by Medora Sale
Her erect figure was beginning to droop as she walked along the carpeted corridor toward her room. It was getting on to ten o’clock, London time, and her feet, in their elegant shoes, were tired and sore. The flight to Toronto had offered her an illusory and temporary respite, but the fear had struck again last night, when she disembarked, blowing into her soul along with the chill wind reeking of jet fuel that insinuated itself into every bleak corner of the airport. From the time she had picked up her rental car until she had checked into the hotel, eyes bored into her back and footsteps followed every move she made. It was all she could do to keep herself from throwing everything in the car and driving home; but that was the one thing she must not do. She must not lead anyone home.
Finding a hotel out by the airport had seemed a brilliant idea yesterday; who would look for her here? But in her calculations she had forgotten the drive between the airport and downtown Toronto—jet lag, crowded roads, lousy drivers, there and back. She shifted her thin black attaché case from one hand to the other, sighed, and inserted the room key into the lock.
She stared into the room in disbelief. The western sun, still high in the sky, poured in the window, marking out every detail with cruel precision. A fat, white pillow lay at her feet as she stood in the doorway; the mattresses had been tipped off their bases and the bedclothes lay skewed onto the floor. Her expensive new suitcases had been dumped in the center of the room, their linings ripped open.
Guy. God damn him, she screamed silently. She had an overwhelming impulse to run, to get out of the room while she could. But a kind of terrified stubbornness made her stay where she was, listening, scenting the silence. She kicked off her shoes and drifted over to the telephone on the low bureau, picked up the receiver, and put it down again. Rage was beginning to replace her fear; what good would hotel security do? The room was empty. She was sure of that. She entered the bathroom in two strides—no one. She walked over to the closet and flung open the door. Nothing in there but her red raincoat, its pockets turned out.
She closed the door, double-locking it and throwing the safety bolt before stopping to consider the mess calmly and rationally. If Guy had followed her from London, would he have done all this? The answer was swift and certain. No. He would have waited for her and slapped her until her teeth loosened, until she had handed it all over to him. Because he knew damn well he could. Someone else, whoever he might be, had engineered this. She righted an armchair and dropped into it; how stupid could she be? She knew who he was. The mocking face of the man from the coffee bar sprang up in front of her, and the realization that he or his friends had followed her here was as physical and palpable as a boot in the stomach.
The need to run howling from the room rose up from her belly, blanking out coherent thought, while a sudden and terrible lethargy paralyzed every nerve and muscle. For the first time in her life, she was incapable of reason or motion, doomed to wait helplessly until he returned. Then she blinked and shook her head. She pushed herself to her feet like an invalid and found her purse where she had dropped it in the mess near the door. She opened it clumsily and took out a black notebook, reached down and picked up the telephone from the floor beside her, checked a number and dialed.
Chapter 2
By the next afternoon, the wind had shifted to the southwest and a sudden and unexpected May heat wave had engulfed Toronto. When Inspector John Sanders finally abandoned the struggle to stay at his desk he couldn’t face the prospect of going to his own apartment. Harriet wasn’t expecting him for at least an hour; she would still be in her darkroom, working. He didn’t care. The peace and comfort of her uncluttered living room would be sufficient to restore him to sanity: a beer, soft music, and, in the background, the sounds of Harriet rustling about, washing printing trays and whatever else she did at the end of the day. He pulled up to the curb in front of Harriet Jeffries’s front door and frowned in irritation. An unfamiliar white Pontiac was sitting in the short driveway. In his parking space. And that meant someone was up there, absorbing the attention that he had hoped might be lavished on him tonight. No. That wasn’t fair. He hadn’t been expecting to be coddled, just to have the luxury of Harriet’s presence after a lousy day. And perhaps, once he had recovered, to go out for dinner and share a bottle of wine somewhere quiet and unpretentious. Except for the driver of the goddamn white Pontiac who probably wanted to stay for the whole evening. To join them for dinner, God forbid.
With any luck, of course, it would be a client, some desperate architect come to pick up prints for a meeting tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. Or this evening. That was more likely. Harriet’s clients lived permanently on the edge, as far as he could tell; these crucial meetings never failed to loom up without warning on their calendars, it seemed, catching them innocently unawares.
Having talked himself out of his flash of bad temper, John Sanders slammed the car door shut with something close to cheerful insouciance and even managed a slight bounce in his stride as he hit the steps. Using what he considered to be consummate tact, he was reaching out to ring the doorbell—although a key to Harriet’s coach house apartment rested in his pocket—when he noticed the door already lying open an inch or two. He sighed. One of these days, he was going to rehang the front door properly and rig it with an automatic closing device. The careless slam—usually propelled by a foot—that she considered sufficient to secure her against the world worked about 80 percent of the time, he figured. Not enough. He called out her name and walked in.
Harriet’s voice hit him before he reached the first stair. “I haven’t the faintest goddamn idea what you’re talking about,” she was screaming. “And even if I did, you bastard, I wouldn’t tell you. Now get out of my house.” Her voice rose to a furious shriek. “Get out before I call the cops. I mean it.”
