Heaven's Light (22 page)

For a while they made love this way, Liz teasing him with her tongue, flicking at him, scalding little touches, and Barnaby let himself drift away, flooded with warmth. Eight brief months had shaken his world inside out. Gone were the feelings of inadequacy and creeping middle age. Gone were the worries about the legal practice and the near-conviction that his career had bogged down. Gone, too, was the numb defeat he’d seen every morning in the mirror, waking up to a dead marriage and a social life stuck firmly in bottom gear. The key to it all, of course, was Kate. She’d blessed him with a second chance, and this time neither of them was going to let the real world intrude. Kate understood him like no other woman ever had. She understood his pride, his fear of failure, his need to succeed. She’d mapped his path to her cave, and she’d guaranteed the kind of privacy he knew to be beyond violation. No one would be hurt this time. Because no one would ever know.

Barnaby looked down at Liz, a mute question in his smile, and when she closed her eyes and nodded, he slipped round, his mouth finding the banana through the warm yoghurt, eating it slowly, savouring the strange sharpness of the taste. Liz was teasing him again, her tongue like a
tiny soft dagger, and then she took him deep inside her mouth, sucking and sucking, and suddenly he was back in June, back in the pool at the health club, fretting and fretting about the D-Day celebrations. That weekend seemed a million light years away, part of some other life. Fuck Clinton, he thought gleefully. Fuck the banquet and the fat cats and the crowds flocking to the Common to see their precious Queen. Could any of them match this? Could any of their lives possibly compare?

He felt Liz stiffening beneath him and he withdrew from her mouth and turned again, easing himself into her, as far as he could go. When the phone began to ring, he ignored it, feeling her pushing and pushing against him, her hands round his buttocks, her nails scoring his flesh. Finally she gasped, her whole body arching upwards while Barnaby drove on and on until he felt the world splintering around him.

After a while, prone on top of Liz, it occurred to Barnaby that the phone was still ringing. His hand crabbed across the bedside cabinet. Happiness was the spreading pool of creamy wetness between his wife’s thighs.

‘Hallo?’

For a moment, Barnaby heard nothing. Then, unmistakably, came the sound of Kate’s voice. ‘Hayden? Is that you?’

Charlie Epple was in the shower when he heard the peal of the front-door bell. He let it ring for more than a minute, working the shampoo into his scalp, letting the hot water sluice the suds down his chest. This was his last morning in the Wimbledon house. If it was the estate agent again, she could come back later. If it was the guys from the removals firm, they were too bloody early. The ringing went
on and on. The shampoo rinsed away, Charlie stepped out of the shower. Most of the stuff in the bathroom was already crated, ready for the move, and he stood on the bare floorboards, watching the water pool at his feet. Then he reached for a towel and padded downstairs.

Outside, in the spring sunshine, stood Jessie. Beside her, smiling up at him, another girl, much smaller. Charlie beckoned them inside but Jessie was saying something about a cab. The driver was still waiting. The fare had been more than they’d expected. Might Charlie oblige with a loan? He peered past her, into the street. A big Vauxhall was parked beyond the hedge.

‘Where have you come from?’

‘Guildford.’

‘
Guildford?
Fuck me. How much?’

‘Forty pounds.’

Charlie tut-tutted then disappeared inside the house. He kept an emergency supply of spare cash in a jam jar on the fridge. He emptied it, giving Jessie two twenty-pound notes. Outside, from the street, he could hear the chink of coins as the cabbie gave her change. When she came back, she hugged him. ‘It was forty pounds,’ she said. ‘Exactly.’

Charlie got dressed and gave the girls breakfast, astonished at how much they ate. Jessie’s friend, Lolly, was definitely noshing for England. After the last of the Weetabix and two boiled eggs, she began to work her way through a small pile of toast. For someone so tiny, so delicate, her appetite was prodigious. ‘No one been feeding you?’

‘Long story.’ Jessie pulled a face, telling Charlie about the re-hab centre. She and Lolly had been abused, day and night. Not just by the residents but a couple of the staff, too. Jessie had done her best to protect them both but
against a couple of dozen men they’d been virtually helpless. Thankfully, the pregnancy tests had been negative.

Charlie blinked, still watching Lolly. She seemed so fragile, so flawless. She had the kind of face certain art directors would kill for. Meeting someone like Lolly was the moment you chucked the whole campaign in the bin and started again. ‘You serious? You were raped?’

