Fatal Crossing Read online

  She walked towards the big oak tree under which they usually trained, and spotted him the second he raised his hand to greet her.

  The short compact Italian had brought along his worn leather pads, but before Nora was allowed even a circle kick, he studied her closely. Then he pointed firmly to the hill.

  ‘Carissima. We can kickbox, but not while you’re angry. You’re angry today, eh? I can tell from your shoulders. First, you run. Three times up and three times down,’ he said in an accent that suggested it was two months rather than two decades since he had left his beloved Florence to seek his fortune in London.

  It almost didn’t matter how stressed she was, there was something strangely calming in the satisfying slam of a circle kick hitting cleanly and a left hook landing precisely where it should.

  Enzo had repeatedly tried to persuade her to take part in a fight, but Nora wasn’t interested in hitting people. Except today.

  She sprinted the last stretch down the hill and drank half the contents of her water bottle before Enzo helped her wrap protective bands around her knuckles and slipped her hands inside the blue leather gloves which were starting to split.

  They took up position underneath the oak tree and for the next forty minutes the only sound was that of Enzo's brief orders and the incessant staccato of leather hitting leather.

  ‘Hooks. Give me one hundred.’

  ‘Sidekicks. Ten with each leg.’

  Nora could feel the anger leave her body as the sweat gathered along her hairline, trickled down her back or into her eyes. They practised parrying, combinations of punches and kicks in a flowing stream of arms and legs exploding against one another.

  For the last ten minutes, her heels weren’t allowed to touch the ground.

  ‘I want to see you on your toes. On your toes!’ Enzo roared over and over.

  Enzo's precise instructions made her gather all her strength in her legs, take off and focus everything on the tiny black dot on the red pad. Her heel needed to hit that particular spot cleanly when she took off from the ground.

  To finish her off, he made her do push-ups and then stretches before the hour-long session was over.

  Afterwards they went, as was their habit, to one of the few cafés in London that, in Enzo's opinion, could produce a decent espresso, according to Italian standards, and sat down at a round table outside.

  Enzo gazed lovingly at the small cup of black liquid. Then he looked closely at Nora.

  ‘Hey, carissima. I don’t know who he is or what he has done, that man. But I’m glad that I’m not him,’ he said, and pushed his sunglasses down over his eyes.

  Nora finished her coffee, walked home to the flat and showered.

  It was time to meet a certain lawyer.

  X

  She promised herself to take her jacket and skirt to the dry cleaners later, and instead put on a relatively clean navy skirt and her absolute last clean shirt, before catching the tube to Cross Associates.

  The Cross office hadn’t changed. The same edition of The Economist was still displayed on the table. Nora nodded politely, sat down on the sofa, and looked for the article she hadn’t finished the last time. She had only just found the right page when she was summoned by Mr Cross.

  If Christian Cross had been reserved the last time, he had now switched to that unique form of icy politeness the Brits mastered better than any other nation on earth.

  ‘You have friends in high places, Miss Sand. Good for you. You never know when you might need them,’ he said archly.

  Nora waited.

  He placed three pieces of paper on his desk. ‘You need to sign here, here and here,’ he said, pointing with a heavy gold-plated fountain pen, which Nora recognised as Waterman's most expensive model and which she had frequently coveted at the airport.

  Nora took the documents and read them slowly while sensing Christian Cross's impatience travel through the air like white noise.

  ‘Pure formality,’ he said to speed up the process.

  ‘Even so I prefer to know what I’m signing. You, being a lawyer, would surely understand that better than anyone,’ Nora retorted.

  The first document for signature was from Wolf Hall Prison. A very formal document where Nora signed to confirm that she had no criminal record and that she would comply with prison regulations for what she could bring during a visit, which was practically nothing. Nora didn’t object and signed at the bottom.

