Killing You Softly (29 page)

It wasn’t Raisa who answered the door but off-duty Mikhail. I could tell he wasn’t working because he was minus the
Men in Black
suit, dressed instead in navy blue sweatshirt
and jeans, with bare feet and three days’ worth of stubble on his chin. Despite some bruising on his forehead and cheek, plus a cut under his right eye, he looked relaxed and totally at
home.

He stared at me as if he was trying to remember who I was then Raisa came up from behind, pushed him to one side in spite of his bulk and dragged me into the cottage. She brushed snow from my
shoulders. ‘You have news?’ she begged. ‘You have found my Galina?’

I shook my head and her round face puckered with despair. ‘You have to help me!’ I told them.

Mikhail clicked into professional mode and while Raisa led me into the living room he ventured outside barefoot to check that I was alone.

‘What’s he doing here?’ I hissed. The last I’d heard he’d been taken out of the check-in queue for a flight to Moscow by members of Anatoly Radkin’s private
army.

‘He came back to be with me.’ Raisa was defensive, refusing to meet my gaze.

‘Does Mr Radkin know?’

She shook her head and looked up from under hooded lids. ‘You won’t tell?’

‘No.’ Something clicked in my head as I took in her evasive response, a slow adding up of two and two to make four. ‘You and Mikhail . . . ?’

She switched from defensive to defiant, chin up. ‘We are married for ten years.’

‘Oh, I didn’t . . . !’ I just hadn’t realized. It had never crossed my mind until now, and why should it?

‘That’s why he is here. They hurt him and punish him for letting Galina vanish. He loses his job but he is still my husband and I am still his wife.’

‘What about Sergei? I bet he got more than a black eye.’ Not for failing to protect Galina, but for moving in on Salomea behind Anatoly’s back. He was dead in a ditch probably,
or entombed in the concrete foundations of a major building development near Heathrow.

Raisa shrugged. ‘For Sergei I don’t care.’

‘No – me neither.’ We agreed on that. By this time Mikhail had stopped scouting around outside and had come back into the house. ‘So you’ll both help me to find
Galina?’ I wanted to know.

‘How?’ he asked. ‘It is not so easy. Anatoly Radkin, he has ten men working on this. He offers money, a big reward.’

‘But nothing happens,’ Raisa sighed.

In out of the snow, I was starting to breathe more normally, getting over my latest panic but feeling exhausted and wrung out as the fear subsided. I took my phone from my pocket and laid it
gingerly on Raisa’s table, ready to show them the recent Vine video.

‘Take a look at this,’ I offered. ‘And, Raisa, I warn you – you’ll be shocked.’

Mikhail and Raisa watched the tiny screen, saw the rows of tools in the dirty workshop, the red letters on the wall. Raisa put her hand to her mouth as Galina appeared, gagged by silver duct
tape, eyes staring in terror, and we heard the sound of her recorded voice attempting to sing the words to the first verse of ‘Cock Robin’. Mikhail clenched his fists.

‘Listen. He’s giving me twenty-four hours to find her,’ I warned. ‘That’s before six o’clock tomorrow night.’

There was the final image of Galina sitting on a rough wooden bench and then the voiceover. It was too much for Raisa, who collapsed sobbing on to a chair.

I spoke to Mikhail instead. ‘You see what he’s doing? He’s giving me my final test – one last chance to prove that I’m as clever as he is.’

Mikhail looked helplessly from me to his wife, who, between sobs, translated what I’d said.

‘The ultimate challenge,’ I whispered.

I can’t stop Psycho Man. I’m not good enough. Galina will die.

I thought it but I didn’t confess any of this to Raisa and Mikhail.

He’s winning. He’s in control.

Mikhail picked up my phone and reran the video. A new message arrived in the middle of it. He quickly handed the phone back to me.

It was a message from Jack, not my psycho.

Call me soon as you can.

I called with fingers that fumbled. I had to tap and re-tap until the call went through. ‘Hi. Jack, are you OK? What’s happened? There’s nothing wrong, is there?’ I
plunged in and he talked over me. Our voices drowned each other out.

‘Alyssa, wait. I need you to listen – it’s important.’

I stopped mid sentence. ‘OK. What?’

‘I’ve just had a visit from Hooper.’

Ah – hospital-visitor Hooper who always does the right thing. ‘OK, good. I’m listening.’

‘It’s just something he dropped into the conversation – it started me thinking.’

