One of Us Read Online Free

it very gently so that it was not pointing at him. “Job’s not finished, is it? You know that. Come back every day, do whatever needs doing, and when he doesn’t need it any more, then you get what you want. Only then. Take it or leave it.”
    “In the day time,” I said, after a moment or two. “In late afternoon. Evenings and nights, I work. Mornings, I sleep. It must be late afternoon.”
    The big man laughed. “There’ll be a car for you. Two o’clock. You’ll have slept enough by then.” He looked at me, a long stare which made me feel as if I had just been weighed, assessed, dismissed. “I don’t need to tell you not to talk about this to anyone, do I? I can see it in your eyes. You know how it works.”
    “Yes,” I said. “I know people like you. I know you well.”
    “Do you, now? See you then, doctor.”
    “Student,” I said, and Corgan laughed and unlocked the door. “Wait by the front door,” he said. “There’ll be a car round in five minutes, run you home.”
    I walked down the stairs and out of the door and into the beautiful clean air. I kept walking, down the quiet street, out into a tangle of roads that I did not know and that all looked the same. I did not care, I just kept walking, breathing in hard so the cold air could freeze me inside, make me a puppet that just walked along, arms and legs moving like so, little puppet running away. I had practice at that.
    When I fled my home, my plan had been simple. Go to the airport. Get a plane. Fly to another country where the police could not reach me and stay in a hotel while I mourned my brother and thought about what to do. But in a taxi to the airport, I realised my stupidity. Those who would want to hurt me were the police, and if they wanted to they could see every time I used my credit card, where I went. They could find me. And once they realised I had been a witness, they would want to find me. And they would find me. Even if I was in another country. No loose ends.
    “Take me back,” I said. “I want to catch a train.”
    “You’re joking,” the taxi driver said. “Scared of flying, eh? Lost your nerve?”
    “Yes,” I said. “So take me to the station.”
    I caught one train, and then another, and then another, doubling back, paying cash, buying tickets to a station but then getting off early. They were the police, they could find out who bought tickets to where, they could make people talk. Old habits die hard, and in my country, those habits were not so old.
    I started to run out of money, and I needed to save what I had for things other than train fares. The first of these things took me across the border.
    “If I get caught, I’m right in the shit,” the lorry driver said, scraping his hand over the stubble on his chin.
    “You won’t get caught. And if you did, which you won’t, I will tell them you didn’t know. You tell them you didn’t know. But you won’t get caught.”
    “I could lose my job,” he said, digging a finger in his ear.
    “I will pay you twice what I offered,” I said. “But that is all the money I have, I can not pay any more.”
    He thought for a moment. “Maybe not money, no.” His eyes dropped to my breasts, down to my thighs, dawdled back up.
    “I am on the run,” I said. “My husband is in the FSB, he beats me, he is a bastard. I have cousins in Poland, I can go to them. If my husband finds out I was in your lorry, he will do nothing, he understands money talks, he won’t care about you, just about finding me. If he finds out you touched me though, he will cut your balls off and make you eat them.”
    He backed away. Too much, Anna. You have lost your chance.
    “Half as much again,” I said. “Who will know? Who will care? It is not you he is after. And I need help, please.” I tried to make my eyes big, like a kitten. I probably looked like a mad woman.
    The driver scraped at his chin again. “You get caught, you say you broke in to the back while I took a