The Weekend Away

by Sarah Alderson

  Sebastian seems annoyed that I already know and stays silent as the scene plays out on the monitor. We watch Emanuel sneak into the room when Kate’s in the shower. He picks up her bag and then he’s out of the room, quick as lightning.

  The camera switches to the one in the living room, which I’m guessing is hidden on the mantelpiece. Emanuel’s grabbing Joaquim, who’s still sitting on the sofa, watching something on his phone. He says something to him and the two of them grab their jackets and make for the door.

  Sebastian switches back to Kate’s room. ‘Look,’ he says.

  The bathroom door opens and Kate walks out, wearing only a towel. She stops, pausing and looking around, aware that something’s out of place in the room. She twigs it’s her bag. She scours the room for it, then screams: ‘Son of a bitch!’

  The breath flies out of my chest. Oh my God! That’s it! That’s the memory. I must have heard her scream. I was passed out in my room but the word ‘bitch!’ must have penetrated through the dark of my unconsciousness. It’s why I couldn’t ever see her, only hear her. I draw in a huge breath, relief flooding through me. This whole time I’ve been harbouring a deep-seated fear that maybe … no. I shake the idea off. It was so absurd and yet for a time … I actually thought I might have done something to Kate.

  ‘Are you watching?’ Sebastian snaps.

  I turn my attention back to the screen. There’s Kate, darting out of the bedroom and into the hallway. Within seconds she’s back, grabbing her dress from the bedroom floor, accidentally knocking over a glass of wine in the process, ignoring the spill as she tosses sheets and pillows aside, looking for something, maybe her phone, before she gives up and slides on some sandals. She’s out the door in seconds, pulling the dress on as she goes.

  ‘She chased after them,’ I say, feeling a sudden urge to sit down. It’s so damn obvious, how did I not see it? Of course, Kate ran after them. She didn’t leave the apartment to buy drugs or to go clubbing or to meet Rob or because Konstandin had lured her there on Toby’s orders, or for any other mysterious reason. She ran after Joaquim and Emanuel because they stole her fifteen-thousand-pound Birkin bag and she wanted it back.

  Sebastian freeze-frames the screen on Kate dashing out the door at 3.06 a.m.

  ‘You knew!’ I say, furiously rounding on him. ‘You bloody knew and you didn’t say a word! You arsehole!’

  He opens his mouth as though to argue with me but I cut him off. ‘I spent days walking around wondering why she’d left, where she was … You could have told me. You could have told the police, but you were more interested in saving yourself.’

  Sebastian scowls at me, cheeks turning pink. He doesn’t like being confronted with the ugly truth. He turns suddenly and hits a button on the screen.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I say as a dialog box pops up.

  He hits delete.

  ‘No!’ I say, but it’s too late. The screen goes blank.

  He quickly navigates to another box and taps out a few more commands.

  ‘Stop it!’ I say grabbing for his arm.

  He shakes me off, intent on deleting any evidence. ‘You promised you wouldn’t go to the police,’ he cries. ‘You were lying. I know you’re going to tell them.’

  I take hold of his arm again and drag him away from the computer. He yelps and turns to me. Too late I see he’s holding one of the textbooks from the desk in his free hand. He smashes it into my face. I reel backwards, letting out a cry, smashing into the far wall, my cheekbone blazing. Then he turns back to the monitor and presses delete on the new dialog box that has appeared on screen.

  ‘You won’t have any proof,’ he says to me.

  ‘You can’t remove all the cameras,’ I answer, a hand flying to my cheek, which is throbbing painfully.

  Sebastian crosses to the door. ‘I don’t want to have to do this,’ he says to me, ‘but you’re giving me no option.’

  My blood runs cold. What is he talking about? Before I can stop him he moves to shut the door in my face. He’s going to lock me in here!

  ‘I’ll only keep you in here until I remove the cameras. Then I’ll let you go.’

  I dart forward and shove him hard in the chest, kicking the door back at the same time and wedging my foot into the gap so he can’t slam it on me. There’s no way I’m letting him lock me in here. We tussle, me clawing at him and him slapping at me and pushing me off him. I grab him by the shoulders and knee him in the crotch and he bends over double, groaning. I take the advantage and leap past him, racing out of the room and making straight for the front door.

