The String Diaries (35 page)

C
HAPTER
25

Aquitaine region, France

Now

It had only been her bedroom for a few days, and it contained barely any of her belongings, but it was clean and brightly painted and it had felt snug.

She tried to tug her wrist away from the headboard. The plastic cuff that bound her to its slats cut into her skin and she screwed up her eyes with the pain. She had thought about chewing through it, but she couldn’t get her teeth into the loop.

If only she could reach something metal – a screwdriver would be perfect – then perhaps she could twist the plastic with it, tightening it until it snapped. The pain would be awful, but at least she would be free. At least she would be able to creep downstairs and help Mummy fight the Bad Man.

She didn’t want to think about Him, didn’t want to even consider that she might have to meet Him. But she didn’t want Mummy to die. And she didn’t want to die either, mainly because it scared her but also because she didn’t want Mummy to be alone.

It was no good though. There was no screwdriver in sight. She could see a pair of pyjamas and a paperback book and a Bratz doll and that was it. None of those things offered her any means of freeing herself, unless there was a chapter on how to escape from handcuffs in the book, and she knew there wasn’t because she had read it before and it was mainly about horses in love.

The man who had tied her to the bed had done so in silence, refusing to look at her. First he had bound Éva in the larger bedroom next door. After that, he had taken a syringe and injected the woman with something. Éva’s eyelids had drooped and she’d fallen asleep. Then he had led Leah into her bedroom, where he used two of the plastic strips to truss her up.

She heard sounds from the next room: a creak as the door swung open, voices, a whispered conversation. Moments later the door of her bedroom opened and Sebastien peered inside. His face was paler than she had ever seen it and he carried a stubby blade. When he saw her, he sagged with relief and moved to the bed.

‘Are you hurt?’

She shook her head. ‘Where’s Mummy?’

‘Downstairs.’

‘Is she—’

‘At the moment, she’s fine. She’ll be even better once we get you out of these cuffs and away from the house.’

‘I tried to bite them off. But I couldn’t reach.’

Sebastien nodded, motioning her to lower her voice. He slipped his blade inside the loops of plastic and sliced them off. Leah sat up on the bed, rubbing away the soreness from her wrist. She heard a soft thump, somewhere upstairs.

‘Let’s go,’ he whispered.

Leah nodded and when he offered her his hand, she was grateful. It felt good to be that close to someone. Sebastien moved to the bedroom door and opened it a crack. He squinted through the gap. Satisfied, he opened it fully and moved into the hall. Leah followed, but when Sebastien headed towards the main stairs she tugged his hand and shook her head. He frowned at her. In response, she pointed along the corridor past her own room.
Balcony
, she mouthed.
Steps
.

The master bedroom lay at the end of the hall. It contained a set of doors that opened on to the roof of a single-storey annexe. A balustrade ran around it, except for a gap where a set of metal steps descended down one side of the house. It was the better option. They had no chance of making a silent escape via the main stairs. Almost every tread screamed or groaned under pressure.

Leah led Sebastien into the master bedroom and drew back the curtains. Opening one of the balcony doors, she walked out on to the roof. The sun was a white coin in the sky above them. She filled her lungs with air, relieved to be outside where no one could creep up on her, plunge a knife into her, or press a hand to her mouth and suffocate her. She thought about her mother downstairs. About how scared she must be.

‘Let’s go,’ Sebastien said.

‘Where are all those men from earlier?’

‘They’re probably dead,’ he replied. ‘We have to hurry.’

Heart accelerating at his words, she tightened her grip on his hand and accompanied him down the steps.

At the bottom, feet crunching on the gravel, Sebastien crouched down beside her. ‘Listen to me, Leah. You see that car?’ He pointed at one of the big white off-roaders the men had parked in front of the house. It sat empty, a few feet away from the dining-room window.

She nodded.

‘When I say the word, we’re going to run over to it and jump inside. You take the passenger seat. You know which one that is?’

A silly question, but she nodded anyway.

