by Kate Johnson
“Thanks,” I said as I got out of the car. “For the lift and everything.”
“No problem. You want me to see you in?”
“I think I can manage,” I said with as much sarcasm as my tired mind could gather. According to my roster, I should be on an early shift today. Starting in about four hours. I stifled a yawn.
“I’ll call in sick for you,” Luke offered. “You already had today off.”
“They’ll love me,” I said.
He got out of the car and walked me to my door without me asking. It was very sweet of him, but if he was expecting anything more than me passing out as soon as I got horizontal he was going to be very disappointed.
“You’ll be okay?” he said as I unlocked the door, and he looked kind of adorable in the light from the security lamp.
“I’ll be fine,” I said, opening the door and shoving inside. A wave of hot smell hit me. “Jesus, Tammy, what have you brought in?”
“Need to turn that heating down,” Luke said, making a face. “Something’s rotten.”
“It’s Tammy. When she’s feeling unloved, she brings dead things in…” I trailed off. Tammy was still at my parents’ house. So unless something had crawled through the cat flap and died…
I kicked off the torturous shoes and rushed over to the post I’d discarded yesterday, scooping up today’s on the way. No manila envelopes, but one fat Jiffy bag, and the free charity pen…
I got my rubber gloves out and tore into the charity envelope. There was no pen. I opened the Jiffy bag. Nothing pleasant there either.
Luke and I stared at the two festering fingers. Bile rose in my throat.
“Okay, this is gross,” I said. “Get me a, get me a sandwich bag for them or something. This is disgusting.”
I didn’t know where to put them—I sure as hell wasn’t messing with the sleepy village policemen at this time of night—so I ended up shoving them in the freezer, well away from anything I might ever want to eat again.
In fact, I was thinking I might clean out the whole freezer when something caught my attention. Luke had been studying the printed “charity” envelope as it lay on the counter. I picked up the Jiffy bag.
“This wasn’t postmarked,” I said. “There’s no stamp. This was put through my door. Someone came to my house and put this through my door.”
I started to shudder. I was past fear now. I was tired and, weirdly, I was hungry, and I was damn annoyed that on top of Luke and Harvey and Wright and the Brownie twins, someone was sending me the severed fingers of someone whose murder we were miles away from solving.
I jammed my feet into trainers, strode over to the door and glared into the yard, as if I thought I might see something there.
Then I did see something there.
At least, I saw something moving beyond the fence. Not thinking, I ran straight out there, Luke yelling after me, and saw someone—not a cat or a fox or anything small, an actual person—disappear into the semi-abandoned building site across the car park.
“Sophie, what the hell are you—” Luke began, but then he stopped. “Soph,” he said quietly. “There’s someone there. Come back.”
“The hell I will,” I said. Probably it was just some kids on their way back from the pub.
On a private driveway, two hours after last orders.
I held out my hand. “Give me your gun.”
“The hell I will.”
“There’s someone there. Give me your gun.”
He’d reached me now and held onto my arm. “Stay here. I’ll go.”
“No.” I wrenched away, invincible with anger, and walked straight into the building site, picking my way over the rubble, Luke swearing behind me.
Then there was a loud shot, very close, echoing and pinging around my ears, and then a crack and a shudder, and then something smacked the back of my head and the world vanished.
Unconsciousness is nice. Dark, dreamy, restful. Like sleep, but without the dreams. A nice place to stay. All warm and comfortable.
But unconsciousness is like watching TV or reading a really good book. People never let you do it for long. Someone wanted me awake.
The next thing I heard was Luke’s voice, urgent and distant, and the next thing I saw was a lighter kind of darkness as he lifted something off my face.
“Sophie? Jesus, Sophie, say something.”
I stared up at him, winded. “I think the dress is fucked.”
He pushed more bits of rubble away from me. “Can you move? Can you feel your fingers and toes? Can you move them?”
I worked hard to catch my breath. There was too much stuff on me, I’d fallen into a pile of rubble or something. Or…had the rubble fallen on me? “I can’t move at all.”
Looking really scared now, Luke started shoving bigger bits of brick off me. I was covered in pieces of timber and brick dust and bits of concrete. I freed one arm, then the other, and tried to sit up. That… Was it a shot? Had someone shot me? It had knocked down half the building site—most of it, or so it felt, onto me.
Luke heaved a bit of wood off my legs and grabbed my calf. “Can you feel this?” He ran his hand up and down my leg. “Sophie, can you feel it?”
Oh, God, yes. Probably this was entirely inappropriate, but I was feeling other things as well. What he was doing was starting to make me feel dizzy. Not that I was desperate, but it had been a pretty long time and, well, you should see him.
I nodded silently, staring up at him. He was a little bit blurry. He’d taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves and he was dusty and frightened and he looked incredible.
“God, Soph.” He pulled me against him. “I thought you were gone. I thought…”
I put my arms around him. “I’m right here,” I said, and Luke kissed me. And then his hand went back down to my leg, moving up over the transmitter and garter belt, doing very inappropriate things that I begged him not to stop. And then he pulled the rather ruined dress off me and I pulled his clothes off him, and then we were naked and once we were naked we got pretty hot and pretty happy, and then…
God, I can’t believe I had sex in the rubble.
