Chris shook his head vigorously and said, ‘I didn’t even tell him anything was wrong, just that we’d come back to Florence and that we were staying here. That’s all, I just wanted them to know . . .’ His words trailed off, probably with the raw memory of their last exchange on this subject.
‘That’s good.’ He faced both of them again and said, ‘Between here and the railway station I need you to be relaxed but stay tight, vigilant, and do everything I say. If I go down, you do anything—throw your bags at them, use a gun if you can reach one, and run, get to the police. Okay?’ They nodded uneasily, perhaps at the thought of him being taken down, having to do this alone. ‘Good. Let’s go.’
Chris had the new backpack but Lucas gave him his other bag too. Ella had the duffel bag and Lucas his own backpack. He led them out into the corridor and through the reception, where there was still no one behind the desk. They could hear the sound of a TV from an adjoining room.
He hesitated by the elevator. It was an old-fashioned cage, making them too easy a target for anyone waiting at the bottom. He pointed at the stairs and put his finger to his lips. They walked quietly behind him, their steps lost against the steadily growing noise of the street below.
He stopped them a half-flight short of the bottom and went down to check out the lobby. There was only one person down there and it wouldn’t be long before he was attracting flies. Lucas walked to the open street door, searched out a taxi and waved it over, at the same time checking the street, a cafe along the way in particular.
He went back into the lobby and waved them down. By the time they reached the street door the taxi driver was standing there, the trunk open, ready for the luggage.
‘Santa Maria Novella,’ said Lucas, and then retreated into the lobby. ‘Chris, you put the bags in the car.’ Chris carried the bags out on his own and the driver looked on, nonplussed, glancing in a couple of times to where Lucas stood with Ella in the shadows. ‘You get in the front, Chris. Ella, you sit behind the driver.’ As they stepped out into the barrier of heat, Lucas scanned the street again, taking in the cafe, cars, doorways, people walking. There was nothing he could see. Once he was sitting in the taxi, he pulled his gun, holding it casually by the side of his leg. He kept scanning the people and the traffic around them, stepping up a gear every time they slowed or stopped. The taxi driver could sense it, looking at Lucas in the rear-view a couple of times but turning away quickly whenever they made eye contact.
They hadn’t been followed and, though any other time it would have been a classic danger point, he began to relax when they reached the railway station. He still moved them quickly, though, and drew the blinds as soon as they were inside their private compartment.
When the train started to move, Lucas released the blind on the window. The sunlight burst in, the air dancing with illuminated dust. Ella screwed her eyes up against the brightness, then looked at Lucas. ‘Are we safe now?’
‘I think so. No complacency, but you can take it easy for a while.’ It was like he’d given them a muscle relaxant: both of them sank into their seats with relief.
‘And you’ll call my dad from Milan?’
‘That’s right. Three hours.’ He caught a look from Chris and wondered if he suspected what that call might reveal. Possibly he thought Lucas already knew there was no one to call, that her father was dead. Lucas didn’t know that for sure, but he was almost certain that’s how it was, that somewhere along the line Hatto had upset someone enough for them to bring it back on his whole family. And it made him wish he could speak to Hatto now because he wanted to know what line he’d crossed, and on whose territory, to inspire a vengeance like this.
Twenty minutes out of Florence, Chris fell asleep. Ella was looking out the window and had been since they’d left. He wondered what she was thinking about, guessed it was probably just the whole storm of the last day, trying to make sense of it.
Not long after Chris had fallen asleep, she turned and stared at Lucas for a while, finally saying, ‘I’ve been thinking about that man at the hotel.’ He nodded, just to show that he was listening. ‘You think he was there to kill me?’ He nodded again, this time a regretful confirmation. She’d already reached that stage, though, of brushing to one side the fact that people were trying to kill her; she was deeper in than that. ‘You see, that’s what I don’t understand, because he could’ve killed me, but he didn’t. The way he was looking at me, it was like he’d changed his mind.’
‘He might have changed it back,’ said Lucas, attempting to dispel any doubt as to whether he’d needed to kill him or not. ‘You’re an attractive girl—it threw him. If someone more professional had been waiting in that lobby this morning, I would have lost you.’
She looked surprised by his words, misinterpreting them, perhaps, because she said, ‘Would it have mattered to you, if you’d lost me?’
‘To my pride, maybe my reputation. I don’t know you well enough to care beyond that.’