‘Impediment?’
‘No. Liability. Is that right?’
He nodded. And he agreed.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m armed. Will you please put me on the right track? How long will it take to drive there?’
She laughed, a light silvery laugh that danced through the room, bringing frowns and stares in its wake.
‘You can’t drive there. This is a country for walking. There’s no road from here to the castle.’
‘I’m driving a four-by-four. As long as I can get close…’
She gave him a pitying look.
‘Chief Inspector, please listen to me. You’re a novice here. I already told you, this isn’t Blake’s green and pleasant land.’ She seemed pleased with herself for making this reference. Ethan smiled to encourage her.
‘This is mountain country. There are many cliffs, places where the rock has sheared off, and there are caves everywhere. Big caves. Some of biggest caves you can find in whole world. If you fall into one or even if you just wander into one, you won’t find your way out again. Someone will find what’s left of you in the spring, or perhaps a few years from now. You need a guide. Not your own instinct, not a detective’s guesswork. If I go with you, you must behave yourself. You must do what I say.’
Ethan spluttered.
‘Ilona, I can’t take you. This isn’t a job for—’
‘A slip of a girl? A woman? A pitiful, weak-minded, bird-brained woman?’
‘I didn’t mean—’
‘That’s exactly what you mean. But let me explain something about Sancraiu. If you expect one of these fine people at the bar to go with you, or if you plan to knock on every door, then you’ll be here all tonight and all tomorrow, but no one will answer your appeal. If you give in and go up there alone, you will die. It’s winter. This is country that can kill even the best prepared. The woman you’re looking for, Sarah, she will die too.’
‘How much do you want?’
‘Nothing. No money, that is. But later, I want you to get me a job in England. And a visa to work there. Can you do that?’
Ethan thought he’d be the last person the authorities would want to hear from. But he had plenty of contacts, and his father had even more.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘When do we leave?’
15
The Wolf’s Lair
A short bituminised road led to an opening in dense undergrowth, bare branches painted with frost-edged snow. Here a track started upwards, heading for the mountains. It was some four feet wide, and its floor of packed earth had been made iron with ice, as though they walked on permafrost. On all sides lay snow and hoar frost, spiky and crystalline in the cold air. The snow had stopped falling as night drew close.
Ilona had changed into a dark green outfit better suited to mountain hiking than the fleece jacket she’d worn earlier. She had brought a small pony to carry equipment she considered necessary. Ethan didn’t know it, but she’d left home without a word to her family, knowing they would have banned her from taking part in what they would have considered a doomed expedition. To any villager who asked, she said she was taking the stranger to a little cabana higher up, where he was to carry out a survey for the government. She had loaded the pony with a spade, an axe, a pair of Nieto hunting knives, food, a small tent (‘If we get stuck, we will not survive without it. But I will not sleep with you, not even if you beg or offer me large sums of money’), a pickaxe, sleeping bags, two head torches, and things Ethan did not even recognise.
She put the longer of the two knives, an eight-inch blade, into a pocket on her trousers. Ethan took one look at it and whistled.
‘Have you ever used a knife like that before?’ he asked. ‘It’s an ugly-looking thing. You could spit an ox with it…’
‘I have used a knife like this since I was ten years old,’ she replied cheerily, snapping the pocket shut on a strip of Velcro.
‘Won’t we need ropes?’
‘This isn’t a mountaineering expedition,’ Ilona told him witheringly. ‘We won’t need to do any rope climbing. The mountain we’re going up is covered in trees as far as the castle and beyond.’
They climbed beneath the branches of dark trees, and if Ethan had thought Sancraiu quiet, or Woodmancote on Christmas Day a silent place, he revised his opinion with every step he took on the mountain trail. They walked in single file now, Ilona followed by Ethan, the horse coming in the rear. For all he knew, she might be leading him on a wild goose chase. It was hard to believe there was really a building, an entire castle up there.
Suddenly, something howled. Then a second time. There was an answering howl not far away. Ilona stopped the horse, stroking its head, whispering to it softly.
‘Farkas,’ she said. ‘Wolf.’
Ethan shivered, but covered his fear with a quip.
‘Children of the Night,’ he said.
‘Sorry? Why do you call it a child?’
He tried to explain, but the joke didn’t travel very well. Maybe they didn’t watch Dracula movies in Transylvania.
‘They aren’t always dangerous to human beings,’ Ilona pointed out. ‘But it has been a cold winter. There are no sheep on the pastures, so wolves sneak down to the farms to find what food they can. And if they can’t find a sheep or a goat, and they come across a man or woman or child instead, someone walking outside… This year, several men and a boy have died that way.’
They went on climbing. And as they climbed, night came down, imperceptibly at first, but suddenly at last, as the sun dropped below the horizon, hanging fire on the mountains, beyond their reach. No moon appeared, no stars twinkled between the branches of the trees. They had left behind the skeletons of oaks and beeches. Now, thick branches of fir and spruce hung over them like a canopy of disquiet, boxing them in. The lamps on their foreheads spilt out on a tunnel of snow and scintillating frost, the light carving out the path ahead. They moved on, talking in soft voices.
Ilona spoke of her life in Sancraiu, of the changes that had taken place in her on travelling to Bucharest, of the horizons that had started to open when she lived in Brighton, and her frustration at the lack of opportunity in Romania, even in the capital. She was serious about asking him to help her get a visa so she could enter Britain legally, find a job, perhaps marry, obtain citizenship. She had ambitions, she had hopes. Ethan could prove the gateway through which she could reach them. He’d had brushes with immigration control and wondered whether his word would count for anything.
The track went through twists and bends, always moving up. The higher they went, the colder it got. Their breath hung in the air ahead of them like a mist. Not once did the horse snicker or protest.
He told her about Abi, he didn’t know why. The words came unbidden, the memories made sharp by the frozen air or the concentration of light or Ilona’s youthfulness. He talked and she listened. It was as if her being his guide had placed him in a relationship to her of pupil to teacher, supplicant to advisor. The wolves howled again, and he shivered at the thought of sudden death. He could not begin to guess what he was going to find at the castle. Sarah dead? Or his own death waiting for him? A bullet? A sharp knife? Something blunt and heavy to cave in his skull?
‘This path will take us to the castle,’ Ilona said. ‘We must tie the horse.’
He saw a path leaving the track at an angle.
‘I’ll go ahead,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to stay here.’
She shook her head.
‘I agree to take you to the castle. I’ll stick to that, if you don’t mind.’
He wasn’t up to arguing, and he’d already seen what she was capable of. He nodded, and off they set.