  The second piece of paper stated that Christian Cross Associates had facilitated contact with William Hickley at Nora's own request, and that she assumed full responsibility for the meeting and any consequences it might have. With her signature she also waived the right to hold Christian Cross Associates or its employees liable for any financial, physical, mental or other harm, which might arise from the meeting. Nora wondered what other forms of harm there could be, then she signed.

  At length she reached the third and final piece of paper. It stated that anything that was said or any information arising from the meeting between Nora Sand and William Hickley was to be treated as confidential. If the conversation or parts thereof were to be made public, this was purely the decision of William Hickley. He, and he alone, would own the copyright to his own words. A copyright that would be managed and administered by Christian Cross Associates, no less.

  Nora gave him the killer look. ‘Nice try. But you can forget it. This is my interview and I decide what happens to it. Mr Hickley speaks to me on my terms or not at all.’

  Christian Cross merely shrugged. It had been worth a try.

  ‘Well, then I believe that concludes our business, Miss Sand. As I said, he can see you on Thursday afternoon. At two thirty. Don’t forget to arrive in plenty of time. Security checks are ... how can I put it ... enthusiastic. You’ll have one hour with Mr Hickley.’

  Christian Cross sat down heavily behind his desk and was already checking his diary when Nora got up.

  He looked up. ‘Miss Sand, I would appreciate it if you would be kind enough to treat what I’m about to tell you as confidential. My point being that when this conversation is over, it never happened. If you ever refer to it in public or in writing, you can be quite sure that I’ll deny everything. Do you understand?’

  Nora nodded and sat down again. Bloody lawyers.

  ‘We once had a young lawyer here at this office, Janet. Her surname doesn’t matter. She was one of the brightest in her year at Oxford. Stellar career and future ahead of her. Engaged to a lawyer from the Ministry of Defence. Some years ago I had to take leave for reasons that are irrelevant to my story. The upshot was that I assigned Hickley to her as her client. Not because I expected anything to happen, it was mainly for practical purposes. The forwarding of letters and so on.’

  He paused and pulled down his cuffs as if to steel himself for the next part.

  ‘Hickley must have noticed that his letters were now signed by someone else. He demanded to meet his new lawyer, so Janet drove to visit him in Wolf Hall. At that point I was abroad, so she didn’t inform me. Then again, I doubt that I would have stopped her had she done so. He was just one of many clients.’

  Nora nodded to encourage him to continue.

  ‘We don’t know what happened between the two of them. We don’t know what was said. There were no witnesses. It is in the nature of these things that all inmates have the right to meet with their lawyer privately. And even if Janet made notes about their conversation or if Mr Hickley gave her specific instructions, no such notes were ever found. Neither here at the office or in Janet's home.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘After her third visit — a Thursday afternoon — Janet had a car accident. We don’t know where she was going. Her family could provide no explanation as to why she had left Wolf Hall and driven down a minor country road in Buckinghamshire. The car had gone straight into a tree. It was a write-off. Janet was in a coma for three days, but never regained consciousness.’

  ‘Did you ever consider getting rid of Hickle
y as a client?’

  Cross looked out of the window. ‘On what grounds? We couldn’t prove anything. Perhaps there was nothing to prove. But I thought you ought to know. On your way out, please would you ask my secretary to join rue?’

  Moments later Nora was squinting against the sunshine and trying earnestly to imagine what it would be like to be face to face with Bill Hix — the man who had an unknown number of women's lives on his conscience.

  However, every time she tried to visualise herself meeting him in the role of interviewer, the picture turned into a blank screen. Would she be frightened? Would he be a pathetic old man in chains or a predator that could strike without warning, if given the slightest chance?

  She walked past St James's Park and thought with a pang of Andreas and the way he had looked at her during their picnic lunch. Calling him to say hi and pretending that everything was OK should be easy. Only it wasn’t. And it wouldn’t help matters.

  She took the tube home and spent the rest of her afternoon deleting the subject Andreas from her internal hard drive by researching amateur boxing contests that took place in Liverpool years ago. She deep-searched PDF files and old archives, but the search engines could find no Oluf the Buffalo.

