“I was stupid.And now I’ve screwed up again—I meant to handthis in on my way from the airport.Elizabeth, I know you’rescared, but will you do it for me?The office is just—”
“I know where it is.”She shook her head, tucking the envelopeunder her arm.“You seem a sweet boy, and I don’t have the right tosay this, but I hope you appreciate Alexandru as you should.Who doI have to give this to?”
“The IGC chief himself, or his immediate assistant.Not a mancalled Alan Briggs, who might try to get it from you.Be careful.You might have some trouble.”
“Good.I almost hope I do.”Her colour had risen.“Littlepaper-pushing men—they have no idea who they’re dealing with.Youwill wait for me here.”
That wasa command, not a question.Laurie nodded.He didn’t want any morespoken promises broken.This charade at best would buy him sometime.He had no doubt that she would come following once her taskwas done, but with her blood roused like this she might causeenough trouble to get tangled in bureaucracy, and that would holdher up.“Thank you.”
“Don’t stand here like this.Go and huddle in that doorway overthere.Hold your hand out as if you need something—money or food.Iguarantee no-one will notice you then.”
***
Laurie waited.The steps to the Council offices were visiblefrom where he sat.Elizabeth ran smartly up them.Her head was heldhigh, her whole demeanour transformed.She disappeared into thebuilding, and Laurie waited half a minute more: he had to be sureshe was safe, and that Sasha’s parcel had made it at least that faron its journey.Two worlds were coexisting inside Laurie’s head.The first one held phrases likethepackage doesn’t matter nowandyou can see to Mr Cuza for yourself now, can’tyou—things Laurie could say with Sasha safeand well at his side.He liked that world.In it, he and Sash werestriding through the Bloomsbury streets on their way to work, amundane, blessed London morning unfolding all around them, pigeonsflashing upward through the rain.
In thesecond world, the empty one, the parcel was Laurie’s last duty.Hescrambled upright, mouth dry, fear as bright as copper rising inhis chest.Again he waited—ten more heartbeats, long enough to besure that Elizabeth and her package weren’t about to be thrown backout wholesale onto the street.
Heslipped out of his doorway.Instead of making for the Tube, heturned and headed back the way he’d come.As long as he was in fullview on Euston Road, he continued in his role of downcast hobo,shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets.He threaded the crowds theway Elizabeth had done—the way of the urban fox, crossing exposedground unseen.
That wasElizabeth’s way.It once had been Sasha’s too, and Laurie hadlearned it in their early days together.He could do it if he hadto.It meant buses, Tubes, long hikes between them on foot.It tooktime.Laurie ducked into an alley and stood gasping, therestrictions squeezing his lungs and his heart.
Therewas another way.He had begun to mistrust his impulses, and thisone wouldn’t bear examination.All he could say for it was that itwas fast, and his own.Laurie’s way, the thing he was left withwhen all other help was gone.When he had to stand alone anddecide.He pushed back the jacket’s hood and ran.
Chapter Twenty Five
Aperfect summer evening on the heath.Sasha had only seen it bare,stripped to turf and tree-branch bones, glittering monochrome undera coating of frost.Now the track was lined with brambles in fullflower, a froth of pink and white.The season was early: in a fewsunny places, the delicate petals had fallen and a handful ofberries come to sudden readiness.On instinct Sasha picked them,aware of their ruby-black beauty, ignoring the burning brush ofnettles on his hands.He was very hungry.He was of Romani blood,however, and where there were plants there was food.
Where there were trees there was rest.Lowering sunlight wasslanting through the ferns.Beeches tall and smooth as churchpillars soared up through the undergrowth, only a few leavesamongst all their green glory beginning to turn with the year.Onegold coin, two, three, like thegalbi disks on Mama Luna’sscarves...
Sashawiped his eyes to separate the blurring colours around him backinto sensible shapes.He had business to attend to.The purpose ofhis journey was as real and vivid as the weight of the Makarovpistol in his pocket.He ate the blackberries, seeking the tinysugar hit that would keep his senses active and tart juice toquench his thirst.The feathery pale flowers growing nearby lookedlike little cow parsleys but were pignuts.Gunari had taught himhow to dig them up and find their savoury root, delicious roastedwith chestnuts.If the stream he could hear in the distance wasclean enough for watercress to grow, that was his vitamin C sortedout, provided he could boil out any liverfluke.Yes, he couldsurvive.One of the church-column beeches had divided early in itsgrowth.The fork was low enough for him to reach if he could jumpfor it.The left arm was beautiful, a curve like a huge waitingembrace.