‘What’s he been saying now?’ I sighed. I didn’t have time for this – I really didn’t.

‘A few things actually.’ Jack spoke slowly, hesitating between words and repeating things as if negotiating his way cautiously through each sentence. ‘It was about Marco. You
know, we were talking, Hooper and me, and I was saying I was glad the nightmare was over, really over at last, and all we needed now was for the cops to force Marco to say where he’s been
hiding Galina. Anyway at this point I figured there was something Hooper wasn’t telling me. He was shuffling his feet, clearing his throat, you know how he does.’

‘Did you find out what was bugging him?’

‘Yeah, finally. He told me he didn’t think they’d got the right guy.’

I let out a short groan then drew in a deep breath. Thanks for that, Hooper. Now Jack would be worried out of his mind about me again. ‘He’s changed his tune,’ I muttered,
‘given that Hooper was the one who spent all that time and energy digging dirt on Marco.’ I needed time to get my head round this new situation before I was ready to face reality and
tell Jack about the latest poison dropped into my ear:
‘Hey, Alyssa. You never really thought it was Marco, did you?’

Twenty-four hours to find out the truth and counting down, minute by minute.

PLEASE HELP ME!

Jack used the long pause to carry on explaining. ‘No, listen. We both know Hooper’s smart. He has a sixth sense about these things. I said to him, if Marco’s not guilty, why
did he take off in his car with Alyssa the way he did? An innocent guy doesn’t run.’

‘And?’

‘Hooper already had an answer for that. According to him, Marco was in Monaco at the same time as Galina last summer – you know how good he is on researching dates and stuff. So the
way he sees it is that Marco went joy-riding in his Dad’s speedboat – remember?’

‘I do,’ I sighed. I was finding it hard to focus, desperately wondering how to break the news to Jack that Hooper’s hunch was right and our psycho had been busy filming me
again.

‘Well, Hooper did some more digging into news reports etcetera and it turns out that Marco’s dad’s boat was the same model, same colour as the boat involved in the accident
with Galina and her two mates – where one died, OK? And the dates were close. So Hooper’s new theory is that Marco kept his dad’s boat for a day or two, during which he
accidentally killed the kid in the boating incident, but the Conti family covered it up and the Monaco police never prosecuted.

‘And Hooper thinks that’s why Marco went on the run when Charlie warned him the cops were after him over here in England?’

‘It would make sense if you think about it.’

‘Which we didn’t,’ I admitted. ‘Because we were far too busy thinking about other stuff.’

‘Anyway, Alyssa, do you see what I’m saying to you now?’

I pictured him lying in pain beneath the blue cover of his hospital bed, his face pale under the stark overhead reading light, turning over the information, tormented by the new possibility that
Psycho Man was still free but he, Jack, was unable to do anything about it.

‘I’m trying to warn you just in case Hooper turns out to be right –
if
they got the wrong guy . . .’

‘. . . Then I’m still in danger,’ I interrupted. ‘And actually he is – he’s right.’

‘What are you saying – that the psycho’s still out there?’

‘Still sending me messages. Still filming Galina,’ I admitted, though telling the truth was like pulling teeth.

‘Oh Jesus, Alyssa!’

‘I know. But I’m safe. I’m staying in the village with Ursula. No one knows where I am except her and Jayden.’

And Raisa and Mikhail. And probably the owner of Five-a-Day and half the curtain-twitching, nosey neighbours in Chartsey Bottom.

‘Try not to worry,’ I told Jack. ‘Keep your phone switched on. I’ll call you as often as I can.’

He ignored me and spoke over me again. ‘Don’t move. Don’t go outside. Don’t do anything. I’m going to call the cops.’

‘What do we do?’ During my conversation with Jack, Mikhail had put his arm round Raisa’s shoulder and she’d wiped her eyes. She turned to me, asking me
the question with a desperate edge to her voice.

I put up my hands, palms towards her. Don’t ask me. I don’t know. I am scared beyond belief.

‘Alyssa, you know my Galina,’ she went on. ‘She told me – you talk to her about everything. You are her best friend.’

I shared a room with her for a short time – I knew very little about her actually. This was something else I didn’t say out loud. If I really was Galina’s best friend, what a
lonely life she must have led up till now.

‘I want to help. I’ve been in contact with the police and we’re all trying to find the answer,’ I insisted.

‘You two talk about boys.’

