by Roberta Kray
But Iris didn’t care. She hurried forward, grabbing hold of his arm. ‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘I need to see Guy.’
Noah shook his head. ‘He’s not working tonight.’
‘I know that,’ she said, the frustration making her voice rise an octave or two. ‘But is he here? Is he upstairs?’ She could feel the panic gathering inside her again. ‘Where is he? I have to see him.’ She was aware of sounding like some mad stalking female, but couldn’t stop herself. ‘Please, I have to see him.’
He stood back, abruptly shaking off her hand. ‘It’s his night off. I don’t know where he is.’
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Iris said. She slumped down on a nearby chair. What now? She felt like bursting into tears.
Noah paused for a moment, gave a sigh and then sat down on the chair opposite to hers.
‘It’s Iris, isn’t it?’
‘Iris O’Donnell.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I remember.’
She heard the distinct lack of enthusiasm in his voice. Not that she needed to hear it - she had seen it in his eyes the moment he’d caught sight of her. In a last ditch attempt to win him over, she leaned across the table. ‘Look, I wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t urgent. I know you’re only doing what you think is best but . . . Something’s happened tonight, something bad. I really need to talk to Guy.’
Noah hesitated. He sighed again, running his hand over the top of his short wiry hair. His eyes gazed briefly back at her before skimming over the empty tables around them.
Should she say anything else? Iris decided not. He would make up his mind in his own time. As she waited, she looked over her shoulder, terrified that Danny Street might be about to walk in. He was the kind of man who wouldn’t care about witnesses. He would do whatever he wanted, when he wanted. She anxiously turned to look at Noah again.
Perhaps as much through the desire to get rid of her than anything more sympathetic - distraught females were none too good for business - he finally relented. ‘Okay. Wait here a minute. I can’t promise anything but . . .’
‘Thank you,’ Iris said. ‘Thank you so much.’
Noah stood up, walked over to the bar and murmured something to the dark-haired girl. She laughed, glanced at Iris and then pushed the phone towards him. He picked it up, jabbed at a button and spoke briefly into the receiver. Moments later he was back.
‘This way,’ he said with an abrupt wave of his hand.
Iris followed him through the door at the back of the bar. To her right was a short corridor leading to the kitchen. She could hear the clatter of plates and the sound of a radio playing. To the left was another door. Noah pushed it open and gestured towards the flight of stairs.
‘Go on up,’ he said. ‘He’s waiting for you.’
Iris gazed at the stairway, relief washing over her body. ‘Thank you so much,’ she said again. But as she turned her head, she realised she was talking to herself. Noah had already walked away.
Chapter Thirty-four
Iris was almost at the top of the stairs when the door to the flat opened and Guy Wilder appeared. She had almost, if not quite, forgotten how striking he was. She took a quick breath as he gazed down at her. He was smartly dressed in a dark grey suit, a white shirt and pale blue tie. Clearly, he wasn’t intending to spend his night off in front of the TV.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘this is a nice surprise. How are you?’
She had one of those slightly hysterical thoughts about how crazy it was to be appreciating his looks at a time like this, but she was too stressed to ascertain how genuine he was being in his greeting. Turning up unannounced was hardly good manners. Not that manners came that high on the agenda when you had a psychotic gangster on your tail. ‘I’m fine, I’m . . . er . . .’ Although she’d embarked on the polite response, Iris couldn’t maintain it. Her voice cracked and she shook her head. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and quickly raised a hand to cover her face. The day’s events were starting to catch up with her.
Gently taking hold of her elbow, Guy led her into the flat. ‘It’s okay. Come on. Come inside.’
She was only vaguely aware of her surroundings as she dropped down on to a soft leather couch. Moments later she had a large glass of brandy in her hand.
‘Just sip it slowly,’ he said. ‘Don’t try to talk.’
Iris did as she was told. She could feel her throat gulping as she swallowed the drink. She had to keep herself together, maintain some level of control. If she started crying now, she might never stop.
