THE PERFECT KILL (28 page)

“I understand. I’ll see you later.”

After he left she cleared the table, brought Creasy a cup of coffee, sat down and asked quietly, “Tell me. What does affection mean to you?”

He sipped his coffee. It had exactly the right amount of sugar.

He said, “I don’t know. I’m not very good at…putting it into words.”

She smiled a genuine smile.

“That’s an understatement but you’re going to have to try.”

“What does it mean to you?” he asked.

She pondered and then said, “It’s something you can only truly feel if it’s returned.”

He thought about that and when his reply came it devastated her.

“That means you have absolutely no affection for me.”

“That’s my problem,” she answered. “I can’t think why, but I do.”

“Then, by your definition, it must be returned.”

She sighed and said, “Perhaps, but it’s brilliantly disguised.”

He said, “I don’t show much.”

“Have you known many women?” she asked.

His answer was forthright. “I’ve known many physically, even lived with some for periods varying from a few days to a few weeks. But I only ever loved one. Maybe that’s been the problem these past months. I never understood what love was all about until I met Nadia. I never understood what happiness was all about, it was just a word. I saw my daughter born. I was there. I see my wife and daughter every day. I see them lying on a slab in the morgue. On a cold day. They are what I see when I wake up and when I go to sleep. It’s hard to talk about affection when that’s all I can see. It’s impossible for me to think about loving another woman again. Not like that. I don’t know about other people but I know it can never happen twice to this man.”

A silence hung in the small room and then she said, “Have you slept with any other women since your wife died?”

“Yes.”

“And do you feel anything for them? Apart from the sex?”

He drank more of his coffee, then fired the second barrel.

“I like you more than I liked them. I came to like you more and more during the time you spent in Gozo. But I cannot believe I’m capable of loving again. I think that emotion blew up with the bomb on that plane.”

She nodded.

“I understand. Now be honest about one more thing. You are going to kill them, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“And use Michael?”

“If I have to.”

“So, it’s just like the contract you had with me? Just an instrument of revenge?”

His smile was wry. “That was the original idea. But the fact that I’m sitting here means that original ideas don’t always work out. You know very well when I say it’s not just Michael that wants you back I mean it. You will not be frozen out. You will be treated with…with what perhaps you call affection.”

For a long time there was silence and then she asked, “Where would I sleep?”

“I hope you will sleep in my bed.”

“Will you touch me?”

“If you wish.”

“What do you wish?”

“To touch you.”

It was morning. She brought him coffee and woke him. She sat on the bed beside him and said, “I just phoned Michael. I told him we’ll pick him up in an hour or so and show him the sights of London.”

He pushed himself up in the bed, reached out, pulled her face to him and kissed her.

“What did he say?” he asked.

She smiled and ran her fingers through his hair.

“He said tomorrow’s Saturday and he wants to go and see Tottenham Hotspur play. Apparently the hotel porter can get tickets.”

“Is that all?”

She shook her head. “No, he said a few other things too. But that’s between mother and son.”

Blondie applied the finishing touches to the eyes, using a very fine brush. Then she stood back and critically examined her work. Finally satisfied, she gestured towards a mirror. Leonie stood up and walked over. It was surrounded by bright lights and could have come out of a make-up room of any film or TV studio. Leonie looked at herself and audibly gasped. She was looking at the face of a beautiful woman whose age could be no more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight.

She looked at herself for a long time then turned and said, “You must have done this professionally.”

Blondie smiled. By comparison, her own make-up was thick and obvious.

“I was in the business,” she said. “I worked in Rome, just before the war, as a small-time actress making propaganda films for Mussolini.” She arched an eyebrow coyly. “I once actually slept with him…well not really slept. It was over in five minutes. He was like that, did you know? He needed four or five women a day and it was always the same, just five minutes or less. After the war ended, we used to make a joke about it. If the war had only lasted five minutes, he might have won.”

Leonie smiled and asked, “What happened to you then? Did you stay in the business?”

Blondie shrugged.

