Jack said, “Magic?,” and raised one of his scraggly ginger eyebrows. “Like pulling rabbits out of hats or something? What’re the cops on to now?” He went on to tell her that he’d never heard of magic shows being performed at Colossus or any of the assessment groups going out to see such a show either. He said, “This lot,” with a jerk of his head towards the inner reaches of the building where the kids were busy with their assessment courses or other classes, “they’re not the sort to go for magic in a big way, are they, Ulrike?”
Of course they weren’t and she didn’t need telling that by Jack Veness. She also didn’t need to see Jack smirk, either at the thought of their kids sitting in a breathlessly spellbound semicircle to watch a magician perform or at the thought of her—Ulrike Ellis, the supposed head of the organisation—even considering that their hard-core clients might enjoy such entertainment. He needed putting in his place every few days, did Jack. She did the honours.
She said, “Do you find the search for a killer amusing, Jack? And if you do, why might that be?”
That wiped the smirk from his face. It was replaced with hostility. He said, “Why don’t you chill, Ulrike?”
She said, “Watch yourself,” and went on her way.
Her way was to dig for further information to offer the cops. But when she phoned with the message that no one at Colossus had brought in a magician or taken a group to see a magician, they seemed unimpressed. The constable who took her call merely echoed his miserable colleague, like someone reading from a script. He said, “Very well, madam,” and told her he’d pass the information along.
She said, “You do see this has to mean—” but he’d already rung off, and she knew what that signified: It was going to take even more to get the cops off the metaphorical back of Colossus, and she was going to have to dig for it.
She tried to come up with a way to do it that was not so obvious it might garner future employee problems or even a group action against her. She knew an effective leader had to be unworried about the opinions of others, but that leader also had to be a political animal who knew how to twist an action taken into a reasonable step in the right direction, no matter what that action was. But she could not come up with a way to make her next move look like anything other than a declaration of her distrust. The very effort it took to plan out an approach actually made her teeth start aching till she wondered if she’d gone too long without a visit to the dentist. She searched in her desk for a packet of paracetamol, and she swallowed two with a gulp of cold coffee that had been sitting next to her telephone for God only knew how long. Then she went in search of…she decided to call it exoneration. Not for herself, but for the others. She told herself that whatever she uncovered she would report back to the cops. There was no doubt in her mind that Colossus did not harbour a killer. But she knew she had to seem reasonable to the cops, especially in light of having lied to them earlier about Jared Salvatore’s being one of their clients. She had to appear cooperative. She had to demonstrate change. She had to get them away from Colossus.
She sidestepped Jack Veness for the moment and went in search of Griff. She saw through the window of the assessment room that he was in session with his new group of kids, and the flip chart he was using indicated that they were evaluating their last activity. She made a gesture when she caught his eye. May I talk to you? it said. He gave her five fingers and a half smile that communicated his mistaken belief about the topic she wished to pursue. No matter, she thought. Let him think she meant to cajole him back to her bed. That might make him less wary of talking to her, which was all to the good. She nodded and went to look for Neil Greenham.
She found Robbie Kilfoyle instead, in the practice kitchen, setting up for a cookery class. He was taking bowls and pans out of the classroom cupboards, working off a list provided him by the instructor. Ulrike decided to start with him. What the hell did she really know about Robbie anyway aside from the fact that he’d been in trouble with the law long ago? Peeping Tom, the CRB check upon him had revealed. She’d taken him on anyway as a volunteer. God knew they needed him, and volunteers had never been leaking out of the woodwork. People change, she’d assured herself at the time. But now she looked at him more critically, and she realised he had a baseball cap on…just like the e-fit of the serial killer.
