The Lucifer Network (54 page)

‘Hi!'

She smiled self-consciously at him, a lopsided, we've-had-sex-together grin. He was glad to see that the swelling to her lip had gone down.

‘Hello.'

They embraced a little awkwardly and he asked how she was.

‘All the better for seeing you.'

She glanced back towards the ice-cream vendor. Maeve and Liam were already in the queue. The boy waved. Julie waved back. Sam imagined an elastic thread linking mother and son, stretched drum tight, ready to reel her in whenever she wanted it to.

‘Liam's very clingy at the moment,' she volunteered. ‘He's aware there've been things going on.'

‘If
I
had you as a mum I'd
never
let go of you,' Sam grinned.

Julie pulled a face. ‘Are you saying I make him insecure?'

‘God, no! I meant . . . oh, you know what I meant.' He hooked an arm round her shoulders. ‘Are we allowed to walk a bit, or do we have to stay where Liam can see us?'

‘Of course we can walk.' She clicked her tongue at his suggestion. ‘Liam's fine with his gran for a while.'

They turned away from the lake, treading the turf without speaking. Sam sensed that Julie was expecting him to say something immediately to clarify the nature of their relationship. Some verbal confirmation that his interest in her was no longer to do with what her father had got up to. But he wasn't ready for such definitions. Beyond his immediate desires he was far from sure what he wanted from her.

Julie too was finding it difficult to know where to begin. Their connection with one another had been a series of dramas. Small talk had never featured. There was so much she still wanted to know about him, most of which she suspected he would never reveal. She decided to begin with the immediate past.

‘I heard on the news that that man Hoffmann killed himself,' she ventured. ‘Were you . . . were you there?'

‘Yes, I was. Thanks to your identification of him I caught him in the act of sending e-mails to his killers. Unfortunately he got away from me. But together with the Austrian police, I tracked him down at a train station.'

‘Was it really suicide?' The question had popped out before she'd had time to consider its consequences.

‘He had a syringe concealed in a pen,' Sam responded firmly. He didn't blame her for asking, after all that had happened in the past few days. ‘And if you want to check up on me, there was an Austrian policeman present too.'

She reddened slightly, then apologised. ‘I wasn't really suggesting . . .'

He shrugged to show it didn't matter. They walked on but without touching, as if an invisible screen separated them.

Julie still needed to be clear about things. Ts crossed and Is dotted. ‘So the red mercury that my dad wrote about . . .'

‘. . . was actually a load of virus samples from a Russian research lab. He shipped them to a remote island where a bunch of cash-hungry Russian scientists turned them into terrorist weapons. Hoffmann's underlings were about to unleash a new strain of smallpox amongst refugee communities in Germany.'

Julie hugged her arms to her chest. ‘It's so shaming,' she whispered. ‘All so appallingly shaming.'

Sam put his arm round her again. ‘We're not responsible for what our fathers do,' he told her pointedly.

‘No! We certainly are not.' She bit her lip. There were still details missing. Things he was holding back. ‘What about Max? He was involved, or not?'

‘We're not sure.' Sam told her about the cut-price medical equipment stolen from African hospitals. ‘He claimed that was the only deal he had going with your father, but he went into hiding as soon as Hoffmann's death hit the news media, which suggests he probably
was
involved in the Lucifer Network.'

Julie detached herself from him and clasped both hands to her head. Her brain felt as if it was about to leap from her skull.

‘I can't believe I spent all that time with Max and never realised what sort of a man he was.' Then she kicked herself. ‘But then, why not? It's been the story of my life as far as men are concerned.' Which was why
she was desperate to know what made Sam tick before getting more deeply involved with him.

They walked on. Julie took Sam's hand. She wanted to move them forward. To separate their relationship from the horrors they'd been involved in. But there was one last hangover from the past that she had to clear up.

‘What I said to you the other day . . . about wanting Max dead. And sort of suggesting that you might . . .'

‘Yes.'

