Obsession (32 page)

Luke came to perch on the edge of her desk, and Corrie instantly tried to hide the newspaper she’d been reading, but she wasn’t quick enough.

‘So Bennati’s in town, is he?’ Luke grinned, spinning the newspaper round to get a better look at the picture of Cristos arriving at Heathrow airport. ‘I heard he was coming.’ He took a few moments to read the caption beside the photograph, then dismissing it turned back to Corrie. His smile faded rapidly as he saw her red-rimmed eyes, but as she made to look away he caught her chin to turn her back. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Of course,’ she answered. ‘Just a bit of a cold.’ He was the last person she was about to tell that she had been awake half the night crying because of her father.

‘So how did your date go last night?’ Luke ventured.

‘Oh, OK, thanks. And you and Annalise? Where did you go in the end?’

‘We joined up with some friends at the Chelsea Arts Club. You should have come, we had a great time.’

Corrie smiled, but said nothing.

‘So,’ he said, ‘have you two decided on your next project yet?’

‘Transsexuals,’ Corrie answered. ‘Annalise is at lunch
with
three of them now.’ Corrie hadn’t gone because she just didn’t feel up to it after her disturbed night.

Luke looked doubtful. ‘I’m sure you have your reasons,’ he said. ‘Did you bring them up at the meeting this morning?’

‘Yes. There’s a report due out in the next ten days or so to show that the number of operations, world-wide, has increased in the last year by seven per cent.’

‘And Bob bought the idea?’

‘Yep.’

‘Then fair enough. By the way, did you see the write-up in the
Guardian
this morning, for last night’s programme?’

Corrie nodded. ‘Great, wasn’t it?’

‘It sure was. Can’t wait to see the ratings.’ He paused, watching Corrie as she looked everywhere but at him. ‘Hey, come on,’ he said, in the end, ‘something’s upsetting you. Why not tell me about it?’

‘No, really. I’m fine.’ She looked up and smiled.

‘That’s better,’ he said, smoothing his fingers over her cheek.

She felt so vulnerable in that moment that she very nearly started to cry again. Instead, she swallowed hard and said, ‘Luke, I’d like to talk to you about Bobby McIver.’

‘Bobby?’ he said curiously. ‘What about him?’

‘Well it was something DI Radcliffe told me yesterday. He said that Bobby McIver had the mental age of ten. Did he tell you that too?’

Luke shook his head. ‘No. But I didn’t get much chance to speak to him off camera.’

‘Don’t you think it’s odd?’ Corrie remarked. ‘I mean that a man with a child’s mind should visit a prostitute?’

Luke shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess he has a man’s body, therefore a man’s sexual appetite?’

‘Maybe, but that’s not the only thing is it? For instance, how on earth did he get them all the way from Shepherd
Market
to Camberwell? And then their bodies from Camberwell to Chelsea Embankment?’

Luke pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘Beats me,’ he said. ‘But no doubt Radcliffe and his team will come up with the answers eventually – if they haven’t already.’

‘But I can’t help wondering why Radcliffe told
me
about McIver’s mental state. I’ve looked in all the papers this morning and there’s no mention of it in any of them.’ She paused, then said. ‘Luke, you may think this sounds crazy, but I got the feeling Radcliffe was trying to tell me something – I mean something else.’

‘Like what?’

‘That’s just it, I don’t know. But before I left he told me he’d be in touch. Now why should he have said that?’

Luke shook his head, bewildered. ‘Where are they holding Bobby, do you know?’

‘No. All Radcliffe said was that he was safe.’

‘Safe?’

‘That’s what I thought. He said from the press.’

‘But anyone in custody is safe from the press.’

‘I know. Do you think I should get in touch with Radcliffe again?’

Luke took some time to think that over. ‘Give it a few days,’ he said eventually. ‘See if Radcliffe does contact you. If not, we’ll talk again.’

‘OK.’

Luke smiled affectionately, then standing up he took Corrie’s hand and pulled her to her feet too. For some time he simply looked at her, searching her face with his eyes, apparently amused by the way she appeared so self-conscious. Then very softly he said, ‘I’d like to kiss you, if I may?’

‘Oh no, no, not here,’ Corrie said, with a rush of alarm.

He was still gazing at her, waiting for her to meet his eyes, and when finally she did Corrie was surprised to see
the
depth of feeling in them. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘But can I just hold you for a moment?’

