Willing Flesh (11 page)

Staffe puts the big old key to the lock. The oak door is thick and heavy, creaking as Staffe stoops under the low lintel. Once inside, it is everything you would ever want.

The floor gives out theatre croaks as Staffe treads gingerly across the threadbare Persian rug to one of two leaded picture windows. Outside, the beach is empty, the sea and sky a seamless pale, metallic blue; milk wisps here and there. The seagulls swoop and rise like Lowrys. He closes his eyes to the surf and squawk; smells the wood and cloth and ozone. He imagines opening his eyes to see Elena Danya on the window seat in her lumber shirt and her hair in a careless clasp; pale eyes unfocused on the vague horizon and knees drawn up to her chin; book downturned and open, a new chapter but not wanting her story to end.

He sits on the three-seater William IV settee at the bottom of the squat bed that is swamped in eiderdown, looks around the room and is swept back through centuries. He pictures a Jane Austen novel unravelling in Elena’s head as she drifts to another world, somewhere unreal between the one she left and the one she came to, and he tries to imagine precisely how she came to visit here with Taki Markary, eventually coming of her own accord.

Staffe calls room service, orders broth and a ham sandwich and sets his field recorder to
Rec
then
Pause
. He heads straight downstairs, knowing the old boy will be in the kitchen. It’s the kind of meal he’ll rustle himself but to be on the safe side, Staffe waits around the corner from the reception desk in the musty lounge, head tilted to a copy of
Suffolk
Life
, waiting for the old boy to head upstairs with his order. He’ll have four minutes, maximum, to go through the register.

As he waits, he skims through the
Life
, not really reading it properly until he lands on an article about the Aldesworth Country Town new model market town. Gerald Holt smiles into camera with a comment below applauding the development. On the opposite page, the mayor, in full chain of office and holding a silver shovel, shakes the hand of a fellow called Leonard Howerd in a chalkstriped suit. Howerd, according to the caption, is a prominent Catholic and well in with the Duke of Suffolk. His local family seat, The Ridings, has been in the family for centuries. Staffe recalls, dusting off some distant titbit, that the Dukes – the Audley Howards – descend from Mary Tudor.

As he checks the date of the magazine, which is last June, the old boy totters past reception holding a silver tray out in front of him and Staffe strolls casually behind reception.

He flicks through the register, skimming the left-hand column and looking for room 14, whispering the date of each of Danya’s visits into his recorder. Markary appears in June this year and from then, back to the previous Christmas, he came each month. Staffe hears the squeak of the door at the bottom of the stairs swinging open and shut, but still he quickly leafs back. He thinks he sees a name he recognises, but realises it is simply the banker from the
Life
article. Howerd. Room 14, also. He must be in the know. He scrolls down again, sees Markary on the same date but in a different room. ‘Twenty-three,’ he whispers into the recorder. ‘Fifteenth of March 2008. One night.’

‘What are you doing?’

Staffe’s heart stops for a beat, two beats, then races to catch up. He formulates an excuse, but when he raises his head, it is Pulford. With a scold of the eyes, he closes the register and scoots around the desk.

*

Rebeccah looks down at Frank, through her hair that has come loose. His eyes are almost closed, eyeballs rolling up. He bites the corner of his lip.

‘Did you hear that?’

‘I want to go into you, Becca,’ says Frank.

‘We’ve got all afternoon.’ She leans down, to kiss him on the mouth. She knows that she has him – any time she wants. But this is the game. This is why he comes to her. She can cusp him for an hour, make him feel like a man. Rebeccah cranes her head, looks out of the car, all around, into the spruce trees that surround them. They could be adorned with tinsel, strung lights whispering from their ferns. A memory from long ago pinches her cheek. A good fairy, or a bad uncle?

‘There’s someone watching,’ she says.

This would be no surprise, were they here four or five hours hence. But the dogging lovers don’t come until it is well and truly dark. ‘We’re alone,’ says Frank. He puts the palm of his hand on the underside of her breast, lifts it, as if for weight, and sucks at her.

Rebeccah continues to look out the window, scanning the perimeter of the clearing in the wood. She tries not to appear perturbed, but thinks Mitch might suspect she is up to something. He is quite capable of telling Tchancov about her ‘foreigners’. Her debt to Tchancov is down to four grand but whatever she earns lately seems swallowed whole by the interest.

Something moves in the undergrowth: crouched and fast. She shudders.

‘You like that?’ says Frank.

‘I feel it
inside
.’ She looks down at him, suddenly not wanting to be here one little bit.

Sometimes Frank can look quite dishy, but in this light, his skin is grey with wide pores and a fag-tar, greasy sheen. Meat on his breath.

‘You hot and bothered?’ Rebeccah reaches round with her hand and, through his boxers, puts her fingers between his cheeks. His eyes close and his smile goes serious, she feels him stiffen. She cranes her neck again and sees a man, in the second length of grass where the trees get thicker. He’s not playing with himself – just watching.

‘Put me in. Put me in!’ pleads Frank, losing it.

Rebeccah takes her hand away from his bottom and slides down into the footwell in the back of Frank’s Bentley. She rests her chin on his rubbery dick. His piece is clean and she can barely smell him, just the rich leather of the old Bentley’s heated seats. Outside, a dog yaps. Rebeccah looks up at Frank. ‘Imagine, when we go away. It’ll be soon, won’t it?’

‘When I can sell the business.’

