The Pearl Thief

by Fiona McIntosh

  ‘I hope this is all right for you. The bathroom is through there. I’ll get you some supplies; we’ll worry about clothes tomorrow. Hold on, let me get you something to sleep in.’

  He disappeared for a couple of minutes and returned with a pair of his pyjamas. ‘Will these do?’

  She hugged them to her. ‘Thank you.’

  He led her to the bed. ‘Sit before you fall over.’

  She did.

  ‘Now, what else can I get for you?’

  ‘Nothing. You’re being so kind. May I tell you something?’

  He looked unsure but nodded.

  ‘Edward … when I first caught sight of you in the flat today, you were the knight in armour all girls dream about.’

  He shrugged, embarrassed. ‘I thought Daniel was the hero, crashing through the door like that and sorting out Mayek.’

  She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t Daniel who saved my life. It was you. I still don’t know how and I’m not ready to discuss it but you are my hero. And I have so much to say to you and it begins with an apology for dragging you into all of this.’

  Edward sat on the bed and took her hand. ‘I was always involved, whether I liked it or not. The Pearls were my responsibility from the moment I accepted the brief.’

  ‘Yes, but I’m sorry for ambushing you and then stalking you – then when you were trying to help I made all sorts of accusations … and then I ran away. I’m a nightmare.’

  ‘You are.’

  She looked at him and all he could see was the livid bruise forming and his heart gave in fully.

  ‘But … for an inexperienced lover, I can’t forget how addictive your kiss is.’

  She blinked, clearly not expecting this response. ‘Do you want to remind yourself about it?’

  ‘Your cheek?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to kiss that pain away?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ he murmured. He kissed her cheek but then also her neck, her ears; he buried his face in her hair, which smelled of her perfume – he wanted to know what it was. Never did he want to stop inhaling the heady mix that was Katerina. He wanted to watch her spray it on her skin each day and he wanted to be the only man who ever had the pleasure and privilege of seeing that bare skin, of touching that skin …

  She lifted his head and let her lips tell him everything that he knew to be true about Katerina. He didn’t for a moment feel like he was kissing a murderess and so he gave in to the passion and would wait until she felt herself ready to explain the rest of her story. He tasted all the possibility of love with a relative stranger and yet someone whose life he knew much more about than those of most women he had slept with. She kissed him back as deeply as he had ever allowed a woman to kiss him and he enjoyed letting it last until they both needed to part … to draw breath … to pause and consider where this led.

  ‘Would Violet and Pansy approve if I asked you to get into this bed with me?’ She shifted her embrace so she could look at him and he noted she appeared coy.

  ‘Well, now, this is a room that Miss Violet chooses to doze in of an afternoon, hence the scratching at the door.’

  She listened and smiled.

  ‘So why don’t you let me take you to my room?’

  She didn’t hesitate.

  Recklessness had overcome her. A need to feel abandon and dis-connection from what had recently occurred clearly seemed important. Katerina stood.

  ‘You should know I’ve never undressed in front of a man before,’ she admitted as they entered his bedroom.

  ‘Let me put you at ease … neither have I,’ he said, reaching for a cabinet as she laughed and winced at what that did to her injured cheek. The lid lifted to reveal a turntable. He selected a small stack of records – sixty-fives, as he called them – and hung them off the arm of the record player. He bent down and blew on the stylus. ‘No one likes a gritty needle,’ he remarked before pushing the small lever that activated the first shiny black disc of vinyl to drop and the arm that held the needle to move across and plonk itself down onto the record. There was a momentary scratching sound before a slow tune from a vibrato-rich clarinet oozed around the bedroom and Edward swung around and sighed. ‘Recognise this?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘This is Mr Acker Bilk and his huge hit of last year called “Stranger on the Shore”.’

  ‘Haunting,’ she admitted.

  ‘Exactly.’ Edward began to undress, slowly, using the music to time each button being undone.

