Finally, there was the afternoon when his mouth traced intricate patterns on my back and he said, reluctantly, as though he had dived deep into some well and found the words lying there, rusted and fragile from being hidden, that the only thing he wanted to do was spend the whole night with me, to see my shoulder naked in the moonlight.
After this, there were days of nothingness in the diary, of white pages, of only one word over and over again.
Ravenous.
From then until the end there is only the photo. He never wanted me to take his picture; he said it was dangerous for me and for him. A close-up could give too much away: they can tell by the light, the shadows, he said, exactly where we are, when we are.
I say, ‘They can tell what we are.’
One day, when he is asleep, I can’t resist. I take a photo of him, of his face. He is lying on his back, in the light from the window. His chest rises and falls. I have spent the last half hour watching him. I know I should go soon, go and help with the party, the party I have no interest in, despite Pietr’s hints about a special celebration.
‘Ash,’ I say as he wakes, kissing him below his shoulder bone, the deep ridge, as he holds me to him, his scars moving like tiger stripes in the low light.
‘You can imagine having a name like Ashley in the army twenty years ago,’ he says. ‘Now, of course, they’re so desperate, they’ll take anyone. But then . . . once I sorted a few of them out, it was fine. Actually,’ he laughs without humour, ‘it was good. I was able to thrash all the guys I’d wanted to in high school.’
He says, ‘It was my mother’s choice of name.’
‘What did your father call you?’ I say.
‘My middle name. John.’ He closes his eyes. ‘You little bastard John. You little devil John.’
I put my hand over his eyes. ‘Despite all the files, I don’t think I know you at all.’
He takes my hand away. He says, holding me close, ‘How much do you know about my father?’ His thumbnail scratches my thumbnail, pressing in at the cuticle. I want him, immediately, which is maybe what he intended. I wonder whether it is all an act: if deep down, he is laughing at me. I wonder whether once he saw my weakness in Venice, whether that became the plan. A bit of fun on the side to break up the job monotony.
He rubs my fingernail. I want to say it, to show I don’t care. But I know with the dead weight of an anchor pulling me down, that I shouldn’t tell him everything.
I say, ‘I know enough to know you didn’t do anything wrong.’
He is silent, waiting.
I say, ‘I know there was a break-in.’
‘It was my fault,’ he says. ‘I had finally decided to chuck the army, do what I always wanted to do. I was celebrating.’
‘What did you always want to do?’
‘A childish dream,’ he says. ‘It went, later that night. I don’t want to talk about it.’ He is climbing back into his marks.
‘Ash,’ I say.
He holds my hand in both of his. ‘Forget that name. If you get used to using it, you’ll blurt it out. We’ll both be in danger.’
I say, ‘I have a tendency to say what I think.’
‘I never say what I think,’ he says.
MONDAY
I am queasy the next morning. I oversleep and come down late to breakfast. The sky is the colour of white rum. I see blue veins under the skin on the back of my hand. My fingers tremble as I pick up my knife and fork.
Pietr looks at me with concern.
I smile at him, or try to, and he says, ‘If there is anything I can do . . . ’
‘I’m relying on it,’ I say.
‘Maybe your present will cheer you up,’ he says. I smile and nod, but I am sorry for him, thinking, You can’t give me what I need.
Devlin isn’t at the hut. I wait. Staring through the window, tracing patterns in the sky. Seeing his name spelled out in the black spears climbing towards the horizon. Maybe he is furious, I think, that I used his name. He can’t trust me not to do it again.
I wait until lunchtime. He doesn’t come. I go outside. A raven is sitting on a skeletal branch – a black rose on the hook. It turns its head, its black eye reflecting the world.
I set off for Trepani.
I come into Café Flora, shaking off the snow dusting my coat. The café is nearly empty, a couple of locals, a small fair man hunched over coffee. I go upstairs.
I knock on Devlin’s door. Outside, the rain lands in beats on the tiled roof. The tired morning light edges through the smeared window over the landing so the creases in the wallpaper shiver.
