by Lucy Gordon
“But how do I go on believing in the face of nothing? No response at all, nothing.”
She gave him a sad little smile. “The same way that I went on believing in the face of gray walls.”
He searched her face as she said this, and he saw no trace of the bitterness that had once been in her eyes when she spoke of her prison sentence. It was gone now, replaced by a gentle sympathy. She’d called up her own tragedy not to reproach him but to give him hope, and it was this, more than her words, that acted on his spirit, reviving his courage.
“Talk to me about Neil,” she said. “Tell me about how mechanical he is.”
Daniel began, stumbling a little until he got the hang of it. “He could always mend things better than I could—plugs and stuff. You’ve seen the room with the audio-video equipment. That was—is—our room. When we’d read instructions he always understood them before I did and explained them to me sometimes. And he was only seven.”
“That’s incredible,” she said encouragingly.
“He used to laugh at me because I was so slow—but kindly. He was—is—a very kind boy.”
“What’s he like with a computer?” Megan asked.
“A wizard. You should see him, Megan.”
“Ah, but can he program a video recorder?” she asked, suddenly inspired.
To her delight, Daniel caught the ball she’d tossed and ran with it. “Can he...? Can he program a video recorder? I tell you, the video isn’t made that can defeat this boy.”
Megan took a calculated gamble. Turning to Neil, she spoke directly. “Then you’d better awaken soon and show the rest of us,” she said, risking a touch of comedy. “I know you can hear me. Think of all the things you’re missing. They’re bringing out new machines every day. You could be using them.”
“On the day you come out I’ll buy you the best computer in the business.” Daniel took up the theme. “We’ll learn it together. We always did things together, didn’t we? And we’ll do them again.”
Neil lay without moving. Not by so much as a flicker did he show any response. Daniel’s shoulders sagged. “He can’t hear me,” he said wearily. “I’m just fooling myself.”
“Then fool yourself,” Megan said urgently. “Fool yourself as I did during those years I was telling myself I was bound to be set free eventually. Fool yourself, and go on fooling yourself if it’s the only way to hang on to your belief. Sometimes only the fools are wise.”
Then Daniel did something that brought an ache to Megan’s throat. He looked down on the still, pale figure on the bed and held out his hand. “Put it there,” he said. And he himself lifted the lifeless little hand to hold in his great fist. “That was what we used to do,” he explained to Megan. “It was our way of saying we were close...that we understood each other...that we l—” His voice trailed away.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” Megan said, and quietly left the room.
Left alone with his son, Daniel placed his other hand over the little boy’s, enclosing it between both his. “She’s nice, isn’t she?” he asked awkwardly. “You’re going to like her when...if—I don’t know. There’s so much has to happen first. So many mountains to climb. But we’ll all get there.” He searched Neil’s face for a long time before saying softly, “I love you, son. You always knew that, really, didn’t you? Even if I didn’t say it.”
After waiting a long time in vain, he leaned down and kissed the child. Then he left the room.
When they were sitting in the car, Megan said, “Daniel, please take me back to your home.”
He didn’t look at her. “Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. I’ve been blinkered and self-absorbed, but I see a lot of things clearly now.” She touched his arm. “Please.”
He drove her home without another word.
That night their lovemaking was gentle, fervent but not fierce. The tigress sheathed her claws and touched her lover languidly in silky caresses. Her eyes gleamed at him in the night, but their glow was soft and full of love. She was still a creature of the jungle, but she’d chosen to be tame—just for tonight. Tomorrow it would be different, but now her growl was a purr and her danger was hidden.
When they’d taken their fill of each other and lay in each other’s arms, Daniel said hesitantly, “I’m not wrong, am I, Megan? What I think has happened to us...has really happened?”
“Yes,” she murmured contentedly against his chest. “It’s really happened. I’ve been trying to believe it, too.”
“How did you and I come to fall in love?” he marveled. “The two least likely people in the world.”