‘No.’

Raisa didn’t believe me. ‘Girls talk. She tells you who she likes, who likes her.’

‘Honestly, she didn’t.’

‘One of these boys – they take her now and keep her in prison, make this bad film of her with her hands tied.’

I had to give it to Raisa straight and make her understand. ‘She didn’t have a boyfriend at St Jude’s. She was a new girl. She didn’t have time to start a relationship or
at least, if she did, she chose not to tell me much about it. Anyway, she’d stayed in her room – our room – after she cut her lip. She was too embarrassed to go out.’ It was
time for me to glance at Mikhail to study his reaction.

He looked away and muttered something to Raisa in Russian.

‘Mikhail only does his job,’ she translated. ‘Galina runs away into the village. He must follow.’

‘And punch her in the face?’

She shook her head. ‘Galina, my poor baby, she falls to the ground. She is in trouble with her father for running away many times before. She makes up this story.’

‘Leave me!’ Galina yells at Mikhail, who’s in hot pursuit. ‘I tell my father what you do!’

I remembered how Galina fled across the street into the churchyard.

Beautiful girl runs away from thick set man in suit and tie. Jack, Marco and – I we can’t stand by and let this happen.

Jack and Marco tackle Mikhail. I follow Galina into the church porch. She’s sobbing on a stone bench, hiding her face in her hands.

I ease her hands down, see a deep cut on her bottom lip and a trickle of blood. It’s not an accident, she says. It’s Mikhail – he punched her in the face. He tried to kidnap
her. ‘I am scared but I escape,’ she says. ‘I run to village. I am very, very scared.’

Jack and Marco pin Mikhail to the pavement.

What do I do?’ Galina whimpers. ‘Who will believe me?’

‘Me,’ I decided. ‘I believe you, Galina.’

But I’d been the only one. Salomea hadn’t backed her when she took her call. The police hadn’t either – they’d questioned Mikhail and released him without
charge.

‘What sort of trouble would she have been in with her father?’ I asked now.

‘Big trouble,’ Raisa said. ‘He warned her, if you run away again, I will take away money, bag business – everything. You will stay home, not go shopping, not see
friends.’

‘So she lied about you?’ I asked Mikhail, who nodded.

‘It is hard for Mikhail. Like me, he has been with Galina since she was small girl. He sees her sad life. He cares about her.’

Really? This guy with the muscles and stubble had a heart that could care?

Doubt must have shadowed my face because Mikhail stepped forward to speak for himself and prove it. ‘I show you. I put on shoes, jacket. Right now we look for Galina.’

I still didn’t know whether I believed him but his deep voice and animal energy swept me along and took me with him out of the house on to the dark street, with Raisa trailing behind,
zipping up her jacket and hurrying to catch up.

‘Which boys does Galina know?’ she asked, taking up her old train of thought. ‘Say names. We visit their houses now, ask questions.’

‘She knows Marco, but obviously it’s not him,’ I replied. We came out of Raisa’s cul de sac on to a short stretch of hill leading down to Main Street. ‘I guess she
knows Luke, but he’s with Connie so he’s off limits for Galina, and Jack, my Jack – ditto off limits, plus Hooper and Will from St Jude’s. She might have bumped into a few
of the Ainslee Comp crowd, either here in the village, or back at St Jude’s when the Comp kids came to play football. People like Tom Walsingham and Alex Driffield.’ I was running
through the list as fast as I could, wondering where the hell we were going, unable to get out of my head the gory image of headless chickens running around like crazy before they dropped.

‘Wait!’ I cried.

Mikhail stopped outside the boarded-up front window of JD Workshop.

I see a dark room with rusty tools hanging from racks on the wall – dozens of spanners of various sizes, three hammers, another row of spanners and wrenches. Cut. Open on red graffitti
dribbling down a rough, whitewashed wall. ‘PLEASE HELP ME!’

I slammed the flat of my hand against the boarded window.

‘All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing . . .’ Cut. Galina sits on a rough wooden bench with her hands tied behind her back.

I slammed the board a second time then leaned against it. ‘She’s somewhere around here,’ I predicted in a whisper.

Mikhail and Raisa stared uncertainly at me.

‘We were looking at a workshop on the video. Galina’s kidnapper stole the Merc from JD’s which means he knows the layout of the building. There’s a yard round the back
with small workshops. I think maybe he chose one of those to hide Galina.’