by Danuta Reah
‘I’m not the only one who doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain,’ she managed through chattering teeth.
She felt him laugh as he steered her across the room. He kept his arms round her as he picked up a towel from the bed and rubbed her hair. She tried to blot the worst of the wet from her clothes. ‘You need to get out of these,’ he said. He was right. The wet clothes were chilling her more and more. She fumbled with the cord at her waistband. The knot was damp and she couldn’t untie it. Her fingers were too cold to undo the buttons of her cardigan.
He looked at her for a moment. ‘Here,’ he said. He untied the wet cord holding her trousers, frowning slightly as he concentrated on the knot, then he unbuttoned her cardigan. Her legs didn’t want to hold her up. He kept one arm round her, supporting her as he pulled off her cardigan and her wet trousers. She leant against him and let him undress her, just moving enough to accommodate him. He pulled her shirt over her head, then reached behind her and unfastened her bra. She felt her breasts fall free as he slipped it down her arms.
Then he reached to the bed and pulled the quilt back. ‘Lie down,’ he said. He tucked the quilt round her. She felt like ice to her core, as if she would be cold forever. ‘I seem to spend all my time putting you to bed these days, Bishop,’ he said. ‘Let’s get you warm.’ His voice was light, but his face was serious and intent. He pulled the jersey over his head, unfastened his jeans and slipped them off. He wasn’t wearing anything else. He got into the bed beside her and pulled her against him. His skin felt fiery hot against hers. ‘Ice maiden,’ he said. He tucked her hands under his arms and wrapped his legs round hers. Then he just held her as he ran his hand gently up and down her back and talked to her about nonsense things, about the anomalies of the universe, about the mysteries of numbers; Luke-rambling, familiar, comforting, safe.
Slowly, the cold released its grip and the shivering stopped. The mattress felt like a cloud of cotton wool underneath her, and she was cocooned in his warmth. He ran his fingers through her damp hair. ‘Is that better?’ he whispered.
She looked up at him. ‘Luke, I’m sorry I…’
Her touched her face. ‘Ssh. Not now.’ He kissed her and she put her arms round him, tasted the smoky cannabis taste of his mouth, breathed in his closeness that felt so familiar, so right and yet so new. He ran his hands down her back, cupping her buttocks, stroking the inside of her thighs, touching her and teasing her with his fingers. He kissed her neck and her breasts and she arched her back pressing close to him. He put his hands on either side of her face and looked at her. ‘Do you want this?’ he said. ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Luke. Yes.’ And she did. And he was whispering her name, Roz, and she could feel his erection hard against her stomach. He pushed her thighs apart and she guided him into her and he moved slow and gentle and deep and his warmth was all around her.
She could hear the wind driving the rain against the window. In her mind she could still see an empty road and a dark car moving silently towards her. She held him tighter and he said it again, Roz, as he moved and it was like a question, over and over, Roz? Roz? And the night and the fear dissolved and dispersed in her answer and her quickening delight. She had known Luke as careless and reckless, had known him as a loyal friend and as an exciting lover, had known his volatility, his sometimes cruel tongue and his restless anger. She had known his kindness too, but she had never experienced before his capacity for tenderness. If she had known it, she would never have walked away from him or have let him walk away from her.
17
Sheffield, Sunday morning
Between the university and the hospital, the houses are stone, with heavy gateposts and big gardens. Mature trees grow between the houses, shading them with their dense foliage in the summer, in winter, twisting their skeletal arms to the sky. The roads are a mixture, straight lines, crescents, cul-de-sacs. They look like residential streets, the houses with their gardens and their high-ceilinged spaces. At weekends the side roads are quiet enough for children to play, to run from house to house, to ride their bikes or skate or play football. But at the weekend, these roads are deserted.
