Free Under Budapest by Ailsa Kay Page B

the stairs, a gravel path. His thighs are burning. His calves too. His breath is louder than anything else, fighting to catch up with the arrhythmia of his stomping step. He is whipping this fear. He is kicking it.
    Where the path splits, Tibor chooses the second, the path less trodden—always the choice of the fearless—which curves round the front of the cliff face. What is that smell that comes out of the brush at night? Even when the ground is mostly frozen there’s an alteration in the air, some kind of nighttime exhalation. The bushes are brambles of dry twigs. They chatter dryly in the wind. The few, sparse evergreens shudder. Below him, the Danube coils darkly. The black road follows it. Along the black road, the occasional car flies, headlights bright. Zoom . As it takes the curve. Tibor slows, the footing precarious with protruding roots, jutting rocks and to his left a drop steep and sudden and unforgiving. Puny guardrails keep him safe and he feels the delicious, tautening effort of awareness. His skin, his eyes, his ears, even his hair is sentient. His soul stirs. I’m coming back from the dead, thinks Tibor. I am Tibor Roland, master of Gellert.
    He’s past the halfway point where the hill juts out hard into the curve of the river, the wind picking up, when his self-congratulation is broken by a sudden ruckus of sliding gravel close above him, a muffled cry. Tibor freezes.
    â€œNice try, idiot. Where d’you think you’re going?”
    â€œNo. No, please,” a voice blubbers. “Please, I’m not Laci.”
    â€œSo you say.”
    There are three Hungarians up there, up above him somewhere under the trees, on a different path, two frighteningly steady and calm, one younger and terrified. Tibor hugs the curve of the cliff wall. If he shouted, would the bullies back off or would they come for him? Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, I am not a hero.
    â€œPlease,” says the one voice in thick sobs. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything.”
    â€œThat might be true, but for me, I don’t care. I do my job. I get my pay.”
    A heavy, butcher-counter sound of flesh being hammered, bones cracked.
    â€œWhere’s the letter?”
    â€œI’m not Laci.”
    Thunk.
    â€œWhere’s the letter?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    Crack. A muffled scream.
    â€œWhere’s the letter?”
    â€œLaci lost it.”
    Two voices move away. The young, broken man must be lying not five metres above him. Are they leaving? Tibor hears the electronic ping of a cellphone being dialled. The one man must be speaking into the phone. “Look, he looks like the photo in the driver’s licence, but he’s got another wallet in his pants pocket and he keeps saying he’s not Laci. I’m starting to believe him.”
    Closer to Tibor, the injured man is starting to move. Brush crackles and scatters against hard ground.
    Still speaking into the phone: “A risk? Maybe.”
    A pause.
    â€œDone.”
    One dull thud, the movement stops.
    Tibor has stopped breathing.
    â€œJesus. What the fuck?”
    â€œHe said take care of it.”
    â€œHe’s the wrong fucking guy.”
    â€œTrue.”
    â€œJesus, fuck. And you had to do it here? What’re we gonna do with this? The car’s like a kilometre back.”
    â€œYeah, well. Gimme the fuckin’ axe.”
    â€œHere?”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    Tibor hears a dull crack.
    â€œUgh. Christ.”
    â€œYou fucking buzi.”
    Another thunk. Then five more dull crunches. Tibor counts them.
    â€œAll right, gimme a hand.”
    Crush of branches as they walk but not far.
    â€œWatch this.”
    Scrape of something heavy, moved. A pause.
    â€œWhat the hell? How deep is it?”
    â€œI don’t know. Deep enough. Trust me, no one will ever find him down here.”
    Less than two minutes of activity and then underbrush crackling,