Dead Romantic (18 page)

I stop myself. Did I really feel like this in Egypt? It’s hard to remember now, but I’m sure this isn’t the way I would have described it at the time; this is far too flowery and fanciful. I’m really not myself – of course I’m not. I’m trying to peer into somebody else’s house because a hallucination told me to.

What am I thinking? This is insanity. I should get out right now.

I’m poised to turn around and make my way back to the station, furious with myself for coming out here in the first place, when something in the room catches my eye. Years of looking for details in the strangest places have trained me well and the smallest clues rarely escape me. So when I spot a foot just visible in the pooling shadows in the furthest corner of the room, my stomach lurches. Suddenly all my thoughts of crime shows and CSI dramas aren’t nearly as amusing. With my heart racing, I push my face to the grimy glass, squint into the gloom again and hope that I’m mistaken.

There’s a body sprawled across the floor. Oh. My. God. There really is.

I blink just in case I’m having another hallucination, but there really is a man’s body lying motionless on the carpet – and I don’t need to look any closer to know exactly who this is. My every cell is on red alert.

Rafe Thorne, my Christmas stranger, is lying unconscious on the floor.

Chapter 16

“Alex! If there was ever a time I needed you around then this is it!” I cry. I bang my fist against the thick glass with all my might but the figure on the floor doesn’t stir. I can’t even see his chest rise and fall. Oh God, I’m too late. Alex was right all along: his brother really is in a terrible state. No wonder he was so frantic that I should help him.

“Hello! Rafe!” I hammer again with my fists but there’s no answer. How can there be when he’s motionless? Is he even alive?

OK, Cleo. Breathe. Think. Use your logical brain, not this emotional one you’ve developed recently. Think smart and think fast. What can you do now to help him? Break the window? Call an ambulance? Fetch the neighbours?

Ambulance. I need an ambulance. I pull out my phone but there’s no signal. Of course there isn’t: I’m in the sticks and miles from anywhere. Neighbours then? But this is a remote spot and I haven’t got any time to waste. If I’m going to call an ambulance I’ll need a landline. There’s nothing for it. I’ll have to break in.

Glancing around, I search for something, anything, tough enough to break the glass. Maybe that rusty shovel? Would that do it? Or what about that wooden bench? It looks a bit big for me to shift though. I pause. No! I’ve got it! The stone birdbath is perfect. That’ll make short work of the French windows.

Just as I’m attempting to drag the deceptively heavy birdbath across the terrace, Alex appears in front of me. “What on earth are you doing?”

“Breaking the window,” I gasp. “Rafe’s collapsed. I’m going to have to smash the glass.”

“You don’t need to do that,” Alex protests.

“I do,” I pant. My hands scrabble against the rough stone, lichen gathering beneath my nails. My palms are already scratched, but I’m beyond caring about any of that. All I want to do is reach out to Rafe now he’s all alone and needing help, just as he once reached out for me. “Your brother’s on the floor, Alex! He needs help.”

“Wait! Don’t smash the window. There’s a key,” Alex says quickly. He steps in front of the birdbath and immediately there’s a blast of icy air as though the sun has slipped behind a cloud. “By the back door there’s a rotting window ledge. The top part will pull off and Rafe always kept a key hidden underneath. Crap place, I know, and bloody obvious–”

But I’m not waiting to listen to any more from Alex. Where’s he been all morning when I needed his help anyway? Ignoring him I tear around the house to the small back porch where I locate a key exactly where Alex has said I’ll find it. I guess if I was in the frame of mind to be thinking clearly then I’d be able to log this under Proof That Ghosts Exist, but right now I’m just relieved to be able to get inside without severing an artery. For a minute I struggle to get the key in the lock because my hands are shaking so much; then the key turns and I’m inside.

The house is still. The only sound is the rasping of my breathing. I’ve let myself into the kitchen, a large room with an ancient range cooker and an enormous scrubbed oak table flanked by countless chairs. The table is strewn with sheets of handwritten notes covered in crossings outs, and hundreds more screwed-up sheets litter the floor like angry snowballs. And either Rafe Thorne is running Taply’s bottle-recycling facilities or he’s a man who goes on serious and regular benders. Outside of the booze aisle in Tesco, I don’t think I have ever seen so many bottles in my life.

