Sleep of the Innocent (22 page)

“Wait,” she said, breathlessly. “Don't I have a say in this? What if I didn't want to run? Wouldn't that make a difference?”

“You did want to—I could tell. I can always tell.”

“Only because you looked at me like—”

“Sh.” He turned back to look at her again. “That was temporary insanity on my part. Occasioned, I fear, by jealousy. Jealousy I had no right to.” He began to stand up.

Grainne Hunter caught the back of the couch to balance herself and stretched out her left arm in its awkward cast. “Wait,” she cried again. There was desperation in her voice. “Robin, look at me. You can't do this. You can't say things like that and then just walk out. It isn't fair.” He turned slowly back and found himself staring into her eyes. Suddenly they filled with tears. “It's just an excuse, isn't it? I've got it backward. You don't want me,” she said flatly. “I'm too covered in filth. Because of—” Her voice shook with contempt and loathing for herself, and her cheeks burned once more. “Damn it,” she said, and let herself fall onto the pillow.

“Oh, Annie,” he murmured helplessly and sat down again. “What in hell am I supposed to do?” He lifted her gently by the shoulders and pulled her toward him; she turned her unhappy face in his direction. Without pausing to think, he kissed her eyes, letting the salt of her tears linger for a moment on his tongue, and then brushed her lips tentatively with his own. He felt a tremendous shudder run through her; her lips swelled and softened in response, and her body pressed against him, melting into his. He released himself gently for a moment. “I've never wanted anyone or anything more desperately in my entire life,” he said, his voice uncertain. He looked up at some invisible censor hovering above him. “Dammit, I tried. You can't say I didn't try.” Giving up at last, he pushed her nightgown up, running his hands over her with ferocious hunger. She raised her right arm and ducked out of the voluminous garment, sliding it awkwardly over the cast. He lowered her gently back down and regarded her for a moment. It was the first time he had allowed himself to see her as anything but a collection of hurt places and surfaces that needed to be kept clean and dry. In that gentle side light, casting its shadows across the planes of her body, she was awesomely beautiful. He ran an exploratory finger lightly between her breasts and down across her concave belly before standing up abruptly.

She lay back, watching him with solemn eyes as he pulled off his boots and heavy sweater and struggled impatiently with shirt buttons and belt buckle.

As much as he wanted to prolong gentle preliminaries, to prove to her, somehow, that his affection would wait for months if need be, his gallantry was a dismal failure. He tossed his clothes on the floor and slipped down beside her quietly, suddenly afraid of her pallor and fragility and determined again to hold back. It was a foolish notion. At his first tentative touch, she turned to him, energized with a fierceness he could not hope to withstand. She pulled him to her; he abandoned thought, consideration, technique. They clung to each other like drowning swimmers for a few brief minutes until her low-pitched sobbing cry and final spasm carried him along with her, and it was over. Then, guiltily, he tried to ease his weight away, but she fastened her lips on his and wrapped her arms more tightly around him. He fell to the side, carrying her with him, and she slowly released her grip. It occurred to him, looking over at her as he searched with one hand and his feet for the eiderdown to pull over her, that he had probably never made love with less finesse and skill in his life, or with more passion.

She lay curled against his side, her plaster cast lying across his chest like a bandolier, and her head on his shoulder. “I was right. You really are beautiful,” she said. “Especially with your clothes off. Much too elegant-looking for me, I'm afraid,” she added, with a small noise that he finally identified as a giggle.

“Well,” he said, “handsome is as handsome does, as someone said. And you can't have been that impressed. Next time, I won't be so anxious.”

“Impressed?” She paused for a moment and hid her face in his shoulder. “This is the only time in my life someone has made love to me because I wanted him to.” Her voice was almost too soft to hear. “It was . . . it was a . . . a revelation. I really didn't know what it could be like.”

“Are you serious, Grainne?” he said, raising himself up on his elbow to look at her.

She nodded.

“Well, I wasn't just doing you a favour. I wanted you so desperately, I couldn't think. And since I pride myself on my sophistication and technique, that's a very embarrassing confession to make. Next time will be better—we'll have all the time in the world to think about each other.”

