little girl, that’s what he used to say.’
‘No,’ Charles said again, stopping her short. ‘No really, why?’
‘Because he lied and told me he was protecting me. That he would always protect me.’
‘No, really, why?’
‘Because he was a sick man,’ she said.
Charles nodded. ‘Yes, he was. He was a sick man. But that’s his truth, not yours. So, dig deeper. Why did he come into your room? Really?’
‘Because I wanted him to,’ she said, and Charles’s smile turned predatory. He nodded, like she’d just unlocked a world of truths that would keep him in secrets worth using against her for ever.
‘So what was different? Why did you run, really?’
‘Because he stopped coming into my room,’ Frankie said.
‘And there is the truth, Ceska. How does it feel to finally know your darkest heart?’
‘I don’t like it,’ she said.
‘Few of us ever do, my dear, but you’ve taken the first step to cleansing your soul so that you can be the real you. You’ve recognized the darkness within you. That you wanted what happened to you. Now, we are going to do this every day while you are with us. It needn’t be long, but each day we will try to understand another aspect of what has caused you to hide the real you, and to understand how you have reached this point in your life.’
‘OK.’
‘Don’t worry, honestly. You’ll come to enjoy it. There is something liberating about freeing yourself of these lies you’ve woven around yourself.’
‘Do you do it? I mean does someone sit with you and ask you the same questions?’
‘Of course. I am on a search for answers. We all are. Everyone here is looking for their own personal truth. We can only hope that one day The Shepherd guides us to it.’
‘He sounds like a good man.’
‘He is. He created One World to help others who can’t help themselves. He built this place with his bare hands. He has written his wisdom down as tenets we might follow. Everything he does and thinks is to make our lives better. We have some rules, of course we do, but rather than give you a long list of what you can’t do, I think it’s better to remove the word no from our vocabulary and look for the positive in everything. So, instead I’d rather focus on what we can do, and how our actions affect others here and why that’s important.’
‘Like the fact we only speak English here?’
‘That’s only while you’re here. It helps create a bond so everyone feels as though they are part of the same thing. If some speak Estonian, some Russian, some English, French, Ukrainian, or whatever, then it’s only natural that native speakers will group together. They have a shared language. That’s a commonality. Something that is just theirs. It brings them together. But if we all share a single language then at least while we’re here we become closer.’
‘That makes sense,’ Frankie said.
‘We will look out for each other. We care for each other. We protect each other. We nurture each other. I know sometimes it’s all a bit overwhelming, and maybe even a bit strange, but if you think of it like this, you came to us as a caterpillar, and this place, this is your cocoon, when you leave here you get to fly as a beautiful butterfly, reborn into the real you. The best you. Anything that had happened to you before you came here is gone. Lost. It bears no relevance on who you become.’
‘Maybe I’m a moth?’
‘Oh no, my dear, you’re no such thing. The world has hurt you, but we are here to help your metamorphosis. We won’t allow you to be damned by your past. Family doesn’t abandon family.’
She could see what he was doing. It wasn’t subtle, or particularly clever. He was appealing to the lost soul, making promises of belonging that it inevitably craved. And it might have worked on her if she was truly lost. If she didn’t let herself think about it too deeply. Most people wanted to belong to something, it was part of the human condition, even if it was as basic as belonging to a tribe, a lover, a clan, some group that shared some kindred spirit. Belonging to something was underrated. It was also the first step in a much more insidious process. This was about breaking people down, making them malleable and open to coercion. In cruder terms it was about brainwashing, though nothing was as simple as that. The brain
couldn’t be erased like some chalkboard. But what they could do was create the perfect little One World soldier.
‘So, how do you feel? Any questions? Concerns?’
She thought about asking for her backpack, but knew that ran counter to everything he’d just said. The stuff in that bag was the past. Asking for it when he’d just told her to let go of it was tantamount to admitting she didn’t have the right stuff after all.
‘Not yet,’ she said, instead.
‘Good. Well, if you do, Elsa’s always around to help or you can come and find me. My door’s always open. And of course I’ll see you tomorrow for our session.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Why don’t we go and join the others?’
He reached across to the bookcase, plucking a copy of one of the titles off the top shelf. ‘This will give you a better idea of what we do around the world. Sometimes it’s good to get the big picture. It helps you know how important you are even if you feel like you’re the tiniest cog. I know you’re aware we work with the homeless, but that really is only the tip of the iceberg. We are involved in much more than that around the world. So much more. And I’m sure that somewhere in here we’ll find something perfectly suited to your gifts, Ceska. Because you are one of us.’
He offered her the book.
She saw the now familiar One World logo embossed on the cover.
FORTY-ONE
Kask parked as far from the terminal as possible, and used the free shuttle bus for the final stage of the journey. He checked his watch as he walked through the terminal building surrounded by the heartbreak and hope of travellers going away and coming home. He still had twenty minutes until he was due to be picked up.
He sidestepped a fat American who seemed to be arguing with himself. Seeing the small white airbuds in his ears, Kask assumed he was on the phone. It wasn’t so many years ago seeing someone talking to themselves in public was a sure sign of a mind unhinging, now it was commonplace. The world was changing and leaving people like him behind.
He hadn’t been told who was coming to pick him up, but he assumed his contact would be bringing false documentation, that or diplomatic credentials which would allow him to travel with immunity, such was the power of The Shepherd in this new world.
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