36

Skender stepped through the sixteenth-floor fire exit and went to the floor below his penthouse suite. One of his guards remained at the door while the other followed him along the curving corridor and stopped by the elevator. Skender continued on to the end of the corridor where there was a small kitchen with a janitor’s closet opposite. A key was in the lock. He turned it and opened the door.

Sitting on the floor in the dark, his legs and hands tied with cloth in front of him, was Josh. The boy blinked rapidly against the sudden light in an effort to focus on Skender. He had long since stopped crying even though he’d been in the cupboard since the early hours of that morning when the horrible man with the eyepatch had released him from a sack. He’d been inside that since he’d been put into the back of a car after other men had taken him from the protection centre. The eyepatch man had checked on him a couple of times and given him water and some biscuits that were still in front of him, untouched.

Josh did not know this new stranger who now looked down on him. He waited nervously for whatever was going to happen next. He knew that he was in a dangerous situation but beyond that it was all a mystery. He wanted to be back with George and Vicky and, of course, most of all, he wanted Stratton, the only link he had left with his life in England. He had hated leaving his homeland from the moment he’d boarded the plane with his mother. All that now seemed a long, long time ago.

‘How you doing?’ Skender asked in a low, calm voice as he squatted to untie Josh’s bonds. ‘You okay?’ he asked.

Josh nodded. He was frightened, mostly by the man’s strange gravelly voice. But this one did not look as angry and hateful as the eyepatch man even though there was still something scary about him.

‘Get up,’ Skender said after removing the ties.

Josh obeyed and stood stiffly, looking at him.

‘You want some juice?’ Skender asked.

Josh shook his head.

‘Something to eat?’

Josh shook his head again.

‘You scared?’

Josh wanted to say yes. But he had been brought up in the company of men who did not reveal such emotions so he shook his head.

‘That’s good,’ Skender said. Then he noticed that the boy’s trousers had a large pee stain around the crotch. ‘You wanna go to the toilet?’

Josh looked down at the stain, then back up at Skender. He clenched his jaw, embarrassed but also angry. He had not peed himself out of fear but simply because no one had thought of taking him to a toilet and he had been too embarrassed and shy to ask. Josh shook his head again.

‘How old are you?’ Skender asked.

‘Six,’ Josh said after clearing his throat.

Skender remembered his own sixth year. The images of his slaughtered village and the screams of his family being gunned down were still quite vivid. They’d replayed in his mind often throughout his life, usually without any warning or prompting, scars as indelible as the one across his throat.

‘Let’s get outta the closet, shall we?’ Skender said.

Josh stepped out of the cupboard and joined Skender in the corridor.

‘That yours?’ Skender asked, pointing to the floor of the janitor’s room.

Josh saw the little camel that had fallen out of his pocket. He quickly picked it up and held it carefully.

‘Where’d you get that?’ Skender asked, seeing that it meant a lot to the boy.

‘It’s from Iraq. My dad gave it to me. He was a special forces soldier,’ Josh said.

‘Oh? Where’s your dad now?’ Skender asked, suddenly wondering if it could be Stratton.

‘He’s dead,’ Josh said.

Skender had given the boy hardly a second’s thought before this moment but now he recognised some of the parallels between them. ‘Tough losing your parents, eh?’

Skender heard his own words although he had never felt sorry for himself or disadvantaged by growing up without a family. It was only in his later life that he had begun to wonder what they had been like. He had never been particularly close to them – except his mother, a little perhaps – and he had no glowing memories of a classic father-and-son relationship. As he grew older he better understood the difficult circumstances of his youth and the pressures his father must have been under, the constant fighting and periods of cold and hunger. It did nothing to stimulate his total lack of emotion, however. He’d had no experience of love of any kind from a motherly figure or girlfriend and any spark of happiness or contentment he felt was for material things or accomplishments in business. The first man he’d killed had been when he was eighteen – for sitting on the bonnet of his new car. The second, a couple of months later, had been for something so trivial that Skender could no longer remember why. His reputation for brutality had come effortlessly but he never saw himself as others did. His rule of life, as he saw it, was a simple one. Work hard for your gains, any way you can, don’t take what is not rightfully yours, severely punish those who take from you and honour your clan beyond everything else.

‘I lost my mother and father when I was the same age as you,’ Skender said.

Josh looked up at him, unable to imagine this man ever having parents.

‘The people who killed them also slit my throat,’ he said, leaning forward and pulling open his shirt to show Josh his neck.

The boy gaped at the scar, fascinated by it. ‘Did it hurt?’

‘Not at the time – I guess I was too scared. They threw me in a river right after to drown me.’

