He stares at me as if I have physically shoved him off-balance, all sense of orientation gone. I watch him attempt to read my expression in the half-light of a low-energy bulb and I smile encouragingly. Inch by inch he leans forward, tilting his head, directing his mouth towards mine.
See how easy it is?
I wait until I can smell his breath, the point at which his lips are on the point of skimming mine before I step backwards. ‘For Christ’s sake, I was joking!’
He gapes at me with a bemused kind of anger.
‘I thought you might be keen to see the place. Check it over.’ My tone is light and sarcastic. ‘Make sure it’s fit for purpose. Your purpose and Angus’s purpose. Whatever it is, you’re obviously in this together.’ My heart is beating faster than I would like. To my surprise, moving away, rejecting his kiss, still requires a small effort of will.
‘Whatever you think you know,’ Mark says slowly, ‘you’re wrong.’
‘I’m guessing you asked me for this list of names the moment you realised that Nigel had scarpered. You had to turn to me because I was the only person, the only goose, left in the department who could possibly lay the golden eggs for whatever blackmail racket you’re involved in.’
Mark looks briefly into the rain, as if to check we are still alone. Or maybe there is something about the rain and the sense of obliteration it offers that is appealing. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Who the hell is Nigel?’ The ice in his voice matches his expression.
I don’t reply. I never have played poker. Bluffs and counter-bluffs are not my strongest suit. Besides, I’m too busy absorbing the fact that Mark didn’t deny knowing Angus.
While the silence expands a phone begins to trill from somewhere deep within Mark’s coat. He hesitates before belatedly moving his hand towards the lining just as the ringing stops. I wonder if the caller was Malee, waiting amongst the packing cases for Mark to come back and take her and their child God knows where.
As if confirming my theory, Mark says, ‘I have to go. Give me the information you promised. That’s the reason we’re here.’
I reach into my handbag. At first the papers elude me amongst the rest of the junk. As I root around, Mark explodes, the panicked reaction of a man who sees I am no longer his easy pushover. ‘If you’re pissing me about, Claire…?’
‘I’m not.’ I finally pull out the clip with a flourish. ‘Here.’ I pass the pages to him with as much nonchalance as I can muster.
Mark’s face is black with anticipated fury, however his scowl lightens as he glances down the list of names and addresses. After a moment he folds the sheets in half and stuffs them into the right-hand pocket of his coat. ‘Right.’ He looks at me a long moment before suddenly leaning forward and cupping his hand around the back of my skull.
I feel the pressure of his fingers hard against the bone, holding it still. Then he lowers his head and pushes his mouth against mine. His lips are firm and dry and smell of alcohol. I keep my own lips closed and my eyes open. As farewell kisses go, it wouldn’t make one of the top-ten movie greats.
As soon as he stands up, I ostentatiously wipe the back of my hand across my face. ‘Are you off?’ My voice is intentionally casual.
He nods.
I half-pivot towards the entrance into the building. ‘Not coming with me, then?’
He frowns. ‘Why are you going in there?’
‘Thought I’d have a look around.’
‘There’s no public access.’ He motions at the keypad on the wall.
‘I know the code.’
Stepping out of the porch, he shrugs. ‘You’re crazy.’ Already the rain is running in rivulets over his forehead and cheeks. He lifts up a hand. ‘Goodbye, Claire,’ he says, and walks away into the dark.
I wait for his outline to blur and then vanish completely before I open my handbag again. My phone contains a note of the four-digit entrance code that was emailed to me when I made my reservation earlier today. A night in The Grange, an investment of thirty quid just to get in the door and see what I can find – give the roulette wheel a good old spin.
As if I might want to change my mind, place a wiser bet perhaps, the entry mechanism doesn’t work until my third attempt and once I step inside the tiled hallway reeks of cigarettes and weed. I fumble on the wall to find a light but pressing the switch has no impact on the blanket of dark. Using the torch on my mobile I make my way slowly down the corridor, illuminating the plastic numbering that is stuck at drunken angles on the doors. The only sound is the ringing stamp of my footsteps, the hotel itself appears empty – a hollow, filthy shell. Or perhaps I’ve arrived earlier than most of the normal clientele.
