Chapter Two

  Tristan’s injuries from the fall kept him in hospital for three weeks and, for the most part, he enjoyed it. The nurses all adored him, always sneaking in extra chocolate for him when they could. In retrospect, Tristan thought it was probably because they felt sorry for him, what with him being crazy and all.

  After the second time he blacked out, Tristan fell into a coma. Jozef Kulik put all his “business” oh hold to keep a vigil by his son’s bedside. He sat there awake for three days and nights, drinking black coffee and reading from Tristan’s favourite books, his eyes stained pink with fatigue and tears. On the morning of the fourth day, several minutes after Jozef had fallen asleep for the first time since his arrival, Tristan’s eyelids flickered slowly open. In the first few hours after he woke up he was a little too faint to speak coherently, managing only to ask for water and to listen to his father as he said tearful prayers of thanks to Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary.

  Jozef Kulik only ever prayed in Polish.

  Tristan understood every word.

  When he had gained a little more lucidity, Tristan began fervently telling his father about what had happened with his grandmother and Baxter when he had fallen out of the tree. The attending nurse looked a little alarmed and said something about going to fetch a doctor, but Jozef assured her that he was probably just a little disorientated and asked her politely for a minute alone with his son.

  However, the nurse must have still decided to tell someone, because the day he was discharged his doctor sat him down in a room in with walls the colour of dishwater and a sign on the door that said ‘psychologist’. A man with glasses and a little moustache took a seat opposite Tristan, offered him a cup of tea (which Tristan refused) and, with the tips of this fingers touching, asked him slowly if anything unusual had happened after his fall.

  “Nothing,” said Tristan.

  The man had raised one eyebrow and repeated, “Nothing?”

  “Yeah, nothing.”

  “Are you sure? Jackie mentioned something to me about you saying that you could speak to animals, is that right?”

  “No, that was just a dream, I got confused.”

  “Ah, alright then. If you’re sure?”

  “Yeah. It was just a weird dream.”

  “Well then, in that case I’ll just get someone to see you back downstairs, Tristan.”

  He had done as he was told, just like they’d agreed. As Tristan was driven away from the hospital, his right leg and left wrist bound in plaster, Jozef placed a big, meaty hand on his shoulder and promised him ice cream before they went home.

  But before that, he said, Tristan was going to have to be a very good, grown up boy and help his father with some work.

  Tristan had never been to Jozef’s workplace before. All that he knew about it was that it was somewhere in the city centre. From this scrap of information he had conjured up an image of his father working in some sparkling office building, just like the ones he could see from his bedroom window on clear days. As the BMW pulled into an alleyway behind a fast food restaurant and parked on the kerb, Tristan tried not to let the disappointment show on his face. Still unable to walk without crutches, he allowed Jozef to pick him up and carry him through a narrow doorway set into the side of the building.

  The room was a dirty hotel lobby, carpeted in mottled navy and reeking of urine. The carcasses of dead flies littered the floor underneath a UV light that hummed on the wall. Behind the counter, a woman with dyed blonde hair sat smoking a cigarette, and as Jozef walked past she smiled at him widely, exposing a mouth full of gold-capped teeth. Tristan’s disappointment was slowly turning to fear. He started trying to gulp down the lump in the back of his throat, lest his father notice his discomfort.

  At the top of the stairs they turned right and continued down a long corridor lined with numbered doors. Muffled sounds came from behind each one in turn; babies crying, couples arguing, repeats of old sitcoms on TV. Jozef stopped at the door numbered 8 and knocked- three short, two long. There was a moment’s pause before a skinny, balding man opened the door. He wore a cheap suit, and dark patches of sweat had seeped through the fabric under his arms. He ushered them in quickly and, after scanning the corridor, shut the door behind them.

