Dangerous (16 page)

Fulton sat down in a chair opposite Jamesy and stared at him. Jamesy didn’t look up.

‘Does he speak?’ asked Fulton.

‘Nah. Well, sometimes. Rarely. Don’t even seem to know I’m here most of the time. He takes food and I see to him, bath him, get him to the bog or he’d mess himself right there in that chair.’

Fuck it.

Fulton stood up. ‘Sorry to take up your time,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realize.’

‘That’s all right.’ She walked him out of Jamesy’s presence, and down the hall to the front door. ‘What was it you wanted to ask him, anyway?’

‘The fight when he got injured – just wanted to know if he’d seen anything of my brother, Jacko Sears, since then.’

The sister dropped her fag-end on the dirt-speckled lino at her feet and stubbed it out with a slippered foot. ‘Well, no. He was laid up in hospital for weeks after the brain op.’

‘Right. OK.’ She opened the door and Fulton stepped out into the black drizzling day.

‘But I was there with him that night at the Blue Bird when the fight happened, if it helps,’ she said.

36

Clara was coming out of one of Toby’s music clubs a week before the wedding. She’d lost her comb somewhere and was rummaging in her bag, hoping to find it, not looking where she was going. She bumped straight into a tall man with hair as black as her own and deep, dark eyes. It was like walking into a wall. She stumbled, and he stopped her with a hand on her arm.

‘Clara Hatton, isn’t it?’ he asked.

Fuck
. It was him again. Marcus Redmayne. She hadn’t seen him to talk to much since Frank’s funeral. She had seen him around town, of course, in the clubs, and she knew that if she ever gave him the slightest encouragement, engaged or not, he would pounce on her like a starving lion on a gazelle, but she wasn’t about to do that. Just a couple of moments in his company on the day she’d buried Frank, and she had soon been hungering for more. That wasn’t like her. She hated feeling that her emotions were beyond her control. She had her future carefully mapped out – and
he
wasn’t part of it.

The truth was, whenever she clapped eyes on Marcus Redmayne she felt something shift inside her; a sort of softening, weakening sensation. She didn’t like that. She had a purpose in life and that purpose was to become rich. So rich that no one could ever take it away from her. She didn’t want to muddle any of that up with sex. Feelings of the romantic variety for a man – any man – did not fit with her plans at all.

‘Yes. Hello,’ she said coldly. ‘Have we met?’

That half-smile, teasing. She could see he was remembering her triumphant little dance in the kitchen after Frank’s funeral. ‘Yes. We have. I’m Marcus Redmayne. We met on the day of your late husband’s funeral. And we’ve met a couple of times since.’

‘Oh yes,’ she said.
Bastard
, smirking at her like that.

‘I asked if there was anything I could do to help you.’ He paused, his eyes on her face and then dropping to her left hand where the large sapphire glinted darkly. His eyes returned to her face. ‘But you seem to be managing pretty well on your own. About to get married again.’

Something about the way he spoke made Clara bristle with anger. He was implying she was a gold-digger. Well, she was. If not for her, her family would still be in the gutter, and there was no way she was having that. So she wasn’t about to apologize for using her looks to attain a certain standard of living. There were worse ways to pay the bills, that was for sure.

But you sent Henry away
, whispered a voice in her head. Yes, she had. Boarding school might yet knock all the kinks out of him. She hoped so. His form tutors had sent her so-so reports of him. She hoped she had done the right thing. She hoped that he might come out of that place
normal
, that they’d turn him back into her sweet little brother Henry.

‘I am getting married. Next Saturday,’ she confirmed.

‘To Toby Cotton, I hear,’ he said.

‘That’s correct.’

‘He’s a pretty rich man,’ said Marcus, pulling her to one side of the door so that they shouldn’t get in the way of other pedestrians. She wished he wouldn’t keep touching her. She stepped back, kept a distance between them.

‘So I’ve heard,’ she shrugged.

‘Oh, you’ve heard right. He is.’ He indicated the pillar-box-red club door. There were posters up on either side of it, trumpeting new bands performing there. ‘This is one of – what, five . . . ?’

‘Six.’

‘I thought you’d nail the exact number,’ he said.

‘I don’t like your tone,’ she said.