There were twenty steps broken by one landing between ground level and Harriet’s living room and kitchen. Twenty steps that he hit three at a time. When he reached the point where he could see into the room, she was half-hidden from him by the broad shoulders and mass of brown hair of the man she had been addressing; the half of her he could see was backed up against the corner of the table. Just as he opened his mouth to intervene, the man raised his right fist and smashed it into Harriet’s cheekbone. The sound reverberated through the room and Harriet fell past the table out of his sight.
Even a few seconds later, the exact sequence of events had confused itself in Sanders’s adrenalin-muddied brain. He had no memory of climbing the rest of the stairs; he could remember a grunt of surprise as the stranger bounced against the stair railing; he could still feel the rough material of a sweater in his hands; he knew that he must have swung him around and shoved him as hard as he could. When his thoughts organized themselves again, he was staring down at a large, messy-looking male in his thirties who was sprawled, face-up, head close to the top, feet halfway down the first flight of stairs. John took a second or two to note with professional detachment that the man was clutching the banister and raising his head. Alive and conscious.
Harriet had pulled herself to her feet, white-faced, her green eyes wide with shock and fury. In a second he was beside her, his arm around her shoulders. He could feel her trembling, and was just beginning to draw her soothingly against his chest, when a creaking noise from the stairs momentarily distracted him. The man was pulling himself over onto his side, raising himself to his feet with the deliberate care of a drunk getting himself up from the pavement. He stared at the two of them, his face gray, blinked several times, and moved up one step.
“I’ll get you for that, you lying bitch,” he said thickly, before turning and lurching unsteadily down the stairs. A car engine roared into life and then the sound disappeared.
“Dammit—the door’s still open,” said Harriet in a hoarse voice.
“Just a minute,” said Sanders, and pushed her gently down on the couch. Downstairs, he closed the door and slipped the chain into pla
ce. He had no desire to be surprised by this madman—whoever he was—creeping back up the stairs unannounced.
“Now,” he said, sitting down beside her. “Two things. Are you okay? And who in hell was that?”
“I’m fine,” said Harriet, tossing the hair back from her face with a stiff imitation of her old careless gesture and shrugging her shoulders. “He wanted to know where Jane was,” she explained, rather obscurely. “And he seemed to think that she’d sent me a letter.”
“Ah,” said Sanders, “of course. He wanted the letter from Jane—whoever she is. But who is he? You’ll have to pardon my curiosity, but I damn near dislocated my shoulder heaving him down the stairs.”
An odd expression passed over Harriet’s face. “Oh—that was Guy. I thought you realized. Guy Beaumont. I told you about him.”
“You did? I have a lousy memory—you know that. How about you remind me what you said.”
“He’s a painter,” she began, and started to shiver. Her voice trailed off.
“Ah,” said John, suddenly enlightened. “Your painter. The one who ran off with your assistant.”
Harriet nodded.
“Now that I’ve met him, I can’t say much for your taste, Harriet. I’m sorry. That was supposed to be a joke,” he added hastily. “In very bad taste.” He caught her hands and squeezed them gently. “But why in hell, my darling, did you let a bastard like that in?” He clutched her hands tightly in exasperation. “Harriet, you have to learn to defend yourself in this world. What if I hadn’t turned up early?”
Her eyes narrowed in exasperation and then dampened with tears. “I didn’t let him in,” she said vehemently. “How stupid do you think I am? He let himself in—he has a key.”
“He has a key,” said Sanders flatly.
“He used to live here.” Harriet’s tone became defensive. “He needed one. And then when we split up he went to Montreal and then to London, and it never occurred to me he’d turn up again. I mean I just never thought about it at all.”
“Who the hell else has a key to your apartment?”
“No one,” said Harriet confidently. “You know that. They’re the kind that can’t be copied without written authorization. Of course, you have one. And the landlord. And I guess Jane might, if she hasn’t thrown it away or lost it.”
“Jane. I see. That’s three more keys you can remember right now, when you’re not thinking very clearly, and your head’s throbbing—it is throbbing, isn’t it?”
Harriet nodded and touched her cheekbone tentatively. “It’s beginning to. Just here. But I think I’m more surprised than hurt. Really. I ducked the worst of it.” She looked up and smiled, albeit somewhat forlornly. “I guess I should get the locks changed.”
“I guess you should. Anyway who in hell is Jane?”
“I told you about Jane. She was my assistant.” A healthy note of irritation was creeping into Harriet’s voice.
“I don’t think we ever dealt in names. In fact, I was under the impression that most of your old friends didn’t have names. So Jane’s the one who ran off with—what was his name—Guy? Your friend with the quick fists. Didn’t you say she was pregnant at the time?”
“Yes, she was. And by now she ought to be a mother.” Harriet started to count off months on her fingers and then threw apart her hands. “What am I doing? That kid was born ages ago. Anyway, I heard that she and Guy went off to London after that.”
Sanders pushed himself to his feet again and started over to the kitchen.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting you some ice,” he said, grinning as he opened the refrigerator door. “For your face. You’ll find it helps a lot. Otherwise tomorrow you’ll look like a fighter the morning after. The one who lost.”
