The Hunter's Prayer (6 page)

He saw her and lifted his hand. A minute later he came over carrying a tray with coffee on it, two cups. He looked fresh, like he’d slept right through the storm.

‘Morning. How did you sleep?’

‘Okay, I think. I came up here because the storm woke me.’

‘I know. Lucas told me.’

‘Oh, he’s up?’

Chris raised his eyebrows and said, ‘When I got up, he’d just come back from his run. He’s already gone back out, said he won’t be long.’ He kissed her on the top of the head and sat down. She glanced across at the lamp, then did a double-take: the photograph was gone. She puzzled over why he might have moved it. Then Chris interrupted her thoughts, saying, ‘It’s beautiful here. Lucas said we can go out walking this afternoon if we like, just the two of us.’

‘I’m sure you’ll both have a lovely time.’

Chris laughed. She almost laughed too but felt guilty, a guilt she knew was stupid but couldn’t help, because she’d made a joke and her parents and brother were lying in a morgue somewhere.

A car sounded in the distance and they both looked towards the balcony. Ella walked over. She could still hear the car, the sound probably carrying from a long way off. It sounded like it was headed in their direction and for a moment she thought about what to do if it wasn’t Lucas, if it was another gunman. He wouldn’t have left them alone, though, not if he’d thought there was any danger out there. A few minutes later his car emerged down the lane, splashing through the puddles from the night’s rain.

She went back in as he came through the door. He smiled and said, ‘Your uncle and his family are safe. They’re under police protection.’

‘Did you speak to them?’

Lucas looked nonplussed by the suggestion and said simply, ‘No.’

‘Still,’ she said, ‘it’s something to be thankful for.’ Even so, a voice in her head was asking why it couldn’t have been them instead of her parents and brother.

‘Now, get dressed. If you still want to do it, a friend of mine has agreed to put you a will together.’

‘Good.’ Chris looked surprised, a quizzical expression which she responded to by kissing him and saying, ‘Thanks for the coffee.’

She took a shower and came back up wearing more of the new clothes they’d bought in Florence. They were hers but she couldn’t help feeling she’d borrowed them, as if everything she’d had in the world had been lost, as if she had to go back to the drawing board, left with nothing except Chris, and maybe not even him.

He stood up as she came into the room and said, ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ He didn’t want to go, clearly, but wanted to make it her choice.

‘Not if you don’t want to. I’m probably gonna have to do a lot of things on my own in the next few days.’ He nodded but looked relieved, and she was suddenly angry with him.

‘Okay, Chris, you know the score.’ Chris nodded sheepishly, because he’d already failed them on that count once before.

Ella and Lucas left in silence but as they drove away she said, ‘I think he’ll break up with me.’

‘He might. You’re both young, but you have to grow up fast and maybe he doesn’t want to. Why should he?’ His response threw her. It shouldn’t have, but she’d half expected the reassurance she’d been fishing for. ‘Were you waiting for me to tell you everything’s going to be fine?’

‘No,’ she said, too insistent.

‘Good, because it won’t be. Life’s cruel—anyone who thinks otherwise is living a lie.’

‘You’re wrong.’ Possibly he was right about Chris but she wasn’t ready to let go completely. She had to believe she’d find a way back to normality, to the kind of life she’d always imagined for her future. ‘I mean, I can see why you think that way but most people lead perfectly happy lives, and even when there are tragedies, they carry on, they have friends, people they love.’

He kept his eyes on the road. He looked like he was thinking about an answer, but if he was it never materialized. It left her feeling like he’d won the point, exasperated, unable to decide whether his social skills were nonexistent or highly advanced and manipulative.

She let it drop and said, ‘So where are we going?’

‘To see Max Caflisch. He’s a lawyer, and given the circumstances, he’s agreed to meet us at his office.’

‘You said he was a friend of yours.’

‘Well, the word “acquaintance” is a little anal, don’t you think?’ He was making another of his bizarre little jokes, but this time she was smiling, then laughing. Lucas almost looked put out, as if he never really expected anyone to find him funny.

They drove into the small town. She guessed it was the same one they’d arrived in the previous day but she couldn’t be sure. It looked traditional, like something operated by clockwork. For the most part, it was quiet and empty.

Lucas pulled up behind a parked car and as he came to a stop, two people got out, a man with dark hair and glasses and a girl of about Ella’s age, obviously his daughter. The man moved quickly, opening Ella’s door for her, and as she stepped out he said, ‘Delighted to meet you, Ella, and sorry only that it couldn’t be with better circumstances. I’m Max Caflisch.’ She shook his hand. ‘And my daughter, Katharina—she’ll be a witness for us.’

‘Hi.’

Ella shook her hand too and the girl said, ‘I’m sorry to hear about your family.’

