It was when she had just come back to Manhattan from England. The unfamiliar surroundings didn’t return a recognisable self to her. Everything was in flux. Sensations carried her along, like some leaf unfettered by a staying branch. If the wind blew one way she might end up at the Whitney sauntering past pictures, if in another, in some SoHo bar. She relished the freedom yet also feared it, not knowing who she would wake up to be the next day. She had even slept with two men in those months. Random men. Her life was determined only by chance. Until she had met Jeff, whom chance had brought but who erased the sense of randomness.
Jeff had bestowed an identity on her in those early days and she clung to it as if it were her salvation. In her quietness, he saw sophistication. A worldly much travelled woman - which she was, of course, though she had never seen herself in that light. Whereas he had never yet left the United States. From the vantage point of his nether end of Brooklyn childhood, her Park Avenue family were mysterious beings, lapped in the privileges he aspired to. In the hectic glow of his regard, she had ceased to float like a bit of flotsam on the ocean of life and taken on ballast. Certainty, too. Even her talents seemed more certain. Real. He had been her greatest good luck.
Not forever.
Leo went back into the living room and leaned into the sofa. Above her the lavish colours of Isabel’s chosen canvas sprawled as vivid as a sunset in the desert.
‘I’ve done now, Ms. Holland.’ Inspector Faraday’s voice roused her from her reverie. ‘I’ll keep in touch.’
She caught up with him at the door. ‘Did you manage to get hold of this woman who left a message, Inspector? Paola someone.’
‘I left a message for her. It hasn’t been returned yet.’ His bland face creased into a frown. ‘Do take care, Ms. Holland. You’ve been pushed about once. The next time might be more serious. I really suggest you leave this to us.’
But this doesn’t leave me, Leo reflected as she went back into the empty room. She rubbed her legs where the violent fall had left them sore and looked out on the cluster of roofs. In the distance a statue poked above the buildings. It glistened in the gathering dusk which was tinged with palest urban pink. She should go up and see if Rosie was back and put an end to her desultory thoughts. But she didn’t feel like chatting. Not really.
With a vocal sigh, Leo decided to scramble some eggs. As she whisked she remembered the Inspector’s words about the size of Isabel’s bank balance. Had an inheritance come her way? Or was it something else? The Australian aunt might know. How to find the number? She didn’t feel like digging back into the box where she had come across Jeff’s letter. Then, too, those were old letters. People moved. Norfolk might know. She would ask him when he got back.
The flat grew dark as she ate her eggs and toast. The darkness set up a tremor in her. For the last two days she had repressed her sense that the place had grown hostile, a site of violent visitations and gloomy foreboding. Where could Isabel be? She conjured her up again, watched her stride across the room, her hair swinging. She sat down opposite her with a swish of silk trousers. A grin illuminated her features. She laughed her booming laugh. ‘It didn’t matter about him. Neither of us cared. I was just curious. Curious about you too. Through him. And curiosity ran away with me. I like events. You know what I mean.’
Isabel faded to be replaced by the vase of vibrant daffodils. Did she know what Isabel meant, Leo wondered. Really know, as an experience within herself?
She washed her lone plate and dried it to an impeccable sheen, then watched herself aghast. She was turning into an old woman. What she needed was the sound of human voices. But she didn’t want to go out. She checked that the front door was double locked and wandered through the apartment. The television. That would do. Other people’s lives to put one’s own into relief.
She went into Isabel’s room and rapidly switched on the tv to blot out any memory of the hands emerging from darkness to shove her violently to the floor. She stretched out on the bed and watched colours form into a landscape - pools of crystalline blue dotted by ice caps and then a plateau of untouched snow, ridged and heaped only by wind. A soundtrack, was it Grieg?, scored the images. And then came a whirr. A helicopter flew into the frame. Leo leaned on her elbows, her hands firmly clasped beneath her chin. For a split second, she thought of Daniel Lukas. She didn’t reach for the zapper. She forced herself to watch.