‘Wow!’ Josh exclaimed. ‘How’d you get away?’

‘I nearly didn’t. The river was cold and flowing fast but somehow I managed to crawl onto a rock and pull myself onto the river bank.’

‘Did you get your own back on them?’ Josh said, staring at him in awe.

‘Of course,’ Skender said. ‘It took me twenty years to find them, though. They were communists. You know what communists are?’

Josh shook his head.

‘Communists used to be the old bad guys. My father fought against them when they tried to take over my country. How long was your father a soldier?’

‘Don’t know.’ Josh shrugged. ‘A long time.’

‘Well, he probably fought against the communists when he was young. They wanted to take over everyone’s country.’

‘My father and your father were on the same side?’ Josh asked.

‘Kind of. My father fought for the king of my country.’

‘A king?’

‘Yeah. King Zog.’

‘Zog?’ Josh repeated, finding it a strange and amusing name.

‘Zog fought against the communists alongside my father. Anyway, the guy who led the communists who killed my father moved to Paris in France when they lost the war.’

‘I know where Paris is. I’ve been there with my dad.’

‘Did you like it?’

‘It was okay, I suppose. We went to Disneyland.’

‘I’ve never been to Disneyland,’ Skender said. ‘Well, I found this guy in Paris and I killed him.’

‘How’d you kill him?’

‘I slit his throat, of course,’ Skender said, thinking about that day. Skender had also killed the man’s wife and three children in the same manner and left them in their Paris apartment.

Josh tried to imagine Skender drawing a knife across a man’s throat. Stratton had never been so graphic with his stories. ‘Do you know Stratton?’ Josh asked. ‘He’s killed loads of people all over the world.’

Skender looked at him. ‘Yeah. I know Stratton.’

‘Do you know where he is?’ Josh asked, a note of hope in his voice.

‘I believe he’s on his way here to get you.’

‘He is?’ Josh exclaimed excitedly.

‘I’m just guessing, really,’ Skender said, wondering what Stratton was planning and for the first time feeling a touch of unease. The man was no doubt a planner of some experience, judging by his hits on Leka and Ardian and if one was to read anything into the boy’s description of him. Perhaps there was something to be concerned about.

Skender’s private cellphone rang in his pocket and he took it out, hit a button and put it to his ear. ‘Yeah?’

‘This is Stratton.’

Skender glanced down at Josh who was inspecting his camel. He walked into the kitchen to look out of the window. ‘What a coincidence. I was just talking about you,’ he said, surveying his square that was now empty. He noticed some police activity at the corners.

‘This is your last chance.’

‘That right?’ Skender said, watching several cop cars arrive and park across the ends of the side streets, the officers climbing out to direct people away from the square. ‘You know how many times I’ve been told that in my life?’

‘You’ve never heard it from me before.’

Skender looked away from the window, trying to remember what Stratton looked like, the image of him at the foot of the stairs in the courthouse not entirely clear. ‘I see you have the police all stirred up. What do you have in mind?’

‘You do not want to find out the hard way, I promise you. Where’s the boy?’

‘You think I’m going to negotiate with you because of threats?’

‘I’ll bring your empire down around your ears if you ignore me.’

‘This isn’t about the boy, not for me. If I start allowing myself to be dictated to by any individual who takes a dislike to me where will I end up? What will my people think of me? What will happen to my own self-esteem? I’m sure you understand. Now why don’t you run along and do whatever it is you feel you need to do to express your anger. Seems to me your fight is against everyone.’

‘Skender, listen to me!’ Stratton shouted, his desperation coming through. ‘I don’t want to do this but I will if you force me. Once I start this there’ll be no turning back. I’ll kill you, Skender. Today you will die, believe me – unless you give me back Josh. Then I’ll give you your life.’

‘Stirring stuff. Now get lost,’ Skender said before disconnecting. He looked back out of the window at the increasing build-up of cop cars, a couple of fire trucks and what looked like some military personnel in a camouflaged Hummer. He accepted, based on what Hobart had said, that Stratton’s threat was not entirely empty and that he had planted some kind of explosive device in the building. Perhaps Stratton was trying to flush him out of the penthouse and down to where the device was. Whatever, Skender felt comfortable at the top of his building and would remain there until this little incident was sorted out.

He stepped out of the kitchen, put a hand on Josh’s shoulder and guided him along the corridor. ‘Let’s go upstairs and see what we’ve got to eat. You could eat something now, right?’

Josh nodded.

Skender walked to the fire exit where his two guards were waiting and they all headed up the stairs. Josh and Skender went into the penthouse while the guards remained in the stairwell.