Frozen (22 page)

“HARRY?”

“Oh. Hi, Adam...”

“How's things?”

“Er. Yeah. Fine. I was asleep.”

“At nine o'clock! You lucky so-and-so. I'm almost at work. Anyway, I wanted to ring, see how you were. Been a few days.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah... look, Harry, I know it's going to take more than the odd phone call to get me out of the doghouse but, forgiven or not, I'm worried about you.” A sharp intake of breath. “And to be completely honest, I could do with a bit of TLC myself. This has been rough for me too, you know.”

I didn't answer.

“Harry? You can join in this conversation any time, you know...” A sigh. “Look, Harry, if there's one person in my life I'd never want to hurt, it's you. I need you, Harry. I—oh, hang on... morning, Malcolm.”

I heard the security guard's muffled response.

“Sorry, Harry. Listen, I really want to talk. Could we meet for lunch, maybe?”

“I'll call you, Adam.”

“Okay, I'll keep lunchtime free.”

“Not lunch, Adam. Sometime.”

I heard him sigh again.

“Okay. But just remember I'm here, okay? Please. And that I miss you. The last two days have been hell.”

“Bye, Adam.”

There was a long silence. Then he rang off. I crawled back to bed and stared at the ceiling.

Sam rolled over on to me, still half-asleep. She trailed her fingers over my stomach, and then her hand drifted downwards.

“Mmmmm... who was that?”

“Adam. Wants to meet.”

“Why?”

“No reason.”

Given what her hand was doing, Adam was the last thing on my mind.

“Why, though?”

“Dunno. Wants to stay friends.”

Sam was stroking slowly. I arched up, trying to strengthen the contact with her hand.

“So where was he calling from?”

“The office. Town hall.”

She brushed her lips against my neck. “Now's your chance to go and see Sarah, then, isn't it?” she murmured. “You can have the rest when you get back.”

And she kicked me out of bed.

*

Adam and Sarah lived just south of Clapham Common, in a large house on a wealthy, leafy street.

It was Sam who had insisted that I should see Sarah. Unfortunately, I knew she was right. I needed to know more about Adam and Verity's affair—and I refused to ask anything more from Adam. Also, as Sam pointed out, I was going to have to apologise for Adam's behaviour. He was, after all, still my friend... sort of. I was dreading it. The apologies would be uncomfortable; the revelations about Verity could well be unbearable. The mission could only go ahead when Adam was not there, of course, and for the last few days I had been using this as a pathetically thin excuse for not going. Sam had been needling me more and more, and this morning's escalation of the rules of engagement to include sexual frustration was... well, actually, it was rather fun. I was looking forward to getting her back to the negotiating table later.

First, though, there was the small matter of the moment I had been trying to avoid.

The air was sharp and clean, and the familiar faint roar of London traffic seemed more remote than usual. On the street itself, nothing moved. Adam's house (well, mostly Sarah's, actually; she was the one with capital) was set back from the road. It was high, white and square, with steps leading up to the front door, flanked on both sides by a sunken well that let light into a lower-ground-floor-cum-basement. Through the windows I could see a terracotta-tiled floor, and a pair of feet in socks and dark blue cargo pants, standing against a kitchen unit. I rang the bell and the feet turned and walked from view. Thirty seconds later Sarah opened the door and stared at me, her blue eyes full of calm hostility. Her hair shifted in a whisper of breeze.

One cheek was swollen and blue. Her eye was puffed to a slit.

She said nothing, just turned and walked ahead of me along the darkened hall and down the stairs to the kitchen. I shut the door behind me as quietly as I could. Ahead of me, I heard crockery clattering.

The kitchen was huge and bright, despite being half below ground, because one wall was all window, giving on to a well-lit garden. The floor was an ocean of terracotta with a breakfast bar set in the middle of it like an island. Sarah was sitting at it on a stool. She held a cup of coffee neatly in her lap with both hands. She offered me nothing—not a drink, not a seat. Her bruised cheek distorted her frown. She didn't speak. Eventually I gave up waiting and sat at another of the stools, the worktop a reassuring barrier between us.

“I didn't know,” I said. “About the affair. I had no idea.”

She jiggled her head at me—“go on,” “who cares?” and “heard it all before” rolled into one easy gesture.

“Seriously,” I persisted. “What you told me. I never even guessed.”

She smiled bitterly. The skin of her bad cheek went hard and shiny. “Why are you here, Harry?”

