Three Steps Behind You (15 page)

I nod. ‘Big new case,’ I say.

‘You’re probably never more than a few feet away from a murderer, or a rapist, in London,’ he says, looking at me.

It is my turn to shrug. I am about to take a bite of my apple but he seizes my wrist so I drop it. ‘I fancy a swim,’ he says. ‘In the ponds.’

He lets my wrist drop, too soon. Then he stands and starts unbuttoning his shirt. His eyes are locked in mine. My groin responds.

‘Tempted?’ he asks.

I step forward and the corners of his mouth twitch. A smile? No. A sneer.

I stop moving and shake my head.

‘What’s wrong?’ he laughs, undoing his trousers. ‘Got your period?’

Ah, the girl jokes. I remember those from school. They were just as funny then.

‘Got your period,’ I mimic, his echo. Then, ‘Someone needs to watch your valuables,’ I say. ‘And I’ll keep watch for snakes.’ It’s not a joke – there was an adder sighted, earlier this year.

He hands me his watch, heavy and silver. I slip my wrist into it, where it sits heavily. I take his clothes, a white shirt and chinos, and the jacket, plus my backpack (we’ve left the violin at mine so I can practise) and follow him to the water. I put my rucksack and his shoes down besides. While he swims, I lean over the edge of the pond, watching him. At one point he dives under, and I lie down to admire his muscular beauty as he swims beneath the silvery surface. I get so close to the water that I could almost kiss it. Just when I think he must be running out of air, and that if I get any closer I will fall, he swarms upwards and his own face bursts through my reflection. We stay there for a moment, frozen, almost touching, with his white shirt billowing out from my hands over the pond, while he treads water.

Then he pulls me in.

Chapter 12

I plunge into the water. Bubbles, gurgling, water in my lungs, drowning. I struggle to reach the surface and take a gasp of air but then I am being pushed down again. Adam? What? Why? I fight against it, try to push back, try not to inhale the water, but the pressure is strong. I use my new-found strength to push up, up, up as Adam pushes me down, down, down. I grab hold of his legs, two hairy pillars amongst the weeds that would entangle me, and try to pull him over, but he remains strong. I am running out of oxygen, there is nothing for it, I will have to attack his genitals. My hand advances and – oh! I am released.

I splutter up to the surface, spitting out water, phlegm and spit, rubbing my eyes from water blindness. I see a man with a whistle and a physique even tougher than Adam’s, standing over us both. The lifeguard.

‘We were just messing around,’ says Adam, grinning. ‘Horseplay.’ He ruffles my hair, then puts his arm around me, protectively, pulling me close.

Yes, of course, horseplay, I think, coughing up more water from my lungs. I nod feebly at what must be a lifeguard. I put an arm round Adam. He lets me hold him. The lifeguard probably thinks we are a couple.

‘Well, don’t,’ says the lifeguard. ‘Come on, come out.’ He leans into the water and proffers his hand. Part of me thinks I should stay here in the water, with Adam. But our games have left me tired and wheezy. I take the man’s hand and he hauls me out of the water. I must be heavy, my clothes retaining moisture, the two watches round my wrist adding extra weight. Adam hauls himself out. I try not to look at his now transparent briefs. But I see enough to remind me that Calvin Klein would be proud.

Adam bends over to fish his clothes out of the water.

‘Get your own back, mate,’ says the lifeguard, nodding his head at Adam’s vulnerable form.

I shake my head. ‘Horseplay, remember?’ I say.

Even so, as we slop through the Heath, me in my full soggy attire, Adam just in his trousers, and pass the old duelling ground, I wonder if it would be worth learning some self-defence, for Luke. For I am not sure, now, how book four will end up. And what position Luke may find himself in.

Adam jokes that I should just get the bus home in my soggy clothes, but as I know he is kidding, I jump into the passenger side of his 4x4. I will dry off at his, and change into his clothes. I imagine the warm shower, his deodorant, and a soft comforting towel, before slipping into whatever he has available.

As we turn the corner into Narcissus Road, I see a ‘for sale’ sign a few houses along from Adam’s house. Interesting. I’ll have to look into it.

Back inside Adam’s, I am not disappointed by the shower. Hot steam embraces me, and this time, I am happy to be in the water, to let it soak into my skin.

As I turn, I imagine how amusing it would be for Nicole to be behind me, watching.

