Sashaturned as if he’d read the thought.His eyes were wide and lost.“Stay still.”
“It’s owls, isn’t it?”
“Yes.Tawnies.They sing to one another in their breedingseason, not...not now.”
“Maybe they’re romantic.Maybe now the kids have left home,they’re out on a date, or...”
“Hush, you idiot.Let me listen.”
Sasha jerked backwards.Laurie flinched.The motion had beenunnatural, the shock-snatch by a monster in a horror film, quickand absolute: the track ahead was empty.Laurie sucked in onebreath.That was all he got—a hand landed hard on his mouth,cutting off air and the cry boiling up in his throat.Sasha!
“That’s it.Be silent, gajo.Now walk.”
Thevoice filled Laurie’s head.For long moments, beginning hisstumbling progress off the track and into the undergrowth, hecouldn’t think of anything else.Fright made him slow: he picked upand discarded half a dozen names and sounds before he knew.Thehand was gone from his mouth, replaced by a hard, jabbing pressurebetween his ribs.“Gunari!”
“Silent.I speak to you—now, while we are far enough behind,and not again.No-one escapes Stefan Petrica.One time he helpedme—one time.He gets me my restaurant.That makes me his.Sandru ishis.You, polone, with your money and your big mouth, you crossedhis path twice now.You belong to him too.”
Lauriefell over a tree root.His captor hoisted him upright and shovedhim on.“Gunari,” he whispered.“For God’s sake.Is that Petrica upahead?Did he just grab Sasha?”
“No.”Gunari gave a grunt of bitter laughter.“He doesn’t dirtyhis hands.One more thing, polone—don’t fight him.Is over,whatever you and Sandru come here to do.No fight, no struggle, andPetrica may kill you fast, not slow.And both of us are silentnow.”
Thebrambles opened out into a clearing.Peripherally Laurie took inthe cluster of tumbledown buildings emerging from the dusk.Hisfocus was so hot and tight it burned.He couldn’t see Sasha, onlyhis captor’s broad back.The darkness swallowed both of them.Laurie had time to take in a short damp corridor, stinking ofdecay.Brick dust and concrete crunched beneath his feet.ThenGunari shoved him hard from behind.Reflex kicked in and he turnedhis fall into a dive, rolled neatly and came up on his hands andknees at Stefan Petrica’s feet.
Black hair shot through with silver grey, glinting incandlelight.A burned-out mask of a face, elegant as Sasha’s, driedup in God alone knew what fires.Laurie didn’t know him, exceptfrom time-blurred memories of Interpol photos.Whoever had stalkedhim on the London streets, it hadn’t been this man.He doesn’t dirty his hands...Arid brown eyes raked Laurie over with weary amusement.“This,Gunari?”Petrica asked, his English barely accented.“For this, myson betrayed me?”
Laurieknelt very still.He kept his gaze on Petrica’s and steady as hecould.It wasn’t pride or fear—only the knowledge of Sasha at hisside, within arm’s reach, his breathing shallow and fast.Lauriewouldn’t risk him by a move or a word.Petrica was lounging in abattered 1950s office chair, his demeanour of dispossessed royaltymaking it look like a throne.Its vinyl was rat-eaten.Still, itwas the only chair in the room.One chair, half a dozen candlesstuck in broken cups and mugs scattered on a work surface, thetilting remains of a desk.Everyone could share the light, butLaurie guessed that only Petrica ever sat there.Bricks had beenpiled up into makeshift seats against the far wall.Another man wasslumped on one of these, hood pulled up to shield a cadaverous faceas if even the candlelight hurt him.That put four Roma thugs inthe balance against Laurie’s flesh and bone, against Sasha’s...Laurie scarcely even breathed.
***
How muchtime had passed in the candlelit cell?Petrica’s black gaze doledtime out at his leisure.Time for cramp to begin in knotted legmuscles and fade to aching numbness.Petrica jerked his head,allotting some time to the man holding Sasha by his hood.“See,”Petrica said, in the manner of giving a lesson.“The pockets aredeep, but the hang of the garment betrays it.Learn from this,Nico.”
