In a True Light

by John Harvey

  ‘You think he’ll try to get to her again?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Connie lay amidst the alternating hum of machinery, oblivious. Brief intervals aside, Sloane sat beside her through the day, occasionally resting his hand alongside hers on the surface of the bed, letting their fingers overlap. Once he thought she tried, weakly, to squeeze his hand, and he spoke her name aloud, but almost certainly it had been a reflex gesture made, unbidden, in her sleep.

  Sloane phoned Rachel and she looked in once during the afternoon, returned in the evening with soup and sandwiches.

  A uniformed guard sat outside the door, reading the paper, checking visitors’ ID.

  Sightings of Delaney’s vehicle were reported up and down the eastern seaboard and as far inland as Cleveland; Delaney himself was in Newark, in Boston, riding the airport shuttle to La Guardia, bold as brass buying shirts in Bloomingdale’s.

  According to the Portland Police Board, the broad details of Connie’s story checked out: the body of a known pimp and small-time criminal had been found, badly savaged by dogs and almost unrecognisable, in the North Precinct, seven years before. No one had ever been charged with the crime.

  Vargas spent part of the day at the hospital, part at the precinct, much of it on the streets. By midnight she was bushed. At an all-night coffee shop she talked to Cherry on the phone, apologising for waking him, ordered a pastrami on rye and lacked the energy to eat more than half.

  Cursing the lack of an elevator, she climbed the stairs to her apartment; the bulb on the upper landing had blown. She was bringing her key towards the lock when she sensed, rather than heard, something in the darkness at her back. Turning fast, she ducked low, right arm angled out in self-defence. The first swing of the bat broke her arm at the elbow, the second caught her smack on the right temple and sent her careening into the wall.

  A smile on his face, Delaney dropped the bat and caught her before she hit the floor.

  41

  John Cherry rang Vargas’s apartment at seven fifteen and then again at seven thirty; assuming she’d gone in early, maybe to catch up on her paperwork, he went straight to the 10th Precinct. When she wasn’t there he contacted the hospital. No joy. Less than twenty minutes later he was gaining access to her apartment building, the supervisor complaining his way up the stairs as he did half a hundred times a day, fumbling with a large ring of keys before he finally pushed the door to Vargas’s apartment open. The covers on the bed were untroubled, the undersheet felt cold; there were no signs of coffee having been made that morning, breakfast eaten; the shower floor was dry. There was a small, alphabeticised address book by the phone; Vargas’s family, Cherry remembered, lived in Denver. Even in an extreme emergency, though, one of her parents, say, suddenly taken ill, she would have found time to phone the department before leaving, phone him. Checking the interior again carefully, slipping the catch on the door, he went back out on to the landing where the supervisor was still standing.

  ‘How long’s that been missing?’ Cherry asked, pointing to the empty light socket above his head.

  ‘Some cheap bastard steals ’em, I swear.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘It was fine and dandy yesterday.’

  ‘Yesterday when?’

  ‘Yesterday around five.’

  Cherry crouched down and began to examine the floor.

  ‘And as for keepin’ the place clean …’

  ‘Move,’ Cherry said.

  ‘If I mop these floors once a day, I …’

  ‘Move!’

  ‘Hold your horses, no call to shout.’

  Cherry was bending lower, face almost against the tiles; there, faint against the worn pattern, dark specks of what was certainly blood.

  Connie had been transferred to a room on the eleventh floor of the main building, a single window looking out over the FDR Drive on to Roosevelt Island and the East River. An armed guard staring off along the corridor from a chair outside.

  Connie had been awake a little earlier; she had seemed to recognise Sloane and tried to smile. That morning he had read to her, uncertain whether she could hear him or not. A couple of Hemingway short stories, the ones about Nick Adams.

  Now that she was sleeping, he went along the corridor and phoned Rachel as promised. When he arrived back at the room the doctor was standing beside Connie’s bed.

  ‘How’s she doing?’ Sloane asked softly.

