The Midnight Palace - Carlos Ruiz Zafon [4]
The lieutenant continued to pound on the door for a good five minutes, his eyes fixed on the deserted streets behind him, fearing he would catch sight of his pursuers at any moment. When the door finally yielded, Peake turned round and was blinded by the light of a candle. A voice he hadn’t heard in five years whispered his name. He shaded his eyes with one hand and recognised the inscrutable face of Aryami Bose.
The woman read his expression and gazed down at the children, a shadow of pain passing over her face.
‘She’s dead, Aryami,’ murmured Peake. ‘She was already dead when I found her …’
Aryami closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Peake saw that the news cut deep into the lady’s heart, her worst suspicions confirmed.
‘Come in,’ she said at last, letting him pass and closing the door behind him.
Peake hurried over to a table, where he laid down the babies and removed their wet clothes. Without saying a word, Aryami fetched some dry strips of cloth and wrapped the children in them while Peake stoked the fire.
‘I’m being followed, Aryami,’ said Peake. ‘I can’t stay here.’
‘You’re wounded,’ said the woman, pointing to the gash from the nail.
‘Just a scratch,’ Peake lied. ‘It doesn’t hurt.’
Aryami moved closer to him and stretched out her hand to stroke his face.
‘You always loved her …’
Peake turned his head away and didn’t reply.
‘They could have been your children,’ said Aryami. ‘They might have had better luck.’
‘I must go, Aryami,’ the lieutenant insisted. ‘If I stay here they’ll find me. They won’t give up.’
They exchanged defeated looks, both aware of the fate that awaited Peake as soon as he returned to the streets. Aryami took his hands in hers and pressed them tightly.
‘I was never good to you,’ she said. ‘I feared for my daughter, for the life she might have had with a British officer. But I was wrong. I suppose you’ll never forgive me.’
‘It doesn’t matter any more,’ replied Peake. ‘I must go. Right now.’
He took one last look at the babies, who had settled quietly by the fire. They smiled as they looked at him, their eyes bright and filled with a playful curiosity. At last they were safe. The lieutenant walked to the door and took a deep breath. Exhaustion and the throbbing pain in his leg overwhelmed him after the few moments of rest. He had used the last reserves of his strength to bring the infants to this place, and now he wondered how he was going to face the inevitable. Outside, the rain was still lashing down but there was no sign of his pursuer or his henchmen.
‘Michael …’ said Aryami behind him.
The young man stopped but didn’t turn round.
‘She knew,’ lied Aryami. ‘She knew from the start, and I’m sure that, in some way, she felt the same for you. It was my fault. Don’t hold it against her.’
Peake replied with a nod and closed the door behind him. For a few seconds he stood there, under the rain, finally at peace with himself, then he set off to meet his pursuers. After retracing his steps back to the abandoned warehouse, he entered the dark building once more in search of a hiding place.
As he crouched in the shadows weariness and pain fused slowly into a drunken sense of calm, and his lips betrayed a faint smile. He no longer had any reason, or hope, to go on living.
THE LONG TAPERED FINGERS in the black glove stroked the bloodstained tip of the nail poking through the broken plank near the entrance to the warehouse. Slowly, while the assassins waited in silence behind him, the slender figure, whose face was hidden under a black hood, raised the tip of one forefinger to his lips and licked the dark thick blood as if it were a drop of honey. A few seconds later the hooded figure turned towards the men he had hired a few hours earlier for a handful of coins and the promise of further pay when they’d finished the job. He pointed inside the building. The three henchmen scurried through the opening made by Lieutenant Peake a short while earlier. The hooded man smirked in the darkness.
‘You’ve chosen a sad place to die, Peake,