She squeezed into the shower and moved close to him, the water consuming her, flattening her hair and running eagerly over her body. Her large brown eyes looked up at his, eyes that took Simon in a blink back to his childhood, the sound of the bar downstairs, a child’s voice.
Can I come in?
And back to the shower and this woman inflexible beneath his hands, her fingers searching around his side and bumping over the stitches, the devil in her smile. Without knowing why he leaned down and kissed her, tasting her lips and the water that ran from them. Aware of her palms now pressed against his chest and realising she was easing him out of the shower. He resisted at first, not willing to give up the moment, but relented, knowing his time was drawing near.
He knotted the towel around his waist and opened the cabinet, carefully smoothing a plaster over the stitches, another over the tear on his left arm. He took two more and a roll of bandage and walked through to the spare room.
It was neat and clean and ready, a soft carpet underfoot. It contained only a wooden wardrobe beside the netted window, an old wooden chair and a bedside cabinet beside the pristine white sheets of the bed. He flicked off the light and set the chair facing the door. He sat and waited, looking across the bed to the landing, watching Sarah’s shadow shift beneath the bathroom door. A click and the light vanished.
Then she appeared, a ghost in the dark, searching him out and then seeing him, stepping naked towards him through diagonal shafts of light, poised and graceful. He felt giddy, forcing himself to breathe.
For Sarah it was now about playing for time and hoping for an opportunity, trying to occupy him and surviving, mentally more than physically. The voices in her head were screaming but there was nowhere left to run. She entered the room and stepped into the gap between his legs, climbing onto him. She placed one knee on each of his thighs, using her feet to balance as she sat back, the air full of shampoo and soap.
Simon reached out and she let him take her hand, watching him bind the bandage around her palm and the deep cut, securing it with a plaster. He pulled the other hand towards him and did the same.
‘Thank you,’ she said, flexing the fingers of both hands and looking at him, her eyes inquisitive. She reached out a finger and traced the lean ridges of his stomach and up around the slab of muscle across his chest. ‘You like being clean.’ A statement more than a question.
He nodded back at her.
Her eyes searched his. ‘You like being tidy.’
He nodded again.
‘You are a very ill man.’
‘Actually, I’m very healthy.’
She leaned into him, so she could tap the side of his head. ‘In here, you’re ill.’ Her hand dropped back to his lap, the fabric of the towel soft against her skin.
‘That is what this society would say.’
‘I think most would. Are you going to hurt me?’
‘I am not a violent man.’
‘There is something else inside though, isn’t there? What will that darkness have you do to me?’ She tugged at the towel around his waist, loosening it.
‘Whatever my needs are, I’m not a violent man.’
She pulled open the towel, balancing herself with one hand on his shoulder as she pulled it free each side, settling back down. She brushed her hair behind her ears, watching his flesh grow as it hardened, rising against the inside of his thigh. She reached down and took hold of him, heavy in her hand as she squeezed and he thickened, using the tips of her fingers to stroke the shaft rigid.
‘I want you, you know,’ she said.
‘No you don’t, you’re doing this for the girl.’
‘I am, but that does not change that I want you. I want to enjoy this.’
‘If you say so.’
‘You know, men have been trying to fuck me for as long as I can remember.’
‘I’m not surprised.’
‘That can get very tiring, let me tell you. As for candidates though, who I would willingly give my body to, I can’t think of anyone better suited.’
This might have been a truth for Sarah in a different life. She let her hand drift to the base of the shaft and squeezed as hard as she could, her fingers not making the full circumference, feeling his warm gasp wash across her face.
‘I have one rule,’ she said.
‘You do?’
‘Well actually it’s three. You already know the first.’
‘Don’t hurt you,’ he answered. ‘The second?’
‘Don’t cover my mouth. I get claustrophobic.’
‘What with?’
‘Anything.’
‘And the last?’
‘Touch the girl and I will kill you.’
He smiled back at her. ‘I thought you already tried that.’
‘I wasn’t trying my hardest.’
‘Really. What would you use?’
‘Anything, my nails and teeth if I had to. I just wanted you to know that.’