  Helpless, she began with an embarrassed grin and soon moved to chuckling aloud, her hand helplessly against her cheek to ease the pain, as he seemed to have no shame. By the time the moody instrumental had finished, Edward was all but naked, clothes strewn carelessly around him, as though he’d shed his skin. He gave her a pirouette to make her laugh properly.

  It seemed they were both deliberately using humour as a counterbalance. It was the necessary distraction to allow their emotions to settle from what they’d witnessed and been a party to.

  ‘Shameless,’ she remarked, keeping in the spirit of the mood he’d created.

  ‘But beautiful, surely? Don’t you admire my body, as though sculpted by Michelangelo himself?’

  She snorted a soft laugh, understanding this self-effacing humour was all for her benefit and comfort. ‘You’re holding together very well for a …?’

  ‘Forty-four next birthday,’ he admitted.

  That was a surprise. ‘Extremely well for someone heading towards their sixth decade.’

  He mock-glared at her. ‘That’s a terrible way to describe a man who is still in his early forties,’ he admonished her. ‘I’m hoping you’ll forgive the not quite so firm belly as I could claim at twenty-five, my frightened hairline and, according to others, no bottom to speak of, with legs like a flamingo.’

  ‘Flamingo?’

  ‘Pink and thin … and a bit too long for my body.’

  The pain be damned. She was lost to him, laughing without further care for his feelings, for surely he couldn’t care any less about them.

  ‘And still you’re trim, you look strong, and that pot belly you mention is not authentic. You are deliberately forcing out your tummy, I can see. As for your hair, you are not balding. You’re fair and it’s probably been thin since childhood. You’ll be years watching it disappear into a soft, white frame for your boyishly handsome face.’

  ‘Is that backhanded pity you’re showing through your kind words?’

  ‘Well, let’s reserve judgement until you’re fully unclothed,’ she said, nodding at the boxer shorts he still wore. There was something ridiculously sexy about him standing there allowing himself to appear vulnerable and yet she sensed that Edward likely felt anything but threatened. She was delighted by the arousal she felt pinging around all corners of her body, half horrified that she’d be naked shortly too but in equal measure excited that Edward would reach for her.

  She wanted his hands on her body. She wanted someone to love touching her and to feel his excitement against hers. She could forgive herself this behaviour and to hell with the fear of not knowing how to have sex.

  The needle scratched against the record, refusing to budge.

  ‘Gosh, that annoys me. I must either get a new copy of my favourite song or a new record player.’ He dropped the next disc at the same time as his boxers, turning around to face her, now wearing only a rakish grin, as Chubby Checker told Katerina to twist. ‘Dance with me?’

  At her open-mouthed hesitation, his grin widened and he began to swivel his hips and she began to convulse with silent laughter at what this did to the one area of his body she was trying not to focus on and he was doing everything to make her focus on.

  ‘… and it goes like this,’ he sang, dancing as if he had no care in the world. ‘Get your clothes off, Katerina. Let’s dance. It’s the best distraction to a troubled mind and the best foreplay!’

  How could she refuse him? She undressed, casting her inhibitions away as carelessly as she to
ssed her damaged outfit, which she never wanted to see again. All she knew in this moment was that Edward Summerbee was the most generous, delicious and guileless person she’d ever met and she wanted his fun around her; she never wanted to lose it. Was this love? She exploded into fresh gales of amusement as Edward grabbed her hand and twirled her around, then twisted his hips in an ever-more suggestive and dramatic fashion. He began scissoring his knees in the way of the dance called the Twist to lower himself closer to the floor and then straightening, all in fluid movements, never losing the beat of the music. For a moment she had to accept that this deranged behaviour of theirs was perhaps the only defence they had against the concurrent execution of Ruda Mayek.

  And she felt herself falling deeper for the silly, funny person who seemed to have multiple versions of himself: the serious, correct man in his solicitor’s office; the flirt over dinner; the teen in his bedroom; the hero who had cast all his conscience away to come swinging in with little more than an umbrella and essentially saved her life.