During the week, the streets are thronged with students, the cars are parked up close to the garden walls, making it difficult for anyone trying to negotiate the pavement. Each house is an office, a department of the university, a discreet sign on each wall: University of Sheffield, Department of Cultural Studies. University of Sheffield, Department of European Studies. One cobbled cul-de-sac runs between the old church that has been converted into a drama studio, and an uncompromising square of terrace. During the week, drivers take a risk if they bring their cars up this road looking for parking space. The cars are sometimes double-parked, and there is no space to turn, leaving the driver with no option but to reverse into the busy main road. But at weekends, and on Sundays in particular, these streets are abandoned and devoid of life, the houses shut up tight against intruders, the pavements empty of cars and people.
The old gardens are mazed with paths and walkways to facilitate travel from one department to another. A high-walled gennel forms part of this system, running along the back of a red-brick building, behind the road that forms a T with the top of the cul-de-sac.
The storm from the night before had not blown out. A thin wind cut through anyone out on the streets that morning, and flurries of rain spattered against pavements and windows. It was a day to look out of the window and go back to bed. The woman who was walking up the cul-de-sac wrapped her coat around herself and thought of the warm bed she had left half an hour before. She wouldn’t have dreamed of using the gennel at night, but in daylight it was a convenient shortcut from her flat to her department. She was a researcher who worked in one of the old stone houses, and to her, Sunday was another useful working day. It seemed a crime to drive a car for such a short distance, just ten minutes’ walk if she used the short-cut, but as yet another spatter of rain blew into her face, she wondered if she shouldn’t have compromised on her principles for once.
The ground was sodden, and the rain had turned the footing into a treacherous mass of mud and dead leaves. The cul-de-sac was neglected, and the surface was a patchwork of new repairs and old cobbles that were slippery under her shoes. As she entered the gennel, the air, shut in by the high walls, smelt of wet decay and the grey light of the winter morning dimmed. She wrapped her scarf more closely round her neck, and picked her way carefully along the narrow alley.
It was silent down there in the grey shadows. The walls shut off the sound of the city, the distant roar of traffic, the drone of planes, the church bells, the sounds you didn’t notice until they were no longer there. The sudden silence made her aware of how alone she was, and she looked back to the entrance to the gennel, and ahead to the brighter light at its end. Her pace quickened.
There was a heap of something half blocking the path. It looked like a pile of dead leaves and rubbish, and she edged her way round it, trying to stop her coat from brushing against the crumbling wall. Her foot caught against the leaves, disturbing the pile so that it shifted, the wet clamminess touching against her shin. She moved her foot backwards to free it from the leaves, grimacing with distaste. Something cold gripped her round the ankle.
She jumped back instinctively, slipping on the wet ground, falling as the hand that the dislodged leaves had revealed kept its hold on her. She heard the scream stifle in her throat as she saw the hand, blue and claw-like, touching her, gripping her, and she couldn’t get free. She scrabbled backwards on the ground, her breath coming in panicky gasps, struggling to release herself as the whole leaf pile began to move as she pulled away.
Then she was free and she was clawing in the mud, trying to push herself into the wall, trying to regain her feet before the thing in the leaves came after her and pulled her into the darkness, and she was making mewing sounds in her throat and she couldn’t get away, and…The hand was still. Now her leg was free, the
hand was still. Almost weeping with terror, she staggered to her feet. She could see it now, the shape in the leaves, the rigid claw of the hand protruding, and as she looked, the lineaments of a face began to form in the shadows of the leaf pile, the mouth gaping, the eyes staring upwards.
It was the smell of coffee that woke Roz. As she surfaced from sleep, she was aware of a dim light on her closed eyes, the warmth of a quilt tucked closely round her, the smell of coffee and toast. She stretched and turned over, opening her eyes. The curtains had been opened slightly to let in the daylight. The sky looked grey and cold. The clock by the side of the bed said eight-thirty. She could hear the sudden gusting of the wind and the rattle of rain against the glass, and she snuggled down under the covers, feeling a moment of almost childlike comfort and warmth. She lay with her eyes shut, listening to the sounds. A door closing nearby, the sound of water running, the clatter of pots. Then Luke was sitting on the edge of the bed, putting a tray down between them, with cups of coffee, toast and orange juice. His hair was wet from the shower. He looked unshaven and heavy-eyed, but his smile was warm. ‘Breakfast,’ he said, and leant across to kiss her.
