Wanted (25 page)

He ran on. The next road was clear too. Only this time, instead of running straight, he turned south, powering up to the next intersection between the towering storage facilities. You can do it, he told himself. He’d memorized this route. Just run. Don’t quit.

His lungs were burning, his muscles tightening, seizing up from lactic acid. He knew he couldn’t keep it up much longer, but he also knew he didn’t need to. That knowledge was enough to give him hope and the renewed burst of energy that came with it.

The same went for the sky, which was growing darker. Not just smoke and clouds but a gathering storm. The rain was falling harder.

Keep on movin’, don’t stop, no . . .

His shoes pounded the tarmac like a bass drum. God bless the crappy British weather, he thought, as thunder boomed, lightning cracked the sky and rain sluiced across his face.

Turning left at the end of the alley, he followed the curve of a train track round to the right, into a warren of container stacks. This route had been his ‘in’ to the docks compound. It would be his ‘out’ too. Making sure his face was covered as he passed the CCTV stacks he’d circumnavigated on his way in, but had no time to avoid now, he slowed, his energy resources finally depleting as he reached the security fence.

Panting, he squeezed behind a pile of pallets and found the gap he’d entered in through. Crouching, he took his phone out once more and punched the last of the two yellow squares into red.

The rain was falling so hard now that he hardly heard the explosions. But the agents and rent-a-cops, who’d either still be fighting or would now all be searching for him, would hear them well enough, all right.

Well enough to slow them. Well enough to confuse them. Well enough to allow Danny to do what he did now, which was slip through the fence and limp into the drainage ditch beyond, then fade into the rain and out of sight.

Danny had reached the small seaside resort on the west coast of Wales at gone three the night before in a car he’d rented using false ID before switching its plates for some others he’d stolen.

He’d let himself into the holiday apartment he’d left Lexie in three days before, accommodation he’d rented under a different false ID and had paid for up front with cash. He’d found his daughter asleep on the sofa in the living room with the remains of a pizza and an empty beer bottle on the glass table in front of her. The blinds had been drawn.

Beer. . .
Jesus Christ, he’d thought. When the hell did she start drinking?

He’d not woken her. He’d quietly put down the bags he’d brought in from the car, except the one laden with weaponry, which he’d taken to his bedroom and stashed beneath the bed.

He’d woken from the blackest of sleeps this morning, just after nine. When he’d gone through to the living room, Lexie had disappeared. He’d checked the kitchen and bathroom, but she’d not been there either. Guessing she must have gone to the shops for milk or bread, he’d taken a bath, lying there for God only knew how long, letting the warm water work its magic on his tired muscles, trying his damnedest to think about nothing, and in particular what he was going to do next, a prospect that had been driving him out of his mind since he’d discovered that his last and best lead had been a trap.

Still, at least there was Crane, he supposed. Or Melville, as he was now known. It was possible he might still conjure up the information that Danny had tasked him to secure. Or maybe Spartak had found out something about Glinka or the rest of his crew. Maybe someone else had made a breakthrough where Danny had failed.

When he came out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, the first thing he saw was that the curtains leading out onto the balcony had been drawn back. The second was that his tech kit bag was open, his iPad lying face up on the table next to the empty pizza box.

He snatched up the iPad and swiped its opening bar to one side, then stopped. Lexie couldn’t have accessed it,
could
she? Because she didn’t know the password . . . Only, oh, shit, she did. Because the password he’d used on this machine, which Spartak had given him, was Lexie’s name and date of birth combined. But would she have worked that out? He typed it in now, then went straight to the history section.

‘Piece of goddamned shit,’ he said, staring disbelievingly at the scroll of sites that had been visited since he’d been in the bathroom.

Tossing the iPad onto the sofa, only just resisting a sudden desire to snap it in half, Danny marched out onto the balcony into blazing sunlight.

The apartment was six floors up and overlooked the bay. White horses chased across the wide blue sea. Lexie was rapidly rising from the wicker chair she’d been sitting in. She looked up at him guiltily. He glanced down and saw she’d just stubbed out a cigarette.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Don’t play innocent with me.’

