The Letter Promised

Kevin Wignall

The Letter Promised

Copyright 2013 © Kevin Wignall

    Nick looked up at the front of the hotel, each of the little balconies with its own red awning.  It was the familiarity that ambushed him more than the memories.  It was as if he’d just been along the street and was now heading back, the sensation so powerful that he almost expected Sarah to step out from their third floor room and wave down at him.

  But Sarah wasn’t there, and even if she had been she would not have waved.  As familiar as it seemed, this hotel, this Paris, the Paris of his honeymoon, was six years in the past.  Why had he even come here?  Was it the hope that it would concentrate his mind, show him a way forward?  Or maybe it was purely nostalgia, that he was already tired of running and simply wanted to see a place where he’d once been happy.

  If he’d chosen it subconsciously then he had chosen well, because looking up at the hotel now, the desperation he felt was total.  He’d expected bittersweet memories and here they were flooding in, making him question what he was even running for, what haven he could hope to find when everything he cared about had been left behind, permanently out of reach.

  He was giddy with recollection standing there, as if his sugar had dropped, the loss becoming palpable, a physical ailment rather than a state of mind.  And in amongst the memories and thoughts and compound sorrows, unexpectedly, was the answer to his problem.

  It sprang fully-formed from the sight of the hotel with its pretty red awnings, a solution that came at him like late-night inspiration, simple and grand and so beautiful he didn’t know how he hadn’t thought of it before – he could kill himself.  Sarah, their honeymoon, the things he had lost.  The things they had lost.

  Rapidly, as he walked the final steps to the hotel lobby, it shifted from being a wild idea to a possibility, then to the only solution, one that should have been obvious all along.  It brought an odd calmness over him, and odder still, the sensation that at last, he had the upper hand over his pursuers.

  The last few weeks had been enough to tell him he didn’t want to keep running, and he wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of locking him up.  For the first time since this had started it seemed he had a viable option for his future.  He would kill himself, here, where he had been happiest.

  The receptionist was the same middle-aged man who’d been there all those years previously and he smiled uncertainly at Nick as if he remembered him.  It seemed unlikely, but Nick had occasionally encountered concierges and barmen, barmen in particular, who had photographic memories for their thousands of customers.

  Whatever the case, the smile became a little more cordial once Nick had given his travelling name and handed over the fake Canadian passport, the new facts jarring with any vague memories of the face he might have had.  And then Nick was handed over to the bellboy who was young, barely out of school, and graciously disinterested.

  He escorted Nick up in the rickety old elevator and along the corridor.  There was a small boy standing by the door of the room next to Nick’s, a kid of about eight or nine, he guessed, blond but with something of a Mediterranean look about him, big brown eyes and slightly olive skin.

  The bellboy spoke cheerily to the little kid but he looked surly in response and didn’t even look at Nick before opening the door just enough to slip back inside his room.

  The bellboy turned and shrugged and said, ‘Don’t worry, he won’t disturb you – he’s very quiet, shy.’

  ‘No kidding,’ said Nick and waited for the bellboy to open his own door and show him in.

  Nick tipped him and once he was alone he stepped out onto the balcony.  He reached up and touched the underside of the awning with his fingertips, an arbitrary little ritual he’d performed every day of the two weeks he’d spent here with Sarah.  Back then it had been like a pinch, a reminder each morning that he wasn’t dreaming.

  It had the same effect this time, reminding him that this was real, that he was here alone, that everything else was gone.  Here was the cluttered Parisian street below him, the air bristling with the late spring sun, here was the wall of traffic noise pulsing up from the avenue, here was Paris as it had been six years ago, as it would be six years from now.

  He felt hollow, not even a ghost.  How many countless people had probably reached up and touched the underside of these awnings, just as he had, how many had considered it their own private ritual, loaded with significance for them alone?

  Many thousands had stood here before him, looking out over Paris, making it their own, and right now, Nick felt the least significant of all of them.  He was a shadow of his former self, an after-image, and didn’t know whether he envied the younger Nick Walker or pitied him, or if he really even knew him.

  The last time he’d looked out at this view he’d been a happy guy on the up, twenty-nine years old, making a good living, married to a beautiful woman.  And looking back, he couldn’t see the grain of greed or stupidity that must have been within him.  How could all of that happiness not have been enough for him?

  Here he was, wanted for securities and wire fraud, and for insider trading – that was the charge that rankled most, knowing that both Sarah and her parents had been questioned and almost charged on the same count.  No wonder she hated him, and the worst thing was, he could think of no explanation beyond the feeblest excuse of all, peer pressure.

  He’d been the youngest of the company’s directors, swept up by their greed and corruption and easy glamour, by their promises and assurances.  And when the façade had crumbled, he’d found himself just as deep as the other six, deeper than some, a lot deeper than Evetts who was the smart one as it turned out.

  Peterson had dealt with the collapse the right way, by dropping dead in his lawyer’s office.  When the news came that Evetts had struck a deal to testify against the remaining five in exchange for seven years, Nick hadn’t even bothered to pack.

  It hadn’t occurred to him to follow Peterson, but now he couldn’t understand why suicide hadn’t presented itself before.  It already felt as if it had always been the only option, that it had just been a matter of him understanding that, realizing he couldn’t live a life on the run, that he couldn’t live knowing Sarah hated him.  He wasn’t cut out for this, not for any of it.

  And there was a certain dignity, he thought now, in accepting that the game was up.  Death looked like a certain winner when set against prison and self-loathing and a life without her.  Death was the warm bed, something he’d perhaps known subconsciously all along but that, standing here, he now believed and felt.  Death.  The burdens fell from away from him.

  He heard someone stepping out onto the neighboring balcony and before he had chance to think about getting inside, the man looked across at him and said, ‘You’re an American?’

  Nick turned to look at him, a heavy-set guy who was probably around the same age as him but looked older somehow, as if he’d been through more.  His hair was dark blond, his accent Russian, and though there was no facial resemblance, Nick guessed he was the little kid’s father.

  ‘Yeah. Well, Canadian.’  The Russian stared at him quizzically, which unnerved Nick enough that he added, ‘Nick Walker.’  He cursed himself immediately, realizing he’d given his real name.  He cursed himself too, for being caught out here, for talking in the first place, when his mind wanted only to dwell on its new and final infatuation.

  ‘Andropov, Valentin,’ said the Russian and stretched across the divide to shake Nick’s hand.  The handshake was disturbingly powerful, but then he broke away and gestured with a cigar before putting it in his mouth and lighting it.  ‘I smoke here on the balcony. It’s not good for my Sacha, the smoke.’

  ‘Your wife?’

  Valentin shook his head as he exhaled a long plume of smoke.

  ‘My boy, Sacha. His mother died in the birth.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

  Valentin shrugged sadly, acknowledging that these things happened, and said, ‘Why are you in Paris?’