‘Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Caflisch, for agreeing to see me.’

‘Of course. Now, let’s go into my office.’ He took the key and opened the door, leading them upstairs into a small wood-paneled reception and through to his office.

Once they were sitting down he said, ‘So, with my small understanding of your legal system, I believe a clearly worded and witnessed document is more than sufficient to be legal. But I must advise you, as soon as you return home, to attend to the issue there.’

‘Of course.’

‘Good. So, you know to whom you will leave your estate?’

‘Yes, I want to leave everything to my uncle, Simon Hatto, and if he dies before me, for it to be divided equally between my cousins, George and Harry Hatto.’

He handed her a piece of paper and said, ‘Please, write their full names and addresses, and yours also.’ When she passed it back, he said, ‘Fine. Now, you must excuse me.’ He got up and left the room.

She turned in her chair, noticing for the first time that Katharina had pulled the other chair to a discreet distance and sat down. Lucas was standing near the door like he was on duty, his face betraying a total lack of interest in what was going on here.

‘You are studying at college?’ Katharina asked.

‘Yes, English literature. And you?’

Katharina smiled, ‘Law.’ Ella felt acutely envious of this girl, following in the footsteps of her genial, provincial lawyer father.

Ella had never given much thought to what she wanted to do. She’d certainly never thought of following in her father’s footsteps, not least because she’d never known the truth, had never sought it, always happy to settle for the humdrum catchall descriptions—financial services, something in the city.

And now, by default, that’s who she’d become. She’d been handed a chalice that only someone like Lucas could consider untainted. She didn’t want it, and didn’t see why she couldn’t leave it in Simon’s hands or sell her way out and carry on with her life.

When Max came back in, it took only a few more minutes and they were done. She looked at Lucas and felt embarrassed, sensing now that maybe the whole business could have waited till she was back home.

As she made towards the door, she noticed a desk laid out with leaflets. In the middle of the selection was one with a rakish-looking puppy on it, staring out beseechingly. She stopped, and Max said, ‘Yes, these are charities. Some people like to give money to charity. Of course, some people have no one else to give it to, so . . .’ He pointed at the leaflet with the puppy on it and said, ‘This is for the dogs, naturally.’

She smiled. The last two days had been a nightmare, like flying blind through a storm, and as things had deteriorated, it had felt like she was beyond ever taking control again.

If anything, worse was probably still to come, but something about being here with this benign man and his daughter, his collection of charity leaflets, made her feel like there was still some kind of life she could head for, some integral part of her family that they hadn’t managed to destroy.

There were black days ahead, and a loss that would last forever, but she had to believe that, at some point in the distant future, all of this would turn back to the good. All she had to do was stay alive long enough to get there, a thought that made her want to hold on to Lucas, to take him back to England with her, because it was hard to imagine herself safe without him.

Part Two

Chapter Six

H
e was free again, lesson learned. From now on, no matter who called, no matter what the history between them, he couldn’t help them. This hadn’t been too bad and they were nice enough kids, but the fact remained, he was either retired or he wasn’t.

He thought of them now as he walked back into the station, how thrown they’d looked when he’d put them in a taxi and sent them in the direction of the consulate. They’d obviously expected him to go along, not appreciating that it wouldn’t have been in anyone’s interests for him to have shown up with them.

They’d be okay without him now anyway. Since Ella had made the call early that morning the consular staff would have been busy phoning around, checking her story, making arrangements. They probably already had a flight home, and that had been the limit of his job, delivering her into that security.

He was glad she’d gone. As much as he’d liked her, having her around had made him think of things that weren’t worth thinking about. Maybe that had started before Montecatini, just watching them, but it had been worse afterwards—talking to her, having her stay in his house, the questions she’d asked.

He was distracted now by a girl walking through the station concourse who’d changed direction suddenly and headed towards him. For a split second, he tightened up but then noticed the scrunched-up bag in her hand, the litter bin next to the bench he was sitting on. She threw the bag in and changed course again, probably not even noticing him.

He looked around at the other people—a little kid dancing around as he walked in front of his parents, an old woman making steady progress with a small wheeled case, a look of long-nurtured disdain on her face, a couple of teenagers laughing. He took a mental snapshot of each of them, amazed as ever that it was probably the closest he’d come to knowing these people.

It was the thing that got him about railway stations and traveling by train. He’d often think of the houses he passed, the lit windows, cars waiting at crossings, people walking. A procession of glimpses into lives he’d never know.

He’d always found it vaguely depressing, and yet it shouldn’t have mattered that the world was full of people he’d never know when he’d removed himself so completely from the world anyway. This time, though, waiting for a train, he understood why he felt like that.

