Bad Angels

by Rebecca Chance

  Get it together, Jon. Start thinking with the head on your shoulders, not the other one.

  And if anyone asks about the bandages, my story’ll be that I was in a nasty smash-up. Four-car pile-up. Went through the windshield – that’ll tear a face to pieces.

  Aniela was coming towards him, a frown on her face, her pale eyebrows drawing together, and as soon as he looked at her, he felt a goofy smile trying to plaster itself over his bruised and messed-up face. The cool, rational part of his brain that had just swiftly calculated how to handle this new development faded away as quickly as it had snapped into action.

  No killing, he reminded himself. Not even if you see the perfect opportunity to break Khalovsky’s neck and fake it as a fall. After all, you’ve got a nurse as your lunch date! he thought with a flash of humour, as he stepped back deferentially to let her precede him out of the apartment. You can’t be killing anyone with an angel of healing by your side!

  Aniela

  Completely confused, Aniela trailed after Grigor’s wide red back as he stamped happily down the corridor in his big fur-trimmed boots. Andy was just behind him, green costume luminously bright, elf ears bobbing merrily. They were in a file, behind her was Jon, and behind Jon was one of Grigor’s bodyguards, bringing up the rear. A second bodyguard led the procession, speaking quickly in Russian into his head mike, though he was handicapped by having to look round every few seconds to see if his master was following or had stopped suddenly to pound on a door. Grigor came to a sudden halt by the bank of lifts, and everyone did their best not to cannon into each other like dominoes as they all stopped abruptly too.

  ‘You,’ Grigor boomed, pointing at Jon and Aniela, ‘you will go down to the lobby, and then Nestor will meet you and show you into my own lift! Ilya has told him you are coming. And we will go up to find... who is left, Andy?’

  ‘Well, we could try the El-Khalabis, Mr K,’ Andy said. ‘Though I’m not sure if they’ll really be into the whole Christmas thing. I mean, Prince Al-Qarashi really didn’t get the wreath.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Grigor said dismissively. ‘Christmas is for everyone! I am a Jew, and I love Christmas!’

  ‘Oh, that’s such a good attitude, Mr K,’ Andy sighed. ‘If we all thought like that, we’d have world peace!’

  ‘Hahahaha!’ Grigor’s deep chuckles reverberated around his ribcage as if it were an echo chamber. He reached up and patted the top of Andy’s head, in front of the padded headband that secured the elf ears, just as if Andy were a favourite pet. ‘You are a very funny boy, Andy. Very funny. World peace! Ha! How would we ever make any money?’

  Lifts pinged, Grigor, Andy and the bodyguards stepped into one going up, and Jon and Aniela into the down one. Aniela had been hoping for a moment alone with Jon, but inside the car was Melody with her family.

  ‘Aniela!’ Melody exclaimed. ‘Are you coming to Mr Khalovsky’s too?’

  ‘It seems so,’ Aniela said, shrugging in disbelief. ‘It is all very strange.’

  She looked closer at Melody.

  ‘You have put on foundation,’ she observed. ‘You see, I told you the bruising would be easy to cover.’

  ‘Foundation, and just a little mascara,’ Melody’s mother said briskly. ‘I decided to pop back in to do a little bit of touching up on her. Poor lamb, she doesn’t want to be sitting there at a posh lunch looking like she just went ten rounds with Mike Tyson. No offence,’ she added quickly to Jon.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said easily. ‘Believe me, you don’t want to see what’s under these.’ He raised a hand to the bandages. ‘It’d put folks right off their food.’

  Mrs Dale tutted sympathetically.

  ‘Very sorry to hear that, I’m sure,’ she said. ‘What was it, a car accident?’

  ‘Went through the windscreen face first,’ Jon said coolly, his other hand reaching out, touching Aniela’s with an almost infinitesimal movement. ‘Airbag malfunctioned. Real nasty business.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ Mrs Dale said sadly, as her husband added: ‘You should sue them, mate. The car maker.’

  ‘My insurers are dealing with all that,’ Jon said. ‘But my lovely nurse says that I’m making a good recovery.’ He smiled at Aniela. ‘And she seems to know exactly what she’s doing.’

