Fortnight of Fear (22 page)

The day passed him by. He heard cars. He heard Mr Bristow with his spanners, whistling and humming to himself. He slept, shivered, mumbled.

Late in the evening, he felt something tug at his left eyelid. Something sharp, something painful. He tried to brush it away, but when he opened his eyes he knew that he wouldn't have the strength to keep it away for long.

It was a massive gray sewer-rat, one of the biggest he had ever seen. It wasn't attacking him, it was simply feeding. It stared at him and he knew with a terrible certainty that Eric the Pie had met his Simple Simon; that he would soon become nothing more than pellet-shaped droppings, in some unexplored outfall; that you are what you eat.

For the very first time in his life, Eric understood the sin of being predatory, and he prayed for forgiveness while one rat, then another rat, then many rats, turned his body into a thrashing, rolling cloak of bloodied fur.

New York, New York

Rococo
could only be located in New York at the height of Yuppie supremacy, in a high-tech building close to Bowling Green, in the financial district. Bowling Green is at Battery Place, at the very bottom end of Broadway, and it was originally used by colonial bowls-players, who played out their games under the imperious gaze of a statue of George III. It was New York City's very first park, and records show that it was leased in 1733 for a single peppercorn a year. In 1776 the royal statue, unsurprisingly, was pulled down, and a fence erected around the green which is still there today. In recent times, the green and its benches have been restored, and a circular pool and a fountain added, making it an ideal spot in summer for business persons to take a sandwich lunch.

However, even the most innocent lunchtime break can have horrendous consequences …

It was such a warm spring day that Margot had decided to brown-bag it in the plaza outside the office, next to the ultra-modern Spechocchi-designed waterfall. The plaza was always bustling with pedestrians, but after the high-tension hyper-air-conditioned chill of her single-window office in the Jurgens Building, eating lunch here was almost as good as a Mediterranean vacation.

She was as classy at brown-bagging it as she was at her job; and she laid out a crisp pink Tiffany napkin with
sfinciuni
, the thin Palermo-style pizza sandwich, with a filling of unsmoked ham, ricotta and fontina; a fruit salad of mangoes and strawberries macerated in white wine; and a bottle of still Malvern water.

It was while she was laying out her lunch that she first noticed the man in the dove-gray suit, sitting on the opposite side of the plaza, close to the edge of the waterfall. Most of the time he was half-hidden by passing pedestrians, but there was no doubt at all that he was staring at her. In fact he didn't take his eyes away from her once; and after a few minutes she began to find his unswerving gaze distinctly unsettling.

Margot was used to being stared at by men. She was tall, just over five feet nine inches, and she had striking dark-brunette hair that was upswept into curls. Her ex-fiancé Paul had told her that she had the face like an angel about to cry: wide blue eyes, a straight delicately-defined nose, and subtly-pouting lips. She was
large-bosomed, and quite large-hipped, like her mother, but unlike her mother she could afford to flatter her curves in tailored business suits.

She was the only female account executive at Rutter Blane Rutter. She was the highest-paid woman she knew; and she was determined to reach the very top. No compromises. The top.

She began to eat; but she couldn't help raising her eyes to see if the man was still staring at her. He was, no doubt about it. He was sitting back on one of the benches in a very relaxed pose, one leg crossed over the other. He must have been about thirty-eight or thirty-nine years old, with shining blond hair that was far too long and wavy to be fashionable, at least in the circles in which Margot moved. He wore a pale cream shirt and a dove-gray bow-tie to match his suit. There was something about his posture which suggested that he was very wealthy, and very self-indulgent, too.

Margot had almost finished her
sfinciuni
when Ray Trimmer appeared. Ray was one of the hottest copywriters at Rutter Blane Rutter, although his lack of personal organization sometimes drove Margot crazy. He slapped a huge untidy package of sandwiches on to the concrete tabletop, and sat down too close to her.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked, opening up his sandwiches one by one to investigate their fillings. “My daughter made my lunch today. She's eight. I told her to use her imagination.”

