Through Every Human Heart (6 page)

Charles John De Bono stared at the fine plasterwork of the sitting room ceiling. Was he alone? There were no sounds except the quiet noise of traffic in the street. The side of his face ached, but the pain in his groin was excruciating, as if some heavily-built animal, a rhino possibly, had used it as a footstool.

He lay still, trying to recollect what had happened. A girl who wasn't the owner of the flat. Two foreigners who thought she was. He got himself into a sitting position, then to his feet, but very slowly, leaning on the wall until the room levelled out. He checked his pockets. Everything was as it should be. Wallet, keys, diary.

Not quite alone. Here was Dan, bleeding on the rather lovely carpet, refusing to wake up. What an idiot. Stabbed with his own knife. Since he didn't seem inclined to wake up, it would be an act of kindness to help him on his way. A mere act of kindness. Charles took one of the velvet cushions from the sofa and held it down hard on Dan's face for as long as it took. Then carefully picking up the knife with his own handkerchief, he walked to the kitchen, lifted the girl's handbag from the worktop, slipped the knife into it and the whole lot into his holdall wherein lay the few small precious items they'd collected before the interruption. He exited through the door to the garden, and delicately made his way, legs well apart, to the car in the back lane.

He drove ever so courteously for the next ten minutes or so, making a point of breathing, and giving way to everything in his path, deaf-blind middle-aged women in cars too big for them, cretins in delivery vans and anorexic cyclists, both male and female. He had no clue where he was going, but it didn't much matter. What mattered was avoiding sudden movements of any kind. As soon as he saw a space, he pulled in and stopped. After a while he managed to put a bit of chewing gum into his mouth and loosen the top two buttons of his overalls. Being a burglar, he thought, was not going to suit him. Worth a try, and interesting in its own way, but not for him. Essentially it required manual skills he did not possess, forcing him to rely on morons like Dan, who promised he could quickly open safes but could not in fact do so. The Dans of this world were in fact so irreparably inept the world was better off without them. He was seriously pissed off, but since it was always sensible to be pissed off at a safe distance from any given situation, as soon as he could bear it, he moved into the traffic again.

After meandering along a little more, he saw a Tesco sign and turned into a crowded car park, finding a space on the roof. He got the seat back as far as it went, took off the overalls, combed his hair and put on a tie and the suit jacket which had lain on the back seat. In the pharmacy he begged for the strongest painkiller they could give him, blaming root canal treatment.
Just something to get me home.
The girl saw his face, felt his pain and took pity. She wouldn't tell him what the tablet was, made him promise to tell no one, and gave him water to swallow it. Back in the car he sat for a while watching pigeons, clouds, the populace come and go. Noticing a few cream-coloured cat hairs on his trouser leg, he removed them carefully. The animal had tried to scratch him. It had been the work of a moment to end its life. Mostly he was indifferent to animals. Some were of course necessary for food. But when he found himself considering the existence of pets, which in truth he rarely did, he was mystified by people's need for them.

Holiday? he wondered. He had travelled a lot recently, but always on business. The idea of a holiday had its charms. There were still quite a few countries he'd never been to. In the past year he'd set himself a challenge, trying new things, or ‘callings', as he liked to call them. He'd been an antiques dealer very briefly in the early days, and Miss Arbanisi's auction items, advertised on the net, had re-awakened the attraction. And he'd always liked a trip up to Scotland. The people were very trusting. A little research had indicated a house full of valuables, on the ground floor, no alarm system, the owner out at work all day, but really, on reflection, being a burglar wasn't meeting his needs as much as he'd hoped.

As the pain began to fade, his mind began to work again. He hated being bored, and it was such fun tidying loose ends. The girl first. He emptied the contents of her bag on the passenger seat. A cardigan, a purse with some notes and coins, about fifteen pounds or so. Nothing much else. Keys, credit cards in the name of Donaldina MacLeod. A packet of anti-diarrhoea capsules. He hoped she wasn't needing them at the moment, wherever she was. A tube of hand-sanitising gel. Used paper handkerchiefs. Hair brush, rather unpleasant, as full of hair. A bulging make-up bag – he didn't even open that. Mobile phone. Excellent. He kept this and the hand gel, shovelled the rest back in.

The foreigners were next on the list. They thought she was the house owner. Her screams had brought them back. So, they didn't know her, but the real owner was important to them. Who were they and what had they come for? Was it important to know or not? Had they all scarpered together? What was the best way to track them down? Charles doodled in his head around a large question mark, adding jagged little lines.