  Aniela felt herself going red. I have no idea what you’re doing, she thought angrily. She had been convinced that Jon had accepted Grigor’s invitation as a way of avoiding being alone with her, and had been hugely hurt by that; all that morning, nipping back to the Clinic to shower and change, then visiting Melody, she had been buoyed up by the knowledge that she was going to see Jon again at noon, that he would be expecting her to keep her regular appointment. She’d had no idea what to expect; just the thought of seeing him again, being close to him, alone with him, had been so exciting that she couldn’t look beyond that—

  God, you’re a liar, she told herself crossly. Of course you looked beyond that. You were hoping to spend the day with him, not go back to the Clinic alone; to order in some food, curl up on the sofa, maybe watch a Christmas film—

  Oh please, there you go with more lies! Even more than that, you wanted to fuck his brains out all over again!

  Whereas he didn’t seem to be in that much of a hurry to be alone with her; quite the opposite, she thought crossly. And now I feel like an idiot. He couldn’t have rushed out of there any faster.

  But he made sure I was coming with him – and he just called me lovely—

  There was no point looking at his face to try to read anything there, but strangely, that didn’t even worry Aniela that much. She was very accustomed to reading people’s body language as much as their facial expressions. It wasn’t a skill all nurses had; Aniela had worked with plenty of what they called in England ‘chatty Kathys’, a term she loved, people who were too busy gossiping to take a moment to silently take in how their patients were doing.

  Aniela wasn’t one of those. She liked to quietly absorb a patient’s energy, to form a sense of how healthy they were, to study her own reactions to them for signals as to what kind of approach they needed. And now, standing next to Jon, whose fingers had left hers but were still close, she realised that she wasn’t feeling insecure. Unsure of what was going on, confused as to what he was doing and why he had bandaged his face, slightly nervous at his ability to lie so easily and quickly, yes: but not insecure.

  Interesting, she thought as the lift came to a halt on the ground floor.

  The men politely waved the women out first: Melody gasped at the sight of the reindeer in their gloriously shiny Swarovski collars as she came out into the full atrium.

  ‘My God!’ she exclaimed. ‘Reindeer? I thought for a moment I was seeing things!’

  ‘I got photos on the way up,’ Ashley said eagerly. ‘I tweeted them already. People are totally not believing they’re real.’

  ‘Dasher! No!’ said one of the handlers, who was dragging on the leash of his enormous charge; the reindeer in question had decided that what it wanted to do, urgently, was to drink some water from the carp pond. He was ducking over, his huge head, laden with the rack of antlers, perilously close to the surface, as the handler tugged futilely on the harness, trying to pull him back.

  ‘Oh dear, aren’t there fish in there?’ Mrs Dale exclaimed.

  ‘They won’t eat them, Mum!’ Ashley said impatiently. ‘Reindeer are veggies!’

  ‘They can scare them within an inch of their lives, though, can’t they? How would you like a big thing like that sticking its tongue out right into where you lived, looking all hungry?’ his mother pointed out indignantly, walking over to the pond. ‘Look!’ She stuck out a finger, indicating the orange shapes of the carp, which were all huddling together at the far side of the pool, in the shadow of the gigantic head looming over them. ‘The poor little fishies are terrified!’

  Striding right up to the reindeer, she tapped him on the bridge of his nose.

  ‘Cush!’ she said firmly. ‘Cush!’

 
‘Mum! What are you doing?’ Ashley hissed.

  ‘Come on, you,’ Sonia Dale said to the reindeer. ‘Cush!’

  She tapped him again.

  ‘I’m projecting calm-assertive energy,’ she explained over her shoulder. ‘Like the Dog Whisperer says to do. I’m being the pack alpha.’

  ‘But that’s dogs, love!’ her husband said. ‘Not reindeer! And isn’t “cush” what you say to camels?’

  ‘To get them to lie down,’ the handler muttered savagely. ‘Not to back off a flipping carp pond—’

  ‘Cush!’ Sonia said loudly to the reindeer, who snorted, and then, miraculously, raised his head, making her jump back as the antlers swung up. Obediently he took a few steps back from the carp pond and the annoying woman who kept hitting his nose.

  ‘See?’ she said triumphantly. ‘It worked! It’s all about the energy you’re projecting, just like I said!’

  The reindeer, presumably cross at being thwarted, let out another snort, and then gave vent to his feelings even more practically by squeezing out a series of droppings onto the shiny marble tiles.

  ‘Look,’ Phil Dale said, very interested. ‘They’re like giant Maltesers.’