God, God, God, she thought. If she had been the one to bring a killer into their midst…
But if she knew what the e-fit of the possible killer looked like because she’d seen it in the Evening Standard and on Crimewatch as well, didn’t it stand to reason that Robbie Kilfoyle also knew? And if he knew and was the killer, why in God’s name would he show up here, wearing that EuroDisney hat? Unless, of course, he was wearing it because he knew how odd it would appear if he stopped wearing it immediately after Crimewatch was broadcast. Or perhaps he truly was the killer and so cocky about not getting caught that he’d decided to be in her face and everyone else’s with the EuroDisney cap on his head, like a red rag waving in front of a bull…Or even still, perhaps he was incredibly stupid…or didn’t watch television or read the newspapers or…God…God…
“Something wrong, Ulrike?”
His question forced her to bring herself round. The ache in her teeth had moved to her chest. Her heart again. She needed a thorough checkup, stem to stern or whatever.
She said, “Sorry. Was I staring?”
“Well…yeah.” He placed mixing bowls on the work top, spacing them out to accommodate the kids in the class. “They’re doing Yorkshire pud,” he told her, with a nod to the list he’d posted for himself on a corkboard right above the sink. “My mum used to make it every Sunday. What about you?”
Ulrike took the opening. “I never had it till we got to England. Mum didn’t make it in South Africa. I don’t know why.”
“No roast beef?”
“I can’t recall, actually. Probably not. Can I help you there?”
He looked round. He seemed wary of her offer. She could well understand, as she’d never made it before. She’d never even talked to him—really talked to him—aside from at the beginning when she’d taken him on at Colossus. She made a mental note to talk to everyone at least once every day henceforth.
He said, “There’s not much to do, but I guess I could cope with some conversation.”
She went to the corkboard and looked at his list. Eggs and flour. Oil. Pans. Salt. Yorkshire pudding certainly did not require genius to put together. She made a second mental note to talk to the instructor about challenging the kids a bit more.
She riffled through her mind to think of something she knew about Robbie, other than the fact he was a former prowler. “How’s the job going?” she asked him.
He gave her a sardonic look. “Sandwich deliveries, you mean? It’s a living. Well”—with a smile then—“it’s nearly a living. I could do with something a bit better, frankly.”
Ulrike took this as a hint. He was angling for permanent employment at Colossus. For paid employment. She couldn’t blame him for that.
Robbie seemed to read her mind. He paused in the act of pouring flour from a bag into a large plastic bowl. “I can be a real team player, Ulrike,” he said. “If you’d give me half a chance.”
“Yes. I know that’s what you want. It’s under consideration. When we open the branch across the river, you’re tops on the list to do assessment.”
“You’re not having me on, are you?”
“Why would I?”
He set the bag of flour on the work top. “Look, I’m not stupid. I know what’s going on round here. The cops talked to me.”
“They talked to everyone.”
“Yeah, okay. But they’ve talked to my neighbours as well. I’ve lived there forever, so the neighbours told me when the cops came round. I expect they’re one step away from surveillance.”
“Surveillance?” Ulrike tried to make it sound casual. “On you? Surely not. Where do you go that they’d want to watch you?”
“Exac
tly nowhere. Oh, there’s a hotel nearby, and they’ve got a bar. It’s where I go when I need a break from my dad. You’d think it was a crime or something.”
“Parents,” she said. “Sometimes you need to get away from them, eh?”
He frowned. He stopped what he was doing. He was silent for a moment before he said, “‘Get away’? What’s this really about?”
“Nothing. It’s just that Mum and I row, so I guess I thought…well, the same-sex thing, I suppose. Two adults of the same sex, in the same house? You start to get on each other’s nerves.”
“As long as we just watch the telly, Dad and I are fine,” he informed her.
“Oh. Lucky you. Do that a lot? Watch telly, that is.”
“Yeah. The reality shows. We’re hooked on those. The other night, in fact, we—”
“Which night was this?” She saw she’d asked the question too quickly. His face took on a sudden sharpness she’d not seen before. He fetched eggs from the fridge, counting them out carefully, as if intent upon displaying his diligence. She waited to see if he would answer.
