Camellia (29 page)

Flicking back her Indian cotton wraparound skirt, Camellia stretched out her legs in front of her and compared them. One was lightly tanned, the other corpse white and a little thinner, the scar on the inside of her knee still bright red. She had joked when the nurse took off the plaster, about hanging one leg out of the window until it turned the same colour as the other. But her light-heartedness was gone now, replaced by dread of what was to come.

She had stayed with Denise for the past two nights, but today she had to return home and do what she should have done long ago. Bee would thank her for it one day. Perhaps as Denise suggested, she was hoping deep down that someone would rescue her.

A week ago Camellia had done some snooping while Jake was out. She discovered that he was setting up some sort of deal in Amsterdam, and found a bank book in which he had over three thousand pounds. This suggested he might be leaving soon, but she wasn't going to wait and hope for that now. Today she intended to hasten his departure.

Bee was in a very bad way. Aiden's predictions about devils on horseback seemed less absurd now, but Camellia was sure they could rebuild their lives once Jake was finally gone.

Mike Rodgers was the ace card she intended to use. She had met him for lunch a few days ago and she knew now that what she'd thought she'd felt for him in hospital was real and worth striving for. Her plan was to tell Jake quite casually that a policeman could be dropping in at any time to see her, and that he'd better remove all his filthy books and pictures from the flat if he didn't want to end up being busted. If she had his number correctly he would panic and make a run for it immediately.

It was only a short walk back to Oakley Street, but by the time Camellia reached the house her knee was throbbing and she was very hot. The curtains were still closed in the lounge, but the front door was wide open.

For a moment or two Camellia thought they'd been burgled. All Jake's equipment, cameras, tripods and lighting were gone from the lounge. But as she opened the curtains to take a look in daylight, panic turned to relief. It was no burglar; Jake had packed up and gone. His strewn clothes and his files of pictures had all been removed.

Camellia let out a whoop of absolute joy. The mucky, untidy room had never looked so attractive. 'Thank you God,' she whispered. Bee would be distraught for a day or two, but she'd get over it.

Camellia went along the passage, and peeped into Bee's room. The curtains were closed so it was too dark to see her clearly, but she was face down, entirely naked and fast asleep. For a moment Camellia was tempted to wake her, but she resisted the impulse. Better to let her sleep on, at least until she got the place straight, maybe they could go out to one of the parks later in the afternoon and lie in the sun together, the way they used to.

After changing into an old pair of shorts and a tee shirt, Camellia opened the lounge windows wide to let out the fetid smell of cigarettes and stale beer. Even though her leg was aching she could move easily, and as she vacuumed, dusted and polished away all traces of Jake, she was making long-term plans. Tomorrow she would go to an agency and get some temporary clerical work, maybe an evening waitressing job too. They'd repaint the lounge. Perhaps once Bee was feeling better again they could have a cheap holiday somewhere.

The kitchen was grisly. Dishes were piled in the sink, and there were beer cans, glasses and dirty cups everywhere. Flies hovered around the remains of a chicken curry, unrinsed milk bottles turning green.

While Camellia waited for the kettle to boil she got rid of the rubbish and washed the dishes. The whole kitchen needed spring cleaning, but that could wait until later. For now she would take some tea to Bee and have a real chat at last.

'Wake up, Bee! I've brought you some tea,' she said, pushing the door open wider with one foot.

There was no response, Bee hadn't moved since she last looked in.

'It stinks in here,' Camellia held her nose and stepped over the usual piles of clothes to get to the window, drew back the heavy curtains to let the light in. 'How you can sleep in it, beats me.'

But as Camellia turned to put the mug of tea down, she gasped in horror.

Bee was lying face down in a pool of stinking vomit, an angry red weal right across her bare buttocks.

'Oh shit, Bee.' Camellia put the tea down, and touched her friend's shoulder. 'Come on wake up and help me get you out of this.'

Bee didn't move. Camellia caught hold of her friend more firmly to roll her away from the vomit. As Bee's head lolled over and her hair fell back to expose her face, Camellia screamed.

Her eyes were wide open, cold and glassy, like a fish on a marble slab. The flesh beneath Camellia's fingers was icy cold.