Good question. I wished I wasn't. I took a deep breath, conjured a vision of Sam's face if I bottled out, and went for it. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. You seemed pretty upset when you... when… er...”

“Barged in? Yes, that must have been terribly disturbing for you. I'm so sorry.” It would have been nice if she'd sounded more like she meant it. She set down her coffee and rose, fiddling with some drawers on the other side of the kitchen, doing nothing in particular.

“Adam wasn't best pleased either,” she muttered.

She must have sensed me gaping, because she snapped at me, “I
fell
, Harry. On the stairs. I'm clumsy, apparently.” Her hair framed the bruise and almost hid it. She slumped against the worktop, and her head drooped. “Sometimes I wonder if he hates me.” She spoke to the floor. A mocking smile. “And then, other times, I wonder if I hate him.”

Occasionally I'm clever enough to let other people do the talking. Today I was clever. She went on, “It's not just that Hadley woman. If it was just her I could forgive him. Maybe. But
again
and
again
and... and I'm tired of it. I'm sure she was nothing special, just his latest screw.”

“Actually, Sarah, that's the other reason I'm here.”

She stared at me blankly, then went on, as though I hadn't spoken, “I don't think he even means to be cruel, you know. But he is. Emotionally, he's cruel. But you know, the thing is, after a while you just give up being hurt. You realise that actually what you are is not hurt anymore, but really,
really
angry.”

She looked around her, and then walked over to an open shelf scattered with plants and designer crockery. She fetched down a thick handful of dinner plates—porcelain white with a thin rim of blue and gold. She held them out in front of her, and then dropped the whole pile on to the floor. The shrill sound of the crash was over quickly, but she held the pose, hands open in front of her, gazing at me, dazed. She looked down at the shards at her feet. China splinters had scattered across the tiles. A pile of jagged-edged half-moon plates lay before her, toppled to one side. She lifted her foot and stamped down on them. Her sock slid sideways and she wobbled on one leg but kept her balance. The pile did not shatter. Instead, the middle four plates squirted outwards, landing flat and sending a second wave of shards skating across the floor. Still wobbling, Sarah set down her stamping foot, with no regard for the fragments beneath it. I heard the bone-dry, high-pitched crunch of crushed ceramic as her foot settled. She wrinkled her face—half-pain, half-disgust, all control.

My heart was hammering.

“Why are you here, Harry?” Her voice was quiet.

You had to admire it. You had to be scared, too.

I spread my arms feebly. Then I did it again, because I still wasn't sure what to say. “When did you last see Verity?” I blurted at last.

Sarah looked at me for a while, and then gave a soft laugh. “Fuck off, Harry.”

“I'm serious,” I said. “You knew they were seeing each other. You had her followed. Adam told me. Just followed? Or did you try to warn her off?”

Sarah walked slowly back to the breakfast bar, limping, shards tinkling and grinding as she trod on them. There were tiny smears of blood on the tiles where her feet had been. She picked up her coffee cup and sat. Then she set it down again.

“It's not just the affairs,” she said thoughtfully. She delicately pressed one fingertip on to a knot in the wooden work surface, and then onto another. “It's not even the lying—well, he scarcely bothers with that, does he?” She tapped a couple more tiny knots, and then drew her hand back to her coffee. “It's the future. It's what happens next.”

I was confused, so I stuck to my guns. “Sarah, did—”

“Did I go to see her?” she laughed. “What the hell would that have accomplished?” She raised her hand limply, forefinger dropping over another knot in the wood. She squinted at it, so hard that she winced as her cheek pulled tight. Then she stood. More delicate crunching noises. “I'd like you to go now, Harry.”

“Look, I need to know what happened, Sarah. I know it's hard for you to—”

“
Hard
?!”

“But Verity was my
friend
. I didn't know about the affair. If I had, believe me, I'd have given anything to stop it. But it happened. Look, I... cared about Verity. A lot. And I'd just like to know what happened to her. You may be able to help.”

“Oh, I can. What happened to Verity Hadley? Easy-peasy. A poisonous little tart who got exactly what she deserved. Well, maybe not exactly. People who fuck other people's husbands in lay-bys deserve a lot worse than Beachy Head. And
bars
, too. It's so
tacky
. They couldn't even manage a decent hotel. But I shouldn't complain. He was using her, of course, and she must have been feeling miserable. That's a comfort.
Bitch
.”

She drained her coffee, and then lightly dropped the cup on to the floor to join the plates. She bent and picked up one of the pieces, frowned at it, scraped its sharp edge across her palm. It left a white line. She did it again, harder, and beads of blood oozed out. She sniffed them, looked bemused.