“But all I wanted was you,” she said. Then, with a sly sideways look, she added, “And how does it feel to be a sex object, Sergeant? Loved for your beautiful body and golden hair?”

He half sat and looked down at her. “You're not bad-looking yourself,” he said, and found his voice beginning to do odd things on him again. “A little scrawny, maybe, and a trifle beat-up looking, but otherwise, the most beautiful woman I ever saw in my life.”

“Except for my hair.”

“Except for your hair. I hate that color. How long is it going to take you to grow it out?”

“It might look better when I wash it—maybe. You want to try? Oh, Robin, can we? You'll have to help me, or I'll get my bandages wet. It'd be easy if we had a flexible shower head.”

“I think there is one,” he said. “In the other bathroom.” And so there they were. In the bathroom, with the heat turned up, and Grainne sitting on the floor on two folded towels, with Lucas kneeling beside her, distracted and amused to the breaking point by their nudity and the situation, holding the shower head and staring at her massive quantity of hair as it spilled into the tub. “Now what?” he asked.

“Get it wet, you idiot,” she said laughing. “Didn't you ever wash your hair? It's not sex-specific, you know. It's just hair.” She reached out with her right arm and poked him in the ribs. “To work.”

“Okay. Here goes. Don't blame me if I mess it up.” He began to wet the ends very cautiously; then with added confidence he worked his way up to her scalp.

“That feels marvelous,” she murmured. “I feel as if my hair hasn't been washed in years. Now get the shampoo,” she added in a brisker, more practical voice. “Don't skimp—I have a lot of hair.”

He set down the shower head, flipped open the cap, and squeezed a long, sticky pink ribbon of shampoo smelling of herbs and nut oil onto her wet hair. He considered it a moment and squeezed another smaller ribbon onto a different place. “You're sure you want me to—”

“Robin, I can't do it with one hand. And it's too late now. Once you begin, you have to finish it properly.”

He started with a tentative circling motion on top of her head; not much happened. He took a courageous breath and plunged his fingers into her hair, rhythmically rubbing her scalp, creating mountains of foam, which he coaxed farther and farther along her hair until they diminished to a trickle and dried up.

Be squeezed out more shampoo, picked up the curling strands—almost waist-length and almost straight under the weight of the water—and let them run through his soapy the edge of the tub, stretching out her long pale throat; he bent over and kissed her, a warm, lingering, damp kiss, moving his hands up to massage her scalp. “Is that enough?” he asked at last, piling the sudsy mass up on top of her head.

“Enough?”

“Washing. Do you think your hair's clean?”

“My hair,” she said, startled. “I'd forgotten about it for a moment. It should be. Now rinse the hell out of it.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said. He picked up the shower head and looked at her. “If you got in the tub, with your cast over the side, and your bandaged foot over the back, I could give you a shower. Let me lift you in.” Without waiting for a reply, he picked her up, set her carefully in the tub, and began running the warm water all over her.

She lay back, her eyes closed, passive, motionless, and devoid of expression. He began to wonder if she had fallen asleep. “Don't forget my hair,” she murmured at last. “Or it'll get dried out and sticky.”

He turned the water onto the piled-up mass on top of her head, watching mesmerized as it fell down, curl by curl. He brought the spray close to her scalp, driving the thick suds out. But as the shampoo ran off in streams of water, so did her hair color. Up to a point. A well-defined point, about six inches down each dripping lock. “Jesus,” he said. “Annie, all the color is washing out of your hair.”

“Oh, that,” she said. “That's just the black goop I put on to cover the roots. It washes out.”

“Your hair's brown.” He said this flatly, almost accusingly.

“I know it's brown. It's my hair, after all.” She opened her eyes wide, prepared for battle. “What's wrong with brown hair?”

He ignored the question. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Do with it? What do you mean?”

“Are you going to dye it again?”

“No, I hate it that color. When the roots are long enough, I'll cut off the black ends.”

“You mean, like now. The roots are long enough now, Annie. Just a minute.”

Fifteen minutes later Grainne Hunter was sitting in the living room, on her bed, wrapped in an eiderdown, and staring at herself in a small hand mirror. What she saw was a pair of gray eyes surrounded by an undisciplined mass of damp, light brown hair. At that moment, Robin came in with a paper bag, containing an enormous pile of wet black hair. “What would you like me to do with it?” he asked.