‘It’s been a long time. You last the longest time, hey babes?’ She runs her tongue down and up, along the shaft of his dick.

He grunts.

‘I love you, Frank.’

‘You just say that, Becca,’ he gasps. His eyes are out of control.

‘You’re the only one gets me like this, like I want it to go forever. Be forever.’

‘Don’t talk about them.’

‘Who?’

‘The others.’

‘I didn’t say nothing about no others.’

Frank sits up, earnest. ‘It’s the
implication
. You should stop.’

‘I will, Frank. When we go away.’

‘Stop! Then we’ll go away.’

She looks down, sees he has shrunk and she puts her fingers on him, looks him dead in the eye as she takes her mouth to him, wrapping her lips around her teeth.

‘You’re behaving like a whore.’

Suddenly, she doesn’t know what to say. Should she say she wants him inside her? Or all to herself? Or to just give her all his money and fuck off. Or … ‘I just want you, Frank. Just you.’

‘Stop those
implications
. I told you once!’ He pushes her away with the ball of his foot and she rocks back against the Bentley’s door. Frank sits forward, head in his hands. ‘Get out.’

‘We’re going for dinner. We always go for dinner.’

‘Not any more.’

‘Let me have you, Frank.’ She reaches out, delves for his dick but he slaps her hand away.

‘This was the last time and even that’s gone tits up.’

‘The last time?’ she says.

He looks as if he might equally laugh or cry. ‘You know, I really did love you, Becca. What kind of a prick does that make me?’ He suddenly seems calm, as if a fog has lifted, a clue is fathomed.

‘What about …’ She begins to sob, realising he is serious. She gathers her clothes together, not daring to look him in the eye. ‘What about …?’

‘I’m not paying today. Now get out of my car!’

Rebeccah has been in the game long enough to trust her instincts, so she stifles her tears and gathers her clothes. Outside, the cold is fit to freeze. The ground is rough. She scurries to the trees as best she can, like trying to run on burning hot sand. At the trees, she quickly steps into her pants. Frank’s car hasn’t fired up yet. Perhaps he is changing his mind.

She pulls on her top. Frank bought it for her. It is cashmere, lemon, and as it comes over her head, it reminds her of summer – that yellow light when you close your eyes, tight, to the sun. She feels it now and doesn’t want this life any more. A hand is on her.

Rebeccah screams, but it seems to be lost in the cashmere and now a hand is over her mouth and her scream ruptures inside.

Then she hears it.

Before she feels anything – and through the sound of her own breathing and his grunting and the rustle of her top against her hair – she hears the wet, impossibly loud and flesh-metal slurp coming from her own body. It is her side, she thinks, then the pain snipes, long and thin. Then the sound again, this time in her back, she thinks. And a wider pain, less sharp. Spreading.

And the sound. Again. Again. She falls to the ground, away from herself and the lemon sun slips and the forest is white. The ground is sharp on her face. Far away, a dog yaps.

And there is nothing.

Eleven

The sun disappears to Staffe’s right, behind the sands, tufted with dunes. Staffe’s lungs begin to burn. He is close to the sea, where the sand is wet and firm, but it still makes his leg muscles weep. He has come a mile or so south, towards Warblingsea and in the distance he can see the masts sticking up from the harbour. Beyond, the lights twinkle in the Lord Nelson, on the other side of the reeded estuary.

It will be completely dark soon and the clouds have come in, obscuring the moon. It is not yet five but he turns himself round and begins the run back. As he does, he thinks he sees somebody dive to ground at the top of the beach where the dunes run out.

He stops, squints into the gloam. The final strip of purple sky burns to nothing and he walks up the beach to check if his eyes were deceiving him.

Nobody is up in the dunes. Staffe has the beach to himself and even the seagulls have stopped squawking. He is cold now and begins to run again but the dry sand drags him down and he runs back to the sea, checking over his shoulder as he gains speed. The sea air saps him and hunger advances.

*

There is a thin smattering of diners in the Signet’s restaurant, which is white linen and silver service; a sweet trolley and a Jacobean sideboard for the cutlery. The floorboards groan and the china chinks whenever the waitress passes by.

A couple in their thirties are awkward around each other. The male tries to order for both of them, but he is uncertain, failing to catch the waitress’s eye. A salesman studiously avoids contact of any kind, squirrelling an off-piste treat for himself. A lean man comes into the room, sits on his own, as far away from the others as he can. He looks fit. His face is ruddy, as though he has been exposed to the elements. He seems sure of himself.

Laying the napkin on his lap, Pulford sips from his water, says, ‘All those bookings, for her and Markary. It gives you the sense of a real relationship. Markary couldn’t have killed her. Surely.’

Staffe downs the last of his pint of Adnams Broadside.

‘We didn’t come here to eliminate Markary, though, did we sir? You’ve got it in for him, haven’t you.’

‘I’m going to have oysters. How about you?’

‘The prawn cocktail. Then the grilled prawns. I love prawns.’

Staffe raises his eyebrows. ‘The oysters are natives.’ Pulford shudders at the thought and Staffe pours them each a glass of the Mercurey. ‘I think we should give the ball a kick tonight, Sergeant. This is my treat.’

The service is slow and they drink the first bottle before the starters arrive. Staffe orders another, which they drink before pudding. When he suggests a half-bottle of Sauternes, Pulford grimaces on the first sip, says it’s sickly sweet, which makes Staffe laugh. He says, ‘And you’re the one supposed to have the education.’