Escape to Perdition--a gripping thriller! Page 7

  The ball skidded into touch and players briefly crowded around a stricken youngster on the ground. Only then did Svobodova turn to Peter. “My friends call me Mirushka,” she said, “so please, no more ‘Ms Svobodova’ nonsense.”

  He grinned back at her, “You wouldn’t want to know what my friends call me,” he said, “but fair enough, Mirushka, whatever you say.” They carried on with their mutual smile until a roar from the crowd dragged their attention back to the game playing out before them. The young Slovak Number 7 had smashed a shot against the underside of the bar, rattling both it and the predominantly Czech crowd, before the imperious Czech centre back calmly collected the ball and played it smoothly along the ground toward his midfield anchor man.

  “I have some business to attend to in Bratislava tomorrow.” Mirushka leaned her head towards Peter but kept her eyes rigidly on the game. “But when I return I’d like you to clear your desk from the main office.”

  Peter was unsure what surprised him the most; that she would bring him to the game only to fire him, or that he felt such acute disappointment by her request. Working for the Party had become a personal hell in the days since Herbert’s death; his legs dragging him up the steps to the office each morning as though they led to the gallows. Freedom from his cover was what he had dreamed of, in those rare moments of sleep the nightmares afforded him, but now that she had actually said the words, he cursed how much more difficult his mission would now be, but more that he was being sent from her presence.

  “Oh, sure,” he responded, flustered. “I mean, I understand of course; I was Herbert’s contact, you don’t know me from Adam…”

  She turned her head back to look at him, her smile returned to her face. “No, Mr Lowe, you don’t understand; I’m not terminating your secondment, I want you to be part of my personal advisory team.” She laughed at the confusion on his face.

  “Oh, right,” he said quietly.

  “Herbert always spoke very highly of you,” she said, “I could never understand why he would tolerate your presence, but now that I’ve met you, spoken to you, I think I do. So, are you interested?”

  Peter was flustered again, but this time with a nervous pleasure. “Yes, yes of course I am!” he answered sincerely. “But there’s one condition though.”

  “Name it,” she said, her smile still bright.

  “If I’m going to work for you then no more of this ‘Mr Lowe’ nonsense; call me Peter.” He grinned a wide grin back at her and held out his palm. She took it and held it tightly.

  “Welcome aboard. Peter.”

  Their hands stayed fused together, their eye contact unbroken, as the stormy sea below them erupted in exultation.

  CHAPTER 7

  MIRUSHKA AND HER ENTOURAGE had left for Bratislava immediately after the game, unhappily so after watching her National side losing 2-1 to the Czechs, which took the edge off her relaxed positivity. But at least it meant that Peter didn’t need to see her today and that was how he liked it. After getting back to his apartment, he had cursed himself for having given in to more than a passing interest in her; there was no point further complicating what had to be done. He had made the mistake with Herbert of getting too close to his target and the result was sleepless nights and guilt drenched hangovers. His awe of Herbert and his friendship with him had allowed, as a clever man somewhere had once put it, a death watch beetle into his soul. He wasn’t inclined to make such a mistake again. He liked Mirushka a lot more than he thought he would, so it was unquestionably better to avoid her until what had to happen, happened. With her, for the day at least, occupied in Bratislava with election strategies, photo-shoots and laborious telephone battles with Černý, Peter had the time to plan her death in detail.

  The first sound he heard the following morning was a smash and his own voice swearing as the glass bottle, whose contents he’d used to push himself for barely a couple of hours into the clawing clutches of sleep, slipped from his fingers onto the hard, carpet-less floor below. He swore twice more before opening his eyes to the light streaming painfully through the thin, faded curtains, causing his brow to furrow and the thumping in his head to beat harder. His left arm swung to the cabinet beside him, his fingers fumbling for the pills. Stuffing four in his mouth, the arm returned for the bottle of days old water standing guard by the tablets. The warm, stale liquid was nectar to Peter, nudging the pills down his throat and bringing reluctant life to the parched desert of his mouth. His breakfast finished, he flung his legs out of the bed, bringing forth another expletive as his heel made contact with a shard of glass from the bottle he had already forgotten about breaking.