To her surprise, she was hungry. She realized that she’d eaten very little the day before, and the hot buttered toast, the rich coffee and the sweetness of the orange seemed like the best things she had ever tasted. Luke didn’t have much, just drank coffee while he watched her. ‘You’re starving,’ he said after a while. ‘I’m a lousy host. You come round at midnight in the freezing cold and I sling you out into the rain. Once you’re good and wet I drag you back in here and shag you senseless.’
Roz finished the last piece of toast and looked at him. ‘That bit was all right,’ she said, licking butter off her fingers. ‘That bit was fine. I could have done without the rain.’ She put her cup down and stretched. ‘The bed’s full of crumbs.’
He poured himself another cup of coffee. ‘Go and grab a shower. I’ll sort it.’
The hot water of the shower felt luxurious after the remembered cold of the night before. It seemed OK to borrow Luke’s toothbrush. She wrapped herself in a towel and went back to where he was leaning back on the pillows watching the winter weather. She curled up next to him and he put his arm round her. She rested her head on his shoulder, looking at the bleak winter landscape. She felt warm and relaxed. ‘I haven’t got any clothes,’ she said. ‘Mine got soaked.’
‘You don’t need them.’ He smiled at her and pushed her gently back on to the bed. ‘Got anything better to do today, Bishop?’
They spent the morning in bed, making love, talking, watching the rain that fell with a relentless persistence, drenching torrents when the wind dropped, wild spray as the storm blew up again. They talked about a lot of things, catching up on the months of estrangement, talked about things that had seemed off limit before. She told him about her visit to her mother-in-law’s to see Nathan, she told him about the eighteen months after Nathan’s illness when she had tried to look after him, the eighteen months of increasing chaos that had culminated in the attack that had sent her down the precipitous staircase. ‘I gave up after that,’ she said. ‘I knew I couldn’t do it any more. He had to go into a nursing home. I couldn’t manage. I don’t think Jenny will ever forgive me.’
‘Has it ever crossed your so-called mind that maybe she understands? If he doesn’t know you from Adam, if he gets so scared he attacks you, what can you do?’ The exasperation in his voice was the old, familiar Luke.
‘Why didn’t you phone me?’ she said. ‘When I left those messages? I kept waiting for you to phone and you didn’t.’
He looked down at her. ‘What messages?’
‘I left them on your answering machine. Just saying that I didn’t think…you know.’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t get any messages. That’s why I was so pissed off with you. One minute you’re telling me that you think I killed…’
‘I never did,’ she protested. ‘I never said that.’
‘Shut up and listen. One minute you’re calling me a killer and the next minute you’re banging on my door at midnight and babbling about files, and Grey, and being sorry. I never got any messages.’ Talking brought the reality back and he frowned, uneasy, reminded of something he didn’t want to think about. ‘Roz, what made you think – even for a moment – that I’d hurt Gemma? I haven’t lifted a finger to anyone, not since I was a kid.’
‘Nathan never lifted a finger to anyone,’ she said. ‘And then he knocked me out and broke my ankle. I never thought…And suddenly you were different. And there were the pictures. I felt as though I didn’t know you any more.’
‘The pictures.’ He gave a half laugh that sounded angry. ‘I was going to tell you that night, and then I lost my rag.’
She remembered the night in her kitchen when he had come back from his interview with the Hull Police. ‘Tell me what?’
‘I don’t know where to start,’ he said. ‘I think I’ve been a complete arse and I don’t know what to do.’ He lay back on the pillow. ‘Oh, shit. It’s all a mess. I told them some of it, but they didn’t believe me. I don’t think they did.’
‘Told them what?’ Roz shook him. ‘Luke, what is it?’