  Nick got the strange sensation this was someone who wasn’t usually talkative – there was something slightly out of kilter in his tone, in the way he asked his questions.  The result was that, despite himself, Nick was drawn into the conversation.

  ‘I’m on business of sorts. And you?’

  Valentin stared at him, a few seconds elapsing as he went through some calculation or other.

  ‘I’m on the run,’ he said finally, his tone casual.  Nick did a double-take and Valentin added, ‘It surprises you, that I should be so candid with a stranger?’

  ‘A little. Are you a… criminal?’

  He shrugged again and studied the end of the cigar as he said, ‘In Russia, as in America, what is crime? Illegal, legal, not such a big difference, just two letters.’  He turned and fixed his eyes on Nick again, saying, ‘I’m a good man, and a good judge of character. How long have I known you?’

  ‘I dunno, a minute, two minutes?’

  Valentin nodded, apparently pleased with himself, and said, ‘Yet already I know you too are a good man, Nick, a man I could trust if I needed to. Not that I need to, of course.’  Nick tried to say something, though he wasn’t sure what.  But Valentin interrupted his thoughts before they’d even formed, saying, ‘I know you’re like me, on the run, a criminal, but I know you’re a good man, too.’

  Nick’s heart lurched, failing to grind enough blood through his body.  He felt momentarily light-headed but recovered enough to laugh and say, ‘I’m sorry, Valentin, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Like I said, I’m a businessman, I’m here on business.’

  Valentin smiled broadly as he shook his head, dismissing Nick’s protestations.

  ‘It’s a coincidence, no, two people like us, being in the next rooms?’  Before Nick could answer Valentin walked back into his room and came out a moment later carrying a newspaper, the International Herald Tribune.  He put the cigar back in his mouth to free his hands so that he could go through the pages until he’d found what he wanted.

  Valentin handed Nick the folded paper, the sickeningly familiar photograph visible even before he looked close enough to see the headline and the story.  They were onto him, aware that he was traveling on a Canadian passport, that he was believed to have been heading for Europe.

  How long would it take them to narrow Europe down to Paris, to this hotel?  It was forcing his hand, ensuring that he’d have to do this within twenty-four hours if he wanted to be sure of staying ahead of the authorities.  He felt it was rushing him in some way, but he was determined he’d go through with it now, and that he wouldn’t go to prison.

  ‘I recognize you right away, but you can trust me, Nick. I’m on the run too, and I see you’re a good man.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Nick, offering the paper back to him.

  ‘You keep.’  He drew on his cigar and exhaled the smoke slowly. ‘You have seen my Sacha?’

  ‘Yes, I did. The bellboy said he’s very quiet, shy.’

  ‘Sacha is not shy,’ said Valentin as if defending his son’s honor. ‘Quiet, yes. He likes to read. And I think he misses his nanny, Olivia. English, unattractive but good – I had to let her go.’

  ‘I understand.’

  Valentin nodded, saying, ‘Yes, you understand. It’s a difficult life.’  He turned and started back into his room but before he disappeared from view he said, ‘Please, you will be my guest for dinner in my room, 8.30, I insist.’

  And he was gone, before Nick could respond or make his apologies.  To make things worse, unless he killed himself before 8.30, he wasn’t sure how he could get out of it.  Whether Valentin was on the run or not, he could hardly afford to snub the one man in Paris who definitely knew where and who he was.

  He slept for a few hours, caught out by the fatigue of flight, then got ready and went next door.  Valentin had two connecting rooms and by the time Nick arrived, the boy was already asleep in his, the light out, the door slightly ajar.

  Valentin had ordered for both of them, steaks and a bottle of vodka.  He asked if that was alright and Nick told him it was fine.  He didn’t care what he ate or drank anymore.  Valentin had gone in to check that the boy was asleep when the food arrived.

  Nick had feared a long evening, but the conversation was surprisingly relaxed.  Valentin talked a little here and there on the dangers of doing business in Russia, but for the most part he was keen to ask Nick about his life and how he’d ended up where he was.

  It was liberating too, for Nick to be able to open up about everything, about the stress of these past months, about the loss and the self-recrimination.  Another bottle of vodka was ordered.

  The next morning, Nick woke fully clothed on the floor near his bed.  He’d at least made it back to his own room.  He struggled to his feet, his head hammering from the inside with every movement, and made a vain attempt to freshen himself up in the bathroom.

  Someone was knocking on the door by the time he came out.  He opened it without thinking and Valentin breezed in looking fresh in his own stolid way.  He had a fat envelope in his hand.

  ‘I think alcohol disagrees with you,’ he said as he closed the door.

  Everything disagrees with me, thought Nick, that’s why I’m going to kill myself.

  But he said, ‘I haven’t drunk that much in a long while.’  He sat back on the edge of the bed, lacking the energy to remain standing.

  Valentin nodded seriously and looked at the envelope.

  ‘It’s possible I might have to… disappear, very suddenly. If I do, Nick, will you promise me something? Will you make sure this letter is going to this address?’  He pointed at the address which was written out neatly on the front of the envelope.

  ‘What if I disappear first? I mean, what if I have to go?’  He already felt a certain bond with Valentin but he didn’t have the heart or the bravery to tell him what he really had in mind.

  ‘It can’t be helped. But if I disappear and you are here…’

  Nick shrugged and said, ‘Sure, of course.’

  ‘It’s in Italy, Tuscany, Sacha’s grandmother.’

  ‘Okay.’  He watched as Valentin placed the envelope carefully on the desk next to the room service menu.

  Valentin stared at him then, nodding to himself as if agreeing with some unspoken statement, and finally said, ‘You need to sleep some more.’

  Nick nodded and Valentin left and Nick fell back on the bed.

  It was hard to get any more sleep though.  The bellboy had told him they were quiet neighbors but Nick could hear Valentin talking on the phone repeatedly, then receiving a visitor.  Nick drifted a few times, only to be dragged back when the murmur of conversation from the next room rose up into a laugh or a sudden declarative statement, in French, he thought.

  In the early afternoon he showered and dressed.  He ordered some food from room service, and as he talked on the phone he picked up the envelope and studied it – bulky enough to feel like documents of some sort, not just a letter.  He guessed it had to be something to do with the child’s custody, given that it was being sent to his grandmother.

  He ate the food while he reread the piece in the paper that Valentin had given him.  It wasn’t that he expected to learn anything from it or find some way of staying a step ahead of them – he just wanted to be reminded why it had to be today.

  He didn’t spend much time thinking about how we would do it.  There were only a few options and drowning was the easiest, he thought.  It meant taking a little more care to avoid an intervention but he’d read somewhere it was a peaceful way to die.

   And a body fished from the river didn’t inconvenience or traumatize the people who found it in the same way that a subway dive or a hanging did.  That was important.  It meant something to Nick that his last act should be considerate in some way, if only as a counterbalance for all the acts that had preceded it.

