Chapter Eleven #3
up, Elise Devereaux’s details on the screen. He said, “I know.
But—that’s her number, if you want to…”
“You’ve spoken to her yourself? And the child?
Directly?”
“Yes, sir.”
The
agent pushed the mobile away. He laid down his pen. It looked to
Laurie such a gesture of defeat, the king going down on the
chessboard. He could have smiled had not Kucharski’s doubts—adult
doubts from a world Laurie wasn’t sure even now he had earned the
right to inhabit—almost made him wonder if he had imagined his
conversation with Clara in a happy dream. After a moment, Kucharski
picked up the receiver of his desk phone. He tapped in an internal
number and said, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “Foster? I want
you and Paul Gray in here right now.”
There
was a brief, awkward silence. Laurie tried not to clutch at the
edge of the seat in a gesture that would have instantly told
Kucharski of his strong desire to be out of there. He wasn’t sure
where he wanted to be—France, possibly, shaking Tante Elise until
her sapphire earrings fell out, or back at his own flat, waiting
and hoping against hope. He felt a painful sense of responsibility
toward Gray and Foster too, and swallowed dryly when they appeared
in the doorway to the ops room, glancing at one another in
apprehension.
“Oh, it’s all right,” Kucharski said, gesturing them in. “No
little body washed up out of the Thames this time. Far from it. Mr.
Fitzroy here has come to tell us that his sister is alive and well,
under the protection of his aunt, who apparently owns the south of
France.” He paused for a moment, watching the effect of this news
on his colleagues. “DS Gray, am I right in thinking you were
responsible for initiating the check on the relatives?”
“Sir,” Gray said, a touch of outrage in his voice. “I had
MI5 background check the relatives.”
“Yes, but”—Kucharski picked up his pen again and waved it
wearily in Gray’s direction—“did anyone look? Physically check? By which I mean,
did anyone glance up from their psych profiling and DNA analysis
long enough to send a gendarme out to the Devereaux
estate?”
Laurie
cleared his throat. He really felt for Gray, who looked relieved
and mortified in equal parts. “I don’t think there was any reason
to,” he said. “My mother packed Clara off pretty neatly. She had
one of our Devereaux cousins come over to escort her, so she’d be
travelling on a passport not in the name of Fitzroy. She even dyed
her hair.”
Kucharski did not look consoled. “I don’t care if she gave
her a Groucho Marx wig and nose. My officers just raised a
full-scale child trafficking alert across the whole of Europe
without checking in on Aunt Elise. Foster, Gray, this is what I
mean when I tell you not to lose your basic police work in the joys
of promotion and technology. I’m delighted that this had a happy
ending, but…” He hesitated and glanced back at Laurie as if he had
just recalled his presence, and that probably he should not rip a
strip off his officers in front of a member of the public. “Well.
We’ll go over this later. For now…just get out of here.”
Laurie
watched them go. “It’s not their fault,” he said. “It’s ours. My
mother was determined to get Clara away.”
“Mr. Fitzroy, leave me to deal with my staff. And, as for you,
if I didn’t think you incapable of sustained deception in a matter
like this…” He hesitated and sighed, visibly relenting a little.
“All right. She’s found. Let’s both thank our gods for that and be
grateful.”
Laurie
nodded. He wasn’t yet sure who his gods were, but he would happily
have gone down on his knees to thank Kucharski’s. “Yes,
sir.”
“All right,” Kucharski said again. He had an air of a man
rapidly rearranging his ideas and preconceptions. “Your mother
wanted her away. Thinking about what he did to you—do I need look
any further than your father to work out why?”
Laurie
caught his breath. Not half an hour before, he had stopped off at
the Royal Free Hospital’s morgue to identify Sir William’s body.
Odd. After a lifetime of florid purples and scarlet, the old man’s
face had been gray. And much of his bulk had been Laurie’s own fear
of him. He was small on his slab. Diminished and gone. He said, a
little unsteadily, “No. You don’t. My mother was afraid of him. Not
because he’d be violent to Clara, but…” He shivered, running a hand
into his hair. “I’m sorry. It’s hard to talk about.”
“Okay. I get the picture. You don’t have to. But, Laurie, when
the child comes back from France, if she’s gonna be in danger in
her home…”
“She won’t be.”
“Why are you so sure of that?” Kucharski paused, frowning.
“Does it…does it have anything to do with your mother’s reasons for
choosing today to give up the game?”
“Yes. Yes, it does. My father had a heart attack. In his office
this afternoon. He’s dead.”
Kucharski sat up. “What? Sir William?”