‘I didn't mean it. You do realise that, don't you? I was just in a state.'

Sam too wanted to move on. To steer well clear of the subject of death and to engineer a way to part Julie from her mother and son so they could go back to the flat and make love.

‘And now?' he asked, caringly. ‘You feel okay? Not in a state any more?'

She pulled a tight smile. ‘Sort of. I'm pretty well back on the rails.' But she hadn't finished what she needed to say. ‘It's just that when I said what I said, I may have given the impression I still thought you were involved in my father's murder . . .'

Sam swallowed and looked away.

‘I want to assure you I don't think that,' she persisted. ‘I fully accept you had nothing to do with his death.'

There it was, the pothole in the middle of the road.

‘Closed subject from now on,' he suggested. ‘Okay?'

‘Okay.'

She beamed at him. He kissed her tenderly on the end of her nose. Her shiny hair smelled of roses, a scent he wanted to imprint all over that MoD flat.

They reached a footpath and turned right, walking slowly past a Japanese couple bending over a screaming baby in a pushchair.

‘And how are
you
after all this, Sam?' she asked, solemnly.

‘In need of a bed,' he told her. ‘With you in it.'

‘Sam . . . I'm serious.' She tugged at his arm. ‘I mean, what's going to happen to you?'

‘Well . . .' He hugged her to his side. ‘I just told you what I'd like to happen.' The need to make love to her had become like a dam, preventing the flow of normal thought and conversation.

Julie resisted him, but gently. She too wanted more of what they'd shared in Vienna.

‘I meant what happens about your job, Sam. I blew your cover. You said you faced the sack.'

‘Yes, well . . . It's not quite as bad as that.'

She stopped, sensing he was concealing something significant from her. ‘You're not saying life goes on as normal?'

‘Effectively . . . Yes.'

Sam saw the emotions of hope and expectation pass across her face and realised he was handling this outrageously badly. She was a beautiful woman whose experience of men was of being messed around mercilessly. And here he was stringing her along like the worst of them. The reality was that there was nothing in this for her. Nothing long term, anyway. They inhabited different worlds. Neither could cross to the other's and there was no middle ground. He took in a deep breath.

‘I'll be going away.'

Julie let her arms fall to her sides. It was what she'd feared all along. Almost expected. The logical outcome of all that had happened. But it still hurt to hear it. She wasn't ready to lose him, but she didn't know how not to. She looked down, then back towards where she'd last seen her son.

‘You'll have to, of course,' she whispered. She shook
her head at the irony of it. Because of her stupid loyalty to her father she was going to lose the man who'd exposed his manipulativeness to her. She would never get it right with men. Close by, a solitary old woman scattered chunks of stale white bread to swooping pigeons. Julie imagined herself ending up like that one day. She stuck out her chin, turned back towards the lake and began to walk.

Sam hooked his arm round her shoulders again, slowing her down. He felt great warmth for this damaged woman. He knew what his immediate interest in her was, but the future was another country for him. He could make no commitment to her.

‘It's a funny thing, human nature, isn't it?' Julie said, pulling herself together and nestling against him. ‘We're attracted most to the things that are bad for us.'

‘Should I be reacting to that?'

‘Oh, if you like. It
was
a compliment.' They walked on a few more paces. For some reason she couldn't fathom, Julie decided she had nothing to lose by baring her soul. ‘I mean I think you'll have got the message by now that I'm strongly attracted to you.' She tried to make it sound matter-of-fact, but failed. ‘However, I suppose that if you weren't going away and we ended up in some sort of relationship – it'd probably be a
disaster.
'

Sam stopped walking, bruised by the fact that
she
should have concluded that.

‘Why d'you think that?' he challenged.

‘You have too many secrets,' Julie continued, looking up at him. ‘Too many closed rooms where the light never shines.'

Sam arched his eyebrows, riled at having been written off so easily. Then he looked away and saw Maeve and the boy walking towards them clutching ice-cream cones. Julie followed his gaze. Sam felt the elastic pulling.

