Long Time Lost (23 page)

‘Take this.’ Hanson had climbed behind the wheel and was thrusting a mobile at her. ‘Someone wants to talk to you.’

Renner watched the white Hyundai streak away into the night, crossing the river, blitzing past the vapour-lit forecourt of a petrol station.

The young black kid was driving fast, getting far away while the going was good. Which was fine by Renner.

He lifted his Beretta in his right hand and ejected the magazine, catching it in his free palm. He had one round left. Blank, like all the others. Not capable of killing, but enough to scare Kate and to set her running. Which was all that Renner wanted right now.

He clutched his left thigh and heaved it up until his foot was propped on the low wall in front of him. His shin throbbed. It was deeply gashed and beginning to swell. The front passenger seat had deformed in the collision, crushing him badly.

Gently, he lifted his trouser leg and loosened his ankle holster from his drenched sock, sucking air through his teeth as his bloodied fingers slipped on the Velcro straps, more blood oozing out as he pulled the holster away, slipping the Beretta into it, tucking it under his jacket.

He grimaced as he set a little weight on his foot, then limped off in search of the vehicle he’d hired.

You will never guess who I’ve just seen on this flight. Clue: he’s been in the news and he’s supposed to be dead! Z xxx

Darren often thought of that text. He hadn’t asked his sister to send it to him, and if she could take it back now and prevent everything that had followed, he had no doubt that she would.

Sometimes, the tragedies we face in life can take a brutal but familiar enough form. Take what had happened to Darren and Zoe’s parents, for example. The motorway coach crash that had claimed their lives had been savage and abrupt but it had been something Darren could almost accept over time because it was the type of unfortunate incident that appears in the news all too often. What had happened to his sister in a lonely airfield in Ukraine hadn’t been like that at all. And what had happened to him afterwards, the dangers and the transformation to his way of life that had come from receiving a simple text message, could never have been anticipated.

Not that everything since that day had been bad. Darren had always dreamed of travelling and he’d come to love living in Prague. He’d had no family other than his brother-in-law and his niece to leave behind, and had only worked a temporary job after leaving university, so in many ways it was easier for him to disappear and start again than it might have been. Plus he had Miller and his team looking out for him. He had their friendship and support.

And he had Agata.

Maybe.

Secrets. That was the problem. Agata believed that the strongest relationships were built on openness; on trust and intimacy. Her previous boyfriend had been a cheater. The guy she’d been seeing before that had turned out to be married. So she was nervous, flighty, in constant need of reassurance. And Darren had tried to give it to her, despite being compromised by those truths he couldn’t begin to share. His background story was a lie. Even his name was a distortion. And Agata had sensed it in him. She was highly attuned to bullshit. She’d begun to pull back.

Which was why she’d suggested that they should take some time apart, and why Darren had gone along with it, and why he’d just endured three of the dullest and most miserable days of his life in Kutná Hora, a two-hour train journey from Prague.

Their time apart hadn’t changed anything for Darren. The soul-searching hadn’t either. But there remained one question he couldn’t get past, and as a maths graduate, there was one sum he couldn’t square.

How do you build a future for yourself when you can’t use all the foundations of your past? And how do you let someone into your life when keeping them safe means shutting them out?

Darren didn’t know. He didn’t believe he ever would. Perhaps, in the end, he would have to leave Prague altogether. Maybe it was best for him to start somewhere fresh.

But before all that, he wanted to return to Agata and hold her in his arms one last time. Because if there was only one truth he could tell her, it should be that she was the woman he loved.

Miller clenched his phone to his ear, struggling to think how to begin. ‘It’s me,’ he said finally, hopelessly. ‘How are you holding up?’

‘Not so good.’

‘I’m sorry for what I put you through. I’m sorry for what it took.’

Kate’s breathing was a faint rasp on the end of the line. Miller could picture her fighting back tears, and it made him think of the way she’d looked that first time he’d allowed her to see him, with her pale, bloodless complexion and her eyes big and tremulous.

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. The alley he was standing in was dark and deserted, barely lit by the wash of pale light from the windows at the side of the hostel. He could hear faint guitar music from high above, the murmur of conversation and laughter.

‘I wish I could have been there for you. I wish I could be with you right now.’

No response.

What had he meant by that exactly? What would she take it to imply?

‘You’re safe,’ he told her. ‘Remember that. Once you get Pete and Becca patched up, Hanson will take you somewhere you can rest.’