“I'd like you to go now, Harry,” she said again, absently, still gazing at her palm.

What she read there, I have no idea. I didn't stay to ask. I stood uneasily, and led the way back up the stairs. On the doorstep, I turned, unsure what to say. Her cut hand was clenched white at her side. “Do you think I should hate him, Harry?” She looked genuinely puzzled. So was I. I shrugged, and she nodded her understanding—although goodness knows what she understood. I made to go. I looked again at Sarah's cheek, and she touched it self-consciously. Suddenly her eyes filmed, and she covered her face.

I watched, helpless, as her shoulders shook. “Sarah... did you really fall?”

She looked up, curious, enquiring. Unreadable. She sniffed away the tears and straightened. “Remember after our wedding, Harry? Your speech.” Her eyes creased. She half closed the door then slumped against it, her uninjured cheek pressed against the flat of the white-painted wood. “You told me to look after him.” She laughed at that, sadly.

“Um. Look, Sarah—”

“Fuck off, Harry.” She sounded tired.

An aeroplane coming in to land moaned distantly. Another shone in the sky, white steel against the blue.

She began to close the door again. I turned and started down the steps. “Harry?”

I stopped, looked back at her.

“Don't tell him you've seen me this time, Harry. Please.” Her face was a mask. There was more than just fear there. More than weariness. I saw something deeper, and far more shocking.

After everything, all he had done, she still loved him.

I WAS LOOKING forward to getting back to Sam. I was on a promise, after all. But my encounter with Sarah hadn't left me feeling exactly frisky, so when Sam announced that she had other plans for me, I wasn't as frustrated as I might have been. She was dressed and ready for business.

“Done?” She quickly cleared away her coffee and newspaper.

“Done. Weird—scary, actually—but done.”

“Learn anything? Oh, never mind, you can tell me on the way.”

“The way where?”

“Unfinished business, remember?”

The unfinished business I'd had in mind had been in the bedroom. But she came over to me and pushed me gently through the front door.

“Karel Novak,” she said firmly.

Just as I had begun to get interested again.

Damn.

*

Karel Novak was the closest Sam and I had yet come to an argument.

I had only meant it idly when I'd said I should try to find him. My thoughts had been in a slow post-coital drift. Sam had answered equally idly that she had his details. I tried to ask, casually, what she was doing with his phone number. She must have felt me stiffen. “He's sexy, Harry,” she said defensively. “A girl's got to take her chances.”

“He doesn't do a thing for me,” I grumbled.

She rolled over on top of me and pressed her nose against mine.

“D'you want to find him or not?” she asked, grinding her hips against me. I felt myself rising in response.

“Mnngh...” I said, because her tongue was in my mouth. When she was finished, I added, “I suppose so, yes.”

She rolled back to her bedside table and groped beneath it for her bag.

“Anyway, you already knew I had it.”

“I did?”

“Well, how else could I have given it to the police after the break-in?”

“Point,” I conceded. And added, trying to sound casual again, and failing, “So when did he give it to you?”

She peeped over her shoulder at me, one eyebrow raised, lips twitching subtly at the corners. She had those wonderful lips that seem soft and alive, they moved with her every expression. Right now they were laughing at me. “Harry Waddell, are you jealous?” She poked me in the side. She didn't pull the jab. Her nails were rock hard and they hurt. “Harry Waddell, the great international man of mystery, seducer of women. Mr. Commitment himself—oh, don't
worry
, Harry! You, jealous!”

I huffed a few times in a wounded sort of way. I couldn't win. If I said I was jealous, I sent her all the wrong signals. On the other hand, if I denied jealousy, she'd know that I was lying.

She gave up looking for the address book and sat on top of me, wriggling herself against me comfortably. She stroked my chest and neck with one hand and reached down behind her with the other to trace a finger along my thigh.

“Relax, Harry, he's just a flirt. He gave me the number ages ago. Fancied his chances. I was pissed. I must have taken down five boys' numbers that evening. Didn't phone any of them. But you never know when you might want to. And, like I said, Karel's sexy. He's a bastard, but he's sexy.”

Her finger reached a little higher. “Now,
you
, on the other hand...”

Her hair and warm breath were tickling my face. Her skin smelt of warm sheets and the faint perfume of our sweat. I ran my hands down her sides towards her hips, over her back and the crease of her buttocks. She crushed her mouth against mine.

