The Castle (18 page)

THIRTY-NINE

T
he next town was small and sleepy too. Almost everything was closed, but a few shopkeepers and café owners were starting to put up the shutters on white-walled buildings and pull down the heavy awnings to shield customers from the sun. Dad dumped the Mercedes in a side street and my satchel in an industrial rubbish bin two streets away, after I'd rescued the few things I still needed, stuffing them into the pockets of my shorts.

Dad was limping and Amina's sore back was aching, so she leant against me for support as we headed through the market square. We passed a large group of sleepy tourists waiting to board one of the big coaches, and headed into the back
streets, where we found a small tobacconist's shop with a bar serving coffee to busy locals.

Dad bought us all orange juice and croissants at the bar, while Amina and I found an empty table at the back. Dad also bought a couple of things from the tobacconist part, but I couldn't see what. Was he a smoker now, too? I had thought nothing in the world would surprise me any more, but Dad with a fag in his mouth still actually would. And, excuse me, but how did he pay?

Amina and I fell on the food while he disappeared into the toilets for five minutes. When he came back, his hair was wet, quite short and much tidier. His beard was shorter too, cropped close to his face. He must have bought a razor at the bar. And he was wearing a pair of trainers and an old blue cotton jacket I'd never seen before, that smelled strongly of dog. Where had those come from? They made him look less ‘wild man of the hills', and more ‘rugged hippy lecturer'. Judging from the sideways glances he was getting from the two women behind the bar, it was definitely a look to go for.

He downed his coffee in one gulp. ‘Right,' he said, leaning across the table. ‘We don't have long. Amina, well done so far. Your brother would be so proud of you. Peta, you're in charge. Listen to me carefully.'

‘I'm
in charge? But—'

‘Just listen. You're going to catch a bus to Sorrento. It's the next big town up the coast. You're two tourists, admiring the scenery. Here are your tickets.' He handed over two printed squares of paper and I stuffed them in my pocket. ‘When you get there, go to the train station and buy tickets for Naples. Wait for me at Naples station, top level. It's big. Leave a message with the left-luggage people to let me know where to find you.'

‘What do I say? Where do we wait?' This was too much. I wasn't ready.

Dad stayed calm. ‘It depends what's safe. You'll have to work something out. You can do it, love – I've seen trained soldiers less good at improvising than you. Wait three hours, no more, then catch the next train to Rome. If I'm not there by the time it leaves, go without me. When you get to Rome, go to the British Embassy and tell them everything. You'll definitely be safe there.'

‘But what if we don't find you? Where are you going? Why can't we—?'

‘I can't travel with you now,' Dad said flatly. ‘They'll be looking for the three of us together. Don't worry about me. But don't forget: I don't know who we can trust and who we can't round here – so don't trust
anyone
, OK? Not until you get to Rome. Promise me?'

He waited until we promised. A couple of men in dark uniforms paused at the window of the café, deep in conversation, and Dad turned away, pretending to fiddle with something in his pocket. I could feel panic rising in my chest, but after a few words together, they moved on. Dad made sure they were gone, then carried on.

‘If you're followed, it'll be by a team. So don't assume that just because you lose sight of someone, they've gone. OK, what did I just say?'

This was absurd. This whole thing was absurd. But he didn't seem to be joking, so I dutifully replayed all the stuff about the bus and the train and the message and the
other
train to Rome, and the team of watching people. All the time, Amina gazed at Dad, mesmerised.

‘Good,' he said. ‘Oh, and you'll need this.' He took a wallet out of the pocket of his new jacket and subtly handed me a
large wad of euros from it. ‘For the train tickets. And food. And get yourself some sunglasses too. Big ones. And . . .'

‘Where did you get that wallet, Dad?'

‘For God's sake!'

‘Was it from someone here? . . . Or one of those people getting on the coach? God, Dad! They were just tourists. That's
loads
of money. What are they going to do? They'll have to cancel all their cards.' This wasn't cool any more. The jacket . . . the wallet . . . the car . . . all he'd done since we escaped was give orders, lie and nick stuff.

He grunted angrily. ‘Blimey!' In a whisper he continued, ‘Without this money we'll all be caught in about ten minutes. This isn't a game. When did you turn into such a stroppy teenager?'

‘When did you turn into a thief? And—' I wanted to go on, but I was too angry to talk.
Stroppy teenager?
After everything I'd just been through? Kidnapped, shot at, scared half to death? Between us, Karim and I had saved his bloody
life
.

Stroppy teenager?

My eyes were hot with tears. I couldn't bear it in the stuffy room, so I ran out into the street to calm down. The café door opened and Dad came running after me. He glanced cautiously up and down the empty street.

