11

Lamia threw the wheel over at the last possible moment before striking the fragile fence surrounding the open mine-shaft. The Peugeot almost coped with the unexpected centrifugal strain, but then it struck a hidden rock with one of its back wheels and flipped over onto its side. It continued on, ploughing through some seedlings, and ended up canted against a fir tree at the edge of the surrounding forest.

Aldinach saw the mine shaft at the last possible moment and attempted a handbrake turn. The rental Ford spun around twice, smashed through the wood palings, and came to rest with its tail partially down the mine shaft, and with its two front wheels caught up in the barbed wire that had interleaved the fence stakes.

Sabir was two hundred metres behind the other cars at this stage, and he had ample time to measure his braking. He pulled up beside Lamia’s Peugeot while the car was still settling.

He ran towards Lamia’s car, followed closely by the others. Grabbing what remained of one of the seedlings, he began smashing in the Peugeot’s back window. Alexi wrapped his jacket around both his hands and pulled the glass bodily out of its frame. Then he ducked in through the smashed window and began wriggling across the seats towards Yola.

Sabir ran around to the front of the car. He could see someone trying to open the sunshine roof from the inside.

‘Come on, Calque. Help me. Someone is trying to get out. Radu. You go and grab Alexi’s legs. I can smell petrol. We’ve got to get both women out of this car before it goes up.’

A hand emerged from the sunshine roof. Sabir manoeuvred his own hand inside and began to turn the handle. Soon, Lamia’s bloodied face emerged from the gap. ‘Okay. Hold on. I think we can get you through.’

Calque took one of her arms and Sabir the other. Together they manhandled her slender frame through the half-opened sunshine roof.

‘All right. We’ve got you. Alexi? How are you and Radu doing with Yola?’

‘She’s fine. She’s fine. She’s talking to me. We get her out in a minute.’

Lamia got shakily to her feet. She was leaning against Sabir. There was blood all the way down the front of her dress from a gash in her skull. But when Sabir looked closely at it, he saw that, although bleeding copiously, it was only surface deep.

‘You were saving her, weren’t you? I knew you wouldn’t harm her. It would have been impossible. Not after what we said to each other.’

Lamia looked up at him. Then her expression changed. Sabir twisted in the direction of her gaze.

Aldinach was running towards them. His hair was flowing free. He looked like a Mohican brave from one of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales. A scalpel flashed in his hand. Sabir turned to face him. Both Alexi and Radu were still busy inside the car with Yola. Sabir reached down and picked up the sapling branch he had used to break through the Peugeot’s back window and brought it to bear.

Aldinach was heading straight for him. He skipped over the mud and the scattered objects between them like a dancer.

A figure ran past Sabir’s left shoulder. It was Lamia. She headed straight for Aldinach, her arms held wide.

Aldinach scarcely hesitated. One hand flashed out and the scalpel entered and exited Lamia’s breast like a rapier. She did not even fall, but stood there, her arms cradling her chest, while Aldinach continued on towards Sabir.

A violent rage overcame Sabir – a rage unlike any he had ever known in his life. He, too, ran at Aldinach, so that the two men were sprinting towards each other like rival stags. At the very last moment Sabir raised the sapling branch and sliced it in arc ahead of him. The head of the sapling took Aldinach on the side of the neck, just as he was launching himself, scalpel to the fore, at Sabir. He stumbled and fell to one knee, the scalpel tinging off a rock. He made a lunge for the knife, but Sabir caught him a second blow on the side of the head.

Then Sabir lost all reason. He beat Aldinach again and again with the branch, cursing at him all the while. When he was done, he threw the branch to one side and stumbled over to where Lamia was standing. As he approached she drifted slowly to her knees. It was an elegant movement, almost as if she were curtseying, and only at the very last moment had she decided to kneel.

Her head hung forwards. It nodded once or twice, and then, just as Sabir reached her, she pitched forwards onto her face.

He knelt beside her and swept her up into his arms. She was still alive, but her eyelids were already fluttering.

‘I love you. I love you.’ Sabir was weeping. His face was grimed with mud and with the blood from the cut in Lamia’s scalp.

Her lips moved once but no word came out of them. Then she died. Sabir could feel the life leaving her body like the final fluttering of a curtain in the wind before it once again falls still.

He looked up. Athame was standing a few feet away from him. She was looking at Lamia. Her face seemed sad. She held no weapon.

She took a step towards Sabir and held out one hand.

Something flashed past Sabir’s head. He turned quickly to one side to see what it was, but he was far too slow. When he turned back, Athame was clutching at the haft of Alexi’s throwing knife, which was protruding from her neck. As he watched, blood gushed out either side of the blade and over Athame’s hands. She was so small that she didn’t have far to fall.

Sabir looked down at Lamia’s face. It was partially turned away from him, so that the damaged side was hidden. He bent down and kissed her mouth, and then the skin around her eyes. Then he lay down beside her and drew her to him, just as he had done in the motel at Ticul.

The two of them lay there, in the clearing, one dead, the other oblivious.

A little later, when Calque attempted, with the greatest gentleness, to prise them both apart, he found it impossible.