  ‘Bet they don’t smell like giant Maltesers,’ Ashley said, as Derek resignedly came out from behind the desk with a broom and dustpan.

  ‘It’s unbelievable how much they can shit,’ he muttered crossly.

  ‘So did you break the windscreen with your face?’ Ashley said to Jon as they crossed the lobby to the penthouse lift. ‘Actually, like, plant one on it? That’s mental.’

  ‘Ugh, Ash is so gruesome,’ Melody said to Aniela, wincing. ‘He loves gore. I hope that poor man doesn’t mind. He seems very brave about it.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Aniela said. ‘He won’t care at all.’

  And she realised that she had spoken about Jon with as much casual assurance as if she had known him for years, rather than a mere three days.

  ‘Did your nose break first?’ Ashley was continuing eagerly. ‘Or did it all sort of happen at once? Did you feel all the bones smashing? Did it hurt a lot, or were you in shock?’

  ‘Are you in touch with James at all, love?’ Melody’s mother questioned her daughter, now that she had a brief girl-to-girl moment. ‘You don’t mind my asking, do you?’

  ‘Felicity says he’s seeing Priya now,’ Melody said, her voice sad. ‘You know, the girl who took over Juliet when I dropped out. She got really good reviews.’

  ‘Oh, Felicity!’ her mother sniffed, effortlessly ignoring anything but the crucial part of the information Melody had just given her. ‘I wouldn’t trust a word that young lady says! I’m always reading interviews with her in the papers about how she’s naturally thin. Well, do you remember when I came to visit you when you were filming Wuthering Heights? That nice young man who did your make-up, Gary Jordan, very kindly set my hair for me when he had nothing else to do, and we had a lovely gossip. He told me that Felicity actually lives on Big Macs and laxatives. And that she was jealous of you because you had the lead and she had to play that soppy Isabella,’ her mother added.

  ‘She had lovely costumes,’ Melody said, momentarily distracted. ‘But yes, it’s quite true about Felicity and Big Macs.’ She grimaced. ‘We call it her Macs and Lax diet.’

  ‘Macs and Lax!’ Aniela repeated, shaking her head. ‘That is not healthy!’

  The bodyguard stationed by the penthouse lift recess, having described the arrivals into his head mike, received confirmation that he was permitted to let them up; he pressed the button and held the doors for them as they all filed in.

  ‘God, Aniela, you wouldn’t believe what actors and actresses do to stay thin and young,’ Melody continued, throwing herself into this new subject to steer away from the painful issue of James. ‘And movie execs too. Brad Baker, who directed my film, injects human growth hormone into his tummy every day. Demi Moore used to go off to Switzerland to have leeches suck her blood.’

  ‘No way,’ Ashley said, shivering happily. ‘Leeches?’

  ‘And I had a snake venom facial in LA,’ Melody recounted. ‘That one’s quite common.’

  ‘They put a snake on your face?’ Aniela and Sonia Dale said in horrified unison.

  Melody giggled again. ‘No, it’s in a serum. It’s sort of tingly. Apparently the venom stings you gently, and that sends signals to the nerves, and they send out signals to produce chemicals that strengthen the facial muscles and smooth out wrinkles.’

  Aniela was beyond speech at this: Jon, looking at her, chuckled quietly.

  ‘Aniela’s about to tell us all how dumb this is,’ he said, amused.

  ‘Did you see any difference?’ Sonia asked.

  ‘Not really,’ Melody said. ‘It’s so nice when you have a treatment, though, you feel better afterwards and that relaxes you. I’m sure that’s all most of these things do.’

  ‘Cost a fortune,’ her father muttered. ‘Stupid women, these places see ’em coming.’

  ‘Oh, lots of men in LA have facials too, Dad,’ Melody assured him. ‘You’d be surprised.’

  ‘I bloody would!’ Mr Dale said as the lift doors opened. And then, like everyone else but Jon, he gasped audibly at the sheer glitz of Grigor’s apartment.

  Like Donald Trump, Grigor liked shiny. Like Trump, Grigor’s money was brand-spanking new. And neither man had any problem with anyone knowing it. Other extremely rich men and women might invent or buy illustrious ancestry, or marry into impoverished aristocracy desperate for an investment to prevent them having to sell their stately home to a hotel chain; they would go on to furnish their house with antiques which they would insist were family furniture, buy up old silver at estate sales and claim the crests as their own.

