The Last Witness (16 page)

  A large chunk of ice was blown clean away with the shot, and Venegas went with it, his body dragged quickly under by the current.

  A suspended moment with only flat water and no Venegas, the faint echo of the shot still reverberating – and Roman was about to turn away when he saw one hand clutch out and grip the ice edge. He stared back desperately towards the shore and Venegas’s kit bag. Too far – Venegas would have pulled himself back up by the time he got back with a fresh gun.

  Only one thing for it, he would have to kick Venegas’s hand away – but he couldn’t risk having all his weight close to the edge, so he rushed in and scrambled out almost flat, kicking out in the same motion.

  Venegas’s hand held firm, so he kicked again. It was knocked free – but then in horror Roman noticed Venegas’s other hand rise up almost instantly to grip on. And something else in that instant that took his breath away, made his blood run cold: a cracking noise as a yard-long split appeared to one side of where he was laying: any sudden movement and the whole ice-block would split away! He lay inert for a few seconds, his chest rising and falling hard as fear and panic gripped him. And in that moment – appearing almost as a surreal apparition – Venegas’s face below him, wild cod-eyes staring up. Then Roman focused and realized that his shuffling around had cleared a patch of snow and he could see straight through the ice.

  Their eyes locked for a second – Venegas perhaps surprised at seeing Roman there so close, or wondering why Roman looked as panicked and afraid as him. But at least now he could fully measure Venegas’s dilemma: the current was tugging at him ruthlessly, so that he was pushed up almost horizontal under the ice, with one hand gripped on hard and trying to pull him back.

  Venegas surely couldn’t last much longer like that, and Roman wondered whether to just lay still and watch the last bubbles leave Venegas’s mouth, or take the risk and kick out again to finish him straightaway.

  Venegas made the decision for him by making one last frantic pull back towards the hole – his body shifted over a foot beneath the ice as Roman kicked out once, twice, and Venegas’s grip was finally jolted free. Roman smiled and waved as Venegas’s body drifted back past him, unsure whether Venegas’s bewildered, watery focus was able to fix on him or not – and then Roman’s smile quickly fell as another crack sounded in the ice.

  He scrambled desperately, only just managing to slither his torso onto the solid ice edge beyond as the block beneath him broke loose, his legs from the thigh down dipping into the icy water. For one terrible moment he thought that Venegas might see his legs dangling in and grapple hold, and he slithered forward breathlessly until his whole body was clear of the water and supported on the ice.

  He rolled over, his breath still rasping hard with exertion and the adrenalin rush, and a laugh suddenly broke free, not quite sure if it was Venegas’s expression as he’d drifted past or his own close escape that he found so amusing. A steady, raucous laugh that was faltered only by his fight to regain breath; as the only sound to break the eerie silence of the desolate surroundings – all the birds had alighted the nearby trees with the gunfire – it sounded ominous and out of place. A lone victory cry.

EIGHT

‘… I know.’ Elena shielded her other ear from the drone and throb of the ferry engine as she spoke into her mobile. ‘But if this meeting goes well now, there’s no reason why I couldn’t head out there anyway tomorrow or the day after.’

  She was on the short ferry hop between Studland and Sandbanks. At the other end was Shelley McGurran in the aid agency’s London office.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Shelley commented. ‘Sarah was happy riding shotgun with the shipment, and she should be quite capable by now. They’re not going to be in Bucharest in any case until late tomorrow night.’

  ‘That’s why I suggested leaving tomorrow or the day after – to tie in.’

  Shelley sighed faintly. ‘Really, Elena – it doesn’t need two of you. If it did, I’d be the first to say. Besides, with Sarah not around I can do with your help here with a bit of PR and fundraising.’ Despite fourteen years in London, Shelley still had a warm Dublin lilt, almost tailor made for this task now: re-assurance.

  Elena fell silent for a second. ‘Are you sure she’s up to it?’

  Shelley sighed again. ‘Who knows? Hopefully, yes. But if not – she’s got to learn sometime. Don’t forget, you’re first trip out you were thrown in the deep end too.’

  ‘That’s true.’ A small agency of only fourteen, including drivers, their grand designs were driven more by ever shifting dramas and emergencies than by careful planning. An endless cycle of fund-raising, shipments, bureaucratic paperwork and organising goods, with planned calendar dates constantly hop-scotched according to which emergency suddenly screamed loudest. That was part of Elena’s concern now: that her own private drama with Lorena was just one problem too many, a feather to over-tip their already precariously balanced apple-cart. Somebody was having to cover for her. And so despite Shelley’s assurances, she felt she just had to offer to make good.

  Everything had gone quiet for over a week, and then came the call from Nadine Moore: her supervisor, Barbara Edelston, had requested a meeting at which Elena’s presence was also required
‘in order to make a full and accurate assessment.’
Nadine related this with questioning parody, as if stung that her own presence at the meeting and her report requesting assessment, filed straight after their last meeting with Lorena, weren’t on their own enough. Elena didn’t want to get drawn into their inter-departmental sensitivities, so merely asked why the delay. Possibly consultation with a relevant external party, such as a psychiatrist, Nadine aired, but she wasn’t sure.