In front of him a young couple were stowing their shopping bags in the boot of their car. The man looked tired, his mouth turned down at the corners. The girl wore a white halter top that threatened to unload its contents at any moment. Why were young women so determined to show their boobs? It didn't interest him one way or the other, but he'd heard some men complain that there was no mystery any more, no subtlety. He'd been in a few church groups, during his very enjoyable ‘born again' periods, and even there, women were now going as far as they could go. Things in churches were changing to quite a disturbing extent. What a lot of hugging he'd had to go through the last time. And handkerchiefs. That was another thing. It seemed hardly any men his age carried cloth handkerchiefs. He'd quickly realised the usefulness of keeping a clean one in his pocket for tears during powerful hymns and sermons. He'd invested in various monogrammed ones. Women found it reassuring that there were faithful if rather dull female relatives somewhere buying him gifts.
No, keep it please,
had been one of his most productive lines. Easy money, church groups, but too predictable after a while.

His phone let out a little beep. Mother's birthday the following Wednesday. He wrote ‘Interflora' on Monday's space. If he forgot she would become a nuisance, telling complete strangers how neglected she was. It wasn't even true. He paid for her car, her rent and her fuel bills. It was a small price to pay to keep the bitch completely out of his life. She had emphysema, but refused to shuffle off her mortal coil. He angled the mirror and studied his face. There might or might not be a bruise.

‘What big eyes you have, Mister Wolf,' he told himself.

Fear is a good thing, Dina told herself as they passed through several small villages with names she didn't recognise.
Fear is an ancient instinct
.
Only machines fear nothing.
Someone had said that in a lecture.
Allow your patients to find out what they fear and what they value, no matter how different your values may be.

There was a long unpopulated stretch of countryside, till they finally left the main road to drive up a deserted lane. Her head felt as tight as a balloon on the point of bursting.

It was cool inside the car. Air conditioning she supposed. The two of them had jackets on, but her arms were cold, and rubbing them didn't help. Someone had told her not so long ago that she was brave, she couldn't remember who, but it was utterly, utterly not true.
I fear being killed. I value staying alive
, she thought. She'd watched enough TV to know that the fact they hadn't blindfolded her was not good, since it meant they intended to kill her in the end.

She looked around. Fields without animals. A medium-sized rocky hill on the left. Birch trees on either side, but no dark and lonely wood. In films there was generally a dark and lonely wood. The scary one with the scarred face would strangle her of course, but when she was found, his blood would be under her nails, and a strand of her hair on his clothes. A nice young couple in green wellies out walking with a friendly, pink-tongued black Labrador puppy would stumble over her decomposing body . . .

‘Out,' he told her, unlocking her door.

The only building in sight was a small cottage surrounded by an overgrown garden. Inside, it smelled of damp carpet and fried bacon. Her heart was outdoing itself. Probably it would burst before her head did. She sat down on a faded sofa in front of a fireplace where logs had long ago burned down to ashes. The surface of the glass-topped coffee table was grey with dust. Someone had put daisies and buttercups in a small green glass bottle, but the water had dried away, leaving the flowers stiff and faded.

‘I need to pee,' she said.

‘You wish to use the bathroom?' It was the nervous, good-looking one.

‘Actually, I wish to go home,' she said.

He looked worried, and she wondered for a split second if he was wishing for the same thing.

‘You are not in danger here,' he said. ‘This place is good for you.'

Clearly his ideas about danger and goodness were completely different from hers, she thought, as she hovered above the toilet, touching the lever afterwards through a wad of paper. All of which caution was ridiculous, because she would be dead soon enough, raped and most probably infected with some unspeakable foreign disease into the bargain . . .

There was one piece of purple soap and a chewed looking nail brush. On the window ledge lay several skeletal bluebottles, and a contorted tube of toothpaste with no cap. The cupboard held a few towels, a box of Man-size Kleenex, and a bottle of White Musk shower gel that smelled foul.

Face your fear and it will go away.
She saw her face in the dusty mirror over the sink, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Then she knew, and cried. No wonder they hadn't wanted to look at her. There was no hot water, but with the Kleenex she cleaned up the best she could.

The nervous man jumped up from the sofa when she came back into the main room. The ugly one was nowhere to be seen.

‘You are cold?' he asked. ‘I will make a fire. Or perhaps first I make coffee. Or tea. You prefer the tea? Soon you can go home,' he added ‘Very soon. I'm sorry.'

He really did look sorry. Perhaps that was what all the arguing had been about in the car. He wanted to let her go, and the ugly one didn't.

‘Why are you keeping me here?' she said.

‘I have no choice.'

‘I won't tell anyone about you. You could let me go. While he's not here.'

‘I . . . we do not hurt you. It is for your safety.'

‘I know
you
won't hurt me. You're not like him, you . . .'

‘Don't let those big blue eyes fool you. Lazslo is just as cruel and depraved as I am.'

How long had he been standing in the doorway? He was carrying a pile of logs which he let fall in front of the fireplace.

‘What is your name?' he said.

‘Dina MacLeod.'