Guy sat down beside her. After a few minutes, he said very softly, ‘You want to tell me what’s happened?’
Iris sniffled, reaching into her bag for a tissue. She turned her face away from him and blew her nose. Swallowing hard, she tried to get her thoughts in order. But all that came out was: ‘He was there, I know he was. I heard him. I felt him.’
‘Who was there?’ he said.
‘Danny Street,’ she whimpered.
‘What?’
Iris couldn’t meet his eyes. Instead she studied the room over the rim of her glass. Her hands were shaking. The place was bigger than she’d expected, the living room stretching almost the entire length of the bar beneath. The walls were a bright crisp white and there were two large windows overlooking the High Street. The long green curtains hadn’t been drawn and she could see the snow falling.
‘Where was he?’ Guy asked.
She continued to look around. The living room was smart but simple, a typically male kind of space. No fuss, no clutter. A large plasma TV had been attached to the wall above the fireplace. On the adjacent wall to the right were a couple of black and white prints, one of them a panoramic view of London, the other of a river that was probably the Seine. She’d never been to Paris, but the view was faintly familiar. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have turned up out of the blue like this. I tried to call you but—’
‘Iris,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘It doesn’t matter about that. You can talk to me. Just take a deep breath and start from the beginning.’
And so, at last, she did.
Guy scowled as she described the anonymous phone calls and Danny Street’s visit to Tobias Grand & Sons that morning. ‘If William hadn’t come back . . . God, anything could have happened. ’ She had another sip of brandy. ‘And then tonight, when I got home, I heard a noise coming from the empty flat opposite. I just had a feeling.’ Iris screwed up her eyes. ‘Do you know what I mean? It was weird. I could sense that someone was watching me.’
‘Christ,’ he said, squeezing her fingers.
‘So I made a run for it. I could hear him following and . . . and I just . . . I just kept on going. I didn’t look back. I managed to get out, to get to the High Street. I found a cab and—’
‘And here you are.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t think of where else to go.’
‘Don’t apologise. You did the right thing. I told you I wanted to help and I meant it.’
Iris remembered the look in Danny Street’s eyes as he’d advanced towards her that morning. She shuddered. ‘Well, maybe you can’t. Maybe no one can.’
Guy frowned at her. ‘So you’re going to give up?’
Iris shook her head. She stared down at the carpet. ‘I don’t know. I can’t think straight. All I do know is that I can’t deal with this stuff any more.’
There was a short silence and then he said, ‘So you’re just going to let them walk all over you?’
Startled, she looked up. ‘What?’
‘I never took you for a coward.’
Iris shook her hand free and leapt to her feet. Her blood was boiling. After everything she’d been through, how could he be so callous, so crass? ‘You’re not the one being terrorised by some bloody psycho gangster. You think I like it? What the hell am I supposed to do?’
Guy sat back and smiled. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s more like the real Iris O’Donnell, the one with guts, the one who doesn’t allow hersel
f to be pushed around. I was starting to wonder where she’d disappeared to.’
Iris glared at him for a second before her mouth slipped into a faltering smile. In her anger, she had temporarily lost her fear and that, she realised, was exactly what he’d intended. She folded her arms across her chest. ‘Is that what you call shock tactics, Mr Wilder?’
Guy grinned. ‘Tough love,’ he said. ‘I’m still working on my technique. You think it needs a little fine tuning?’
‘More than a little.’ She suspected he hadn’t meant anything by the words ‘tough love’ - it was just a common phrase that was bandied around these days - but still felt a frisson of pleasure at his use of it.
‘At least you haven’t slapped me.’
‘Not yet,’ she said.
He laughed and patted the sofa. ‘Now that I know you’re not going to weep all over my soft furnishings, why don’t you sit down again and we can start planning what to do next.’
Iris heaved out a breath that was half mock annoyance and half pure relief. She sat down and picked up her glass. ‘This doesn’t mean that I’ve forgiven you.’