‘Good. Get in and do up your seat belt. We’re going to leave here fast. The car will make a lot of noise. Some of those men from earlier might turn up.’

‘I thought you said they were dead.’

‘
Probably
dead, I said. And I only said they might turn up. I want you to lie low in your seat. Make yourself small. Understand?’

Leah nodded. She discovered she was crying. ‘What about Mummy?’

‘We get you to safety first. Then I come back for her. OK?’

‘OK.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Go.’

Leah sprinted across the gravel. She tugged open the Audi’s door and scrambled up into the seat. She slammed the door behind her and struggled into the seat belt. When she glanced at the driver’s seat on her left she saw that a dark liquid had drenched it. It was still wet, and she was pretty sure it was blood.

Hannah didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see the evidence of Gabriel’s ruined face, wanted to remember him as the proud
hosszú élet
that had accompanied her up the slopes of Cadair Idris. But in the end she couldn’t stop herself, as if her eyes demanded that she witness the continuing tragedy of Jakab’s legacy.

When she turned in her chair she found Gabriel staring back at her. ‘Missed,’ he said, eyes wide. ‘Can you credit it?’

Vass’s hands spasmed and he dropped the gun. He grinned, the skin of his mouth stretching far wider than it should have done, exposing teeth as far back as his molars. When the flesh on one side of his mouth split open all the way to his ear, he screamed. The loose flap of cheek flopped down under its own weight, revealing the pink gum along his jaw. Blood, in a torrent, flowed down his neck.

‘
Son’thing whurong
,’ he slurred, hands scrabbling on the floor for the pistol. His fingers slipped on the boards, leaving bloody trails. Hannah realised that the dark and gummy discs that glued themselves to the wood were his fingernails.

He raised his eyes to her and she saw that one of them bulged as if forced from its socket by pressure within. ‘
Helk-he
,’ he said, gargling through the blood welling in his throat.

Help me.

Fluid gushed from his ear. It spattered on to his shoulder

‘You want me to help you?’ Gabriel asked. ‘You untie me and give me your pistol. That’s the only way I can help you now.’

‘Helk-heeee.’

‘You untie me now while you still can!’

Vass bucked and twitched. He tore at his clothes, ripping open his shirt and exposing the soft white folds of his flesh. He began to paw savagely at himself. Gobs of fat, like molten wax, came away in his hands. He screamed again. Teeth rained from his mouth, clattering on to the floorboards like ivory dice. He raked his fingers across his abdomen, tearing open a deep furrow. Hannah saw his organs lurking beneath, a dark and shining mass. Just as he was about to plunge a hand into that snake of intestines, a gun barked and the top of Vass’s skull detonated like a bloody firework.

Leah watched Sebastien yank open the driver’s door and swing himself up into the cabin. She thought she might be sick if she watched him settle into the seat already glossy and sticky with someone else’s blood. When the fabric squelched beneath his weight, she felt her stomach clench, and tasted the acid burn of bile in her throat.

Sebastien cursed. ‘What the hell happened in here?’

‘I think somebody got killed,’ she whispered. ‘In fact I’m pretty sure about it.’

The old man nodded, turning the keys in the ignition. ‘I think you might be right. Poor blighter, whoever he was. Hold on to your hat. This could get bumpy.’

When Hannah opened her eyes, she saw Benjámin Vass slumped against the overturned kitchen table. The top of his head was missing. Pieces of him clung to her top, her jeans.

So much violence. So much death. All in the space of minutes. Yet she felt no horror at what she had witnessed, no nausea. Their lives – and their deaths – had not mattered to her.

Hearing the splintering of wood, she turned in her seat. Gabriel’s eyes were closed. Teeth bared, tendons straining in his neck, he grunted. Something below him cracked. An unnatural ring of muscle had appeared around both his forearms. The pressure of his reshaped flesh against the ropes had shattered both arm rests, leaving vivid welts on his skin. Even as she watched, the marks faded. Gabriel lifted his hands and shook himself free of the rope. ‘My God, that stings,’ he said.