  He took a few diazepam, slipped the bottle into his pocket, and left.  He could hear Valentin talking on the phone yet again and then saw Sacha standing by the elevator.

  Sacha saw Nick too.  He pressed the button and as Nick got close he pulled open the door for him to step into the cage of the elevator itself.

  ‘Hey Sacha, how’s it going?’  Nick felt as if he was using someone else’s voice, as if a part of him was already dead, floating down the Seine.

  ‘Very well, thank you,’ the boy said blankly, his eyes downcast.  His accent was cut-glass English, from the nanny, Nick supposed.

  ‘Good. Thanks for getting the elevator for me.’

  Sacha didn’t respond so Nick stepped inside and pressed to go down to the lobby.  The kid’s eyes were still downcast but as Nick descended into his eye-line, Sacha lifted one hand in a motionless wave.  Nick waved back and smiled, certain it really was goodbye.

  He took a cab to Montparnasse, intent on one last pilgrimage.  He didn’t want to see any of the other sights they’d seen in those two weeks, but wanted to find a bar where they’d spent one beautiful evening, a place recommended by the hotel barman as one of the last of the old-style haunts.

  He couldn’t remember the name of it.  He kept thinking The Blue Rose but he knew that wasn’t right and, with the diazepam kicking in, his thoughts couldn’t jump past that near miss of a memory.  So he walked, hoping that he might stumble upon it.

  Sarah spoke fluent French and that had been enough to get them a decent welcome.  They’d spent a whole evening there, drinking and laughing with the locals, Sarah translating or the locals speaking in varying degrees of English.  Occasionally he just watched and listened to her talking effortlessly, and he remembered thinking during one of those episodes, that if he’d died right then he’d have died happy.

  After an hour, he gave up the search and started drifting toward the Latin Quarter.  He found a modern dive, the kind that was all tourists, took a table in the corner and slowly drank a bottle of red wine, cursing himself and seeing the absence of her in everything.

  It was dark by the time he left, approaching nine o’clock.  He called into another place, even more of a tourist trap.  He ordered whisky and downed it with a couple more diazepam, then a bottle of beer which he took with him.  He used it to throw down a few more pills as he got near the river.

  This wouldn’t be so difficult.  He could feel the alcohol and the medication pulling him down, weakening him beyond saving himself once he hit the water.  He just had to make sure he didn’t make it too obvious going over the side.  He’d read, maybe in the same place, that it was like falling asleep, and wasn’t that all he wanted?

  He passed Pont Neuf, heading towards Le Pont des Arts because it had to be easier, no passing cars, only a metal and mesh railing to leap over rather than a stone parapet to scale.  True, there would be tourists still on it, but with the right timing there would be no heroic rescue.

  For all the booze and pills his heart was fighting against, it started to race as he set out across the bridge, the impulse to live, the fear of death, even though he knew this was the right decision.  He tried not to think about what he was going to do, concentrating instead on the strategic positioning of the other people on the bridge.

  A small group walking away from him – not a problem.  A man walking towards him but at a brisk pace, soon to pass.  Two older people looking toward Notre Dame, preoccupied, others too far off.  He glanced behind – a young couple had followed him onto the bridge, walking dreamily, lost in each other, as only young people in love could be.

  Now!  It had to be now.  He turned forward, put his hand on the railing, his body already tensing for the jump, a familiar and liberating movement somehow, and there was no fear in him.  It occurred to him how easy this was, and mentally he was already floating out towards the dark water and the night.

  But then he saw one more person at the last moment and stopped, bracing himself against his own momentum, struggling, his stomach jarring painfully into the rail.  Perhaps only the sight of Sarah on the bridge could have thrown his determination any more successfully than the sight of Sacha did.

  There he was on the other side, looking through the metal mesh that covered the railing, gazing down at the dark river below.  He was wearing long shorts, below the knee, and a navy sweater over his shirt, like a kid in one of those nautically themed fashion spreads.  Nick looked around for Valentin, then glanced at the other people on the bridge, trying to see if anyone was looking out for him.

  He tried to tell himself it wasn’t his problem, tried to ignore the fact that the kid had crossed some busy roads, that he was too far from the hotel, that it was late for him even to be up and about.  But he couldn’t just leave him there, even as a nagging voice accused him of cowardice, of not having the nerve to go through with this.

  He had to get the kid back to the hotel.  Coward.  Maybe it was even a sign, that this wasn’t the way out.  Coward.  Cowardice or not, the moment had retreated.  Slowly, awkwardly, he stood upright, and then thought suddenly of the diazepam and the beer and the whisky and wine.

  He leaned instinctively over the railing, holding on tight with one hand as he rammed the fingers of the other into the back of his throat.  He retched instantly, hot and acid.  It wasn’t enough and he pushed his fingers in again, getting a couple of grinding empty retches before another pint of wine and bile forced its way out of his mouth, some of it streaming from his nose.

  He heard the young couple passing comment, Australians, shaken from their reverie, perhaps reminded of how lucky they were.  He didn’t care what other people thought – a minute ago he’d been intent on killing himself and now he felt empty and purged, at least for the moment.

  He took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his face clean and dried his hand, then threw it into the river, a token sacrifice to the waters.  He turned away from the railing to find Sacha standing just ten yards away, staring at him with a quizzical expression that resembled his father’s, albeit in a vaguer, more disinterested way.

  Nick guessed the kid had seen him throwing up into the river, so he shrugged and raised a hand in a static wave.  The kid glanced around, as if searching for some way out of this, but then mirrored the wave and didn’t move as Nick approached him.

  ‘Sacha, what are you doing here? Where’s your dad?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sacha.  He said something in Russian, then caught himself and said, ‘He’s gone. I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s in the hotel somewhere. Come on.’  He started walking, looking down to check that Sacha was walking with him.  He thought of what Valentin had told him that morning, but he couldn’t believe for one minute that he’d have done a disappearing trick without Sacha – he clearly doted on the kid.  ‘How old are you, Sacha?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘Oh.’  He looked down at him. ‘I thought you were older. You must be pretty big for your age.’  Sacha didn’t respond.

  Further along the bridge the two Australians were now leaning against the railings.  They saw Nick approaching and said something to each other, and as Nick and Sacha walked past, the guy said, ‘Mate, you should be ashamed of yourself, carrying on like that when you’ve got a kid.’

  ‘Toby, leave it,’ said the girl. ‘He probably doesn’t even speak English.’

  ‘So? He shouldn’t even have a little kid out at this time of night.’

  Nick didn’t stop walking or turn to look at them.  What was the point?  How could he ever explain to them that they’d just witnessed his most decent and selfless act in a good few years?

  It hadn’t been an act of cowardice, he was at least winning that internal argument now.  It had been a glimpse of the man Sarah had fallen in love with, a brief echo of the person he’d ceased to be in the years after their marriage.