‘Love, I'm sorry. We'll sort this out, but we can't do it now. You—'

‘Sort this out?
Really? You think so?' My voice was snotty and unsteady and I didn't want to talk, not here in the stupid road, but I was about to lose him again and the words couldn't stay inside any longer.

‘Do you know what Mum said to me after her
wedding
, when I was choked up with the pain of missing you?'

Dad looked startled about the wedding, but said nothing.
He shook his head.

‘She said you loved me, and that if there was any way you could come back to me, you'd have done it. Which meant you had to be dead. And I wondered – for the first time I really wondered if she was right, because how could you possibly leave me on purpose? How could anyone
do
that? But I kept looking for you. And then I got to the castle and I found this . . . 
thing
, like a man . . . but he didn't know me, and . . . it was over. You
must
be dead.' I was shaking by now. ‘So I'm sorry if I'm a stroppy teenager, but my dad has died
twice
and I've been through a lot recently and—'

‘I'm sorry,' he murmured, moving in and putting his strong, thin arms around me, pressing my face to his chest. ‘I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry.'

Under the whiff of dog hairs from the stolen jacket, he smelled of Dad. Sweaty Dad, after an army exercise, or back from tour. He let me go and I looked into his face. He was crying. I'd only ever seen him do that once or twice and it scared me. Behind his tears, he looked genuinely sorry, and that was worse. My hero dad made mistakes. Big ones. My hero dad was an idiot and he knew it. I felt weak.

‘Listen, love, I need to tell you something,' he said. ‘I can't do it here. Let's go back inside.'

Amina looked up anxiously from our table. Dad went over to her.

‘Stay here. But if you see any trouble, come and find us in the back.'

She watched us as we headed towards the door marked
Toilette
.

There was only one cubicle, which was already hot and smelly, even this early in the morning. I sat on the seat while Dad squeezed next to the basin. This had to be the worst
place ever for a serious conversation.

He took a breath. ‘Leaving you,' he said, ‘was the most selfish thing I ever did. I always meant to come back, but they threw me in that . . . place and I thought I'd never see you again. When you came in . . .' He paused and his voice wobbled slightly. ‘Karim had said you were in the castle and I didn't believe it, but then I heard your voice. You even hummed that song. I thought I'd explode with joy. You'd found me, and you were incredible.
Incredible
.'

He reached out. I pulled back. I'd imagined that reunion with all my heart, and he'd ruined it. I didn't want him to think I was moved by this little speech.

‘All I wanted to do was hug you and never let you go,' he went on. ‘But they knew about you and it was my fault. They wanted to kill you. Slowly. In front of me. To make me talk. If they'd ever found us together they would have done things . . .' He trailed off. ‘I had to get you away from me as fast as I could. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. I know you don't believe me any more, but you have to believe that.'

I bit my lip. There was a knock at the door.

‘Didn't you trust me to keep quiet?' I asked.

‘I'd hardly seen you for two years! You were a little girl then. I didn't know what you'd do.'

‘I grew up, Dad.'

The knocking grew louder. ‘Men are coming,' Amina whispered fiercely.

We let her in.

‘Who?' Dad asked.

She shook her head. ‘Men in dark glasses . . .' She shrugged helplessly, frightened.

‘Right,' Dad said, looking up at the high window above our heads. ‘Peta – up you go.'

The window frame was small, but I was half starved and desperate. Dad gave me a leg-up and I squeezed through, landing clumsily in the alley outside. Amina came quickly afterwards, followed by the jacket, then, somehow, Dad.

‘I trust you now,' he said to me as we caught our breath. ‘We passed a supermarket on the way here. Go there fast. Get food and sunglasses. Then do as I told you.'

He stroked my cheek tenderly, then ran down the street while Amina and I walked quickly in the opposite direction. A minute later, I heard a scooter start up and zoom off. That man could steal
anything.

FORTY

W
hen the bus to Sorrento arrived at the market square, a large group of people was already waiting to board. There were lots of local Italian ladies with shopping bags, some German backpackers, a large French family, impeccably dressed . . . and two teenagers in sunhats and big, dark glasses, listening to music on their iPods. (We didn't actually
have
iPods, but we had the headphones, bought at the supermarket, which trailed into our pockets.) The taller, patchy-skinned girl was holding a plastic bag containing fruit, salami, bread, and a maxi-pack of wet wipes. We kind of stank, but hopefully the wet wipes would fix that.

A police car was parked up nearby. Two officers scanned the crowd, but they seemed more concerned about checking out fast cars and stopping any bearded men who passed by.