'No, Bee!' she screamed. 'You can't be!'

While she waited for the police to arrive Camellia stood in Bee's bedroom doorway, too shattered even to cry.

'If only I'd come home last night,' she kept repeating aloud.

Flies buzzed round the room, hovering, then swooping down to gorge on the sickly mess on the sheets.

Bee's body had lost all its curves. Her hip bones, once padded with pink soft flesh, now stood out gaunt and sharp. Even her magnificent breasts had withered and shrunk, like two old chamois-leather bags.

'Death caused by inhalation of vomit.' The police doctor's deep clear voice wafted up the passage to where Camellia sat hunched in a chair crying.

'I can't say for certain until we've examined the contents of her stomach and run some blood tests, but I'd guess she'd taken a cocktail of barbiturates and alcohol. That cane mark on her buttocks is recent, as are the bruises on her upper arms, but much earlier than the ingestion of the pills. I'd put her time of death at somewhere around two or three this morning.'

Camellia felt as if she was paralysed in both body and mind. She was aware of the police marching in and out, searching everything, but she heard their voices as if from a great distance. All she could see were Bee's glassy blue sightless eyes.

'Miss Norton.' A commanding voice, coupled with a hand shaking her shoulder brought her back to reality. 'Are you all right? Can I get you a glass of water?'

Camellia shook her head.

'You say you came in about twelve. Why did you wait until one thirty before you rang us?'

'I was cleaning up. I looked in at Bee when I first got home, but I thought she was just asleep.'

'But last night, what was she like? Did you hear anything unusual?'

Camellia lifted her eyes to the policeman. His face was just a blur, yet beyond his shoulder she could see people up in the street, peering down over the railings. 'I wasn't here. I've been at a friend's for two days.' She covered her face with her hands, rocking to and fro in grief. 'If only I'd come back she'd be alive now.'

A middle-aged plain-clothes policeman with a face like raw liver took over the questioning. 'What did Beatrice do for a living? Did she have someone else with her last night?'

'Yes, Jake. It was Jake,' she sobbed. 'You've got to find him.'

When one of the men came out of the bedroom with a pile of pornographic photographs in his hands, she became hysterical.

'Jake forced Bee to pose for them,' she yelled out. 'He drugged her and made her do it. Bee was a sweet loving girl, but he was evil and he controlled her.'

An hour or so later Camellia knew she might very well be arrested, but she wasn't concerned with that. They could poke into every corner, take samples of anything they liked, charge her with possession of the drugs they'd found, even blame her for killing Bee. She felt responsible. She should have been there.

Bee's body was taken out in a bag, yet still the police carried on searching. In and out they tramped, turning out drawers, cupboards, digging down the sides of chairs. It was like reliving that morning in Nottingham Court, only this time her dearest friend was on the way to the morgue.

A younger, fresh-faced officer took pity on her later. He made her a cup of tea and questioned her more gently about both Jake's and Bee's background.

Camellia told him everything she knew, including all she remembered about Jake's friends," contacts and his letters from Amsterdam. She felt she'd kill him with her own bare hands if he was to walk back in here now.

'Is there someone I could call to be with you?' the policeman asked. 'Your mother perhaps?'

'My mother's dead too,' she sobbed. 'I haven't got anyone.'

'You can't stay here,' he pointed out. 'We won't be finished with our investigations for some time. Now there must be someone who could help you?'

'I've got a friend in the police force,' she said weakly. 'Could you possibly ask him to call round? His name is Sergeant Mike Rodgers.'

The moment she said Mike's name she knew it was a mistake.

'Is he your boyfriend?' The policeman's eyes widened.

'Oh no.' Camellia shook her head. 'I just got to know him earlier this year when I was attacked in Chelsea.'

The plain-clothes man with the liver face had been engrossed in searching through books and papers until then, and hadn't appeared to be listening. But at her last words his head jerked up, as if he'd suddenly made a connection.

As the two men went to one side of the room for a whispered confab, Camellia began to cry again. This morning she had actually believed she could put the past behind her. But the past was always on the heels of the present, and now everything would be raked up again, even though it had nothing to do with Bee and her death.

