Lost Girl (40 page)

The man drew a garden chair out from the side of the garage and made himself comfortable. ‘Although I haven’t had much time to let it all sink in myself, what Karen actually did two
years ago, and who you actually are, hasn’t changed my feelings towards my fiancée or my adopted daughter. Not at all. I’m encouraged by that.’ The man smiled again,
pleased with himself, pleased with his advantage, pleased that it wasn’t him bound to an antique wrought-iron garden chair, with one foot either purple or completely white; the father was too
scared to look down that far.

Engulfed by his desperate frustration, when so near his goal, the glowing coals within his belly seemed to flare, and he thrust against his bonds, only to suck in his breath and become still
again. His eyes streamed with tears at the renewed pain circling both ankles.

‘There is a vague resemblance too,’ the man in the mask said. ‘But my incredulity has been monopolized by you being here. Here! That is truly incredible. Last night, I heard a
precis of how you managed to arrive at our little home. You see, our other guests arrived ahead of you and briefed us. And I must say I admire your grit. The sheer determination. Jesus, I mean, you
were never a killer before, were you?’

The father stayed quiet.

‘They said that you took out a lieutenant.’ The man grinned. ‘Some sex offenders too, which we are not, incidentally, so let’s get that out the way first. I’d
imagine that assurance, at the very least, would be some comfort to you. Though Penny-stroke-Yasmin even being alive would trump that.’

The man stood and began to walk around the father. ‘I’m told that you even went into one of their strongholds, some fetid hive down the coast, and blasted your way out.’ He
came back into sight, grinning anew, and maintained his jovial, gently mocking tone. This man was amused, but the father was too tired and uncomfortable to waste his time guessing why, and his
captor was no King either. He’d said he was Karen Perucchi’s fiancé.

‘But I think you’ll agree that the clean-up they have performed in your wake has been extensive. Though the washing of their spears has had some unfortunate . . .’ The
man’s face changed. ‘You won’t believe me, but for what it is worth, I am deeply sorry about your wife. We played no part in that.’

The father swallowed. A sob burst from him. He clenched his entire body to prevent the scalding grief he would never be able to stopper once it broke his insides apart. He had refused to check
messages or watch any more films, but here was confirmation of what he would have found had he done so.

The man’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I think my fiancée more than sated herself two years ago on that account, exacting her retribution. So your wife’s
blood will not be on our hands. But they have her here.’

The father stiffened upon his chair. ‘Miranda is alive?’

‘Yes. They brought her with them, last night, either asleep or drugged. She still hasn’t roused, but she is alive. And I have made a request that they let you see her when she
finally comes around. It’s the least they can do, considering the circumstances.’ He chuckled. ‘For the sake of your daughter, you’ll be pleased and relieved to know that
Karen is a very different person these days too. I certainly am. Your daughter changed her. Both of us, to be honest. I believe that child changed everything here when she came to live with Karen.
She’s a very special girl.’

The father’s temporary relief that his wife was still alive was tempered by the inevitability of her not being so for much longer, and he was dumbfounded again by this man’s
avuncular tone, as if he were discussing some distant sporting event seen from the stands.

The man placed one rubbery finger next to his lips and frowned. ‘Karen was sure that no one would ever connect her to the abduction. She paid handsomely to make certain there would be no
loose ends. But here you are, so there is a missing link. And I’m really curious. Karen has assumed that this Yonah Abergil, whom we were told about last night, and whom she never met, by the
way, gave us up. Or maybe his old father did when you paid them a visit? I’m told they shared everything but hated each other. Strange people, eh? We know the kidnappers bugged your
daughter’s clothes and followed the car containing your daughter here. So we must assume that they told this Abergil chap about Karen?

‘Or, was it someone else who let it slip? Someone we don’t know about, yet? The problem with criminals of all stripes is that they like to brag, and Karen was never quite sure how
discreet the firm she hired through a go-between would be. It’s what you get when you go off-piste, I suppose. Double-dealing, betrayal. So is that how you found out about Karen, from
Abergil? And if so, did he get the information from the two men who carried out the grim work of kidnap, before he had them
retired
? These are my concerns.’