“The night before that boy was found in the woods,” he finally said. He was terribly polite about it. “We watched the show with the yacht. Sail Away. Do you know it? It’s on cable. We bet each other about who was going to get voted off. Have you got cable, Ulrike?”
She had to grudgingly admire the way he had put away affront in order to cooperate. She owed him something. She said, “Sorry, Rob.”
He took a moment before he shrugged, relenting. “It’s all right, I guess. But I did wonder why you stopped to chat.”
“You are on the list for a paying job.”
“Whatever,” he said. “I’d better finish up here.”
She let him go back to what he’d been doing. She felt ill at ease but concluded that people’s feelings couldn’t be allowed to matter, even her own. Later, when things were back to normal, she’d make more complete amends. Now, there were far more pressing concerns.
So she decided to abjure the circuitous approach. She found Neil Greenham and went directly for the jugular.
He was alone in the computer room, working on one of the kids’ Web pages. Typical of the Colossus client, the page was black and featured Gothic graphics.
She said, “Neil, what were you doing on the eighth?”
He made a note on the yellow pad next to the mouse. She saw a muscle work in his fleshy jaw. He said, “Let me see, Ulrike. You must want to know was I murdering some poor kid in the woods.”
She didn’t say anything. Let him think what he would.
“Have you checked with the others?” he asked her. “Or am I the only favoured one?”
“Can you just answer the question, Neil?”
“Can, of course. But will is another matter.”
“Neil, this is nothing personal,” she told him. “I’ve already spoken to Robbie Kilfoyle. I’m intending to speak to Jack as well.”
“What about Griff? Or doesn’t he come onto your radar screen for murder? Now that you’re playing at copper’s nark, I’d think you’d want to start practising objectivity.”
She felt herself colour. Humiliation, not anger. Oh, she’d thought they’d been so circumspect. No one can know, she’d told Griff. But in the end it hadn’t mattered. When one allowed the besotted to overcome the cautious, a billboard wasn’t exactly necessary. She said, “Do you plan to answer my question?”
“Sure,” he said, “when I’m asked by the cops. And I expect I will be. You’ll make certain of that, won’t you?”
“This isn’t about me,” she told him. “It isn’t about anyone. It’s about—”
“Colossus,” he finished for her. “Right, Ulrike. It’s always about Colossus, isn’t it? Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve work to do. But if you want a shortcut, phone my mum. She’ll alibi me. ’F course I’m her darling blue-eyed boy, so I may have told her to lie when someone comes snooping round to ask questions. But that’s the chance you’ll be taking with all of us, anyway. Have a nice day.”
He went back to the computer. His ruddy face was ruddier. She could see a pulse pounding in his temple. Outraged innocence under scrutiny? she wondered. Or something else? Fine, Neil. Have it your way.
Jack Veness was easier. He said, “Miller and Grindstone. Shit, Ulrike, it’s where I always am. Why the hell are you doing this, anyway? Don’t we have enough aggro around here?”
They did. She was making things worse, but that couldn’t be helped. She had to have something to give to the cops. Even if it meant checking every alibi herself: Robbie’s dad, Neil’s mum, the publican at the Miller and Grindstone…She was willing to do it. She was able, as well. And she wasn’t afraid. She’d do it because there was so much at stake—
“Ulrike? What happened? I thought I said five minutes.”
Griff had come out to reception. He looked confused, as well he might, since any other time he’d told her when to show up in his orbit, she’d been there like a dependable satellite.
“I need a word,” she said. “Have you got the time?”
“Sure. The kids’re editing the trust circle. What’s going on?”
Jack spoke up. “Ulrike’s taking up where the cops left off.”
Ulrike said, “That’ll do, Jack,” and to Griff, “Come with me.”
She led the way to her office and shut the door. Neither the oblique approach nor the direct approach had succeeded without offence being taken, so she reckoned it didn’t matter which way she went with Griff. She opened her mouth to speak, but he began first.