I press against the door. No sound inside. I put my hand on the cold round door knob, rest my finger in the keyhole beneath. There is a draught on my skin as though a window is open inside. I turn the handle. The door is locked.
Voices on the stairs below. The sound travelling up in spirals so that the words almost seem to make sense but turn in on themselves at the last moment, unintelligible.
The rain spatters the window overlooking the small back alley. A black Mercedes with tinted windows is drawn across the end.
A voice which strikes a chord. I look over the banister. Devlin is coming up slowly, his shoulder scraping the wall. The sickly light is a slash along his cheekbone. It makes him look grey. I wonder if he has started drinking again.
He turns his head, his fingers feeling their way over the creases in the rough paper, the water stains. Like a blind man moving through fog.
He says, ‘I didn’t agree to this.’
There is another man behind him, still in the shadow of the turn in the stairs. I can’t see his face, just his arm: the cuff of his white shirt, the edge of his suit-sleeve, his hand. He is holding a mobile phone, reading the text on the screen. I see a cuff-link, square gold around a dark stone. He is about to take that last step into the light.
Devlin rests his head against the wall. ‘I don’t think she’s the woman we thought she was.’
The man snaps his phone shut and says loudly, ‘They never are.’
The words come up to me, deadly little clouds. The man goes down the steps. Just as he disappears, the mobile rings.
Devlin climbs the stairs like an old man. He is right beneath me when he looks up. The light from the little window can’t flush out the shadows under his cheeks.
‘Who was that?’ I say as he puts the key in the door.
‘No-one,’ he says without looking at me. ‘Just someone from the Embassy.’
Inside the room, I put my arms around him, partly because I want to kiss him, partly to smell his breath. I kiss him but his mouth is stiff and cold under mine. He smells of mouthwash. Maybe there is a tang of something underneath, maybe not. When I look up his eyes are open, watching me.
‘I haven’t been drinking,’ he says.
‘I know.’
‘You shouldn’t have come. It’s dangerous.’
I press myself against him, run my hands up and down his body, try to force my tongue into his mouth. ‘I came for you.’
‘Oh, don’t bullshit,’ he shouts. He grabs me under my arms, moves across the room, not so much carrying me as sweeping me before him. Just as I slam into the wall, he slips an arm around my back but my head still hits the hard plaster. A gun-shot cracks between my ears. The sound rolls around the small room. Everything else dies away: the faint sounds of a car on the cliff road, the far-off relentless turning over of the sea.
‘You bastard.’ I put my hand to my head, feel the lump already rising, see the blood on my fingers.
‘I always knew you’d end up beating me.’ I am only half joking but he has a stricken look in his eyes. His hands freeze.
I want to hurt him. ‘You drunk. You never cared.’
‘That’s right,’ he says.
‘Bastard.’
‘Yes.’ He puts his hands on my arms.
‘Devil.’
‘Let me see,’ he says softly, starting to turn me.
I pull away. There is a
faint moisture in my eyes. I blink. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
He won’t let me go.
‘You’ve overstepped the line,’ I say.
He meets my gaze, nods.
I wait and raise my bunched fist. He doesn’t move. I draw closer. He watches me. I press myself against him, run my mouth up his neck, bite him, not hard. I turn my face to the wall.
I feel his fingers, gentle on my bristled hair, my skin. He probes around the lump. I wince.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘And – sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Doesn’t it?’ He leaves me. I feel his absence before I hear the clink of glass.
I lean my forehead against the wall. ‘I don’t think Scotch fixes this problem.’
‘Neither do I.’ He is right behind me. There is the sharp tang of disinfectant, something wet and cold against my head.
We stand for a moment then he puts his mouth against the back of my neck. I feel his tongue on my skin, at the top of my spine. I shiver. Something plummets past me. A small square of cotton wool lies on the floor, a smear of blood at the matted centre.