He let his eyes wander across her breasts and down to her hand, still holding him. And then in a fluid movement he lifted her onto the bed, setting her down in the middle.
He did not join her straight away, caution moving him to lock the door, her eyes following him as he placed the key on top of the wardrobe and came back to the bed, lying down beside her. He eased her flat with a hand that glided across her skin and looked into those wide innocent eyes.
‘I will do my best,’ he said, ‘to not break your rules.’
FIFTY-TWO
It had been thirty minutes since the light from the window blinked out. In that time only dark had reigned. Little moved save for leaves bossed by the breeze, a cat stalking an unseen prey across the lawn. Brian waited at the back of the garden, shrouded by conifers and the bare limbs of an apple tree. A shadow amid shadows, crouched and listening to the cycle of late night sounds. His eyes moved from window to window and back to the twin patio doors. The front door was too new and exposed, too well manufactured. The garage would be easy but noisy and no guarantee of access into the house. The patio doors were older, the locks worn and loose. He hoped.
He edged slowly around, keeping low behind sparse shrubs within the profile of the fence, each step planted and sure before starting another. Then two quick strides across the patio, kneeling and easing down the handle. It was locked but you never knew. He snapped on the torch for a second, peered into the lock and then off again. Strike two, no key.
He pulled the pouch from his breast pocket and from the pouch took a thin length of metal with a half hook on the end, and a second, similar but with a paddle, like a tiny hockey stick. He pushed the paddle into the lock and turned as if it were the key. Then he slid the pick into the lock, rocking it in and out. He listened for each click that sounded a little surer, picturing the pins rising and falling. Counting off each pin as it came to rest on the barrel. Pin six and five, rafting backwards and forwards. Four, three – mentally counting the seconds he had been kneeling in plain sight. Two – so clumsy but all he was capable of these days. The nerves in his hand were so damaged he had trouble picking a coin off a table, let alone a lock.
His gaze moved to the detail beyond the glazed glass, a dining room, a kitchen and a living room, a set of stairs. One – he folded the pouch back into his pocket and pushed the door open in a single swift movement, stepping in and immediately closing it behind him again.
He stood and listened, easing into the cadence of the sleeping house, wood and metal contracting with the cooling air, a kitchen clock marking each passing second. Then with slow deliberate steps he moved to check the empty kitchen and living room. He crossed to the stairs, placing a foot on the first step and gradually transferring his weight. Testing each step as he went, easing out any groans, he patiently rose one slow step at a time.
Twenty minutes and he reached the landing, breathing shallowly. There was a white wooden balcony and a series of white doors, all closed. Light suddenly stretched from beneath one of the doors. He watched and waited, hearing no footfall or muttered voices. Minutes passed and the light went out. He kept time with the rhythm of the house, listening for a note out of tune.
Finally he stepped to the nearest door, the one with the light. He eased down the handle a millimetre by millimetre, pushing the door open by the same increments. When there was enough of a gap he eased into the room.
It was a main bedroom, neat and tidy with the curtains open and the bed neatly made, the quilt pulled back. No sleeping shapes inside. He edged out and to the next room, slowly edging the door open, stepping into a smaller space with a neatly made bunk bed pushed against a wall. The clutter of young children scattered in ordered piles about the room. The light blinked on across the landing once more.
Less cautious now he followed the light back to the main bedroom and a bedside lamp, running his fingers along the cable to the wall socket. A timer switch. He moved through the remaining rooms. A bathroom and a box room full of paraphernalia, photos on a desk showing two adult faces and two pre-school boys. He moved down the stairs to the kitchen, which was large and organised. Command central. A living room caught between clean lines and the chaos of entertaining child minds. A TV and DVD player, plastic cases stacked haphazardly, large plastic buckets of toys, a sofa and chairs. The paraphernalia of family life. An empty house. A family on holiday?
In the hallway he crouched and searched through scattered post, picking envelopes from the pile of brochures and discount vouchers. He confirmed the address again from the envelopes. Whoever lived there went by the family name of Pavlak. Which immediately raised two other questions. Why did Simon use this address and more importantly, where was Simon?