Although my booking is for room 9 I reach a dead end and the opposite side of the building without getting any further than room 6. Retracing my steps, however, reveals a narrow staircase that bends in a right-angled corkscrew to an upper floor. At the top, I spot the first hint of life – a thin bead of light is leaking from under the door to room 7. Stopping outside, I listen, but there is no sign of an occupant, no chatter from a television or the rustle of somebody moving around. No trace of even the small murmurs of sleep or sighs or breath. After a few moments I give up.
Room 9 is not locked, however there is a key on the inside of the door, which suggests, rather worryingly, that the priority of most of the hotel’s clients is locking themselves in, rather than securing the place when they leave. I also find a lamp on a bedside table. To my relief this bulb is not broken and a weak flush of yellow reveals the full extent of my surroundings. It’s safe to say the decor is not the work of an expert. The walls are the colour of sludge, while the window is curtain-less, boasting an array of dead insects scattered over the sill. Although the floor is covered by thin carpet the yarn is pockmarked with burn marks, and an ancient, ugly radiator appears to be smeared with a brown substance that doesn’t bear close examination. At least, from the icy temperature of the room, it’s apparent that nobody has turned on the heating.
I perch on the edge of the mattress. The duvet is grubby and doubled back on itself as though untouched since the last occupant climbed out of bed. I wouldn’t spend the night here if somebody paid me to and I don’t imagine that anyone else would either. However Angus makes his money it can’t possibly be from repeat business. Instinctively I gather up the cover and straighten the edge over the rank-looking pillow. As I conduct my housekeeping service, a scrap of fabric, a tail of something black falls from the folds of the cheap polyester.
Picking up the item between my thumb and forefinger, I realise the article is not unfamiliar. Small, stretchy and made of nylon, the thong bears a striking similarity to the piece of underwear I found in our bathroom. I stare at the knickers, mind and stomach heaving. Angus obviously has no need to venture to Germany to acquire such an item after all – he clearly has the same opportunities from business trips much closer to home, an explanation that is frankly far more plausible than a mix-up by the laundry service in a Frankfurt hotel.
After a moment or two I toss the thong across the room where it tumbles into a little black puddle beside the radiator. Then I get up and go to the window. Although the glow from the lamp restricts my vision I can tell the view is of a yard with a handful of parking bays and a gate that leads to a pedestrian walkway. As I watch, the interior lights from the closest car go out. Two men are walking away from the vehicle and they disappear around the edge of the building towards the entrance.
I move to the bedroom door, open it a few inches and peer through the gap into the corridor. Muffled voices float indistinctly from the floor beneath, as well as something else – I think I can make out the broken sobs of someone crying, but the weeping is so fragile and my ears so full of my own heartbeat that the distress might simply be my imagination. The conversation below peters out. Instead I hear the clump of boots or heavy shoes begin to echo on the stairs.
I shut the door, turning the key as quietly as possible. The footsteps become lou
der and more certain and then stop directly outside my room. I watch with horrified fascination as the china knob rotates fractionally before being halted by the lock. The grip is released, another futile effort attempted and then the door judders violently as somebody shakes the handle.
‘It won’t fucking open! Here’ – fists pound on the wood – ‘what the fuck are you playing at?’
I tiptoe back to the bed and sit on my hands. The panelling trembles again, a well-aimed foot this time, I think. Just as I am wondering if my visitors actually intend to kick down the barrier, a different male voice says, ‘Is this the right room?’
‘The fucking light is on—’
‘Yeah, but…’
Someone takes a few paces and stops a short distance away.
A pause.
The rap of knuckles followed by the snap of a catch opening. Then, ‘It’s in here, dickhead.’
More footsteps, the clunk of a closing door.