  She didn’t know she could dance with such wanton laughter or with the sense of recklessness she felt right now with Edward, who was singing along and looked for all the world to be entirely abandoned to the music and to her. Chubby Checker sang the last note and they laughed and fell together, skin on skin – of the best kind – his fresh arousal thrilling her. She was nervous but not anxious; she was filled with the knowledge that at another time, with a vastly different man, in another place, the very act that was about to take place was horror-filled, whereas now she couldn’t wait to cling tightly to this man with her arms, her legs, her mouth, her body …

  The record player miraculously began to work again and another record dropped as they breathlessly collapsed onto his bed. The smoky voice of Ella Fitzgerald embraced them in a slow burn of ‘My Funny Valentine’. Edward remained silent for a while, smiling affectionately as their breathing slowed to meet the pace of the new song that would carry them out of the hilarity and into the new mood gathering around them.

  ‘Thank you for this,’ she said. ‘I needed it.’

  ‘So did I. What’s going on behind that frown?’ he wondered aloud.

  She took a moment to think on it in this bedroom that was dominated by a vast black closet with gilded adornments and brass handles. The wallpaper was embossed – the style was called Lincrusta, she knew – and it was painted the richest of creams that in the soft lamplight glowed towards a buttercup. This was the Edwardian part of the house he spoke of. She was letting her thoughts ramble in preparation for what was about to occur and yet she didn’t feel frightened by his hardened, needy body pressed against hers.

  ‘I’m reflecting on how comforted I feel right here, right now.’ She paused a beat. ‘Or as comfortable as anyone might be who hasn’t a stitch of clothes on in the arms of a naked stranger.’

  He smiled. ‘I wasn’t prepared for you, Katerina.’ He sounded wistful. ‘My world is sorely disrupted now,’ he said in a tutting tone. ‘But I’m concerned about what occurred with … I don’t even want to say his name.’

  ‘Don’t,’ she warned. ‘I will not permit him to share this.’

  His voice was as gentle as the fingertip that caressed her shoulder. ‘Nevertheless, he is here. He damaged you in ways that are incalculable. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t frightened to go further … and I don’t ever want to lie to you.’

  She touched his cheek gently. ‘I like that word ever.’

  ‘Are you frightened?’

  ‘A little.’ Honesty might kill the mood but she sensed he would prefer the truth in this tender moment.

  He watched her, not moving any more, and their faces were so close that it was if he were breathing only the air she allowed him. Ella’s sultry song deepened their connection. ‘I’m sort of horror-struck, Katerina. I didn’t imagine there would ever be anyone special enough to trap me.’

  ‘You are free; I have no intention of imprisoning you because of this.’

  His frown intensified. ‘You misunderstand. I am the proverbial moth to the flame, the fly to the spider’s web, the bee to the honey pot, although I have to say that bees are attracted to flowers and their nectar, not honey per se.’ He rolled over and she began to laugh again beneath him; was he being amusing again to ease their tension? He let out a sigh of exasperation. ‘I’m not explaining myself, am I? The point is, cast your spell, I want to be in its thrall; never release me.’

  ‘Did you just accuse me of witchcraft?’

  ‘I have no other explanation.’

  ‘There have been so many other women,’ she teased.

  ‘Loads of them. I’m a dreadful Lothario.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  He shrugged, tracing the angles of her face with a finger.

  ‘Out of nowhere you arrived and it’s been drama ever since, including me believing myself in love with someone I have spent the sum total of about four hours with.’

  Katerina kissed him gently for his honesty, enjoying the fresh tendrils of desire this prompted instantly between them. She could feel the pull of that arousal deep in her belly and lower, tingling at her nipples, pinching her skin to gooseflesh.

  ‘You are now officially my drug,’ he murmured in between soft, wet kisses.

  ‘Then love me, Edward. Don’t worry about either of our pasts. Just let’s both live in this moment. The memory of two decades ago must submit to the present; this is my life now. I’ve never chosen to be with anyone but I’m choosing you. Just – go slow …’ She trailed off as if unsure of what she meant but he didn’t need her to explain, it seemed.