‘Oh?’ Now he was smiling. ‘Well, I like yours. You’re some act, Mrs Hatton. Bold as brass, aren’t you, with your peachy arse and your chainsaw brain. That’s a dangerous combination. Look, I’ve got an idea.’

Clara stared at him with hostile eyes.
What
had he just said? ‘Oh? What’s that?’

‘I’ve got money too. More than Toby – whose fortunes may be about to turn.’ His eyes were moving up and down her body, taking in the Russian blue fox coat she wore – a gift from Toby – which didn’t hide the luscious curves of her breasts and hips, the tiny indentation of her waist. ‘How about it, Mrs Hatton?’

He was playing with her, making it obvious that he had seen straight through to her very soul. That was rubbish, what he said about Toby’s fortunes, too; she’d seen the books, the whole thing looked sound. And what was Marcus offering? It certainly wasn’t anything respectable.

He knew she was a woman on the make, and was treating her accordingly. She felt hot furious colour rush into her cheeks. She hated him. She felt found out, invaded, offended. What the hell did
he
know about what it was like for a woman trying to get ahead in this dog-eat-dog man’s world? Yes, things were changing, but not that much, and far too slowly. You could get the Pill now, to stop you getting pregnant, and some girls even talked about sexual equality – but that, as far as Clara could see, was the same tired old joke it ever was. Only money made a woman a man’s equal – and having learned that lesson she was now clawing her way ever-upward, back to where she belonged, at the top of the pile.

‘You bastard,’ she snapped.

‘Oh, that’s better. Although the language don’t quite match the furs and the finery. That’s the
genuine
Clara Hatton, right there.’

‘Get out of my way.’

He stepped aside. ‘Of course.’

Clara sent him one last seething glance and stormed off along the pavement, losing herself among the crowds.

‘The offer still stands, Mrs Hatton!’ he shouted after her.

She didn’t answer.

Marcus watched her go. There was something about her, something strong and downright ruthless, that he could only admire. Then he turned, still half-smiling to himself, thinking that one way or another he
had
to get her into his bed.

He went to Paulette’s flat and there she was, pacing the carpet in her skin-tight jodhpurs. Times had certainly changed, where she was concerned. As his own standing had grown, so had Paulette’s upkeep. She was so glossy now, perfectly turned out, her fingernails painted, her skin massaged to a rosy glow, her hair coiffed and gleaming.

Yeah, and I paid for it all
, thought Marcus. Which was fair enough; if you had an expensive mistress it made you look good around town, gave you a certain air.

Paulette was just back from her late-morning ride on the Arab mare that had also cost him an arm and a leg, and she was cursing her agent and whining that he was letting her down.

‘Then ditch him. Get another one,’ said Marcus. Christ, how she went on.

Paulette blew out her lips and flounced over to the bed and sat there, looking at him.

‘Actually, I’m getting tired of the modelling,’ she said with a sigh.

‘Do something else then.’

Paulette’s eyes sparkled suddenly. ‘We could get married. Make it legit.’

Here we bloody go
, thought Marcus. She’d skirted around the marriage thing before, but this was the first direct approach.

‘We’re not getting married,’ said Marcus. ‘Get a new agent. Get some better jobs. And
don’t
mention that again.’

He walked over to the bed and stood looking down at her, tried to fathom out what the attraction had been in the first place. But all he kept thinking about was Clara Hatton and those violet-blue eyes of hers. He undid his tie, started unbuttoning his shirt.

‘Get those bloody jodhpurs off,’ he snapped, because he was aroused again.

Paulette stopped pouting and gave him a smile.

37

‘What do you know about infinity?’ asked David.

Bernie stared up at him. She could see infinity in his sweet blue eyes, she thought. Since that first visit, she’d come to the studio often. David was gorgeous. Or he would be, if he’d put that fag out for five minutes; it was making him squint. That was the scent she was coming to associate with him; tobacco mingled with Old Spice. She watched him in admiration and listened dreamily to the Marcels crooning ‘Blue Moon’ on the desk radio.

David was dressed today in chestnut-coloured cord trousers, a baggy white shirt and a sheeny brown waistcoat. His long face was soulful, his sandy-brown hair pulled back in its usual ponytail. He chain-smoked and chewed his nails to the quick, but that was OK; he was an artist, highly strung, he could turn a brat of a child into a cherub through the power of the lens, could turn a plain bride into an angel. Bernie understood taut nerves; she suffered from them herself, after all.