Margot frowned at the sandwich on the top of the pile. “Tuna and marmalade. You can't say that's not imaginative.”

Ray began to eat. “I wanted to talk to you about that Spring Flower spot. I'm working toward something less suburban, if you know what I mean. I know a bed-freshener is an entirely suburban product, but I think we have to make it look more elegant, more up-market.”

“I liked your first idea.”

“I don't know. I ran it past Dale and he wasn't too happy. The woman looks like she's fumigating the bed to get rid of her husband's farts.”

“Isn't that just what Spring Flower's for?”

Ray bent forward to pick up another sandwich. As he did so, Margot became conscious again that the man in the dove-gray suit was still staring at her. Blond shining hair, a face that was curiously
medieval
, with eyes of washed-out blue.

“Ray, do you see that guy over there? The one sitting by the waterfall?”

Ray looked up, his mouth full of sandwich; then turned and looked around. At that moment a crowd of Japanese tourists were shuffling across the plaza, and the man was temporarily obscured from view. When the tourists had gone, so had he; although Margot was at a loss to understand how he could have left without her seeing him go.

“I don't see any man,” Ray told her. He pulled a face, and opened up the sandwich he was eating. “What the hell's this? Cheez Whiz and Cap'n Crunchberries. Jesus!”

Margot folded her napkin, and tucked it into her Jasper Conran tote bag. “I'll catch you later, Ray, okay?”

“Don't you want to see what I've got for dessert?”

Quickly, Margot crossed the plaza toward the waterfall. The water slid so smoothly over the lip at the top that it didn't appear to be moving at all; a sheet of glass. To her surprise, the man was standing a little way behind it, in a brick niche where a bronze statue of a naked woman was displayed; a naked woman with a blindfold.

The man saw Margot coming and made no attempt to walk away. Instead he looked as if he had been expecting her.

“Pardon me,” said Margot, as commandingly as she
could, although her heart-rate was jumping around like Roger Rabbit, “do you have some kind of eye problem?”

The man smiled. Close up, he was very tall, six foot three, and he smelled of cinnamon and musk and some very perfumed tobacco.

“Eye problem?” he asked her, in a soft, deep voice.

“Your eyes seem to be incapable of looking at anything except me. Do you want me to call a cop?”

“I apologize,” the man replied, bowing his head. “It was not my intention to intimidate you.”

“You didn't. But there are plenty of women who might have been.”

“Then I apologize again. My only excuse is that I was admiring you. Do you think I might give you something, a very small token of my regret?”

Margot frowned at him in disbelief. “You don't have to give me anything, sir. All I'm asking is that you don't stare at women like Sammy the Psychotic.”

He laughed, and held out his hand. In his palm was a tiny sparkling brooch; a miniscule pink-and-white flower, embedded in glass.

Margot stared at it. “It's beautiful. What is it?”

“It's a jinn-flower, from Mount Rakapushi, in the High Pamirs. It's extinct now; so this is probably the last one there is. It was picked high up on the snow line, and taken to Hunza, where it was encased in molten glass by a method that has been completely lost.”

Margot wasn't at all sure that she believed any of this. It sounded like an extremely devious and complicated line; but a line all the same. She slowly shook her head. “I couldn't possibly accept anything like that; even if I wanted to accept anything at all.”

The man said gently, “I shall be extremely hurt if you don't. You see, I bought it especially for you.”

“That's ridiculous. You don't even know me.”

“You're Margot Hunter. You're an account executive
for Rutter Blane Rutter. I've seen you many times before, Margot. I made a point of finding out.”

“Oh, yes?” Margot snapped. “And who the hell are
you
?”

“James Blascoe.”

“Is that it? James Blascoe? And what do you do, James Blascoe? And what right do you think you have to check up on me, and then to stare at me?”

James Blascoe raised both hands in apologetic surrender. “I don't really do anything. Some people, like you, are the doers. Other people, like me, are the watchers. You do, I watch. That's all, it's as simple as that.”

“Well, do you mind going someplace else to do your watching, Mr Blascoe?” Margot demanded. “Someplace where you won't scare people?”

