by Kate Johnson
Marc walked with me, mostly silent apart from when he pointed out the broken glass or chewing gum on the pavement. The three girls walked along together, all of them competing for biggest diva, but Lucy crying hardest of all, especially when we heard the ambulance whistle past.
The drive home was long and quiet and tense, and for me, really painful. My feet were not only raw, but dirty and hot and prickly. There was dust and dirt in the burst blisters, and they hurt like fuck. Not to mention the broken needle in my arm, which I’d somehow managed to hide from the others.
Luke was going to love this.
A is for Apple
Chapter Thirteen
My dreams were distorted, uncomfortable and hot. People in dark cloaks with giant syringes were coming after me, stabbing me repeatedly in the arm until it ached and throbbed, pushing me to the ground where Laurence lay grey and bleeding, then jumping on my feet until the bones crunched.
I felt like I’d hardly slept at all—it was nearly light when I finally fell into bed, naked, my clothes in a wet dirty heap on the floor—and when someone lightly brushed my shoulder I jumped.
“What?”
“You were dreaming,” Luke said, and I opened my eyes a crack to see him sitting on the edge of my bed. Sometimes I wish I’d never let him have a key. But then he’d probably have broken in anyway.
“Go away.” I yawned.
“That’s nice.”
“I’m really, really tired. What time is it?”
“Ten.”
“Blegh.”
“Sophie,” Luke chided, “you have to get up and look respectable. Great Aunt Tilda’s garden party, remember?”
I put my face in the pillow and moaned.
“How’d it go last night?”
In flashes, I remembered. The rain, the stabbing club lights, the thud of the sub-speakers from outside. Laurence, pale and dead-looking, the jab in my arm—
I sat up. “I have to call the hospital.”
“Ah, underage clubbing. Who had their stomach pumped?”
“No one. One of the boys was attacked. He—”
But Luke had grabbed my arm, and I winced.
“Sophie—what the hell—?”
I looked down. The needle was wedged under the skin of my inner arm, just below the elbow. There was a red line scoring down to it, like a track mark. I hadn’t even looked at it properly last night. I’d just told myself to take a trip to the doctor’s in the morning and I’d be fine.
“Oh,” I said. “I got attacked too.”
“There’s something in your arm!”
“Yeah. I think it’s a needle.” I tried to think of the right word for it.
He stared at me. “Like a hypodermic needle?”
“Yes!” Clever Luke.
He took a deep breath, still holding my arm under the elbow, trying to look calm. “There is a hypodermic needle in your arm,” he said, nostrils flaring.
“Only half of one,” I said helpfully.
“There is a hypodermic needle in your arm.”
I felt a further correction would not be helpful.
“I was going to tell you,” I lied, “but my phone ran out of battery.” There. Nearly true.
“Why didn’t you go to the hospital straight away?”
“It’s not that bad,” I said, looking at it doubtfully. The skin around the needle was puffy and pink, my arm throbbed a little, but on balance I think my feet hurt worse.
“Sophie,” his fingers were nearly cutting off my circulation now, “do you know where else that needle has been?”
I shrugged. “How would I—”
“Do you realise you could have got hepatitis? Or worse?”
I stared at my arm. That hadn’t occurred to me.
“Jesus.” He dropped my arm pretty sharpish and left the room. I got up, pulled my dressing gown on—God, I hurt everywhere—and padded out into the living room after him. Tammy was sitting on the kitchen counter, looking plaintive. I put my hand out to her, then withdrew it.
“Sorry, baby. Mummy might be contagious.”
“Can you be serious?” Luke snapped. He had my Yellow Pages out and was going through the hospital listings. When he found one he liked, he grabbed my phone and stabbed at the buttons.
“You can use my phone if you want,” I said, and he glared at me.
“Hello, casualty? My girlfriend has a needle stuck in her arm, right under the skin…a hypodermic needle. It’s broken off. She was attacked,” he added sharply.
He listened for a while as I moved over to the kettle and switched it on, examining my arm as I went.
“Right. I thought so. I’ll bring her up. Thank you.”
He put the phone down and turned to me. “Get dressed.”
“Sir, yes, sir.”
“And for God’s sake take your makeup off.”
I looked in the mirror. Blegh. He was right.
I couldn’t be arsed with a shower, but I bathed my feet in the sink (Luke decided he was impressed with my agility and said he’d take advantage of it when he was sure I wasn’t going to give him anything. Told you he was an unromantic sod) and packaged them up with plasters and thick socks. I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and added a baseball cap to cover up my hair, which really needed washing after the smoke and sweat of the club. When I was done, I looked like a teenage junkie. Great.
Luke put me in his car and drove me up to the Princess Alexandra Hospital, where we waited for a couple of hours before someone came along with a scalpel, cut open my arm to get the needle out, and promptly hit a vein. Blood gushed everywhere, and the young doctor went pale.
“Right. I’ll, er, I’ll just sew that up, shall I?”