‘You should take a picture of that,’ he says. ‘As evidence. Tell them later I coerced you.’
‘Later?’
‘Forget it.’ He is leaving. I draw his arms around me, push back against him. I take his left hand between mine, begin massaging between his knuckles, pulling on his square fingers, the fingers of an artist, I think.
‘That feels good,’ he says, kissing me up and down my neck.
‘You hold too much tension in your fingers.’ I turn. ‘It’s too much, Dev.’
He takes my head in his hands and kisses me, hard, again and again – like the first time but with a new emotion. Not anger, I think. Desperation.
‘It’s just the job,’ he says as he starts unbuttoning my jacket.
‘Aren’t I the job?’ I say.
He slips his fingers in under my collar. The cotton rips.
‘Not in here.’
When I come downstairs, a landscape made of snow is growing up from the ground outside, turning the blanketed houses into square white boulders. The only movement is the thin tendrils of grey smoke which lifts from the chimneys, past the white-patched tree trunks and the leaves tipped in cream.
Julietta stands next to me. ‘Stefano is coming back,’ she says. ‘He can give you a lift – ’ she pauses – ‘home.’
I nod. ‘Thanks.’
She shakes out her tea towel. ‘So you walked all the way here to see your man.’
‘Stupid,’ I say.
She smiles. ‘Oh, I would do the same for Stefano.’
‘Stefano?’
‘My husband.’
She goes back to the bar. I sit in the front booth and take photos through the window to have something to show Pietr if he asks. The roll is soon finished. I rewind the film, carefully ease out the canister. It has Devlin’s picture on it. I put the canister in my satchel, zip the inner compartment.
A shadow moves across my eye. Someone slides into the seat opposite. A man. For a millisecond, with the light behind him, I think it is Devlin. Then I register that this man is smaller, finer built.
‘So you prefer the old things,’ he says as he sits down.
It is the fair-haired man I had seen on my way in. He wears a puffy parka with a fake fur collar. I think I see a black tie underneath. He puts his hands under the table.
‘You don’t mind do you?’ He has the almost completely neutral American accent of the eastern seaboard. Of the very rich.
He says, ‘I’m desperate to talk English after all this Mafia jabber.’
He looks at me directly, unblinking. He has a boyish face, a certain pallor, a smattering of freckles across his nose. He could be any age between twenty-one and thirty-one. But I think, looking at the lock of pale hair falling artfully over his forehead, that is all part of the misdirection. I try to place the translucent shade of his skin. After a while it comes to me: the colour of bone.
He smiles, showing small even teeth.
‘Pretty much everyone speaks English in Italy,’ I say. ‘Don’t they?’
‘When they want to,’ he says, still smiling. ‘But I’m the big bad American. Never mind that we’re spending a fortune in this hick town. But, what can you do?’ He puts his hands flat on the table. He has narrow hands, with milky blue nails cut sharply across. There is a gold signet ring on the small finger of his left hand. I recognise the raised eyeless curves, the slender crossed lines. Skull and bones. A rim of white cuff protrudes from the parka sleeve.
‘So,’ he says. ‘What about you? You seem to have fitted in pretty well.’
‘Everyone has been – pleasant,’ I say cautiously.
‘I’ll bet. Still, party times can’t last forever.’ He reaches beneath the table and brings up a thin metal briefcase similar to Devlin’s. It has a small pale screen between the two locks. He presses his thumb on the screen. The locks pop open. He takes out a manila folder, turns the pages inside. The black stones in his gold cufflinks wink in the light.
‘We’ve been pretty impressed by how you inserted yourself into Pietr Walenzska’s house,’ he says. ‘But I think we all agree you have to step up the pace. If you want to avoid jail.’
‘My lawyers told me jail wasn’t a serious – ’ I am about to say “threat” but I change it to, ‘option.’
He is still turning pages. I see shiny skin between the strands of his pale fine hair.
Now he looks up. ‘Not for you. For Devlin.’