‘Untie me.’

He nodded, first bending down and unfastening the rope that bound his legs.

Illes limped into the kitchen through the shattered french windows, eyes like black holes. His polo neck was soaked with blood. He stepped around the dead
signeur
’s wheelchair and over the flaccid carcass of Benjámin Vass. ‘Where?’ he demanded. ‘Where’s the
Főnök
?’

‘Upstairs. They took her to one of the rooms.’

Illes dragged himself to the hall.

‘Please, Gabriel,’ Hannah begged. ‘Hurry.’

Pulling the last of the rope from his legs, he lifted himself out of his chair, cried out as his wounded feet took his weight, and fell to his knees. He shuffled towards her, sweat glistening on his face. Unpicking the knots that bound her, Gabriel hissed his words through the pain. ‘Bastard shot me twice. I can’t walk, can’t run.’ He winced. ‘I’m sorry, Hannah. I’m not much good to you yet. You need to hurry. Do you know where Seb’s gone? Where he will have taken her?’

Hannah yanked her right arm loose as he removed the rope. ‘We agreed a fall-back.’ She started work on the knots that bound her left arm while Gabriel untied her feet. Suddenly she was free.

‘Then go. Quickly. I’ll find you.’

Hannah jumped up from the chair, unprepared for the spikes of pain that shot through her legs as the blood began to return. She fell to the counter, gripped it. Breathed deep. Steeling herself, she lurched across the room. She made it to the doorway, held on to the architrave, swung herself into the hall.

The dead man lay at the bottom of the stairs. She was about to step over him when she heard movement on the landing. The floorboards above her squealed, and then Sebastien appeared on the stairs. He froze when he saw her. Then his face changed – an awful look of pity. He shook his head.

She screamed.

No. She wouldn’t believe it.

He was mistaken. He hadn’t looked properly. He didn’t know the house as well as she did. He didn’t know all the hiding places.

‘
LEAH!
’

It just wasn’t possible that Sebastien could have checked all the places a girl as clever and as brave and as beautiful as Leah could have found. He couldn’t be telling her that her little girl had gone.

But you know the truth. You know what’s happened. You always knew this was going to happen if you weren’t strong enough.

He found her, Hannah.

Jakab found her, and he took her. You have no one else to blame for that. And if you don’t act now, use every second, you don’t have the slightest chance of seeing Leah again
.

She launched herself past Sebastien. Up the stairs. Kicked open the first door on the left. Saw the
Főnök
slumped on the bed. Saw Illes leaning over her. Backed into the hall. Yanked open the next door. Laundry cupboard. Piled with blankets. Hauled them out. Checked for hiding places. Found no one. Opened the door on the right. Leah’s bedroom. Saw a yellow plastic cuff on the bed, sliced open.

He’s got her. If you ever doubted it, now you know.

Back in the hall, into the bathroom.

White tiles. Bath. Towels. Toilet. Sink.

Nowhere to hide. Nowhere to hide. One last room to try. The bedroom at the end of the corridor. She ran to it. Flung open the door.

A king-size bed. Plenty of room underneath it. A wardrobe in the corner, old and echoey. Floor-length curtains. So many places to hide. But none of them matter. None of them. Because one of the balcony doors is standing open, and a breeze that smells of lavender and late autumn sun and the terrible finality of endings is pouring through the gap, and now she can no longer deny what has happened, can no longer hope, can only think of a little girl’s face and a mother’s promise that everything would be all right, and what a lie that had been.

C
HAPTER
26

Aquitaine region, France

Now

Hannah turned and turned in circles, although she felt as if she were stationary and the room spun around her. The bedroom was a cathedral of light. Nate had whitewashed the walls, and he’d cut a skylight into the ceiling that sloped between the huge oak beams. Shafts of autumn sunlight struck her from above, and white rays reached through the balcony windows, bleaching her, purifying her.