  Even six months ago, he’d have left that kid on his own just to get to a business meeting.  It wasn’t much, to have rediscovered a trace of the humanity most people took for granted, and there was too little time left to find all that he’d once had, but it filled him with an intangible hope that, if nothing else, when the end came he could be at peace with himself.

  If the end came.  Right now, Nick was worrying more about the kid and where Valentin had gone.  If he’d disappeared, the authorities would become involved in looking after Sacha and that just increased the chances of them catching up with Nick too.

  They reached a road and stopped, and Nick said, ‘Okay, we have to be very careful crossing here.’

  As if it was an automatic response to that warning, Sacha put his hand in Nick’s and kept it there till they were safely on the other side and then gently pulled it free.  It meant nothing, of course, but Nick was ambushed, briefly touched and comforted, then an absurd pang of rejection as Sacha let go.

  His emotions were snagging all over the place on stray thoughts, probably not helped by whatever chemicals were still in his bloodstream.  When they got to the hotel he asked if the concierge had seen Valentin, got a blank, then ordered a bottle of water and some coffee up to his room – he had to get his head straight.

  Sacha opened the door to his own room when they got upstairs.  It was tidy for a kid’s room, just a few books lying around on the floor.  They walked through the connecting door into Valentin’s room.  The bed had been turned down for the evening and there was nothing to indicate he’d left in a hurry.  There were clothes in the closet, toiletries in the bathroom.

  ‘When did you last see him, Sacha?’

  He shrugged and said, ‘I was sleeping in the afternoon, after I saw you. When I woke up…’  He shrugged again, then added in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘Is he dead?’

  Nick laughed and said, ‘No, I’m sure he’s fine. He’s just had to go somewhere on business or something like that.’

  He heard someone knocking on another door, then entering, and realized it was room service with his coffee and water.

  ‘Stay here for a minute.’

  He stepped out and into his own room where he found the waiter staring down at the newspaper with his picture on it.  He looked away quickly but had clearly seen enough because he did a double-take when he saw Nick.

  ‘Your coffee and water, Monsieur.’

  ‘Thanks.’  Nick handed him a note, ten euros, and watched him leave, wondering how good his English was, how much of the story he’d read and understood in the seconds before Nick had arrived.

  He cooled the coffee with some water and downed it in one, then gulped from the bottle of water.  He took the bottle with him and was about to leave the room when he saw a note that had been pushed under his door and then pushed against the wall as either he or the waiter had come into the room.

  He picked it up, a scrawled message and Valentin’s bold signature – Please remember your promise. Valentin

  It looked as if it had been written in a hurry, filling Nick with further misgivings.  He walked back to his desk and carefully prized open the envelope sitting there – there was no note, just cash and a passport, Sacha’s passport.

  He understood immediately what this meant, but it was insanely more than he’d promised.  He threw the envelope back onto the desk and went back next door.  Sacha was sitting in one of the armchairs so Nick crouched down in front of him and said, ‘Sacha, do you know anyone else in Paris? Have you visited friends or family here?’

  He shook his head.  Nick was struggling to think of the next question but was thrown by a knock on the door.  He stood, gulped from the bottle of water to counteract the sudden blood-rush, and answered it.

  The guy standing there was grey-haired but suave and well groomed in a double-breasted pinstripe suit.  He smiled and said, ‘Monsieur Walker?’  Nick didn’t respond so the guy added, ‘I’m Alain Legrand, Valentin’s lawyer.’

  Nick recognized the voice now, the visitor Valentin had received that morning, and said, ‘What’s going on? Where is he?’

  Legrand looked over his shoulder and said quietly, ‘He knew they were close.  He thought he had maybe two days but I guess they caught up with him. I haven’t heard anything so we can only hope.’

  ‘Okay, but this has nothing to do with me, right?’

  Legrand looked surprised, and glanced briefly along the corridor as if uneasy about being kept at the door.  ‘But of course. Valentin signed the papers this morning to give you temporary custody for the transportation. He said you promised to take the boy to his grandmother.’

  ‘Why would I do that!’  He realized his voice had been too loud and lowered it a couple of notches as he said, ‘And why would he trust me to do that? Jesus, I only just met the guy. I could be anybody.’

  Legrand smiled knowingly and said, ‘Valentin! Always impetuous, but an excellent judge of character. And perhaps he thought you would do it because you have nothing left to lose.’

  Nick resented the implication, however accurate, and said, ‘Maybe so, but I have plans – you’ll have to find someone else.’

  ‘Do your plans involve leaving the city?’  Nick showed his confusion and Legrand said, ‘They know you’re in Paris. And I just heard the concierge talking about you to a waiter. Why don’t you pack? You and Sacha spend tonight at my apartment. Everything is planned.’

  Nick could feel his options narrowing, almost as a physical sensation, buffeting him, knocking him forwards in the wrong direction.

  It didn’t take him long to put his things together.  Even so, when he got back into the other room Legrand and Sacha were standing patiently.  Sacha had a small wheeled case and a rucksack with some cartoon character on it – he didn’t look like a cartoon kind of kid.

  Nick showed Legrand that he had the envelope with the address and Sacha’s passport, and Legrand said, ‘Good, let me go down first, a few minutes only to arrange payment, then follow.’

  Legrand left and now it was Nick and Sacha standing there like people waiting for a plane or train.

  Nick smiled half-heartedly and Sacha said, ‘Why were you ill, on the bridge?’

  He hadn’t seemed interested before but Legrand had obviously told him in the interim that Nick would be taking him to his grandmother’s house.  He was a smart kid, wanting to know the character of the man he was being entrusted to.

  ‘I ate something bad, that’s all. It made me sick.’

  At first, it looked as if he wouldn’t respond at all, his face impassive, but then he said, ‘People kill themselves on that bridge. Papa told me.’

  ‘Yeah? Is that what you were doing there?’

  Sacha laughed, the first sign of humor in Nick’s company, and as if responding to a ridiculous question, he said, ‘No!’

  One day, thought Nick, before the kid even knew it, suicide wouldn’t seem so ridiculous anymore.

  ‘Me either. Like I said, I was sick.’

  Sacha needed another question but wasn’t sure what it was, the search for it playing out across his face until he found it and said, ‘Will you be sick again?’

  ‘No, I’m okay now,’ said Nick, and realized it was the truth.  It was as if he was accelerating away from himself, so the person determined on suicide already seemed as distant as the young guy on honeymoon.  He didn’t know who he was now or what he wanted.

  Sacha nodded, satisfied with Nick’s answer.  He looked quickly around the room to see if there was anything he’d forgotten and then walked slowly toward the door.  Nick followed him, down to the lobby where Legrand had paid for the rooms and perhaps bought a little silence.