The machine glided, became a fragile, glistening form against the expanse of white. A cut brought the pilot’s face into relief. Not her father’s face. Definitely not her father’s, but a burly, curly-headed man in a lumber-jacket. Beside him sat a woman with the pure face of an ice-princess. She clutched his arm in mute panic.
Leo couldn’t tear her eyes from the screen. She watched the man give the woman a consoling smile. A moment later, he was peering into the distance, his face resolute.
She was outside the cabin again, the helicopter a bobbing form, moving closer and closer to the ground, then up again until finally, as the music reached a frenzied crescendo, it landed with a lurch, its insect form half swallowed by snow that was too soft for its weight. In mid-shot, she watched the pilot emerge, push against the partly buried door, then drag his sinking feet to his partner’s side and allow her out. She fell into his arms.
Leo turned away. A howl of pure rage seemed to be building inside her, demanding explosion. She reached for a pillow and threw it at the far end of the room. Followed it with a second. Why couldn’t her father have stayed alive? Stayed alive like this man. He was strong, too. Powerful. He could have stayed alive. Stayed alive for her. He had promised to come. Had promised. And he had betrayed her.
Tears flooded her cheeks. Copious tears interrupted by great heaving sobs. Like a child’s. She couldn’t stop them.
Through their blur, she half watched the screen. The helicopter had started up its whirring again. Inside there was a second man now, his eyes closed, his face contorted with pain. Blades rotated through air, growing invisible with speed. The machine lifted leaving a gully in its wake.
Leo closed her eyes. She let the weeping take its course. As it ebbed, a profound hollowness came in its place, as if she had been gutted out. A hollowness of loss. The loss carried her into sleep.
She didn’t know whether she was dreaming or awake when she felt the hand on her hair. It stroked her, consoled, rumpled her a little. Her father’s hand, she thought. She covered it with her own small one. The skin felt hard and cool.
A voice whispered in her ear. ‘Nice of you to wait for me, Holland.’
Leo turned and saw Christopher Norfolk perched beside her. He looked big and solid, not a dream. She couldn’t quite read his expression. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…’ she croaked.
‘Shhh.’ He continued his stroking, but now it was her features his fingers outlined.
She met his eyes. His were very clear and blue in the half light. His face moved towards her. Lips brushed hers. Her arms curled round his back of their own accord. The gesture surprised her as did the force of his kiss. It set up a tingling in her body. She had forgotten that sensation, its warming glow, had never really expected to experience it again. She gave herself to it, gave herself to him, wanting the soft ardour of his gaze as he unbuttoned her shirt, the firm moulding of his hands on her skin, the heft of him against her body. When her hands burrowed beneath his sweater and shirt to find the smoothness of his back and he rose, she felt bereft. But he was pulling off his clothes, leaving them in a heap on the floor. She watched him covertly. The broad back made darker by the pallor of buttocks untouched by the sun, the tawny legs. Like a shy schoolgirl, she closed her eyes when he turned towards her.
‘Your turn, Holland.’ It was a command. But when she didn’t move, he did the undressing for her in swift, certain movements, curving against her before she could feel the coolness of the night air on her skin. She stopped thinking, abandoned herself to the pleasure of him, astonished at her own when he moved inside her, or rolled her on top
of him. For a moment then, as their eyes clung to each other, she thought of Isabel. Him and Isabel, for they must have been together like this. And she was glad. She arched her back and swung her hair savagely and dug her nails into his shoulders and a moan reached her lips. It flowed around the room and came back to envelop them. And then Isabel was gone and it was just Leo and this man, this stranger. This Christopher. This Norfolk. Inside her, outside her, beneath, above, so that her blood seemed to flow to a new heated beat. Uncurdling, the word popped into her mind and disappeared as quickly, replaced by his name. Spoken now, or cried, a wave in her mouth to challenge the waves which encircled her from below.
Later, as they lay together, there was uncertainty.
She didn’t quite know how to take his ‘You’re a fierce little thing, Holland.’
‘Am I?’ She moved to hide her nakedness beneath the duvet. She drew it right up to her neck. He edged it down again.