  Halfway there a hand grabs my shoulder and yanks me back. I stumble and Sebastian tugs my arm, trying to pull me away from the front door. I spin around, bringing my elbow up. It smacks into his face with a satisfying crunch and he lets go of me, staggering backwards, blood pouring from his nose. His feet slip and he goes down, his head smacking with a loud crack off the edge of the table.

  I don’t stop to see if he’s OK. I keep running, throwing myself at the door, fumbling with the lock before leaping down the stairs three at a time until I reach the bottom, the foyer, and burst out of the front door onto the street, gasping and shaking.

  A hand closes around my arm. I let out a scream and shove at the person in a panic, before realising it’s not Sebastian. It’s Konstandin.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ‘What is it? What’s happening?’ Konstandin asks, hands gripping my shoulders.

  ‘It’s him. Sebastian,’ I splutter, looking over my shoulder in fear, half-expecting to see him racing out the door behind me.

  ‘What about him?’ Konstandin asks, following my gaze.

  ‘He’s been spying on us. He has all these cameras … I tried to get away …’

  ‘Did he do this?’ Konstandin growls, nodding at my cheekbone. I touch my fingertips to it and wince. I’d forgotten about the blow from the textbook.

  I nod. ‘Yes. He wasn’t going to let me go …’

  ‘Is he still inside?’ Konstandin asks, cutting me off.

  I nod again, adrenalin pumping through me in torrents, my blood still pounding loudly in my head. Konstandin moves to the door. I want to stop him but it’s too late, he’s already inside, rushing up the stairs. I glance up the street. I just want to run away, get the hell out of here, go to the police and tell them before Sebastian can remove the cameras from the apartments and do away with all the evidence, but I realise my phone and wallet and everything are still in the apartment and if I’m going to go back inside to get them I’d rather do it with Konstandin at my side.

  I chase after him and catch up with him at the door to the apartment, which is wide open. Konstandin steps warily inside and I follow, unable to see past him. He walks a few steps and crouches down and that’s when I see Sebastian is lying on the ground in the hallway, face down.

  Konstandin presses his fingers to Sebastian’s neck, feeling for a pulse. I cover my mouth with both hands and let out a choking gasp. Oh my God. He’s dead. I’ve killed him. But it was an accident.

  Konstandin rolls Sebastian gently over and I fully expect to see his eyes, staring glassily up at me, or for blood to be leaking out the corner of his mouth, but instead I hear a groan and see his lips move. He’s alive! Thank God. But shit, his face is covered in blood and his nose looks like it might be broken. That must have been from when I clocked him in the face with my elbow.

  ‘Oh God, this is bad,’ I say, biting my nails as I stare down at Sebastian’s supine body. Even though he’s lying unconscious and his face is blood-splattered and bruised, it’s hard to summon any sympathy.

  ‘He’s breathing,’ Konstandin says. ‘He’ll have concussion but I don’t think anything is broken, other than his nose.’ He says it with a scowl, as though he wishes there was more damage.

  ‘He was chasing me,’ I explain again, anxiety welling up. ‘He tried to lock me in his room.’ I wring my hands and am aware of my voice rising in pitch so I sound on the verge of hyst
eria. ‘I ran. He came after me. He grabbed my arm. I pushed him off … he must have fallen.’

  ‘He hit his head,’ says Konstandin pointing to the edge of the table.

  There’s blood on the edge of it. My stomach heaves at the sight.

  ‘We should call an ambulance,’ I mumble.

  ‘The paramedics will want to know what happened,’ he says. ‘The police will probably come.’

  He’s right. And now Sebastian has deleted all the tapes I don’t have evidence. The police already think I hired Konstandin to kill Kate. God knows what they’ll make of this little scene. They’ll leap to conclusions. They’ll think Konstandin and I tried to kill Sebastian to shut him up or something. They might even think I was the one who deleted the videos.

  Sebastian groans at our feet. I still need to call an ambulance.

  ‘You should go,’ I tell Konstandin, pulling out my phone to dial 112. ‘It’s best they don’t find you here.’