  But neither Trump nor Grigor Khalovsky had any problem whatsoever showcasing their happily vulgar, nouveau-riche tastes for shiny, glitzy, and gilded. Trump’s New York apartment had a gold-leaf and diamond door, marble lining the walls and the floors, and every single item in it that could be gilded had been: it was as if Louis XIV, the Sun King, had been reincarnated as a Saudi prince.

  Grigor’s taste was less ornate than Trump’s, but just as shiny. Rays of light flashed off the gigantic crystal sculptures of a swan on one side of the room, and a bear on the other, both six feet tall, anchoring the twin Breccia Pernice marble pillars, a deep orange-red flecked heavily with mica. Three more pillars were positioned at intervals at the back of the giant reception room, giving it an imposing, palace-like air. The floor was also in the red Breccia Pernice marble, but the lighter shade, a gleaming reddish-pink. It was normally strewn with Bokhara rugs, oversized white suede recliners and conversation sets, but most of these had been removed to allow access for the train tracks. The painted sleigh was front and centre, and the Christmas decorations hanging from every available surface were blinding; Andy had twined lights around the swan and the bear, and it was impossible to look at them directly without the reflections of the fairy lights on the cut-crystal surfaces blinding you in five seconds or less.

  Combined with Grigor’s fondness for huge, carved, dark oak furniture that looked as if it had come straight from a medieval banqueting hall, the effect of the giant crystal sculptures and marble pillars, contrasted with the hyper-modern sofas, was as if a sci-fi film had tried to meld historical periods unsuccessfully. His decorator had cried in private even as he cashed the cheques.

  ‘Mulled wine?’ asked a waiter, materialising at their side with a tray of exquisite glasses.

  The Dales made oohing and aahing sounds of appreciation as they took their wine; Aniela hesitated, unsure as to whether she should or not. Jon reached for a glass, and she was surprised, though not knowing why, until he handed it to her and drawled:

  ‘You’re not on duty. Miss Melody and I don’t need you looking after us – do we, ma’am?’

  ‘No!’ Melody smiled at Aniela, who could see, in a flash, how very beautiful Melody was going to be when the last swelling on her face went down. ‘Really
, I’m fine. And what about you? I’m so sorry, I don’t know your name.’

  ‘It’s Jon,’ he said, stretching out his hand to shake hers. He was wearing his usual T-shirt and sweatpants, and Aniela jealously noticed Melody’s cat-eyes widen as she took in Jon’s veined, muscled bare forearm, his superb physique. ‘Sorry, ma’am. Forgot my manners there.’

  ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ Melody said, still staring at Jon’s body, her eyes dropping to look at his flat stomach and narrow waist. ‘Lovely to meet you, Jon.’

  Aniela realised that she had downed her mulled wine in one go. Putting the empty glass back on the chased silver tray, she said firmly to Jon:

  ‘I would like to check your bandages before we all sit down to lunch.’ She glanced at the waiter. ‘Is there a bathroom we could use?’

  Stupid question: there are probably fourteen, fifteen bathrooms in this place, she thought as the waiter led her and Jon down a corridor with zebra-wood flooring and indicated a door to their left. Her heart was fluttering like a stupid teenager at the prospect of being alone with Jon, even briefly, and she could only hope that one of the reasons she’d created this opportunity was to get him away from Melody’s intense scrutiny.

  I’m jealous of the way Melody was looking at him, she realised. Which is ridiculous. I have no right to be, none at all. Melody’s clearly still in love with her ex-boyfriend. I can’t blame her for staring at Jon’s body – anyone would. I’m behaving like an absolute idiot.

  The wine had gone straight to her head, lighting her up, making her brain feel as warm and glowing as one of the many Christmas ornaments hanging around Grigor Khalovsky’s apartment. Determined to seem professional, she said as the door of the bathroom closed behind them:

  ‘I thought I should tighten those bandages. You did a very good job putting them on so fast, but—’

  She stopped talking. She had to: Jon’s hand was covering her mouth, lightly, but firmly. The last six words had been said against his palm, inaudible to anyone but him. Looking down at her, he shook his head, his eyes watching her carefully through the bandages. And then he stood, waiting, until she slowly nodded her own head to show that she’d understood the message he was trying to convey.