The coatjerked tight round Sasha’s neck as Nico twisted the hood.There wasno need to immobilise him, not with Laurie at gunpoint two feetaway.Laurie’s face was serene.Maybe he didn’t know that the snoutof Gunari’s pistol was one inch away from the base of his beautifulskull.Nico thrust a brutal hand into Sasha’s pockets until hefound the Makarov.Not letting go his choke hold, he held it out toPetrica, who turned it in the candlelight and laughed.“Ah, Gunari.How the wheel turns.This I gave to you on trust, remember?Toguard your little restaurant, your little caravan.And yet it endsup in the hands of my serpent’s-tooth son.What a tale this wouldmake for the campfire, if you and the boy lived to tell.”He heldup a thin, forbidding finger.“Ah, no!Keep the little actor underguard.I had a good man once—not a kindly one, but useful and quickat his job, and deadly as a scorpion.Luca, his name was.Nicoremembers him, don’t you?”
“I remember, Stefan.”
“One day I sent Luca to the little actor’s flat.It was asimple hit.This boy has no weapons, no defences—yet Luca nevercomes home.So, steady hand, Gunari.Use this second gift I’vegiven you more wisely than the first.”
Sashawaited until Nico had calmed enough to ease his grip.He needed hisvoice to be clear.“Father,” he said, then continued in Romanian sothat Laurie wouldn’t know how soon Sasha had lived to regretbringing his new comrade into the war.“Let the little actor go.That’s all he is—a stupid gajo boy I can’t shake off.He didn’tkill Luca.I did.Your business is with me.”
Petrica sat back.He was lordly in the tarnished light, atired soldier who wore his corruption like an elegant cloak.“Fitzroy,” he said, savouring the sound of it.“Filsof theroi, that comes from—the son of aking.God knows how your pig of a father deserved such a name,polone.Did he buy it along with his baronetcy?Fuck a Tory peerand blackmail him?”
And now Laurie took a deeper breath.He breathed because thehooded man hunched up against the wall had shifted slightly—justenough to show Laurie his face.Laurie used up five years’ worth ofacting skills to deaden his reactions.Oh God, that face—a dead manwalking, revelation bursting inside Laurie’s skull likefireworks...That man, and a gesture so small but plain asday—index finger circling, circling.Laurie.Keep Petrica talking.“Sashastill cares abouthisfather,” Laurie said quietly.“You can’t hurt me aboutmine.”
Petrica’s face twisted oddly, as if he’d tasted cyanide.Asif Laurie had said the one thing he couldn’t have expected.“Sasha?”he echoed, catching Laurie’s accent with cruel accuracy.“Oh, little Sasha—is that his baby-talk name?Your little Sasha—myAlexandru—just called you a stupid gajo parasite.That’s how muchhe cares about you.How much he cares about anyone.”
“He’d say anything to make you let me go.”Laurie stole asidelong glance at his lover.Sasha was perfectly still.Hisprofile was a shadow-cut portrait of self-control.Only Lauriecould see the tight press of his lips that meant a waiting storm.“You know he was a loyal son until you made that impossible forhim.He lied to me about you until he couldn’t do anything else.Hesaid you were a poet, a teacher.A freedom fighter.”
“Then he said those things were lies?”
“No.Only part of the truth.He didn’t add that you were anarms-dealing cut-throat gangster until much later.”Beside him,Sasha twitched.Shut up,Laurie, that movement said.For God’s sake.But Sashacouldn’t see the man against the wall.What was Laurie meant tomake Stefan talk about?It didn’t matter, as long as it gainedtime.“What was your poetry, you thug?I don’t believe you everwrote a word.”
Petricareached out casually.He had turned the Makarov around in his fist.He swung the butt of it at Laurie’s head.Laurie ducked and turnedthe blow into a glancing one, but still it connected, a dull crackthat stained the candlelight crimson and knocked himflat.
“Laurie!”Sasha tore out of Nico’s grip.He grabbed Laurie,hauled him up out of the dust and over his lap.“Leave him be,Stefan!Touch him again and you’ll have to kill me.And I’ll comeback from my grave to slit your throat.”
“Spoken like my own true son.”Petrica leaned forward in histhrone.“This Fitzroy wants to hear some of my poetry.I mustn’tdisappoint the son of a king...By the way, you reached high,didn’t you, my Alexandru?To try and grab yourself a prince.Iwatched.I know about some of it.It’s wearisome, isn’t it—when youwin so much, to have to hold on to it all.”He smiled.“That’s afine subject for a poem.Can you still hear me,Fitzroy?”
Lauriecould, but only through the peal of distant bells.He got his headup, struggled upright far enough to show Sasha that he was stillfunctional.To show Petrica that he was still attentive, and tomake good on his silent promise to the shadowed man that he wouldbuy him time.“I hear you.”
