The Last Witness (65 page)

Your uncle has sent someone to have me killed.
And Lillian would be even more destroyed at discovering this Cain and Abel drama between her two beloved sons. All he said was, ‘What I was worried about earlier.’ Then, towards Lillian beside him in the front, he hissed under his breath: ‘Cacchione!’ The name meant something to her, but not the boy. That’s what it had been about all along: changing their lives so that his son didn’t have to live in the shadows like he’d had to. But now his son was in the middle of it all; in the end the shadows had reached out to him anyway.

Jean-Paul’s jaw worked tight, cursing Roman: he’d been so eager that everything else had quickly gone to the wind; he’d broken the golden rule:
never involve other family.

Jean-Paul took the gun out of his jacket and held it in his lap as the car edged closer – only twenty yards behind now – feeling Raphael’s eyes on him anxiously. His father the great protector. In reality he hadn’t fired a gun in years, and Roman knew that too: he’d be an easy target.

The car moved closer – twelve yards, ten – and at that moment its full beam came on, washing them in light. Sudden flash image of him and Roman together as children, playing in the garden on a sunny day as their father called out to them. Happier days. But it faded quickly to the raw reality of the car pressing close behind, almost imagining Roman in the back seat goading them on.

Jean-Paul put his foot down, trying to put some distance between them. Street-lights and neon flickered past more rapidly. He had to concentrate hard on the road ahead. A car edged out suddenly at a turning just ahead, and he blared his horn and swerved around it. He gained some distance, but it was short-lived; checking his mirror, they were rapidly closing the gap again: fifteen yards, then back to twelve again. He checked his speedo: seventy, and edging up.

Jean-Paul was shaking hard, his palms clammy on the wheel. If they pulled alongside, what was he going to do? If he put the window down to get a shot at them, he’d be all the more vulnerable. And he wasn’t even sure he could get in a good shot and control the car with one hand at this speed.

The lights ahead changed to orange, but he kept his foot down hard, screaming through as it turned to red. The car behind stayed with him, a couple of cars beeping at it as they started across the intersection.

  ‘Watch out!’ Lillian shouted as a bike with a weak tail-light loomed suddenly on the inside.

She’d been remarkably restrained so far: normally she complained if he was doing 10 mph over on a downtown shopping trip. Jean-Paul swung a yard out to clear it, and felt the back drift slightly.

At this speed he risked killing them all anyway. The Cadillac was heavy, difficult to control if he had to swerve or make last second adjustments. He wished now he’d brought the Jag: they’d have been cramped and had less protection, but he could have weaved in and out easier and sped away and probably lost them.
Heavy.
It suddenly gave him the spark of an idea.

  As the car started to close the gap again, this time Jean-Paul let them; he didn’t speed up to try and gain distance. But at the same time he had one eye on the car lights coming towards them.

  ‘Okay, I think we’ve got him now,’ Lorenzo announced as he closed the distance down to only five yards. He tapped one finger on the steering wheel as he waited on a car passing, then swung quickly out and accelerated. The next approaching lights were some distance away, and didn’t seem to be moving that fast.

   Nunzio opened the side window and the air-rush filled the car. He levelled his gun: the Cadillac glass was only slightly tinted, he could pick Jean-Paul out clearly. He thought he had him with a clean shot when the Cadillac suddenly pulled forward a few yards.

  Nunzio looked across as Lorenzo frantically pulled level again, eyes darting between the Cadillac and the traffic ahead. And suddenly the shot was there again. Clean.
Clear.
Nunzio levelled his gun at Jean-Paul’s head and eased the trigger.

  A heavy kick and the Cadillac seemed to swing away a fraction with the impact. But as Nunzio focused on the starburst where the bullet had hit, he saw that it hadn’t penetrated. Bullet proof glass! The side of Jean-Paul’s mouth curled in a smile. Nunzio levelled his gun again.

  ‘Come on!
Come on!’
Lorenzo screamed, glancing across and suddenly registering what had happened.

  ‘A couple more in the same spot should do it!’

  ‘But quick, huh!’ Lorenzo’s eyes were fixed back on the lights ahead, faint sweat beads popping on his forehead. He could see now that it was a large truck. But they’d still be able to swing back in time.

  Nunzio got aimed square-on again, but then the Cadillac suddenly swung in towards them at the last second, startling him – it swerving away or pulling forward again would have been the natural reaction. He squeezed off the shots anyway, saw two more star bursts appear to the right of the first just before Jean-Paul’s face loomed inches away and the Cadillac crunched against them.

They drifted away a few yards, and Lorenzo juggled frantically with the wheel, pulling them back in. His eyes opened wider. The truck was bearing down hard, its air-horn blaring – but they should still make it in time. He accelerated to cut in front of Jean-Paul, but at that instant the Cadillac swung towards them again. Another shot squeezed off by Nunzio, and Lorenzo had anticipated this time by turning his wheel back in just before impact.

But it was no contest – the Cadillac was almost twice their car’s weight, and the shunt was much harder this time. They careened wildly towards the truck as Lorenzo tried to make a last second compensation with the wheel.

Too sharp.
‘What the…’
The back swung around and they slued totally out of control.

The screeching of tyres and air-brakes filled the air. The truck driver had expected them to cut in, or even if they pulled over slightly there’d have still been room for him to pass – so he was late braking. The car fish-tailed at the last moment and he hit it broadside, staving in the driver’s side and carrying it along for ten yards before the momentum rolled it over: it turned through 480º, coming to rest on its roof.

