Stolen Souls (33 page)
Authors: Stuart Neville
A gunshot cracked through the cold air, and something slammed Strazdas’s leg from beneath him. He howled as he fell back and rolled down the slope toward the still idling taxi. The icy tarmac of the hard shoulder scraped at his hands and knees before he came to rest by the taxi’s rear wheel. He tried to squirm his way underneath the vehicle, but a hand grabbed his ankle and hauled him back.
Hewitt stood over Strazdas, the pistol staring at the point between the prone man’s eyes.
“I won’t send any letter,” Strazdas said. “It was only talk. I won’t, I swear on my mother’s life.”
“Too late for that,” Hewitt said.
Strazdas screamed.
Two hammer blows to his chest, and he could no longer beg, could no longer scream, only watch as Hewitt stepped closer and leaned in. He felt the heat of the muzzle against his forehead, smelled the cordite, and cursed his mother to hell.
S
USAN WAITED BY
Lennon’s bedside when he woke, Ellen in her lap.
“Welcome back,” she said.
“Where am I?” he asked.
“The Royal,” she said. “They moved you here from Antrim hospital two days ago.”
“I don’t remember,” he said, his voice cutting through his throat like sandpaper.
“I’m not surprised,” she said. “They had you doped up to the eyeballs.”
“Were you there?”
“Yes,” she said. “I held your hand in the ambulance. I’ve been with you every day.”
“How long?”
Susan smiled. “Well, I wished myself a Happy New Year last night.”
“Thank you,” Lennon said.
She nodded.
Lennon looked at his daughter. He forced a smile for her. “Hiya,” he said.
She kept her expression blank. “Hiya.”
“You been a good girl?” he asked.
She smiled then, and said, “Mm-hm.”
He reached his right hand out toward her. She gripped two of his fingers in hers. He went to say something, he was sure it was important, but sleep outran his words.
* * *
T
WO DAYS LATER
, CI Uprichard sat by Lennon’s bed.
“The standard of visitors is going downhill very badly,” Lennon said.
“It’s going to get worse,” Uprichard said. “You get yourself into some messes.”
“How bad?” Lennon asked.
“Don’t worry too much about it now,” Uprichard said. “Just concentrate on getting better. That’s the best you can do at the moment.”
“How bad?” Lennon asked again.
Uprichard sighed. “Pretty bad. The way things look right now, I can’t see a way out for you. Helping that girl flee the jurisdiction was probably enough to end your days as a police officer, but with young Connolly’s death, even if it was selfdefense … Well, you better have a hell of a case to present to the inquiry.”
“Has anyone looked into Connolly?” Lennon asked. “Why was he there?”
“His wife gave a statement,” Uprichard said. “And we got access to his bank accounts. They were in debt up to their eyeballs. Loans, credit cards, three months behind on their rent. Then two big deposits from an offshore account, one of them sent on Christmas Eve that didn’t clear until after the holiday. His wife said they were close to being put out of their house, and then he told her he’d found a way to make the cash for a deposit on a place of their own. It looks like someone was paying him good money to go after you.”
“It was Dan Hewitt,” Lennon said.
Uprichard stood up. “I didn’t hear you say that.”
“It was Hewitt. He was working for Strazdas. He put Connolly up to it.”
“Proof, Jack,” Uprichard said, waving a finger in Lennon’s direction. “Evidence. Unless you’ve got plenty of it, don’t you dare blacken a good officer’s name.”
“It was him,” Lennon said. “I’m going to get him. I’m going to bring him down.”
“Enough!” Uprichard’s face reddened. “Enough of that. I won’t listen to it.”
He put his head down and bulled his way to the door. He paused, his shoulders rising and falling with his anger. Eventually, he allowed Lennon a backward glance.
“I almost forgot,” he said. “I have something for you.”
Uprichard returned to the bed without looking Lennon in the eye. He dropped an envelope onto the sheets. Lennon picked it up, turned it in his hands. It was addressed to “Police Man Jack Lennon, Ladas Drive Police Station, Belfast, Northern Ireland.” The postmark said “Kyyiv.”
“I looked it up,” Uprichard said. “It’s Kiev. It came this morning. I thought you might want to see it.”
“Yes,” Lennon said. “Thank you.”
Uprichard shuffled his feet. “Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. Get well, Jack. You’ll need to be fit as you can to get out of this hole you’ve dug for yourself.”
When he was alone, Lennon examined the envelope, studied the neat, girlish handwriting. He went to open it, but found his eyes too heavy to hold, too dry. He looked up at the clock opposite his bed.
Right on cue, a nurse entered the room ready to release a dose of painkiller into the IV drip that hooked into his hand. Once she did, he would fall into a fathomless dark sleep.
“What have you got there?” she asked.
“A letter from a friend,” he said.
“Do you want to read it before I hit you up and you go bye-bye?”
He placed the letter on the bedside locker.
“For later,” he said.
Dear Jack Lennon,
I write this letter in a city south of my old home in Andriivka, near to Sumy. I will not write the name. Now this city is my home, and the home of my brother Maksim.
I hope that you are alive. I pray to God that you are alive. I think you are not, but I will write this letter anyway.
For to come home was five days. The train goes from Kraków to Warsaw. It goes from Warsaw to Kyyiv, and then another goes to Sumy. I sleep on the train. I have dreams about the man who took me in his house. I think I will always have dreams about him, but they will get better.
When I come home Maksim is happy. He was afraid for me, and now he is not. I do not tell him what happens in Belfast. I tell him I could find no job. I tell him I had a car accident.
I tell the man who lends money he can take Mama’s farm. We leave there a nd come to this city on a bus. Today, I have a job in a café. I will have only small money, but I will pay for a room for us. Soon Maksim will have a job also, and he will go to school to learn English like me.
We will be safe. I will be safe.
Some time when I sleep I dream about you and Susan. I hope you are alive so you will make her happy and she will make you happy. Be kind with her and your small girls. You will be happy.
Thank you.
Galya Petrova.
Many thanks to all who have helped bring this book into existence:
As ever, my deepest gratitude goes to Nat Sobel, Judith Weber and all at Sobel Weber Associates for their support, guidance and friendship. I couldn’t navigate these waters without you.
Caspian Dennis and all at the Abner Stein agency for everything they do for me.
Geoff Mulligan, Briony Everroad, Alison Hennessy, Kate Bland, Ruth Warburton, Vicki Watson and all at Harvill Secker and Vintage Books for their kindness and support.
Bronwen Hruska, Juliet Grames, Justin Hargett, Ailen Lujo and all at Soho Press for treating me so well and showing just what a passionate publisher can achieve.
Betsy Dornbusch for still being my friend even when I sometimes don’t show that I appreciate it, and to Carlin, Alex and Gracie for helping me explore San Francisco.
My Soho Press touring buddies James Benn, Henry Chang and Jassy Mackenzie for making the road a much less lonely place.
David Torrans and all at No Alibis for keeping on keeping on.
All the indie bookstores across America who have made me welcome both in print and in person.
The online community of readers and writers who continue to fly the flag.
Hilary Knight for her friendship and hard work.
Sidney McKnight for letting me in on the secret of the buttermilk shandy. But no, I won’t be trying one.
James and Louise Morrow for being there when it mattered.
My mother, and the rest of the clan, for just about everything.
Jim, Sally and all the Atkinson family for letting me steal their daughter.
And my beautiful wife Jo for making me happier than I ever deserved to be.
Finally, the book
Selling Olga
by Louisa Waugh (Phoenix) helped me enormously in researching for this novel.