  Edward Summerbee proceeded to kiss every inch of Katerina Kassowicz that night in an achingly tender demonstration that he was in no hurry. To the sound of a scratchy needle that refused to lift from the end of Ella’s record, he took their lovemaking at a glacial pace. Expertly, Edward built her need for him over what felt to Katerina like hours, so that by the time he made a move to finally join their bodies, she felt the novel – and for her, incredible – surge of desire to have a man inside her and only because it felt like the most natural step. She wanted this man and she was secure in the knowledge this time that he adored her. There was discomfort but it passed and her body received him as easily as if they were crafted for each other.

  And with their bodies linked, a new, restless energy overtook them; she was not prepared for this either but she gave herself over to the pleasure that forced her to close her eyes at first before squeezing them in a sort of agony that she never wanted to let go of. Then, together, they sighed and they reached, moving in delicious slow tandem like making an ascent until it was Edward who let go with a soft and apologetic gasp and moments later she felt herself sink into a delicious shuddering that rippled through her body. Deep within the spangles of intense pleasure Katerina felt a seam of pity open that she had missed out on so much loving for twenty years.

  They finally lay quiet, their breathing the only sound they made within while the odd car horn or distant voice came from beyond … a different world, she decided, to the special safe world of Edward’s arms. They were both still as if glued, but the truth was Katerina didn’t want to move, didn’t want to ever leave this haven.

  ‘I think I’m suddenly jealous of all those women you’ve slept with.’

  He dipped his golden head to face her, his look suddenly serious. ‘Don’t be. I slept with them but didn’t love them as I do you.’

  ‘Edward, I don’t want you feeling obligated because we’ve —’

  ‘I don’t. Presumptuous or not, I feel as though we’ve skipped all the traditional phases of friendship and that you’re mine now and your pain of the past is also mine. We both have things to share. Let’s leave it for a few days. Let’s make a promise not to talk about any of this for forty-eight hours … time to heal just a little.’

  ‘I like that plan. So what shall we do for the rest of tonight?’

  ‘Ah, yes. Well, for the rest of the night, I thi
nk I can take care of that …’

  34

  YORK, ENGLAND

  Two days later, they were wending their way through the narrow cobbled streets of old York.

  ‘The joyous cacophony of bells seems to be calling to us,’ Edward noted.

  ‘They’re from St Wilfrid’s, which stands in the shadow of York Minster,’ she explained. ‘They’re calling parishioners to Latin mass. Mrs Biskup is Roman Catholic and goes to that church. But our destination is the largest Norman cathedral in northern Europe. The Normans decided to build their grand place of worship on the site of the old Roman basilica. The beating heart of this region of England for the last’ – she wobbled her head, trying to make up her mind – ‘two thousand years or thereabouts.’ She grinned. ‘But right now we’re in a cluster of streets in the walled city known as Petergate. It’s where Guy Fawkes was born, by the way.’

  Edward nodded, impressed.

  ‘Formerly known as Via Principalis when the Romans built their fortress. Now, as you can see, it’s a mix of medieval and Georgian architecture – it used to be the way into York from Scotland.’

  ‘My darling, you would make a fine tourist guide.’

  ‘I am boring you,’ she said, sounding disappointed in herself.

  ‘I swear not. I suppose I’m only just discovering this brilliant, historical side of you.’

  She looked appeased. ‘Minerva.’ She pointed to the corner of the streets at High Petergate, not far from the small bed and breakfast they were staying in above some tearooms at number 52. ‘Goddess of wisdom and drama – note with her wise owl nearby, and leaning on her stack of books. When we first came to York in December 1949 she became my lucky talisman. She makes me feel safe.’

  He leaned in and kissed her non-injured cheek. ‘You are safe, although I’m worried others might think I’ve done this to you.’

  Katerina tightened her arm around his. ‘I know you didn’t and if they ask I shall tell them that Sir Summerbee, the Knight of Lancaster Gate, rescued me from the person who did this.’