Acquainted With the Night (9781101546000) (3 page)

“I have to work,” she'd said. She felt lucky to have a job after the Waterloo debacle.

“It's rather important or I wouldn't ask,” he'd said. “I want you to meet a chap from Switzerland. If it's all right, he'll stop by your flat and bring you to Oxford. Say about two-ish?”

“You're matchmaking,” she'd cried, instantly suspicious.

“Don't get your knickers in a twist.” He'd chuckled. “It's not a romantic conspiracy.”

Right
, she'd thought, smiling. He'd thrived on code breaking and conspiracies.

Surely the ponytailed man wasn't the man Uncle Nigel had mentioned. No, not likely. The fellow wouldn't have shown up at five A.M. for a two o'clock date. Besides, he'd spoken with a British accent.

Caro pressed her forehead against the glass and imagined her uncle cutting through Green Park, hurrying to St. James Place. She saw the wind tugging his tweed coat as he dashed into the Athenaeum Club. He was everywhere and nowhere, striding ahead of her, just out of reach.

Moose Tipper parked the white Citroën at the end of Bow Street. He turned off his mobile phone and tossed it into the glove compartment. Then he leaned back in his seat and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, matching the rhythm to a U2 song that was playing on the radio.

He smiled into the rearview mirror. “Hello, love,” he told himself. His teeth were the color of slate shingles. He started picking at them when a man with a ponytail walked past the van and climbed into a blue Range Rover. It had a Heathrow sticker, a hired car.

Moose pushed his face against the window for a better look, but the car blasted down the road and turned the corner. With a great sigh, he pulled away from the curb, did a U-turn, and steered the van into a parking slot in front of a redbrick Edwardian. Light pooled down from a fourth-story bay window. The bird's window. She was still awake, most likely from his phone calls.

He exhaled, his breath barely frosting the glass, and studied the building. No security cameras. No doorman. A bit unusual for a posh neighborhood. He loathed how the rich congregated in ritzy-fitzy buildings, insulating themselves from people like himself. This building was close to the theater district, the flats occupied by toffee noses. He'd like to throw the lot of them into the Thames. After he'd drained their blood, of course.

It was time to kidnap the bird. He shut off the engine, reached for his burglar bag, and uncoiled from the van. He huddled on the porch as the rain battered the canvas awning. Mr. Underwood, the head of security at Wilkerson Pharmaceuticals, had told him to chloroform the bird and take her to the laboratory in Hammersmith. If witnesses were about and he couldn't kidnap the bird, he'd have to collect the DNA samples right there in her flat.

“You want a blood or saliva test?” Moose had asked.

“Neither,” Underwood said. “You'll need to perform a bone marrow aspiration.”

“That's a bit over the top for a DNA test.” Moose frowned.

“Just do it,” Underwood snapped. “The girl might be Mr. Wilkerson's daughter.”

“Crikey.” Moose licked each fingertip, as if sending a Morse code message to himself. Harry Wilkerson was the big boss, the owner and CEO of his family's pharmaceutical company; the man had zero interpersonal skills, yet he'd made billions, mainly by eliminating fiscal waste—and his competition, too, but what the hell. So why did old Harry want a bone marrow aspiration when a simple paternity test would suffice? Before Moose had become one of Wilkerson's operatives, he'd worked briefly in the Hammersmith lab as a phlebotomist, so he knew about hematology and all that rubbish. Then again, what the bloody hell did it matter? As long as Moose received his paycheck and daily transfusions, he shouldn't complain.

“Anything else, guv'nor?” he'd asked Underwood.

“Don't kill her,” the little man said. “And don't drink her blood.”

“No problem.” Moose shrugged. Like he'd want to feed from Wilkerson's offspring.
That would be a poisoned well, wouldn't it, mate?
Underwood gave him a snapshot of the girl, but it had slipped out of Moose's pocket. He remembered she was blond and pretty. Just his type.

Now he studied the brass nameplates beside the massive black door. The plates were lined up in two rows and each one had a corresponding buzzer. He couldn't find one with the bird's name, so he pushed the lot, hoping one or more of the wankers would buzz him in.

They didn't.