‘Oh, come on. You already know I smoke.’

Knew
didn’t mean he
liked
it, dammit.

‘Not that,’ he snapped. ‘Or the fact you’ve been drinking . . .’

‘Drinking? At my age?’ Her lip curled into a nasty sneer that only fired up his fury afresh.

‘I mean my damn iPad.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said. But it was obvious that she did. Her cheeks were flushing. Quickly, she tried pushing past him, desperate now to get back inside.

He grabbed her wrist.

She tried shaking him off. ‘Let me go.’

‘Not until you tell me who you talked to.’

‘No one.’

She tried again to break free, then stopped. ‘I didn’t speak to anyone,’ she said. ‘I didn’t. I swear. It’s fucking true.’

Danny winced at her language but there was no time to remonstrate now. If she
had
contacted someone, if she’d surfaced anywhere on the net, the iPad could be tracked, which meant this place was no longer safe and they’d have to run.

‘You went on Facebook,’ he said.

‘So now you’re spying on me as well?’

‘As well as what?’

‘As well as screwing up our fucking life.’

She spat each word. Danny almost physically reeled from the force.

‘I was looking up something else.’

A lie. ‘It was right there,’ he said. ‘In the history.’

‘That’s the same as spying,’ she snarled. She was angry with him, but with herself too, for forgetting to wipe the history clean.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘I just looked, that’s all. Nothing else.’

‘Looked at what?’

‘Just stuff,’ she said, avoiding his eyes.

‘
Who?’
he demanded.

Because he’d already guessed. The boy she’d been with at school when Danny had taken her away. The curly-haired kid who’d fronted up to him and told him to leave Lexie alone. ‘He’s no one,’ she’d told Danny later, when he’d asked. But she’d blushed as she’d said it and that had said more clearly than any words ever could that his daughter was in love.

‘Just friends,’ she said.

‘What else have you done? Have you called anyone? Have you spoken to anyone at all?’

‘No.’ Adamant. Eye contact.

Was she really telling the truth?

I just wanted to see,’ she said.

‘See what?’

She didn’t respond. Her eyes had turned glassy. She stared right through him, didn’t blink.

‘See what?’ he demanded, shaking her now.

‘My friends – everyone. I just wanted to see if they remembered . . .’ The fight left her. Her shoulders slumped.

‘Remembered
what?’

‘It’s my birthday.’

Danny stared. He didn’t know what to say.

‘I’m eighteen,’ she said. ‘You know?’

She looked up at him and, right there, she saw that he didn’t. He’d not had a clue. ‘Just like in your password,’ she said. ‘And that’s why I wanted to see them. I wanted to see if anyone out there still even fucking cared . . .’

She pushed past him. He didn’t try to stop her. Eighteen? Sweet Jesus, Lexie had turned eighteen today and he hadn’t even known. Anger at himself, at his own stupidity and selfishness, swelled inside him. And he pictured his wife, Sally. He saw her, suddenly, so clearly all those years ago in hospital, gripping his arm, her nails digging into his wrist, during the final push that had brought his beautiful baby daughter, kicking and screaming, into the world.

And as he watched Lexie vanish into the flat, he thought again of the boy he’d taken her from, the boy she so clearly loved. Because she was right. This wouldn’t have affected only her, it would have affected everyone she knew. And he
had
screwed up her life.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, following her. ‘I should have remembered.’

She was standing with her back to him in the middle of the living room.

‘Please,’ he said, stepping close behind her, reaching out to touch her.

But she flinched.

His hand pulled back. He realized he was crying. Tears were streaming down his face. He wiped them, not wanting her to see. He went through to his bedroom and sank onto the bed.

Pull yourself together, he told himself. You can’t do this. You can’t crack up.

But everything in him was telling him it was over, that he’d failed.

He heard footsteps and forced himself to stand. He walked to the window and wiped his eyes with clenched fists. He heard the door creak behind him. Lexie was already in the room.