  This would not be a good day, he thought, hissing as the remnants of rum on the glass flowed in with glee to attack his wound. Pulling the shard from his heel he hobbled to the bathroom to wash and find a plaster. How could he be so stupid? He could have made any excuse not to have accompanied Mirushka to the game, not to have sat next to her, not to have spent the evening pretentiously flirting with her. But he had gone, he had flirted and, once more he felt the doubts and hesitations gnawing at him just as they had with Herbert, only this time more so.

  Shifting the weight in his left leg to the unscathed toes, he leant his arm against the wall behind the toilet and continued to berate himself as he went about his morning ablutions, damning his idiocy with each stroke of the toothbrush and scrape of the razor.

  His apartment was a disaster zone, the freshly broken bottle and speckled red trail now running to the bathroom, only adding to the shambles in which Peter lived. Hobbling over to the dust coated unit that guarded his bed, Peter slid open the top one and lifted a pair of faded boxer shorts out, revealing the dull, black gun that lay beneath them. For an experienced murderer, Peter possessed an almost religious hatred of guns. That wasn’t to say he was unaccustomed to using them; indeed, his aim was, in his mind, unparalleled, although these days the grip encouraged callouses on his palm and firing aggravated the arthritis he had begun to feel in his knuckles. Nevertheless, employing his talent with firearms had long since repulsed Peter; sniping from dark corners robbing him of the veneer of nobility that he, in his less lucid moments, liked to convince himself he possessed in his willingness to despatch his victims via more direct means, and while looking into their eyes.

  He focussed on the gun, nestled in his underwear, as though it were an estranged lover, whose presence was as unwelcome as it was unavoidable.

  The torn page, from the night he had returned from Herbert’s murder, still lay where he had dropped it in the small living room opposite the bedroom door; a paper thin jewel in the flat’s chaotic mess. It caught his eye as Peter, clean and presentable in a fresh black suit, blue shirt and paisley tie, headed for the door and he shuddered as he stared at it. The sound of aggressive car horns duelling down the busy street outside tore him from his thoughts and he move to the door with a slight limp, slamming it behind him as his annoyance returned along with the throbbing in his healing foot.

  His mood did not improve on his journey to the Party Office, the only positive to come from the previous day being his move from the main office to Mirushka’s private staff, giving him the access he needed to properly prepare and sketch an outline plan for her demise.

  His planning was interrupted by the nervousness at the office that soon turned into blind panic as the latest polls came in throughout the day. Football, of all things, proved to be the cause of the biggest ‘wobble’ in public support for the Party since its conception, causing Černý to scowl, the electoral strategists to ponder and those that had thought to celebrate the Czech victory by donning replica strips to squirm. As the buzz of anxiety around him intensified at the reports of the Party lead being slashed to single digits, Peter allowed himself a moment of euphoria in the hope that Mirushka’s death would not, after all, be necessary, before cursing his sentimental foolishness. The telephones in the Private Office never stopped ringing and Peter found himself fielding calls from the length and br
eadth of both Republics, testing his thin patience and stretching his interpretation skills to their limits.

  The working day passed with the chaotic mood of the Party showing little sign of abating. Peter slunk silently away from the pack, heading back up to the comfortless tomb he called home; the focus brought by his assignment successfully binding the nervous exhaustion within him.

