Half Moon Chambers (19 page)

Clamped tight to his back, I let his climax be the
trigger
for my own, coming into the storm of
convulsion
in the muscles of his arse
--
drove into
him
again and again until he turned to limp
exhausted
sweetness in my arms, and I was done
too
, grabbing at the sink to keep myself from
falling
.

He turned before that could happen. I slipped
out
of him awkwardly, making both of us groan,
but
he was so quick and strong. He got his arms
round
me before my knees could give way. "Come
on
through here, love." I clung to him blindly,
moving
when he directed me. I still didn't hurt but I
couldn
't keep my feet under me. I was warmly
numb
from nape to tailbone. Nothing worked, but
nothing
had to
--
I was in his arms, and there was
his
big sofa, worn green velvet like the chairs in
the
turret room. It called me like a sunny field. I
lay
down when he told me to, but I didn't let him
go
when he told me to do that. I heard something
about
dinner
--
the spag bol for tea
--
then his rush
of
surrendering laughter, and his weight came
down
on me, warm as a big cat's. There was room
for
both of us. I rolled him to lie at my side,
pushing
an arm beneath his head. I wrapped my
arms
around him. His brow went down on my
shoulder
, and I felt a sudden dampness there, and a
shudder
in his body like sobs. What was he crying
for
? I was too far gone to find out, but I held him,
burying
one hand in his hair.

* * *

The pasta was beyond saving. The cold
bolognese
was delicious, though, eaten straight
from
pan on the table between us. We were barely
awake
. Our shoulders pressed together where we
sat
. I drew the line when he teasingly threatened to
feed
me
--
there had to be some trace left to me of
my
shell, my carapace of big tough cop
--
but I
never
really surfaced, and when he yawned and
seemed
in danger of falling asleep into the pan, I
ruffled
his hair and stood up, extending a hand.

"Come on, bonny lad. Off to bed."

I thought I would crash out again the moment I
lay
down, but I had pushed my luck and my limits
pretty
hard, and a warning tug in my sacrum
brought
me back from the brink. Rowan had curled
up
beside me in the bed and was already breathing
deeply
, occasional flickers of movement in his
long
fingers, curling the corner of his mouth into a
smile
. It was a long time since I'd managed to shag
someone
out like that. I got up, careful not to
disturb
him. I didn't mind a bit of pain, not now,
but
it would make me restive, and I might be better
sitting
up. I could sleep in the armchair he had
occupied
during my first night here.

A loose sheaf of papers lay beside the chair. I
wouldn
't have touched them, but they were large
,
A3 size, the lines on them striking, hard to miss.

Familiar, too. I stopped short. Stiffly I bent
and
picked the top sheet up. It was a charcoal
sketch
of a man lying asleep on the bed, face down
and
naked. He had been conjured in just a few
strokes
, but they were beautiful. The man was
beautiful
. It took me long seconds to accept that it
was
me.

Could Rowan possibly see me like that? The
drawing
was realistic. He had accurately noted my
surgical
scar. He hadn't flattered me, but the
overall
effect was attractive, powerful. I
remembered
him admiring my backside. That had
been
good to hear, since no-one else had shown
interest
in it in months, but did I really have those
compact
curves? My face heating under a blush, I
glanced
at myself sidelong in the mirror, shrugging
the
dressing down off my shoulders and letting it
fall
. God, in this light, guided by his perceptions, I
could
almost see it. Being handled like meat by
doctors
and burly male nurses had skewed my self
-
image
, but there I was
--
the man from Rowan's
drawing
, battered but alive, and
--
yes
--
possessed
of
a fairly nice arse.

What struck me hardest was the affection with
which
the sketches had been done. I sat down in
the
armchair. I couldn't remember deserving it.

We'd had three encounters, two of which had
turned
into thoughtless, starvation-need sex. I
hadn
't been nice to him. He knew I'd still have him
dragged
off into a courtroom if I could. I sat down,
turning
over one sketch after another. The artist
liked
this man. Without prior knowledge
--
if I'd
seen
the drawings as a stranger
--
I'd have said he
loved
him.

I remembered how he'd caught my wrist in the
alley
, that sudden warm grasp. I'd been pissed off
with
him, of course
--
he'd spoiled my fight. Now,
though
, in the room's small-hours quiet, I
acknowledged
an inner shift. I'd been bloody glad
to
find him in the shadows beside me. I'd run with
him
like a wolf with its mate, heart thudding hotly
with
pleasure in spite of my pain. And in the
kitchen
, when I'd come back from the bathroom,
when
he'd turned round smiling and drying his
hands
to look at me...

No. Not just sex. Not just a copper after his
witness
. I set the charcoal sketches down. I went
back
to the bed and got in beside him. He shifted in
his
sleep and settled against me. His arm went
round
my waist as if it always did. He sighed and
rubbed
his brow against my chest, as if that was
just
how we slept.