My hands clench. ‘But he works for you.’
‘That’s debatable. He’s just admitted he’s still drinking.’
‘Really?’
‘That can’t be too rewarding for you.’ He puts out his hand, touches mine briefly. As he withdraws it, he makes a small sharp movement. The edge of his nail scratches the back of my hand. I can’t believe it is accidental. Only the thought of Devlin stops me reaching across the table and hooking my nails into his eyes.
He says, ‘Unrewarding in all areas.’
A red welt is growing on my skin. ‘Devlin’s taken care of me.’
He watches me, unblinking. His eyes are a very dark brown. That must have hurt him career-wise, I think, not having blue eyes. Or he would have thought it did.
‘You think Devlin cares,’ he says. ‘But really, how high are your standards? He’s an incompetent. A drunk who’s done little but lose valuable merchandise.’
I should have known what was coming next. He reaches out, grabs my wrist and pushes up my sleeve.
‘It fell off,’ I say.
‘It fell off. Yes, that’s what Devlin told us. Where exactly?’
I hesitate.
‘The two of you should get your stories straight,’ he says, sitting back.
‘I don’t want to get him into trouble.’
‘Touching. But I can’t play footsies with you all fucking day. I’ve already had to spend extra money – money I don’t have – to retrieve the fucking thing from the bottom of that fucking lake. At least the fucking car was covered by insurance.’
‘The lake,’ I say.
‘Next to the hut,’ he says. ‘That’s a cosy set-up. We’ve all enjoyed the photos on Devlin’s camera. I sure hope you’ll take me there some time.’
‘Aren’t I bit old for you?’
‘I’ll keep my eyes closed.’
We look at each other.
‘You’re lying,’ I say.
He reaches into the file and throws a half-dozen photos at me. They fan out across the table: shadows and absences, heat and light, sweating skin blurring into black. I want to look to see which day they were taken, which hour, which minute. But I won’t give him the satisfaction.
‘My lawyers – ’ I say.
‘Don’t get paid until the funds are unfrozen. And we know you returned all the paintings. Fucking crazy.’ He smiles. ‘You’re in a foreign country. With no friends.’
�
�Devlin – ’
‘Devlin isn’t your friend,’ he says. ‘This whole time in the hut – do you understand? It’s all recorded.’
‘You won’t play those recordings,’ I say. ‘Not the ones where we discuss how you used to read Soldier Of Fortune magazine in the staffroom. When you were the mail boy.’
His eyelids twitch. ‘Promoted over Devlin,’ he says, ‘the disgruntled employee.’
‘An Australian court will make mincemeat of this,’ I say.
‘You won’t be tried in an Australian court. It’ll be US military, closed.’
‘Who’s the star witness? Devlin?’
He leans forward. I have to stop myself from thinking that I see a ring of yellow around his pupil, like a dog’s. ‘John Devlin cares so little about you,’ he says, ‘that he agrees you’ll say yes when Pietr asks you to marry him.’
I stare at him. ‘Pietr won’t – ’
‘He’s been shopping for a ring,’ he says. ‘What he doesn’t tell his mistress he’ll tell his wife.’
I look behind me, to the stairs.
‘Devlin can’t help you,’ he says. ‘Those tapes damn him more than you. He’ll do years. You know he won’t make it.’
‘Actually,’ I say, ‘I think prison will be a relief to him.’
‘You two.’ He shakes his head. ‘They said there was something weird going on with you two.’
‘We’re locked together,’ I say. ‘Like magnets in blood.’
He studies me. ‘We were told you weren’t using.’
I think for a moment. ‘I wouldn’t be much use to you then, would I?’
‘Maybe you just need more information.’ He pushes across the manila folder. ‘Devlin’s personal file. His own words. Pick any page. See if you know the man in there.’
It is the typed transcript of an interview with Devlin. I feel black ice growing in my spine when I see the word in bold at the top of the page.
Borneo.
I begin to read.
Notorious Page 30