“It was a hard time. I left home when I was sixteen and couldn’t go back. I was twenty-five when the war ended and no films were being made. I managed to get a job scrubbing floors in an American army mess. Then I got pregnant by one of the officers. He refused to acknowledge it.” She shrugged again.

“Anyway it died at birth…it was a girl.”

“I’m sorry,” Leonie said. “I’ve also lost a child. What did you do then?”

The old woman looked at her watch and went over to her drinks cabinet.

“Creasy and Michael will be back in about half an hour,” she said. “Let’s have a drink and I’ll tell you. What’s yours?”

“A whisky and water, please.”

As Blondie mixed the drinks, Leonie looked at herself in the mirror again and wondered if she was dreaming. They had arrived on a late flight from London the night before. At the airport, Creasy had explained about Blondie and the Pappagal.

“You mean we’re staying in a brothel?” Leonie asked incredulously.

“Yes, but a very high class one,” he had answered with a smile. “If it bothers you, I can book you into a hotel.”

“But what about you and Michael?”

“Michael and I will stay at the Pappagal,” he had replied. “Blondie’s a very old friend. She would be upset if she knew I was staying somewhere else in Brussels.”

“And Michael?” she had asked. “You’re taking him to a brothel?”

“Don’t worry about Michael. I’ll keep a close eye on him. Besides, it’s necessary that he gets to know Blondie and a couple of other people there. Don’t worry, I’ll find you a good hotel close by.”

She had thought about it and then shaken her head.

“No, I’ll come with you…as long as this Blondie woman doesn’t try to put me to work.”

Creasy had said solemnly, “She won’t do that, but she will do something else to you.”

“Like what?”

“Wait and see,” he had answered. “You’ll enjoy it”

They had taken a taxi to the Pappagal. As they drove through the streets, Michael’s head had constantly swivelled to take in the sights. For him the last few days had been a total revelation. His lifetime on Gozo had not prepared him for big cities. He had been amazed at the traffic, the people and the pace of everything.

It was only when they had gone to see the soccer match between Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea that his confidence had returned. He knew a lot about soccer and, like most young men in Gozo, followed the progress of the English teams avidly.

Creasy and Leonie knew very little about it and amidst the uproar of thirty thousand fans he had explained the finer points of the game. That night, Leonie had taken him to see Starlight Express. She knew some of the actresses, and during the interval had taken him backstage and showed him around. He had been completely tongue-tied when she had introduced him to a few of the glittering girls in their glittering costumes.

As they drove through the streets of Brussels, she had wondered what was going on in his mind. These few days must have been a kaleidoscope of impressions, ending up with a couple of nights’ stay in a fully fledged brothel. In point of fact, her own mind was in similar disarray. At first, Creasy had suggested that she flew straight from London back to Malta, while he and Michael went to Brussels for a couple of days to do some business.

“I will if you insist,” she had answered. “But I prefer to stay with you. I promise I won’t get in the way. Besides, I don’t want to return to Gozo on my own this time. Later on, I don’t mind, but this time it’s important to me that we all return together.”

He had agreed with surprising ease.

So she had found herself being ushered through the door of a plush brothel and introduced to a woman who could have stepped straight out of a macabre movie. But within minutes, she had felt relaxed. She had been introduced to Raoul, the bouncer, and a couple of the girls, who were just leaving for home. It was a bit like arriving late for a party that has just ended.

They had gone into the bar, Raoul had poured them all drinks and then left, taking their bags upstairs.

Creasy’s explanation to Blondie had been brief.

“This is Leonie, my wife, and Michael, my son…this is Blondie, an old friend…she owns the place and Michael if you get out of line she’ll give you a clout so hard that you won’t wake up till Christmas.”

Michael had smiled but his eyes were rolling around the room, taking in the opulent furniture and fittings.

“We’d like to stay two nights,” Creasy had said to Blondie. “Tomorrow, Michael and I have to meet Corkscrew Two in the afternoon and then go on somewhere else. We’ll be back about six o’clock.” He had gestured at Leonie. “Can you look after her? I promised that you wouldn’t put her to work.”

