Absolution (17 page)

She could have been twelve years old, waiting for him outside school again.

He reached out with both hands, cupping her face, holding it up to the light and the rain so that he could see her
clearly. Nothing had changed. He frowned slightly and pulled the wig from her head.

Blonde hair tumbled to her shoulders.

His angel was back. She smiled as he pulled her face to his, kissing her deeply and passionately, biting into her face. Her thin arms moved round his waist, the cloak falling from her shoulders to the ground. He could feel the erotic slenderness of her pelvis, her ribs through her dress, the tenderness of bone moving beneath his fingers. She smelled of the sea and of salt and of home. He needed that more than he needed oxygen, more than life itself. His cheek felt wet, her tears mixing with the rain as the light grey eyes filled and overflowed. She looked frightened. Only then did he understand that maybe the last four years had been hard for her too. He kissed the tears from her cheek, tasting salt on his tongue.

Then, pulling at her lips with his, his hands moved down, feeling the thinness of her spine, the curve of her hips, fingers walking their way down, then up…

She did not stop him.

He realized that she was wearing no underwear; in fact, she was wearing hardly any clothes at all. His breathing quickened. She paused, pulling away from him, and then tugged at the belt round his waist, trying to undo the buckle with fingers made clumsy by passion. His heart was light; she wanted him as much as he wanted her. He leaned against her, hard, pinning her to the wall as he undid the belt himself, his hands moving hurriedly, not wanting to lose any contact with her body. Then he took her hands in his, opening them out to her sides. He stood, looking at her spread against the wall as if crucified, strands of blonde hair falling over her face, grey eyes staring directly back at his, wide and vulnerable. An erotic Madonna. She pulled him
back into her, and he slipped his hands under her bottom, lifting her from the ground. She gasped, whether with pain or pleasure he couldn’t tell and didn’t care. He felt her small teeth bite into his neck, her nails grip on to his arm. Four years, a long time to be away from this. He breathed her in, the smell of her, gasping, tasting her, biting her. Then it was over, too quickly. Gently he lowered her back to the ground, catching his breath, and simply held her as though he would never be able to let her go. He felt her body stiffen against his. Her hand tapped on his shoulder, a warning.

He nuzzled closer to her neck, but she slid out from underneath him and leaned out to look down the alleyway. In one movement she had picked up the wig and coiled her hair underneath it, pulled the cloak back around her and stepped into her shoes. Then she was gone down the lane, careering straight into two policemen.

She turned on them, her face dark and angry, chin up and petulant before storming off, soaking her shoes in the puddles.

Sean looked after her, her slight figure receding, walking away. The two beat constables looked at Sean, who had just about got his belt buckled, and smiled at each other.

The digital clock flicked over to three fifteen. McAlpine sat up, and heaved his feet out from under the duvet and on to the floor. His head was pounding. He picked up the bill for the room service, a bottle of Pinot Grigio, smoked-salmon salad, a bottle of Taittinger. All at Turnberry prices. Natalie had insisted on it, saying she was used to five-star hotels now. Now.

Now what?

Now she thought she had him in her little claws.

Beside the clock was his mobile, the display blank. He
picked it up and stared at it, as if the act of looking would bring it to life. She had turned it off. The stupid cow had turned his mobile off! He began to hit it slowly off his forehead.

He had to distance himself from this, from her.

He stilled as she moved, turning over under the duvet, exposing a bare brown satin shoulder. She was lovely but empty, and he had had enough of her. She was asleep and quiet, though she wouldn’t stay that way. Like the rest, she was young and blonde and beautiful. The artistry of the surgeon had to be admired. Pity he had neglected to sew up her mouth.

He looked at the folded curves of the sheet shaping into her body, the contour of her thighs, her stomach rising and falling. He put his hand on the fine cotton that covered her feet, feeling their warmth, a gentle pulse. Anna, deathly quiet for weeks on end. A yes. A no. But a thousand times more interesting. He sat down on the side of the bed, wishing it was another year, another time, and that he was sitting on another bed with another blonde. One so quiet and so perfect. This one so manufactured and so cheap. He put the mobile down, and started to pull notes from the roll of twenties in his wallet. As he closed it, the light of the digital clock caught the picture of Helena tucked into the billfold.