For a moment she lost herself in the light, spinning in its brilliance. If the sun’s heat could vaporise her as she turned, would she choose that? If she could command it to flare with energy and, in a single moment, incinerate her memories, strip away her pain, transform to ash every particle of her, every damaged fibre, boil away her tears and her grief and her guilt, would she open her arms and embrace it?

So disorientated was she by Leah’s disappearance, by the realisation that she had made the wrong choice by failing to keep the girl close, by the light that poured in through the windows and seared her with its intensity, that Hannah wondered for a moment if the shock had killed her.

Yet surely no afterlife could be cruel enough to accept not just her soul but all her agony, her fear, her shame. If Nate waited for her here, how could she explain that she had abandoned their beautiful child to the monster they had evaded for so long?

No, this was not a cathartic light; it was a light of clarity. She knew her chances of finding Leah were fading. But even the smallest chance was worth nurturing. It was all she had. And for the moment it was all she needed.

Hannah ended her rotations. She forced herself to breathe, focused her eyes. The first thing she saw, pinned to the frame of the balcony window, was a tiny red bead. In an instant, she recognised what she was looking at. It was one of the enamelled scales of the dragon brooch her father had given to her mother. The same brooch Sebastien had given to her at Llyn Gwyr. The same brooch she had given to Leah a few days earlier. No accident had caused it to be pinned here. Hannah plucked it from the wood.

It was a beacon. A sign. Leah had left this for her. She was sure of it. What it meant, she did not know. But she clutched on to it, to what it represented, and dived through the balcony doors and into the light.

He had asked her to lie low and make herself small, and even though Leah knew it was sensible advice, she could not resist inching herself up in the seat high enough to see over the dashboard. Sebastien twisted the keys in the ignition. The engine of the big white off-roader woke with a cough.

‘Elvis has left the building,’ the old man murmured. He stamped down on the accelerator and the wheels spat gravel chippings, launching the vehicle backwards across the drive. Sebastien hauled the wheel over and the 4
x
4 slewed around in a circle until its nose pointed down the track that led to the main road. A cloud of white dust drifted across the windscreen. He glanced in the rear-view mirror at the farmhouse. Selected first gear.

‘Not the main road, they’ll be waiting for us!’ Leah shouted, terrified that the Eleni she had seen guarding the gate would intercept them.

Sebastien turned to face her. She hadn’t expected him to be grinning. It confused her. ‘Clever girl,’ he said. ‘What do you suggest?’

She knew she had to make smart decisions. She couldn’t sit back and let him do all the hard work. They needed to work together if they were to survive this. Most importantly, they had to find a way of rescuing Mummy.

Unbidden, an image surfaced in her mind: the tall Eleni man tying Mummy to the chair. It made her want to cry and she knew she couldn’t afford to do that, so she got angry instead. ‘Take the side road,’ she said, pointing to the overgrown track on their left. ‘Through the woods.’

Sebastien licked his teeth. Then he nodded. The Audi lurched forwards and Leah was flung back in her seat. Within moments they passed out of the sunshine and into the trees. The off-roader bounced and rocked on the twisting track, tyres scrambling for grip on its cracked mud surface. They hit a large pothole, and when Sebastien banged his head on the roof he said a word Leah had never thought to hear from his lips.

‘When are we going back for Mummy?’

‘Soon.’

‘We can’t leave her there with the Bad Man.’

‘Which one?’

‘You know, the Bad Man.’

‘From where I was standing, they all looked pretty bad.’

Leah frowned, wondering if he was serious, wondering if he was being sarcastic. ‘So when are we going back?’

‘When we’ve got you far enough away.’

‘But then we’ll have to go all the way back again.’

‘Shut up a while, OK?’

Leah nodded, brushing tears from her cheeks.

They were travelling even faster now. The track through the trees was only wide enough for a single vehicle. Branches snapped against the windscreen. Their tyres ripped up ferns and brambles.