Moose jimmied the door with a penknife and swaggered into the lobby. It smelled sweet, with rusty undertones. He pulled disposable booties over his shoes and hurried up the stairs. Each floor had the same dark wooden walls and crystal sconces. He took the steps two at a time. His satchel banged against his right leg, and he pressed his wide palm against it to silence the rattling. The bird would have to live on the top floor, but the rich went for rooftop gardens and sweeping views, didn't they?

Number 4-D stood at the end of a long paneled hall. The black door had a peephole. He moved toward it, pausing beside the sconces to unscrew the hot lightbulbs.

Burned fingertips weren't part of his job description. Many things weren't. He didn't like to burgle; his talents lay elsewhere: kidnappings, tracking, extortion, and assassinations. Danger gave him an adrenaline rush that made him feel alive. Moose thought of himself as a BBBS: a brilliant body bag specialist. Not to brag. It was the truth. Even with a bloody obsessive-compulsive disorder, he was top notch—better than the Zuba brothers.

Outside 4-D, he opened his satchel and pulled on a surgical cap, tucking his wavy red hair inside. Next, he pulled on latex gloves and a paper scrub suit. Wilkerson had a “leave no DNA behind” policy. If you didn't leave it, you weren't there. Moose whistled under his breath as he uncapped a black pen and inked over the peephole. Then he leaned close to the door and meowed. This was his most brilliant talent: He could mimic any voice, but he excelled at cats and crying babies. Rich birds were pushovers for mewling kittens.

Before he had time to put the marker away, the girl opened the door and let out a squeak. Clearly she'd expected to find a cat, not a large man in surgical attire. But oh, she was lovely, a wee, wispy thing with golden hair. She didn't resemble Wilkerson, not in the least. So maybe she wasn't his daughter, after all.

She glared at Moose, tugging on the edges of her pink flannel jim-jams. “I heard a kitty,” she said.

He meowed. She started to slam the door, but he lunged into the flat. His satchel banged to the floor as he clamped his hand over her mouth. With his other hand, he steered her down the narrow hall. Her muffled screams annoyed him.

“Shut your cake hole. I won't hurt you,” he said.

She screamed louder and flailed upward. Her nails scraped down the surgical gown. She twisted, and the pink jim-jams showed her ribs. He dragged her into the living room. No flatmate. No lover. Just him and her. Maybe he could tie her to the bed and slip her a length. As long as he didn't kill her or drink her blood, he could do as he pleased. He'd brought a condom, just in case.

Her eyes bulged, the lids quivering. She reminded him of his mother-in-law, little and toothy. “You're a cheeky one,” he said, and she screamed into his hand. He smelled her terror. Something pattered against the carpet, and he saw a damp stain spread on her pajama bottoms. A stench rose up.

“Blinking hell, darling. You've pissed yourself.”

Keeping one hand over her foghorn mouth, he dragged her toward the bedroom. She kicked over a lamp, then knocked the phone off the hook. Her sharp little teeth sank through his gloved hand, into his fleshy palm. He winced. Crikey, he hadn't been bitten in a while. Human bites were germy. You could lose your arm to a human bite. But at least she hadn't drawn blood. She needed a good seeing-to. The chloroform was in the satchel and the satchel was beside the door and he'd left the bloody door wide open.

The moment he released her, she scrambled away. He jerked her back. Her teeth caught his thumb and clamped down. One of her hands flapped up, a wren trying to escape the hawk, and her claws lodged in his hair. He heard a ripping sound, felt a wrenching ache. Stupid little bird. Now he'd have to spend the rest of the night hoovering. He couldn't leave his DNA or he'd be in the clink.

He slid his other thumb into the side of her mouth, feeling around her molars for an empty space. This was what he did with fighting dogs. It made them quit biting, although sometimes it broke their jaws.

She grabbed another handful of his hair and yanked it out. A scalding pain ran through his skull, searing vessels and nerves, and pooled behind his eyes. Gritting his teeth, he slammed his elbow against her chin. The bone made a crackling noise, as if he'd dropped a porcelain bowl. Her fingers opened and wiry, red filaments floated between them, each strand bearing a chunk of Moose's scalp.

He spread her body on the floor and felt for a pulse. Nothing. Her pupils were dilating, the irises filling with black. She wasn't breathing, either.

“Stone the crows,” he muttered. He'd broken her flipping neck. Now what? Should he call Mr. Underwood? Here it was, the worst-case scenario. He supposed it didn't matter now whether he tasted her.