Still nothing. Just the buzz and crackle on the line, the droning of a car engine, the murmur of Emily’s voice. It would be better to leave it at that, he supposed. Better for her, and for him. And normally he might have stopped there. But not tonight.

‘Listen, there’s something I have to know. Something I have to ask. Was there more than just one man?’

Silence.

He waited.

‘I only saw one,’ she said, haltingly. ‘It was Renner.’

‘Not Wade?’

‘I didn’t see anyone else. I think he was alone. We lost him, but he could be looking for us still. He could be heading your way.’

‘Then I’d better get on.’ He paused. There was more he wanted to tell her – more he felt she needed to hear – but he couldn’t bring himself to say any of it. He wasn’t sure he knew how. ‘We’ll talk soon,’ he told her. ‘I promise.’

He waited a beat before hanging up, then stuffed the phone into the back pocket of his jeans, thinking of all the words left unspoken, all the things left unsaid.

He cursed himself for his weakness, for the foolishness of believing he could care for someone again without hurting them deeply, and then he slunk off with his hands in his pockets, kicking the ground, steering his thoughts back to the unlit apartment above the pet shop in Malá Strana and the trouble that might be waiting for him there.

Many hours earlier, shortly before noon, Miller had crossed the tram tracks running along Karmelitská, the drizzle clinging to his face, his shirt limp with damp. He’d hustled inside the pet shop, a bell ringing above his head.

Darren wasn’t behind the counter. He didn’t appear to be anywhere.

Which was no great surprise, because Hanson had been calling the shop telephone, trying to contact him, since just after ten the previous night.

A girl Miller had never seen before turned away from a birdcage she was peering into. She was eighteen or nineteen, kind of dowdy-looking, with coarse brown hair and spectacles with round metal frames. She glanced at the floor, murmuring something in Czech, but Miller walked straight past her and blasted through a door at the back.

Darren had taken a job in the pet shop more than nine months ago. The pay was terrible but the job came with a free apartment one floor up. He hadn’t consulted Miller before moving in. He hadn’t listened to his protests or his safety concerns. He’d said he needed some freedom and that he wanted to pay his own way. He’d said he’d enjoy the company of the animals. But Miller soon found out that wasn’t the only attraction.

The pet shop connected with a stockroom and then a veterinary surgery out back. It was a solo operation, owned and operated by a female vet.

Agata was up on a stepladder when Miller burst into the stockroom. She was delving a hand into a box of medical supplies, bracing an elbow on a metal shelf.

‘You,’ she said, as if she might spit.

Agata was short and slight with a bob of fine blonde hair. She was dressed in a green fleece top over grey corduroy trousers.

‘Where is he?’

She turned her back on him, plucking a foil pack of pills from the box, then leaned sideways, reaching for something else.

‘Is he upstairs?’

‘He’s not here.’

‘Where can I find him?’

‘You can’t.’

Miller growled and started for the door leading up to Darren’s apartment.

‘I’ll call the police,’ Agata shouted after him.

But Miller ignored her, pounding up the near-vertical staircase, hammering on the bare wooden door at the top. He got no answer so he tried the handle and found that it was locked.

He slapped his palm on the wood, bowing his head, then turned back towards the stairs. Agata was right behind him. She bumped off his chest, losing her balance, falling.

Miller snatched for her arm and pulled her towards him, leaning right in her face.

‘Where is he?’

‘You’re hurting me.’

‘He could be in danger, Agata.’

‘From you?’

Miller held her gaze for a long moment, fingers digging into her flesh. Then he swore and let go.

‘You scare him,’ she said, rubbing her wrist.

‘I help him.’

‘You make him anxious. Afraid.’ She rolled back her sleeve, lifting her arm, showing him the red welts on her skin. ‘You scare me, too.’

She turned to leave, to head back downstairs, maybe to carry out her threat to call the police.

‘Agata, please. I need your help. So does Darren.’

She paused, looking away from him towards the wedge of gauzy light at the bottom of the stairs.

‘There are people coming for him. People who
will
hurt him. Here. This man.’ He hurried after her, pulling his phone from his pocket, jabbing it in front of her face so that she could see the grainy picture of Wade he’d taken from the surveillance footage of the luggage counter in Rome. ‘Have you seen him? Has he been here?’

‘No.’ She barely looked.

