Streetlights flickered on the far side of the woods, thequiet Middlesex suburb whose citizens never knew the Romani dramasunfolding on the heath where they walked their dogs and broughttheir kids to fly kites in the summer.The lights were amberfireflies through the branches, and then the leaves thickened andthey were gone.Laurie breathed the night-time fragrance of dampsoil and moss, a scent of England so deep-laid into his memory thathe hadn’t registered it until his exile’s end.The track narrowed,beginning to twist among roots.He stumbled, eyes adjusting to thedark, and Sasha waited for him.
“I’m making a noise.We need to be quiet, don’t we?”
A smile,a dark-eyed nod.“It would be better, yes.”
“How do I do it?”
“Place your feet carefully.Make sure you’ve got a gap in frontof you to move into, enough space that you won’t rustle branches.You’re doing okay, actually.”
“Not bad for a gajo?”
“That’s right.You’re earning your Roma colours in all sorts ofways.How did you know to track me down here?”
“Someone told me you knew about Stefan.”Laurie shifted,uneasily caught Sasha’s gaze in the twilight.“Someone whosesecrets you’ve probably sworn to guard, even though she’s not toocareful about yours—or mine.”
“Oh, my God.Clara...You heard from her?Is sheokay?”
“She followed you home from LA.Your promise to be good soundedfishy to her, probably because she’s an expert in crossing herfingers behind her back.She came with her dragon, however, whoturns out to be an Interpol agent.She’s in protective custody atScotland Yard.”
Sasha pressed a hand to his mouth.A burst of horrifiedlaughter here would send up pigeons, blow the game even furtherapart than a scarlet Mercedes.“Shefollowedme?”
“Not quite.She was on the same plane.Dracinsky only kept thecork in her to prevent a mid-flight incident.”And then I met your mother outside our flat.Laurie couldn’t find words or a way to tell Sashathis, not now.When this blood-hot night was over, maybe.“So Ifigured that, if you knew Stefan was on the loose, you might comeback here.It was a guess.The only lead I had.”
“It’s not that you’re a bad liar.You swept me across theAtlantic with your last story, didn’t you?But you’re differentwhen you’re holding back from me.”
“I won’t after tonight.I swear.What are we out here todo?”
“Oh, Laurie.I wish you’d let me keep you safe.”
“I know you took the gun from the flat.Do you have it withyou?”
Sashanodded.“You can tell me where you really got it now.”
“I guess I can.Gunari sold it to me.”
“Gunari?”Sasha shivered.“When you went to see him about thedarozha.Okay.And it was Gunari who told you...”
“That Stefan’s trial fell apart.Yes.”
“I saw Gunari earlier, heading towards this track.I don’t knowwhat he’s doing here, but I don’t like it.He looked scared out ofhis wits—and so should you be, probably.Listen, then.I’ll tellyou what we’re out here for tonight, and then you can choose whatto do.”
“There’s no choice for me now, Sash.”
“Hear me out before you say that.I’ve been running from myfather for years.I didn’t want to testify against him but I did,because I thought that that would be the end.And it wasn’t.Ishould have known—words can never stop a man like that.”He brusheda hand uneasily over his parka, and Laurie heard as if he’d saidit,only bullets can.“Justice can’t stop him.Interpol couldn’t.I’ll berunning—we both will—for the rest of our lives.And I want it tostop.”
His voice shook.Laurie stepped forward and pressed one palmto his cheek, an old gesture of comfort between them.Did Lauriehave a right to touch him any more?He didn’t know.Hisabsolutionwasunearned, his crimes beyond the reach of saying sorry or evenmost desperately being it.He took him in his arms withnettle-grasping courage.“All right.I understand.”
“Do you?Please, ves’tacha—one last time.Get out of here.Leave him to me.”
“No.Just tell me what to do.”
Sashajolted with pained laughter.He grabbed Laurie hard, returned hisembrace awkwardly for a moment and then pushed him back.“If I knewthat, I’d know what to do myself.All I know is that I think he’shere, holed up in a derelict building about half a mile further onin these woods.And I have to find him and stop him.It feels likemy last chance.”
Chapter Twenty Six
Lauriewas Sasha’s comrade.He placed his feet carefully, but he held hishead high.He was so proud.This was the role of his lifetime, theone that could send all his masks and pretences crumbling toglittering dust.They all blew away on the night wind, met a fewfragments of mirror-glass birds and were gone.This role was whathe was.He was whole.He made sure of the gap in front of him,moved into it silently.Ahead of him on the track, Sasha held backa long stem of thorns for him.Their eyes met, the glimmer inSasha’s restoring Laurie’s soul.No-one else looked at him thatway.He’d thought those lights long lost.
Theymoved on, wordless, almost soundless, through the trees.Only thefaintest light penetrated here, the ghost of the grand summersunset blazing out across the heath.Growing used to the pace, thetrick of moving like a Roma boy through the woods, Laurie took akeen pleasure in it.This was a way to become part of the night.Their progress wasn’t scaring the night’s creatures—a thrush in thehigh branches carried on its evensong, and Sasha drew him to amomentary halt to watch a badger with two well-grown cubs gotrundling across the path ahead of them.Onward and onward...Eventhe owls were still calling, incredibly close by.City-bred as hewas, Laurie didn’t know what kind they were.He wished he could askSasha.He wanted to know all about this new world, this place ofcomradeship...