  ‘Well, I think, don’t you? Her blood pressure’s stable, pulse close to normal. Another day of rest and we can start working on her jaw.’ She smiled. ‘Poor thing, she looks like a quarterback got sacked once too often.’

  ‘If it were only that,’ Sloane said.

  The doctor touched his hand. ‘She will be okay, you know.’

  Sloane nodded, still a little bewildered at how much he needed that to be true.

  ‘One of the nurses said you were reading to her earlier.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘From this?’ She lifted the paperback Hemingway from near the foot of the bed.

  ‘Not what you’d prescribe?’

  She laughed. ‘I’ll bring in some Margaret Atwood, next time I call.’

  When the doctor had gone, Sloane moved closer. Connie’s eyes were closed, a ripple of movement across the darkened lids, and then they were open, looking directly at him.

  ‘Connie.’

  The eyes widened slightly as he leaned towards her, reaching for her good hand.

  ‘You’re going to be okay,’ he said, squeezing her fingers and feeling, no illusion this time, a small pressure in return. ‘You’re going to be fine.’

  Connie smiled and let her eyes fall closed.

  ‘You’re going to be fine,’ Sloane said again to no one but himself.

  Cherry sat at his desk and stared at the phone, willing it to ring. All precincts had been alerted, a search of buildings and alleys in the vicinity of Vargas’s apartment had begun. So far no sign. And Delaney, all those sightings having been checked out and yielding nothing, seemed to have successfully disappeared.

  Of course, there was as yet no proof Delaney was involved. It could have been a random attack, a rapist lying in wait, someone desperate and after the contents of Vargas’s purse. But in either case Vargas’s body, dead or alive, would still have been there, stretched out along the landing at the head of the stairs.

  What the fuck was Delaney up to?

  Cherry bit into an almond Danish and forced his brain to think.

  ‘You look exhausted,’ Rachel said when she arrived, resplendent in red and peacock-blue, bags of expensively prepared food from Dean and Deluca in each hand.

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘Here, take one of these.’

  He set one of the bags on the floor near the bed.

  ‘She’s all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Rachel put down the other bag and began to rummage inside. ‘And you’re hungry?’

  ‘I expect so.’

  ‘Good.’

  She had small pastries stuffed with goat’s cheese and fennel; others with minced lamb and cinnamon; grilled chicken with soy sauce and honey; mozzarella and tomato salad; bread in different shapes and sizes. A bottle of good Italian wine.

  ‘Are we celebrating?’ Sloane asked.

  ‘I think so.’

  They drank a toast in paper cups to Connie’s recovery.

  A little over an hour later, Rachel shook Sloane awake. ‘You’re snoring.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He stretched, rubbed his eyes and yawned.

  ‘Go home.’

  ‘Home?’

  ‘Go back to my place, a real bed. Get some decent sleep.’

  Sloane shook his head. ‘I’ll be fine.’ And yawned again.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Don’t be so stubborn. I’ll wait here.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said, weakening.

  ‘Certain.’

  ‘Okay, just a couple of hours.’

  Rachel was on her feet,
the keys in her hand. ‘Go. Just go.’

  ‘You want this?’ the security guard asked, waving the newspaper in front of Rachel’s face. ‘I’m off duty, half-hour since.’

  Rachel set aside the magazine she had been reading and took the paper from the man’s hand.

  ‘Keep it,’ the guard said, walking away. Nobody came to take his place.

  42

  Sloane sat up, immediately awake but uncertain, for the moment, where he was. Anxiety flooded his mind. The digital clock by the side of Rachel’s bed told him he had slept longer than intended, almost three hours. Swiftly he slipped out from under the covers and began to dress.

  There was a cab, loitering on the edge of the Square. Sloane gave the driver the name of the hospital and, promising him a ten-dollar tip if he got there fast, sat on the edge of his seat, being bounced this way and that, until they drew up outside.

  Too impatient to wait for the elevator, he took the stairs, running, two or three at a time. At the beginning of the final corridor he stopped, leaning sideways against the wall to catch his breath. Someone coughed and then was still. The guard’s chair at the far end was unoccupied.