“Yes. I’ve seen him.” Seen him;
checked. Read the damn tag on his toe to be sure. If I hadn’t, he’d
become a bogeyman to haunt my mind forever.
“It was quick. He didn’t have much pain.”
“Oh. Good Lord, Laurie. I’m terribly sorry.”
“It’s all right. You…can’t be thinking he was much of a
loss.”
Kucharski visibly considered pretending it was otherwise.
Then he said, lacing his fingers together, “Well. He was still your
father.”
“Yes. And I know that should always be sacred, sir. But it’s
not.” Laurie paused for a moment. He looked up at Kucharski, a half
smile hitching. “Look. I know she’s caused…a diplomatic incident,
but will my mother get into much trouble for this? She’s not well.
At any rate, she’s not strong.”
Kucharski shrugged. “If you can forgive it, I suppose we
can.” When Laurie raised his eyebrows questioningly, he clarified,
“She seized the opportunity of the Petrica boy having been in your
house to make your sister vanish and try to set Petrica up for it.
Am I wrong to suppose his loss meant—means—a great deal to
you?”
Laurie
could not answer. Kucharski watched him in silence for a minute.
Then he closed the file that had been open on his desk. “With
regard to your mother and making false accusation… We wouldn’t
normally pursue it, not in her circumstances. At least that’s what
I’ll recommend in my report.”
“Thank you,” Laurie said. He got to his feet, feeling his head
spin slightly. He was about paid out, events beginning to catch up
with him. “I’d better get home, if there’s nothing else I can do
here.” Suddenly he grinned. “I’ll take a few posters down from
lampposts between here and Mayfair.”
“Well, that would be a start.” Kucharski let him get as far as
the door. Then just as Laurie was turning to bid him farewell, he
said cautiously, “Speaking of the Petrica boy…”
Laurie
stiffened. “No,” he said. “I told you. There’s nothing more I’d say
to you about him, even if I knew. I don’t care who he is or who his
sodding associates are. He was good to me. He is good.”
“Suppose I wanted to say something to you about
him?”
“It wouldn’t make any difference. Whatever it is.”
“Well, maybe not. But as it happens, you’re right, as far as
our information guides us. You didn’t listen to me the other day at
your father’s house. When I told you that Sasha was wanted in
connection with drugs crimes and trafficking, that was all I meant.
Not that he was involved.”
Laurie
took a grip on the door frame. He said faintly, “All right. Go
on.”
“Stefan Petrica is about as bad as he can be. I don’t know if
he was a monster before he fell into the hands of monsters, but
Sasha grew up witnessing some serious deals and how his father
dealt with the people who broke them. When he got old enough, he
tried to run. Stefan told him he’d not only have him killed, but
that he’d activate people in Britain who would hunt down his
mother, who’d fled here when Sasha was a child.
“So when he was scared enough to ignore the threats and run
anyway, he ran in this direction, to find her and warn her first.
Last week he thought he’d got some news of where she lived, and he
went to investigate. But the trail went cold. We can’t find her
either. She may have changed her identity, emigrated farther
west.”
Kucharski paused and indicated the chair Laurie had just
vacated. “That’s why Sasha doesn’t give his real name or stay
anywhere for too long. He’s afraid of leading Stefan straight to
anyone he gets close to. He knows he shouldn’t have come to your
house, Laurie. You made him forget his own rules for a while, he
says.”
This
time when Kucharski gestured at the chair, Laurie obeyed. He barely
got there. “How…how do you know all this?”
“Your father and his mates inadvertently helped us out at
Birchwood the other night. We were there, but on the far side of
the encampment. They chased Sasha straight into our arms. We took
him in and questioned him.”
“What? You said he hadn’t done anything wrong.”
“Well, he’s not selling guns or abducting children. But he
entered the country illegally and remained here and
worked.”
“Oh, God. Where is he now?”
“In the Dover Immigration Removal Centre. We’re not pressing
charges. He agreed to deportation.”
Laurie
lost a breath. He could see—cold tiles, tiny windowless rooms.
Sasha’s face among a thousand others caught between the worlds.
“No,” he said. “You know what he’s running away from. He’s a
refugee, not an immigrant.”
“And if he’d seek asylum, we could help him. My department
wants Stefan Petrica very badly. Sasha could lead us straight to
him, and in return for that—well, God knows what deal they’d cut
him. Refugee status at the very least.”
“Then—make him tell you. Let me see him. I’ll persuade
him.”
“Laurie. Listen. You didn’t know Sasha very long, but you
probably knew him well enough to believe me when I say that,
although he was anxious for me to tell you the truth—to clear his
name with you—he is equally unwilling to besmirch the name of
anyone else. Even a monster like his father. He won’t talk. Don’t