The father blinked the sweat and fog out of his eyes. If this man was telling the truth then he didn’t know Oleg was alive, and he and Karen were in the dark over how he’d learned
that his daughter was here. ‘Go and fuck yourself.’

The little man’s face stiffened while the grin remained fixed. ‘Well, you can tell me, or you can tell
them
later.’ He nodded over his shoulder at the door. ‘I
know which I’d prefer, and if you are candid with me it may help your case. It’s your call. But we can only assume, until we are better informed, that the two kidnappers told Abergil
about Karen, prior to their final exit from the stage.’

The father imagined a beheading was not going to be sufficient today. Torture had a part to play. He swallowed the lump that had swelled inside his throat.
They
would want to know about
others
who may have offered his crusade assistance, any other guardian angels beyond those already slaughtered. A fresh onset of a comprehensive weakening, in limb and neck, at the thought
of his coming travails at the hands of the Kings, tempered the rage that smouldered at the sight of this portly peacock, mocking him inside the garage belonging to the woman who had ruined his
life. But if neither his interrogator, this prissy fiancé, nor the Kings knew about Oleg’s involvement, that would mean Rina, Yonah Abergil’s girlfriend, hadn’t overheard
the confession he’d extracted from Yonah at his villa, when Oleg’s name was mentioned. And if Yonah had never known Karen’s identity, then what Semyon Sabinovic and Oleg had
discovered after bugging his daughter’s clothes was never shared with Yonah Abergil either. This also meant that Oleg’s faked death by overdose beneath the chapel had been convincing to
whomever went to kill him. And it must have been good too, because no man could return from the dead, no matter what that man believed about ritual magic and his ‘patron’.

The father remoistened his mouth with saliva. ‘You shacked up with that psychopath . . . You condone what she did. You’re now an accessory to kidnap, to murder. But it doesn’t
trouble you. What kind of animal are you?’

Widening his eyes with excitement, the man raised his hands and spread them wide to encompass a vastness beyond the bricks and mortar of the room. ‘The animal that will survive this little
challenge, as well as the almighty setback that is on its way. That’s the kind of animal that stands before you this morning, one who intends to continue into the new year with health and
portfolio intact.’

The man read confusion in the father’s eyes, and he seemed pleased with the opportunity to elaborate on his cryptic suggestions. ‘You should be grateful that the girl you fathered, a
long, long time ago,
our
daughter for argument’s sake, will have parents, a family, in the immediate future. A future that is, quite honestly, unbearable to even think about at this
point in time. Plenty of children are already without parents in this world, and many more will also lose their own, and soon. That is, if the young even survive at all. It’s really not
looking good for . . . well, anyone really. Besides those of us who are prepared.’

The man saw something come into the father’s eyes and he stepped further away from the chair. He pointed at his own face. ‘You’ll have to excuse the mask. It has nothing to do
with my identity. That’s hardly relevant now, I’d say. But you have been running wild out there, and this morning you compromised our little quarantine here, which we’ve observed
since the first infections in Oxfordshire.’

The father almost laughed. ‘You’re hiding inside here because of a bug.’

‘I’m afraid this is a bit more than just any
bug
. It’s actually the tediously inevitable NBO. The
next big one
. An idea that’s been knocked back and
forth between microbiologists for the last fifty years. Sure you’ve heard of it. It’s what we’ve all been, ultimately, waiting for. God knows there are enough distractions
competing with the pandemics to occupy our minds these days. No sooner does an outbreak reach a dead end and most people forget about them. I honestly doubt we have the mental capacity to do much
else. There’s just too much going on these days, don’t you think?

‘But there have been a great number of people with expertise, privately funded, who have continued to fastidiously measure, test and assess risks, on behalf of those with their eyes on a
much longer strategy. People like
us.
And there are a great many people that have a chance of . . . how shall I say it,
continuing
.’ The man chuckled. ‘Ask me and
I’d say that when I knew that this virus was probably
the one
, the news brought some relief. You believe that? Hallelujah, the future is finally here!

