“Eddie was different.” Moyra sounded wistful. “He said everything around here felt predetermined. He’d say the worst thing was knowing how you’re going to be and what you’ll be doing years before it happens.” She drank her tea with a soft slurp. “I think he got into robbery out of frustration, like he wanted something to happen. I tried to talk to him, but he’d say what’s the alternative? He was a car salesman with Kenrick’s, not bad money, and they liked him, said he would make manager. But he left.”
Quite suddenly Moyra began to cry. Larry wasn’t sure what to do. He decided to sit tight, go on staring at the album and wait for her to gather herself.
“He had his breakfast,” she said, wiping her eyes with a tissue, “kissed me, like every day. I was making the bed when I saw this black rubbish bag, you know the garbage can liners, and it had an elastic band tied around the top. When I opened it, it was full of his clothes, the ones he didn’t want. I never saw him again. No letter, no reason.”
“Did you ever meet his brother? Mickey?”
Moyra frowned, looking puzzled.
“He didn’t have a brother,” she said. “When I met him, all he had in the world was what he stood up in! I don’t even know where he came from. Not from around here. I used to ask him about his past, but he’d just go silent.” She sniffed. “I hated it when he did that.”
“Are you sure he didn’t have a brother?”
“He never had so much as a letter from anyone, Mr. Jackson. I know he’d traveled a lot, mind you. I saw his passport once—Canada, America even… .”
Larry began to find the sofa restricting for his legs, the seating angle put leverage on a few of the bruises he had picked up in the crash. He stood, stretched for a moment, and went to the window. He peered out at houses identical to this one.
“Tell me about Italy,” he said, turning to face Moyra. “It’s very important, Mrs. Sheffield. What happened in Italy?”
A muffled bump in the hallway heralded the opening of the living room door. Phil Sheffield came in. He was wearing overalls. “What’s this?” He glared at Larry, then at his wife. “You all right, Moyra?” “This is Detective Sergeant Jackson,” she said, striving for polite formality. “Phil, my husband …” Larry nodded, noticing the man was fully on his guard, his big hands clenched into fists at his sides. “Hasn’t she been put through enough?” he demanded. “Ah, I’m just trying to establish a few facts, actually.” Larry came forward to the center of the room, coughing diffidently into a furled hand. “There’s no need for anyone to get upset. Were you with your wife when she identified the body of Eddie Myers, Phil? Okay if I call you Phil?” “Suit yourself. But your crowd should leave us alone.” Phil turned sharply to his wife. “Moyra, take the tray out. Go on, love.” She did as she was told. Larry believed she looked frightened.
When she had gone he stood staring at Phil Sheffield, hoping his rank would make up for any lack of authority the man found in his appearance. “What happened in Italy?” he said, making it serious but not too stern. “It’s important.” Phil shrugged. He walked a slow oval between the door and the window, coming back to stand near Larry. “She was in such a state, she couldn’t have ID’d her own mother. The body was all bloated and it stunk to high heaven. She was hysterical.” “So you identified him?”
“I got a photograph …” Phil gestured vaguely with his hands. “They showed us his watch, it looked like him, yeah.” “And you gave permission for the body to be cremated?” “I couldn’t. She had to do that.” Phil lowered his head, looking up at Larry from under his eyebrows. “You going to get him for murder, are you?” Larry said nothing. “If it wasn’t Eddie Myers’s own body in Italy, then he must have killed the bloke.” Phil shook his head. “He’s a dirty grass.” He leaned closer to Larry, raising a finger. “I hope you lock him up for life and let the ones inside punish him. Nobody likes a squealer. Nobody.” Larry nodded. It hadn’t occurred to him, until now, that Phil Sheffield might have done time. Moyra watched Jackson leaving, hidden behind the draped curtain in the front bedroom. The room had been redecorated since Eddie had left, the whole house had, but it was as if his presence had suddenly returned, as if Rex was still waiting at the gates, as if … Phil knocked on the door, an irritating light tap she didn’t answer.
“You want a cup of something, love?”
Moyra stared at her reflection in the dressing-table mirror, not answering, not caring, and when he knocked again she pursed her lips.
“Leave me alone, Phil!”
“What?”
Moyra clenched her hands. “I said just leave me alone for a bit.”
She heard him banging down the stairs, then heard his footsteps coming back. This time there was no light tap on the door, and he kicked it open.
“I’ll leave you alone, Moyra, but any more of this carrying on and I’ll go down to the pub, and I’ll bloody stay there… .”
“I just need to get myself together. It’s all—”
“All what?” he snapped.
She sat on the edge of the bed, plucking at the bedspread that matched the floral curtains. She just wanted to be left alone. He came and sat just behind her and she stared at him through the mirror, looked at his concerned, confused face, watched as his big hand reached out, to touch her back, a gentle, sweet move that made her cringe, but she managed a smile.
“Sorry, I’m sorry, love …” He inched closer and wrapped his arms around her. Her body was stiff and unresponsive. “I’ll put the kettle on, make you a cup of tea, yeah? You’ll feel better then.”