Luke rolled his eyes at me. He’d tried to blag us to the front of the queue with his Special Agent status, but it hadn’t worked. I’d read Hello!, Okay and Chat magazines until I thought my brain might explode. Tired and grubby, and in pain from several sources, I waited patiently while my arm was cleaned and stitched up, and then a needle was inserted into my other arm (check out the irony of that) so they could check my blood for hepatitis or AIDS or whatever other nasty things Luke was convinced I had.
On the way out, I asked the receptionist if she could get me any news about Laurence. To my shame I realised I didn’t know his last name, but I gave her admission details and she came back with the news that he was in a coma, following a heroin overdose.
“Will he be okay?” I asked, clutching Luke.
She shrugged. “The sooner he wakes, the better.”
“But you don’t know when that will be?”
She shook her head. “Sorry.”
I walked out, holding tightly onto Luke. Suddenly I realised what someone had been trying to do to me. I was pretty certain Laurence wasn’t a user. I don’t know why—call it another hunch. Someone had injected him, and then they’d tried to get me, too.
“Heroin,” Luke said, looking impressed as he dragged me back to the car. “That could explain why you’re so tired. You’re still stoned.”
“I am not stoned. I don’t think any of it went in me.”
“You don’t feel happy and relaxed?”
“I’m in too much pain to be relaxed.” I clutched the bottle of painkillers they’d given me and considered becoming addicted to them.
“Oh. Well, if it hurts, you’re probably not stoned. It’s supposed to relieve pain. That’s sort of the point.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” I collapsed into the car. “Luke, someone tried to kill me.”
“Again.” He touched my face. “Remind me not to let you out of my sight.”
“It’s not as if I’ve even done anything.”
“You’re a spy, sweetheart. That’s enough.”
I thought about this on the way home, drowsy with painkillers and antibiotics and lack of sleep, looking down at my arm which bore a fresh bandage. If this went on any longer I’d soon be totally mummified.
I guess as long as I was trying to fin
d, infiltrate and stop bad guys, then the bad guys would be trying to stop me. And while SO17 might stop people by putting them in jail, nasty people weren’t so nice. They preferred to remove you permanently.
Sometimes, I could see how they had a point.
“Luke,” I said as we pulled up at my flat, “do you know if it’s just Marc and his mother going to this party?”
“I haven’t seen the whole guest list. Why?”
“No reason.” I didn’t want to say it until I’d thought about it some more.
“Do you still want to go?”
I nodded. “I need to.”
Luke looked me over and seemed to decide I’d do. “Okay. But please wash your hair.”
Out came the clingfilm to keep my bandage dry while I showered. I stood looking at the contents of my wardrobe for quite a while, making faces, until Luke—already looking smart and lovely in chinos and a linen shirt that had somehow escaped my blood fountain, the pristine bastard—asked me what was wrong.
“What kind of party is it?”
“A garden party.”
“Yes, I know, but is it the sort of party me and my friends have where we eat pizza and get smashed and listen to cheesy pop?”
Luke shook his head slowly.
“I didn’t think so. I get the feeling I should be wearing something floral.”
“And…?”
“And I don’t feel very floral.” I narrowed my eyes calculatingly. “It’s not going to rain any more, is it?”
“I don’t think so. It’s cooler than it was. There’s a breeze. Why?”
I pulled out my leather jeans. “I’m really not feeling floral.”
So my feet hurt and my arm ached and my thigh was throbbing from the effect all that dancing had had on the bruise. So what. I swallowed some more pain pills and swiped on some eyeliner, and felt a lot better for it.
Luke took one look at my outfit—leather jeans, red boots, sheer black top that showed off my DD cup bra—and decided he needed to change too.
“Just no leather,” I said, as we got in his car and went back to his place, already running late.
“Why not?”
How could I put this in a PC, non-offensive way?
“You’ll look gay.”
“That’s nice.”
“Sorry, Luke, but you would. If you put on leather jeans—don’t tell me you still have them?”
“I could still have them,” Luke said moodily.
“But you don’t?”
“…No.”
“If you wore leather jeans, I’d seriously have to call your sexuality into question. Me, the girl you’ve been screwing senseless for months.”
“You never call Spike gay and he’s always wearing them.”
“That’s because he’s Spike. He’s in his own class. He could wear pink and still look straight.”
“Are you saying I looked gay when I wore them in Cornwall?”
“No, ‘cos you were dressed up as Spike for the party.” And damn, he’d looked good.
“So Spike’s not gay, but I am?”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Of course not. You’re very straight.” He’d stopped the car in the yard now, and I leaned across and kissed him. “Very straight.”
But Luke pulled back, and I looked at him, hurt.
“You,” he began, and looked nervous. “You could be…”
“Contagious. Right. I’ll have to carry a warning.”
“Sophie, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay.” I got out of the car. “I’m all right. If I drop off into a coma I’ll be sure to remember as my last thought how glad I am that you didn’t get infected.”
He came after me, bleeping the car shut.
“It’s not funny.”
“No.” I stopped, annoyed now. “It’s not. Blood poisoning is the least of my worries. I could be HIV positive. Fuck knows where that needle’d been.”
“Probably it was only Laurence…”
“Probably? Oh, thanks.”
I flumped down on his chesterfield and flicked through the news channels on Sky, half expecting there to be something about Laurence on there. But I guess teenage overdoses are too common for ordinary news.