‘Of course it all depends on what you mean by a
relationship,
' he mumbled defensively.

She swung round to face him again. Of course it damn well did.

‘What do
you
mean by it, Sam?'

He looked at her. Saw her need to believe in him and knew there was only one way to achieve that. To give her the blunt, unvarnished truth.

‘At this particular point in my life I'm in no position to think much beyond the present, Julie. Therefore a relationship to me is all to do with the here and the now. I'm dead certain of one thing. That I want to make love to you. Now. This very minute.'

Julie knew she would never be able to win with a man, because she wasn't really in control of her own body. It was the pheromones that had the upper hand.

‘Well . . . That's nothing if not honest,' she whispered. She turned to look at her approaching child. ‘Wait here, will you?'

Sam nodded.

As she began to move towards her son, she turned her head back. ‘Don't go away . . .'

He watched as she ran across the grass, then crouched in front of Liam. Half a minute later she was back with him.

‘Mum'll take Liam back to Woodbridge,' Julie announced, hooking her arm through his and walking him quickly away before Liam could throw a tantrum. ‘It was nearly time anyway.'

They marched through the crowds, brushing elbows with strangers in their haste to get somewhere where they could be alone. It wasn't until they reached the Alexandra gate that Julie thought of asking where he was taking her. Sam pointed to the mansion flats opposite.

‘Hey, mister . . . They're pretty grand. I'm impressed.'

‘It's just for a few weeks.'

They stopped by the kerb to wait for a break in the traffic, glancing wordlessly at one another, their eyes burning with frustration that something so important to both of them could be delayed by mere machines. Eventually the lights changed and they crossed the road.

At the entrance to the apartments Sam tapped in a security code. Inside the lobby a civilian-suited man with the build of a Royal Marine scrutinised them knowingly, then clicked a button to unlock the inner door. As they passed through and waited by the lift Julie asked what sort of residents merited such security measures.

‘Official secret,' Sam mumbled, touching her lips with a finger. The lift doors opened.

‘You and your secrets. I said you had too many of them.'

As the doors closed behind them, she was all over him. They kissed like teenagers, their mouths locked. A few seconds later the lift stopped with a jolt.

‘Not the penthouse, then,' she grumbled, annoyed the ride had been so short.

Sam led her along the corridor. As they entered the flat she wrinkled her nose at the smell of furniture polish. He clicked the door shut with his heel. She was standing with her back to him, peering into the flat. He slipped an arm round her waist, then with the other hand lifted the hair from the back of her neck, exposing the cirrus cloud wisps at the nape. When he kissed them, she shivered from the pleasure of it.

They shed their clothes on the way into the bedroom. Her breasts were small and round, the nipples already hard. When he kissed them she gave little sniffs of pleasure.

‘I want you inside me.' Her voice was as dry as a husk as she sank onto one of the beds. ‘Now, Sam.'

He pulled the covers back and they lay down.

‘Cos I don't know how much time we've got,' she whispered, as he moved on top of her. ‘And I don't want to waste any of it.'

THEY SLEPT FOR
a couple of hours after making love. It was dusk outside when they awoke, a purple sky visible through the open window. The temperature had dropped quite noticeably. Julie shivered and Sam pulled the covers over them.

‘I need your bathroom,' she croaked.

‘Next door along.'

He watched her shivering body as she walked from the room. Her skinny stomach and tight little rear gave her a rangy look. By the time she returned from the bathroom he wanted her again.

Julie straddled him and made love to him slowly, trying to prolong the time she had power over him. When he finally reached his shuddering end, she let her upper body fall forward, resting her head in the dip of his shoulder. As his fingers caressed the back of her head, she closed her eyes. Whether this affair lasted a week or a month, feelings this strong came rarely and they were to be savoured.

They lay quietly together, listening to the rumble of London's traffic and the occasional passing jet. Then the noise was echoed by sounds from Julie's stomach. She lifted herself off him and rolled onto her side.