On arriving, he’d made a close pass of the frontage and spotted Pavlik in full waiterly stride, swerving rapidly between tables with a cluster of stemmed glasses high in one hand. The sight of him had produced a shiver of relief or terror, he didn’t care to identify which, while the knife in his pocket might have been molten steel, it seemed to sear his hand so badly.
When Pavlik emerged, Simon prepared himself to match a fast pace. But Pavlik seemed tired tonight, he stepped out slowly. He shrugged his leather jacket higher onto his shoulders before ambling off through the crowds, hands thrust into his pockets, head low. He turned into Old Compton Street, apparently making for Piccadilly and the tube, only to take the next right into Dean Street, which was not the direction for home at all. When Simon rounded the corner it was to see him on the opposite pavement, slowing up to turn into an entrance with a smoked glass door and no sign to say what sort of a place it was.
Simon gave it five minutes and pushed open the glass door to a reception area, a long passage dimly lit by down lighters and the throb of bass music rising from the basement. Guarding the entrance were two men at a desk, clones with shaved heads, heavy moustaches, earrings, black leather jackets copiously adorned with studs; a clear and unambiguous indication, if any were needed, of the style and tone of the establishment beneath.
It was a membership club, no ID, no questions asked, a year’s subscription in advance. Simon retreated to the street in a state of jittery frustration. This was all he needed, Pavlik on the pull. Two minutes, two hours: he might be all bloody night. Even then he might appear with a ghastly pick-up, or someone eager to take him home, though from the look of the place it wasn’t for tender hearts. Simon decided to give it an hour, and took up his cold vigil in an office doorway, which smelt of disinfectant and rotting vegetables.
Watching the comings and goings at the smoked glass door, he tried to make out if the club’s clients stayed for long, but it was impossible to tell because they all began to look the same to him, like soldiers in an outlandish inter-galactic army, with their uniform black jackets and convict hair and strutting steps.
One fifteen; and the hopelessness crept up on him in a tide of loss and yearning. He’d blown it. This would achieve nothing; Pavlik would walk free from court and have his revenge; Catherine would hate him for ever. He slumped a little in the doorway, counting off the regrets and lost opportunities, pondering the unfairness of a life half lived.
Pavlik emerged just after one thirty. He was alone. He came out fast, heading south at a stride just short of a run, quickly vanishing into Old Compton Street. In his haste to follow, Simon ran across the street, dodged between some dawdlers on the corner and promptly cannoned into two men on the far side, one of whom declared comically to his vanishing back, “Excuse me.” Simon sped on and saw Pavlik disappearing round a bend ahead, at the same frantic pace.
Simon caught him again in Brewer Street, going west. Following a few yards behind, he almost had heart failure when Pavlik glanced back over his shoulder. But either he didn’t see him, or he was looking for something else entirely, because he hurried on in the same way as before, without looking back again.
Within sight of Regent Street, with no warning at all, Pavlik suddenly broke into a sprint, flat out, arms pumping, head back, and jumping a barrier wove through a line of oncoming traffic to disappear behind a stationary bus on the far side of the street.
Simon ground to an unsteady halt, panting hard, and watched Pavlik take his seat on the N36 bus as it drew away, going north.
The first cabbie he tried had left his adventurous spirit with his sense of humour, in another life, and drove off with a sour grimace. The second driver laughed, game for anything that broke the routine, even if it was a predictable succession of stops and starts along Oxford Street and up the Edgware Road, towards Paddington and the north-west.
When the bus reached the Harrow Road, Simon told the cabbie to overtake and drop him just short of Fifth Avenue.
He walked fast and chose a spot opposite the house in the shadows of an overhanging shrub. Pavlik’s lover didn’t seem to be at home: there were no lights on, not even a porch light, and the ground-floor curtains were un drawn He waited impatiently, the sweat cold on his back, the blood hammering in his ears, the knife sharp and unwieldy and terrifying as he fingered it in his pocket. How hard did you have to push it in? And where? Just under the ribs? The neck? God, God, he wanted to be sick. He had the shakes. His guts churned hotly, threatening action.