‘I like looking at you. There’s a lot more of you with your clothes off. Like those French women. Speaking of which, how about a glass of something?’
He rose before she could answer and came back a moment later with two glasses and a bottle. He poured the wine and then held up his glass to her. ‘To Holland. A step forward from the truce.’
She met the irony of his smile. ‘To Norfolk.’
He came to lie beside her, his hand smoothing her thigh. ‘Where did these come from?’ He touched the ugly bruises on her legs.
‘From our intruder. Monday night. He pushed. I fell. Against the drawers.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
For a moment she thought he was apologising for something he had done. She banished the thought. ‘And this?’ She pointed to the welt on his shoulder.
‘That, my darling Holland, is all your doing. It’s what I mean by fierce. But I guess it’s better than your attempt to bash my brains in.’ He gave her a slow wink and curled in beside her.
She liked his face, Leo decided, the leathery etching of lines in it, as if he had spent his life narrowing his eyes against the sun.
‘I had a distinct feeling while you were administering this little wound,’ he fingered his shoulder, ‘that you were possessed by…
‘Oh…’ Leo inched away from him.
‘Or maybe just pretending to be our mutual friend. It was the way you shook your head. Am I right Holland?’
Leo could feel his gaze on her, as incisive as Daniel Lukas’s. ‘Maybe I was,’ she acknowledged. ‘It just came over me. I don’t know why. I’ve been thinking about Isabel so much.’ She paused. What came to her lips next startled her. ‘Isabel slept with my husband. My former husband,’ she corrected herself.
‘Is that it?’ He wound his arm round her, caressed her gently, then laughed, a brief droll sound. ‘She’s a rogue. But that’s our Isabel. Of course, you forgave her.’
Leo, suddenly, wasn’t altogether sure. Anger flashed through her. Anger at Isabel for betraying her with Jeff. Anger at the second betrayal for standing her up with no warning. But with that came a tangled sense of guilt and loss and fear which swallowed up the anger.
‘We always forgive Isabel her misdemeanours. Not to is like asking lightning to feel responsible for striking.’ He laughed.
She joined him, rose to pour them both some more wine. She didn’t feel so shy now she realized. She rather enjoyed his passing scrutiny. She returned it, let her eyes rove over his body. She saw his penis begin to bulge. She had an uncharacteristic desire to take it in her mouth.
‘The difference is, Holland, if you’re contemplating a smidgen of revenge, I was never Isabel’s husband. Isabel’s not the staying kind. She bores too easily.’
‘And you?’
‘We share that.’ He grinned.
Leo had the impression he was giving her a sign. ‘So you’re bored already.’ She had intended to say it lightly, but it didn’t quite come out like that.
‘Don’t be a sensitive ass, Holland.’ He pulled her down beside him and stroked her hair. ‘I’m just beginning to get interested.’
‘Why do you insist on calling me Holland?’
‘I like it. Like the place. Lived there once. Even got married there.’
‘Once?’
‘Yes. Did that again, elsewhere.’ He was deliberately vague and she didn’t press him.
‘What did you do in Holland?’
‘Played. Worked. In a chemical firm.’
She thought she saw a shadow cross his face. She didn’t pursue it. His lips were on her breast. She abandoned herself to sensation, the heady play of limbs and lips, wondering only at some point at her sheer avidity for him.
Afterwards, she said without quite knowing why, ‘I haven’t, you know, done this for two years. Maybe more.’
He chuckled. ‘I hadn’t realized I’d got myself a virgin. Difficult women, virgins.’
Her face fell. She looked round for her shirt. ‘I guess I’d better get back. To my room. My life.’ She buttoned the blouse, tugged on trousers. He was watching her, but she wouldn’t meet his eyes.
‘Holland.’ his voice was suddenly gentle. ‘We all have our fallow periods. And I’m not altogether the crude bugger I sometimes pretend to be. Now just stay here. I have something to ask you.’
‘What?’
He tugged her down beside him.