‘Thank God some of us had the foresight to prepare for it. And here’s another thing, Karen really did do you a favour.’ The man raised a proprietorial finger. ‘Hold on!
Bear with me. Before you go off, you really should thank Karen for taking Yasmin. I mean it. For taking on that responsibility. Because any alternative for the girl doesn’t bear thinking
about, does it? Not now. Not out there?’ The man mock-shuddered. ‘When you think of what is coming . . . well, what is already here and extremely infectious.’ He paused and
squinted, appearing to peer into the distance of his thoughts. ‘It’s happening right now.’

The father spat to clear his mouth of what now tasted like someone else’s faeces. ‘You shitting little cowards. Another pandemic begins and into the keep you go scurrying. Over and
over again. Like you do every time. Out here in your little castles. Extending your longevity with gene culture, but the one thing you can’t entirely own is your health. But fuck the rest of
us, yeah? You fucked us all a long time ago. You weakened and divided and destroyed everything around your walls. But when everything finally breaks down, I will be gone, and I will take a secret
delight in the likelihood of you all being torn apart. You have no idea of the rage that awaits you, out there.’

The man pretended to yawn. He checked his heavy wristwatch. ‘The significant minority that you so despise will have expanded proportionally, when this bug has run its course. Because the
much-thinned-out dissatisfied majority, and it’s a simple matter of mathematics now, will consist of but a shadow of their previous numbers. I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive my
rather dry summary of something impossible for any of us to really grasp, and I’m talking about the consequences of what will probably now be the biggest sudden depopulation since the Black
Death. Yes, that’s right, so hold that thought. And here’s another for you to consider: how else do those of us with influence and primacy even address such a monumental and inevitable
change? So it has come down to hard choices about survival, continuing the species and a
version
of civilization. And that can only occur if there are far fewer than nine billion of us
still around.’

The discomfort in his leg was now bringing the father to the breathless condition just prior to passing out. He found it difficult to focus on much besides the idea that his foot had finally
separated from his leg. Stupefied with pain, confusion and the choppy sea of rage, he just stared at the man. He even began to wonder if the figure before him was mad, or just privileged, isolated,
and paranoid.

‘We’re all at fault, or maybe we never were and this is an old and indifferent planet’s doing. But we don’t all need to go. Nor do we need to allow an arbitrary cull.
There’s far more at stake now than who has what, who is rich and who is poor, and whose fault anything was. Some of us have moved on from that debate. Those of you who cannot accept that,
well . . .’ The man offered the palms of his hands to indicate the precariousness of the father’s circumstances should that need any confirmation. ‘The short of it, the burgeoning
Asian pandemic must be seen as a necessary evil. An opportunity.’

The father kept his eyes and teeth clamped shut until a wave of pain and nausea relented. ‘So you came in here to make me feel better about what your bitch did . . . to ease your
conscience about what you are complicit in, by telling yourself that you are securing my daughter’s future. Is that it, the new script? During the latest viral dead end that’s got you
all shitting bricks in your woodland retreats, these are the new positions of the goalposts . . . You want me to ratify this, or sign something, before you have me murdered?’

‘Murder? We’re not murderers. Oh no. Your fate lies with others who are eager to get started on what they came here for. Please see my fiancée and I as merely providing a
facility for an unpleasant necessity that your own actions created. But Karen believes that you should, at least, be offered an explanation of how things are going to pan out for the girl. For
Penny
.’

‘At least?’

‘Yes. She’s actually furious with you, for bringing another necessary evil at one time, I am now told, out of the woodwork. But you,’ the man pointed a stubby finger at the
father’s face, ‘you brought them back within her orbit, where they are not welcome. One’s exposure to such things, I think you will agree, should be limited. So this is a very
nervous time for her, and for all of us here. I don’t even have to be here with you. I’d rather not be. But she thought you were owed something before . . .’