And he knew he had to tell her. Even now, when she was sadder than he’d ever seen her, he had to make her sadder still.

‘Everything I’ve done,’ he said, ‘everything I’ve got wrong . . . I’m sorry, Lexie, I’m sorry for it all . . .’

‘It doesn’t matter. I know you’ve tried your best.’ Her voice was placatory. She sounded beaten and tired.

Just do it, Danny told himself. He’d put it off long enough already. Too long. He should have told her before he’d gone to London. He’d put her life at risk because he’d been too afraid of how she might react. Do it
now.
Because he had to. Even though no father should ever have to do what he must now. He had to tell his daughter that her worst nightmare might be about to come true.

‘No,’ he said, ‘you don’t understand.’

He couldn’t bring himself to face her. His voice caught in his throat, like gravel. His tears, he noticed, had dried. As he turned to face her, coldness filled him and turned his heart to stone.

‘There’s something else,’ he said. ‘Something I haven’t told you. There’s something you need to know.’

‘What?’ The reconciliation was gone from her voice. In its place was fear. She must have read something in his eyes.

He swallowed and tried to answer. He failed.

‘What? What is it?’ she said, her voice rising.

‘He’s back . . .’ His words came out as a whisper. ‘Who?’ she said.

‘Him.’ Danny couldn’t name him. He couldn’t do
that.

‘Wh—’ She stopped. She
knew.
Her eyes raked his. And she
saw.

He reached out to her, but she held up her arms to block him. She turned as if to march through the open bedroom door, only to stop in her tracks and wrap her arms around herself. She spun to face him, tears running down her face, her whole body shaking. ‘How can this be happening?’ she screamed. ‘How can this be happening
again?’

But Danny had no explanation. He stared mutely at her.

‘He’s dead!’ she screamed. ‘He’s meant to be dead! You told me he’d not killed anyone. Not for years. You told me he was never coming back!’

Hoped.
That’s what he had
hoped.
But, yes, Lexie was right: that was what he’d told her.

She slapped him as hard as she could across the face.

He didn’t follow her as she walked out. Two seconds later, the apartment’s front door slammed so hard he felt it.

He was still standing in exactly the same position when she came back ten minutes later. It was only when she walked in and he saw the clock on the wall above her that he saw how much time had passed. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking. It was as though he’d been standing there in pitch darkness, even though the room was golden with light.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

He nodded. The movement felt painful, as if he’d somehow seized up.

She said, ‘I’m going to fix myself something to eat.’

He followed her to the kitchen in silence. She took a jar of peanut butter from the shelf. He picked up the loaf of bread from the sideboard and put it on the kitchen counter. He took a wooden chopping board and laid two pieces of bread on it. She took a knife from the drawer and unscrewed the lid of the peanut butter. She spread first one slice, then the other. They each picked one up and turned their backs to the counter, leaning against it as they ate.

Just like we did when she was a kid, Danny remembered. Just like I did with her and her mum and Jonathan, when we were still a family, when we still lived in a world full of love.

‘So what are we going to do?’ Lexie said. Her voice was quiet but not weak. Not frightened any more. There was grit in her words. And she was asking him a question. She thought he could help. Or he had to believe she did. And he had to believe he could.

‘We’re going to adapt to make sure we survive,’ he said.

‘Meaning what?’ Lexie said.

‘You know how I told you before that if anything happened to me you were to contact Spartak?’

‘You mean if they catch you or . . .’ She didn’t finish her sentence; didn’t need to.

He nodded.

‘You told me I wasn’t to go to the authorities,’ she said, paraphrasing the words he’d spoken to her before he’d set off for Chernobyl, ‘because any reports of your death in the papers might have been planted there to lure me out.’

‘That’s right. Well, now if anyone contacts you, I want you to call Spartak and arrange to meet him.’

He went to one of the bags he’d left at the apartment before he’d gone to London, and took out the same disposable phone, the corresponding SIM card and battery, to which he’d given Spartak the number. He placed the phone in her hand and closed her fingers around it.