It was four in the afternoon when Mike eventually arrived. Camellia saw him speaking briefly to another officer outside the front door.

For a moment she was reminded again of Bert Simmonds, just as she had been when she came round from the anaesthetic in hospital and saw Mike at her bedside. His short fair hair was bleached by sun, his rugged face glowing with health. But like Bert, Mike was far more than a burly, competent policeman, with muscular tanned forearms. It was the inner strength which showed through, of someone who had witnessed every kind of foul crime, yet still retained his compassion and tolerance. He knew the law, but he knew people still better, and he'd never allowed himself to become disillusioned.

But as Mike came into the flat, signalling for the other man to leave while he talked to her, she could see he too was deeply shocked by Bee's death.

'I'm not here as a policeman,' he said, sitting down opposite her. 'Just as a friend. Tell me everything, Mel. I want to help.'

It was easy enough to speak of Jake, to pour out the despicable things he did, and her ideas about his whole sordid network of pornography. It was even relatively simple to explain why and how Bee was ensnared by the man. But the hardest part was to justify why she had done nothing while something so awful was going on under her own roof.

'I thought of phoning you dozens of times, long before we met for lunch the other day,' she admitted. Even now Mike wasn't judging her, just listening attentively, his eyes sorrowful. 'But I suppose I was afraid if the police raided our flat it would all backfire on me. I just kept waiting and hoping Jake would leave. That makes me a pretty low sort of person, doesn't it?'

'We are all self-protective,' he sighed. 'Given the circumstances you were in, with a broken leg, Jake on one side and Bee on the other, it was an impossible situation for you.'

'But that doesn't excuse cowardice does it?' Camellia began to cry. She could sense that Mike was withdrawing into his policeman self, closing down the shutters on the part of him that wanted her. 'Now, because of me, Bee is dead.'

'Mel, you weren't to blame for Bee's death. Yes, you should've informed us about what Jake was doing. But I doubt Bee would've thanked you for it.'

'It would have been better than her dying.' Camellia blew her nose and tried to compose herself. 'Maybe that way we could both have been straightened out.'

'I believe you straightened out the day that American assaulted you,' Mike said gently, wiping her tears away with his handkerchief. 'You mustn't try to carry the guilt yourself. Put the blame where it belongs, on Jake and on Bee too. She knew the difference between right and wrong–she wasn't an innocent child. You must carry on and put this behind you.'

'Like all the other things I've put behind me?' Camellia looked at his honest, open face and fresh tears sprang to her eyes. 'I've got a whole roomful of bad memories I've tucked away,' she said bitterly. 'But this time I don't think the door is going to close on them.'

'Of course it will.' His voice was crisper and more distant. 'Right now you're stunned by Bee's death, and you can't imagine ever coming out of this. But if you take one day at a time, you will eventually.'

Camellia was tempted to throw herself into his arms. She sensed that if he just held her, maybe kissed her, the man in him would override the policeman.

'You've been so very kind, Mike.' She got up and wiped her eyes, putting enough space between them to prevent temptation. She liked Mike too much to see him suffer by getting involved with her. 'I'll phone Denise and ask if I can stay with her for a few days. Thank you for coming here. It's been a great help to get everything off my chest.'

She saw his lower lip quiver at her politely formal words. 'I . . .' he hesitated. 'I mean.'

'Don't try to say anything.' Camellia went up to him and put a warning finger on his lips. 'I know how you feel, I feel the same way. But it was never to be, Mike, we both know that.'

He caught her finger and kissed the tip, closing his eyes. A single tear glistened on his lashes like a tiny diamond. She had never seen such honest emotion in a man's face.

She longed to tell him how he had kept her going in hospital and through the dark, last weeks with Bee. How she had woven dreams of a life with him–love, passion, even marriage. But it was kinder to let him go.

'Leave now, Mike,' she said firmly. 'I'll just pack a few things, then I'll be off to Denise's.'

Chapter Eleven

The moment Denise opened the door at her flat in Ladbroke Square, Camellia knew she'd had second thoughts about putting her up.