  Legrand’s apartment was nearby, just a short drive though it might have been even quicker to walk.  It was large and expensively furnished and his wife, too smart and glamorous to be a trophy, was at least ten years his junior.  This was the lifestyle that came with representing people like Valentin Andropov.

  Legrand’s wife fussed over a reluctant Sacha as Legrand showed Nick to a guest room.  He wanted to ask him a whole bundle of questions but he was fading fast and Legrand said, ‘Get some sleep, Nick. Everything will be fine tomorrow.’

  Nick took his advice, all the while knowing that everything would not be fine tomorrow.  Maybe Legrand was a good lawyer, but not good enough to get Nick’s life back to fine.

  He lay in the crisply made bed and allowed himself to sink away.  It had to be the remains of the diazepam and a part of him still hoped his heart would succumb in the night, that his body would finish what his mind had been unable to see through.  It was no longer even that he wanted death, but that he’d become so much less attached to life.

  Either way, he woke to another morning, woke feeling positive without being certain why.  He remembered that he’d almost killed himself the day before.  He’d come shockingly close, but he knew immediately that he wouldn’t try again, that he was a coward, or a survivor, that he was designed to cling to life whatever it threw at him.

  With that final thought, the weight descended once more, crushing his ribs, reminding him that there was no way out, that what life would throw at him sooner or later was a long spell in prison.

  There was a light knocking at the door and a moment later Madame Legrand came in carrying a breakfast tray.

  ‘Good morning, Nick.’  Her accent was slightly heavier than her husband’s.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said, sitting up as she placed the tray on the bed, then watching as she walked across the room and opened the blinds, letting the sunlight stream in and instantly making the day feel much more advanced.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘Thanks, yeah, and thanks for breakfast.’  He looked at the coffee and juice, the croissants.  ‘Any news on Valentin?’

  She grimaced and said, ‘Alain had a call in the night. The body was found in the suburbs.’

  Just two simple sentences, but it took Nick a couple of beats to understand what had been said and he started to respond before he’d made sense of it.

  ‘He’s dead?’  He didn’t know why it was quite such a shock.  Valentin had clearly been Russian Mafia or something similar and there couldn’t be many other reasons why he would have disappeared and left his kid behind.

  It should have been obvious, too, because he’d planned to leave Sacha behind and had probably looked upon Nick as a godsend in a desperate moment.  Without knowing anything else about Valentin Andropov, Nick suddenly felt less adequate for the way he’d behaved himself in the last few months.

  ‘Does Sacha know?’

  She nodded and said, ‘He was very brave. Some tears, of course. He asked for Olivia – do you know who that is?’

  Nick nodded and said, ‘His English nanny. Valentin let her go.’  He’d assumed that had been a financial consideration but guessed now it had been all about security. ‘Er, I need to talk to your husband. I’ll come through.’

  ‘Of course, there’s a robe in your bathroom.’

  Nick smartened himself up a little, put on the robe.  He drank the juice in one long slug, then picked up the coffee and found his way into the kitchen.  Legrand was in shirt and tie, buttoned-up for the office the same way Nick had been every breakfast-time until recently.  Sacha was sitting at the table with him.

  He thought about patting Sacha on the head as he walked around the table but he didn’t strike Nick as the kind of kid who took to that kind of thing, even at a time like this – he was too self-contained, too remote.  Instead, he nodded to Legrand and sat opposite the boy.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Sacha.’  He tried to think of something else to say, but what could he say about a man he’d hardly known?

  ‘Thank you,’ said Sacha with the dignity of a child who’d been brought up to behave impeccably in times of crisis.

  Nick turned to Legrand and said, ‘We need to talk.’

  Legrand looked ready to answer, perhaps to suggest they go elsewhere, but Sacha responded to Nick’s statement by sliding silently from his chair and leaving the room.  Before walking through the door he looked briefly at Nick, a fleeting expression of resignation followed by a weighted smile, as if saying that he knew what this conversation would be about and that he didn’t hold it against Nick.

  Sacha’s composure was unnerving but once they were alone, Nick said, ‘Did Valentin know they’d kill him?’

  ‘He feared it, yes. He wouldn’t have given up without a struggle, but he wouldn’t have endangered Sacha.’

  Nick laughed, shaking his head as he said, ‘Are you crazy? He’s entrusting him to me. You know who I am, you know I’m wanted. Surely there must be someone better to take the kid to his grandmother. And what about the funeral? Shouldn’t Sacha stay for that?’

  Legrand was emphatic as he said, ‘No, I will take care of the funeral – Valentin didn’t want Sacha to see that.’  He paused, then added more carefully, ‘Valentin was a complex man. He didn’t see a great deal of Sacha until recently. Yes, they lived under the same roof, but Sacha was cared for by others. It’s completely in his character to choose you to take him to Italy. Of course, if you refuse, I can’t force you, but it will be difficult – the papers Valentin signed are for you only.’

  Nick shook his head, not even certain what he was shaking it at except for the craziness of this whole scenario, then said, ‘It’s not that I don’t want to. I’m half a step ahead of the authorities – the chances of me even getting the kid to Italy are almost nil. We can’t fly.’

  ‘That isn’t a problem,’ said Legrand. ‘I have two first class tickets for the night train to Florence with connecting trains to Arezzo and Santa Emilia. There is no border check so it shouldn’t present any difficulties.’

  ‘So I just get him to his grandmother’s place, and that’s it?’

  ‘Of course. And it helps you to escape Paris.’

  ‘And then what?’

  Legrand shrugged and said, ‘You continue as before. What did you plan to do before this happened?’  Nick didn’t answer, knowing he could give no suitable answer.  ‘You know, a life on the run isn’t easy, but it’s possible. Call me anytime and I can give you the numbers and addresses of people who can help you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Nick, trying hard not to smile, because it sounded like a resistance fighter helping a downed airman, not a lawyer offering to help a fugitive escape the justice he rightly deserved.  ‘I’ll tell Sacha what’s happening. Where is he?’

  ‘Along the hallway, third door on the left.’

  Nick walked along and pushed the door open.  Sacha was lying on the bed, his back to the door, curled up and looking vulnerably small.  Nick was about to walk in but realized the boy was sobbing quietly, not looking for comfort or sympathy, simply inhabiting his own grief.

  Nick couldn’t go in because he could think of nothing to say to him and wasn’t sure the kid would want to hear it anyway.  He stood for a moment, until his very presence there began to feel like an intrusion.

  And even as he closed the door again, he felt an immeasurable sorrow for Sacha, for his loss and his isolation, for his preternatural stoicism, and because for the next twenty-four hours Nick was the only person he had to look out for him.  He was a kid Nick hardly knew, one who wasn’t even particularly likeable, but right now, he wished more than anything that he could make things better for Sacha.

