‘Your name’s not Rawnsley,’ yelled Aria. ‘It’s Rimmer, you bastard.’
‘I’m flattered you remember me, Mrs. Dallas. Look, can we talk about this?’
‘What’s to talk about? You shot my maid.’
‘Your maid was an industrial spy, working for a competing company. She’d have killed me if I hadn’t shot her first. She’s been spying on your husband for quite a while.’
‘Oh yes? What was her name?’
‘Her real name? Ludmilla Antonovna.’ Rimmer realized that all of this might have sounded a little more convincing if he hadn’t started laughing.
‘Bullshit. Her name was Nadia,’ said Aria and fired again.
This time her bullet hit the center of the sofa. Rimmer was quite sure of that because to his alarm it passed straight through the cushions and the frame and hit a dining chair on casters just a few inches from his thigh. But at least he now had a better idea of where she was hiding herself. At right angles to the big window were four big square pillars that ran at regular intervals along one side of the apartment’s main reception area. Behind this line of pillars were the doors to the various rooms that made up the apartment. She must have gone in one door, come out of another, taken up a position behind one of the pillars, and started shooting. It was a wonder he hadn’t been killed. Rimmer glanced around and saw a way that he might divert her attention enough to let her make a better target of herself. He drew the chair on casters toward him and slipped off his coat.
‘It’s true I tell you,’ he yelled.
The top of the chair was a couple of inches below the top of the sofa. Rimmer hung his coat over the back of the chair and then kicked it away from him. The chair rolled quickly across the floor, and as soon as it emerged from behind the sofa, Aria fired. He fired back, hitting her square in the chest and killing her instantly. When you got hit by a silver-tip hollow-point from a fifteen mill, you tended to stay hit. Rimmer got up and went over to where Aria’s body lay, his face crumpling with disappointment. He’d hoped to hit her in the arm so that he could have some fun before finally killing her. But clearly that was now impossible. You could hardly rape a dead woman covered in so much blood. It was a shame. Aria was a good-looking woman. She was wearing a short black skirt that had ridden up around her waist as she’d slipped down onto the floor, leaving him a pretty good view of her stocking tops and panties.
Rimmer’s eyes lingered on the Y-shaped decussation of her sleek thighs. He holstered his gun, took hold of her ankles, and dragged her away from the pillar. Hooking the waist of her panties with his fingers, he tugged them down her long tanned legs and over her elegant black velvet shoes. For a moment he held Aria’s underwear to his nose and mouth and breathed deeply through the silky material. The effect was immediate.
‘The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk,’ he crooned, unzipping his trousers. ‘There’s magic in the web of it.’ Quickly he took hold of his erection and, in a matter of a few seconds, delivered himself through folds of flesh onto the seamless trifle now spread on his trembling palm.
‘In the name of the Lord of Judah,’ he gasped, ‘of Shua, and of their abominant son, Onan.’
Another minute passed before Rimmer crushed the fetish object into his pocket and zipped himself up again. You take your pleasures where you find them, he told himself, and laughed out loud as he realized that the ringing in his ears had nothing to do with his own orgasm. It was the sound of the phone. It had been ringing for a while. Which was why the baby was now crying.
How was it, he wondered, that the human species was not as extinct as that great reproductive dud, the giant panda? Rimmer knew that he would have eaten any child of his own in a matter of a few hours.
He rubbed his face back to life, shook his head, and went to find the nursery.
X
Dallas ran through the doorway of the gatehouse and into a waiting elevator car.
‘Something the matter, Mister Dallas?’ inquired the security guard.
‘There’s no time to explain,’ said Dallas and ordered the elevator to take him to the penthouse.
‘Just missed your visitor,’ said the guard, as the doors closed.
Dallas’s heart leaped in his chest as if in imitation of the elevator car now soaring up the shaft. Someone had visited his apartment? Someone he had just missed? After what had happened to Tanaka, Dallas feared the worst.
The elevator opened and Dallas stepped quickly out onto the familiar landing. But even before he was through the door he could smell that something was wrong. His keen nostrils recognized the smell of cordite in the air. With adrenaline pumping through his whole body now, he started to shout Aria’s name as he went inside, and then he saw her. Blind to everything except his wife lying in a pool of blood on the floor, he rushed toward her and tripped headlong over the body of the maid that lay sprawled across the threshold. By the time Dallas had picked himself off the floor he was covered in Nadia’s blood. Dallas walked unsteadily over to his wife and knelt down beside her. He took her wrist in his hand in plaintive search for a pulse, although it was obvious that Aria was dead. As dead as Tanaka. As dead as Nadia. As dead as he should have been himself.
Hearing a noise in the kitchen, Dallas grabbed one of the two handguns that lay on the floor and climbed painfully to his feet, confused. Was it possible that the killer was still somewhere in the apartment? Hadn’t the guard downstairs said that he had just missed his visitor? Gripping the gun tightly, Dallas walked cautiously into the kitchen, hoping against hope that he would find his wife’s murderer, washing her blood from his hands; because now that he was nearer, that was what it sounded like: running water.
The tap was on, and the trough-sized granite sink was overflowing, but there was no sign of any killer. Dallas froze with horror as he saw the explanation for the overflowing sink. Like a tiny Ophelia, Caro lay under the surface of the water, still wearing the silver-white nightdress that now wrapped her little body like a mermaid’s tail. Dallas laid the gun on the countertop and collected his child from its watery cradle. He wrapped her in a towel and squeezed the water from her small torso before trying to breathe the life back into her. Stronger babies might have been resuscitated, but after a few minutes Dallas realized it was hopeless and gave up trying.
There were footsteps now, in the drawing room. He reached for the gun again and went through the kitchen door to find himself facing a gun in the hands of the security guard from downstairs. Seeing Dallas, the guard did not relax. He’d already seen too much.
‘Put the gun down, Mister Dallas,’ said the guard.
‘What?’
‘I said, put the gun down.’
‘You don’t think I did this, do you?’
‘If you didn’t, then there’s no reason to keep ahold of the gun.’
‘My child is lying dead in there, and you think I did it?’
‘Give it up.’
‘Maybe you did it.’
‘ ’S already been on the news you shot someone else this evening, Mister Dallas.’
‘That was self-defense.’
‘I don’t want to have to shoot you, sir. Now put the gun down, Mister Dallas, if you please.’
Dallas caught a glimpse of himself, reflected in the terrace window, superimposed on the city’s diamanté skyline. Gun in hand, covered in blood, he could see how it must look. But what were his chances if he gave up his gun to the guard and let himself be taken into custody for hours of questioning? Maybe even find himself charged with murder? While the real killer got away with it. Dixy had been right, that much was obvious now. Why hadn’t he listened to her? This was Terotechnology’s move, Rimmer’s work. Dallas could almost smell him in the apartment. And having tried to kill him once, they would certainly try it again. And probably succeed. Lots of people got killed in jail, or in penal colonies. His best, perhaps his only, chance was surely to remain at liberty, at whatever cost, at least until he had figured out a course of action.