“Perhaps we’re not so unlikely, after all,” she mused. “We two know things that nobody else knows. Who else can understand either of us as well as we understand each other?”
A gleam of humor lit his habitually stern face as he said, “And do you think that’s the basis of what’s between us—understanding? Companionship? Respect and esteem? Admiration for each other’s intelligence?”
She smiled. “Well, I think we have those, too. But it’s not the whole story.”
“No, it certainly isn’t,” he said, tightening his hold on her. “None of them mean a damn thing without this....” He kissed her purposefully and she felt the magic begin again, “And this,” he added, turning his body so that she lay beneath him and he could gaze down at her.
He’d meant to look his fill, but after only a moment her beauty was too much for him and he began to love her again. She received him joyfully, feeling not only love but an overwhelming relief that they’d found a way to confess the truth to each other, and now there need be no further barriers. He was her man because he needed as well as loved her, and he could see into her heart as nobody else in the world could do.
When at last Daniel lay asleep, Megan raised herself up on one elbow and looked down at him with eyes that were tender.
“It’s gone on long enough,” she whispered. “I want everything. I want you, and I want my son back, and I won’t wait any longer. You’re a policeman. You have to do it by the book. But let’s face it—doing it by the book isn’t working.”
She regarded him again for a moment before murmuring thoughtfully, “But I’m not a policeman.”
Twelve
For a moment Jackson Grainger seemed to have difficulty in focusing his eyes as he peered into the gloom of the hallway outside his door. “Who are you?” he demanded of the woman standing there.
“Surely you remember me, Mr. Grainger? Three years isn’t all that long, and there are, shall we say, good reasons for me to lodge in your memory.”
“Good grief! I heard they’d let you out, but I didn’t think you’d dare show your face around here again. Hey, I didn’t invite you in.”
“But I seem to be in now, don’t I? I’m surprised you weren’t expecting me. We have so much to talk about.”
“I’ve got nothing to talk about with the woman who murdered my uncle,” Grainger said loftily.
“Come now, that’s very ungrateful, surely?” Megan had managed to get well into the apartment, the very apartment where Henry Grainger had died, and which was now occupied by his nephew. She dropped onto the sofa in such a position that her short skirt rode up, giving Jackson Grainger a grandstand view of her incredibly long silken legs. She smiled up at him knowingly.
“I don’t know what you mean by ungrateful,” he said uneasily.
“Well, look at you now—set up in comfort, the owner of this apartment block. At the time your uncle died your circumstances were very, very different. You were deep in debt and had some nasty characters on your trail. Let’s face it, whoever killed Uncle Henry did you a big favor.”
An expression of self-conscious virtue settled over the man’s pasty face. “I think that remark’s in very poor taste.”
Megan’s beautifully arched eyebrows rose. “Really? I think it’s spot on.”
“I’d like you to leave.”
“I’m sure you would. I’m sure the mere s
ight of me makes you uneasy—almost as uneasy as the fact that I was cleared. The police will be asking questions again now. That prospect must be giving you a few nasty moments.”
“Don’t you try to frighten me,” Grainger blustered.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. You’re quite scared enough without any help from me. Why don’t you offer me a drink?” She smiled temptingly. “I can remember when you used to keep asking me to have a drink with you.”
“Yes, and you were always too high and mighty,” he said in an aggrieved voice. He went to the liquor cabinet. “Any preference?”
“Vodka, please.”
Grainger poured himself a stiff whiskey and handed Megan her glass. He seemed to have recovered some of his poise. “You can talk all the nonsense you want,” he said. “I don’t mind having a drink with you. Not so high and mighty now, eh?”
“Let’s say I’m ready to discuss things reasonably. You might find yourself in the same frame of mind.”
“Don’t kid yourself. I’m in the clear. I had an alibi for that night.”
“Not a very good alibi,” Megan mused. “It depended on a lady who expected to share your good fortune, and is rather put out at being dumped. My impression was that for two pins she’d tell a very different story.”