Luke came out, wearing black jeans and a snug, pale blue T-shirt. He had big boots on and he was scowling.
“Mmm,” I said, “much better. Are you sure you won’t kiss me?”
He looked mardy. “How long will it take for the blood test results to come back?”
“Fuck knows. This is the NHS. Probably about a week.”
Luke sighed. “I’ll see if Karen can speed them up.”
His Great Aunt Tilda’s house was about an hour’s drive away and I was surprised when he suggested we take my car. And then I realised that Great Aunt Tilda would probably be terribly grand, and that a Defender would look a hell of a lot better than a Vectra, sitting there in the driveway. Or round in valet parking. I didn’t know how rich she was.
In fact I barely knew anything about Luke’s family at all. I knew they must have had money, to continue sending him to Eton. I knew they weren’t close to him. That’s all I knew.
Luke insisted I wasn’t to drive and I, mindful of all the drugs I was now on, agreed and winced as he thrashed Ted’s gearbox around.
“Be nice to him,” I said. “He’s been through a lot.”
“Not as much as you,” Luke said.
He turned off the B-road onto a long, straight lane with wide grass verges on either side, bordered by high brick walls. It looked like the entrance to a grand country house, but there’d been no indication it was private at the junction.
And then we came to a road crossing the long lane, and opposite from us was a sign announcing Gravely House. The lane had been part of the drive. Luke went straight over and through the wide, open wrought iron gates, and we followed the long drive up through more carefully tended green lawns until a house came in view.
Well, I say a house. Really it needed its own postcode. It was huge. It would have made Buckingham Palace look like a garden shed. There were wings and crenellations and outbuildings and a flock of gardeners tending the borders. I got the feeling that looking after this place was a bit like painting the Forth Bridge—no sooner had you got to one end than the other needed attention.
Luke glanced over at me.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “It’s, uh, impressive.”
“Yeah. She opens it up for public viewing most of the year. The party is to celebrate her getting her home back.”
“Your great aunt really owns this place?”
He nodded. “Bit of a white elephant. Costs so much to keep she barely breaks even.”
But still. I was impressed when my mum inherited her mother’s flat. My flat. One bedroom and no garden. You could live a lifetime in this house and never see the same room twice.
“Do we have to go inside?” I asked. “Only my feet still hurt and I think it might take me a week to get from one end to the other of this place.”
He grinned. “We don’t have to go inside. Unless it rains and we’ll go in the ballroom.”
Dear God.
“That’s good,” I said, “because I think I might need Ted to get around this place.”
“Well, he’s a Defender. He’ll fit right in.”
“See, my car is very useful.”
“Hmm.”
At the front door of the house Luke pulled up and a young man in a suit came and asked for his invitation. Luke showed it, and the young man wrote out a ticket which he stuck to the rear view mirror, then he got in and drove Ted away.
I stood, waving. “I do hope that’s valet parking,” I said, “and he’s not stealing my car.”
“It’s valet,” Luke said, slinging an arm around my shoulders, “Ted’s gone to meet the Mercedes breeding ground round back.”
“So no one will see we arrived in him?”
“They’ll see our ticket in the window,” Luke said co
nsolingly, and I supposed that would have to be good enough.
I could hear jazz music coming from the back of the house, and expected it to be on a PA. But it was a live jazz band, men and women all in black and white, playing merrily under a white awning. The garden—well, probably one of many gardens, part of the grounds or whatever—was beautiful, sculpted and perfect. The lawns were perfect flat terraces. The edging was hairdresser neat. All the foliage was perfectly symmetrical and there was not one dead leaf or drooping flower anywhere.
It was all a bit intimidating.
“Are you sure Marc’s going to be here?” I asked Luke.
“Pretty sure. Why?”
“’Cos I’m nervous.”
“Why?”
I looked up at him. He really didn’t seem to understand.
“Because…” I tried to choose my words carefully, things about “your world” and “family” and stuff like that, but before I could form a coherent sentence that didn’t sound like it was out of a soap opera, Luke nudged me and said, “That’s her.”
He was pointing to a woman who was probably about the age of my father’s mother. Probably. This was just something I worked out based on Luke’s age. By her appearance, Great Aunt Tilda could easily have been the same generation as my parents. She was what people call “well-preserved”—and not in the pickled-in-alcohol sense. Her hair was white, immaculately drawn back into a bun. Her skin was good and her makeup invisible. She was wearing a beautifully cut pale pink dress with a matching jacket that I’d bet my flat cost more than my yearly salary. Than both of my salaries. Put together.
Oh, Christ. Suddenly I wished I was wearing something floral.
“Aunt Tilda,” Luke said, and the woman turned around, frowning slightly. Clearly, she had no idea who he was.
Luke’s expression didn’t slip. “I’m your great nephew,” he prompted. “Luke Sharpe. Giles and Miranda’s son.”
Giles and Miranda? How the hell had he ended up with something as normal as Luke?
“Ah.” Tilda’s face cleared. “Luke. Of course. About time you came to one of my parties. Any more refusals and I’d have stopped inviting you. How’s the SAS?”
He nodded easily. “Fine.”