So much for all the stints in rehab.

Beyond the kitchen is a gloomy passageway. Drawn curtains shut out the daylight and the place smells old, of things too long left shut – the smell of absences and despair. I shudder and then force myself to jog down the corridor in the direction of the room where I saw Rafe. Left, I think, then right and maybe through those double doors?

“This really isn’t a good idea.” Alex is now standing in front of the double doors and he looks alarmed. “Please don’t go in. I’m sorry I ever involved you. Look, go home, Cleo. I’ll leave you alone, I promise.”

“It’s a bit late for that now. Your brother’s in trouble,” I say impatiently. “He’s on the floor and he needs help, Alex. I thought my helping him was what you wanted? He could be dead!”

Alex gives me a wry look. “I think I’d know if he was dead, don’t you?”

It’s a fair point. “So maybe he’s not dead,” I concede, “but he’s certainly hurt and he needs help. Now get out the way, Alex!”

But he doesn’t budge. “Look, this is bloody awkward and I know you’re trying to help – which I totally appreciate, by the way – but take it from me, this is not a good idea. Really, I don’t think that you should–”

Right. I’ve had enough. There’s no way I’m going to stand here having a conversation with my imaginary friend when there’s a man lying on the floor just the other side of these doors. What Alex Thorne thinks I should or shouldn’t do is irrelevant to me as I charge straight through him, shove open the doors and race to the crumpled figure on the floor by the chair.

This room is dark and fuggy with the sour taint of sweat and whiskey, and as I crouch down beside the man on the floor alcohol fumes hit me in the face like a punch from a heavyweight boxer. There’s even more paper here – piles and piles of it scrawled all over with notes, both words and music, and scored with furious crossings out. I reach to see if Rafe has a pulse, but my elbow catches several bottles that roll onto the stone flags with a clatter.

The formerly motionless figure and I both jump. A strong hand clamps down on my right shoulder and immediately I realise my mistake.

Rafe Thorne isn’t dead or injured or even sleeping. He’s just passed out after a particularly heavy bender and now he’s been woken up, hung over and glowering, by a total stranger who has broken into his house.

“Who the hell are you?” he snarls. His other hand circles my wrist like a manacle; no matter how I pull and twist I can’t break free. “What the fuck are you doing in my house?”

“This is a bit awkward,” says Alex from the doorway. “I did try to warn you, Cleo. But you never listen to me.”

I ignore him because right now I have more pressing matters to think about, namely explaining to Rafe Thorne how and why I’m in his house – before he flips. His left hand has tightened like a vice on my shoulder. His fingers bite through my coat and into my skin. The smell of stale alcohol makes me gag. Rafe sits up – wincing at the light, which streams in through the unopened curtain – and gives me such a shake my bones rattle.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hisses, his dark brows meeting in a scowl. “This is private property. I said, how the fuck did you get in?”

It’s as though a cobra is poised to strike. I shrink back, rifling through all the things I could say but finding that I’m suddenly unable to utter a word.

“If you’re from the press you can fuck right off. I’ve nothing to say to any of you lot,” Rafe continues angrily. A muscle in his cheek twitches. “I’ll have you for breaking and entering. I’ll sue your filthy little rag for everything it has.”

His hand is still clamped onto my shoulder and it’s starting to hurt, and I fear my wrist in his other hand will snap like a twig.

“I didn’t break and enter: I had a key,” I say quickly. “I know this sounds crazy but I saw you through the window and I thought you were hurt, so I let myself in with the key you keep hidden under that rotting window sill.”

Rafe stares at me. His head is probably pounding and I expect he feels like death. If I drank that much I’d need hospitalising. He frowns, the violet eyes dark with anger. I try to pull away but he still has me in his grasp. There’s a dangerous strength about him that was never there before, the strength that comes with not caring and having nothing left to lose.

“How the bloody hell did you know a key was there? Who told you that?”

“Don’t tell him!” Alex pleads. “He’ll freak! Honestly, Cleo! This is not the time to come clean. He’ll never believe a word you say again if you blow it now.”

For once I’m in agreement with Alex. Rafe looks like a man on the edge and I’m not inclined to be the one who makes him topple. I shrug.

