For some reason, he couldn’t rid himself of the image of the pathologist sitting across from him last night. Her smile, her laughter, her tears. Those dark eyes, and her crinkled black hair drawn back from a handsome face. How unfair it was. After all, he was the one who was dying. The one without a future. Sita had two children who relied on her. And she was still young, with her life lying, in large part, ahead of her. And yet she was the one who lay dead in the kitchen. Crammed unceremoniously into a chill cabinet for cakes and desserts, while he had escaped death just hours earlier in an avalanche. And he couldn’t help but feel guilty. Not, for once, as the result of something he had done, or said. But just for being. For surviving.
He should never have come here. Addie had created a life for herself. A family. He had no right to come barging in to ruin yet more lives. He was just a selfish bastard. He was the one who deserved to die. Not poor Sita, leaving her children to the fate of orphans. Tears filled his eyes, and he blinked furiously as they left shiny tracks down his cheeks.
He took a deep breath and screwed his eyes shut, and felt the silence of the International Hotel weigh down on him like a reproach. A log shifted in the fire and sent sparks spiralling up the chimney. A slight blowback produced a small puff of smoke that rose to the ceiling. He could smell it above the damp and the perfume of stale alcohol.
When he opened his eyes again, he saw Addie in his reflection in the glass. He’d had the chance to break his silence when they were on the mountain this afternoon. But he had flunked it, knowing she wasn’t ready to listen. Not yet. And even if one day she was, he wondered if he would ever have the courage to tell her the truth.
He closed his eyes again to shut her out, and remember...
Chapter Fifteen
I suppose you might call it an obsession. I couldn’t get her out of my mind. She was in my thoughts all day, in my dreams at night. I’m sure that even then, Tiny must have guessed I was smitten. I mean, I never said anything to him, but he knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t right. Couldn’t concentrate on anything.
I would go home after my shift and watch some streaming movie, and see her face in every actress with long hair. And when I woke up in the morning, I would find myself wondering if she was awake yet, and if he’d hit her the night before. It drove me mad. Until I couldn’t stick it any longer.
I had a couple of days off at the end of that week, and I drove across the city to Cranhill on the first afternoon. From a parking spot next to the Cranhill Community Centre on the edge of the park, I could see up Soutra Place to the tower block where she lived with Jardine. I knew which was his car, because I’d checked it out on the police computer earlier in the week. A pillar-box red Mazda MX-5 two-seater roadster. He liked his cars, did Jardine. Worked at a bookie’s in town, so he couldn’t have been earning that much. But the Mazda was brand new, just a couple of months old, so it was well seen where his financial priorities lay. The year before, he had lost his licence for twelve months for drink driving, so I figured he was being careful not to get into the Mazda if he’d a drink in him. Which must have been hard for an alkie. Because I’d no doubt that’s what he was. Just shows what you can do when you’ve a mind to.
Anyway, it was sitting there in the parking slots for the tower, and I settled down to wait. It was after two when I saw him walking to his car from the entrance, wearing a duffle coat and jeans, and white sneakers. His face was pasty-white beneath that black hair of his, and he’d probably have described the unshaven state of his face as designer stubble. But to me, he looked like he’d just got out of bed.
I heard him pump the accelerator to make the engine growl. I figured he liked that sound, cos he did it several times before putting her into gear and reversing out into Soutra Place at speed. Into first then, and he accelerated hard to the give-way lines at Bellrock Street, barely pausing to look before turning right and powering away up the hill. I almost ducked, afraid he would see me, but he never gave my motor a second glance, and I sat for a good ten minutes after that before turning the key in my ignition and cruising slowly up Soutra Place to park a few slots away from where Jardine left his Mazda.
The lift was working again, and I rode it up to the fifteenth floor accompanied by the smell of urine. I saw the shock in Mel’s face when she opened the door to me. And then panic, as she leaned past me to squint down the hall.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Just checking that you’re okay.’
‘Come in,’ she said quickly, and took another glance along the hall to make sure nobody had seen me. She shut the door and pressed herself back against it. She was wearing a towelling robe, and her hair hung in wet ropes over her shoulders. I reckoned she was just out the shower and naked under that robe. My mouth was dry and I was as nervous as she was. ‘He’ll kill you if he comes back and finds you here.’
‘He’d not get away with assaulting a police officer a second time.’
She looked me up and down. ‘You here officially, then?’
The absence of the uniform kind of gave the game away. ‘No.’ Wasn’t any point in lying about it. ‘Anyway, he’s gone to work, hasn’t he? Won’t be back for hours.’
‘No guarantee of that.’ She pushed past me into the sitting room. It was a good deal tidier than when I’d last seen it. I followed her in and saw her face clearly then in the light from the window. The bruising was mostly gone, just the faintest hint of a scab where he had split her lip. She ran both hands through her wet hair to draw it back from her face. Then stood defiantly, hands on hips, glaring at me. ‘Why are you really here?’
‘I told you.’
‘Why would you even care?’
I hesitated. To tell her would be to make myself hopelessly vulnerable. But I wanted her. Had known it from that first time I set eyes on her. ‘You’ve been on my mind,’ I said. ‘Every waking minute of every day. When I think about what he did to you, what he might do to you again.’
For a moment, I don’t believe she knew quite how to react. But I saw the colour rise on her cheeks, and I wasn’t sure whether it was from pleasure or embarrassment. ‘He hasn’t touched me since that night.’
‘Good.’
‘So...’
‘So, what?’
‘So, there’s no reason for you to worry.’
I reached out to touch her face. I know I shouldn’t have, but I didn’t have the words, really, to express how I was feeling. She didn’t flinch, or move away, her eyes still fixed on me. ‘I want to see you, Mel.’
There was something strangely intimate about using her name, as if we knew each other well. I think she felt it too. But she reached up and took my hand away from her face. ‘That would be dangerous.’
‘I can deal with Jardine.’
‘For me,’ she said.
And I knew she was right. If Jardine found out I was here, if I were to see her again, it would be Mel he’d take it out on. I said, ‘If you tell me you don’t want me to come, I’ll walk out that door and you’ll never see me again.’ Which was wrong of me. I was putting it all on her. Removing any of the responsibility from me.
Still her stare was unwavering. And eventually she said, in a wee small voice, ‘He works Tuesday to Saturday, three till ten.’