Blondie smiled. “Of course not.”

“But there is something I want you to do with her,” Creasy said seriously.

“What’s that?”

“Tomorrow, while we’re out, make her look ten years younger and if it is possible, even more beautiful.”

Leonie had glanced at him in astonishment, but before she could say anything the old woman had taken her gently by the chin and moved her face slightly in the light. She studied the face carefully and then moved it again. Then Blondie had smiled.

“I can take off the years and I can make her beauty more spectacular, if that’s what you want.”

“That’s what I want,” Creasy answered.

Now Blondie brought over the drinks. They settled themselves in two comfortable chairs and the old woman resumed her story. After she had lost the child, she had drifted into prostitution.

But it had been difficult. She was no longer young and even when she was young, she had not been really beautiful. In the Italy of the time, there had been many young and beautiful women. So she had slipped slowly down the ladder. Until one day another prostitute she worked with had told her that they were recruiting girls for the famous Foreign Legion brothel at Sidi-al-Barres, in Algeria. The work would be hard but the money steady.

The work was hard. There were over two hundred girls in that brothel and it was run like a regiment. Each girl had a tiny cubicle and the Legionnaires came and went at clockwork intervals. She described the scene to Leonie, explaining how the girls worked on a shift basis, sometimes up to eight hours a day. It was mindless and sometimes painful.

“Is that where you met Creasy?” Leonie asked softly.

“Not in the brothel,” the old woman answered. “He never went to brothels. I met him in hospital.”

“Hospital?”

“Yes, he was a sergeant then. A top sergeant. One of the men in his company, a Spaniard, had come to the brothel and was assigned to my cubicle. He was drunk and little better than an animal. We all had buttons in our cubicles, just like I have buttons in all the rooms here, in case there’s trouble. There was trouble with that bastard. He pulled a knife on me and I was slow getting to the button. The Legionnaires who acted as guards to protect the girls were slow getting to my cubicle. I was badly wounded in the stomach and breasts and so I ended up in hospital. The Spaniard had been in Creasy’s company. He was sentenced to two years in a penal battalion, but not before Creasy had beaten him to within a millimetre of death. But I only found out about that later.”

Meanwhile, Creasy had visited her at the hospital. He had been acutely embarrassed by what one of his men had done. He had brought her flowers and chocolates.

“And so that’s how I met Creasy,” she concluded with a smile.

Leonie stood up as the door opened. She smoothed down the blue, full-length, velvet skirt and straightened the heavy, shantung silk, gold blouse. When she looked up they were in the room. Creasy smiled at her in appreciation. Michael was looking stunned.

The three of them had dinner at Maxie’s Bistro. Leonie still wore the long skirt and silk blouse and appeared overdressed among the other clientele. She did not care. She enjoyed the covetous glances coming her way from the single, male customers. Creasy watched her and smiled.

“The answer is no, Leonie. We are not taking Blondie back to Gozo with us.”

She laughed and said, “It’s strange, but I actually feel ten years younger.”

She looked around the small bistro. There were only eight tables, covered with red and white checked table cloths. Seven were occupied. A bar ran the length of the room with twelve leather-topped bar stools. The music coming from the speakers was from the late fifties and early sixties. She studied Maxie behind the bar, his bald head and plump face, and she recalled how Creasy had greeted him when they entered the bistro. It had been a strange ritual. They had each put their hands behind the other’s neck and kissed each other on the cheeks, close to the mouth. When Creasy had introduced Michael as his son, Maxie had kissed the young man in the same manner, but when he had introduced Leonie as his wife, she had been kissed on both cheeks in the normal manner. Nicole had come out of the kitchen and thrown her arms around Creasy’s neck and hugged him long and hard. She was very beautiful and for a moment, Leonie had felt a twinge of jealousy.

When the two women were introduced, Nicole gave her a beaming smile and a huge hug and said simply, “You are always welcome here…or at our home, which is upstairs. You don’t need to see the menu. When you rang this morning, I decided to make something special”