The new tranquillity lasts less than a second. A song blares suddenly through the walls followed on its heels by the chummy tone of a DJ. Unbelievably it sounds very much like Radio 2, with the volume turned so high the presenter could be sitting next to me on the bed. I study an oval stain on the duvet, a grey lump of gum stuck on the headboard. Ed Sheeran is singing now, melodic and mild, but we’ve all seen the films, we know the ruse, a blackboard duster of music to rub out – annihilate – less lyrical noises. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to work out what’s going on, and I don’t think it’s a meeting of the Ed Sheeran fan club.
I get up. I find I am shivering, although that might simply be my damp coat and the lack of heating. The key turns with a soft click and I consider the empty passageway. A pale flood of light is spilling from the entrance to room 7 where, to my surprise, the door is standing ajar. I listen, ears straining, but I can’t hear anything apart from the racket of the radio – Coldplay, now – that fills the landing as effectively as sand. I take off my shoes – black, court, the trappings of a uniform from another universe – and creep slowly along the landing, carrying them by their straps.
Outside room 7, I halt and peek through the space between the wall and the edge of the door. Oddly, I can smell something sweet, possibly floral, like fruit or flowers, but all I can see is the end of a bed, a duvet half-crumpled on the floor, and beyond the mattress a window, part of which has been boarded up. And still the only audible voice belongs to Chris Martin.
I wait, breathing quietly and trying not to shift position. Nothing – nobody – in the room is moving. After a moment I push the door lightly to make it swing slowly on its hinges, which it does with a long and ghost-worthy creak.
For two, possibly three, seconds I think the woman on the bed is dead. Lying corpse-like on her back, she is wearing a translucent baby-doll nightdress rucked high around her thighs while chunks of dark hair are clumped around her head. She looks as if she has drowned, been pulled, too late, from a river full of pondweed and then abandoned on the bank.
All at once she sits bolt upright and stares at me with a bright, unfocused gaze. For a moment or two we simply gape at each other and then she opens her mouth and says something I can’t hear because of the song that is screaming from the radio beside the bed.
I gesture towards the noise. She follows the direction of my hand and after a moment of indecision reaches out her arm to switch off the machine. Silence arrives like a double-decker bus, its presence as loud as the music had been.
‘Who are you?’ she says and swings her legs to the floor as if she thinks she might soon need to run. Her voice has an accent, but I can’t identify it.
‘Claire,’ I say. ‘My name is Claire.’ The words sound brash and naked in the sudden vacuum.
Her head tilts to one side as she examines me through huge pupils, her eyes flicking to the shoes dangling from my hand and back to my face. I spot a bruise, a purple handprint spreading across her left cheek.
‘Why are you here? What do you want?’
‘I’ve come’ – I pause – ‘I’ve come to help.’
She laughs, although the actual noise that comes out of her mouth is devoid of humour. ‘Do I know you? Have we met before?’
I realise the reason I am struggling to decipher her accent is because her speech is slurred, the questions sound as if they are being dragged across the floor.
I shake my head. In actual fact, there is something hazily familiar about her face, but the notion is too elusive, too uncertain to trust.
‘Then go away.’
‘I—’
‘I don’t need your help.’ She drops her gaze to the scrub of carpet under her feet.
For a while neither of us speak. Then I say, ‘Who are they? Who are the people making you do this?’
She doesn’t reply. Instead she closes her eyes. Her forehead gleams with perspiration, dark skin turned the colour of putty by the glare of the overhead light. ‘You can’t help,’ she says quietly. ‘Nobody can.’
‘I could go to the police.’
‘No!’ Her eyelids fly open. ‘No police.’ She levers herself up from the mattress and begins to stagger towards me. ‘You mustn’t tell the police. Promise me…’ She stops, swaying slightly in the middle of the room. Her breasts and nipples, the tight whorl of curls at the top of her legs, are all visible through the inadequate nightdress.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘It’s OK. I won’t call the police.’
The smell of flowers seems stronger, although I doubt there is anything genuinely floral for miles.
I hold out my hand. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’ The offer is sincere even if the idea of my beautiful home as a place of refuge, a sanctuary from the world, seems to be fast disintegrating.