How much longer? Where are you, you shit?
Just when he thought he might have made a ludicrous misjudgement, that Pavlik might have turned around and gone in a different direction, he saw in the steady beam of a street lamp the squat athletic figure walking unhurriedly up the road, head low, eyes on the pavement, no scent of danger.
Simon slipped his spectacles into his pocket and waited for Pavlik to turn in through the gate, then, blood running high, nerves thrumming, he began to run lightly across the road. At the point where he adjusted his stride to leap onto the opposite pavement he still believed he might reach him undetected. In the moment when he landed awkwardly and one foot brushed roughly against the paving stone, he knew that he wouldn’t, and then the blood sang in his ears, he felt the blind lust of pursuit. As he covered the last two yards, he watched Pavlik twist around defensively.
The sight of Pavlik’s half-raised hands sent a shot of doubt into Simon’s heart and in an action he hadn’t planned and certainly didn’t have time to think through he cranked his left forearm back to take a swipe across Pavlik’s head or neck, while keeping the knife low in his right hand, ready to thrust upwards.
He had caught Pavlik by surprise, but not so much by surprise that his reflexes weren’t working perfectly. He ducked to one side and twisted away so that Simon’s left fist glanced ineffectually off the top of his head, and when Simon thrust the knife up he found air and then something hard: brick or stone, the blade bounced off it all the same. Pavlik must have seen the blade, or heard it, because he caught Simon’s wrist and chopped down hard on it with such force that the knife might have been blown from Simon’s hand, it left his grasp so quickly.
For some reason Pavlik let go of Simon’s wrist, perhaps to swing at him, but Simon was too fast for him. Driven by panic or fury, he grabbed the front of Pavlik’s jacket in both hands and, bunching it up under his jaw, jammed his head hard against the door. The sound of Pavlik’s howl seemed to fill the whole street.
Simon yelled into his face, “You shit!”
Pavlik fell silent, or maybe he couldn’t breathe. His eyes bulged, the whites gleaming in the dull light, his lips were drawn back over his teeth. He gave a sharp hiss, a sound of contempt or fear.
“You’re a dead man, you bastard,” Simon roared, voice juddering, ‘unless you tell me who the hell’s bought you? Who’s paying you?”
Pavlik gasped something that Simon didn’t hear.
“Come on, come on! Who’s bought you, you fucker? Who’s bought you?”
Pavlik stared down his nose at him, and Simon caught the stench of alcohol on his breath. “Talk crazy,” he hissed.
“Who the hell is it? Galitza? Devlin? Give me the name, you shit!
Even before Pavlik’s face contorted and swelled, even before Simon heard the long intake of breath and felt the sturdy arms coming up against his chest, he felt the panic of the weaker man. As Pavlik shoved him forcefully away, Simon saw the hurried jab coming and managed to duck it by a hair’s breadth. He got in one feeble upward blow to Pavlik’s side it was like hitting stone before he realised that Pavlik was cranking his fist back for something far more serious. In an effort to forestall him, Simon lunged for a neck-lock that didn’t come off though it succeeded in throwing Pavlik off-balance and disabling the blow. Reaching out blindly, Simon grabbed desperately for clothing, flesh, anything and finally got some sort of a grip on an arm. They wrestled fiercely, toppling a dustbin, and almost fell before regaining th
eir feet. Simon tried for the neck-lock again, but Pavlik had his balance this time, rooted and square to the ground, and pushed Simon’s arm aside as if it were matchwood. An instant later Simon felt an explosion against his ribs, a hammer-blow that doubled him over in a jackknife and drove the air from his lungs in an agonised rush. The second fist caught the side of his head, a cracking blow that sent him sprawling to the ground, grating his face over concrete or stone. He rolled over he was somewhere in the doorway -and came up in a crouch, gasping. From the corner of his eye he saw Pavlik turning to run for it, and felt a fresh surge of anger. Scrambling after him, his empty lungs fighting for air that wouldn’t come, Simon made a dive for him. He managed to grab one leg at knee level and for a ludicrous moment they were caught in a grotesque pavement ballet, one man hopping and kicking, the other hanging on grimly. Then Pavlik twisted round and swung a fist onto the side of Simon’s head, precisely where he’d struck it before, and Simon yelped as the pain shot through his brain like fire. He had the impression of passing out, though he remembered rolling onto his back and shouting after Pavlik, “I’ll kill you!”