For the first time, a shade of unease crept into the man’s manner. “What do you mean, your impression? You haven’t seen her. You can’t fool me.”
“Oh, I’ve seen her all right,” Megan said, smiling in a way that brought him no comfort at all. “We had a very interesting talk.”
Grainger gulped down some whiskey. “It’s all lies,” he asserted in a voice that just managed to keep steady.
“Well, if you don’t know what she’s saying about you, how do you know that they’re lies?” Megan asked reasonably.
“Look here, what do you want?”
Megan sipped her vodka delicately. “I suppose I want justice. I went to jail for your crime, Mr. Grainger, while you’ve lived well off the proceeds. Now, that doesn’t seem right to me. I have a fairly good idea how you did it. You came to see your uncle that night, and you arrived while he was upstairs with me. You heard us quarreling. The whole building heard us. You heard me say that he wasn’t fit to live. You waited for him to come down and waylaid him at the door of his apartment. That’s how come nobody heard you ring his bell.”
She stopped and glanced inquiringly at Grainger, who’d gone a ghastly color and was regarding her with horrible fascination. When he caught her looking at him directly, he swiftly avoided her gaze by returning to his drink. “Perhaps you were already thinking of killing him,” Megan mused in a judicious tone. “And perhaps the decision was finally taken when you saw him come downstairs with my ashtray. With that and the quarrel, you knew you could point the finger at me. You killed him, knowing that you’d inherit, and you persuaded Mary Aylmer and her brother to give you an alibi. But once I’d been convicted, you dumped them.
“I suppose you thought you were safe enough. You paid her off with five hundred pounds every three months.” To Megan’s satisfaction this precise figure caused Grainger to blanch. “Not very much, but more than she’d get if she exposed you. No, she wasn’t likely to give you away, and even if she’d done so, who’d have believed her? Our legal system doesn’t like admitting it’s made a mistake, and once I’d been found guilty nobody would have wanted to believe her.”
Grainger was staring at her belligerently. “So?” he demanded.
“So...that was then. This is now. They’ve had to admit they were mistaken about me. That makes the police very annoyed. They need to save their faces by finding the real murderer. I reckon they’d give Mary a deal—no prosecution in return for evidence about you.” To her immense satisfaction, she saw Grainger swallow. His face was a sickly hue.
But he recovered himself enough to say, “You’re bluffing.”
She shrugged. “As you wish. I just thought you might want to talk to me before you talk to the police. But if you’re sure you can cope with them without my help...well, I’ll be going.”
“Wait. What do you mean, without your help? Why should you help me?”
“For the same reason that you should help me. Mutual interest, Mr. Grainger. I took the rap, you took the money. I could always take the heat off you—for a consideration.”
“What...do you mean?”
“I’ve nothing to lose, have I? I’ve been released, I can’t be sent back to jail. They can think me as guilty as they like, but I’ll stay free. I could arrange for the evidence to point back to me...if I wanted to. At the moment, it points to you.”
“And what’s the price?”
“Money. A lot of it.”
“You’ve got a nerve.”
Instead of answering directly, Megan looked around her. “This is a beautiful place, and I must say you’ve done it up very nicely. It would be a pity if you weren’t here to enjoy it.”
“How much?”
“Twenty grand.”
“That’s more than I can raise.”
“I don’t think so. Your uncle used to boast to me about how rich he was. It depends on how much you prize your freedom. And make no mistake, Mr. Grainger, your freedom is under threat.” Seeing him swallow again, Megan went on casually, “I don’t think you’d like prison. Take it from someone who’s been there, you wouldn’t like it at all. Fancy your being so lucky all this time! Well, everyone’s luck runs out sometime.”
“Who says my luck’s run out?” Grainger asked slowly. “You mentioned a deal.”
“That’s right. We can be good to each other. After all, why shouldn’t we share his money? We both suffered enough because of him. I hated him, and I know you did.”