She studies me, head on one side as if there might be something she recognises about me too. Then she takes a step, a hesitant, shaky step closer.
Voices and footsteps surge suddenly from the corridor.
‘I told you it was in the car. You’re fucking paranoid. She’s probably scarpered by now.’
‘She won’t have gone anywhere. She’s knows what will happen if she does.’
‘Get out.’ The woman makes an urgent flapping motion with her wrist.
I glance behind me.
‘Go!’ Her eyes are saucers of fear, fixed now on the open door. ‘Go!’
As I slip into the hallway two male figures emerge from the top of the staircase. Putting my head down, I walk quickly.
We are about to pass each other when one of the men steps directly in front of me. He is squat and stocky with a small red tattoo on the side of his neck, something like a scorpion or a spider that quivers in time with his pulse. His mate is taller and either has terrible acne or a skin disfigurement, it’s hard to tell since the only illumination is the wedge of light oozing from room 7.
‘Hey!’ Spiderman stabs his finger into my chest. ‘Who the fuck are you?’
I imagine the woman in her baby-doll nightie waiting on the bed for the pair of them. Anger shifts under my skin like water trapped under ice.
‘Who the fuck wants to know?’
Spiderman raises his eyebrows with theatrical exaggeration and leers at his mate. ‘Feisty, isn’t she?’ Then his expression changes, becomes – astoundingly – even uglier, and he thrusts his face right into mine. ‘Watch yourself. Nice girls like you need to be careful.’
I drop my gaze.
Timing is everything. I count to three. ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Sorry. May I get past?’
‘Say fucking please.’ Spiderman is so close his breath is tickling the inner skin of my ear and the reek of beer is overwhelming. It’s as much as I can do not to jerk away my head.
‘Please,’ I repeat. Obediently. Demurely.
A good girl.
He nods at me slowly, approvingly, a smug little smirk contorting his lips. I wait for him to stick his hands in his pockets and shift himself sideways, until he is off guard entirely, before I draw back my knee and drive the bone hard and fa
st into his groin.
There is an animal-like scream that is white with pain as he doubles over, clutching his crotch.
‘Jesus! Fucking bitch!’ His mate, Scarface, makes a grab for my hair, but I’ve already dropped my shoes and I’m pitching forwards, aiming for the stairwell.
It’s supposed to be easy. I am young and pretty fast, and Scarface is pretty pissed and several beats behind the music. However, without shoes my feet have no purchase on the shiny surface of the tiled floor. Instead of sprinting, I have to half-run and half-skate in order not to lose my footing. My handbag thumps against my chest as I reach the stairs first, but Scarface is close and getting closer.
Throwing myself down the dark steps, I hear Scarface crashing into the corners and swearing behind me. I trail one hand along the wall for balance, praying I won’t slip, that those grasping arms won’t haul me backwards. I reach the bottom and the front door beckons at the end of the corridor, the outline glimmering from the beam of the porch bulb through a small high window. I race forwards and feel my left ankle slide from underneath me. For an instant the hallway hangs off kilter, listing like a ship, before the floor rises up to whack my knees and elbow. I don’t notice the pain. I am too aware of Scarface, his proximity, his hands that are stretching, desperate for some part of me to grab.
As I haul myself upright and lunge towards the exit, I suddenly panic that the entry system might be the kind that requires a code to get out of, as well as into, the building. If it doesn’t I should make the door slightly ahead of my pursuer. If I have to stop and punch in those four little numbers, well, then I am in serious trouble.
I reach out one arm; clasp my fingers around the cold metallic handle, and pull. When I meet resistance, when for that first split second the door doesn’t move, won’t budge on its hinge, fear slices through me like a blade even as the catch begins to give and then all at once releases.
Head down, I sprint – properly now, on the sweet, sticky gravel – towards the road. The rain is coming down faster than ever. For some reason I think of stair rods. My mother describing a deluge as ‘coming down like stair rods’. No idea what stair rods are, but the water is falling continuously, being blown at me sideways in furious squalls.
The Couple: An unputdownable psychological thriller with a breathtaking twist Page 25