  Nick showered and dressed and by the time he’d finished, Legrand had left for his office and Sacha was reading in the sitting room.  A short while later, Madame Legrand took the boy out – as a distraction, she said.  Nick opted to stay behind.

  He watched TV most of the day, understanding nothing, and entertained occasional fantasies of leaving, setting out on his own, staying a step ahead of the authorities.  But he remained sitting there on Legrand’s sofa and wondered if he’d already accepted that it was only a matter of time and that he would go to prison.

  It was more than inertia, of course.  He wanted to see this through, the strange little pact he’d been tricked into accepting.  What was less clear in his mind was whether he now also accepted that delivering Sacha to his grandmother would be his last act as a free man.  He didn’t want it to be so, but for all Legrand’s promises of contacts he couldn’t see any other outcome.

  Legrand’s wife came back with Sacha just after four.  He looked impassive as ever, but managed a small acknowledging nod for Nick.  She was carrying a bag of provisions and held them up to show Nick.

  ‘There’s a restaurant car on the train, but Alain thinks it’s better if you eat in your compartments.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Nick, thinking once again that it sounded like some kind of espionage thriller, not the sordid and messy flight it was.

  Any remaining romantic notions were dispelled when Legrand took them to Gare de Bercy for the train.  It was a modern station, unattractive and utilitarian and possibly the least romantic thing he’d seen in Paris.  For some reason, the sight of it and the atmosphere made him miss Sarah more than ever, as if it illustrated how far from her he’d traveled.

  Legrand showed them to their compartments, a connecting door between them.  Before leaving, Legrand handed Nick an envelope and said, ‘Please give this to his grandmother. It gives my details and explains that she will need to contact me about financial matters.’

  ‘You haven’t been in contact with this lady?’  Legrand shook his head, puzzled by the question.  ‘She doesn’t know we’re coming, does she?’

  ‘I have no idea, Nick. I assume Valentin had been in touch, but it won’t be a problem. The grandmother tried to claim custody when Sacha’s mother died, so…’

  ‘So the first thing I’m gonna do is hand her a bill for your services.’

  Legrand smiled at Nick’s misunderstanding and said, ‘No, Nick, not financial matters of that kind. There will be bills, of course, but Valentin was extremely wealthy and now it belongs to little Sacha.’

  He nodded, taking in the fact that this kid had probably just inherited more money than Nick had ever hoped to secure from selling his soul with the other directors.  But he could hardly envy him.

  The boy was an orphan, being taken across Europe by a stranger, heading into uncertain territory.  And by the sound of it, he’d had no kind of childhood, which probably went some way to explaining why he was so unlike a child.

  He’d had his English nanny and various other members of staff, had probably moved around the world from one luxurious residence to another, one five star hotel after another.  The hotel in Paris, luxurious but not flash, had probably been the most modest environment the kid had ever been in.

  Sacha was sitting in his compartment, staring without any apparent curiosity through the window.  Nick saw off Legrand, then took the bag of provisions and went and sat on the single chair across the table from him.  Sacha didn’t look inclined to turn away from the window, even though the train was stationary and there was nothing to see bar the side of another train.

  Nick put the bag on the floor next to him and said, ‘Have you ever been on a sleeper train before?’

  Sacha finally looked at him and shook his head, uncertain as to what the question meant.

  ‘That seat you’re sitting on – a little later, the attendant will come in and turn it into a bed.’

  As if responding to the most outlandish statement he’d ever heard, Sacha said, ‘We’re going to sleep on the train?’

  ‘That’s right. The train goes through the night and when we wake up we’ll be in Italy.’

  ‘Why didn’t we fly?’

  ‘I’m not allowed to fly.’

  ‘Don’t you have a plane?’

  ‘No, but it’s not that…’  His thoughts caught up with the question.  ‘Do you have a plane?’

  Sacha shrugged and said, ‘Papa had a plane.’  He qualified the statement by adding, ‘But Papa’s dead now.’

  He broke the news as if Nick didn’t know about it.  Nick nodded and said, ‘I know he is. I can’t fly because policemen are looking for me – they want to send me back to prison in America.’

  ‘You’ll have to fly to America – it’s far away.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did you do business? Papa said the police don’t like people doing business.’

  ‘Yeah, I did some business, and I made some people really sad, nice people.’  Sacha gave another little shrug, suggesting that was their lot, appearing for all the world like they were just two people in a messy business, appearing too as if he was the one with the seniority and the experience.  ‘You want something to eat?’

  ‘Yes, please.’  As he answered, the train beside them appeared to start moving.  They both looked out of the window and it took a few moments for them to realize it was their train that was moving.  ‘When we wake up we’ll be in Italy,’ said Sacha, establishing the fact in his own mind.

  Nick emptied the bag of its bread and cheese and cold meats, pastries.  There was a bottle of water, a bottle of wine and a corkscrew.

  ‘There’s only water and wine. Do you want me to get you a coke or something from the attendant?’

  Sacha gave him a bemused smile in return and said, ‘I drink wine with food. May I see it, please.’

  Nick showed him the bottle of red wine and Sacha studied the label with what Nick hoped was an imitation of an expert eye, something he’d learned around his father.  Sacha nodded approvingly and Nick uncorked the wine.

  As they ate, Nick said, ‘Have you met your grandmother before?’  Sacha had food in his mouth and shook his head by way of an answer.  ‘Have you been to Italy?’

  Sacha looked unsure and finished what he was eating before saying, ‘Is Venice in Italy?’

  ‘Yeah, Venice is Italy.’

  ‘I’ve been to Venice. Have you?’

  ‘No, it’s my first time in Italy.’  And probably his last, he thought to himself.

  ‘Mama was from Italy. She died when I was born. She was very beautiful.’

  ‘I’m sure she was.’

  ‘Do you have a wife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She left me. Because of the bad things I did, she left me.’

  No sooner had the words emerged than he regretted saying it, laying something that heavy on a kid of his age.  But Sacha nodded understanding and Nick saw that here was a kid who could empathize with him completely, because in one way or another, everyone had left him in the end, his mother, his father, even his beloved English nanny.

  Shortly after they’d finished eating, the attendant made up the beds and Sacha turned in almost immediately, possibly excited by the thought of sleeping on a moving train, more likely exhausted by a day which had begun an age ago with the news of his father’s death.

  Nick left the connecting door slightly ajar, a reminder of the connecting door between Sacha’s and Valentin’s room back at the hotel, and he sat and drank the remainder of the wine.  The cloudy acid taste of it brought back unpleasant memories of the night before but he drank it all the same.

  He slept badly, the bed slightly too small for him.  And even though he’d locked the doors and told Sacha to wake him if he wanted to go to the toilet in the night, he woke jumpily more than once, nervous that his charge might have gone astray.

  As a result, he passed through Florence like a man sleepwalking and was happy for a return of Sacha’s customary silence on the air-conditioned train to Arezzo.  It was only as he helped Sacha jump down onto the platform there that he realized they’d traveled into a different kind of heat, fiercer and unrelenting.