He heard savage sobs and realised they were his own. He curled up on his side and, cradling his head with his arm, vomited until the nausea faded.
Eventually, he staggered to his feet and, groaning aloud,
made his uncertain way to the Harrow Road. The first two cabs sailed past, the drivers’ eyes carefully averted, and it was only by stepping out in front of the next that he got it to stop at all. Even then, he had to persuade the cabbie that he’d been mugged, and no, he wouldn’t bleed all over his precious interior, and yes, he still had enough money for the sodding fare.
At Draycott Avenue he thrust a note at the cabbie and waited doggedly for every penny of his change, no bloody tip, before stumbling towards the entrance. As he fumbled for his key he heard a woman call his name and, disorientated, looked around open-mouthed.
“Simon!”
He stared stupidly at Alice.
“God!” she cried, getting a proper look at him. She helped him into the lobby. “What the hell happened to you?”
He looked down and saw that his suit and shirt were covered in blood.
Up in the flat she bathed and disinfected his face where it had scraped along the stonework, and put ice to the lump on his head, and prodded his ribs gently to see if they were broken.
“The party was so boring. I was hoping you’d liven things up a bit,” she said, laughing at the absurdity of it all.
He told her he’d been mugged, but didn’t want to bother with the police.
They had a large brandy each, his washed down with two painkillers, before she put him to bed. He was glad when she slid in next to him. He wanted sympathy, he wanted the proximity of a warm body, most of all he wanted to obliterate his fear in the transitory joy of sex.
“Let’s get some sleep now, Moggy. It’s very late.” Ben reached for the bedside lamp. ‘
“I still don’t understand.”
Abandoning the lamp switch, Ben took a long breath of ill-concealed dismay and, rolling back, dropping his arm heavily onto his stomach, turned his head on the pillow to look at her. “What is it you don’t understand, Moggy? God knows, I’ve tried to explain. I’ve told you twice three times there is no other woman. The bloody hotel room was for that stupid oaf Casimir and his ghastly blonde totty. I took Rebecca out to lunch once. The last of the big spenders. Guilty as charged. That’s it!”
“It’s not that. I’ve got all that,” Catherine said quietly, though there were things she had chosen not to mention, like the perfume in the bathroom cabinet, and what had or hadn’t passed between him and Emma. “It’s this business with Terry Devlin,” she said slowly. “I don’t understand why ... I thought you’d fallen out years ago. I thought you hated him. I thought you were never going to do business with him again.”
“God alone knows, so did I!” he agreed lavishly. “Last thing I wanted! But a deal’s a deal. If it looks like a good one, you have to go with it, even if it means supping with the devil. Or you think you have to go with it,” he added with a grunt of regret.
“So you ended up owing him all this money?”
“Darling love,” he said heavily. “It wasn’t quite as simple as that.
It was a business thing.”
Softening her voice, she persevered, “I need to understand. Please tell me.”
He became so still, his eyes so vacant, that he might have been lost to the conversation altogether. “Okay,” he said at last, coming to a decision. “Basically .. . Terry advanced some money against the prospect of this deal in Poland. That’s all there was to it really. The deal was going to take a year or so to complete. Maybe longer. He knew that, there was never any question of a fixed time.”
“This deal.. . what was it for?”
Another pause, a slight shrug. “A hotel.”
“I didn’t think RNP went in for that sort of thing.”
He gave her a narrow look. “It doesn’t. This was a one-off.
Nothing to do with RNP.”
She absorbed this with surprise before struggling on. “And something went wrong?”
“It appears so. I thought we had an agreement. The terms were perfectly reasonable. He agreed to them quickly enough anyway! But then .. . then he went and decided he wanted to foreclose.”
“And he threatened you?”
“Let’s just say he wasn’t going to be put off.”
“He was going to use this .. . bad thing against you?”
