So Andrej is Bratislava’s serial entrepreneur. Not a bad person to get involved with, perhaps. At the very least, it should keep me under the radar and it’ll earn me some much-needed money while I’m at it. Bratislava feels safe for now, but I’m well aware that I need to be able to up sticks and go at any time I need to. I have to accept that this is my life as of that moment I left the hotel in Herne Bay.
I’m tempted, sorely tempted, to go out and buy an English newspaper or try to find some coverage of Lisa’s murder on TV or the internet, but I manage to convince myself that this would be a very bad idea. I know for a fact that the police use the press to try and flush out killers, as the vast majority of them will keep a keen eye on the press to see what the police have managed to work out. I’m not a killer, though, and I need to try and distance myself emotionally from what’s happened. I couldn’t bear to see Lisa’s face in the newspaper, nor Jess’s if they’ve managed to identify her, and it would do me no good whatsoever to pay attention to any of the coverage.
I like the way I’m starting to think. Deep down, I’m well aware that this is a coping mechanism. It’s exactly what I noticed in Jess right back when we first left the hotel in Herne Bay. While I spent a while in a state of utter confusion and desolation, Jess jumped straight to this stage – the coping strategy. She must have been through some shit in her short life to have had her brain switch straight to coping mode, almost instantaneously and seamlessly. She was clearly someone who lived with a lot of emotional pain and scarring. I guess I’m somewhat thankful that she no longer has to live with that, but it was obvious that she was a fighter. She was a coper. And now I owe it to her to fight and to cope.
Marek gestures towards my rucksack. ‘You take out your things. Be at home. After, you come down to bar and have drink, yes?’
He seems to flit between having a very good grasp of the English language and then speaking in the oddest broken grammar. I nod and smile.
Marek goes back down to the bar and I unpack my bag. I’m going to need some new clothes – that much is obvious. I don’t have much with me anyway, and I feel uncomfortable wearing my clothes from back in England. I count out my money and try to work out how long it’s going to last me. I figure if Marek can wait until the end of the week for his rent money, I could get some new clothes over the next couple of days. I could eat and drink downstairs in the bar to save some money – I’m sure Marek wouldn’t charge me full price – and the money I’ll get from delivering parcels for his brother’s business should more than cover the shortfall. One delivery a day will cover my rent easily if I work weekends, and if he’s one of the biggest entrepreneurs in Bratislava I’m pretty sure there’ll be more work than that.
I take a fresh T-shirt and a pair of jeans out of my rucksack and change my clothes for only the second time since leaving Claude’s farmhouse. That might actually be quite normal. I don’t know. I’m losing track of the days. But then again it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s a Tuesday, Sunday or a Friday. The days all blend into one now. I’m a free spirit.
45
I decide not to hit any more alcohol just yet. Marek mentioned something about a delivery, and I’ve already had one beer. I don’t know what the drink-drive limit is in Slovakia, but I should imagine it’s lower than in the UK. Most places are stricter than in the UK, and back home a pint and a bit will put you over the limit. I stick to orange juice.
Within about five minutes of being back down at the bar, the conversation returns to the job.
‘So, you interested in delivery work?’ Marek finally says, having skirted around all sorts of topics until then: the weather, Australian culture, the women of Bratislava.
‘Yeah, I reckon so. If you can put up with me not knowing where I’m going for a while. Oh, and I don’t know how the driving licence rules work. I don’t have an EU licence,’ I say. I do, of course, but Marek’s still under the impression that I’m Australian.
‘No problem,’ he says, waving his hand in front of his face. ‘No problem. Is only small scooter.’ I’m not entirely sure what this means – does he mean I don’t need a licence for a small scooter or is he saying I shouldn’t bother getting one? I’m not sure whether he’s asking me to break the law or telling me I don’t need to worry about it. ‘Local delivery. No problem,’ he adds. I’m still none the wiser.
The problem is, I need the money. I don’t have another option. Bar work is no good as I don’t speak Slovak and it’ll open me up to far too many people. The likelihood of being spotted eventually is far too high. Besides which, the money wouldn’t be enough. I need to earn enough that I can up sticks and leave whenever I have to. A cash-in-hand parcel delivery job would be ideal.
Before I realise what I’m doing, I’m nodding.
‘Yeah, alright then. Let’s give it a go.’
Marek raises an index finger, pulls his mobile phone out of his pocket and dials a number. After a few seconds, I hear the indecipherable voice of a man at the other end of the phone. Marek starts speaking in Slovak. As he does so, he jots something down on a small notepad that he’s grabbed from behind the bar. The conversation over, he hangs up the phone, puts it back in his pocket and smiles at me.
‘Okay, your first job.’
‘That was quick,’ I say.
‘Is always work for you,’ Marek replies. ‘Andrej is busy man. Okay, so here is where you collect, yes?’ he says, jabbing his finger at an address on the notepad. It means absolutely nothing to me, but I nod and make murmurs of agreement. ‘And here is where you take to. Is not far.’
‘Right. And where do I pick up the scooter from?’ I ask.
‘He bring here. Five minutes.’ He says this as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. Maybe that’s how things are done here. I don’t know.
Marek pours me another orange juice, and we sit in silence until there’s a knock at the double fire doors at the back of the pub. Marek walks casually over to them, pushes the bar and opens the right-hand door. He turns and waves me over.
The man at the door is huge. Got to be well over six and a half feet tall. I chuckle as I imagine him riding the moped over here, all hunched over like a circus clown on one of those tiny motorbikes. He hands a helmet to me, his eyes never leaving mine as he does so. There’s a white scar running from his forehead, right down across his eye and onto his cheek. It doesn’t look recent, but it looks like it’s done some damage. If I had to describe his appearance in two stereotypical words, it’d be ‘Eastern European’.
I take the helmet and he extends his other hand to give me a set of keys. He turns and speaks to Marek in Slovak. I don’t understand a word of it. Marek replies and slaps the man on the back in a friendly, jovial way. The man nods at me and leaves.
‘Seems like a nice bloke,’ I say, hoping Marek won’t understand the subtle English sarcasm.
‘He say the gas is full. Every day, return the scooter here in passage behind bar. He will collect.’
‘Every day?’ I ask, not sure what this means. Does this mean I’ll be delivering parcels all day every day? Or that the scooter can’t be parked out here overnight?