Afterwards I clung to him, breathless and sweaty and absolutely filthy and not caring at all, and he raised his head and kissed my nose and said, “You okay?”
I smiled dreamily. “I’m great,” I said. “How you doin’?”
“Only, you are lying in the rubble, and a building did just fall down on you.”
I’d sort of forgotten. It was that good.
“I’m okay,” I said, and Luke frowned. He moved away from me, and I was weak as a newborn, trying to stop him. He got something out of his jacket—what, was it made by the Mary Poppins Carpet Bag Co.?—and flashed a bright light in my eyes.
“Ow!” I pushed the torch away. “What’s that for?”
“I think you have a concussion.” He hit himself on the head, which I thought was pretty funny. “Shit.”
“I don’t have a concussion. I feel fine.”
“Sophie, tell me your postcode.”
I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t even think of the first letter.
“Yeah,” Luke said. “Better get you to a doctor. Can you stand?”
I was sure I could, but no one had told my legs that and they buckled under me. Luke held me up, pulled the dress back over me and shoved himself into his clothes, then picked me up in his arms.
I was fuzzily impressed. I must have been dreaming. No man has been able to pick me up since I outweighed my mother. When I was fourteen. I’m tall, okay? My bones are heavy.
I’d thought he might be taking me inside so I could snuggle up in bed with him, but he put me in his car, locked the doors and told me he’d be back after he’d locked up my flat. How sweet. And car sex, too.
I must have dozed off again, because Luke kept shaking me and talking to me, asking me really stupid questions all the time instead of taking my clothes off. Actually, I got past feeling sexy quite quickly and just
wanted to go to sleep. This time yesterday I was in Rome. Imagine that, a different time zone, only yesterday.
“…Which is the first episode Dawn turns up in?” Luke asked, having ascertained that Buffy trivia was my specialist subject.
“I dunno.” I yawned.
“Yes, you do. No one knows who she is. It’s when Buffy’s mum asks her to take Dawn out with her…”
“The Dracula one? Series five.”
“Yes. And what’s the one after that?”
“Dunno.”
“Come on, Soph, help me out here.”
“Wanna go to sleep.”
“Which episode?”
“Where Giles has his mid-life crisis car and the, the magic shop…”
He nodded and stopped the car. I hadn’t even realised he’d started it.
“Where are we?”
“Princess Alexandra Hospital. Casualty, sweetheart. Come on.”
He half carried me into the horribly bright room, full of pub brawlers and girls who’d walked on broken glass, and somehow got me to the front of the queue, x-rayed and checked over and sewn up. I think there was a cut on my shoulder. They kept me awake, the bastards, and I really wanted to sleep so much. But Luke was there, holding my hand, making me stay awake, stroking my hair and telling me he’d take care of me.
I wanted to tell him I could take care of myself, but the truth was it felt too nice to have him watching over me. Some feminist I am.
Then Luke took me back to the car and finally let me sleep. I drifted away, blissful, dreamless.
Chapter Thirteen
When I was seven my brother Chalker and I went around to the neighbours’ house to play with their kids. I walked and Chalker came a minute later, on his bike. It was only around the corner, close enough that our parents let us go alone. We only lived on a cul-de-sac. Safe as anything.
On the way back, running because—well, I don’t know why I was running. Because I was a kid and it was fun, I think. I haven’t really run properly in years. I was running back and Chalker was right behind me on his bike, and as I cut in front of him to jump onto the pavement and run across the lawn to our house, he clipped me with his bike.
At least, that’s what he says. All I remember is running up the road. I don’t remember him clipping me, I don’t remember falling, and I don’t remember hitting my head on the kerb. Of course, if you ask Chalker, it was my fault for getting in his way. It’s his word against mine. I don’t remember it at all. I just remember waking in my mum’s arms, inside the house, wondering how I’d got there and why everyone was looking so concerned and why on earth my head hurt so much.
I remember that look. The expression on my mother’s face. Like she was frightened and relieved and angry, all at the same time. I don’t remember her ever shouting at my brother for it. I don’t remember if blame was ever apportioned. No one told me off for it either. Everyone was so relieved that I didn’t have any serious brain damage (although Chalker still has his doubts) that the incident itself was largely forgotten.
But I remember the look. Luke had it too, when I opened my eyes in the rubble. At the time I thought I’d never seen someone look so frightened, but now I remember my mother.
Why was Luke so frightened? Because he thought it was his fault? Because he’d have to train a new partner? Because he cared for me?
He hardly knew me.
Maybe it was just normal concern for another human being. Maybe if I’d been a stranger he’d have looked the same.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t have shagged me, though.
In restless dreams, I walked alone. I was in London and I was supposed to be meeting someone. I can’t remember who. Only I got lost, I missed my train or something and the person I was with got whisked away, so I got on the next train and went to the wrong place. It was like being a child—I had no idea where I was supposed to be, and I was frightened, really frightened.
I walked around the streets, streets that looked like where I grew up, where I went to school. But it was dark, and there was no one around, and I had nothing—no money, no phone. I couldn’t even call a cab to take me somewhere, because I didn’t know where I was supposed to be going.