  Elena glanced at her watch. She’d missed the earlier ferry she’d hoped to catch, but she should still just make it on time; perhaps a few minutes late at most.

  ‘You can catch up with Viorel and the others next time,’ Shelley said.

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Viorel was the seven-year old boy with meningitis whose brow she’d mopped half the night before he pulled back from the brink. Elena knew that Shelley meant well, was only trying to put her mind at rest, but it also served as a reminder: they need us too, desperately. Whether from the throbbing vibrations of the ferry, or the fact that the coming meeting would likely decide Lorena’s fate, make or break – she felt suddenly nervous. She shook off a faint shiver.

  ‘Don’t feel guilty,’ Shelley said, as if picking up on the silent vibes. ‘Look upon this with Lorena as after-care. If we’re going to spend our lives in hope that these children will finally find safe, secure homes, only to find they’re still in danger – then we’re all wasting our time.’ Shelley drew a laboured breath. ‘I mean it, Elena – go for it. And all the other worn clichés that apply: give no quarter, take no prisoners…’ Shelley’s suddenly lighter tone trailed off as Elena watched the ferry ramp ahead swing down.

  ‘Thanks.’ Maybe Shelley was just trying to make her feel good, but there was no time left to debate. Car engines were starting in readiness to move off. ‘I’ll phone you straight afterwards – let you know how it went.’

Barbara Edelston was early fifties with light brown hair cut short and a matronly build. She was less severe and stern than Elena had feared and even smiled at reasonable intervals. Though this couldn’t be construed as over friendliness; it was a vaguely condescending smile, as if she was merely humouring the less informed.

  Edelston also played an extremely closed hand. Elena couldn’t get any indication which way it might swing from Edelston’s opening ten minutes in which she confirmed basic points of Nadine’s report: reasons for first alert, times of their two visits, parties present at each. The only hopeful spark was Edelston commenting that
‘Ms Moore’s report indeed pushes a strong and convincing case for psychiatric assessment for Lorena.’
  

  Only a couple of questions so far had involved Elena. Now Edelston turned to her more fully. ‘When did you first meet Lorena?’

  ‘Just over four years ago – February, ninety-five. She was at the orphanage at Cimpeni’ A sea of children and distressed, pleading faces, but Elena still vividly recalled Lorena’s large, grey-green eyes cutting through the mass. A strangely serene gaze given the surrounding mayhem.

  ‘And did she in any way show signs of being mentally disturbed then?’

  ‘You mean, was she having bad dreams?’ Elena felt it important to confine the definition. When they’d first arrived at Cimpeni, some children had reached such depths of depravation, chained to beds or kept in basement rooms without light for months, that all they could do was rock back and forth and groan. Lorena had been one of the more hopeful cases. Elena shook her head. ‘No, she was quite alert when I first met her. Given the appalling conditions, she’d coped well – and there were no bad dreams then that I knew of.’

  Edelston had Nadine’s report open on the desk before her, with her own notepad at the side. She looked at them briefly, as if for a prompt. ‘So, when did the dreams first occur?’

  ‘Not long after the Cimpeni orphanage closed and her eleven months rough on the streets of Bucharest. You see, in the winter they slept mainly in the sewers to keep warm.’ Elena looked down for a second, one hand clutched tight in anger at the memory. ‘We blamed ourselves a lot for that…’ Elena covered the details quickly: their not reading the signs earlier that a local developer was after the building, the hasty shipping out of the children to ‘temporary shelter’, a run down hospital on the outskirts of Bucharest. ‘But it was a clearing house for so many other orphanages and fresh children off the street that overcrowding was intense, and food and care was non-existent. A single nurse used to act as daytime warden only, and would just lock the children in and leave them to their own devices at night. It took us ten days to mobilise to get out there; but on one of those nights, two days before we arrived, almost forty of the children broke out, believing – and probably rightly so – that their chances of fending for themselves on the street were better.’ Elena looked at Edelston steadily, taking the opportunity to drive home the silent plea: look what she’s already been through, don’t let her suffer any more now. ‘Lorena was one of those children, and I didn’t see her again until she showed up at Bucharest’s Cerneit orphanage – where we’re also heavily involved with aid provision. It was shortly after then that her bad dreams started.’

  Edelston made a one line note before looking up again. ‘Did she have any psychiatric counselling at that time, or indeed at any time before the Ryalls made their adoption approach?’

  ‘No, she didn’t. It was hardly Frazier country, we…’ Elena stopped herself short. The question struck her as somewhat ridiculous given the problems even keeping the children alive, let alone delving into their psyches. But she might come across as condescending, which would then harm their chances. She tempered her tone. ‘Well… there were nearly always more pressing medical emergencies, and resources were tight.’

