Читать книгу The Lost Labyrinth - Will Adams - Страница 13

FOUR

I

A young man with flaming orange hair watched intently as Knox was led into the holding cells. He frowned and sat forward, the strangest expression on his face, as though he recognised Knox and had something of vital importance to tell him. Then he promptly vomited onto the floor.

A mop was brought, but the orange-haired youth simply lay shivering on his side on the wall-bench. None of the cell’s other occupants seemed bothered, so Knox cleaned it up himself. The main door opened at regular intervals, police escorting suspects in and out of the various steel cages. A forty-something man arrived, struggling with his police handlers, accusing them of stitching him up; but, the moment they left him there, he laughed and winked as though it were only a game. A youth with a swollen lip kept testing his front tooth to see if it was loose. An elderly man in a shabby suit wiped his face with his handkerchief in an effort to hide the fact that he was crying. But then the main door opened one more time and Gaille came in, talking intently with a policeman. Knox’s heart leapt, he jumped to his feet and hurried over to the cage door, waited impatiently for the policeman to open it.

‘Christ!’ he muttered, taking her in his arms, hugging her tight, not realising until now quite how much he’d needed to see her. ‘What news of Augustin?’

She gave a little grimace. ‘He’s in intensive care at Evangelismos Hospital. He hadn’t regained consciousness last I heard. Claire’s out of her wits. I promised we’d go straight over, if that’s okay?’

‘I’m free to go?’

‘You will be any moment. Nico called in his sister-in-law.’ She glanced around, lowered her voice, wary of being overheard. ‘Her name’s Charissa. She’s only about two foot tall, but my god! We were getting nowhere until she turned up, and suddenly the police were jumping through hoops and barking like seals.’ Her brow knitted. ‘It is seals that bark, isn’t it?’

‘Dogs have been known to, as well.’

She took his wrist. ‘Listen, I had to make a promise on your behalf. I’ll explain later, but I gave my word you’d stand in for Augustin tomorrow morning and give his talk. Is that okay?’

‘Is that how you got the seal-trainer to come?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Then it’s fine,’ said Knox.

Nico appeared at the door, dabbing his throat with a green-and-white handkerchief. He was about the unhealthiest-looking man Knox had ever met, fat to the point of caricature, mere stubs of arms and legs, so that in his dark shirt and suit he looked like some gigantic anthropomorphic beetle, a character from a children’s book brought miraculously to life. ‘My dear Knox!’ he exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe they put you in such a place!’

‘Don’t worry about it. And thanks for coming.’

‘Of course. Of course.’ He stepped to one side, revealing the woman hidden behind him. She was short, slim, stern and unmistakeably formidable. ‘This is Charissa,’ he said. ‘My dear brother’s wife.’

‘Gaille just told me what you’ve been doing,’ said Knox. ‘Thanks so much.’

She waved his gratitude aside. ‘I spend too much time in conference rooms. Places like this do my heart good.’

‘Not mine,’ said Knox. ‘How soon can I get out?’

‘At once,’ she told him. ‘It’s a disgrace they brought you here at all.’

‘Thank Christ!’

‘I’m afraid that concludes the good news, however. The police seem to have it in for your friend Pascal. They intend to charge him the moment he regains consciousness.’

‘Those bastards!’ scowled Knox. ‘They started it. One of them groped Claire, I swear he did. They’re just covering their arses.’

‘I’m not talking about that,’ said Charissa. ‘I’m talking about Petitier.’

‘How do you mean?’ frowned Knox.

‘You may not know, but he was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. And the police are planning to charge your friend with his murder.’

II

An apartment, Tbilisi, Georgia

The thumping started again in the flat above, Rezo and his wretched home improvements. Nadya Petrova glared up at her ceiling. She kept going up to remonstrate with him, but there was something about him in his dungarees, with his dusty, paint-spattered hair and his crinkled, cheerful smile, that made her forget her indignation. Until she came back down again, at least, and he resumed his banging.

She sighed and finished her article a little more abruptly than she might otherwise have done, read it through and posted it on her blog, then turned off her laptop. That would have to do for the day. She’d been working monstrously hard this past week, had promised herself the night off. She sat there a moment longer, staring out of her high window, contemplating the rundown yet beautiful buildings on the steep hillside beneath her, their twisted brick chimneys and sloping roofs overrun by ivy and those violet flowers that hung there like bunches of grapes: and for a moment she glimpsed a metaphor for her beloved city that she might use in one of her upcoming newspaper articles, but her mind was too tired to hold onto it, and then it was gone.

She pushed herself to her feet and made her way through to her kitchen. Her limp, the result of riding pillion with an idiot biker trying too hard to impress her, was always more pronounced after a day at her desk. She had soup left over from lunch. She turned on her gas stove to heat it up, then took a bottle of white wine from her refrigerator. She didn’t open it at once, savouring the moment. Remarkably, it still gave her a mild illicit thrill to uncork the first bottle of the night. The promise of happiness, or at least of respite. She looked thoughtfully back up at her ceiling. Maybe Rezo would like a glass. At least it might keep him quiet.

Her telephone began to ring before she could decide. Her nape instantly stiffened; she hated her phone. She told herself to ignore it, let voicemail do its work. But she was a journalist at heart, and you never knew. ‘Yes?’ she sighed. ‘Who is this?’

‘It’s me. Gyorgi.’

‘Gyorgi?’

‘From Airport Operations, remember?’

‘Forgive me,’ she said, reaching for her notepad and pen. ‘It’s been a long day.’

A mirthless laugh. ‘Tell me about it. I came on at six this bloody morning. And what time is it now?’

‘Is he coming home, then? Is that why you called?’

‘No. But the Nergadze Gulfstream is about to leave for Athens again. I thought you’d like to know. Four passengers out, no return yet scheduled. You want details?’

Nadya uncapped her pen with her teeth. ‘Please.’

‘Same terms as before, right?’

‘Sure,’ she said. She couldn’t remember what she’d paid him last time, but he sold himself cheap, she remembered that much. Gambling problems, so Petr had said. But who was she to criticise?

‘Okay, then. Departing Tbilisi International 6.45 p.m. our time. Flight time ninety minutes, arriving Athens Eleftherios Venizelos private jet terminal 7.15 local, thanks to the time difference. Passenger names are Boris Dekanosidze, Edouard Zdanevich, Zaal Markizi, Davit Kipshidze. Mean anything to you?’

‘No.’ In fact, Nadya recognised three of the names, but she had no intention of telling that to a man this indiscreet. ‘I don’t suppose I can get to Athens before them, can I?’

‘What am I? Your travel agent?’

‘I was only wondering.’

‘There aren’t any direct flights from Tbilisi to Athens,’ he sighed. ‘You’d have to change in Istanbul or Kiev. And you won’t get there tonight, not setting out this late. Maybe tomorrow morning.’

‘Thanks. I’ll see you get your money.’ She put down the phone and sat there a minute, massaging her temples. The wine was beckoning. She was exhausted, and fully entitled to her exhaustion too. She’d earned tonight off. There was no way she could beat the plane to Athens, so what could she hope to accomplish? But then she remembered that salty look in Mikhail Nergadze’s eye at the press conference, and it was like touching the shallow puddle around her kettle and jolting from the shock.

She sat up straight. Maybe she couldn’t get to Athens before the Nergadze plane, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have someone waiting when it landed. It was what the Internet had been invented for. With a sigh, she put her white wine back in the freezer, then limped through to her study to switch her laptop back on.