  Just as she was, very appropriately, about to throw in the towel, her iPhone danced marimba rhythms in her handbag. A tune that could mean only one thing.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ she said, trying to sound carefree and relaxed.

  ‘You’re stressed, aren’t you,’ her mother said. ‘I can tell from your voice.’

  Nora rolled her eyes. ‘Everything is fine. It's the summer. The silly season, you know.’

  When she spoke to her mother, she would often end up speaking a strange mix of English and Danish. In her childhood home they had spoken Danish to each other, obviously, but since they had both moved to London, English words, phrases or idioms would often slip in here and there.

  ‘How was Florence?’

  ‘A-ma-zing, I tell you,’ her mother declared. ‘I simply have to live in Italy. I was never made for this dull, Nordic, Anglo-Saxon lethargy. I’m Latin at heart.’

  ‘Yes, of course you are,’ Nora agreed. She knew from experience that it was easier to tell her mother whatever she wanted to hear.

  ‘But that wouldn’t work for Patrick. He has to look after his apples,’ her mother said.

  ‘Yes, and you have your Cromwell. They don’t have him in Florence,’ Nora pointed out sensibly.

  ‘I know, but even so ... they have the Medici family. And those sunsets, that passion. They truly understand what it means to be an artist in that part of the world,’ her mother insisted.

  ‘I’m sure they do.’

  ‘Well, anyway, why don’t you pop by Patrick's orchard one weekend soon? And don’t work too hard. You’ll never find a man that way,’ Elizabeth said, and continued in the same vein for a considerable period of time.

  There were days when Nora felt her mother's sense of tact could make Shrek look like a diplomatic and skilled courtier, but eventually she gave up and promised to visit soon.

  As an adult Nora had fought her way to a working relationship with her mother. However, she had reached that point only after years of shutting down completely the memory of the woman standing on the drive one morning, ready to abandon her family in a taxi. And the fear of abandonment still lingered right under the surface like a crocodile in a stagnant river. Ready to strike, if Nora ever dropped her guard.

  When they finally rang off, it was almost time to go to Soho to meet Pete.

  She just had time to gather a large bag of dirty laundry to take to the Indian dry cleaner around the corner, a place quaintly named Mr Percy's Butler. Strictly speaking, not everything needed dry cleaning, however, if you dropped off a bag at Mr and Mrs Patel's, you could pick it up two days later, filled with clean, folded clothes, smelling faintly of cardamom and chai. There were some weeks when that was worth every penny.

  ‘You work too hard, my girl,’ Mrs Patel said, who was today sporting a lime-green sari, which flattered her brown skin. ‘I can tell from your chakras that something has upset you. Your love chakra glows red and irritated. You really must take the time to meditate,’ she added in an accent that sang of Mumbai.

  Nora took a deep breath. ‘Dearest darling, Mrs Patel. I’ve just had my mother on the phone. A twenty-minute lecture is more than I can handle. But it's kind of you to care.’

  ‘Ah,’ Mrs Patel said knowingly. ‘It’ll be ready the day after tomorrow after four p.m.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘May peace find you before then,’ Mrs Patel said softly when Nora had almost closed the door.

  19

  Pete was already queuing outside the Thai restaurant, which was so popular that in contrast to most other Soho restaurants tables could not be booked. Diners had to join a lengthy queue outside where they could stare through the windows at other guests enjoying their meal until a table became available. The food was so amazing that it was worth the wait.

  He took one look at her and launched into his best Madame Arcati impression. Like a fortune teller at a fair, he covered his eyes with his hands, pretending to be in so deep a trance that any visual impression would disturb his unique connection to the spiritual world and the messages channelled through his not-so-humble persona.

  ‘OK. It's bad. Let me guess. Your mother? A man? Your work? ... No, I’ve got it. You’ll meet a tall dark stranger who’ll change your life forever. Am I right about just one of those things?’

  ‘All of them,’ she said laconically.