He said, running a hand back through that hair of his, “I’m glad you asked to talk, Rike. I’ve wanted to talk.”
She said, “What?,” before she thought it through. Rike. He’d murmured that in her ear. A groan with orgasm: Rike, Rike.
“I’ve missed you. I don’t like the way things seem to have ended between us. I don’t like that things seem to have ended. What you said about me…that I’ve been a good fuck. That went to the bone. I never thought of myself like that with you. It wasn’t about fucking, Rike.”
“Really? What was it about, then?”
He’d been standing by the door, she in front of the desk. He moved, but not to her. Rather he went to the bookshelves and seemed to peruse them. He finally picked up the photo of Nelson Mandela standing between Ulrike—much younger and so much more innocent of life—and her dad.
He said, “This. This kid in the picture and everything she believed back then and still believes now. The passion of her. The life inside her. Connecting to both because I want them both myself: passion and life. That’s what it was about.” He replaced the picture and looked at her. “It’s still there in you. That’s what’s so mesmerising. Was from the beginning, still is now.”
He drove his hands into the back pockets of his blue jeans. They were tight, as always, moulding the front of him. She could see the mound where his penis lay. She averted her eyes.
“Things are insane at home,” he went on. “I haven’t been myself, and I’m sorry. Arabella’s hormones up and down, the baby’s colic. The silk-screen business isn’t doing well just now. There’s been too much on my mind. I started to think of you as one more thing I had to contend with, and I didn’t treat you well.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“But it didn’t mean—I didn’t mean—that I didn’t want you. Just then, the complication…”
“Life doesn’t have to be complicated,” she told him. “You’ve made it that way.”
“Rike, I can’t leave her. Not yet. Not with a new baby. If I did that, I wouldn’t be good for you or anyone. You’ve got to see that.”
“No one asked you to leave her.”
“We were heading for that, and you know it.”
She was silent. She knew that she needed to get them back on the track of why she’d wanted to speak to him in the first place, but his dark eyes diverted her and as they did so, they also dragged her back into the past. The f
eel of him near her. The heat of his body. That heady moment when he entered her. More than flesh to flesh, it was soul to soul.
She resisted the pull of memory and said, “Yes. Well. Maybe we were.”
“You know we were. You could see what I felt. What I feel…”
He approached. She could feel the pulse light and rapid in her throat. Heat built within her and descended to her genitals. She felt the maddening moistening in spite of herself.
She said, “That was animal stuff. Only a fool would mistake it for the real thing.”
He was close enough that she caught the scent of him. No lotion, was this. No cologne or after-shaving splash. It was just his scent, the combination of hair, skin, and sex.
He reached out and touched her: his fingers on her temple, describing a quarter circle to her ear. He touched the lobe. One finger traced the path of her jaw. Then he dropped his hand.
“We’re still okay, aren’t we?” he said. “At the heart of it?”
She said, “Griff, listen,” but she could hear the lack of conviction in her tone. He would hear it as well. He would know what it meant. Because it did mean…Oh the closeness of him, the scent and the strength. Holding her down, his two hands imprisoning hers on the mattress, and his kiss, his kiss. Her hips in the rhythmical, rotating dance and then tilting tilting because nothing mattered then or even later but wanting, having, and satiation.
She knew that he felt it as well. She knew that if she dropped her gaze—which she would not do—she would see the evidence behind the tight denim.
Griff said roughly, “Listen to what, Rike? My heart? Yours? What they’re telling us? I want you back. It’s crazy. Stupid. I can’t offer you one bloody thing just now except the fact that I want you. I don’t know what tomorrow might bring. We could both be dead. I just want you now.”
When he kissed her, then, she did not move away from his embrace. His mouth found hers and then his tongue coaxed her own mouth to open. She moved back against the desk, and he moved with her so that she felt the hard, hot demand of him pressing against her.
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