‘Deena? That is an English name?'

It was Scottish. Scottish at its worst Highland excess. Donaldina, the first girl in the family for years in an unbroken line of males.

He didn't wait for her answer, but turned his back and began to stack the wood. ‘I am Feliks Berisovic Albescu,' he said, as if it meant something.

‘I was going to light the fire. Shall I make coffee?' the nervous one said. ‘There is also cake. It is called a carrot cake. It is very pleasant.'

Was she going mad, or were they? She'd just been kidnapped and now they wanted her to have coffee and carrot cake?

‘You said before that you work for Miss Arbanisi.' The ugly one straightened, wiping his hands on his trousers. ‘Does that mean you can contact her?'

‘You mean phone her?'

‘The phone would be best. Our last carrier pigeon died this morning.'

‘Your what?'

‘I believe it ate some of the cake. Do you have her number?'

‘My mobile's in my bag.'

‘There is no reception here,' the nervous one said. ‘Too many hills.'

‘I know the number, and the office number,' she said. ‘If she's still there.'

The ugly one looked at his watch and frowned. ‘Then we had better not waste time,' he said. ‘There is a public telephone box on the road. It's not far.'

Outside the shadows had already begun to lengthen. There was no pavement and at first Feliks tried to help the girl by supporting her elbow as they walked along the rough grass verge, but she pulled away from him.

‘What d'you think I'm going to do, run away?' she muttered.

She went on muttering, at some length, but he paid scant attention. He had to get it right this time. He had to choose exactly the right words.

She wobbled and he caught her.

‘Why do you wear such shoes if you cannot walk in them?'

‘I can walk in them. I just can't
run
in them,' she announced, and with a defiant lift of the chin, she moved onto the tarmac, marching ahead of him, the tightly-encased bottom swaying from side to side.

The small space inside the phone booth smelled of cigarette butts and urine, exactly like those at home. He gave her some coins, let her dial the number, then took the phone from her.

‘Arbanisi Design.'

‘Miss Arbanisi, please.'

‘Speaking. How can I help you?'

‘Miss Arbanisi, I believe you have a Miss MacLeod who works for you?'

There was silence. Beside him, the girl suddenly tried to take the phone back. Raising his arm as a barrier, he turned his back on her, pinning her against the glass side of the box. She protested loudly, and he more or less had to shout into the mouthpiece.

‘Miss MacLeod is with me. She is safe and well. Have the police been in touch with you?'

There was a little hesitation then the voice said, ‘No. Not to my knowledge.'

A strange answer. Her tone was very casual. It occurred to him that they might be right there with her.

‘Are they with you?' he said tentatively.

‘Of course. Why don't you phone me later?'

So his hunch was correct. He chose his words carefully to make it easier for her to answer.

‘We were at your home earlier this day. I'm afraid a mistake has been made. I would like to meet with you as soon as possible.'

‘I see. I would have to look at my diary.'

His legs were being kicked from behind. He kicked back, though not hard. The struggling and the noise stopped.

‘That might be possible.'

‘I assure you, Miss Macleod has not been harmed.'

‘That's excellent. I won't be at home, but you do have my mobile number, don't you?'

Once outside the box, he took the girl's arm without thinking. She whirled round, lashing out with her other hand, knocking him sideways.

‘Please don't do this,' he raised his hands in defence, ‘Everything will be all right, now I've spoken to her. I've told you, over and again, no one is going to hurt you. If you will just be patient for a . . .'

He moved forward but again she mistook his intentions and kicked out, missing him but sending one shiny black shoe flying into the field. Suddenly he was very weary. How much trouble could one small woman be? It was beyond comprehension.

‘Are you deaf, or merely stupid? I told Miss Arbanisi, I will take full responsibility. Why can't you understand? If I'd known you would be such a nuisance, I'd have let that thug have you.'

‘Don't you touch me!'

Since he'd sidestepped her and was now walking away from her, this struck him as more than a little absurd.

‘Touch you? Do you see me touching you? My God, if you are the last woman on the planet I will die in flames of agony before I touch you. You don't matter. I don't want you. Do you understand? I do what I come to do and you must wait, whether you choose or not!'

Lopsided, she looked even more ridiculous than before.

‘It's Irene you want,' she said.

At last. She got it at last.

‘Irene's the one you want to kill.'

Losing patience, he grasped her by the arm, up-ended her until she was over his shoulder, and walked steadily back towards the house, ignoring the pummelling and screaming. The other shoe fell. He ignored that too.

At the cottage he battered the door with his heel. Laszlo unlocked it. He carried her through, remembering to duck under the wooden beam, though God knew, that might have knocked sense into her.

He dropped her onto the sofa.

‘You might try feeding her, but keep your distance or she'll most likely bite you instead of the bread. I'm going back for her stupid shoes.'