I could feel her smiling as we kissed.

*

But that had been then. No sex today, just unfinished business.

Karel Novak lived in a shabby house near Elephant and Castle. The road was shadowed by tall, boarded up warehouses. The house squatted between them, red brick underneath the grime. Large metal bins clustered opposite in a disused lorry bay. The rubbish overflowed on to the pavement—drifts of paper and half-eaten burgers, bent bike wheels, empty TV casings. A thick smell oozed from the pile and seeped along the street, loamy and warm, like dry yeast. The smell itself wasn't unpleasant, except when you knew where it came from.

With a nervous glance back at my car—the only one on the street, and an open invitation to whoever lurked behind the blanked-off windows—I rang the bell. Sam put her hands into her pockets and rested her chin on my shoulder while we waited. I fidgeted uncomfortably, and she pulled away, which made me feel even more uncomfortable. I hadn't meant her to.

A young man answered the door, wearing a green satin bathrobe, pink fluffy slippers and mascara. He looked us up and down, then pouted and waited for us to speak.

“Hi. Could we see Karel? Karel Novak.”

“Well, it was hardly going to be Karel Vorderman, darling, was it?” The man rolled his eyes. “Not in a dump like this,” he added, in case we hadn't got the point. He looked at us some more, stroking the lapel of his dressing-gown between forefinger and thumb.

“Is he here, then?” I asked.

Which got me another looking-over, but no reply.

“Who is it? Josephine?” someone called.

Josephine?

Boots thumped on wood flooring, and then the tatty blue mat in the hall. They belonged to a tall man in a white T-shirt and black leather trousers with high cheekbones and an unshaven chin. He peered at us over “Josephine's” shoulder.

“Is Karel in?” I asked the newcomer.

“Upstairs. Second floor,” he said. “Still in bed, the lazy bitch.”

Josephine was still in the doorway, eyeing us. “I'm not surprised he's in bed,” he said. “He can't work, can he? Not with a face like that.” He winced, pursed his lips like he was sucking a lime, nodded in satisfaction.

“Come on, Joe. Let the nice people in,” the other man said caustically.

“Do this, do that,” Joe snapped, without taking his eyes off us. “You've no sense of timing, have you, Michael? That's your problem.”

“Oh, shut up, you old tart. Get out of their way.” Michael stomped back along the hall and yelled, “Second floor!” over his shoulder. Joe tossed his head in the direction of the stairs and sashayed down the hall after Michael.

“Models,” Sam muttered to me. “They're bad enough on their own, but get two of them together...”

It hadn't occurred to me that they might be models, but thinking about it, they had both been quite good-looking, in a gaunt sort of way. Mind you, Joe's mascara was doing him no favours.

We trudged upstairs, our shoes slipping on the ratty hessian carpet, worn smooth where it wasn't worn through. On the second-floor landing there was a shabby bathroom and one closed door. We knocked. A muffled voice yelled at us to fuck off in an impenetrable accent. I walked in.

Clothes were everywhere in rumpled pools; they lapped over magazines, speakers and wires from a stereo I couldn't immediately see, empty tobacco pouches, crisps packets. I couldn't tell if the carpet was patterned because I couldn't see any of it. A large mirror balanced on top of a long low dresser. Photos—all of Karel—were slipped into the frame by their corners. At the mirror's base, a scattering of toiletries stood like offerings at a shrine. The bed was a double mattress on the floor, its smutted covers spilling into the general chaos. A bony foot protruded from the end.

Karel was lying in bed with an overflowing ashtray next to him, a magazine balanced on his knees, a television droning at him from the corner, his hairy chest and taut belly exposed to the world. Smoke from his roll-up curled into his eye and the lid flickered. He wasn't happy to see us.

“Hello, Karel,” I said evenly.

He dragged on the butt and then picked it out of his mouth, tapping the ash on to the covers, a good six inches away from the ashtray. He blew a thin cloud of smoke at us.

He didn't look good. There was a large purple bump on his forehead and his nose was swollen, smeared across his face. One eye was flushed and bloodshot. The hand that wasn't holding the cigarette was in a sling. Adam had really done a number on him. All in all, Karel deserved credit for taking our entrance so coolly.

I walked further into the room and propped myself against the dresser. Sam came in behind me. Karel eyed up Sam in much the same way Joe had looked at me downstairs. He twitched the corners of his mouth and wrapped his lips sensually round a new roll-up.

“Want to know why we're here?” I snapped.