“Your point is well taken,” James Blascoe told her, and bowed his head once again, and walked off across the plaza. Margot watched him go; both relieved and disturbed. He had been remarkably attractive, and he was obviously rich. As he reached Bowling Green on the far side of the plaza a long midnight-blue Lincoln stretch-limo appeared, and drew up to the curb. He climbed into it, and closed the door, and didn't look back once.

Margot returned to her office. Ray was waiting for her, with a whole sheaf of messy notes and layouts spread all over her normally-pristine desk.

“You look like you saw a ghost,” said Ray.

Margot gave him a quick, distracted smile. “Do I? I'm okay.”

“You want to look at these new ideas? Kenny did the drawings. They're not exactly right yet, but I think you'll understand where we're coming from.”

“All right,” Margot nodded. She shuffled through the layouts, still thinking about James Blascoe.
Other people, like me, are the watchers
.

“Neat pin,” Ray remarked, as she lifted up another layout.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your pin, your brooch, whatever it is. Where'd you get it? Bloomingdale's?”

Margot looked down at her fawn linen business suit, and there it was, sparkling brightly in the exact center of her lapel. The tiny jinn-flower, embedded in glass.

“Now how the hell did he do that?” she demanded. Then, indignantly, to Ray, “This isn't Bloomingdale's. This is just about the rarest brooch in the whole darn universe! A real flower, handmade glass.”

Ray took off his spectacles and peered at it more closely. “Really?” he said; and gave Margot the most peculiar look that she had ever seen.

He was waiting for her the next morning when she arrived at the office. He was standing by the revolving doors in the bright eight o'clock sunshine; immaculately dressed, as yesterday, in gray. He stepped toward her with both hands held out, as if to say, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to impose on your life yesterday, I don't mean to impose on your life today.

“You're angry with me,” he told her, before she could say anything. She had to step out of the way to avoid the hurrying crowds of office-workers.

“I'm not
angry
with you,” she retorted. “It's just that I can't accept your gift.”

“I don't understand,” he replied. For the first time, in the morning light, she saw the small crescent-shaped scar on his left cheekbone.

“It's too much. It's too valuable. Mr Blascoe, I don't even
know
you.”

“What difference does that make? I wanted you to have it.”

“In return for what?”

He shook his head as if she had amazed him. “In return for your pleasure, that's all! Do you think I'm some kind of Romeo?”

“But why me? Look at all these pretty girls! Why choose me?”

James Blascoe looked serious for a moment. “Because you are special. Because you are chosen. Because there is no other girl like you in the whole wide world.”

“Well, I'm flattered, Mr Blascoe, but I really can't –”

“Keep the brooch, please. Don't break my heart. And please … accept this, too.”

He held out a small purse of pale blue moire silk, tied with a gold cord.

Margot laughed in disbelief. “You can't keep on giving me gifts like this!”

“Please,” he begged her; and there was a look in his eyes which made it oddly difficult for her to resist him. The look in his eyes didn't match his voice at all: it wasn't a begging look. It was level and imperative. A look that said,
you will, whether you like it or not
. Before Margot had time to analyze what she was doing, and the implications of what she was doing, she had taken the silk purse, and held it up, and said, “All right, then. Thank you.”

James Blascoe said, “It's an ounce of perfume created by Isabey, of the Faubourg St Honoré, in Paris, in 1925. It was specially blended for the Polish baroness Krystyna Waclacz, and there is no more left, but this one bottle.”

“Why give it to me?” Margot asked him. For some reason, she felt frightened rather than pleased.

James Blascoe shrugged. “What will happen to it, if you don't wear it? Wear it tonight. Wear it every night.”

“Hi, Margot!” called her secretary, Denise, as she passed close by. “Don't forget the Perry meeting, eight-thirty on the button!”

Margot looked up at James Blascoe but he was standing against the sun and his face was masked in shadow. She
hesitated for a moment, and then she said, “I'd better go,” and pushed her way through the revolving door, leaving James Blascoe standing outside, watching her intently, his features distorted by the curved glass.