Jessie nodded, wide-eyed. ‘Often.’

‘Been to the police?’

‘We can’t.’

‘Why not?’

Jessie began a long, rambling story about a couple of the residents. She said they were pretty heavy. One had convictions for GBH. The other belonged in the nut-house. Both had made it plain that grassing them up would be unwise.

Charlie no longer believed a word. ‘So you’ve done a runner?’

‘Had to. No choice. Mum’s livid.’

‘I bet.’

‘Hasn’t she been on to you?’

Something in Jessie’s voice sounded an alarm in Charlie’s head. He knew from Barnaby that she had been referred for therapy and the last couple of weeks he’d been meaning to get an address so that he could drop her a line but things had been so chaotic after the decree absolute that he hadn’t got round to it. He was sure, though, that the course had been long-term. Six months. Maybe more.

‘So are you better? The pair of you?’ he said.

Lolly nodded, looking at the coffee pot, and Charlie took the hint, hunting for the jar of instant he’d been saving for the removal men. The last of the milk had gone on the cereals.

‘Black I’m afraid, girls.’

Jessie’s hands closed around the mug and Charlie wondered what had happened to her nails. Like Liz, Jess had always had beautiful hands but now the nails were bitten to the quick. She had a ring, too, a tiny cheap-looking thing with a fake ruby set in peeling gold. Jessie saw him looking at it.

‘Lolly’s,’ she said proudly. ‘She’s letting me wear it.’

Nearly an hour later, when the removal men arrived, Charlie was close to getting to the bottom of it. Lolly’s daughter Candelle was in care and the social workers had a problem with letting her out. Lolly’s mother, meanwhile, had taken up with an unemployed truck driver who was permanently on the piss. When provoked, he often turned violent and life in Guildford had become impossible. He’d throw stuff around, smash up the place. Last night he’d upended the goldfish tank and poured the contents over Lolly’s mum’s head. After a fruitless search for the goldfish, Lolly had had enough. From now on, her mother was on her own.

Jessie was standing by the kitchen door, watching the removal men emptying the front room. ‘Mum told me about your new place,’ she said. ‘Sounds lovely.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘She said it had two bedrooms. Old Portsmouth, isn’t it?’

‘That’s right. Opposite Hot Walls.’

‘Yummy.’ Jess turned to Lolly, explaining the geography of Old Portsmouth. In summer, Hot Walls could be wicked.

Charlie shuttled up and down the hall with more mugs of coffee. He was due at a meeting in Portsmouth at half past two. It was already ten forty but there was a fast train from Waterloo in an hour and he was assured by the
removals people that they would leave the empty house secure.

Jessie was talking about Liz again. Evidently she was keen to have her daughter back home.

‘Do it,’ Charlie said at once. ‘Sounds a terrific idea.’

‘I couldn’t. It wouldn’t work. I know it wouldn’t. A couple of days and we’d be at each other’s throats. You know what she’s like, banging on all the time. I couldn’t cope with all that. Besides …’ She looked at Lolly. ‘There’s two of us.’

Charlie shook the last of the coffee granules into a beer tumbler. The mugs had all gone.

‘Two of you?’ he said carefully.

‘Yes, me and Lolly.’

‘Ah.’ He looked up, the kettle poised, at last scenting a solution to Jessie’s unvoiced plea for somewhere to crash. To be honest, he wasn’t keen on taking sole responsibility for Jessie but a couple of lodgers might just work. Mutual support, he told himself. Someone for Jessie to confide in.

‘Actually, it’s got three bedrooms.’ He smiled at Lolly. ‘Not two.’ Jessie grinned back at him, a reminder at last of the shy adolescent he’d smuggled into one or two of Soho’s wilder jazz clubs.

‘Is that an offer?’ she said. ‘Only two bedrooms would be more than enough.’

Kate got through to Barnaby at noon. She’d been phoning all morning, desperate to explain her wake-up call, but every time she’d rung, the receptionist had told her that Mr Barnaby was tied up. That, in itself, was a bad sign. Barnaby had never before refused to take her calls. Now she could feel the chill in his voice.

‘I’m sorry about this morning,’ she said, for the second time, ‘but it just felt important, that’s all.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s complicated. I can’t really explain on the phone.’

‘Where were you?’

