‘Are you sick?’
‘No. I had it but I’m okay now.’ She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘I got hit in the stomach.’
She didn’t want to say that it was his boot that had found her ribs by mistake.
‘Why do you say you “had it”? What did you have?’
‘You don’t know?’
He looked bemused. ‘Why should I know?’
‘There’s a sickness, a virus, people are calling it the sweats. It’s been in the newspapers, on television, people are dying.’
‘I don’t see so much television, I watch your show and movies on DVD, and I study, that is all. After the summer I go back to university.’ News of the virus seemed to have no impact on the guard. He asked, ‘Why did he attack you?’
Stevie’s hand tightened around her bag. ‘I don’t know.’
‘There are crazy people about. Probably he saw your programme and decided to become a stalker. I feel bad I didn’t see him before he attacked you. You want me to call the police?’
‘No thanks. I’ll go to a police station on my way home.’ Stevie forced a smile. ‘I think you might have saved my life.’
Jirí said, ‘You don’t owe me nothing.’ He transferred his uniform cap from one hand to another. ‘You shouldn’t be alone while he is still out there.’
There was a proprietorial note in the guard’s voice that made her uneasy. The car keys were still in her hand. Stevie braced herself.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll be okay.’
‘You should let me drive you.’
‘I told you, I’ll be fine.’ She opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. The security guard was at her window and she was reminded of the first time they had met. She had been desperate to go home then too, but he had held her there, using her politeness against her. This time, though, she owed him. Stevie wound down the window and asked, ‘How about you? Will you be okay?’
‘Of course. I hope he comes back. I will be ready for him.’ Jirí crouched down, as he had before, his face level with hers. ‘Maybe this is not the right time. Your boyfriend has died and you are sad. But if I don’t ask now, I may never get another chance.’
She started the engine.
‘Jirí, I’m not ready to go out with anyone yet.’
‘I know that.’ Blood was beginning to crust his top lip, giving the illusion of a Chaplin moustache. ‘I wanted to ask if you can help me get a job. I’m happy to start off small. I am studying accountancy. I will graduate this year and I would like to stay in this country, but I need a better job. I thought maybe there might be something here. TV stations always need accountants.’
Stevie forced a smile. ‘I’ll put in a word for you if I can. The way things are going, I have a feeling there may be some vacancies coming up soon.’
She dimmed the lights, put the car into gear and steered it out of the car park, into the darkness of the road beyond.
Fifteen
The adrenalin from the fight wore off about a mile down the motorway. Stevie pulled on to the hard shoulder and surrendered herself to the shakes. Every bit of her hurt. She dragged a tartan travelling blanket from the back seat and draped it around her shoulders. There was a packet of paracetamol in her satchel. She dry-swallowed three and then ran trembling fingers over her face. Its contours were swollen and unfamiliar.
The attack had been so sudden and so determined that there had been no time for fear. But the sense of dread that had shadowed her since she had found Simon’s corpse was stronger and Stevie realised that she was scared to look at her face. She took a deep breath, pulled down the sun visor and looked into the small vanity mirror.
She explored her face in portions: eyes, cheeks, mouth, chin. A collage of cuts and contusions. She didn’t want to switch the Mini’s interior light on but Stevie could see enough to know that she looked a mess.
She whispered, ‘Well, kid, if your face is your fortune I think you may have blown it this time.’
There was a bruise on Stevie’s temple where the pot thrown by Rachel had met its mark. Her cheek was scuffed and there was a red bloom of broken veins across her nose. She looked at her hands. Her palms were grazed and stinging from where she had hit the tarmac, her knuckles red and scraped. Stevie cautiously touched her ribs, where Jirí’s boot had made contact. The pain made her gasp but she persisted, pressing into the tenderness, making sure nothing was out of place.
When she was satisfied that nothing was broken she leant forward and ran her hands up each of her legs from ankle to thigh. Her jeans were ripped at the knee and her flesh felt mauve with bruises, but the thick denim had helped to save her legs from more abrasions.
‘You’ll live.’ Stevie gave a harsh laugh. ‘Talking to yourself . . . first sign of madness.’
She slid the laptop from her satchel. It looked undamaged. Stevie considered taking it from its slipcase and switching it on to check but the thought of the screen’s electronic glow, illuminating her face, stopped her. It struck her that if her attacker believed she already knew what was in the laptop, she might no longer have the option of walking away.
Stevie wondered if Simon had realised how dangerous a task he had set her. Had he genuinely thought it a simple courier job, a favour to release him from whatever intrigue he had been embroiled in, or had he been as careless of her safety as those men who secretly concealed drugs, or even bombs, in their girlfriends’ luggage?
‘Fuck, Simon,’ she whispered. ‘For a clever man you were a hell of an idiot.’
Tears clouded her eyes. Stevie swore again and rubbed them away. There was no time for crying. She took a bottle of perfume from her bag, sprayed a little on the palms of her hands and dabbed it on her cheeks and her exposed knees, to disinfect her grazes. It stung, but it was a small sharp pain, a distraction from the rest of her hurt, and she welcomed it.
She wondered if the man who had attacked her was out there in the darkness, watching her now. The TV studio was on an industrial estate, badly served by public transport during the day, not served at all by it at night. He must have driven there. After Jirí had chased him off, her attacker could have made it to his own vehicle, waited for her to drive out of the car park, and then tailed her at a discreet distance. Leaving his headlights off might be risky, but it would guarantee that Stevie wouldn’t spot him in her rear-view mirror.
She checked again that the car doors were locked and then held her hands up in front of her face. Her fingers were still trembling, but not as badly as before and she reckoned she was fit to drive. She would go back to St Thomas’s and check on Joanie before she decided on her next move. She turned the key in the ignition, gunning the engine into life, and glanced again in the rear-view mirror to make sure that the road behind her was empty. Her toe had just touched the accelerator when her mobile buzzed with news of an incoming text. Stevie took her foot from the pedal, pulled on the handbrake and fished her phone from her bag, glad of the distraction. Joanie’s name flashed on the screen.
‘Thank Christ.’
Joanie had recovered enough to send a text. They would convalesce together, Joanie from the sweats and Stevie from her beating. Her friend made a convincing act of being sweetly stupid, but she was the cleverest person Stevie knew. Joanie would tell her what to do about the laptop. The phone lit up and she saw the start of the message scrolling along the top of the screen: Joanie didn’t make it . . . Joanie didn’t make it . . . Joanie didn’t make it . . . Joanie didn’t make it . . .
Stevie felt as if her own heart had stopped. She turned off the engine and pressed the speech bubble that opened her messages.