Thankfully I still have my own ID to get on the plane. I’d felt a moment of panic at the immigration desk, wondered if my passport might have a flag on it, but after a moment of jobsworthy page-flicking, the po-faced guard stamped it and pushed it back under the glass.
Ivan had been seriously unimpressed with my latest request for him. I’d called him from my mobile while still in Brad’s room. He’d been enjoying a rare day off, after working twenty-four hours straight on a job that he’d flown here to do after he’d dealt with my little problem in Irkutsk, while I’d been idling away my time on the train for three days. I didn’t ask him about the job. I know from my own experience that he is far more than just a taxi driver.
It had taken him less than two minutes to break into the bedroom safe, finding Brad’s passport and visa documents, his credit cards and wads of cash.
‘Another wolf?’ Ivan had said, impassively flicking through the pile of US dollars.
I nodded. ‘I told you before. Lots of them about.’
He sighed. ‘You need to get out of my country, leetle peeg. You are very dangerous person. This is going to be a very – how you say? – treecky job for me to do, you understand? Very difficult. Very expensive.’
I wanted to protest. It was an accident, that’s all. OK, so I had hit him with the bottle, but that’s because I’d realised what he was. I’d seen beneath his skin. The wolf in handsome-man clothing. All I’d wanted to do was knock him out for long enough for me to get into the safe and then get out of there. I’d planned to take the laptop, too – I reckoned it was worth at least a grand and would be easy to flog.
Ivan had tossed the bedspread over the top of Brad so that we didn’t need to see him, and while he continued to count the cash, I let the robe fall off me and climbed into the bed, under the sheet. I smiled as Ivan looked up, pausing his counting.
He muttered something in Russian that I assume was a swear word. Then he sighed. ‘Very nice, leetle peeg, but no time for this. Not even for you.’
I stuck out my bottom lip, mock-offended. ‘Then how am I going to pay you?’
He held up the cash, and the laptop. ‘I give you enough to get plane ticket, and you get the fuck out of here, now.’ His voice was harsh, and for the first time, I felt a little afraid of him. I’d thought I had him wrapped around my finger, but he was always the one in charge, I realise that now. It would have been easy for him to kill me. To get rid of me, and all of the mess I’d caused – but for some reason, he let me go free.
Perhaps he felt sorry for me.
I almost got myself lost on the way back to my hotel to grab my stuff. Nearly freaked out on the confusing Moscow Metro, with its circular map crossed with far too many snaking lines, the signs all in Cyrillic and not having a clue which direction I was going in; but a kindly couple had taken pity on me and I’d had a flash of a memory to Steve and Marion Street – Carrie’s friends from the train; we were supposed to meet them in Red Square, and I wondered if they turned up – if they expected us to be there too.
The tears are flowing now, as I strap on my seatbelt, preparing for take-off. I’m trying not to think about everything that’s happened, but it’s impossible. I close my eyes, wishing I could transport myself back to the start, before all of this began. The tannoy announcement starts, and I open my eyes.
I don’t even know what the start is.
The plane picks up speed on the runway, and I grip onto the armrests, barely aware that I am doing it.
The smartly dressed woman next to me leans over, bringing a cloud of cloying perfume and a soft Welsh accent. ‘I used to be such an awful flyer,’ she says, rolling her eyes and handing me a wrapped caramel sweet. ‘But since I started with this meditation app, it’s really helped.’ She shows me her phone, the app open – a lilac pulsing light taking up the screen. She hands me an earbud, and it feels churlish to refuse. I push it into my ear and the soothing sounds of waterfalls come through the tiny speaker. She pats my hand, and I give her a small smile.
Let her think I’m a bad flyer. If only that was the truth. If only that was the only thing that was wrong with me.
Don’t be nice to me, I think. Nothing good will ever come of it.