  The door to Connie’s room was slightly ajar and Sloane’s breathing stopped. His skin was glass. He began to ease the door open slowly, then pushed it back. Everything was as it should be, as it had been. In the muted light, Connie’s shape on the bed. The same tubes and wires. Of Rachel, there was no sign.

  Released, Sloane’s breath escaped him in a sigh.

  ‘Knight to the fuckin’ rescue,’ Delaney said and Sloane spun round. ‘Shame your timing’s fucked too.’

  He was standing over Rachel, her arms bound behind her as she knelt before him, tape across her mouth, the barrel of a Smith and Wesson .38 pressed against the side of her head.

  ‘One move,’ Delaney said, ‘and she’s dead.’

  Sloane’s guts twisted tight.

  Delaney’s hair was blond, cut shorter; he was wearing casual clothes, dark chinos, a leather waist-length jacket. He looked younger, slimmer.

  ‘Now stand straight,’ Delaney ordered. ‘That’s it. Turn around now, all the way around. But slowly. Hands by your sides. Good. That’s very good.’

  Sloane sensed Delaney stepping away from Rachel and into the centre of the room. Towards him. Towards the bed.

  ‘How’s she doing?’ Delaney asked.

  ‘What do you care?’

  The tip of the gun barrel prodded Sloane in the back. ‘How’s she doing?’

  ‘Getting better.’

  ‘A pity.’

  Sloane jabbed an elbow towards Delaney’s chest and swung round – an aimless, instinctive move – and, stepping smartly to one side, Delaney raised the gun and brought it raking down across Sloane’s face, gouging blood.

  Sloane stumbled to his knees and Delaney brought the gun to bear, resting it on the flat plateau of bone and skin above the nose, between the eyes.

  ‘Next time I’ll kill you.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Sloane said.

  ‘No?’ Delaney laughed.

  ‘Use that in here,’ Sloane said, ‘and you’ll have half the hospital awake. Not what you want at all.’

  Delaney cocked the hammer back. ‘Three shots,’ he said, ‘that’s all I need. In a couple of hours I’ll be out of this country for good.’

  He smiled and as he did so Sloane threw himself sideways and back, his right foot coming up fast and catching Delaney hard and high between his legs, Delaney, doubled up, staggering back even as the gun went off, a single shot that tore through the ceiling above their heads.

  Sloane hurled himself forward, head driving deep into Delaney’s solar plexus and they caromed off the bed, the gun slithering from Delaney’s grasp across the floor. Sloane closed fast, hands out, fingers spread, Delaney feinting with a punch and ducking low, landing two blows before jabbing his fingers at Sloane’s throat. Sloane leaned away, choking, half turned and unleashed a knee into Delaney’s kidneys with all the strength he could.

  There were sounds from outside now, a distant alarm.

  On one knee, Delaney saw the gun in the far corner of the room and swivelled towards it. Sloane started after him and slipped: the room had started spinning round.

  Feet running in the corridor, getting closer.

  ‘Good try,’ Delaney said, grinning, raising the gun, finger fast against the trigger, beginning to squeeze back.

  The door swung open and a uniformed security guard burst in and Delaney, swivelling, shot him from close range, jumping over his falling body as he ran.

  Cherry was at the hospital in under thirty minutes, still rubbing sleep from the corners of his eyes. He listened carefully as Sloane, face bandaged, told him what had happened. Sloane’s head hurt, despite medication, and his mind was dull and slow, a result of the painkillers he had taken.

  Rachel, who had suffered little more than surface bruising, was on another floor, being treated for shock.

  Miraculously, a few scrabbling movements aside, Connie seemed to have slept through it all.

  ‘What about Delaney?’ Sloane asked.

  ‘We’ll catch him,’ Cherry answered, face drawn.

  ‘You said that before.’

  The limo was waiting alongside a patch of wasteland in the lee of the Triborough Bridge. Smoked glass windows. Bodywork that had seen better days. First light spreading across the East River. Delaney crossed the street on a steep diagonal and as he did so, the window wound part-way down.

