Her dark eyes held his and offered no apologies. ‘The truth is what Ari will do to me if I betray him.’
He let it sink in. Then: ‘Get out of the car.’
Soft lights came on when she opened the door. The forest outside became darker, shrinking away, locking him into the car’s vast interior. Valerie slid one leg out the door — then paused.
‘Listen to me,’ she said urgently. ‘We live our lives surrounded by barriers. Work, family, habits, fears. Everything we know, everything we learn, is to live inside the barriers. But now you’ve broken through. You’re on the outside; you don’t exist in that world any more. Whatever you knew no longer applies. You must open your thinking.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind when I tell the police about you and Ari.’
He wasn’t sure he meant it — he wasn’t in a state to decide anything now. He just wanted a reaction. To prove he had some kind of power.
He got nothing. ‘Ari’s the only person who can help you now.’
‘Ari’s a criminal. A psychopath.’ Just words, his conscience taunted him. ‘Anyway, why would he help me?’
‘Because you have the tablet.’
‘And if I give it to him? All I’ll be then is an inconvenient witness.’ A bubble of rage broke inside him: he thumped the steering wheel again; he kicked the footwell; he hammered the indicator until it snapped off its stalk. It dangled by its wires like a hanged man.
He slumped back in the leather seat. Valerie stared into the darkness.
‘Where would you go? If anywhere was possible, I mean: is there someone you could trust with your life. Parents? Your brother? A girlfriend?’
‘That’s a pretty hypothetical—’
‘Where?’ she repeated.
A long silence. Who can I trust with my life? There weren’t many more fundamental questions, Paul realised. And none that could make you feel so lonely.
‘My father never forgave me for choosing academia. I don’t think he’d understand if I told him I’ve become an international art thief.’
And murderer. The unforgiving voice inside supplied the punchline.
‘Your brother?’
‘I don’t have a brother.’
‘A friend, then.’
He gave up. ‘What difference does it make anyway? It’s all hypothetical and I’m still totally fucked.’
‘Everything in life is hypothetical until you do it.’
‘Enough with the fucking philosophy.’
‘I can help you.’
She said it so softly he wasn’t sure if the sound was just something blown in from the forest. But she was waiting.
‘How?’
‘There is one condition.’
Paul stiffened. She put her hand back on his. ‘Nothing difficult. You must give Ari the tablet.’
‘I just told you—’
‘This is how it will happen.’ Her voice still barely carried in the Mercedes’ interior. ‘This car is no good, but I can rent a new one. We’ll go to the station in Zurich, and you will leave the tablet in a locker there. Only you will know the number and the combination. Then I will drive you across the border.’
‘Won’t they be looking for me?’
‘You’ll go in the boot. I will take you wherever you want — France, Germany, Italy, Austria.’
‘And what then?’
‘Then you will tell me the locker combination, and I’ll come back and give it to Ari,’ she said, as though it was obvious.
‘I meant what about me?’
A cool look. ‘You do what you want.’
‘How do I know…’
‘That I won’t betray you?’ She pointed out the window to the tangled forest. ‘If you don’t trust me, there are other ways you can go.’
Everything’s hypothetical until you do it.
Chapter 4
On the phone’s screen, Ari stood on the deck of a motor cruiser holding a steering wheel. The wind blew his hair wild; his bare chest glistened with salt water, and the sun bathed him gold. He looked like a god — the ancient sort, before gods learned to be kind.
There was a number below the picture. Valerie pressed it and put the phone on speaker. Ari’s face stayed still as a statue — but suddenly his voice was there in the car.
‘Legyeteh.’
‘It’s me,’ said Valerie
‘Where are you?’
‘Safe. With Paul.’
‘Do you have…?’
He left the question unfinished. In case the call’s recorded, Paul realised. Nothing incriminating.
Anger surged inside him. He wanted to shout down the phone, to confront Ari with all the things he’d done. To drag him into the netherworld he’d condemned Paul to.
Valerie put a warning hand on his. Her finger stroked his wrist, the little hollow between the tendons where his pulse beat.
‘I’m going to make sure Paul’s safe,’ she said. ‘Then you’ll get it.’
A growl from the phone. ‘He can bring it to me himself. Now.’
‘He doesn’t trust you.’
Paul listened, more carefully than he’d ever listened to anything in his life — every breath, every pause, every rise or fall of tone that might betray him.
Ari said nothing.
‘Do you agree?’ said Valerie.
A long pause. Then: ‘OK.’
Valerie pressed a button on the phone. The screen went blank.
They left the car and hiked through the forest. A hundred yards away, Paul buried the rifle under a mound of pine needles and earth. Valerie gave Paul her cigarette lighter, a golden cylinder with her initials engraved on the barrel. It reminded him of the golden writing on the tablet.
He held the flame until the flint got so hot it burned him. After three goes, his thumb was so sore he gave up and let the darkness do its worst. He thought his eyes would adjust, but the trees were so thick that none of Zurich’s city glow penetrated. He walked with one arm always in front of his face: halting, hesitant steps which still didn’t protect him from the trips and bruises the forest sprung on him. The wind stirred the trees, and the trees stirred every fear men have had since they left the plains of Africa and penetrated the dark forests of the north.
He thought of Dante.
Dante had found solace in a guiding star, he remembered. But when he looked up, the trees closed so tight they locked out the sky.
And Dante had been going to Hell.
From out in the darkness, he heard a bell ringing. He shook his head to make it go away, but the sound persisted, got louder. Not far ahead, down the slope, a line of yellow lights drifted by — like an ocean liner in the night. He stumbled on, tripping down the hill. The trees thinned. Suddenly, the world became real again. There was a road, and rails, and a tram disappearing round the bend still dinging its bell.
Headlights swept up the road. He shrank back into the forest as a car passed.
‘What now?’
Valerie pointed. A hundred metres up the road was a station.
‘You take the next tram to the Hauptbahnhof. I’ll hire a car and pick you up.’
‘What if someone sees me?’
She shrugged. ‘Then it’s better if I’m not with you.’
The famous station clock was striking eight when Paul dismounted the tram at Bahnhofplatz. The cold air hit him like a bullet, though that wasn’t what made him tense. He’d spent the ride hidden behind a newspaper; now, there was nothing to protect him. He braced himself for shouts, alarms, rough hands grabbing him.