I felt like crying. I didn’t know where I was and I didn’t know where I was going, and even if I got there I didn’t know what I’d do.
And then I looked around, and there was Luke, rolling his eyes and asking what I’d got myself into now.
“They said you were gone,” he explained, coming closer, warm and solid and wonderful. “I came to find you.”
“I was lost,” I said, feeling helpless.
“I found you.” He smiled at me reassuringly, and I believed him. “I’ll always find you.”
He put his arm around me as we walked, a companionable gesture that made me want to snuggle closer. He felt safe, secure.
“How do you know where we’re going?” I asked.
“What makes you think I do?”
“You seem so sure.”
“I’m working it out.”
We walked a bit farther. The streets all looked the same—leafy, pleasant, a bit blurry. It was like walking into a blue screen.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“What for?”
“Causing so much trouble.”
“You’re not trouble.”
“Got lost, didn’t I?”
Luke’s hand rubbed my shoulder, and it tingled. I had a feeling that meant something, but I wasn’t sure what. Everything felt sort of fuzzy.
“You weren’t really lost,” he said. “I found you.”
He kept saying that. He found me. But how? And where were we going?
“I’m causing so much trouble,” I said.
“No. You’re doing fine.”
“Where are we even going?” I tried to remember but it felt like my head was full of pudding.
“You don’t know?”
“I…”
“I thought you knew.” Luke looked at me in surprise. “You’re leading the way.”
“No, I…”
“I’m walking with you, Sophie. You know where you’re going.”
I stopped and looked up at him. “Luke, will you kiss me?”
He smiled and stroked my face. My cheek tingled, just the way my shoulder had when he’d touched it there. “I already have.”
“Kiss me again. I don’t remember.”
Luke sighed, a soft sound, and I closed my eyes. But when I opened them, he wasn’t there and I was alone again.
For a second I was lost, frightened again. What was I doing? Where was I going?
Why wasn’t he there to show me?
I looked up the street, looked down it. I didn’t know which way we’d even come. But I wasn’t going to get anywhere just standing here.
I turned left and started walking. Surely I’d end up somewhere.
I didn’t feel so lost any more.
I woke in a strange place, comfortable and white, and for a second was truly frightened. I’d died. I’d been shot—it was like in Ghost, where Patrick Swayze runs down the road and doesn’t realise his body has been left behind. I had never had sex with Luke. I’d not been to the hospital or anything. That’s why I was in this marvellous white cocoon, with a high, dark-beamed ceiling…
Heaven is a loft apartment?
I managed to move my head to the accompaniment of severe pain from the unlikeliest of sources. I was in a big white bed between high-thread-count sheets. There were pieces of dark oak furniture around the pale walls. A door. A window with heavy linen curtains drawn.
Heaven had good taste. Stark, but not bad.
I tried to sit up and immediately realised this was not a good idea. I felt like a building had fallen down on me.
And then I remembered that it had.
The Nokia was charging up on the night stand, next to my little evening bag. There was a note propped by the phone, addressed to me.
I used up most of my strength stretching over to
get it, and lay there for a while, exhausted, aching. Then I managed to roll back on my back, and unfolded the sheet of paper.
Sophie, These are your painkillers. I looked over and realised they’d been behind the note. Take two every four hours and no more or you’ll pass out. Didn’t seem like such a bad idea to me. Take a shower but don’t get the dressing wet. What dressing? Oh, yes, the dreadful pain in my shoulder. Stitches or something. Great. Don’t go outside, I really don’t think it’s safe for you. Rest and sleep. Drink some water. Make yourself at home, I’ll be back this afternoon. There’s a video for you on the coffee table. Call me if you need anything. Luke.
That was it. Not love Luke, not dear Sophie. No kisses.
Had I imagined the sex? No. I couldn’t have.
No power on heaven or earth could have imagined that sex. Oh, boy. I licked my dry lips. I’d be carrying the memory of that to my grave. I frowned. Maybe thinking about graves when I hurt this much wasn’t a good idea. Still. It was a bit of a foggy memory, but it was still a good one.
Imagine what it’d be like if I wasn’t concussed.
Oh, boy.
I put a painkiller in my mouth and realised I couldn’t swallow it. The pill was huge and my mouth was totally dry.
Gagging, I stumbled out of bed and shoved through the door into a large open plan living room with a clean, shiny chrome kitchen. I stuck my head under the tap and chugged a load of water, and the pill went down.
Breathing deeply, every nerve in my body wailing in pain, I leaned back against the kitchen counter and looked around. Luke’s flat was a big loft with high, apexed ceilings filled with lovely old beams. He had oak panelled floors—real oak, not the fake stuff I have in my flat—and a lovely leather chesterfield that I coveted immediately. His kitchen was new and shiny but all the other furniture looked old and loved. Faded rugs on the floor. A punch-bag hanging from the high beams.
The place was spacious and lightsome. I hadn’t really pictured Luke’s flat in my head, apart from figuring it’d be full of complicated locks and timers and alarms and red beams criss-crossing the floor. But this was a really cool place.