‘OK.’ He propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at her, running his hand up and down her arm. Then he looked out of the window. ‘It was never a big thing, you know, me and Gemma. I was so pissed off with you, Roz. What the fuck did you want from me? I couldn’t work it out. And she was missing her guy in Novosibirsk. She wasn’t going to see him for ages, unless she could pull off another grant from somewhere.’ He pulled a face. ‘I’m such an arsehole. I thought you needed to know that I wasn’t on tap just for when you wanted me. And her guy was in the middle of a divorce, so it was all a mess.’
‘Stefan Nowicki,’ Roz said.
He looked surprised. ‘How did you know? Did Gemma tell you?’
Roz shook her head. ‘It was a guess. He was her supervisor.’
Luke gave a faint grin. ‘Christ. I’m glad I didn’t have to shag my supervisor. OK, yes, that’s who it was. So we’d get pissed together, do pills, drown our sorrows…’
‘You mean you weren’t…You didn’t…It wasn’t a sex thing?’ As he spoke, she’d felt the bitter twist of jealousy. She wanted to believe that he and Gemma had not been lovers.
‘Don’t be stupid, Roz. Of course it was. Best way to drown your sorrows that I know of. But she was off in a few months – sooner, if she could get the go-ahead.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I liked her a lot. Don’t get me wrong. She was all right, was Gemma.’
Roz was angry with herself. She wondered why she had never understood, at the time, what Luke was feeling. None of this should have happened. But there had to be more. What Luke had just told her didn’t account for the deep unease she sensed in him.
After a few minutes, he began talking again. ‘Those photographs.’
Roz tensed. She still found the photographs disturbing – not just the fact that Luke had taken them, but the overtones of dark violence that she sensed in the pictures. ‘I hate those photographs,’ she said.
‘I didn’t take them. What do I know about photography? It was her Russian guy, this Stefan. She showed them to me – that was what started…OK? But then she had that break-in, and the photos went along with all the other stuff.’ He sighed. ‘That was when the stupid bit began. Gemma was worried the photos might reappear, get Nowicki into trouble. His wife didn’t know about Gemma, right, and the divorce was all getting sorted – so she asked me to say I’d taken them if they ever turned up somewhere embarrassing.’
‘So you let me think…’ That hurt. He hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her the truth about the photographs.
‘Yes. I’m sorry, Roz. But you were all management-speak and Grey this and Grey that. You weren’t like yourself any more.’ He looked at her. ‘I thought you were rubbing my nose in it. I told you. I’ve been a complete arse.’ He lay back on the pillows staring at t
he ceiling. ‘There’s something else. That morning, the morning of the meeting, the pictures turned up.’ His face was pale, tense. ‘I’d been helping Gemma set up a website, private work – she wanted to get some money behind her. We were coming in early and working on it. She wasn’t online at her flat.’ He looked at her. ‘OK, I know. Misuse of university property.’ Roz didn’t care about that. ‘It was all on Gemma’s machine. I went to check it out when she didn’t come in – after you told me about the e-mail. I thought she might have left a message. I went up on the site, and they were there, the pictures.’
‘On the website?’
He nodded. ‘I thought she must have found them and put them there herself – a kind of joke to let me know. I took them off – you know, OK, I’ve seen them, kind of thing. And then she didn’t come back.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But the really, really stupid thing was what I told the police. They showed me the pictures and started going on about Gem being a prostitute. I thought they must have got it from the website – kinky pictures and stuff about discreet document vetting. I thought I must have done something stupid when I took them off, left them up there somehow. So I told them I’d taken the pictures. I knew she wasn’t a prostitute, that the pictures didn’t mean…And I’d promised her. It seemed like just one thing I could do. The police said she’d phoned this number. If I’d been here – maybe she was in trouble then. I keep thinking that. If I’d been here, then maybe I could have done something.’ He frowned as though he’d thought of something. ‘If she’d phoned, she’d’ve left a message. I think my answering machine must be fucked. It was OK before, though.’ Roz remembered that he’d got the message about Gemma’s laptop. ‘So I told the police, and then later I find out that the pictures had turned up on this porn site. And I was stuck with what I’d told them.’