Guy leaned back, clasped his hands behind his head and gazed briefly up at the ceiling. ‘Well, the good news, if I can describe it as that, is that I haven’t met up with Chris Street yet so at least we know this isn’t a response to that. I’m supposed to be seeing him tomorrow morning.’
‘But that’s great,’ Iris said. ‘I’ll come with you, explain to him face to face that I don’t know where my father is. I can make him believe it. I’m sure I can.’
‘And if Danny’s there?’
Iris hesitated. Danny Street scared her to death, but this time she wouldn’t be alone. ‘I can deal with it.’
Guy shook his head. ‘No, it’s better if I go alone. They’re not likely to give much ground if there’s a female in the room.’ He grinned at her again. ‘It’s that macho thing, hun. We men just can’t help ourselves.’
Iris, although tempted, wasn’t going to argue the point. ‘So what’s the bad news?’
He raised his brows.
‘Isn’t that how it works?’ she said. ‘You tell me the good news first and then spoil it all by telling me the bad.’
‘Ah, well I think you already know about that. The Streets suspect you’re in touch with your dad. And the Streets want to find out where he is. And the Streets are probably going to keep on pushing until . . . Can you see where I’m going with this?’
‘Just about,’ she sighed. ‘What I don’t understand is why they should even think that I’ve been in contact with him. I’ve been back for a year. It doesn’t make any sense. I don’t get why all this happening now.’
‘Perhaps they’ve only just sussed out that you’re here. Or perhaps someone’s tipped them the nod that you know more than you’re letting on.’
Iris thought of Rick again, of Rick and his unexplained wad of cash. All those unwanted suspicions crept back into her head. ‘It’s possible. But if it was true, I mean about knowing where my dad was, why would I be so stupid as to come back to Kellston? I could have met up with him anywhere.’
Guy shrugged. ‘Well, we’re not dealing with the sharpest knives in the drawer. Or maybe they figure that you came back here to search for him and have had a bit more luck than they ever did. Does it really matter? What we need to think about is what we do next.’
But it mattered to Iris. She had to know if someone had deliberately landed her in it. And there weren’t too many suspects to choose from. Michael she could dismiss straight away - he was her uncle and she trusted him implicitly. He might have been a little economical with the truth in the past, but he’d never do anything to hurt her. Luke, of course, wasn’t even in the reckoning. And then there was Vita. But Iris trusted her too. And that, apart from Rick, was about the sum total of her close contacts in Kellston.
Suddenly her mobile began to ring. Iris jumped and delved into her bag. Flipping the phone open, she checked out the caller. It was Luke. She stared down at the small blue screen. Should she answer it? No, she couldn’t. Talk about bad timing. Quickly, she turned it off.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ Guy said. ‘I can make myself scarce if you need some privacy.’
‘No, no, it’s nothing important.’ She threw the phone back in her bag.
‘To be honest, I’m not holding out that much hope for tomorrow,’ Guy said. He saw her face fall and added, ‘I’ll do my best to persuade them to leave you alone - I think I can manage that - but whatever I say isn’t going to stop them from trying to hunt down your dad. If he is out there somewhere, then we need to find him before they do.’
Iris nodded. ‘It’s all so mad. I want him to be alive. Jesus, I want that so much. I want him to make contact with me, but at the same time, if he does, then . . .’
‘Yeah, I know. I understand. You’re scared that if he does get in touch, he’s only going to put himself in danger. But maybe we should have more faith in him. If he’s managed to evade the Streets for this long, he’s either very smart or very lucky.’
‘Let’s hope its smart,’ Iris said. ‘Luck has a habit of running out.’
Guy got to his feet. ‘Are you hungry? I bet you haven’t eaten all day. How about I rustle something up? What do you fancy?’
