Free One of Us by Iain Rowan Page B

the contacts of someone like Corgan. Or whoever they bring in to take his place if he falls down.”
    “They?”
    “We all have our masters, Anna. Even Corgan. I hear you’ve met the man.” Daniel fell silent, thinking, playing with an empty sugar packet.
    “Doubt he’ll be going anywhere though,” he said in the end. “Not Corgan. Tough bastard, and give him his due, he’s good at what he does.”
    “And what is it that he does?”
    Daniel looked straight at me. “You shouldn’t ask questions like that, Anna.”
    “You should not buy me coffee if you do not want me to ask questions, Daniel. Anyway, I know the answer.”
    Daniel smiled, like he did not believe me. “Oh, of course.”
    “Yes, of course,” I said, and I told him about Elena, and I told him about Corgan and I told him about the small room and the broken bed.
    Daniel leaned over the table towards me, the laugh gone and his face serious.
    “Anna.” His voice was low, and the laughter was gone. “Fucking hell. You’re a nice girl. I like you. You’ve got involved in all this and I wish you hadn’t. But please. Don’t talk back to Corgan again. Don’t talk back to him, don’t cross him, don’t talk to anyone about him, don’t do anything that might make you the centre of his attention. Please. You don’t know how lucky you are to still have a face. I’ve seen...Christ. Don’t do it again.”
    “He is that bad?”
    Daniel shook his head. “He is worse.” But still you work for him, I thought. What does that say about you? And then I thought, I work for him too. And I did not want to ask myself the same question.
    Some people who looked like they were out for lunch from their office came and sat down at the table next to ours, laughing and dropping spoons and talking about expensive holidays that they wanted to have and could not afford. I envied them their ordinary, everyday lives. I had one too, one time.
    Daniel flicked a glance over to them, rolled his eyes at me. Then he leaned over again. “They’ll never do the half of anything,” he whispered. “They’ll settle for something dull and ordinary all their lives. Well that’s not going to be me, Anna. Not in a million fucking years.” He sat back, and the grin lit up his face again. “Remember: onward and upwards. Onward and upwards. Play your cards right, and maybe you could come along for the ride.”
    It took us longer to walk back from the launderette than it had done to get there. This was because Daniel offered to carry the bag, and spent much of the time complaining about how heavy it was. He switched the bag from hand to hand, slung it over first one shoulder, and then the other, and then went back to carrying it the first way. The rain had stopped, but it felt as if it would start again at any moment.
    When we arrived back at my building, he dumped it on to the floor with relief.
    “There you go,” he said triumphantly. “No problem. So, you going to invite me in for a cup of coffee, or what?”
    “What.”
    Daniel pursed his lips and blew out some air. “Be like that,” he said. But he grinned as he said it, and did not push it any more. I can wait, the grin said. I can wait, because one day you will say yes.
    “Look, Anna, all that stuff back there in the restaurant. About Corgan. You do want to listen. OK? I’m not messing around. Be careful.”
    “OK,” I said. “I was not planning on being anything else.”
    “I mean it, Anna, stop trying to be clever all the fucking time. Just keep your head down. Like this business with Kav. It’s complicated, you don’t need to know the details, but put it this way, if Corgan thought that what was behind it might get back to the Ukrainian, he would do anything to stop it. And I mean anything. No fucking about, I’m serious. Just keep your head down and don’t talk about any of this to anyone.”
    “I thought the Ukrainian was Corgan’s boss?”
    “So does he,” Daniel said. “But forget all that. Just