  ‘Right then, we’d better start at the beginning. Trust me to go to Cambodia in the middle of your life crisis.’

  Nora couldn’t suppress a wry smile. ‘Ignore me. Tell me about Cambodia. What's happening out there that's so interesting to The Times? Who are you going with, and how did it come about?’

  Not long afterwards they were shown to a table shared with ten other guests, and the conversation trailed off as they ordered Guava Collins cocktails, fried tiger prawns, noodles with smoked chicken, Chinese broccoli and chicken wings with tamarind.

  Pete told her how George, an Australian reporter with The Times, had long been working with a charity to uncover the kidnapping and trafficking of children, who were subsequently sold as slaves in Cambodia's extensive sex industry. After months of research, he had finally progressed so far with his investigation that the Cambodian police had allowed him to attend a raid on a brothel suspected of offering children as young as six to their clients, mostly white, Western tourists. The local photographer he normally worked with had felt forced to turn down the job. He had a wife and children, and simply couldn’t risk his family's safety by going up against the powerful mafia that controlled the brothels. Pete had been thoroughly briefed about possible consequences, including the risk of death threats, once it became known that he was in Cambodia in order to photograph sex slaves. If he succeeded in capturing child prostitution on camera, he would be a marked man until he was safely out of Cambodia with the pictures.

  In other words, it was Pete's dream assignment.

  ‘I hate, hate, hate the thought of what goes on in those dreadful places. But if I can expose it, help put a stop to it, it’ll all have been worth it,’ he said gravely.

  ‘When are you leaving?’

  ‘Thursday morning from Heathrow.’

  ‘OK — call me if you need to talk. George isn’t known for being chatty,’ Nora said.

  Pete flashed a droll grin. ‘That's the understatement of the century. Typical Australian. Understatement promotes understanding. Silence cements it.’

  They skipped dessert and went for a walk around the streets of Soho. It had been a warm day and the tarmac was still giving off heat. Tourists poured out of the theatres looking for food and more entertainment around Shaftesbury Avenue and Leicester Square.

  ‘All right,’ Pete said eventually. ‘There's not a lot we can do about your mum, but what's this about a man? A
nd is he the tall dark stranger?’

  Nora squirmed.

  ‘Out with it, darling. I’ve seen you have the runs in Delhi, leeches on your thigh in Zambia, and I let you have my second last clean pair of boxers in Macedonia. I’m pretty sure there's a contract somewhere stating you can have no secrets from me.’

  ‘Did I ever tell you about Andreas?’

  Pete thought about it for a moment. ‘From Denmark? A guy you used to know and go swimming with? Yes, you did mention him once, but I got the impression that he was dead to you, so I chose not to pry.’

  ‘He's not. He's in London.’

  And?’

  Nora gave him a brief summary of the whole sorry tale. About their friendship, which had been terminated without warning. About how she had only recently realised that Andreas had wanted something more than friendship, not just at the end of sixth form, but pretty much from the start.

  ‘But that was years ago, Nora. You’re both adults now, so what's the problem?’ said Pete, the voice of reason.

  ‘But there's more,’ she objected and went on to tell him about their failed trip to Brine and how they had somehow ended up sleeping in each other's arms. About PC Perfect. And about what she had already decided to call ‘the great confrontation of last night’.

  ‘It sounded promising, right up until PC Perfect entered the scene.’

  Nora shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It's too complicated in my opinion.’

  ‘Really?’ Pete said in that irritating way of his. ‘I’m not trying to lecture you, but I’ve never regarded you as someone who is attracted to simple men. And the more I think about it, I’ve never seen you walk away from a challenge either. I’m just saying.’

  Nora shook her head. ‘This isn’t a challenge. We’re talking about Andreas, my ex-friend.’

  ‘Rubbish. This is about common sense. You know absolutely nothing about PC Perfect.’

  ‘All right, fair point, Pete. But they’re still together. He told me so himself. It means I can’t count on him. It's that simple.’