Iris looked at him. She looked at his smart grey suit. ‘You don’t need to do that. I don’t want to spoil your evening.’ She glanced at her watch. It was getting on for six and Vita would probably be home by now. She could give her a ring and ask if she could stay there for a night or two. There was no way she was going back to the flat until she was sure that it was safe. ‘I don’t want to hold you up. You’re going out, aren’t you?’
‘Nothing urgent,’ he said. ‘It’ll keep. As it happens, I’m starving and I don’t like eating on my own. I also make it a rule never to plot on an empty stomach. So do you think you could manage to force something down? I make a mean carbonara even if I say so myself.’
Surprisingly, Iris found that she was quite hungry. Breakfast had only been a piece of toast and lunch, after Danny Street’s unexpected appearance, had pretty well passed her by. ‘Okay, if you’re sure,’ she said. ‘Thanks. That would be nice.’
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll get things started while you finish your drink.’
He went over to the CD player, pressed a button and the fluid notes of a jazz trumpet floated out across the room. She watched as he went through to the kitchen. She saw him take off his jacket and tie, put them over the back of a chair, and then remove his phone from the jacket pocket. He was about to make his excuses to whoever he had let down tonight. She thought of the call Luke had made a short while ago. Perhaps it was time to make her excuses too.
Chapter Thirty-five
Iris pressed the number for Luke and listened as the phone rang the other end. She felt calm enough to talk to him now. But the phone rang and rang and eventually went to voicemail. She didn’t bother leaving a message. Instead, she switched the mobile off and dropped it back into her bag. Then she stood up and walked over to the window. The High Street was still busy and while she finished her brandy she automatically scanned the area, searching for would-be assailants hiding in the shadows or lurking in shop doorways. There was no one acting oddly. After a while, when she was sure that Guy had finished his call, she went through to the kitchen. ‘Can I help?’
He was in the process of pouring some pasta into a pan. ‘Sure. There’s wine in the fridge. You can open a bottle and then you can sit down and keep me company.’
The kitchen was a decent size and was painted white. There was a poppy-coloured refrigerator in the corner, a set of expensive-looking pans hanging from the wall, and a pale wood table with four chairs. A couple of glasses were already sitting on the table along with a corkscrew.
‘Or would you prefer red?’ He gestured towards a wine rack in the corner.
‘No, white’s fine with me.’ She opened the fridge and found a row of four bottles. �
��Which one should I open?’
‘Ah,’ he said, glancing over. ‘We’ll start on the left, shall we, and work our way through.’
Iris stared at him.
Guy grinned back. ‘Only kidding. There’s no need to look so worried. I’m not planning on plying you with booze and then taking advantage.’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Iris said. Then suddenly realising how that must have sounded, her cheeks flushed pink. She quickly added, ‘I meant about having a few drinks, not—’
‘I know what you meant,’ he said, laughing. ‘Just relax, will you?’
‘Sorry. I still feel bad about ruining your evening.’
‘Hardly that,’ he said. ‘In fact, you’ve probably done me a favour.’
She took the bottle across to the table. ‘How do you work that one out?’
Guy carefully stirred the sauce. When he didn’t reply, Iris began to feel awkward again. ‘Sorry,’ she said, sensing that she may have hit a raw nerve. ‘It’s none of my business.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I was only . . .’ He looked up and shrugged. ‘Well, some things just aren’t meant to be, are they? And no matter how much you talk, how much you discuss it, that isn’t going to change.’
Iris presumed he was talking about a relationship. What she had no way of knowing was whether the problem lay with him or the girl. Had tonight been earmarked for one of those make or break conversations? And was he the one who wanted out or was she? Iris thought of herself and Luke; they weren’t exactly on the road to paradise either. ‘Sorry,’ she said again.
‘Stop apologising. You’ve nothing to feel sorry for.’
Iris opened the bottle and poured out the Sauvignon blanc. ‘Here,’ she said, placing a glass beside him on the counter.
‘Where do you keep the cutlery? I’ll set the table while you’re doing that.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I can see you’ve been well raised.’