She had already learned so much from him. She admired the fact that he hadn’t followed that flashy newcomer Bailey and gone into high-end fashion shoots for
Vogue
, even though that was where the money was. Bailey, Donovan and Duffy – the Black Trinity, as Norman Parkinson called them – they were famous. But David was worth much more in her opinion. He was a social photographer, he had high principles, and if it didn’t pay much, well, so what.

She was sitting at the desk in the tiny reception area of his rented studio, surrounded by brown woodchip walls on which were hung large gold-framed misty close-ups of brides, beautifully contrived portraits of couples, a lovely oval canvas of two children, darkly lit in a Rembrandt style, and posed beside a cream-coloured Victorian nursing chair.

Bernie was cutting corners off 5 x 3½-inch proofs, matching the negative number to each one, then writing that on the back, beside the studio stamp.

‘Infinity? I know it’s on the camera lenses, but apart from that? I don’t know much about it,’ Bernie said, watching as he turned the costly Leica camera over in his agile longfingered hands.

He’d taken out a huge loan to buy it, he told her when she’d asked, and a Hasselblad too. The Leica was 35mm and lighter, more easily portable for portrait shoots, but the Hasselblad had a bigger negative, and a fabulously ‘soft’ lens; it was perfect for weddings.

‘I don’t know why I have to cut the corners off these wedding proofs, either,’ said Bernie.

‘Isn’t it obvious? You cut one corner off every proof because otherwise customers will hold on to them and put them in frames or folders and not order proper prints. With one corner missing, they can’t do that, can they? A proof is just that: a sample to order from, that’s all. So the customer has to take a note of the neg number on the back, and order more prints from the studio, instead of pinching the proofs and using those – thereby taking the food out of my mouth.’

Bernie frowned at the prints. There was so much she didn’t know. She didn’t begin to understand the process of photography – and David wouldn’t let her into his darkroom down in the basement, couldn’t risk any light penetrating that red-tinted black hole of his. Which was awkward, because he kept the filing cabinet in there with all his paperwork and negatives stored inside it, and she had to wait for him to come out before she could go in.

‘What if you put the studio stamp on the front, across the print?’ she asked.

The door onto the street opened, dinging the little bell overhead.

David straightened. ‘Tried that. Big trouble. Customers complaining the stamp was across the faces, or they couldn’t see the pattern on the dress. Tried a gold blocking machine, too, but that wasn’t popular either.’

He turned, putting on a big smile for the customer who’d entered. Then Bernie saw the smile instantly drop away from his face.

Standing just inside the door was a striking sight. It was a hugely tall black man – easily as tall as David himself, but solid with it, not skinny – and he was wearing big looping chains of gold around his neck and wrists, a black Stetson hat on his head and a long black-and-white pony-skin coat that nearly touched the floor.

‘Yasta,’ said David, and all at once his manner was obsequious. When his smile reappeared, it looked sickly.

He’s afraid of him
, she realized.

The man came over to the desk, looked down with molten brown eyes at Bernie. ‘And who is this?’ he asked, in a voice so deep it seemed to come from his boots.

‘This is Bernie. Bernie Dolan,’ said David. ‘Bernie, this is Mr Frate.’

Yasta Frate reached out a hand, took one of Bernie’s in a bearlike grasp, and raised it to his lips.

‘Charmed,’ he said, and Bernie had to fight the urge to snatch her hand back. Then he turned his attention to David. ‘Want to talk,’ he said. ‘Might have something for you.’

‘Right! Let’s take a walk,’ said David, and led the way to the door. He glanced back at Bernie.

‘Can you call the customer when those proofs are ready?’ he said. ‘See you,’ he called over his shoulder, and was gone.

38

When Jamesy’s sister, Susan, dropped that bombshell about her having been there on the night of the fight, Fulton, who was standing on her doorstep and on the verge of leaving the place without ever knowing, said: ‘Why didn’t you fucking well say so?’

Her lips puckered up in a scowl. ‘I’m saying so now, ain’t I? Of course, if you don’t want to hear about it . . . ’ She was starting to shut the door in his face.

Fulton put one shovel-like hand up, stopping the door closing. ‘Let’s not be hasty.’