Heneeded to rest.That was the reason he gave himself for scramblinginto the tree.Twenty feet up, he could see the heath around him,the full length of the track, from the road to the place where theencampment had been.He stretched out on his belly along thecurving branch.His palms were green with moss.When he glanceddown at his clothes, it was as if his battered parka and camouflagetrousers had found their destiny at last: in the shifting shade, hewas nothing more than abstracts, a random patchwork only faithcould reconstruct into a man.And Sasha was all out of faith.Dissolution suited him fine.If he didn’t exist, there was no dutyupon him to carry out his objective here.He was so damntired...
Maybe hewas sleeping already, launched into a time-travel dream.There wasGunari himself, an incongruous giant among the brambles,bleach-blond crewcut glinting in the sun.Sasha pushed up, restingon his elbows.What had Laurie said—that he ran a restaurant now?Sasha’s brain ran unlikely possibilities.Authentic Roma food takento a far extreme, ingredients hand-gathered by the chef on a lonelyheath...
No.Gunari wasn’t here to dig up pignuts.He was pacing the track inthe direction of the camp, head down, coat collar turned up.Hismovements were nervy and anxious.Every few paces he glanced back.Sasha watched him until he took the fork that led off the lane andinto the deep woods.The summer verdure closed behind him, and likea dream he was gone.
That track lane led to a group of half-ruined buildings in theheart of the Birchwood wilderness.Sasha had found out about themon the night of the raid.Gunari had caught up with him as he fledthrough the flame-lit trees.Come with me,Sandru!There’s a safe place here, a place Stefan Petrica uses.He’s not here now.Come!And Sasha had runwith him, until the encroaching branches, the ugly brick shedshunched in the torchlight, the terror invoked in him by hisfather’s name, all had squeezed down with a suffocating weight onhis heart and he’d broken away, tearing off alone into the night.Straight into the arms of John Kucharski, as it turned out,although that captivity had turned into a freedom and peace heshould have known could never last.
Sasha hadn’t come up here to rest.He was much too tough tofall apart after a transatlantic flight and a couple of missedmeals.He had been waiting.Along with this realisation came a rushof amusement and pain at his own absurdity.He’d been allowing timeto pass by—time for distance to close, for two shattered halves todraw back together again.He was a child, laying invisiblebreadcrumbs of time on the trail behind him, not so that he couldretrace his steps but for someone else to find, the only man who’dever shown him magic in a concrete-jungle world.Laughter likesobbing passed through him.I once met afairytale prince...
In abright-red Mercedes.Sasha froze to stillness on the branch.Theroad out from East Hill was a quiet one, a bus route betweenfar-flung suburbs.The rush hour was over.How many convertible SLswould come tearing down here, paintwork flashing blood-red lightsback at the sun?
Still itwas impossible.Sasha didn’t move, not until the car was veering toa halt, leaving two neat bands of acrid rubber on the road.No-onewould stop here unless they had visited previously on foot, unlessthey knew the little stile that led over the fence onto the heath.Dear God, who else drove a Merc with gypsy-fixed scratch down herpassenger side?“No,” Sasha whispered, pushing up off the branch.“Laurie, no.No.”He lost his footing, turned his fall into a dropand landed hard among the brambles.Frantically he disentangledfrom their thorns.He began to run.He had lost coordination, hisinstincts for silence and stealth.The noise he was making wouldattract anyone who hadn’t already noticed the flame-red convertiblearriving here at eighty miles an hour, but he couldn’t stophimself.The whispers crawling up his throat changed into rawyells.He got clear of the undergrowth and hit the track flat out,flying up towards the fence.“Laurie, for God’s sake!No!”
Andthere he was.Always Sasha’s blue-eyed god, not the less so nowbecause he looked as if he’d flown in straight from hell.His hairwas rumpled, five o’clock shadow darkening his jaw.He slammed thecar door and stood in the road.He was wearing a jacket stillstained with Glastonbury mud.It didn’t hide the shivers runningthrough him.“Sash,” he called out, and began to stumble towardshim round the car’s front end.
“No.Get back in.”Sasha was close enough now to be heardwithout shouting.He stopped by the fence, grabbing its top bar forsupport.“What the hell are you doing?Get out of here.Go.”
“I can’t believe I found you.I can’t leave you.Iwon’t.”
“Then...”Sasha glanced around urgently, shading his eyesagainst the sun.“Then get back in and take her on another thirtyyards or so, just past that streetlight.There’s no fence there,just low branches.Drive her into there and hide her.Now!”
“Will you promise not to run?”
“Just do it, will you?”
Sashaturned away.He didn’t care if Laurie obeyed him or not, althoughthe roar of the engine and subsequent crackling of undergrowth toldhim he could still direct the Fitzroy force of nature to thatextent.As for himself, he could have given the promise.He didn’thave the strength or heart to run anywhere now, not to save hislife.He pushed his hands into the pockets of his parka, which hungheavy on his shoulders with the weight of the gun.