She nodded, and felt relief as he got up and walked out, closing the door behind him. She flopped back, turning to bury her face in the coverlet, afraid he would hear her, hear the sobs that shook her body. After all these years, the pain was as raw as it had been when Eddie left. She had loved him, loved him so much, and nothing anyone said made it easier. Time didn’t heal her pain and neither could sweet big-hearted Phil. It had been better when she believed he was dead, then at least she knew no one else had him. But Eddie was alive, had been alive all these years. No letter, no explanation why he had left in the first place. Had she really meant so little to him? Had she done something to him, said something that had made him go? All the questions came back as fresh as they had been when he had walked out, and they were still unanswered.
“You don’t know anythin’ about him, Moyra!” That was her father.
“He’s very handsome, love, but, you know, you’re so young, your whole life is ahead of you. Wait. Why don’t you wait? It’s just a few weeks, Moyra, you can’t know what you want in that short time.” That was her mother.
“You don’t know anything about him.” That was her father again. But Moyra hadn’t listened to anyone, even her friends. They’d all been suspicious of the dark handsome boy who just suddenly appeared in their local pub one night. It had not been Eddie who had made the first move, but Moyra. She’d watched him standing, leaning against the bar. It had been Moyra who had gone up to him, after passing him twice to go to the ladies, and he had not given her so much as a second glance. Moyra wasn’t used to that. She was exceptionally pretty, a daddy’s girl. Only daughter of a wealthy builder, she’d even been given a new car for her seventeenth birthday, all tied up with a big blue ribbon… . Moyra had virtually always got what she wanted, all the local boys chased her, her mother had said she could have had her pick of any one of them, but Moyra had gone after Eddie.
The tea was a bit stewed and Phil sat smoking, the ashtray piled up with cigarette butts. She walked in and sat down, drawing the cup with the rose pattern closer. She was about to reach for the sweeteners when Phil said softly he’d already put one in. Moyra looked into his concerned face. His eyes seemed a little afraid, almost unable to meet her wide, baby blue, daddy’s baby’s eyes.
“I love you, Moyra, I love you so much …”
“Yes, I know,” she whispered.
“You do love me, don’t you?” Phil asked, flushing.
“They’ll lock the bastard up well and good now, he won’t get out for a long time, if ever.” Phil’s mouth turned down, his face, a moment ago flushed with embarrassed love, was now taut with anger. “I’d fuckin’ like to strangle the shit.”
“So would I,” said Moyra, as she sipped the cold tea. But she knew, if he walked in the door, looked at her with that half-mocking wonderful smile, she would, like she had all those years ago, walk out with Eddie, run away with him, to the end of the world if that’s where he wanted to go. But he hadn’t wanted her—no letter, no phone call, nothing. She would never understand why he had hurt her, when all she had ever done was love him.
16
In the sitting room of Suite 340 at the Hyde Park Hotel Lola del Moreno was taking a telephone call. It was nine o’clock in the evening; she had just stepped from the bath when the call came. Now she stood wrapped in a towel, listening as Detective Sergeant Jackson explained himself. Charlotte Lampton stood beside Lola. She was grinning.
“You are in reception?” Lola said. “You want to come up and see me?” She wriggled, making Charlotte giggle. “I’m all alone. No! No! Please come up.”
She put down the receiver and screeched with laughter.
“I don’t believe it!” she howled. “I do not believe it! He’s here… . He’s here! At the Hyde Park Hotel!”
“Brilliant.” Charlotte was suddenly bustling and businesslike. “Okay …” She grabbed her handbag. “I’m off. Put some clothes on.” She picked up her coat as Lola hurried into the bedroom. “No, on second thoughts, don’t.” She went to the door. “Get whatever you can out of him,” she called. “I’ll get them to send up food. And open the champagne, it’s chilled already. Who’s the lucky girl?”
Lola emerged from the bedroom in a smoky see-through wrap.
“Don’t you mean lucky boy?” she said, winking. “Go on, hurry! He’ll be here—oh!” A thought occurred. “Oysters! Get oysters!”
Less than three minutes later Larry was standing outside Suite 340, combing the fingers of both hands through his hair. He took a deep breath and tapped the door with his knuckles, trying to make it soft, nothing like the harsh rap he used as the bearer of tough tidings. Coming up in the lift he had asked himself, again, what he was doing here. Beyond the superficial excuses it wasn’t simple to rationalize. There were several reasons. For a start, he didn’t want to feel excluded from the case, even during a lull when there was no option but to suspend questioning. And now there was incentive to keep himself involved, because he had either been made privy to an important secret, or he had been spun a cynical lie by a man he had begun to trust and respect. There was, too, the undeniable fact that Larry was a changed person—changed and still changing—and he wanted to explore the limits of the alteration in himself. To do that he had to skirt his normal patterns of behavior. It was also true that he didn’t really want to go home yet, but he refused to let his mind do any probing in that area.
He knocked on the door again, unaware that Charlotte Lampton was peeping at him around the corner of the corridor.
The door opened and Larry felt something like a blow at his solar plexus. Lola, small and beautiful, stood before him in her diaphanous wrap, her golden body a shadowy glow through the folds.