We boarded the bus and showed our tickets to the driver. From behind my sunglasses, I looked for signs of anyone who might be following Amina and me. Several of the men on the bus seemed to be watching us closely, but when three beautiful German girls got on behind us, all eyes turned to them. The men were just ‘checking out the laydeez'. Ew, but good.

I found us a couple of empty seats near the back. The driver pulled into the heavy traffic now crawling slowly along the coast road. I cleaned my face and filthy hands with a wet wipe and handed the packet to Amina while I set about getting out the picnic food we'd bought at the supermarket. One croissant had hardly made a dent in my permanent hunger.

I made Amina a sandwich, but when I turned to her, she was already falling asleep again. Her head gently sank on to my shoulder and stayed there throughout the long, hot journey to Sorrento. Eventually, with nothing better to do, and two sandwiches satisfyingly in my stomach, I slept too.

At Sorrento we simply followed the crowd and copied what they did. It wasn't hard to find the train station, or work out how to buy a ticket. Even the machines spoke English.

We caught the first train to Naples: an old commuter line, stopping at every crumbling concrete station along the way, with grey plastic seats that soon stuck to our legs in the heat. Among the mix of tourists and local travellers, I counted at least six people who stared at us oddly, but all of them got off before we did.

Amina finally ate her picnic. A team of not-so-musical beggars worked their way down the train. Most people
ignored them, but I saw the way Amina looked at their ragged clothes as she ate her sandwich, and I gave them some notes I'd secretly removed from my stash.

According to the very loud and chatty English family at the other end of the carriage, this railway line skirted around the edge of Mount Vesuvius. The mother was giving her children a quiz about the ancient volcano. I half listened – years ago, that would have been Dad and me – but today I was distracted. After the loneliness of the castle cellars, it was strange to be surrounded by so much life.

Amina felt it too. Now she was awake, she was sensitive to everything: the seats, the crush, the laughter, the noise. She sat very, very still. At first, I thought she was terrified of it all, but she wasn't. This was the girl who'd survived in the pitch-black belly of a boat next to a dead person; who'd lived with psycho-Max all her life; who'd kicked me out of sight without a moment's hesitation when she needed to. She was just drinking it all in.

‘Mr Allud – he will meet us soon?' she asked.

‘Soon. When we get to Naples,' I said.

But I looked more certain than I felt. What if I never saw Dad again? How would I explain to Mum, or anyone, that the last time we'd talked was outside a smelly toilet in a town near Amalfi? No one would ever believe me, but I suppose I was used to that.

In my head, I replayed every second of our time together, from the moment I recognised him on the shore. All of it – even the sad bits, even the arguments, and especially the smelly toilet part. It hurt, but I couldn't help going over and over the memory. He was gone again already, and it might be all I'd ever have.

*

At Naples station, we took an escalator up to where the fast trains were. After the run-down little stations of the Circumvesuviana, the huge futuristic building stretching ahead of us was a shock. Between the modern platforms and a row of shiny shops and restaurants was a vast, air-conditioned concourse, criss-crossed by armies of busy travellers. It was like we'd leapt forward a century in time.

I spotted the left-luggage place straight away, in the middle of the concourse. Amina gripped my hand. Her eyes were big circles. I pointed to a bright yellow shop-front, not far away.

‘I think we need better disguises. Can you look for some clothes to buy? That shop is full of them.'

She nodded. ‘I remember.'

‘You do?'

‘I was in a shop with Yasmin. Long ago.'

I smiled encouragingly. ‘It's easy. You'll be fine. Stay there and I'll find you.'

She headed straight for the shop. Meanwhile, I checked the departure boards for trains to Rome and went to buy our tickets, so we'd have them ready. It was what Dad would do.

I was standing at the machine, picking a train time, when I smelled it. Aftershave. Strong. Like lemons. It hung in the air for a moment, then it was gone.

Very slowly, very slightly, I turned my head to look – just in time to see a tall, compact figure moving away from me through the concourse. He was wearing a baseball cap, but I knew him instantly.

Muscle Man. Here. Watching the platforms, scanning the crowd.

With my instincts newly tuned to danger I looked round and spotted another man, in mirrored sunglasses, standing
very still and staring in the same direction. He could have been waiting for a passenger, of course, but something bothered me about the way he stood so impassively, how his neck bulged and how, behind the glasses, his eyes seemed to miss nothing. This man wasn't like the random passengers we'd seen at Sorrento. He wasn't waiting, he was working. Once you spotted the difference, it was obvious.

It was only by luck that they hadn't seen me yet. With my head bent low over the machine, I finished buying the tickets. I didn't try to look for any other followers. They were here. It wasn't over.