  Shabby and squalid as it was, this appeared to be the luxury suite of the hotel. There was a door on either side of the room, one with the word ‘Bedroom’ embossed on it in tacky gold leaf, and ‘Bathroom’ on the other. This room, presumably the ‘Lounge’, contained nothing but a television and a vinyl sofa. The blinds were closed.

  Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing it against his brow, the skinny man spoke rapidly to Tristan’s father. “Jozef, why the f**k did you bring your kid here? You don’t bring your kid along on business!”

  “Piotr, Piotr, calm down. He’s a Kulik, he can handle it. And besides, he’s going to help us out today,” Jozef looked proudly at the boy slung over his hip.

  “Really? Help us out? That’s great, that’s really great, I’m so glad to hear it.”

 A groan from the bedroom interrupted his sarcasm.

  “Our friend is doing well then?” Jozef asked.

  “Oh yes, just wonderful.” Piotr rolled his eyes.

  “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take Tristan for a little talk with our good friend Armando.”

  As Jozef walked towards the door marked ‘Bedroom’, Tristan began to tremble. Helping his father out with his business had sounded like so much fun when Jozef had first suggested it, but now all he wanted to do was go home.

  Piotr shouted after him, “Does the kid speak f*****g Portuguese or what?”

  Jozef tilted his head back and, laughing heartily, entered the bedroom.

 

  He was tied to a chair, his father’s ‘friend’, his wrists and ankles bound with gaffer tape and his body slumped forward like a rag doll. He looked up as they came in, and Tristan could see blood oozing from a cut hidden somewhere above his hairline. He shivered, choking back tears. Jozef set Tristan down in a chair opposite the prisoner and crouched down to speak to his son.

  “Don’t worry,” said Jozef softly. “He’s alright. I just want you to talk to him for me.”

  “Let me go, you b*****d!” Armando shouted suddenly, struggling against his restraints.

  Jozef looked at Tristan expectantly.

  “He told you to let him go.”

  “Aha!” Jozef grinned at Armando. “No, no I am not going to do that. Now, son, please ask the gentleman where Heitor Lobato is.”

  “Hei-tor... Lo-ba-to?” Tristan repeated, his brow furrowed precociously.

  “Yes. Now come on, ask him, quick.”

  Tristan looked at the olive-skinned man and said slowly, “My Dad wants to know where Heitor Lobato is. Can you tell him?”

  Armando stopped thrashing around and studied the boy carefully. His small, dark eyes were set like camera lenses in his face, and having those eyes on him made Tristan incredibly uneasy. After some agonising moments, the corner of his mouth twitched upwards.

  “I’ll tell you something, you’re a hell of a lot smarter than your b*****d father. You tell your daddy that I know where Heitor Lobato is. Tell him that every man in London with half a brain knows where Heitor Lobato is. And then tell him that he’s an idiot and a fool.”

  Tristan felt sick. He knew that this was far from the response that his father had been hoping for. He considered lying about what Armando had said, but it was too late for that. His face had already betrayed him.

  Jozef crouched next to his son and took him firmly by the shoulders. “Tristan, what’s wrong? What did he say? This is very important to your father. I need you to tell me.”

  So Tristan repeated what Armando had said, slowly and cautiously. As he spoke, he could feel his father’s hands begin to shake as fury built up inside him. Jozef turned to Armando, his eyes fire and brimstone. Armando smiled bitterly, hawked up a thick wad of catarrh from his throat and spat on the floor in front of Jozef.

  Jozef stared at the lump of phlegm for a moment, then picked up Tristan and left the room without once looking at Armando’s face. When he opened the lounge door Piotr sprang to his feet off the vinyl sofa.

  “What happened?”

  “I’ll explain later. I need to take my son home, then I will meet you back here at nine o’clock and we will discuss what happens next, ok?”

  Piotr wiped the sweat off his top lip. “If that’s what you want to do, boss.”

 

  It was later that night, as he laid awake in bed listening to his father leave the house, that Tristan remembered that they hadn’t gone for ice cream.