His daughter could be one of these people. She could brush past him one day in a railway station or an airport and he wouldn’t know, neither of them would ever know, that the opportunity of two lifetimes had come and gone, lost in the quickly forgotten detail.

He took a deep breath and snapped himself out of it. All these things were true, almost certainly, but life was full of poignant truths and wrongs that could never be righted. There was nothing to be gained from wallowing in them.

He took out the book he’d just bought,
Persuasion
, losing himself immediately in the distant history of the Elliot family. His routine had been upset, that was all, unsettling him. He’d get over it in a day or two.

By the time he got home, he felt better but the house itself was full of reminders, associations it would probably take him a while to erase. That was the trouble with allowing people to encroach on his solitude like that: their presence had a way of lingering on, throwing his life into bleak relief.

As soon as he walked in, he was drawn to the gun on the dining table, the one he’d taken from the guy in the hotel lobby. In the rush and confusion of leaving the hotel, Ella had packed it and had found it again only as they’d readied themselves to leave for Zurich that morning.

She’d tried to give back his copy of
The Nibelungenlied
too, but he’d told her to keep it. He’d written his number inside the cover and told her to call if ever she needed his help. He was already regretting that act of largesse and hoped only that she’d never find the need. If she did, he’d have to make his excuses, maybe point her in Dan Borowski’s direction.

Even so, he could understand why he’d made the offer. In some subtle way she’d managed to get under his skin, a fact that reminded him of his next move on his return to normality. He took the picture of Madeleine out of the drawer and placed it back where it belonged, the thought of that stupid Proust joke jarring momentarily. He didn’t even like Proust.

He sat down, hooked by the picture, realizing how much he’d missed seeing it this last week or so. He was conscious of the absurdity of it, that he missed a photograph, but it was the only remnant in his life of a time and a woman that he missed more than he knew how to feel.

It was a link to something else too—the summer day captured there, the loving smile, a link to a part of him from which he’d been exiled, the growing world of his daughter. Ella had told him to contact her and he’d dismissed it, but he knew that that was what these last few years had really been about: his attempt to recast his life for her.

At first he’d fooled himself that it was all in case she tracked him down, that he wanted her to find a man other than the one Madeleine would have described to her. He knew now, though, particularly after what had happened to Ella in the last few days, that he didn’t want to wait anymore, despite all the promises he’d made at the time. He wanted to see her. He wanted to see both of them.

The phone rang. He looked across the room at it, letting it ring a couple more times before picking it up.

‘Lucas, it’s Dan.’

‘What have you got?’ It didn’t really matter anymore but he was curious all the same.

‘Not much. Contrary to expectations, Mark Hatto didn’t have any bloody enemies.’

‘What about people who’ve been doing time?’

‘Drew a blank there too. Believe me, mate, nobody wanted Mark Hatto dead.’

‘Tell that to his daughter.’

‘I mean nobody in the business. Couple of people suggested if we look closer to home we might find someone with a bit more to gain. Simon Hatto mean anything to you?’ Lucas couldn’t understand how he’d missed such an obvious suspect and yet the possibility had eluded him, another indication of how far removed from the game he’d become. Hatto’s brother certainly had a lot to gain from killing the entire family. So maybe the motive hadn’t been vengeance at all—at least not the all-consuming vengeance he’d imagined—but greed. ‘So what do you think? Want me to look into it?’

‘No,’ said Lucas. ‘Not for the time being anyway. It’s out of my hands. But thanks.’

‘No worries. Give me a call if you need anything.’

Lucas hung up the phone and walked over to the balcony. He stood there for a while with his eyes closed, breathing in the scent of the woods, picking out the birdsong, the vaguer sounds traveling up to him on still air. For a moment he felt like he’d open his eyes and see Ella and Chris walking back towards the house. They’d been nice kids, but he had to concentrate now on the things that mattered: a return to Paris, seeing his daughter, seeing Madeleine.

Maybe that wasn’t even the right thing to do. For all he knew, Madeleine had married, had more kids, and they were happy, his daughter never giving him a thought. His reappearance in their lives could unbalance all of that, but it was a risk he had to take.

For the Hatto family, it was already finished, no time left to say the things they’d been meaning to say to each other, to make plans, to grow closer. They’d been a family and now they were down to one, just like he was, but at least he still had a way back.

His thoughts slipped back to what Dan had said, back to that memory of her and Chris walking out of the woods, of Ella curled up on the sofa. He didn’t want to remember any of it, though, because he didn’t want to think about the bloodied hands into which he might have delivered her.

He hoped Dan was wrong, that was all. If Simon Hatto had killed her family it had almost certainly been for the control of Hatto’s empire, and if that was the case, he’d strike again as soon as the time was right. Dan had to be wrong or Ella was dead too—she just didn’t know it.