‘At the health club. I’d been waiting for you. I just…’ She was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, staring at the unwashed dishes in the sink. She was eight hours away from the most important speech she’d ever had to make. Success or failure could literally shape the rest of her life. Yet there she was, behaving like some schoolgirl, rubbing salt in a self-inflicted wound. She looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘I’m at home,’ she began, ‘I don’t know whether—’

Barnaby cut in. ‘I’m running late. Today’s a nightmare.’

‘I’m sure. I just… It would be nice, that’s all. I wouldn’t keep you long. It’s just… I don’t know …’ Her voice trailed off. Whatever she said just made it worse. She’d never felt this pathetic. Ever.

Barnaby was on the phone again. His voice was softer, kinder, and she sensed that someone must have been in the room with him and had gone. That’s why he’d been so matter-of-fact, so insensitive.

‘Lunchtime,’ he was saying, ‘I’ve got half an hour. We could go to the pub on the corner. One fifteen? Pick me up here?’

Kate began to say yes but a click on the line told her that Barnaby had hung up, doubtless turning to yet another contract, another fat pile of business opportunities. Over the last few months, she’d watched him become the most talked-about solicitor in the city, the brief who’d stitched together an extraordinary deal on the Imperial and now travelled everywhere by private jet. She sat on the stool for a moment or two longer, trying to rid her mind of the
conversation she’d pieced together in the changing room. She’d been showering after her workout. The splash of the falling water had made it hard to be certain yet the two women had definitely been talking about Liz Barnaby, she knew they had. Second honeymoon, one had said. Second coming, the other had suggested, giggling enviously.

When the courier arrived, Zhu happened to be in the Imperial’s foyer. He pushed through the revolving door, pausing to admire the new décor. After exhaustive discussions with their demanding new client, the Knightsbridge design consultancy had finally settled on pale greys and a deep shade of blue, with details picked out in a rich burgundy. The mix of colours, echoed in the luxury suites at the front of the hotel, combined a cool serenity with something altogether more opulent. The latter was understated, a quiet smile rather than a bear-hug, and Zhu was delighted with the impact the hotel made on first-time visitors.

He took the package from the courier. There was a bubbling pot of coffee in the alcove beside reception and Zhu insisted he help himself before returning to his van outside. The youth broke into a smile, attacking the plate of biscuits as well, while Zhu scissored through the big, heavy-duty plastic bag. Inside, tightly folded, was a long banner. He pulled it out, signalling to the receptionist to help him. She took one end, walking away towards the restaurant as the banner unfurled. From one end to the other, it measured forty feet, and there were instructions inside the bag on how it was to be fixed to the hotel’s façade.

The courier was still standing beside reception, finishing
his coffee. Neither Zhu nor the receptionist could read the message inscribed on the banner. The courier was trying to hide a grin.

‘What does it say?’ Zhu called.

The courier shook his head. He was a thin, crop-haired youth in his early twenties. ‘It’s a wind-up,’ he said. ‘Don’t let it worry you.’

‘What?’

‘It’s a piss-take. Forget it, mate.’ He drained his cup. ‘Cheers for the coffee.’

‘But what does it say?’

The courier eyed the receptionist. She was Singaporean, a vivacious, raven-haired girl, taller than most Chinese. Unlike Zhu, she’d sensed at once that something was wrong.

Zhu was getting impatient. ‘Read it to me,’ he said. ‘Please.’

The courier wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes were still on the banner.

‘Fuck Off Back To Chinkieland,’ he dropped his voice, ‘Wog Cunts.’

Charlie Epple walked the half-mile from the city’s railway station to the Regency terrace where Barnaby had his offices. The train had made good time and he still had an hour in hand before the start of his meeting. In June, the city’s Strategy Unit were sending a delegation to an important trade fair in New Jersey, and the afternoon’s meeting would finalize the pitch the Portsmouth team would be making to attract investment. To Charlie, these opportunities were priceless. With the right words and the
right pictures, as he kept telling his new colleagues, anything was possible.

He stopped outside Barnaby’s office. He’d rung from Waterloo and the receptionist had assured him that Barnaby would be at his desk. He had pressing appointments all day but lunchtime he’d fenced off for paperwork.

Charlie took the stairs two at a time, wondering what Barnaby would make of Jessie’s plans. He’d left the girls at home in Wimbledon with instructions to close the place up once the removal men had finished. He’d found another ninety quid for their tickets down and told them to spend the change on champagne. His first night back in Pompey deserved a modest celebration.