  By the time they boarded the small train to Santa Emilia, Nick’s shirt was clinging to him.  Sacha seemed unconcerned by the heat, appearing as detached from his environment as he had a couple of nights before on Le Pont des Arts, as oblivious to its discomforts and dangers.

  The train to Santa Emilia wasn’t air-conditioned.  The windows were open and when it went fast enough they produced a breeze but that wasn’t very often.  Forty minutes later they disembarked at the small halt of Santa Emilia, abandoned by the train in heat and silence.

  ‘My grandmother lives here?’

  ‘Apparently so,’ said Nick and walked beyond the small locked station building, through the gate that led off the platform.  Sacha followed, their wheeled suitcases making enough noise to drown out the slowly disappearing train.

  On the other side of the station, the village was partially visible through the trees, perched up on a hill.  It looked like a good half mile walk, maybe more, and a steep ascent.  He looked at Sacha who was waiting patiently for Nick to tell him what would happen next.

  ‘Tell you what, your grandmother must have a car, so we’ll leave the cases by the side of the station building there and come back down for them.’

  Sacha looked around with some concern and said, ‘Is it safe? Someone might steal them.’

  Nick looked around himself.  There was no sign or sound of life anywhere, just uninterrupted countryside – beautiful, but showing the first signs of parching and with a stillness that was beginning to melt and shimmer at the edges.

  ‘I think we can take a risk. Besides, we have to walk up there.’  He pointed to the village.

  ‘I can take my rucksack?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Nick, knowing it contained his books, and finding it endearing somehow that Sacha was willing to lose everything except them.

  They put the cases out of view and started walking up the hill. Nick held both the letter from Legrand and the envelope with the lady’s name and address and when they stopped a couple of times on the ascent he fanned his face with them.  Sacha simply stood each time they stopped, his thumbs tucked into the straps of his rucksack, like a native guide who was used to the terrain and didn’t need the rest.

  The village was walled but there were a couple of large farmhouses outside of the walls and an elderly woman in black was sitting outside one of them reading a newspaper.  She offered some inaudible greeting and Nick stopped and showed her the envelope with the address.

  She pointed upwards, talking quickly and then when she realized they didn’t understand, she drew the village in the air with her fingers, gesturing to the top of it as she said, ‘Castello.’

  Nick nodded, taking the envelope back from her as he said, ‘Thanks, grazie.’

  They set off again, the last stretch toward the stone gate, and Nick said, ‘Lucky for you, Sacha, looks like you’re gonna live in a castle.’

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said.  Nick imagined that the thought of being in any one place the whole time was probably alien to Sacha. ‘Would you stay in one place all the time?’

  ‘I guess if it was the right place,’ he said, glancing down at him, wondering if the kid had any idea how pertinent his question had been.

  They walked up through the village, the houses of which were almost certainly only there to support the castle which filled the top of the hill.  Nick wondered if they were mainly vacation houses now because the place was deserted.  That would suit Sacha in a way, but he couldn’t help thinking it was the exact opposite of what he needed.

  They reached the main door of the castle and rang the bell.  The door was large and heavy but when it opened Nick got the sense of a light and modern interior.  A sense was all he got because the middle-aged woman who opened the door was careful to stand in the gap.

  Nick tried a smile and said, ‘Signora Alberti?’

  The woman looked questioningly, then noticed Sacha and seemed to do a double-take before saying, ‘A moment, please.’

  She closed the door and a short while later it opened again.  A woman in her fifties or early sixties emerged, blond and lightly tanned and expensively dressed, the kind of high-maintenance that had been carried off stylishly enough to look effortless.

  If it weren’t for the fact that she looked so unfriendly he’d have been tempted to think of her as attractive, but she looked about as unfriendly as it was possible to be without becoming physically aggressive.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Signora Alberti, my name is Nick, I’ve brought your grandson, together with a letter from his father’s lawyer.’  She didn’t look at Sacha but kept her eyes determinedly on Nick.  ‘Valentin, your late daughter’s husband, he died the day before yesterday.’

  He wanted to get the facts out there, to make sure there was nothing in the story she might take issue with, that he hadn’t been sent on a fool’s errand.  And her face was so unmoving that he’d begun to suspect just that when she finally spoke.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Nick. Nick Walker.’

  ‘Well, Mr Walker, I suppose I should thank you for your efforts, but I’m not entirely sure what you expect me to do?’

  ‘This is Sacha, your grandson…’

  ‘I have no grandson named Sacha.’  For the first time she looked down at him.  The sight of him induced just the briefest catch, the briefest hesitation, but then she spoke at the boy in rapid Italian.

  Sacha didn’t respond at first, then looked up at Nick, as if asking what was expected of him in this situation, thrown by a social difficulty for which his education hadn’t thus far prepared him.  Nick smiled some helpless encouragement and turned back to his grandmother.

  Her eyes fixed on Nick again as she said, ‘You see, this child doesn’t even speak Italian, not a word. He is not my grandson. It is too late for him ever to become my grandson.’

  ‘Lady, you gotta be kidding me. The boy just lost his father. You’re the only relative he has left in the world.’

  ‘I sympathize, I really do, but I cannot take strange children into my house. Good day to you, Mr Walker.’  Without looking at Sacha again, she shut the door.

  Nick stared at the door in disbelief for a few seconds, then turned and started walking away, conscious that Sacha was with him only in the light echo of his footsteps.

  ‘You wouldn’t have wanted to live there anyway, would you?’

  ‘Papa never liked her.’

  ‘Yeah, well your dad had good taste.’

  ‘Where will we go now?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Nick.  ‘I suppose I’ll call Alain and ask him. Don’t you have any relatives in Russia?’

  There was no immediate reply so Nick looked down at him and Sacha shrugged, then slipped his thumbs back into the straps of his rucksack.

  ‘Will I have to live in an orphanage?’

  ‘No! Jesus, no.’  But then, having been so emphatic, Nick realized he was in no position to predict what would happen with Sacha, and certainly in no position to look out for him, not when he was stealing every one of these minutes they were spending together.

  They passed back through the gate and then Nick heard footsteps approaching fast behind them.  He turned as the other woman from the castle came into view, the housekeeper possibly.

  She looked nervous, torn between looking behind her to see if she’d been seen leaving the castle and looking at Sacha who mesmerized her somehow.

She handed Nick a piece of paper and said, ‘Firenze, is the boy, his mother, sister.’

  ‘His aunt?’

  ‘Yes. Yes.’  She said something hurriedly to Sacha, touching him on the head before running back through the gate.

  They started walking again and Nick said, ‘How about that? You have an aunt in Florence.’

  ‘What if she doesn’t want me either?’

  Nick looked down at him, fearing the same, but smiling as he said, ‘Nobody has that much bad luck.’