  Konstandin nods, absently, then turns to me, his eyes sharp. ‘What did you mean, he was spying?’ he asks.

  I point at the room down the hallway, the door still hanging open. ‘I got into Sebastian’s secret room,’ I tell him. ‘I was suspicious. He was acting funny. He knew things he couldn’t have known unless he’d been listening in to conversations. He’s the one who told the police about you by the way, and about Rob and Kate having the affair. He’s been spying on me this whole time.’

  Konstandin glowers but I can see he’s still confused.

  ‘He’s got all these video feeds,’ I explain. ‘Hidden cameras in the bedrooms and the bathrooms of all his apartments. They’re everywhere! I saw all the footage of the night Kate disappeared. He had it all on tape.’

  Konstandin’s eyes go wide. ‘Show me,’ he orders.

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t. He deleted everything. He knew I was going to go to the police. He didn’t want to get arrested. He was trying to stop me from leaving …’ I tail off, glancing down at Sebastian.

  Konstandin rubs his jaw, thinking. ‘What was on the video? Did you see anything?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, nodding. ‘Kate ran after Joaquim and Emanuel. She was trying to get her bag back.’

  Konstandin takes that in, shaking his head in frustration at the obviousness of it. I want to nod and tell him I felt the same way when I saw it. I could have kicked myself. It was staring us in the face – the reason she left the apartment – and we never figured it out.

  ‘It was less than a minute,’ I find myself blurting out. ‘Forty seconds between them leaving and her following them. I saw it all.’

  ‘But she didn’t catch up with them outside?’ Konstandin asks.

  I shrug. ‘There are no cameras outside so I don’t know, but the police said that Joaquim and Emanuel got a taxi back to their place. The driver was an alibi for them.’

  Konstandin nods. ‘OK, so what if Kate ran outside after them and saw them getting into the Uber?’

  ‘She would have tried to follow,’ I say, imagining Kate running after them. She wouldn’t have quit and come back inside. That’s not Kate.

  ‘She could have got a taxi,’ Konstandin says.

  I nod. That makes sense.

  ‘Taxis pass by all the time on this road. Say she managed to jump in one and chase after them …’

  I look at Konstandin. He’s right. There are dozens of licensed taxis in the neighbourhood. I’ve seen them crawling along, trying to pick up tourists who’ve had enough of the hills. ‘Yes,’ I say, nodding. ‘It’s possible. But how would we find out?’ My excitement vanishes. ‘It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ he says, already moving for the door.

  I don’t move. I stare down at Sebastian, still passed out on the ground at my feet, blood bubbling on his lip every time he breathes in.

  ‘Call an ambulance on the way,’ Konstandin says, though I can tell he thinks we shouldn’t bother.

  ‘Maybe I should stay. I could explain it all to the police. Tell them what I saw on the tapes?’

  Konstandin glowers at me. ‘Why not put handcuffs on and sit and wait for them to come and arrest you?’ he asks, opening the door and gesturing for me to follow.

  I hesitate. ‘Won’t that look bad though?’ I ask. ‘If I run?’

  Konstandin exhales loudly. ‘They already think you killed one person …’

  ‘They think we both did,’ I shoot back. ‘They think I hired you to kill Kate for me.’

  We exchange a look. He nods ruefully. ‘I know. They brought me in for questioning.’ He gestures again at the door. ‘Let’s go. We need to find out what happened to Kate. The police don’t seem to care about the truth so we have to find it ourselves. It’s our only chance at clearing our names.’

  As we dash out the door I dial 112, the number for the emergency services, and give them the address, worrying my Irish accent is hard for the operator to understand.

  Halfway down the stairs I realise I should have taken evidence with me; one of the hidden cameras perhaps, but what use would a disconnected spy camera be? I worry though. What if Sebastian wakes up and hurries to dismantle the evidence of his crimes before I have a chance to tell the police or the police can search his apartments? If he does it will be his word against mine. And my word doesn’t count for much.