‘It’s all shite,’ he said loudly, his tongue revelling in the noise. ‘All shite.’ His mind drifted back to the Crucifixion Killer. What had Batten called him – Christopher Robin? McAlpine wondered if this was what went through his mind. Women. Anger. Hatred.

Power?

He held his hand out over the sleeping woman. He could crush her throat with the palm of one hand, right now.

Tempting.

Drunkenly he rose to his feet, got more or less dressed in the dark and swung his jacket over his shoulders, not trusting himself to get his arms down the correct sleeves. He looked away.

Anna? What would she have looked like now, if she had survived?
Anna.

He had to distance himself from this.

He was going to get a drink.

Helena had had another restless night. Her body was tired, she was emotional, and she ached for sleep. She had tried a glass of wine and a warm bath with lavender oil, before resorting to Zimovane. Just as the sleeping tablet was taking effect, the storm hit Glasgow and she was wide awake again. She had no idea where Alan was; his mobile was turned off, and the station didn’t know his whereabouts. She had even phoned Colin, who had been polite but vague. She rolled over, pulling the pillow beneath her head. Then over her head as the wind gusted again. She gave up on sleep and got up. Pulling on a pair of jeans and an old black jumper of Alan’s, she padded down to the kitchen, switched on the kettle and walked away, forgetting all about it. She poured a glass of red wine and picked up a box of Carswells’ truffles somebody had brought for the dinner party. She didn’t like them, but she took one out anyway, sitting on the edge of the sofa and nibbling at the chocolate. She wondered where all the rain was coming from. She wondered about the exhibition. She wondered about the small treacherous lump that had no right to be there.

She picked up the bottle of wine and, tucking the box of chocolates under her arm, walked towards the window. The traffic was quiet on the Great Western Road, the occasional orange tail light glittering in the rain. No cars pulled into
the terrace, and she leaned against the wooden shutters, annoyed at herself for looking and hoping. There was no point; he wasn’t coming home. Suddenly lightning silhouetted the street, pointing out to her that her car was missing.

The commissionaire of the Turnberry Hotel held the door open for him, offering the cover of an umbrella for the short walk to the car park. McAlpine refused politely.

‘If you’re heading up the coast road, sir, just take care. It’s a bad road, and there’s a fair blow on.’

McAlpine thanked him.

In the car park, away from the shelter of the building, the wind had whipped itself up to gale force, the rain slashing across the golf links and up on to the car park in horizontal sheets. Alan McAlpine held his jacket over his head as he ran to the BMW.

‘Sober, sober, sober,’ he said to himself, thanking God it was Helena’s car and had remote locking; it could almost drive itself. He concentrated hard to press the key fob and then to aim it at the car, his thumb missing the black button. It took ages to bleep.

McAlpine tumbled in, pulling his wet hair back from his face. He felt a little better, refreshed after a cold power shower of Scottish rain. He adjusted and readjusted the mirror to look behind him, taking care to fire the engine and select reverse, and drove out of the space in what he hoped was a sedate manner, not the over-cautious of the mildly drunk or the slapdash of the too-pissed-to-care. He turned north and drove into the darkness, heading towards the coast road, towards the city, as the clock clicked round to 3.30 a.m.

‘No, we can’t!’

‘Yes, we can. Come on, it’ll be great.’

‘No way!’ But the girl was laughing and letting him pull her along, her head back, face up to the sky, letting the rain drizzle down her face, dragging her make-up with it.

The lightning flashed again, and momentarily the world turned black and white, showing up her white skin and panda eyes.

‘You look like Alice Cooper.’ He laughed, one hand dragging her, the other round her shoulders, guiding her along. She held her skirt down against the wind, her knees knocking together as her high heels clipped unsteadily along the cobbles of Whistler’s Lane.

‘Here! In here.’ They ran up the lane, the girl stumbling as her stiletto caught on a cobble, and turned into the yard of the supermarket, where they were sheltered from the worst of the wind. The rancid smell of decay, rotting veg and sour milk, hung heavy in the air, making their stomachs churn. But beyond that lay a stack of pallets under a tent of tarpaulin.

