gap’s plenty big enough. I did it last night. How do you get to the ERV?’
His eyes lit up. ‘Along the treeline, into the back-streets, up to the railway track. The ERV is the recycling shelter …’
This was good. I needed him to do it instinctively. I needed it to happen before he had a chance to think himself out of it.
‘Where in the recycling shelter?’
‘Behind the bottle bank. I don’t come out for anyone except you.’
‘All sorts of people will be dumping stuff there. How will you know it’s me?’
‘You’ll knock three times, then three more, then say the code word.’
‘What’s the code word?’
His face fell. He looked like I’d just marked him down on his homework.
I grinned and put my hand on his shoulder. ‘We haven’t agreed a code word. It needs to be something only you and I know.’
He gave it some serious thought.
But I didn’t have all day. ‘I tell you what: who’s the main guy in
Crime and Punishment
? You know, the student in the shit?’
‘Raskolnikov.’
‘Let’s use him, yeah?’
He nodded slowly. ‘What does ERV mean, Nick?’
‘Emergency rendezvous, mate. It’s a safe place where you and I meet that nobody else knows about.’
He was putting a brave face on it, but I could see he wasn’t convinced. He gripped my arm. ‘Why can’t I come with you?’
I eased his hand away. ‘It’s a pain in the arse, but where I’m going there are no kids allowed.’ It was the first excuse that sprang into my mind: my stepdad’s stand-by when he was going down the local.
His lip quivered. ‘How long will you be?’ He was being as brave as his dad would have expected, but I knew a part of him just wanted to curl up and hope all this was going to go away.
‘I’ll try to be back soon. Way before last light. But if I’m not, don’t worry.’
I handed him a bag of stuff I’d picked up from a nearby Spar before he woke: water, Orangina, a croissant, a ham and cheese baguette.
I pointed at the room key and told him to double-lock the door when I’d gone, flip on the bar, and not to open it to anyone except me.
‘Same three knocks, then three more, then Raskolnikov?’
‘Spot on.’
I hung the
Do Not Disturb
sign on the outside handle. Then I plucked three hairs from the back of my head, gobbed on my fingertips and pasted them at intervals across the gap between the leading edge of the door and the frame. If they’d been disturbed by the time I got back, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that someone had lifted Stefan, but it would tell me that the thing had been opened and I needed to sort my shit out before going inside.
My first stop was a pharmacy, where I found a rack of black-plastic-framed glasses with +1 magnification. They’d give me a headache if I wore them too long, but I didn’t plan to. My next was a clothes store, to buy the sort of jacket people wear when they’re paying their bank manager a visit. I saw a matching blue beret on my way to the till, but I wasn’t aiming to turn myself into a cartoon Frenchman, just to cover up my head wound. I selected a blue baseball cap instead. Not the one with the
Top Gun
logo on the front: it wasn’t going to be that kind of party.
I picked up a Moleskine pocket-size notepad with an elastic fastener from a nearby stationery store. Writing anything down when you’re on a task can really fuck things up, but I still didn’t trust myself to hang on to detail that might help me sort things out. And if it was good enough for Hemingway, it was good enough for me.
The shiniest bits of Albertville had probably been thrown up a couple of decades ago, when it hosted the Winter Olympics. Until I reached the town centre, I got the impression that it had been chucked together from a random collection of trading estates.
The Banque Privée belonged to a more elegant world, and clearly had some history. I walked past it on the other side of the street, then ran through the usual anti-pursuit routines before
His eyes lit up. ‘Along the treeline, into the back-streets, up to the railway track. The ERV is the recycling shelter …’
This was good. I needed him to do it instinctively. I needed it to happen before he had a chance to think himself out of it.
‘Where in the recycling shelter?’
‘Behind the bottle bank. I don’t come out for anyone except you.’
‘All sorts of people will be dumping stuff there. How will you know it’s me?’
‘You’ll knock three times, then three more, then say the code word.’
‘What’s the code word?’
His face fell. He looked like I’d just marked him down on his homework.
I grinned and put my hand on his shoulder. ‘We haven’t agreed a code word. It needs to be something only you and I know.’
He gave it some serious thought.
But I didn’t have all day. ‘I tell you what: who’s the main guy in
Crime and Punishment
? You know, the student in the shit?’
‘Raskolnikov.’
‘Let’s use him, yeah?’
He nodded slowly. ‘What does ERV mean, Nick?’
‘Emergency rendezvous, mate. It’s a safe place where you and I meet that nobody else knows about.’
He was putting a brave face on it, but I could see he wasn’t convinced. He gripped my arm. ‘Why can’t I come with you?’
I eased his hand away. ‘It’s a pain in the arse, but where I’m going there are no kids allowed.’ It was the first excuse that sprang into my mind: my stepdad’s stand-by when he was going down the local.
His lip quivered. ‘How long will you be?’ He was being as brave as his dad would have expected, but I knew a part of him just wanted to curl up and hope all this was going to go away.
‘I’ll try to be back soon. Way before last light. But if I’m not, don’t worry.’
I handed him a bag of stuff I’d picked up from a nearby Spar before he woke: water, Orangina, a croissant, a ham and cheese baguette.
I pointed at the room key and told him to double-lock the door when I’d gone, flip on the bar, and not to open it to anyone except me.
‘Same three knocks, then three more, then Raskolnikov?’
‘Spot on.’
I hung the
Do Not Disturb
sign on the outside handle. Then I plucked three hairs from the back of my head, gobbed on my fingertips and pasted them at intervals across the gap between the leading edge of the door and the frame. If they’d been disturbed by the time I got back, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that someone had lifted Stefan, but it would tell me that the thing had been opened and I needed to sort my shit out before going inside.
My first stop was a pharmacy, where I found a rack of black-plastic-framed glasses with +1 magnification. They’d give me a headache if I wore them too long, but I didn’t plan to. My next was a clothes store, to buy the sort of jacket people wear when they’re paying their bank manager a visit. I saw a matching blue beret on my way to the till, but I wasn’t aiming to turn myself into a cartoon Frenchman, just to cover up my head wound. I selected a blue baseball cap instead. Not the one with the
Top Gun
logo on the front: it wasn’t going to be that kind of party.
I picked up a Moleskine pocket-size notepad with an elastic fastener from a nearby stationery store. Writing anything down when you’re on a task can really fuck things up, but I still didn’t trust myself to hang on to detail that might help me sort things out. And if it was good enough for Hemingway, it was good enough for me.
The shiniest bits of Albertville had probably been thrown up a couple of decades ago, when it hosted the Winter Olympics. Until I reached the town centre, I got the impression that it had been chucked together from a random collection of trading estates.
The Banque Privée belonged to a more elegant world, and clearly had some history. I walked past it on the other side of the street, then ran through the usual anti-pursuit routines before
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