  ‘Get in,’ Marchetti said, his voice thick with phlegm.

  ‘No need,’ Delaney said. ‘Let’s do it here.’

  Marchetti pushed the rear door open. ‘Get in,’ he said again.

  Delaney could see the wall-eyed kid behind the wheel, grinning his off-centre grin. He climbed in alongside Marchetti and pulled the door closed.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Marchetti growled. ‘You look like shit.’

  ‘And that’s just your hair,’ the kid said.

  ‘You’ve got what I need?’ Delaney asked. ‘What we arranged?’

  Marchetti nodded. ‘New passport, ticket, visa.’

  ‘Good.’ One eye on the kid, he said, ‘What I’m doin’ now, gettin’ you your money.’

  The kid looked at Marchetti and Marchetti nodded, go ahead.

  Delaney slid a fat envelope from the inside of his leather jacket and held it out towards Marchetti.

  ‘The girl,’ Marchetti said. ‘Connie. How is she?’

  Delaney shrugged.

  ‘You’re a cold bastard, Vincent, you know that?’

  Delaney looked him square in the eye. ‘A cold bastard with a plane to catch. Here, take this.’

  Still Marchetti didn’t take the money.

  ‘How much you stiffin’ me for this time, Vincent? Fifteen per cent? Twenty?’

  ‘Count it, for fuck’s sake. Count it, you don’t fuckin’ believe me. All that other stuff’s bullshit an’ you know it.’

  A smile crossed the yellowing corners of Marchetti’s eyes. ‘I tell you, Vincent, who to believe these days, it gets harder and harder to tell. But you …’

  He reached forward to take the money but his hand shot past the envelope and grasped Delaney’s wrist instead. For an elderly man he was fast, his grip surprisingly strong. Before Delaney could free himself the wall-eyed kid had brought up a plastic-bodied Glock from beneath the seat and stitched half a dozen bullets through the side of Delaney’s head.

  Blood smeared Marchetti’s hand and arm, and he took a clean handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiped it carefully away.

  ‘You know what your trouble was, Vincent,’ Marchetti said, ‘no matter how hard you tried, you were always second-rate. You were always your father’s son. And the girl, you should’ve left the girl alone.’

  Climbing out of the car, he began to walk slowly away, enjoying the warmth of the first rays of sun on his skin.

  They found Catherine Vargas around an hour later, back inside the boil
er room of a nearby building, bound and gagged and left to die. She had been badly beaten, raped and sodomised, but she was still alive.

  43

  It was a perfect autumn day. the light bright and clear, the sky an undisturbed blue; the warmth of the sun such that they could sit outside with their coffee, Sloane with a paperback open on his lap, Rachel, a towel twisted around her hair, damp still from the shower. On all the hills, rising deep into the Garfagnana, trees were changing their colours, russet and gold, beginning to shed their leaves.

  ‘You know,’ Rachel had said earlier, rolling on to the side of the bed, ‘for an old man, you’re not a bad lover.’

  Sloane had smoothed his hand down her ribs, over the curve of her hip. ‘You know why, don’t you?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Each time, you think it might be the last.’

  Rachel had laughed and caught hold of his hand. ‘It better not be.’

  They had rented the same house where Sloane had originally stayed, a week in which to relax and wind down, walk, eat and drink wine and little else. There were things to resolve with Valentina and Rachel, of course, had brought her laptop and was in daily communication with her gallery in New York, but for the most part it was a holiday, a chance to see how they fared when restricted, pretty much, to one another’s company.

  So far the signs were good.

  Valentina had proved more amenable than Sloane had feared, chastened, perhaps, by the close call of her liaison with Robert Parsons, which now seemed foolhardy at best. Officers from the Arts and Antiques Unit had been out to interview her and had taken a deposition, choosing to believe her statement that whereas Parsons had indeed suggested faking the addition of several works to Jane Graham’s collection, this was never anything she had agreed to in any way. The officers had gone away happy, having persuaded Valentina to return to England and testify at the trial: another brick in the wall they were confidently hoping to shut Parsons behind for the best part of ten years.