‘Tell me where Darren is. Tell me where I can find him.’

‘He’s in Kutná Hora. He won’t be home until tonight.’

‘Then let me wait in his apartment.’

‘I don’t have a key.’

She did, and Miller knew it. But she’d started moving again, treading downstairs, nursing her wrist.

‘I can wait in the storeroom,’ he told her. ‘I can protect you both.’

‘No, you leave. Or I call the police.’

‘What time will he be back? Agata? Tell me that, at least.’

‘Late,’ she said, and swerved into her surgery, locking the door behind her.

Miller didn’t go far. He crossed over the street to a chain coffee outlet with a specialism in doughnuts. He was so wired from his encounter with Agata that the last thing he needed was a hit of caffeine and sugar, but the location was good, so he ordered a selection box of six doughnuts and a large black coffee from the spotty kid in a peaked cap working behind the till, then took up position on a moulded plastic stool that faced the plate-glass window. He braced his elbows on the raised Formica countertop and stared out through the beads of streaking rain at the pet shop across the street.

One p.m
.
Many hours to go.

Miller sipped his coffee, pushing the box of doughnuts to one side.

He was worried about the rear entrance to the veterinary surgery. He was concerned that Wade could approach from the dingy alley out back. But he was on his own in the city and low on angles and options, so he played the odds and kept his eyes on the front of the pet shop, staring past the scramble of pedestrians, the bob and weave of umbrellas, the rush of taxis and scooters and trams.

He waited for Wade to show himself. Waited for Darren to return home. He waited to find out what his next move should be.

But he was already too late. Because up in that first-floor apartment, slumped in a wilting couch, Aaron Wade was sitting very still and highly alert, his body tensed and poised, ready to spring forwards and attack, just as he’d been ready a few minutes earlier when Miller had beat on the thin plywood door that had separated them both.

It was clear to Miller that the kid with the acne didn’t know how to handle his ongoing presence in the coffee shop. He obviously wasn’t used to having customers spend long hours sheltering from the rain, staring across the road. Every hour or so, the confusion and the frustration would get too much for him, and the kid would wait for a break in customers, circle round from behind the counter and linger for a moment until Miller glanced up. Then he’d ask in broken English if there was anything Miller needed. And Miller would say yes, a matter of fact there was, and he’d order a coffee refill and another box of doughnuts.

By ten to six, Miller had five greasy cardboard boxes stacked on the counter in front of him. He flipped open the top box and ate a raspberry cream. Then he wiped his lips with a paper napkin, sipped a little more coffee and gazed back across the rain-blown street.

The kid was getting antsy again. He’d switched off the coffee percolator, wiped down the counter and had started clearing out trays of unsold doughnuts. It wouldn’t be long until he finally summoned the courage to come over and tell Miller to get out. But that was OK with Miller, because he’d just watched the mousy girl in the glasses step out through the front door of the pet shop and hurry away along the street. Two minutes after that, Agata emerged and locked the business behind her. The shop alarm was primed and it bleated shrilly for several seconds as she put up an umbrella and looked anxiously around before striding away in the opposite direction.

Miller waited until the alarm had fallen silent, then slid off his stool and stretched. He gathered together his boxes of doughnuts and his stained coffee mug and he carried them over to the kid behind the counter.

‘We close now,’ the kid told him. ‘You leave, OK?’

‘No problem.’ Miller patted his gut. ‘But I need to use your bathroom first. There’s a chance I may have drunk a little too much coffee.’

Miller took a cab across the city to a modern hostel located behind a grand rococo building in the Old Town, where he walked into the entrance foyer and brushed the rain out of his hair. He didn’t have any luggage with him, though he supposed that wasn’t altogether unusual for someone looking for a cheap bed for the night. Besides, Miller was a familiar face. He’d stayed here many times before.

He recognised the girl sitting on the stool behind the reception counter and from the lazy smile she summoned he could tell that she recognised him. She was late teens, early twenties, with a stud in her nose and her hair tied back in dreadlocks.

‘Hey, you’re back.’

Her English was good, marked with a slight American drawl. She’d told Miller once that she’d spent a season working at a ski chalet in Vermont. She’d told him many things about herself, in fact, but if she’d expected Miller to reciprocate, he never had. He sometimes got the impression she liked that about him.

‘Just for one night. Do you have a bunk free?’

‘For you, always.’

She placed a locker key, a bed sheet and a pillowcase down on the counter.