“Let's start a fire—a really big fire—and burn it,” said Grainne. “The end of Carl Neilson.” A shadow flickered across her face. “And then eat. I am absolutely starved. Aren't you?”

He knelt by the bed and took her hands, the one half-encased in plaster of Paris and the long, slender one, and kissed them each in turn. “You are so beautiful, and funny, and clever, and sexy, I can't stand it. But yes. A huge fire, and a monstrous meal. And champagne, if I can find any. Because, my darling, you are never going to get rid of me. And if you won't marry me, I shall become one of those bachelors in evening clothes who goes to all of your concerts and sends you bushels of flowers, until I gradually fade away into a little pile of devoted dust.” He let go her left hand and placed a silencing finger on her lips. “Don't say anything. I don't want to ruin this day with arguments. Besides, I have to start a fire.”

The late-afternoon sun poured through the only west-facing window that Lucas had left unshuttered. Yesterday's scare—although in retrospect rather anticlimactic—had been salutary. It had reminded him that the castle drawbridge was worse than useless if you couldn't get it raised before the enemy rode in. Not every vehicle coming down that road was going to give ten minutes warning time of its approach. Nevertheless, he had risked building another fire in the baronial fireplace. And here they luxuriated, Rob propped up against the side of the sofa bed, Grainne stretched out beside him, her head on his lap, watching the flames, drowsy with satisfied desire.

“We can't stay here forever, I'm afraid,” said Rob, leaning over to brush her cheek with his lips.

She yawned. “Why not? I mean, at least until your friend's sister-in-law comes back. Does anyone mind? Or is the food running out?”

“It's not a question of anyone minding. It's a question of anyone finding out where we are. These beautiful fires are producing smoke for all the world to see. Our friend's ma could get suspicious and send out the cavalry.” He tried to sound lighthearted and amused. “I have to get in touch with Toronto and find out what's going on.”

Her reaction was even worse than he had feared. She stiffened in alarm; he could feel her trembling, even though her voice was almost steady. “Does that mean you're planning to take me back to the city?”

“Listen to me, Grainne. It's all right. We won't show our faces until they're all in jail—everyone who's after you. And if that means never, then never. We can go anywhere, you know. London, Paris. We don't have to stay in North America.” He leaned over again and playfully ran a finger down her nose. “How does Oxford sound? I was thinking of going to Oxford once. Or Italy or Germany? Surely there must be superb vocal coaches all through Europe.”

Grainne pushed herself up on her good elbow and stared at him. A peculiar look crossed her face. “You make it sound so . . . so plausible,” she said. “As if one could just throw a few things in a bag and take off for Florence or London or Salzburg.”

“What's wrong with that? One can. Do you have a passport? Somewhere in that mess of stuff I brought along?”

“Yes, I have a passport,” she said crossly. “Of course. Not here. It's in my safe-deposit box. That's not the problem. Robin, my pet—and you are a pet, you know—what would we live on? You can't count on getting jobs over there, you know. There are all kinds of restrictions.” He opened his mouth to respond, and she cut him off ruthlessly. “And don't tell me fellowships. They're chancy and take months to apply for. You've been too isolated working for the police force. Stuck in your little ivory tower with a government job and a regular pay check. You have no idea what it's like being poor—really poor. So poor, you can't pay your rent, you've got no cash to buy groceries, and you have no idea when the next check is coming in. It's soul-destroying. You simply don't understand the financial realities of this world.” The tension had begun to seep out of her muscles as she talked. She lay down again and then flopped over on her belly, her chin resting on her good arm. He reached over and started to rub her neck and her shoulders.

“I have some money,” he said cautiously to the back of her head. “In the bank, I mean. Apart from my salary.”

“And how long would that last?” Her voice was slightly choked and muffled from the effects of the massage. “Oh, Robin, that's sweet of you—and I'd love to throw in my couple of thousand, and we could take a holiday and go to Europe, but in the end we'd have to come back and—”

He straightened up, releasing his hold on her, and scratched his ear. “It should be enough to live on. Or it was the last time I looked.”