  They retrieved their suitcases and sat on the bench on the platform.  It was in the full sun but there was nowhere else to sit.  Nick had checked on the return trains and reckoned they had about half an hour to wait.

  So they sat with only the sound of crickets and the pale stone platform dazzling in the sunlight and a heat so intense it seemed to go beyond heat, as if Nick could feel the atoms in his body melting and reforming.  He asked Sacha if he was hot but the boy was immune to it.

  Nick thought about what he’d do if the aunt didn’t want him, but then he thought about the even bigger question of what he’d do if she did take Sacha off his hands.  It was a decision he’d anticipated facing as he sat on this platform, but his hour of reckoning had been delayed.

  He wouldn’t kill himself, not now, and even shuddered at the thought of how close he’d come.  That left him with two options, to call Legrand and ask for his contacts or to turn himself in.  He almost hoped the aunt would prove as heartless as the grandmother so that he could postpone the decision further, but the kid deserved more than that.

  Sacha took a book from his rucksack and started to read and became immediately engrossed.  Nick looked at him, impressed by the qualities he’d found so alien to begin with, the resilience, the self-reliance.  He was no less impressed by Sacha’s innate ability to withstand the heat.

  The returning train sounded in the distance and Sacha carefully put his book back in his rucksack.  Nick looked to their right, searching for the first signs of the train.  There was nothing, just the rails snaking away, looking molten and buckled in the heat.  It was another ten minutes before the train emerged out of its own surreal mirage.

  Sacha stood and said, ‘If my aunt doesn’t want me, we’ll have to sleep on a train again.’

  ‘Maybe so. Did you like sleeping on a train?’

  Sacha thought about it and nodded.

  They took a taxi from Santa Maria Novella in Florence and within ten minutes they were outside the address they’d been given by the housekeeper.  At first glance Nick had taken it for a nice old townhouse in the Florentine style but nowhere near as prestigious as the grandmother’s castle.

  Having rung the bell though, he stepped back and looked again, reckoning it was more of a city palazzo than a townhouse.  It looked like Sacha’s mother had come from money too, even if the old lady had lost her class somewhere along the way.

  A woman answered, in her thirties, attractive, short dark hair.  She looked expectantly but not with hostility.  Nick could hear children laughing somewhere in the background.

  ‘Signora Ferrara?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m Nick Walker. I’ve just been to your mother’s house but she wasn’t… er, she wasn’t helpful. Valentin Andropov died two days ago and, er, Sacha…’

  She glanced down at Sacha and a single convulsive sob burst from her mouth.  Her face became immediately and completely suffused with love.  She sank down onto her haunches and reached out, touching Sacha’s cheek.  To Nick’s surprise he didn’t recoil but smiled politely back at her.

  Her eyes were glistening as she said, ‘You look just like your mother.’

  ‘Papa said Mama was very beautiful.’

  His aunt nodded and looked up at Nick.

  ‘He has nowhere else to go. I was meant to take him to your mother but…’  He tried to sum up the grandmother’s response without alienating the aunt. ‘I dunno, she seemed to object to the fact he couldn’t speak Italian.’

  She stood and said, ‘Please, my name is Carla, come inside. This will be Sacha’s home now.’

  She reached out and Sacha took her hand and followed her into the house, pulling his small wheeled case behind him.  Nick followed too, as shocked by Carla’s immediate and total acceptance as he had been by the grandmother’s bitter rejection.

  She led them through into a large kitchen where three children were busy making a mess with flour and dough under the direction of another woman of around Carla’s age, a nanny perhaps.  There was a girl who looked around the same age as Sacha, a boy and girl a few years older.

  They all stopped and looked at the new arrivals and Carla explained to them in Italian, her voice broken by joyful sobs, her hand resting on Sacha’s head.  Nick understood the final sentence to be a comment about speaking English and the boy, quite unprompted, said, ‘Would you like to help us, Sacha?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Great,’ said the nanny.  ‘Let’s wash your hands and get you an apron.’  Now that she spoke English, Nick realized she was Australian, though her Italian had sounded perfect to him.

  Carla led Sacha over and introduced him to his cousins and Nick could see him instantly loosening up and relaxing, responding to their smiles.  It was as if he’d been waiting his entire short life to find himself in this kitchen, part of this family.

  And Nick found tears welling in his own eyes as he stood watching the domestic scene unfold in front of him, because it reminded him of everything he’d lost, of the future that should have been his with Sarah.  He fought them back, angry with himself and eager to avoid unwarranted sympathy.

  ‘Carla, I need to make a phone call.’

  ‘Of course, please, follow me.’

  She showed him into a study and was about to leave again, but he asked her to stay.  He called Legrand, not to ask for his contacts who could help him disappear, but to inform him of what had happened.  He put Carla on to speak with him then, and when she concluded the call, he asked her to call a cab.

  ‘Can’t we persuade you to stay for dinner at least?’

  He shook his head and said, ‘I have to go to the US Consulate. I’m a wanted man, back in America.’  A flicker of concern crossed her face and he added quickly, ‘I’m a white-collar criminal, nothing dangerous, just a man who let greed get in the way – securities fraud, insider trading, the whole company went down.’

  She nodded and said, ‘I think I’ve read about it.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s been in the news.’

  ‘But I don’t understand, how come you and Sacha…’

  ‘His dad asked me in a roundabout way, and the kid had no one else.’

  She smiled.  ‘He was very lucky to have you. You’ve done such a good thing, we can never repay you, but if it will help I’ll write to the American Ambassador to tell him.’

  ‘Thanks, but they’ll send me to jail anyway, and I deserve to go.’

  She was right though, he’d done a good thing, maybe for the first time in six years, and that would be something at least to take into the darkness.

  Carla and Sacha came to the door to see him off when his cab arrived.  Carla kissed him on both cheeks.  Sacha thanked him and held out his hand.  Nick shook it and risked a pat on the shoulder.  The kid still didn’t look inclined for any more of an emotional parting than that, which was hardly surprising, he supposed, for someone he’d known only a few days.

  ‘Are you going to prison?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Nick. ‘Would you like me to write to you?’

  ‘Yes, please. Can I write back?’

  ‘Yeah, you can tell me what’s happening. But hey, I’ll understand if you don’t have the time.’

  Sacha looked at him quizzically and said, ‘I’ll write – that’s a promise.’

  Nick nodded and got into the cab.  Sacha raised his hand in a static wave, just like he’d done that day by the elevator.  Nick waved back as the cab pulled away, and when he looked back at the end of the street, they’d gone.

  In that moment, he decided he would write another letter, the one he’d thought it would be impossible to write.  He would tell her the things he should have told her before, that he was sorry, that he did not expect or deserve forgiveness, that he hoped she could find another happiness.  And maybe, if she replied, he would write to her one day of how a child had saved his life.