‘What did that copper tell you today? That Inspector Faraday?’
‘How did you know he was here?’
‘I guessed. I’m beginning to know you a little.’
‘He doesn’t like you.’
‘You surprise me, Holland. What else?’
‘Do you know Isabel’s aunt. The one she liked.’
‘Aunt? Isabel never talked about her family.’
‘That’s odd.’
‘Is it? We had rather more interesting things to talk about.’ His grin was all mischief.
‘I need to find her.’
‘I know. That’s what we’re working on.’
‘I mean the Aunt.’
‘I’ll check it out down under… But why? Do you think she might know something?’
Leo shrugged. She scrutinised him. The rough-hewn face gave little away. But the body was generous. She ran her hand over his chest. He caught it. ‘Tell me.’
‘It seems Isabel had a lot of money in her account. More than reasonable, according to Faraday.’
‘So he thinks someone was paying her? She was working for someone. Mata Hari in the world of terminators.’
‘He didn’t say that.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘We’re going to have to move quickly, Holland. Before those bumbling cops blunder in and make things more dangerous all round.’
‘The good news is, Isabel withdrew a large sum from her account in cash. Which explains why there have been no credit card traces for her in all this time. So she’s probably OK.’ Leo’s voice cracked as she said it.
He considered this, then frowned. ‘Did Faraday check for any video snoopers that might have been planted on us?’
‘What do you mean?’ Leo asked, realising as she said it that he meant hidden cameras.
‘Look, Holland, someone broke in here. I may inadvertently have tipped them off by talking to that lab technician - we can’t be sure of that, but let’s presume it for a moment. The blokes at Plantagen - or wherever - were looking for any sensitive material Isabel may have walked off with. The likelihood is they didn’t find it. But they may still think it’s worth keeping an eye.’
He got up and roved round the room, pausing at lamps and window frames, then pulled on his shirt and shorts.
‘But if they’re trying to tail Isabel, that means they aren’t holding her, that she’s OK…’‘Let’s hope so.’ He came to plant a kiss on her forehead. ‘Let’s hope she’s just living it up somewhere. But I didn’t like the look of this place the other day.’ He touched the bruises on her legs. ‘Now you just curl up and go to sleep. I’ll join you when I’m done. Soon.’ He smiled.
>
‘Norfolk.’ She held him back. ‘What did you find out today?’
‘One thing I discovered is that none of Isabel and my mutual contacts have seen much of her since Christmas. The rest… well, I’ll tell you tomorrow. How about coming with me? Bright and early.’
She smiled. ‘Nice of you to ask. But I was planning to hire a car and drive down to Dorset. To have a look at that hotel Isabel stayed in. See if I can find anything out. I can’t bear this waiting.’
‘Great minds, partner. We’ll drive together. Though it wasn’t hotels I was planning on… Now get some sleep.’
Leo didn’t sleep. She lay there in Isabel’s bed and touched her body. It felt taut, rosy, as if it had acquired definition, distinct outlines. As if she had been returned to herself by a patterning of another’s hands and limbs. The thought came into her mind that she was too old to be finding definition through a man.
But how else did one know oneself except through others? Mothers and fathers, Daniel Lukas, had insisted. One gradually became who one was through their imprint, a tugging and a pulling not a simple stamp. Maybe Jeff had come along and allowed her to stop longing for her dead father, make some sort of uneasy peace with her mother. And then he had gone, well before he had in fact moved out. And Isabel? Did she find definition through all the various men in her life? No. Not Isabel. Maybe not. She refused definition. It was a kind of confinement. She was all vivid colour spilling over into neighbouring spaces.
The dream Leo had chosen to tell Daniel Lukas leapt graphically before her. She saw a hot place, almost a desert. Sparse grass tufted here and there from the ground. Abandoned in that space stood a child, roped to some sort of peg, a toddler desperate to move and wander, unable to do so. The child was crying. Salt tears wet its cheeks.
It occurred to Leo with a terrible urgency that, more than anyone, Isabel would find confinement impossible to bear.
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