Not knowing how she could object Corrie allowed him to pull her into his arms, all the time praying that no one would walk through the door. He held her for a long time, pressing the full length of his body against her, but to Corrie’s relief there appeared to be nothing sexual in what he was doing. If anything, she was beginning to sense that terrible sadness in him again. She held him close and, as the seconds ticked by, started to feel her own tension ebb from her body; it felt so good to be held this way. He had such strong arms, and despite all her misgivings about him, in those few moments all she wanted was that he should just go on holding her.

‘Sometimes,’ Luke whispered, ‘I think that you’re the only good thing that’s ever happened to me.’

Corrie remained silent, but found herself returning the pressure when he squeezed her even tighter.

‘Oh God,’ he sighed, when finally he let her go, ‘I think I’m beginning to understand what it feels like to be Annalise.’

Corrie frowned, which made him smile.

‘I mean to feel a certain way about a person and them not to feel the same way about you,’ he explained.

Corrie lowered her eyes and started to turn back to her desk.

‘It’s OK,’ Luke said, running his fingers through her hair, ‘I’m not going to make you talk about it if you don’t want to.’

‘It’s not that I don’t want to talk about it,’ Corrie said, ‘it’s just that I don’t think you mean what you say.’

‘I know you don’t. But I do. Believe me, I do. But I’m not going to force you, Corrie.’ He laughed quietly. ‘I couldn’t, even if I wanted to. Your feelings are your own, it’s up to me to win them – if I can. Though I guess I haven’t made too good a job of it so far, have I?’

‘Let’s discuss this another time, shall we?’ Corrie said. ‘Anyone could walk in, and I don’t think either of us want …’ She trailed off, not knowing quite how to finish the sentence.

‘When can I see you?’ he said.

‘I don’t know. I’m pretty booked up for the rest of this week.’

‘And I’m away at the weekend.’

Unable to stop herself Corrie turned back to look at him. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask about Siobhan, something she’d been longing to do ever since Annalise had discovered her existence. But Corrie never had asked, nor would she now, for if she even so much as mentioned the name it would mean betraying Annalise. ‘Where are you going?’ she asked instead.

‘To stay with a friend.’

‘Oh.’

‘It’s no one you need worry yourself about,’ he laughed. ‘You’ve got enough on your plate fretting over Bobby McIver.’

He went off to his office then, and Corrie, puzzled by his last remark sat down in her chair, absently fanning herself with a newspaper.

She couldn’t explain it, but all of a sudden she was thinking that Luke knew more about Bobby McIver than he was letting on. Perhaps it was the way he had referred to him twice as Bobby. Or was it something about the way he had brought him so abruptly back into the conversation? But no, it was more than that, it was something else he had said, something maybe not today, maybe yesterday, but what was it? She just couldn’t think, then realizing that she was once again guilty of mistrusting him when he had just shown her nothing more than some badly needed affection, she turned back to her perusal of the papers.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t get her suspicions out of her mind. She toyed with the idea of talking to Felicity
about
it when the two of them met up the following night to celebrate Felicity’s success – she would soon be off to Hollywood to take the lead in a major film – but then Corrie remembered that it would entail breaking Radcliffe’s confidence about McIver’s mental age: and since that concerned the murdered prostitutes Felicity would be unlikely to keep it to herself. She did tell Felicity about the way Luke had held her in the office, however, and how disturbed she had been by her own reaction.

‘I just don’t understand myself sometimes,’ she said, as they handed their menus back to the waiter. ‘I mean, I don’t trust him, how can I when he behaves the way he does? But, well this is going to sound really conceited I know, but sometimes I get the impression that he really does care for me. And I can’t even say that I don’t care for him, because, despite everything, he can still stir … well, you know, certain feelings in me.’

Felicity shrugged. ‘He’s an attractive man. Add to that a bit of mystery, a touch of unpredictability and you come up with a devastating combination. And let’s not forget, he is single, so what greater challenge than to be the woman who finally hooks Luke Fitzpatrick?’

‘But I don’t see him as a challenge, not in the sense you mean it, anyway. To tell you the truth, and you’re not to laugh at this, Felicity, but there have been times when I’ve actually felt afraid of him. I know it sounds a bit dramatic, but it’s true. The feeling goes, pretty quickly, I have to say that, and I feel pretty stupid for it after, but nevertheless there’s something about him that on the odd occasion very definitely unsettles me. I just wish I could put my finger on what it was.’

