He was studying a poster advertising a play starring Sarah Bernhardt when he heard a familiar voice. ‘Chris! Nice of you to show up. You’re late!’
She smiled and kissed him on both cheeks. She was a tall woman, with white-blonde hair, angular cheekbones and wide, almond-shaped brown eyes. She was wearing tight jeans, a leather jacket and boots. She looked stunning. Had Chris been meeting her for the first time, he would have gaped. But this was Lenka, and he was used to her by now. Everywhere she went men turned to get a second look at her, and that was just how she had always liked it.
‘I sat on the tarmac at Heathrow for three-quarters of an hour,’ he said. ‘Can we get something to eat? I’m starving.’
‘Didn’t you eat anything on the plane?’
‘I was saving myself.’
‘Well, good,’ she said. ‘Let’s go to The Golden Bear. We can have a beer or two and I’m sure they’ll still do some food.’
‘Are we going to see the new office?’ Chris asked.
‘Only from the outside. We’ll look at it properly tomorrow morning.’
‘So, what’s this Golden Bear like?’
‘It’s a dive, Chris. Just your kind of hole. Come on.’
As she pushed past him, he smelled the expensive perfume she always wore that had become so familiar. Annick Goutal, he had discovered. He followed her out of the hotel and into the night air. It was cold, a penetrating cold that bit straight through Chris’s London coat to his bones. He wished he’d brought gloves.
‘Come on,’ Lenka said. ‘This way,’ and she set off down a quiet snow-covered street.
‘Is it far?’
‘Ten minutes’ walk. It’s just off Příkopy, where most of the big banks are located. It’s a good address without being too expensive.’
‘What about this Jan Pavlík? Do you think we can persuade him to come on board?’
‘Yes, as long as you like him. We’ll be meeting him tomorrow. He’s good, I think.’
‘Have you spoken about a package?’
‘Of course not,’ Lenka said. ‘I wouldn’t dream of doing that without asking you, would I?’
Chris just looked at her.
Lenka laughed. ‘We can discuss it when we get to the pub, if you like. There’s some other stuff I want to talk to you about as well.’
‘I’m all for that,’ Chris said. ‘But I need food first.’
‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘I’m sure they’ll do some goulash and dumplings. That will fill you up.’
They turned a corner and emerged into the Old Town Square. Chris stopped and stared, overcome by the magic of its subtly illuminated fairy-tale buildings glowing in the snow. The medieval town hall rose above brightly painted baroque merchants’ houses, and a monument to someone or other lurked darkly in the centre. The rich notes of a saxophone drifted out of one of the bars around the square’s rim.
‘Come on,’ said Lenka, tugging Chris’s arm, ‘I thought you said you were hungry.’
Chris knew that she had brought him this way deliberately, that she wanted to show off the city she loved so much, but he followed her as she led him down a series of ever smaller streets.
‘I hope you know where you’re going,’ he said.
‘Of course I do,’ said Lenka, and turned under an arch into a tiny alleyway
An occasional lamp lit up quiet doorways and a couple of closed-up crystal shops. Chris could smell coal in the air. The snow still lay on the road here, gleaming in the lamplight, only slightly compacted by the few cars that must have passed by since it had fallen. All was quiet, the din of the city’s traffic muffled by the walls and the snow.
Suddenly, Chris became aware of soft rapid footsteps behind them. As the sound came nearer, he turned. Lenka had just begun to say something. A man was striding rapidly towards them, only a couple of paces away. He was holding something in his hand, and making straight for Lenka.
For a fragment of a second, Chris didn’t react: he was too surprised to take in what was happening. Then, when he realized what the man was holding, he shouted and dived at him. But he was too slow. In one swift movement, the attacker grabbed Lenka by the collar of her coat with his left hand, yanked her backwards and raised his knife to her throat with his right. Her eyes were wide with fear and shock, steel glinting against the paleness of her neck. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts. She stared at Chris, her eyes imploring him to do something, too scared to struggle, or even to speak.
‘Steady,’ Chris said, slowly raising his hands towards the man.
The man grunted. Chris saw steel flash and heard the gurgle of Lenka’s attempt to scream. He dived forward, but the man pushed Lenka into him and turned and ran. Chris caught her and hesitated, unsure whether to go after him. But he let the man go and lay Lenka gently on to the pavement. Blood poured out on to the snow and all over her prized leather jacket. Chris tore off his own coat and tried to hold it against her throat.
‘Help!’ he shouted. He didn’t know the Czech for help. He tried the Polish instead. ‘Pomocy! Policja! Pogotowie! Lekarza! Oh, come on somebody, help me!’
Lenka was lying still beneath his hands. Her face was already pale, her eyes open and limp. Her lips moved as she tried to say something, but they made no sound.
Desperately, Chris pushed down hard on her throat with his coat, as though by sheer force of will he could stanch the flow. Within seconds, his hands and arms were covered in her blood.
‘Please, Lenka!’ he urged her. ‘Come on, Lenka! Stop bleeding. You must stop bleeding! For God’s sake, don’t die on me. Lenka!’
But it made no difference. Beneath his hands, her eyes fixed into a stare and her breathing stopped. Chris lifted up her blood-soaked head to his chest and held it, running his fingers through her short white hair.
‘Lenka,’ he whispered one more time, kissing her forehead. Then he lay her gently back on to the snow and wept.
Shoulders hunched, Chris trudged through the urban snow, eyes down, scarcely noticing the city around him going about its morning business. He needed air. He needed to try to calm the tumult of emotions boiling within him. He needed time.
He felt strange. After his initial tears, a coldness had crept around him. Outwardly, he felt numb, impassive. He had slept poorly the night before. Images of Lenka’s panic-stricken eyes pleading with him to do something to save her, and her pale face pressed against the blood-spattered snow, intruded into every spell of drowsiness. His brain was tired, stunned. But underneath, underneath there lay a turmoil of emotions churning away inside him. There was the horror of her death, fury at whoever had killed her, guilt that he had been able to do nothing to stop it, and the knowledge that he would never see her again, or hear her laugh, or argue with her, or tease her, or celebrate Carpathian’s minor victories with her. All these emotions lurked there, waiting to burst out in a prolonged scream. Somehow, though, the brittle exterior held, keeping it all trapped inside. His face was stiff with the cold air on his cheeks, an icy membrane encasing the loss within him.
The police had come quickly. They asked Chris questions about Lenka, about the attack, about the man with the knife. Chris hadn’t seen the man’s face clearly. Medium build, wearing a dark jacket and a dark woollen hat, was all he could manage. Useless. And a moustache. He remembered a moustache. Still useless. The Czech police said that the man must have been a trained killer. Apparently, it is difficult to cut someone’s throat efficiently. No, Chris said many times, he had no idea who might have wanted to kill Lenka.