“Yeah,” he mused distractedly. “Yeah.”
“You’re saying that Terry was the blackmailer?”
“I’m saying that Terry knows how to get his way when he wants it badly enough.”
There was a part of Ben that had always taken refuge in abstruseness, and she was too tired to press him further. “It’s all over now, though, is it?” she asked. “He’s got his money back?” “Mmm?” Again, a vagueness came over him. Again, it was a moment before he answered. “Oh yeah. I’ve kept my part of the bargain all right.”
“And .. . the nuisance calls?”
“Oh, bully-boy stuff. Latimer’s his errand boy.”
“But why me} Coming through on my phone?”
He said, shame-faced, “I got them, too, Moggy. Calls.”
She stared at him and pushed herself up on one elbow to see his face more clearly. “You never told me that.”
“Didn’t want to worry you.” His brusqueness had given way to a sort of misery.
“But.. .” She bowed her head for a moment while she caught her breath. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me?”
He shook his head and putting a hand on her shoulder caressed it softly. “It’s been a dreadful time, Moggy. Not being able to tell you the half of it.”
“But it would have been far, far better if you’d told me. Far better.”
“Not too late now?”
And still she hung her head.
“Moggy - I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
She looked up to find him smiling contritely, the child asking for forgiveness. When this didn’t produce an effect he breathed, “Oh, Moggy.. .” He touched her hair and his eyes took on the liquid glint that in the dim days of uncomplicated happiness had so often formed a prelude to love-making.
He guided her head back to the pillow and they lay side by side, faces inches apart, caught in the stillness of the night and in the awareness of each other. It was astonishing to have forgotten the force of this stillness, the slow deepening of sensation, the closeness that was all the more potent because their bodies were not quite touching. But forgotten it she had, partly from a need to protect herself from the ache of rejection, partly because no amount of remembering could ever do justice to it. She had wanted this moment for so long, had fixed her hopes on it so unquestioningly, that now ... As he murmured the endearments that were the first way marks along the familiar path, she felt something stall inside her
, she was caught up by a huge emptiness. Her body responded with a host of old and new sensations, some mechanical, some lost for ever, some that would need to be reinterpreted or re-learned. But her mind was somewhere else, floating in a sea of loss that had no name.
Chapter Fourteen
CATHERINE WAS ready and waiting by the front door in her long coat and scarf when she heard the car halt in the road outside and the sound of brisk footsteps on the pavement. Reaching up to slip the latch, she saw in the early gloom the face of Mike, the driver who’d taken her to the airport for the flight to Dublin. He held the door open for her as she levered herself upright and made her way out, then, following her directions, locked up and slid the keys into her pocket.
It was four o’clock and already pitch dark. There was a cold snapping wind, a hint of snow. Her breath vaporised and was sucked away into the murky swirl of the streetlights.
Mike helped her off the pavement; she wasn’t yet so confident with crutches that she could swing them forward from one level to another and be absolutely sure her legs would follow. He saw her into the car, understanding immediately how this must be done. She thought how they all followed a type, these people who worked for Terry Devlin, willing, efficient and taciturn.
Before setting off, Mike passed her an evening newspaper, and she thought at first that he meant her to read something about the trial, but when she searched the news pages it was to find nothing but blizzards in the east, snowstorms in the north and the doom merchants blaming the early winter on global warming. She flicked through the paper once again, but if there was anything about the case it must have been very small. At the start of the trial the papers had carried reports of the prosecution’s opening case under extravagant headlines, the most restrained of which was “Burglar accused of throwing TV girl from landing’. Reading these accounts -all with a sensational slant, all containing errors of fact she’d had the impression of reading about a fictional character loosely connected to herself by name and when they got it right by age, a person who’d been constructed from a series of stereotypical images to form a more digestible version of herself. Redrawn in this way, she had become ‘beautiful’, her career as a ‘popular presenter’ had been ‘blossoming’, she was newly married to a ‘dynamic entrepreneur’, and of course she was ‘paralysed’. It was like viewing herself through the wrong end of a telescope: she saw a person who was diminished and indistinct.
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