“It’s the first place anyone would look. You ought to be more careful.”

The hands loosen their grip a little. Rafe leans forward and stares at me through narrowed eyes, and as he does so he sways.

“So let’s rephrase. What the hell are you doing peering in my windows and snooping around the property, if you’re not from the press?”

I’m tempted to tell him the unbelievable truth, but his hand is still holding my shoulder – and I have a nasty feeling that if I say his dead brother sent me, Rafe will lose the plot entirely and shake me like a terrier would a rat, until my neck snaps. Maybe it’s time to divulge some of the truth, at least the part that won’t make me sound like a lunatic. I’ll just sound like a stalker instead, albeit one who’s ten years late.

“I’m not from the press,” I say quickly, finding my voice at last. “Honestly, I’m not. I’ve come to see you and when you didn’t answer the door I looked through the window. When I saw you on the floor I thought…” I’m still trembling because I really had thought he was dead. It’s one thing working with the dead of a long-gone culture, but quite another to think you’re about to be faced with a recent corpse. I have a sudden insight into Susie’s everyday working life and am humbled with admiration for her. Then I gather myself and press on because Rafe is still glaring at me as though he’d like to drown me in the icy river outside.

“When I saw you on the floor I thought something awful had happened,” I say. My voice is as splintered as the wooden windowsills, my confidence flaking away like the paint. “I thought you were dead or hurt and I wanted to help.”

A frown creases his brow. “Very noble, but that doesn’t answer my question. Why were you snooping here in the first place? This is private property.”

Alex is standing behind his brother, shaking his head like he’s got water in his ears. It’s very disconcerting. I ignore him. Alex wanted me here, and here I am. If he doesn’t like it, well that’s just tough.

“My name’s Cleo Carpenter,” I say softly, “but you won’t know that, of course, because I never told you. We met a long time ago. At the station?”

Rafe Thorne doesn’t say anything and I feel myself start to turn red. So much for writing the definitive Christmas love song about me, his one who got away. He hasn’t a clue who I am.

“Take your hat off,” Alex says hastily. “He’s hung over to shit, it’s bloody dark in here and you’re all swaddled up. It looks like Scott of the Antarctic’s rolled up and barged into his house. He’ll remember you, I promise!”

I reach up and pull off my green bobble hat so that Rafe can see my hair. For nearly thirty years being a redhead has been one of the first things people notice about me. Surely he’ll remember my hair? But there’s still no response. I’d think he’s passed out again if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s staring at me. I can see myself reflected in the dark eyes. I look petrified.

“You were waiting for a train?” I prompt hopefully. My stomach is twisting into knots under that intense violet gaze. “I was waiting for a lift? It was Christmas Eve. I was crying and you…” I can’t speak for a minute because the memory still moves me, “you comforted me.”

Rafe remains silent. How can he not remember? I’m floored with the disappointment. Now that he’s just a heartbeat away from me the past ten years have evaporated – so how can it be that he doesn’t feel the same? Was it all in my imagination?

“It was a while back,” I say awkwardly. “Maybe you’ve forgotten?”

“He hasn’t forgotten!” Alex insists. He looks distraught. “This is much worse than I thought. He’s given up with everything. I’ve left it too late.”

The room is still. I hear a clock ticking somewhere. The blood is rushing in my ears. Then Rafe’s hand slips from my shoulder and reaches out to touch my cheek. His other hand loosens its grip on my wrist and slips down to weave my fingers with his. I hold my breath, everything in me poised to flee because he feels dangerous, as though he could combust at any moment. One forefinger skims over my face and down to my lips, where it brushes over my mouth as softly as his lips did all those years ago. In spite of all my layers and my fear, goosebumps ripple all over my body.

“It’s you,” Rafe says slowly, looking at me with those shadowed eyes. “The Christmas girl. Jesus. Just how strong was that whiskey?”

“It’s not the whiskey,” I whisper. “It’s really me.”

We stare at each other. The world seems to halt on its axis and beyond the window even the waters of the Thames slow their pace until I’m nineteen again. For the briefest of moments, I think he’s going to pull me close, wrap his arms around me and kiss me like he did back then. I feel dizzy with longing. How could I ever have thought I was attracted to Simon? He’s never made me feel like this. Nothing even close…