“Ice? Really, John,” said Harriet. “You’re overreacting. What do you think this is? A John Wayne movie? The big, strong detective rushes in, mows down the villain, and rescues the little lady—and then supplies her with ice packs?” A spurt of ominous laughter cut off her lecture.
“Have you ever seen a John Wayne movie?” called Sanders from the kitchen. He turned all the ice cubes carefully out onto a plate, and then divided them with great deliberation between two plastic bags. He put one back in the freezer and walked over to the couch. “They don’t go in much for ice packs. Here, press this against your eye, ten minutes on, ten minutes off, for the next eight hours or so.” He put it in her hand and went back for a clean towel. “Use this so you don’t freeze your hand as well,” he added, handing it to her. “Anyway first of all, you’re not my idea of the little lady at all. Not enough ruffles. And people in John Wayne movies don’t get black eyes. They’re not as vulnerable as the rest of us mortals. How does that feel?”
“Fine,” said Harriet, wincing from the sudden cold. “I’m fine,” she repeated and burst into tears.
He sat down beside her again and gathered her in his arms, rubbing her back and murmuring. “It’s all right, Harriet. Listen—we’ll get a court order keeping him away from the place. It’s easy.”
“I’m okay. It was just the shock,” said Harriet at last.
“You’ve nothing to be afraid of,” said John in his most reassuring voice. “He’ll be easy to get rid of.”
“Don’t be condescending,” said Harriet. “And anyway, I’m not afraid of Guy. I know what he’s like. It’s you. I’ve never seen you so angry. You could really hurt someone in that state. You could have killed him.”
“Me? What are you talking about? What did you want me to do? Stand around and watch him beat you to a pulp?”
“He wouldn’t have,” said Harriet, her tears starting again. “He’s a coward. Once he realized there was another person in the room he would have stopped.”
“Goddammit, Harriet, what’s this all about?” He paused suddenly. “You’re upset that he might be hurt, aren’t you? After all this time—” The thought formed itself in his head with a swiftness that made him dizzy, rearranging everything he knew into a new and ominous pattern. “You’re still in love with him, aren’t you? He hands out this kind of crap and you’re still in love with him. I can’t believe it. All those evasions, all that shit about ‘I’m not ready to commit myself to anyone,’ that’s because you’re still in love with this—this asshole, this pretentious son of a bitch—”
Harriet stared at him with astonishment, the flow of tears cut off. “Omigod, John,” she said, with a lopsided grin on her half-frozen face. “You’re jealous. Of Guy Beaumont. That’s funny. Don’t be. Not only do I not love him, I don’t even hate him anymore. Although I will admit I’d rather not be in the same room with him.” She raised her eyes in his direction with renewed energy. “But I really resent what he did to you,” she said accusingly. “That man has a genius for destroying anything he comes into contact with.”
“He didn’t do anything to me,” said John, astonished. “Except irritate the hell out of me.”
“Oh yes he did. He turned you into a monster. In seconds. You were ready to murder him if you could. For two cents you would have.”
He paused to push his hair back off his forehead. “If I had been trying to murder him, I promise you he’d be in much worse shape right now. I was merely removing him from a situation with as much force as is consonant with public safety.”
“The hell you were. I saw the look on your face.”
“Harriet—would you mind telling me what we’re fighting about?”
“We’re not fighting,” she answered, clutching the ice to her cheek with unnecessary vehemence. “You’re simply working off excessive amounts of male aggression.”
Sanders stood up abruptly. “If that’s what you think, and if you’re sure that you’re all right, I’m going home to get some sleep. I will lock the door as I go out. You might consider putting the chain on. By the way,” he added, his voice definitely chilly, “you m
entioned a letter. Did you, in fact, get a letter? It might explain what he was after.”
“Yes,” said Harriet. She got up, still holding the ice to her cheek, opened her top desk drawer, and took out a letter in a blue airmail envelope. “Here.”
Sanders drew the letter out of its envelope with great deliberation, unfolded it, and began to read it aloud:
Dear Harriet,
You must be surprised to hear from me after all this time, but I need your help and there isn’t anyone else I can turn to that I can trust. I am absolutely miserable here in London without the baby. I have left Guy and tried to find someplace else to live but that isn’t working out either. It is very lonely here. I have some money left and I have bought a plane ticket back to Toronto for next week. Can I ask you a favour?
I’m afraid that Guy will come looking for me. You know what he’s like—I thought he was going to kill me when I said I was leaving. I can’t go to Mother’s because Agnes is there and it’s the first place he will look. I’m really desperate. Can I stay with you for a few days until I get a place and all that? It won’t be for long. It would never occur to him that I would stay with you after what I did to you.
I’ll call you when I get in. Please think about this. Thanks.
Jane.
“Agnes is the baby?”
Harriet nodded. “I suppose so.”
“She’s not much of a prophet, is she? You were the first thing that occurred to him.”
“I suppose I was,” said Harriet reluctantly. “Although I got the impression that he’d been in Toronto for a couple of days. He might have tried a lot of other people already.”
“And you haven’t heard from her? You don’t know if she’s in town?”