“Hi!” she said brightly, smiling, showing him her perfect teeth. “Come in.”
She turned away sharply and walked back into the apartment, leaving Larry standing in the doorway. Awkwardly he straightened his tie and stepped inside, closing the door. His feet were silent on the rich carpet Lola settled herself in the corner of a chaise longue, folding one leg beneath her with a flash of thigh. She indicated a chair opposite. Larry sat down, quietly dazzled by her, hardly able to believe this was the same woman who had radiated such malice and called him a little prick the last time they met. He began, haltingly, to explain why he was there, but Lola interrupted him wordlessly by getting up and wandering out of the room. She i came back carrying an ice bucket between her small hands, a bottle of Cordon Rouge sticking up out of the ice. She put the bucket on a side table, snatched up the champagne bottle and opened it with an admirable lack of struggle. Larry took up the thread of his story again. He explained how he had managed to trace Lola to the Hyde Park Hotel. “I called the villa, you see. The housekeeper said, after a bit of difficulty, because I don’t really speak Spanish … anyway, she explained that you—” Lola handed him a glass of champagne. “How is he?” she said, shortcutting the narrative. “He’s okay. He … there was an accident, a car crash. But he’s fine.” Lola sipped her champagne and lowered herself onto the chaise lounge again, elegantly blasé, exposing so much leg this time that Larry had to glance away. When he looked at her again she was smiling pleasantly, apparently unconcerned by the news about Von Joel. “So what brings you to London?” he asked. “What do you think?” Lola sipped from her glass and appeared to hold the champagne in her mouth for a moment before she slowly swallowed it. “I also needed some new clothes. Azzedine Alaia is divine.” She tilted her head. “You like sexy clothes, yes? This man is special because he has, how do you say, finesse? Yes? Class.” Larry let that wash over him. He took a cautious sip from his glass, savored the mellow tang, then took a bigger sip.
“How long have you known Eddie … Philip?”
“Two and a half years,” Lola said. “We lived together for the past eighteen months.” She leaned forward, displaying quality cleavage. “Can you give him a message? Will you tell him Bruno and Sasha are fine? They are the dogs. Do you have a dog?”
“No. Tell me, have you ever heard Philip mention a brother?”
“No.”
“His name was Mickey.”
“I’ve never heard of him.” Lola got up and brought over the champagne bottle. As she topped up Larry’s glass the door buzzer sounded.
“I hope you haven’t eaten,” Lola said, putting down the bottle. “I ordered for two.”
She went to the door and opened it. A steward brought in a trolley covered with silver dishes and wheeled it to the center of the room. He locked the wheels and deftly flipped out the leaves, turning the trolley into a table. He put a chair at either end, and as he arranged glasses and cutlery Lola told him he could open the wine. She pointed to the leather folder with the service bill.
“You want me to sign?”
The steward opened the folder and held out his pen.
“No, no …” Larry came forward, flapping his hand, embarrassed at the mounting generosity. “I’ll do this.”
Lola stared at him as he took the pen. ,
“I insist,” he muttered.
“Gracias.” Lola smiled. “Excuse me, one minute …”
As she walked off to the bedroom Larry looked at the bill and felt a thump in his stomach for the second time that evening. He looked up, gave the steward a strained smile.
“Will you take a check? I’ve got a card …”
The steward inclined his head gently, just once, assenting with the merest shadow of a smile. Larry, fighting down speculation about how he would explain this one, fished out his checkbook and flipped it open.
When the steward had lit the candles he left. A moment later Lola came out of the bedroom wearing a skimpy black evening dress with a semitransparent top. She turned a dimmer switch on the wall, lowering the lights until the warm candle glow was the brightest illumination in the room. She sat at one end of the small table and motioned for Larry to take the chair at the other end.
“This is delightful, yes?” For a moment she gazed at the dishes set out before them, then pointed at one, an iced tureen, and lifted the lid. “Oysters.” She smiled at Larry, her teeth lustrous in the candlelight. “Do you like oysters?”
“I’ve never had one.”
Lola scooped a little champagne into the bowl of a dessert spoon. With her fingers she placed the flesh of
an oyster on top, being careful not to spill any champagne.
“Allow me,” she said, leaning toward Larry with the spoon. “The first time must be savored, and you will either love it or want to puke. Open your mouth, Sergeant …”
Larry drew back his head, squinting at the unlovely presence under his nose.
“Come on,” Lola coaxed, “open wide.”
Larry opened his mouth, simultaneously closing his eyes. Lola pushed the spoon gently into his mouth, tilting it to make the oyster slide onto his tongue. A trickle of champagne ran down his chin.
“Swallow. Swallow it, don’t chew, that’s not the point. The whole point is the sensation, the texture of the oyster slithering down your throat.”
Lawrence gulped as the cold flesh touched the back of his throat. The oyster slipped over his tongue and was gone. He stared at Lola, dabbing his chin with his napkin.
“Well?”
“Nice!” ‘The second is as important as the first,” she said. “If you liked numero uno, the next qualifies the experience, so that the memory, the total taste sensation, will be conjured up every time you order them.”
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