  ‘I see.’ Edelston looked uncertain for a second where to head next. ‘So, the implication is that given the resources, Lorena probably would have received psychiatric counselling at that stage.’ Edelston barely waited out the mute nod from Elena. ‘…And so when the Ryalls first met her in Bucharest to start the adoption process – who without doubt would have had such resources and also had a strong vested interest in Lorena’s mental stability from the outset – was psychiatric assessment recommended then?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t.’ Elena’s voice faded off submissively and she fired a brief sideways glance at Nadine. It was a valid point: why request assessment only now, when apparently the problems with Lorena’s dreams were even worse when she first met the Ryalls. Just before walking in the meeting, she’d been hit with the first positive rush that surely there was strong hope: why else would Edelston ask her along? If it was Edelston’s intention to dismiss the request out of hand, then surely she’d have just had the meeting with Nadine alone and let her pass on the bad tidings. Less confrontation. Now as she felt the first serious assault on that hope, Edelston’s every gesture began to grate. But she reminded herself that this could be Lorena’s last chance, and she was damned if she was going to let it be washed away with a few ingratiating smiles, curt, efficient pen strokes, and now an annoying raised single eyebrow that looked more smugly challenging than questioning. She could almost still feel Lorena quaking in her grasp as they ran…
the light at the end of the chine remaining distant, out of reach.

  Elena drew fresh breath. ‘I think with many an adopted child of Lorena’s age, there’s an acceptance that there will be some psychological scars from their past, given what often leads to them being orphaned: abuse by their real parents, death of their parents, or abandonment at birth with all those years to dwell on the fact that unlike other children they don’t have parents, aren’t part of a family. With Romanian children, the terrible hardship and depravation of the orphanages has been so widely publicised – that that acceptance becomes even stronger. Parents know and accept that they might be taking on emotionally damaged goods: as long as the children are physically healthy and have easy, big smiles – they tend to look no further than that.’

  The eyebrow deflated and Elena forced a slightly tired sigh. ‘I think the hope is always that with the child given a better life, all of the emotional problems attached to their past will happily fade into the background. And with Lorena, that indeed was the case for the first year or more. It’s the fact that the dreams and memories of her troubled background have resurged after so long, and the circumstances under which they’ve come back – Mr Ryall visiting her room – that’s now given cause for concern.’

  ‘I know, I know. I understand that.’ Edelston nodded eagerly and turned her right palm towards them. ‘Miss Moore’s report has made a very clear and strong case for that, as I mentioned. But I think the background you’ve given me is also useful. What I wanted to make sure of is that real opportunities for psychiatric assessment hadn’t been ignored out of hand before, and weren’t being brought up now merely as a ruse to dig deeper into this problem of Mr Ryall visiting Lorena’s room – when on the surface it appears nothing is really happening there: just a developing teenager’s awkwardness with a an adult man visiting what she sees as her increasingly private space, her bedroom, with the rest manufactured purely in her dreams.’

  ‘I think the main reason for the assessment is that we really need to separate the two,’ Nadine offered. ‘See where Lorena’s dreams end and reality begins. Probably nothing is happening, but analysis would allow Lorena to also see that. She could lay her fears to rest and sleep easy.’

  ‘I see. Is that what you feel?’ Edelston smiled primly. ‘Remind me to dig out your psychiatric diploma – it must have slipped out of your file.’ As Nadine look down submissively, blushing, Edelston saw Elena’s rising outrage, and held one hand up. ‘I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. But I think it’s important to steer clear of amateur analysis. Now I’m quite prepared to approve assessment if I think it’s warranted and, as I said before, there’s no ulterior motive. The question is – are you both firmly of a mind, without reservation, that that is the case?’

  Elena was caught off guard by the sharp turn-around. A sudden glimmer of light back again. ‘Yes… uh, of course. This is all about Lorena’s welfare, nothing else.’

  Nadine, regaining her feet from her put-down, was slower to respond. ‘Yes, absolutely.’ She proffered with one hand. ‘As I put in my report.’

  ‘So this has absolutely nothing to do with trying to dig up something on Mr Ryall purely because of your failure to uncover anything through conventional methods?’

  Edelston was looking between the two of them keenly, and Elena felt faint alarm bells. Obviously she’d had contact with Ryall, and he’d aired his concerns. But if they simply stood their ground, surely they’d still win the day? ‘No. We’re interested only in Lorena turning her back once and for all on her bad dreams.’ Elena’s tone was firm, resolute. ‘Which is a psychiatrist’s territory, not ours. And hopefully any worries she has about Mr Ryall will evaporate at the same time.’

  Nadine was more hesitant, sensing that her supervisor had the scent of blood on something specific, and gave only a mildly concurrent nod.

  Edelston continued looking at them pointedly, and a thin, smug smile appeared, as if she’d just corralled two errant children after a long chase. ‘I’m glad you’re both so sure about the worthiness of your intentions.’ Edelston reached to a side-drawer and took out a small cassette tape recorder. ‘Because after hearing this, I’m afraid I’m far from convinced.’ With a momentary hover of her finger for emphasis, she pressed play.