Brian shuffled the post looking for a particular type of envelope, picking a selection and ripping them open. None contained what he was looking for. He climbed the stairs two at a time and went into the box room. After sifting through the loose paperwork on the desk he moved to a row of folders lined up on the floor against the wall. He started at the left, opening the files on the desk, methodically working through the ordered bills and correspondence. The Pavlak family had lived here for eighteen months. He found what he wanted halfway through the third folder, tugging free the most recent rental statement. The house was leased through an agency in Essex. He folded the statement into his back pocket and replaced the file.
Outside Brian reversed the process with the lock, struggling with the last two pins. He was about to give up when a sound played out of tune with the night. He ducked instinctively, the boot catching his shoulder and knocking him into the patio door. Another blow caught the back of his head, a fist this time. Brian turned to face his attacker as knuckles raked his cheek. He dropped the small bat into the palm of his hand.
Another blow missed entirely as he swept the bat from right to left, imagining his attacker’s shins from the angle of attack. A muted shout and Brian powered upwards, reversing the bat and hammering it hard into the attacker’s face. He skipped back and took stock.
His attacker looked to be a one-time boxer, the freshly broken nose more an inconvenience for the blood that now ran from it. They rounded on each other, the boxer’s stance as wide as his broad shoulders, reaching around his back and producing a thin blade that reflected the ambient light. His shadowed eyes fixed on Brian and then he made his move.
He was fast, feinting first with the knife that jabbed but did little to disguise the real threat, a thick arm that pistoned through the space occupied by Brian’s head. At least where Brian’s head had been. He ducked beneath and up around the arm, planting his foot and using the power that flowed up through his body to drive the bat around into the side of the boxer’s head. The impact took the boxer face first into the wall and falling heavily into a rusty old bin. By the time neighbouring lights illuminated gardens and faces peered down through open windows, Brian was over the fence and jogging back to the promenade.
FIFTY-THREE
The cold night air and the smell of the sea were refreshing. He breathed deeply, jogging across the road and down the steep grass slope, along the promenade. He passed the space where Adam had parked without pausing, thinking through the likely scenarios. Adam would not have gone far. He passed cars overlooking the distant ocean, a few with their windows misted. He peered into every one, at faces sometimes asleep or unaware and sometimes startled.
He came to a roundabout and a large pub overlooking the sea, now dark and quiet, a car park around the back with a few cars visible. He stepped off the pavement and onto the road that led around. He slowed and came to a stop beside Adam’s car, empty and parked close to the low wall.
He looked back at the pub as he caught his breath, the wind molesting his jacket and blowing cold across his face. He could hear a sound. Something woven amid the battering wind, something heavy against something soft, a harsh voice.
He placed a hand on the metal rail and a foot on the low wall and looked down, at the wet sand twenty feet below. Two figures stood to the left, their blond hair picked out by the low light and another shape curled small on the sand. Brian smiled and took a step back and clenched his fists and opened them and vaulted the rail.
Oddi was tired, it had been a long day. First the trouble created by the woman and now this. Hakan had been certain the woman’s husband would not be a problem. But here he was. How had he found them? Oddi watched his brother at work, finding answers to their questions. He did think it better his brother not kick so often and ask more questions. But his brother was his own man and it was not wise to interrupt.
The shadow passed through the periphery of his vision, immediately followed by a dull thump on the wet sand. He turned to see a shape rolling within a centrifuge of white spray that stopped suddenly and unfolded to become a man that ran at him. Oddi threw an uncertain glance at his brother, but he was too engrossed and too far away. He turned back to the man bearing down on him. He readied himself and planted his feet. His eyes drawn to a torch now in the man’s hand, the beam dancing white over the sand. Then the torch started turning in the air towards him, the beam like a Catherine wheel circling closer,
catch
. The light briefly blinded him and caught him between decisions. It glanced off his defending arm, aware of the man extending his arms as if ready to leap frog and then the hands were on his head. He ducked and turned but straight into a rising knee. White light filled Oddi’s vision and Brian passed him having barely broken stride.