I open my eyes, thinking I will be right.

She is not there. But the door to the bathroom, which I’d left open, so as not to exclude anyone, is now closed. I have been shut out.

I turn off the shower and grab a towel from the rail. I’d thought before I would move it to my face, breathe in its puffiness, before wrapping it softly round me, but that’s not a priority now. Instead, I tie it quickly round my waist, and push open the door to the bedroom. I see Nicole, on the bed, with my rucksack. Reading one of my notebooks.

For a moment, she doesn’t see me.

I start to move towards her slowly. The carpet cushions my feet and I don’t make a sound. I am almost level with her when she notices me. She looks up, gasps, and lets the book fall.

‘Looking for something?’ I ask.

She turns red. ‘Dan! Christ, sneaking up on me like that – you know I don’t like surprises!’

‘Is there a particular section you’d like to read?’ I ask.

‘Sorry, it’s just – well, I’m just being nosy. I thought you might have written something about me and Adam, or something! Sorry.’

‘Because I’d happily do a reading, when it’s finished. You can come round. I’ll cook.’

Nicole utters a series of ums and half-nos.

‘Good,’ I say. ‘That’s settled. I’ll let you know, when I’m ready. We’ll have lobster.’

I will, of course, need her round sooner than that – the climax of book four depends on her, although she is not to know that. I cannot write for Luke what Dan has not known. But perhaps I can finish book four at the end of the evening, and read it out then. If I still have an audience.

It turns out, though, that Nicole is not the only one keen to read my work. DC Huhne also wants a look. And she is more proactive. For she turns up at my house, uninvited, the next day.

Chapter 13

I decide on fencing as Luke’s special defensive skill – the one he can deploy in a crisis, if he needs to. Should there be any more horseplay. It is gentlemanly, unusual, and will show off my range as a writer. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about it. They wouldn’t teach us things like that in Feltham. Too violent. Fencing may be about grace, about gentlemen in long stone corridors saying ‘touché’ and leaping around in tight breeches. But every so often blood is drawn, red on white shirts, when tempers are frayed. And we weren’t allowed tempers in Feltham. Or it was back to our rooms for another twenty-two hours, privileges withdrawn.

I’m conscious that Luke’s face is emblazoned on posters, newspaper hoardings and the TV, and that the more I stare at it, the more it looks like me. So I go to a different Internet café from usual, in big headphones and a hoodie, and watch the instructors on YouTube.

He regards his opponent. Drenched in sweat, they circle around each other. This is no innocent parry. Luke must keep alert, focused, as he engages his steely foil with the man across from him. There is menace in his opponent’s eyes. Just for a moment. But that is long enough, and Luke thrusts forward
.

I try to map the moves under the table, but I get revolted looks from the people at the computers across from me. It is difficult to mime the thrust and charge in a seated environment renowned for pornography. Instead, I have to make do with mapping the footwork under the table. Every twenty minutes I visit the toilet to practise the moves in the mirror. This pattern also wins me some disgust from my fellow users (although others decide it is a good idea and follow suit – they are the ones who have not come here to work on their CVs).

When I feel I have learnt enough for my first day, I search for the features on Huhne that I unearthed while I was Adam’s, and print them. A dossier may prove useful. Then I run back home. I say run, but much of it is interrupted by a lunge, a flunge, a riposte or a parry, with an imaginary opponent. Or not so imaginary. We’ll see.

I am quite hot on my return, so I practise some more fencing in the shower. When I get out, I plan to do some work on the violin, maybe practise some fencing with the bow. Luke will soon be skilled enough to woo and defend the honour of any lady.

Those plans are put on hold when the doorbell rings. I am wearing some quite respectable boxers so I go to the door in them. I look through the viewfinder. DC Huhne.

I contemplate not answering, but she opens the letterbox and looks through, crotch-level. She clearly likes what she sees because she rings the doorbell again.

‘Mr Millard, would you open the door please? There’s something I’d like to ask you.’

I consider.

‘Do I need a lawyer?’ I ask.

There is a pause.

‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s about your writing.’

I open up. I see her see my ab-tastic torso, look away again and look back.

It would probably make her more comfortable if I put on some more clothes. But then, it would make me more comfortable if she wasn’t in my house. I lead her though to the sitting room as I am.