Moose strode into the hall, gathered his satchel, and slammed the door. He hurried back to the bird and hunkered beside her body. He peeled up the jim-jam top. The movement set her creamy breasts to quivering. He'd seen better. Not that it mattered. Not now. As his gaze moved up to her throat, his mouth watered. He pushed his teeth into her carotid artery. Just a little sip, that's all, a sip. The blood was still warm, but it wasn't pumping.

A while later, he remembered the bone marrow test.

The needle was sharp and hollow, roughly the size of a lead pencil. He fit it onto a syringe, aimed it between the girl's breasts, and pressed down. It was like pushing a screwdriver into soft wood. He pulled back on the plunger, but nothing came out. It was easy to go through the bone, so he retracted the needle a millimeter. The syringe filled with dark, venous blood, swirling like dark burgundy with bits of floating cork. Moose studied the white specks. Marrow. Each piece was no bigger than a grain of kosher salt.

He squirted a little fluid onto his tongue. AB negative, the rarest of the rare, with a hint of copper. He capped the needle and eyed the bird. What a pity to let all this blood go to waste—it wasn't like she needed it, did she? He grabbed a handful of syringes and bent closer to the girl. While he drained her, he couldn't decide if he should sell the blood or add it to his private collection.

Keep it, mate
, he told himself.
Keep the lot of it.

 

Caro walked past the gated shops in Terminal Five, wasting time until the duty-free boutique opened. She'd forgotten to pack a hairbrush, and if her curls were allowed free rein, they'd weave together of their own accord, hardening into woolly knots, and she'd have little choice but to shave her head.

She walked under paper globes that hung from the ceiling. Way off in the distance, a baby cried and cried.

Tears burned the backs of her eyes as she drifted down the sunlit corridor. The Harrods window display caught her attention. A Portmeirion tea set had been arranged on a spill of green velvet, each cup showing a different British flower. These same dishes were in her uncle's Oxford kitchen, lined up in the Welsh cupboard.

Her eyes filled and she pressed her fingertips against the glass. When she was five years old, thieves had set fire to her family's home in Crab Orchard, Tennessee. An elderly couple had found her wandering on Millstone Gap Road, and they'd driven her to a hospital. Caro was suffering from smoke inhalation, a third-degree burn on her hand, and singed hair. The next day, a man in a brown fedora showed up at the hospital. He had a barrel chest and red cheeks, and he spoke with a strange accent.

“I'm your uncle Nigel,” he said. “Well, technically I'm your third cousin, but let's dispense with the proprieties, shall we?”

He checked her out of the hospital, pausing to steal her medical chart from the nurses' station. The uncle had explained that all traces of her had to vanish. “Or those bad men'll get me?” Caro asked, blinking back tears. She wiped her bandaged hand over her eyes.

“Not on your nelly,” Uncle Nigel said.

They drove to New Orleans and somehow he'd obtained a new passport for Caro without producing her birth certificate. The next day they'd flown to England and made their way to a cozy, book-lined house in Oxford, then he'd tucked her into a poster bed in the guest room. Caro had tried to sleep, but a striped cat had leaped onto her chest and begun kneading, its claws tugging the wool blanket.

Tears pricked Caro's eyes as she remembered her old house in Tennessee—a white clapboard with green shutters, deep porches, and a flying pig weathervane. Their driveway had a gate that ran on solar power and no one could pass through without a code—or so they'd thought. She remembered limestone, black dirt, coal mines, copperheads, biscuits, syrup running down the blade of a silver knife. Her mother had painted an Alice in Wonderland mural in the nursery. Clocks, chess pieces, the Caterpillar's mushroom, a croquet game with hedgehogs and flamingos. Now everything was gone; the white house had burned.

The next day, Caro and her uncle took the train to London and went shopping at Harrods. They stepped onto the Egyptian Escalator, and her uncle steadied her when her bandaged hand skidded on the rail. In Toyland, her uncle bought her a Paddington Bear, and then they drifted over to the Georgian Restaurant, where a man in a tuxedo led them past tea carts that overflowed with tiny cakes and lemon tarts, to a table in the center of the room. Their waiter's head reminded Caro of a giant volleyball, white and round, with fine black hairs combed just so. He recommended the high tea, twenty-four pounds per person; a glass of champagne added nine additional pounds.