The driver finally managed to come to a halt five yards short of the mangled wreck. He jumped out, not sure whether to advance closer or get clear. The driver he could see had been killed instantly, but he was trying to judge whether there was any movement from the passenger when the spilt petrol igniting made the decision for him. The flames quickly leapt higher, and he was only eight paces into his sprint away when the whole thing blew.

Jean-Paul had pulled over fifty yards down on the far side and they’d got out of the car. Jean-Paul braced one hand on the Cadillac roof as they looked on. His father had bought the car in the midst of their battles with the Cacchiones: it hadn’t been able to save Pascal, but his father would have been smiling on at them now if he could see the good use it had been put to. Something from the past to allow them to escape to the future: somehow fitting.

As the explosion came, he could see for a second the excitement reflected in Raphael’s eyes – the stock reaction of the video-game generation – then as it dawned on the boy how close they’d come to death themselves, his face crumpled and he pulled in close as his father hugged him tight. Lillian gently clasped Jean-Paul’s hand over Raphael’s shoulder – but still the circle wasn’t complete, Jean-Paul reminded himself. If Roman got to Georges, Simone never would be reaching out for his hand.

THIRTY-FIVE

So many emotions.

  Elena knew already what he looked like from photos at the Donatiens, so she found herself studying other things: the way he moved, the inflection in his voice, the way he looked at her and smiled – what few smiles there were.

  She’d spun so much around in her head of what to say that in the end she was tongue-tied. She just stood there stuttering ‘How are you?’ Then, realizing she’d already said that on greeting, added hastily, ‘It’s so good to see you at last.’ And she wasn’t even sure whether to hug him – whether that would be too bold, presumptuous.

  So in the end she was rooted stock still, blinking like an idiot – she was still adjusting after her hours in the darkness. And as he’d finally advanced a step, smiling hesitantly – possibly in response to how awkward and nervous she must have looked – they embraced. But it was still slightly stiff, almost formal – far from the emotional catharsis she’d envisioned. She could feel the barriers of three decades without contact with that first touch. They wouldn’t be torn down in the first minutes, or even in the few hours she had.

  But as they sat down and someone called Russell offered her coffee, at least they started to make progress. She hesitatingly started to explain, but as she faltered at one point, not sure where to head next, the questions started coming: My father, what was he like? And
your
father? How old did you say you were when it all happened? Where did you live then? Were you long at the orphanage – did you look around much? So you found out through my stepfather’s brother: I haven’t seen him since I was a child – what’s he like now?

  At first she was glad of the questions, she no longer had to think of what to say next to explain. But at some point they started to feel slightly mechanical, as if she was at a job interview: Georges gauging if she was good enough material to actually be his mother, or if she could score enough points for him ever to be able to forgive her; she could clearly pick up the anger in his undertone on some words. And she’d already started to become uncertain again, fumble slightly, her hand trembling on her coffee cup as she sipped at it – when the crunch question came:

  ‘You having to give me away I can understand – you were so young. But why didn’t you try and find me in the years since?’ He shook his head and looked down morosely, his eyes slowly lifting again to meet hers challengingly. ‘All those years.
Why?
’

  And she started to stumble through the rest:      her blanking it from her mind, her work with orphaned children to try and bury the guilt, telling herself all along that he’d have gone to a good home somewhere – until Ryall and Lorena. But as she got to that point and her thoughts turned again to what Lorena was now facing and the nightmare odyssey that had brought her here: Lowndes, the Stephanous, the orphanage, tears streaming on the phone to her mother when she learnt the truth about her father –
all those years
wasted not only with her son lost from her, but harbouring a grudge that was long-since misplaced – her eyes started filling. She’d got so much wrong for so long. That was a loss that she’d never make good on, let alone in these few hours now.

  As her body started gently quaking and she dabbed at the tears with the back of one hand, he moved closer and hugged her again then.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry to push you so.’ He gently patted her back. ‘It’s just… just that I felt I needed to know.’

  ‘No, no… it’s okay.’ She sniffled back, got more control. ‘You have every right to know.’ And within the space of the time they’d been talking, she felt that his embrace was suddenly different: more open, welcoming. Maybe there was hope yet that she’d be able to break down the barriers.

  As they broke from the embrace and Georges surveyed her face – saw the shadows of the years of pain and guilt in her eyes – that was the first moment he could truly say he warmed to her. He’d spent the first forty minutes clinging tight to his own long built-up resentment for anything else to filter through. But it came more through admiration than any emotional bond or love – maybe that would come later. In that moment he appreciated and admired what she’d gone through to try and see him. She could so easily have just shrugged and turned her back on him for the other half of her life, saved herself the grief.

  He smiled ruefully. ‘Explains one thing. You father being a hot-shot banker.’ He’d always had trouble relating to Nicholas Stephanous’ weak-spirited defeatism, wondering how he could possibly be of the same blood. But he wondered now if that too was what had made him look up so to Jean-Paul: the image of the proper patriarch in his mind inescapably entwined with money and power.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Elena was a second late catching on. She remembered the Donatiens telling her that Georges was in banking.

  Their hands were the last thing to part, and there was an awkward lull for a second. Elena glanced towards the glass sliding doors and the veranda: inky blackness beyond, only a faint moon picking out part of the lake and the ring of trees beyond. Her eyes had been naturally drawn there upon first walking in, a relief from the stark room-light after her hours in the dark.

  ‘Well, now you know a bit about me. Such as it is,’ She lightly chewed her bottom lip, turning back towards Georges. ‘I heard quite a bit about you from your stepparents, the Donatiens. They’re very proud. But there was a lot we –’ She suddenly froze. At that moment all the lights went out: all-enveloping blackness, the distant moonlight on the lake the only visible light.