He crawled to his feet, shivering so badly he couldn’t speak. Nikolas put out a hand, but Ben jerked his arm away. He walked slowly back into the house and to the shower. He stood under the stream for a very long time until the hot water ran out. He should never have said what he did. It wasn’t for him to wrench Nikolas’s secrets out as if he were extracting a bad tooth without anaesthetic. He lifted his face to the water, even though it was cold, and then knew he had to make this right.
He dried off and dressed in some jeans and a sweater and went down to make peace. Nikolas wasn’t in yet. He frowned; Nikolas only had a towel, and it was still snowing heavily. He went outside. The tub was empty. The car was still there. He trudged through the snow to the woodpile, but Nikolas wasn’t there either. He went up on the deck and scanned the whole area up to the forest. He could barely see his bright blood, for it was now almost covered by snow. His footprints were fully covered. It was turning into a blizzard.
He must have missed Nik inside, which would’ve been difficult as there was only one room up and one room down. Even so, he went back in and searched. Nikolas’s clothes were on the sofa, but no Nikolas. Ben began to take it seriously. Up to then, he’d thought it was Nikolas just…being Nikolas. He grabbed a coat and a flashlight and went back into the snow. He called out, wishing he had Radulf. He went back to the last place he’d seen him standing in the snow and examined it carefully. The blood was almost totally obscured. On closer examination, there appeared to be two splatters. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened when Nikolas had hit him. He put his fingers to his lip. It wasn’t bleeding now, it hadn’t been a very hard hit and wouldn’t have bled that much. With the flashlight and squatting close to the snow, he thought he could see signs of impact, but then they’d fallen and rolled and wrestled, and he’d been fucked, so he reckoned therewouldbe some signs. He looked up. There was no sound at all. The snow seemed to suck everything from the air. He bellowed Nikolas’s name but heard nothing in reply.
He had absolutely no idea what to do.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Ben had the phone in his hand before he realised firstly he didn’t know the number for the police in Denmark and secondly he couldn’t call them, Nikolas didn’t exist legally. He ran up to the bedroom and searched through Nik’s bag until he found a plane ticket for a Christian Beck. He rang Kate instead of the police. She took at least four rings to answer. “Where were you?”
“Just about to go down on James Caviezel. Where were you?”
“What?”
“Ben! I was asleep. I was dreaming, thank you very much. My one chance, and now he’s probably going to go all Jesus Christ on me again.”
“What? Kate, Nik has disappeared. He’s been taken, I think. I don’t know.”
“What? Fuck. Where are you?”
“In Denmark still, but I need you to do a check on one of his aliases, Christian Beck. Is it good? If I call the police, will it hold up?”
“Jesus, Ben, give me some credit, yeah? I wrote all his aliases. Christian is a particular favourite of mine. He’s an art dealer.”
“Nikolas came here from Russia on Aeroflot 2658 on the twenty-eighth of November. Can you check his flight out from London, get details on what he’s been doing in Russia officially as Christian?”
“I’m at my mum’s, Ben! Hello? Christmas? I’ll be able to get home in about two hours. I’ll get there as soon as I can, okay? Anything else?”
“Oh, God, I don’t know! We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, he had no clothes on, we had this big argument, and now he’s just gone!”
“Is this anything to do with the message he left on my phone earlier? To check a number for him?”
“I don’t know! What was the number?”
She told him and then added, “He sent it from your phone.”
Ben cursed. “No, that was an argument we had earlier.”
“Uh-huh. As interesting as the image of Sir Nikolas standing stark-bollock naked in the snow and arguing with you is—and it’s almost better than my last image of Jim Caviezel—you maybe want to think aboutnotarguing so much?”
Ben wasn’t in the mood for anything but his rising panic. “Call me back as soon as you can, yeah?”
It was the longest three hours of his life. Eventually, she called back. “It’s good, Ben. He flewoutof London as Christian, too. I’ve boosted up his profile in Russia, had him at some art galleries and the like. Christian is Danish by nationality, so no problems with a foreign national going missing. He’s not lived in Denmark for about twenty years, and his profile here in London is rock-solid. He’ll be good to go.”
“Okay, thanks.”
“Ben, give me your address.”
“I’m not sure what it is. Why?”
“Because I’m coming over. I’ll be there some time the day after tomorrow.”
“No, it’s okay, Kate. I’ll?”
“Address, Ben!”
He gave her Ingrid’s. It was the only one he knew. “Kate, can you do me a favour? I know I don’t deserve one.”