  Once at the flat, he quickly changed into a simple black polo shirt with white trim, grey jeans and a black, high buttoned, knee length jacket fastened up to his chin. Grabbing and opening a bottle of Czech beer from the otherwise sparse fridge, he made for the door but stopped cold at the entrance to the living room. In truth, Peter had hardly been back to the flat in the weeks since Herbert’s death, relying instead on Rasti’s generosity, and when he had, he’d been functioning purely on autopilot – shit, shower, shave then back outside in a fresh suit. Virtually every corner of the flat remained as it had been on the morning he’d awoken there, head typically pounding, aching fingers clutching a torn tissue thin page. The book he had torn it from still lay discarded on the floor in front of him just as he had left it; motionlessly accusatory, the crumpled page that had distracted him that morning alongside it. Peter stared wide eyed and strangely nervous; his left hand unconsciously toying with the softly jingling keys in his pocket. He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a swig, unblinking and silent as the cold, carbonated ale washed over his tongue and down his throat. The chilled liquid’s contact with the small cavity in one of his back teeth made him hiss and curse, breaking him free from the invisible grip.

  Though Peter cursed his own illogicality and bid superstition be damned, he could almost feel the twisted, wrinkled page observing him, condemning him. Slowly, too slowly for his own liking, ashamed at lending credence to his foolishness, he crossed over to the room and on blind yet reluctant instinct he stepped quickly inside and picked up the source of his discomfort, stuffing it into his pocket before turning on his heel and slamming the door to his flat behind him.

  Arriving at the stop just as a dirty red and white tram heaved itself into view, Peter fumbled in his pockets for a ticket and jumped on, sinking into a vacant seat. Wedging his beer between his thigh and the hard plastic chair he became conscious of the anchoring weight of his eyelids and he blinked hard, scanning for something, anything, on which to focus, to spare him further torture. Fixing his eyes on the back of a figure sat several seats ahead of him, Peter listed its features to keep his mind active; the black overcoat covering hunched shoulders, navy scarf wrapped tightly around the neck…The list continued until he ran out of features to comment on, but still Peter stared, willing away the exhaustion. But as the stare continued and as if feeling the tired eyes burrowing into it, the figure slowly turned and Peter stared once more into the eyes of Herbert Biely.

  He woke with a jolt, jarring the bottle and spilling some of its contents on his leg and the floor before he composed himself and grabbed it. One or two passengers glanced disapprovingly at him, disturbed by his sudden exclamation upon waking, while others buried their heads into papers, turned up music or stared impassively through the windows, determined at all costs to avoid eye contact. Cursing quietly, Peter tried in vain to wipe the spilled ale from his leg before abandoning his futile efforts and sitting back again. A louder curse followed as he felt his eyelids continue to droop and he stood up in defiant resentment of his exhaustion.

  The tram was pulling into a stop and Peter checked through the windows for his location: Pavlova. Partly through a desire to let the rain wash the beer from his jeans but mostly through fear of falling asleep again, Peter disembarked and proceeded to follow the main road down to Wenceslas Square, his emptier bottle grasped in his hand. About five minutes later, soaked and cold, Peter reached the square and stopped to rest by the imposing memorial to Saint Wenceslas. Leaning against the drenched monument and lifting his bottle to his lips to stop the biting rain diluting it further, his heart sank at the illuminated sight before him. His beloved Prague, a city of culture, of history and beauty dressed up like some cheap harlot and made to dance for the people that violated her. Like a vandalised portrait, all around the square, the black as pitch night was punctuated with neon lights, fast food outlets, clubs, strip joints and bars, while prostitutes, dealers and pick pockets hung around in dark alcoves waiting to take advantage of the drunkards inside. This was why Peter stayed away from Wenceslas Square. Seeing Prague like this was like watching an adored teenage daughter stagger home from a debauched night out, tights laddered, bra unhooked and virtue in question. Or akin to watching an ageing loved one deliriously reject sobriety and descend into alcoholic stupor.

  Draining the last of the beer from his bottle Peter glanced up at the figure on the plinth above him who likewise gazed at the square that shared his name with a look of offended nobility.

  “Sorry mate,” Peter said aloud hurling the empty bottle into a nearby waste bin, “but at least I can’t be blamed for this.”