‘I haven’t finished book four yet, you know,’ I say.

‘Book four? That’s impressive!’

‘Book three! I meant book three!’

‘Still impressive,’ she says.

I do the ‘modest’ shrug I have been perfecting over the years.

‘Thing is, Mr Millard, I still don’t have your autograph, and my daughter, she’s pretty insistent.’

The famous daughter, hey? As reported in the press. Funny for a dead girl to want an autograph.

‘Quietly insistent?’ I ask, locking Huhne’s gaze.

Huhne stares back at me, not blinking. ‘If you like,’ she says.

‘Silent as the grave?’ I ask.

‘She has methods of getting what she wants. We all do. If you could include a little message, too, that would be super. I did ask, remember?’

I do remember, but I don’t care to remind her of our meeting outside Ally’s flat.

‘Does a lot of reading your daughter, does she? At the moment? Dead keen, is she?’ I ask.

‘She loves books. And she’s very impatient, like me.’

She offers me a pen and a bit of paper. I don’t take it, much as I would love to write ‘Sorry you are dead’ on it.

This seems more like a DS Pearce trick than one of hers. I tell her so.

A faint lobster tinge rises in her cheeks but she maintains eye contact.

‘Why would it be a trick, Mr Millard?’ she asks. ‘Why would I need your handwriting?’

‘Why would your daughter?’ I ask back. ‘Your dead daughter?’

Huhne stares at me. I return the stare.

‘Research is a great thing, Debbie,’ I say.

She continues to stare. Then she opens her mouth as if to speak, but she stops again. Then she manages to get words out.

‘Just the autograph please, Mr Millard,’ she says. No hint of a tremor in her voice.

I think of the steel of her heel. It runs right through her. I wonder if she will notice if I write with my left hand.

‘Ms Lomax was a bit freaked out that you were all having dinner together opposite a murder scene,’ says DC Huhne. A subject change. So she is not invincible. But nor am I. It’s a difficult subject. I must be careful.

‘Nicole gets freaked out about a lot of things, Debbie. Like the idea that I killed the first Mrs Lomax.’

‘So she keeps saying, Mr Millard.’

‘Keeps?’ I test.

DC Huhne doesn’t answer. Maybe she remembers she is meant to protect Nicole. She can protect away. It won’t make any difference.

I see DC Huhne looking at the rucksack.

‘Could I possibly have a glass of water, Mr Millard? It’s a warm day.’

She hasn’t undone her coat since she came in, but I go to the kitchen anyway. DC Huhne has clearly forgotten it is in the same place as the sitting room. I experiment with turning my back for a couple of minutes, then whizzing back round again.

The rucksack has found its way closer to DC Huhne. She is scratching her ankle, her hand staying down there when she’s done itching.

‘Your water,’ I say, handing her a glass.

‘Wouldn’t you like to put some clothes on?’ she asks. I see her glance at the rucksack, judging how far her hand is away from it, how easy it would be to get inside.

‘Yes, I would love to,’ I say, picking up the rucksack. ‘They’re in here.’ She frowns a little, her plan to look in my bag thwarted.

I wait to be told it is an odd place for clothes, but she doesn’t say anything. My hit.

I go into the bedroom and emerge again in my red cords and a T-shirt.

As I move into the living room, I realise I am clinking gently.

The keys, in my pocket.

I consider retreating again to the bedroom, but DC Huhne joins me in the corridor.

‘Nice trousers,’ she says. ‘My husband was looking for a pair like that, once. Where would I find them for him, now, if I went looking?’

Oh, the husband now. I see.

‘Seriously, your husband, Debbie?’

‘My husband was looking for a pair like that, once,’ she repeats, enunciating every syllable, as if trying to emphasise its truth. ‘Where would I find them for him, now, if I went looking?’

‘Do you find lying helps with your job, Debbie?’ I ask. ‘Makes you more credible?’

She pauses.

‘The label on your trousers, please, Mr Millard.’

‘You should get some help. See someone,’ I recommend.

‘I’d just like to see the label of your trousers. I can take a look, if you’ve forgotten,’ says DC Huhne. She raises her hands to belt level and moves towards me.

‘What would your husband say about you putting your hands down the back of my trousers?’ I ask. ‘Do you miss putting your hands down his, is that it? Is that why you want to touch me up? Shall I make a complaint?’