“Exactly how much money are we talking about?” said Grainne sharply, raising her head and looking suspiciously at him.

“Well, something over a million.” He paused and then went on very rapidly. “To be precise, it was a million and a half when I was twenty-one—which was when I got it—and I haven't spent any of it, so the interest keeps being reinvested. And my grandfather left me some as well. It's probably quite a lot now. I don't bother looking at the statements.” By this time Rob Lucas's face was scarlet.

“A million and a half dollars!” Grainne looked appalled. “We are talking about dollars, aren't we, not pesos or lire?” He nodded, still red and uncomfortable-looking. “Why not spend any of it? And why are you living like an ordinary mortal when you've got all that cash?”

“Well, first of all, you know, it's not
that
much money. And I didn't spend it because my father set the trust fund up for me, and I was furious at him at the time. It sounds very childish, doesn't it?”

She stared at him without answering.

He went on doggedly. “My mother had just left him, and I assumed that it was his fault. And then a couple of years later he married a thirty-year-old leggy blonde who thinks it's cute and funny to try and seduce me—and that made me even more furious.”

Grainne considered this outpouring of information and settled on one portion of it. “Was it your father's fault?”

“I don't suppose so. Not entirely, anyway. I think my mother was bored. She went off and had herself rejuvenated, and now she bops around the Mediterranean with beautiful young men, looking terrific and having a wonderful time. Or so she says when she calls. She's terrified that I'll come to visit her—she's trying to pass herself off as under forty.”

“And that would be difficult with you around?”

“Sure. It would have made her ten or twelve when I was born. And in answer to the question you didn't ask, I'm twenty-eight years old and in excellent health. I have a university degree (Trinity College, history); I have no neuroses or peculiarities except the ones you have already noticed. But I do have too much money, if that's a problem. And this is the first time in my life that I've been grateful for it, because it means that we really can go away—far away—until this country is safe for you.”

“Whatever made you join the police force?” she asked, her eyes wide in amazement. “Instead of traveling around Europe or whatever it is rich people do.”

He turned to stare into the fire in embarrassment. “Bloody-mindedness, I guess. Everyone was so damned sure that I would go to law school or into the diplomatic or something nice and prestigious like that. You know—my son, the ambassador to Tehran,” he said bitterly. “Because I wasn't stupid and did well at school. I couldn't think of any career that would shake up my parents more. At least, any career that appealed to me. And it did. It was fascinating.” He stopped and looked with some alarm at the expression on her face. “Does it bother you?” he asked. “That I have all that money, I mean.”

“Yes, I think it does. Now I'll always wonder if I fell for you because you're rich—”

“Nonsense. You fell for me against sense and better judgment when you thought I was just a dumb sergeant in the police force. And when I said I was going to marry you, you had visions of yourself with a string of babies, struggling along on a policeman's salary—which isn't as bad as you think, by the way—and lamenting your lost singing career. Don't deny it—I saw it all running across your face. Now you find out I'm rich, and you decide that you can't have me because it would be immoral. Come on, Grainne. I'm still the same person. There could be strings of babies if you wanted, only we could afford a nanny. And that would mean you could still study. Money's not all bad. And having spent a lot of time and energy chasing you all over the countryside, I am not anxious to let you go.” By now he was breathless.

“But why do you have to get in touch with Toronto? As soon as they hear from you they'll start searching even harder for us. For me.”

“Look, Grainne, you don't want to
have
to leave. All right? I've nothing against living in Europe if we want to, in fact, nothing against living in Europe if we have to, but the best solution is to dispose of the people who are after you. Legally.” He took a deep breath and grasped her hand. “You must know something, Grainne, something that can get them caught and convicted—otherwise they wouldn't be so anxious to find you. If we can get that information back to the department, to the right people at the department—”

“Who is it?” she asked quietly. “The wrong person in the police department?”

“I don't know,” he said, with a certain desperation in his voice. “But there's only one person who saw all my reports, who insisted on knowing everything I knew almost before I knew it—and getting around him is going to be a hell of a problem. But it can be done, if you'll tell me what you know. Grainne, if you didn't see anything, then what did you hear?”