He dragged his attention back to me. The eyelid was flicking again.

“You tell me soon, so why I bother asking? Or maybe beat up me again, yes? For fun, maybe. For make you laugh, yes?” He turned a page and began to read his magazine.

“Karel, we're not here to beat anyone up,” Sam said patiently. “And if Harry seems edgy, you'd best forgive him.
He
didn't beat you up.”

“No, he watch and think is funny,” Karel said.

He'd hit a nerve. I loathe violence, whether I'm the victim or not. I rose to my own defence.

“Listen, Karel, I'm sorry he hit you, but it's done,” I spat. “And it wasn't me, and there's nothing I can do about it. For your information, he had every right to be pissed off with you—plus
you
were attacking
us
. So live with it. We're not here to trade insults.”

He sniffed haughtily and began work on his next roll-up, a fiddly job with just one hand.

“What for, then?”

“What?”

“He means, what are we here for?” Sam said.

I began to lose the plot. I don't think I'd expected it to be easy, but this was as daft as those “talks about talks” that politicians love so much. We were getting nowhere. I put my hand to my head and tried to calm down. Deep breath.

“Okay. We're here because we want to know what happened to Verity. We think you may be able to help us.” I held up a hand to prevent Karel's anticipated reply. “I'm not going to talk about the burglary. I know what I think, and I'm not changing it, but what we want to know is when you last saw her.”

Sam slipped past me and sat on the end of Karel's bed. He raised an eyebrow and his eyes livened briefly. Sam ignored this, but spoke kindly none the less. “Karel, Verity told me weeks ago that you'd split up. But when you met Harry at the flat, you told him you were her boyfriend. Now, if you were seeing her just before she fell, we really would like to know about it.”

Karel made a noncommittal gesture, a half-jiggle, half-shrug; a trickle of tobacco spilled from the end of his cigarette. He lit up, hunching towards the flame and then blowing the smoke straight at me with a satisfied sigh. I breathed as shallowly as I could.

“She was our friend, Karel,” Sam urged. “You liked her too; I know you did. We just want to understand. If you
were
seeing her, then maybe you can help us understand why she did it.”

“I make lie,” Karel said smugly, as if that explained everything, as if it was as natural for him as being honest. There was no hint of shame. “I go to flat, want see Verity. Maybe patch up, maybe she give some money—hey, maybe we fuck.” He spread his one good hand. “Is for weeks, no money, no fuck since Verity.” Again, as normal as going to the shops. “She not there, I go in, I wait. Then
this
guy come.” He measured me with his eyes, and sneered. “This guy is so important, he say I no right be there. I think,
Hey, fuck off, this guy is little nobody bastard.
So I say am boyfriend, he is nobody. Of sudden he is crying!”

He mimed a trembling lip and wide eyes, and then laughed at me. That made him cough; he winced at a twinge in his ribs, and I felt slightly better—but only slightly. I fidgeted. I was furious. I was embarrassed. He had been jerking my strings for a laugh. If I weren’t such a wimp, I'd have hit him. Instead, I was letting him jerk the strings all over again. I was glad he still hurt from Adam's attack. I hoped it stayed that way for a long time.

“Were you seeing her or not?” Sam was as patient as ever.

He pursed his lips and ash dribbled on to his chest. He flicked it on to the covers, squinting against the smoke.

“Not.”

“Since when?” I growled.

“Since weeks. Who cares? Ask her.” Nodding at Sam.

“Verity told me that you'd split four or five weeks ago,” Sam said.

Karel fixed his gaze on her, intently. She idly returned it.

Whatever was happening between him and Sam, I didn't like it.

“So you didn't arrange to see her last Wednesday?” I asked sharply.

“Naaaah,” he replied, still leering at Sam. She looked away, but she stroked the edge of the bed, lightly back and forth. “Last Wednesday was shoot,” he continued. “Test shoot for big commercial. Arrive back London, maybe one in morning. I get job, good money.” He slapped his chest importantly—and winced. Then he growled, “Some bastard smash face up and break rib, and agency, they say, ‘Hey, no. No work now for weeks.’ Lucky for me, Joseph say no rent.”

“You can prove that, can you?” I asked caustically. I refused to be made to feel guilty about the job he'd lost—if he really had. If it hadn't been for Adam, the bastard would have attacked me. Now he was eyeing up my... my what?
Girlfriend
? Uncomfortable thought. Ignore it. Call it pride, or arrogance, or something; Sam should have been looking at me, not at him.