When the car skidded around a bend, Leah saw a man lying on his back in the middle of the track. He wore a khaki jacket, and black trousers with lots of pockets. His eyes were open and the handle of a knife rose from his chest like the candle on a birthday cake. Blood had soaked through his coat, darkening the soil around him. ‘We’ve got to help.’

‘He’s dead.’

‘You have to stop,’ she moaned, placing one hand on the dashboard, twisting her head away.

‘There’s no way round.’

‘You can’t just—’

Their vehicle bounced over the corpse, rocking on its suspension but losing no speed. Leah stuffed the front of her fist into her mouth, squeezing her eyes shut. She wanted to scream.

You have to be grown-up. You can’t be a girl any more. All those times Mummy talked to you, she was trying to prepare you for this. She said it would be horrible, that you might have to do horrible things. Well she was right, wasn’t she? You’re lucky that Sebastien is here to guide you, because you’ve been pretty useless so far
.

But the problem was that Sebastien was being horrible, too. It wasn’t that he failed to stop when they found the man in the road. The stranger was dead. Anyone could see that; she just hadn’t wanted to admit it. It wasn’t even that he had driven over the man’s body. They were running for their lives, and when you ran for your life you had to do things, brutal things. She thought the memory of driving over that man would be with her for ever, that she would hear the sound of their tyres punching into his corpse every night before she slept. But she also thought it had been part of the price of their escape, one of those nasty things they had to do. Because of Jakab.

Even though he hadn’t stopped, even though he’d driven over the man’s body, and even though she knew he’d been forced to do both those things, he also hadn’t tried to help her through it – hadn’t told her to look away, hadn’t tried to shield her eyes from the sight.

When her front teeth cracked against the knuckle she had pressed into her mouth, she noticed how badly she had started to shake. She looked around the car, at the leather seats, at the dials on the dashboard, at Sebastien.

He hunched over the steering wheel, wrenching it left and right. The corner of his lip curled upwards, halfway between a grin and a sneer.

Reaching out a hand, Leah began fiddling with the controls on the central console. She pressed the button for the cigarette lighter, twirled the dials on the air conditioning, switched on the radio, dialled up the volume.

Dance music thumped from the car’s speakers. Sebastien yelled, slapped her hands away. He jabbed a finger at the radio, killing it. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’

‘We need to go back for Mummy.’

‘I told you. We’ll go back. Now, please. Let me concentrate.’ He shot her a quick smile. ‘Look, I know you’re scared. But it’s going to be all right. You’re safe now.’

She looked at him. Really looked at him. At the fuzz of white hair on top of his sun-browned head. At the deep fissures that lined his skin. At the liver spots on the backs of his hands. She remembered he had an eagle tattoo on his wrist, but couldn’t remember which one. His nearest wrist was bare. The one furthest from her was concealed by his coat.

Up ahead, the trees thinned, and Leah saw snatches of grassland between their trunks. She knew that somewhere on their left the river flanked them.

‘Where did you first meet my daddy?’ she asked.

Sebastien’s eyes found hers for a moment. ‘What?’

‘I asked where you first met my daddy.’

‘Leah, please—’

‘You said you’d tell me. You said you’d tell me anything if I asked.’

‘And I will. But we need to get away, Leah. We need to get away from Jakab.’

She felt her tummy twist when she heard that name on his lips. She sobbed, and when she heard how pitiful it sounded she forced her fingernails into her palms, forced herself to remember her mother’s words.

Scamp, listen to me. Remember all the things I ever taught you. Think about everything I’ve said. Keep your eyes open, OK? Be brave. Trust your instincts. Everything will be all right if you do that, I promise
.

Sebastien slid the car around a bend, tyres thrashing at the undergrowth. Leah gripped the sides of her seat, bracing herself until the vehicle righted itself.

On the dashboard, the cigarette lighter button popped out.

Trust your instincts.

Leah snatched the lighter from its socket. Its end glowed red. Grimacing, she jammed it down on to Sebastien’s leg. He yelled, flung his arm at her, tried to bat her hand away. His fist caught her in the side. Leah’s breath exploded from her. The pain was terrific, but she fought it, twisting the cigarette lighter into his flesh like a screw.