  I pause, mid-step. ‘Hang on!’ I yell to Konstandin and I turn around and race back upstairs, past the door to Sebastian’s apartment and up to the top floor, to the apartment where I stayed with Kate. I hammer on the door with my fists and someone quickly rushes to open up. It’s a bewildered-looking man in his late sixties, wearing pyjamas. ‘Yes?’ he asks in a strong German or maybe Dutch accent. ‘Can I help you?’

  A woman, around the same age, appears behind him, in her dressing gown, looking anxious.

  ‘The bathroom and the bedrooms. There are spy cameras hidden in the lights and behind the mirror I think.’

  ‘What?’ the man asks, frowning. He doesn’t understand but I look at the woman behind him and see, from the shocked expression on her face, that she has. She grips the man’s arm and says something to him in flustered German. He turns to look at me, confused as to who I am and why I’m turning up on his doorstep at night to deliver the message.

  ‘I stayed here,’ I explain. ‘My friend and I. The landlord spied on us. He has cameras everywhere. Call the police.’

  Before they can ask anything else I turn and rush back down the stairs, ignoring them when they shout questions after me. Konstandin is waiting at the bottom of the stairs, frowning at me, clearly wondering what the hell I was doing. I shrug at him. ‘I’ll explain later.’

  He pushes the door open with his shoulder and holds it for me. I walk out onto the street and slap bang into a pizza delivery boy, holding a pizza. My pizza, I realise. He’s pushing the buzzer to Sebastian’s apartment. I keep my head down but notice he glances at Konstandin and I as we head for his car. Shit. He’s a witness now.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It’s only when I’m in the car with Konstandin that I stop for a moment and gather my senses. In the midst of all the drama I’d forgotten what the police told me earlier – about who Konstandin is and who he works for.

  ‘What were you doing here?’ I ask as Konstandin starts the car, my fingers moving to the door handle.

  ‘Looking for you,’ he answers, pulling out into traffic.

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  ‘Because the police paid me a visit after you left this afternoon. They wanted to know my whereabouts the night Kate went missing.’

  I take a deep breath and press my lips together.

  ‘I gave them the names of all the people who I drove that night. I was working all night until the morning. I have alibis.’

  I let out the breath I’m holding. ‘That’s great,’ I say, feeling a huge wash of relief, though trying not to show it.

  He shakes his head, still grim-faced. ‘I don’t know if the alibis will be
enough. They don’t know what time she died. I was home alone the next day.’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘They told you, didn’t they?’ he asks. ‘About who I work for?’

  I give a tiny shrug in answer.

  ‘It was difficult to get away,’ he says, frowning hard. ‘Everyone was trying to flee Kosovo but I didn’t have papers or money. And if you were a man and you weren’t fighting it was difficult to escape. People asked questions.’

  He looks at me and I nod for him to go on.

  ‘I could have stayed. Perhaps I should have but I was tired of the killing, of all the death. And it wasn’t safe. I knew a man. I’d helped save his brother’s life when he was brought in to the hospital where I worked. I gave him blood from my own arm because the hospital had none left. And I knew this man, the brother, was powerful, rich. Before the war he’d been a criminal. Everyone knew who he was. Here, they would call him mafia. But to me he was a ticket out of that place. Out of hell.’

  I nod to show him I understand. And who am I to judge, anyway?

  ‘I went to him,’ he says, his voice quiet, like the tide rushing out over gravel stones. ‘He remembered me and what I’d done for his brother. His name was Goran. He gave me the money and the means to get to Europe. He helped me get to Lisbon. He had contacts here.’ He stops and takes a breath. ‘I didn’t have any money. I didn’t speak the language. I couldn’t find work. It was difficult. I didn’t want to beg so after three months of trying to find work and sleeping in the park and down by the river I went to Goran’s friends who lived here and I asked them for work. It was the only thing I could think of if I wanted to stay alive and not starve to death. A man must work.’ He pauses, shaking his head as though he regrets the choice he made. ‘They took me on as a driver.’

  He glances at me, and I see a nervousness in his eyes, as though he’s afraid I’m judging him. I nod for him to continue, wanting to hear the rest of the story.

  ‘I told them I wouldn’t do anything illegal for them,’ he continues, speaking faster now. ‘I didn’t want to jeopardise my asylum claim. But these people, it’s true, they are not, how do you say? Squeaky clean?’