“Evil old scroat,” Grainger concurred. “He knew I was desperate for money, and he could have helped me. But not him. He enjoyed taunting me with it, saying I’d come into it all after he’d gone, and just be a little patient. And all the time he was trying to find a way to break the settlement and cut me out.”
“Perhaps he found it?” Megan suggested, inspired.
“According to him, he had. I dunno if it was true, or whether it was just him tormenting me, but he said it could be done with a bit of time.”
“That was silly of him,” Megan observed. “That was practically begging you to cut his time short. I’d say he got what he asked for.”
Grainger gave a sudden crack of laughter. “You should have seen his face when he saw me lift that ashtray.”
“I’ll bet it was worth seeing.” Megan chuckled.
“It would almost have been worth a jail sentence to get back at him,” Grainger mused.
“But you didn’t have to go to jail,” she told him. “You were cleverer than that.”
“I was cleverer than you think, Miss Smarty Boots. I didn’t waylay him at the door of his apartment. I picked the lock and was waiting for him when he got in. Nobody ever knew I was there.”
“Now that was really clever,” Megan agreed.
Grainger came and sat down beside her. “So,” he said, breathing whiskey fumes all over her, “me and you is going to do business. So how about we seal our pact properly?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s start with a little kiss.”
“I never mix business with pleasure,” she said firmly.
“Well, I do. It’s the best way. After all, we’re gonna be tied together pretty close in future, and that’ll suit me. Come on, stop acting like a prude.”
He made a lunge toward her. Megan fended him off, but his weight bore her backward onto the sofa. She twisted her head away to stop his kissing her, but he began groping around her body with heavy hands. Then suddenly he grew still. “What’s this?”
He thrust a hand inside her blouse, wrenched at something and brought his hand out clutching some wire. “You bitch!” he said furiously. “You’re wired.”
“And connected to a police van,” she said breathlessly. “So be carefu
l what you do.”
Fury made his face livid. Megan stared up at him, realizing that this man had killed once and she was at his mercy. Far away, she heard shouts, the sounds of banging doors, but all her attention was for Jackson Grainger’s hands, moving inexorably toward her neck, tightening around her throat. There was a terrifying moment when he seemed to be squeezing the life out of her, then he suddenly vanished. The weight crushing her disappeared, air rushed back into her lungs, and Daniel was pulling her up and cradling her in his arms.
“My God,” he murmured. “I should never have let you take such a risk.”
“It was the only way.” She gasped. “Did you get it?”
“Every word, loud and clear.”
He helped her to sit up. The room seemed to be filled with policemen. Two of them were restraining Grainger, who was shouting with fury. “Careful with him, Canvey,” Daniel warned. “That’s a very costly cargo you’ve got there.”
“Don’t you worry,” a plump, amiable-looking man replied. “It’s so costly that we’re going to lock it up for safety. Jackson Grainger, I arrest you for the murder of your uncle, Henry Grainger. You are not obliged to say anything....” He recited the rest of the warning.
“You bitch!” Grainger raged at Megan. “You wait. Just you wait—”
“It’ll be a long wait,” Canvey observed. “Get him out of here.”
Still struggling, Grainger was hauled to the door. “Are you all right?” Canvey asked Megan, who was feeling her throat.
“I’m going to be all right now,” she said, her eyes on Daniel.
“Right, then, I’ll be off with my prisoner. I’ll give Chief Inspector Masters your regards, Daniel, and tell him you’ll be in to see him soon.”
“Tell him anything you like,” Daniel said, turning to Megan. Holding her close, he said, “I was so scared all the time you were in here. I should never have let you talk me into it.”
“Daniel, let’s get out of here. I hate this place.”
“Right now,” he agreed, taking her by the hand.
They ran from the building like a couple of children, hurrying to the car, and talking in excited bursts all the way home. They didn’t make much sense, but they didn’t care. They were too excited and happy.