The Nameless Ones by John Connolly

Chapter LVIII

Zorya sat in an armchair in the Vuksans’ safe house, eating Spanish strawberries from a china bowl. The berries were staining the tips of her fingers red, but Radovan could still see a deeper scarlet lodged beneath her fingernails. A sluggish dawn was forcing its way through the gaps in the shutters on the windows only to expire amid the shadows of the room. The house smelled of coffee and greasy food. Radovan was growing sick of it. He wanted to be done with all this skulking. On the other hand, he did not wish to die.

Beside Zorya, Zivco Ilić was drinking a glass of milk. He had declined anything stronger. Radovan thought that Ilić looked unsettled, as though he had recently received some bad news, although it might have been a consequence of what had been done to the Dutchman. Ilić and Zorya had not been confident of abducting him and so had been forced to interrogate him in his hotel room. Once Frend had informed them of Hendricksen’s presence in the city, Ilić had gone to the streets to obtain a master key card for the hotel, a variation on the type given to maids and concierge staff. Such key cards were in wide circulation, cloned from stolen or expired versions, if one knew the right people to ask – and Zivco Ilić did.

Unavoidably, he and Zorya would have been caught on camera while entering and leaving the hotel – they had circumvented the elevators, at least – but Zorya had changed her clothes for the visit, and Ilić’s buzzcut had been disguised by the simple addition of a hat, a cheap wig, and thick-framed glasses, as well as a stone in his left shoe to alter his gait. It was very possible that the Austrian police might connect the girl at the hotel with the one spotted at the Schönbrunn Palace on the day the Turk Nahid Hasanović was killed, but Vienna was not lacking in teenage girls. Anyway, Zorya was not one of them, not really. Wrap her in the right clothing and she might even have resembled some baba from the old country, smelling of cheap cigarettes and empty churches.

Now Radovan and his brother waited while Zorya ate and Ilić brooded. Inflicting pain, Radovan had decided, gave Zorya an appetite. She finished the final strawberry and licked her fingers before her tongue progressed to the human matter beneath her nails. It probably tasted salty after the fruit.

‘The man hunting us is definitely Louis,’ said Zorya, when she was done, ‘the same one who killed Andrej Buha in Amsterdam. It’s what he does, or used to do: killing for a living. He is a faggot –’ she used the Serbian slur peškir – ‘and has a furundžija, Angel, who travels with him.’

Spiridon shook his head sadly.

‘This is what we are reduced to,’ he said, ‘being hunted by a gejša.’

He waited for a laugh from Ilić, but none came.

‘A gejša,’ noted Radovan, ‘who has so far killed three of our men.’

‘Two,’ corrected Spiridon.

‘Three. Luca Bilbija has just joined Andrej and Alexsej in the next world.’

Even Zivco Ilić now gave Radovan his full attention.

‘When?’ said Spiridon.

‘Last night, outside a casino in Zbraslav. He was blown apart by a drone packed with explosives.’

‘And you’re only telling me this now?’ said Spiridon.

‘I’ve just learned of it myself, from the Novákovi.’

‘Why the delay in informing us?’

‘I suspect,’ said Radovan, ‘that the Novákovi were deciding how best to deal with the fallout. They have not taken sides between Belgrade and ourselves, and prefer to operate their casinos as neutral territory. Having clients obliterated on their grounds is bad for business.’

‘And we are sure this man Louis is responsible?’ said Ilić. He looked even more ill than before, for which Radovan could not blame him. Apart from the Vuksans, Ilić was now the last of those who had been present for the killing of De Jaager and the women in Amsterdam. Unless the threat to them was dealt with quickly, Ilić would soon be keeping his deceased comrades company in whatever corner of hell they currently occupied.

‘No,’ said Radovan, ‘we don’t know for certain that this is his handiwork, but logic suggests it. Belgrade would not risk offending the Novákovi by carrying out a hit on one of their properties, and killing with a drone is not the Turks’ style. They prefer to cut throats.’

Spiridon might have been listening to his brother, but his attention was fixed on Zorya.

‘Aleksej and Luca were careless,’ said Spiridon. ‘We have been cautious.’

He seemed to be waiting for Zorya to confirm his thesis, but she did not. Instead she reached out her left hand to Ilić, and he responded by taking it in his right. Radovan saw his brother frown. Spiridon regarded Zorya as his personal property, even if Radovan doubted that Zorya saw their relationship in quite the same light. Radovan wondered if she and Ilić might not be sleeping with each other. The thought disturbed him, although whether because of how she looked at that moment – very young – or what she was – very old – he could not have said.

‘Not so cautious,’ said Radovan, ‘as to have kept Gavrilo and his wife from harm.’

‘That’s a different issue,’ said Spiridon.

‘Perhaps, but whoever killed Gavrilo and his woman is now on the way to Vienna, or may already be in the city. Now Louis is closing in on us. We can’t just sit here waiting for him or the Turks to track us down.’

‘Which of them concerns you more?’ said Spiridon.

‘Louis. We might still be able to reason with the Turks, even at this late stage, but we cannot reason with him.’

‘Perhaps we could find him before he finds us?’ said Ilić.

‘We no longer have those resources,’ said Radovan.

‘What, then?’ said Spiridon.

But it was Zorya who answered. She had learned information from Hendricksen to which even Zivco Ilić was not privy, knowledge whispered to her as she explored the concavities of the Dutchman’s body with her sharp nails. She knew of Parker, the private detective in Maine, friend and confidant of Louis – and, more to the point, father to a dead girl named Jennifer. There might be a way to strike at Jennifer through Parker, hurting one by hurting the other, just as long as Zorya could keep her distance from the specter of the girl.

‘You could divert the hunter’s attention,’ she said.

‘How?’ said Radovan.

‘By killing one of his friends.’