“Only gunfire. And then their voices when they were searching the apartment. They were sure I was there because of that stupid perfume and everything, but they didn't find me.”

“What did they talk about?”

“Just that. The fact that I was there, and then they crashed around swearing because they couldn't find me.”

“Men?”

She shivered. “I think so. Both of them. Although one was fairly short. Still, he moved like a man, I think. I'm not positive, though.”

“I thought you said you didn't see them?”

“Not there. I saw them at the cabin. Their faces were covered with ski masks, but the one with the loud voice was a really big guy—as big as you, maybe bigger. The other was smaller. Thin build, maybe five foot nine.”

“Not that small.”

She shook her head. “Only in comparison with the first one. And he was strong. They both were.”

How strong was strong, compared to Grainne? Not very, he concluded. Irrelevant detail. He was getting nowhere, fast. “And they didn't say anything you can remember?”

“They wanted to know what I had told you.”

“Me? Did they mention me by name?” His mind raced through the other people who had known he had interviewed her, trying to come up with one who was five nine and wiry.

“I can't remember. I can't remember if they said your name or just called you the cop who interviewed me.” She rolled over and looked up at him with a worried frown. “Sorry.”

“That's okay.” He smoothed her forehead with a gentle hand. “Did they say anything else?”

She shook her head.

“Well, how about Neilson? Maybe he said something. Was he expecting them to turn up?”

She closed her eyes. When they opened again, they were suspiciously damp, but she was looking at him with steady calm. “Something was going on that afternoon.”

He opened his mouth to ask, and she raised a hand.

“Let me just tell you what I can remember before you interrupt me. Now, it was something big. Because there was champagne in the refrigerator. I'd never seen him be that extravagant before. And he was in a wild mood, prancing around like a billy goat, pleased as hell with himself. He brought a huge wad of money out of his pocket right after he poured the wine and peeled off twenty-five hundred dollars in fifty- and hundred-dollar bills. He told me to put it toward my pension, and then he laughed like crazy. I shoved it in my skirt pocket, and he thought that was pretty funny, too.” She paused for a moment, staring into the fire before recommencing. “And then he said that he was getting the last installment on his pension that afternoon as well, and he hoped that I would spend mine as happily as he was going to spend his. Which I took to mean that he had a very big deal closing that afternoon. Money affected him like that. He hadn't touched his wine, and already he was higher than a kite. I think that was all, except that when they knocked on the door, he told me to hide in the bathroom. He didn't want them to know there was anyone in the apartment with him. The rest you know.” She turned her head away to avoid his eyes.

Lucas thought of the tangled bedclothes and the thick reddened lips of the corpse. What she had told him was far from all; he was profoundly grateful for that.

“Why did he call it a pension?” he asked, hastening to break the thickening silence growing between them.

Grainne's voice had become brittle; she propped her head up on her arm and stared ahead of her into the fire. “I don't know. I didn't think about it at the time, and I've been trying very hard not to think about it since. A pension. I assumed he was referring to the amount.”

“Could he have been giving you the golden handshake?”

Her head swiveled in his direction; her eyes widened in surprise for a moment, and then she giggled suddenly. “Firing me? With two months' pay in lieu of notice? What a bizarre thought. I suppose he could have been. Farewell performance, lights out, and it's back to auditions on Monday? When you put it that way, it's quite possible.”

“It sounds as though he was expecting someone to turn up with a huge amount of money, and then he was planning to take off. Somewhere pleasant. But not, thank God, with you.” He picked up her hands. “Grainne, let me ask this one thing—and then, I swear, I'll never mention it again. Just tell me why you got involved with him. If you know.”

“You really want to know?”

He nodded.

“And you'd never mention it again?” Her voice was heavy with scorn. “It wouldn't be your favourite subject every time you're angry or irritated?”

“I'm positive,” he said calmly.

“Well,” she said, an edge of doubt creeping into her voice, “if you want me to talk about it, I suppose I'd better get it over with.” She turned her head away from his gaze and then grabbed a blanket to pull defensively over her. “I certainly know why I did it,” she said flatly. “I was broke, I owed two months' rent, and my father had died. As far as I could see, I was facing stark poverty, and there was no one, basically, to ask for help.”