Miller was already parting his wallet, thumbing through some koruna, trying not to catch the amused, mildly flirtatious look she was giving him. He had no intention of using the bed. He didn’t anticipate coming back. But he didn’t want to cheat the hostel on the bill, either.

‘And I’ll take a six-pack of beer.’

‘No problem.’

The girl’s stool was on castors and she rolled over to a discoloured fridge set against the back wall, grabbed a carton of Budvar and glided back again.

‘Which dorm?’ he asked, setting his cash down, hefting the beers.

‘You decide. It’s not so busy.’

Miller nodded his thanks and scooped up the bedding, backing off towards the stairs. He passed a line of public computers that had seen better days and a noticeboard layered in handwritten notes asking for lifts to Vienna or Budapest, for places to stay, for companions to travel with.

The dorm Miller chose was on the second floor, at the back of the building, beyond the communal showers. He punched a timer switch on the wall as he stepped inside and a series of ceiling lights stuttered to life, revealing a bare wooden floor, eight bunk beds and sixteen metal lockers. Most of the beds were empty. One was draped with drying laundry. Another had a guy laid out on it, barechested, who grunted and rolled on to his side, clamping a pillow over his face.

Miller tossed his bedding on to a low bunk on his right and crossed to the open window next to the dozing guy. He climbed out over the sill, first one leg, then the other, setting his boots down on to the gridded platform of a metal fire escape. A rust-flaked ladder was bolted to the wall and Miller began to climb.

By the time he neared the top, three storeys up, he could hear music and singing, and when he stuck his head over the parapet he saw a gaunt teenager with a shaved head and sleeve tattoos sitting cross-legged on the flat roof, his back resting against a dilapidated timber shed, plucking at the strings of a guitar. Two girls in raincoats were slumped in frayed camping chairs close by, humming along self-consciously.

There was nobody else around and Miller guessed he had the light rain to thank for that. He pulled a Budvar from the six-pack, popped the cap with one of several corroded bottle openers that had been abandoned on the roof, then took a long pull and set the rest of the beers down by the trio of teens, waving aside their offers to come join them as he paced behind the shed.

The night-time view was spectacular, but to Miller it felt strangely mournful, too. There were pinpricks of light everywhere he looked and countless buildings jostling for space. There were a whole bunch of church towers and spikes and domes jabbing upwards, and he could see the graceful sweep of the Vltava river, its blackened waters shimmering beneath the illuminated spans of an arched bridge. But no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t spot a single identifiable person.

Crouching now, he scraped back a scree of cigarette butts and crushed reefers from the ankle-high parapet until his fingers settled on a loose brick towards the bottom. He dug his nails into powdery mortar, working the brick free, bringing with it a shower of dust and debris and the smell of dead air.

Behind the brick, deep in the cavity, lay a nylon washbag. Miller extracted the bag and unzipped it, removing a clear plastic ziplock bag from within.

The bag contained a number of items. First up was a micro penlight, the kind that came with a key ring fitted to it. Miller clicked it on and aimed the blue-white beam at one thousand euros in cash, rolled into a tight tube, with another ten thousand Czech koruna rolled inside that. Next up was a duplicate British passport bearing the name Nick Miller, as well as a spare passport for Darren. There was also a Swiss Army Knife, the main blade still coated with dust and grit from when he’d used it to carve the brick free more than a year before, as well as a key to the pet shop and another to Darren’s apartment. Miller kept a similar back-up stash in every city where his clients were based.

Checking over his shoulder, he quickly pocketed the knife, peeled off six hundred koruna to replace the cash he’d already spent, and looped both keys on to the ring attached to the penlight. Then he tucked the remaining money and the passports back inside the plastic bag and the washbag, stuffed the package into the cavity again, replaced the brick and packed fresh handfuls of dirt and gravel around it. Finally, he poured the remainder of his beer away before stepping out from behind the shed, waggling his empty bottle at one of the girls, throwing a salute to the guy with the guitar, and starting back down the ladder.

It was only a few minutes later, after he’d climbed through the open window to the unlit dorm and had waved goodbye to the girl on reception as he made his way outside, that his mobile had chirped and he’d answered Hanson’s call, listening carefully as Hanson updated him on events in Arles before, quite suddenly, there was a pause until Kate came on the line and he heard her broken voice for the first time since he’d left her in Rome that morning.