  Stuffing his hands into his pockets he set off through the ocean of sin before him, the waves of thieves and hustlers that lined the square parting for him as he walked Moses-like through their midst. The look of grim disapproval on Peter’s face told them to stay away clearer than any words could and he wore it for that reason. He didn’t have time for crackheads and whores and if anyone was unwise enough to follow him down the square extolling the dubious virtues of the latest skin bar then they’d wake up in a hospital bed if they woke at all. He needed a drink and he’d be damned if he was going to have it here. What Peter wanted was the only sanctuary Prague still begrudgingly allowed him, the shelter of the Smokin’ Hot Blues Bar with its uncomfortable chairs and cold draught blowing through its never fully closed doors. He wanted his usual table and his usual drink while the usual Thursday night duo wailed their usual blues. Anything else would be a deviation and a deviation would affect the concentration he needed in abundance, for there was murder to be planned tonight.

  He could already hear the blues calling to him from Smokin’ Hot as he rounded the corner onto Jakubská and headed inside, but before he could make it through the entrance he felt a buzz in his pocket. Thinking it a message from Mirushka, a giddiness embraced him and he pulled his phone excitedly from his jeans, only for the warmth to dissipate as the name ‘Deprez’ appeared on the display. Touching the message open, his pleasure at least partly restored at the unexpectedly positive words it contained.

  ‘Poll data requires assessment, suspend project pending full analysis’

  “Result!” Peter leapt up and punched the air, shouting out his words without concern. “I’ll suspend the fucking project mate, no problem!” He’d done it! The slimy bastard had done it for once; he’d studied the polls, seen the lead slip and decided Mirushka didn’t need killing after all, at least not right now. Well Peter wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass by; tonight he was going to celebrate.

  He swaggered into the bar with his widest smile in many a day affixed to his face, radiating cheerfulness to all patrons. Behind the bar, as usual, was Michael, who raised an eyebrow at his regular’s demeanour.

  “Bottle of champagne please, Michael.” Peter stretched his grin wider still

  Michael’s raised eyebrow was joined by its associate.

  “Champagne?” he asked, failing to disguise the surprise in his voice.

  “The best you’ve got. Time for a little celebration, I reckon, I’ve been moping about for too long.”

  Michael turned to the fridge to pull one of the rarely ordered bottles from the back. “I couldn’t swear this is any good,” he said honestly to his customer.

  “Then put it back.” Michael and Peter both turned to see Rasti coming through the door. Dressed in his usual attire of cargo pants, faded t-shirt and battered leather jacket, somewhat damp, dirty blonde hair partially masking his round, cheery face, the big Czech gave Michael the usual arm around the shoulder in greeting as he walked around the bar, then turned to h
is friend.

  “Why would you want champagne?” he demanded. “You wouldn’t even know what to do with it. That’s like ordering egg and chips every day for a lifetime from the same café only to waltz up one day demanding lobster thermidor.”

  Peter’s laugh carried an air of indignation. “Piss off,” he countered, “I’ll have you know I used to drink plenty of champagne back in the day.”

  “Back in the day perhaps,” Rasti said, “but that day was a long fucking time ago. No self respecting champagne wants to end up being pissed against the wall of a sports bar by a man who doesn’t appreciate it.”

  Peter shook his head at the passion of his friend’s disapproval, which, if nothing else, had helped maintain Peter’s currently lighter mood.

  “Look mate,” he eventually said, “I just felt the need to relive the old days a bit. Call it nostalgia or whatever.”

  Rastislav was Peter’s friend. Peter’s good friend, the pair drawn to each other by their shared love of the food, the drink and the blues served up at Smokin’ Hot. Rasti was the restaurant’s head chef and owner and loved his venue so much he spent most of his free time there; so much in fact that Peter wondered exactly when he was supposed to be on duty. Rasti was a naturally big man, not fat, just big; but his voice carried an unexpectedly paternal calm. The frame gave the impression of a ‘gentle giant’ and Rasti’s casual and laid back demeanour added to the perception. A small cross dangled from his neck, a reminder of his days in the Priesthood, and now the former man of the cloth stood in a half-full blues bar, leather coat flung onto the stand in the corner, talking champagne with a man he didn’t know to be a murderer.