‘We can have this place to ourselves,’ he said, pulling out a pile of flattened cardboard boxes waiting to be bound.

She was holding her nose. ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this; that smell is disgusting.’ She wound her hair over her face, then round her neck in mock strangulation, her coat hanging open, the way she pulled her arms pushing her breasts together. She couldn’t stop laughing.

The boy advanced, his hands wriggling. ‘And where are the
r-r-rats,
my dear?’ he questioned her in his best Vincent Price accent.

She shrieked, playing her part. ‘My dear sir! What would you want with a maiden like me?’ She held the back of her hand to her forehead, her chest heaving in the best Hammer House of Horror tradition.

The wriggling fingers came closer. ‘Rats, my dear! Rats,
and more rats! Don’t worry, I’m here to protect you,’ said Peter Cushing, putting his arm round her. She nestled into his neck, eyes wide, as with his other hand he pulled the tarpaulin free. ‘Look out for the rats! They could come creeping up your leg and under your – ’

She started screaming. A moment later, so did he.

Rain, rain and more rain, it was bloody everywhere. He could hardly see the convolutions of the road in front of him. The rear end of Helena’s Five Series seemed to have problems gripping the road, and McAlpine sobered up more quickly than he would have thought physiologically possible. Then he realized it was the strength of the wind catching the car side-on as the isolated road was exposed on the contour line of the hill. He drove on past the dunes, past the links at Turnberry. The Golf Club and the hotel had disappeared behind him into the whirl of wind and rain. Pushing his foot down, he turned up the road to Culzean, Croy, the Electric Brae and then to the Heads of Ayr. He concentrated, fighting sleep, fighting drink, fighting nausea, as the car jerked sideways with every gust of the gale. The windscreen wipers danced madly, barely clearing the water from the glass. He drove, fingers gripped on the leather wheel, eyes straining as the road, the clouds and the sea merged, water coming at the car like some breathless animal desperate to get in.

It was as dark as he had ever seen. He leaned forward, wiping the inside of the windscreen with the back of his hand. The car’s back end shuddered violently, and he pulled on the steering wheel, the road suddenly twisting and rising. The battering of water on the windscreen came and went as the car turned headlong into the wind, rain coming at the glass by the bucketful.

He was fully awake now, and he could not ignore the bile
rising in his throat. Bright diamonds of water danced in front of him: now you see them, now you don’t. Desperate for fresh air, he reached for the button to open his window, but his fingers couldn’t find it. He glanced at the dashboard display; the speedo was reading seventy. He flicked the switch for the passenger window, and it hummed open two inches, then jammed. The CD player burst into life; he’d pressed the wrong button, and Orff filled the car.
Carmina Burana,
Helena’s favourite. Soundtrack from
The Omen
to him. He smiled to himself, wiped the inside of the windscreen again, making the shape of a smile with the back of his hand, and started to laugh. He pushed the car up to the next corner, braking at the last minute, the sliding rear end gaining momentum as it rounded the bend. He dotted a couple of eyes over the smile in the condensation. The car over-straightened, and the engine shrieked as it aquaplaned, fighting the weight as the back of the car started to slide. He over-corrected, the front whiplashed round quicker than his reflex response, and the car began to spin like a waltzer into the darkness.

Helena pulled a pristine sheet of Ingres 47 from its pad and pinned it on to her board, smoothing her fingers over it, comforted by its familiar grain. She watched the chiaroscuro shadows of her hand as the lightning flashed through the Velux. Two bright flashes – she blinked – then it passed. Only the stair light remained, highlighting the shadows in the room. If she hadn’t lived here all her life and known the house to be a kind one, she would have shivered at her ghostly thoughts. The power of the storm invigorated her, just as it had invigorated Mary Shelley, whose Dr Frankenstein had created his monster on such a night as this. She must create too, from the heart, something ethereal,
instinctual, primal. Something to suit the moment. She lifted the bottle again, took a good mouthful, swilling the Merlot round her mouth. She watched for the lightning, counting
a hundred and one, a hundred and two,
until the thunder, and then she swallowed. It was getting closer. She toyed with the idea of opening the windows and letting the rain in, but she wasn’t as drunk as that.