‘Does it matter, if you don’t want to get into a relationship with him?’ Felicity said, tasting the wine then nodding for the waiter to carry on.

‘No, I suppose not. Mind you, I’m finding that pretty difficult to fend off. But it does matter about Annalise. You
remember
I told you about Siobhan? Thank you,’ she added to the waiter.

Felicity nodded, ‘The woman he was sending the birthday card to?’

‘That’s her. Though more importantly it’s the name Annalise claims he sometimes calls her by. Well, he’s going away this weekend, and I reckon it’s to see her.’

‘So?’

‘So, Annalise says that it’s always after he’s seen this Siobhan that he beats her up.’

‘And you have some grand plan to stop this happening?’

‘No, not really. You know what Annalise is like, she won’t hear a bad thing said about him – unless she’s saying it herself. I just think …’

‘I just think we should change the subject,’ Felicity interrupted. ‘You’re like a mother hen where that girl’s concerned. Let her look after herself, and you, madam, start thinking about
your
self for a change. Like what Luke Fitzpatrick can do for you.’

‘And what can he do for me?’ Corrie grinned.

‘Cristos Bennati.’

Immediately Corrie’s heart turned over. ‘What about Cristos Bennati?’ she said.

‘Oh come off it, he’s in town and you know it.’

‘So?’

‘So, Luke knows him, doesn’t he? And he’s your everlasting heart-throb, or so you once confessed to me. So, get Luke to introduce you.’

‘I can’t do that,’ Corrie said, not wanting to admit that this had crossed her mind more than once in the past twenty-four hours.

‘Why ever not? Jesus Christ, there aren’t many people who find themselves in a position to be introduced to Cristos Bennati. So go for it. What have you got to lose? And if you do, just remember, he’s a mere man. He’s made of flesh and blood like the rest of them, probably a bastard
like
the rest of them too. But you’d like to be able to say you’ve met him, wouldn’t you?’

Corrie laughed. ‘I’d die for it,’ she admitted. ‘But I think he and Luke have fallen out about something. Don’t ask me what, but I recall Luke mentioning it.’

‘So what? Ask anyway. You never know, this could be the start of something big.’

‘Well now you’ve just gone and put the kiss of death on it,’ Corrie complained. ‘There you are ten years older than me and still you don’t know that you should never voice your hopes. If you do, you might just as well kiss them good-bye.’

‘You didn’t voice them, I did. But if you
are
hoping for anything as far as Bennati’s concerned, anything meaningful that is, then if I were you I’d kill it stone dead right now.’

‘I know, he’d never look at anyone like me twice, and I’m fantasizing myself into a fairy tale.’

‘I don’t know about that, but what I do know is that he’s Hollywood. Which means that he just wouldn’t be good enough for you. You need a real man, Corrie, not a fake one, and that’s all Hollywood produces – fake people. They’re so up themselves it just isn’t true. Get Luke to introduce you to Bennati, then you’ll see what I mean. It’ll be great for the first half an hour, you can look at him and lust after him all you like, then listen to what he’s saying. Well, you’ll have to because he won’t stop talking – about himself. I say this because Hollywood people are all the same – me, me, me. It’s all so phoney and
soooo
boring, you’ll be crawling up the walls inside five minutes.’

Corrie was laughing. ‘But what if I’m not?’ she teased. ‘What if I fall in love?’

‘Then that’ll make two of you in love with him, won’t it?’

‘What?’

‘You and Bennati,’ Felicity laughed. ‘Come to think of
it
, it’ll probably make six million of you in love with him. Now come on, eat up, I’m starving.’

Luke was standing very still gazing out through the huge picture window overlooking the sea. The sun was dazzling, fusing the sea and sky into one. His hand was resting on the back of a chair and he could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin blouse she was wearing. There was the hint of a smile on his lips, but the sadness in his eyes was as unfathomable as the anguish in his heart. Even so, his voice was steady as he asked if she had received the flowers he’d sent.

After a while he turned, and looking down at her he lifted her hair in his hands. ‘You look lovely today,’ he said, and stooped to kiss the top of her head.