Shrieking now, Sebastien lifted both hands from the wheel. He grabbed her wrist and tore it away from his leg. She felt something crack. A bolt of agony shot up her arm all the way to her teeth. The cigarette lighter spun away into the footwell.

Screwing up her eyes at the agony in her wrist, she lunged at the steering wheel and caught it in her other hand.

Sebastien slapped at the burning embers of cloth that stuck to his leg. Leah hauled the steering wheel towards her.

They were travelling too fast. As the car lurched to the right, she realised that they were going to hit a tree, and that even if she survived that, Jakab was probably going to kill her.

Clasping the enamelled red dragon scale as if it were a talisman, Hannah sprinted across the annexe roof and down the covered steps. She ran to the front driveway, skidding and sliding on the loose gravel.

Where would he go? How would he flee? Earlier, a white Audi had been parked in front of the dining-room windows. Dániel Meyer and his bodyguard had arrived in it. Now it had gone. But had the Eleni taken it? Or Jakab?

He won’t have escaped on foot. He’ll have stolen a car or brought one with him. He can’t melt away with a nine-year-old girl without one
.

She turned, scouring the fields. She checked the track to the main road, the trail that led through the woods. The tree line.

No Eleni in sight. None of their vehicles.

A slick of what looked like blood marked the patch where the Q7 had stood. Hannah stared at it.

It isn’t Leah’s. That’s all that matters. It isn’t Leah’s. He didn’t take her just so that he could kill her out here. He’s got much worse than that planned. Which is why you have no time
.

Before they landed in France, Sebastien had rented a Jeep Cherokee – it had been waiting for them at the airfield. He kept it in one of the work sheds on the far side of the building. Hannah jumped across the blood-slicked gravel and sprinted past the front of the house. She wondered what would happen if any remaining Eleni caught sight of her. To retain any chance of finding Leah, she could not afford a single delay. Yet for all the gunfire that had erupted minutes earlier, it was bizarrely quiet outside.

The tool shed was a single-storey brick structure with a timber roof. Its wooden doors were warped, speckled with the ancient remains of red paint. Hannah slammed against one of them, using it to bring herself to a stop. She wrenched back the locking bolt and swung the door open. Darkness reached for her. She smelled sawdust, old motor oil, the antiseptic aroma of new motor vehicle. The Jeep’s front grille glinted in the shadows, a shark’s mouth full of teeth.

Hannah looked over her shoulder. She checked the paths, the drive. No one. No Eleni moved in the orchard, the wood. The helicopter was nowhere in sight.

She ducked into the shed, sliding down the narrow space between the 4
x
4 and the wall. As she edged past its wing mirror, fingers snatched at her. Hannah screamed, thrashed backwards, cracking her elbow, losing the skin of her knuckles.

Cobwebs. Just cobwebs, tangling in her hair. Cursing her skittishness, clawing the strands away from her face, she slid another few steps along the car and lifted her fingers to the driver’s door. Her heart was pounding now. She could feel it knocking in her chest.

Please be unlocked. Please.

She had talked with Sebastien only that morning about leaving the Jeep ready in case they needed to make a swift escape. But had he remembered? She gripped the handle and prayed.

When the door clunked and swung open, Hannah almost cried out with relief. She clambered up into the cabin and slammed the door. Silence. The aroma of pine air freshener. Something jangled against her hand, cold and metallic.

Keys
.

Twisting them in the ignition, she threw the 4x4 into gear and stamped on the accelerator. The big three-litre engine cleared its throat. As the car punched out of the tool shed, tearing the doors from their hinges, Hannah rocked back in her seat. Pieces of wood rained down on the path outside. She hauled on the wheel and just avoided clipping the corner of the house, yanking the wheel in the other direction the moment she was clear. The car lurched over, engine hollering, and she jammed on the brakes outside the front of the farmhouse.