I couldn't love a stranger, especially not this
one
. I held him and stared up into the painted night
sky
, trying to lose myself in it as completely as I
felt
lost here on Earth.

Chapter Eight

W
hen I woke up, Rowan was sitting cross
-
legged
on the bed. I had the feeling he'd been there
for
some time. I knew from the drawings that he
watched
me while I slept. That was something I'd
have
thought would freak me out, but instead I
found
myself liking it. Probably more about Rowan
than
me. I was discovering all kinds of things.

Morning light was filtering through the gauze
curtain
, and in its cold brilliance he looked at once
younger
and older than his years. His eyes were
shadowed
with anxiety. For the first time he
seemed
unsure of himself.

I could sympathise with that. "Hi," I said. I
put
out a hand to him, but his were clenched white
-
knuckled
in his lap and he didn't respond. I
managed
to turn my own gesture into a tug at the
duvet
. Who were we this morning? Strangers from
opposite
sides of the fence who had seized another
illicit
fuck? Lovers, whatever the hell that meant? I
tried
to remember what normal people did, how
they
thought about their new acquaintance after this
amount
of drama and screwing. I supposed a
normal
man might say he had a boyfriend.

"Maric's trial happens at the end of this
month
, doesn't it?"

I hadn't expected that, but I tried to catch up.

Maybe he'd had a change of heart. "That's right."

"And you don't think you'll get a conviction?"

I pushed up to sit against the headboard. "At
this
rate we'll be lucky if we get a trial." The
stupid
, ironic thing was that if he'd changed his
mind
, decided to testify, I'd now be reluctant to let
him
. I saw him alone in the witness box, getting
hammered
down under fire from Maric's lawyers. I
saw
him alone in the streets afterwards, looking
over
his shoulder, maybe for the rest of his life.

Then, he was doing that now. And maybe he
wouldn
't be alone. I closed my hand over his
chilly
, tight-clamped fist. "If we can't get a
witness
, he's going to walk."

"Yeah. And that would be bad, I know. But
it
's not him you want to watch out for, Vince, not
really
. It's Val Foster."

I sat up straight. Val Foster - Bill's real
target
in all of this. She'd brought Maric in
from
Eastern Europe and planted him here in Bill's city,
as
she'd foisted dozens like him on other
struggling
, recession-hit towns where the only
trades
still flourishing were hers and the
undertakers
'. "Foster? What do you know about
her
?"

"She runs Maric. That's why being locked up
hasn
't really stopped him. That's why you lost your
witnesses
. She's giving you a great big
demonstration
of what happens when you try to kill
the
drugs trade in this town."

"Jesus, Rowan." I was suddenly cold. The
central
heating was set to its usual tropical blast,
but
gooseflesh was prickling along my arms. "I
know
she bloody runs Maric. How do
you
know?"

"Because she used to run me too."

"She what?"

He drew up his knees to his chest, fastened
his
arms around them. He looked as if he'd like to
jump
off the bed and put a world of distance
between
himself and his own words, as if he was
holding
himself still by desperate effort. Muscles
rose
painfully tight in his forearms. "That job I had
with
the museum, in acquisitions? It wasn't just
good
. It was the best. They sent me everywhere,
paid
me a fortune. I got in with a flash crowd of
buyers
and B-list celebs and European wild-child
aristocracy
, and... I didn't have a clue how to
behave
myself. I'd just got my fine-arts doctorate
from
Oxford. My family were Devonshire
schoolteachers
. I didn't have a clue."

I was listening. I'd heard every word, but I
was
caught up on the first seven. "Val Foster used
to
...
run
you?"

"Yeah. As a mule." He got that out as if it had
been
a lump of hot rock in his throat. "I got pissed
one
night and I let one of my mates put a packet of
coke
into my luggage. I nearly fucking died of
fright
at the airport, but my face wasn't on any
records
, and I got through. And that was it."

It would be. My mouth was parched, my
voice
flat and arid when I spoke. The story was
easy
--
I'd heard it a million times before. "That
was
it. They blackmailed you into the next."

"Yeah. I've got no excuses. I could've turned
myself
in then, given my mate up too. It would've
meant
jail time, though, and I'd have lost my job.
Lost everything. And... I didn't want to. I liked my
life
."

"So you made another run."

"I made another run, and this time it was
heroin
, and it wasn't in my suitcase. It was in... It
was
in me." He stopped dead, his eyes suddenly
closing
. His shoulders heaved. A faint choked
sound
escaped him, and all I wanted to do was
grab
him up into my arms, hold him so hard his
bones
cracked. I wanted it not to be true. "I did it,
and
my mate told Val Foster I was good at it. She
was
just small-time back then, just starting out. I
had
a good face for it. Nobody questioned me. I... I
shoved
cocaine and heroin up my arse for her and
brought
it into Britain for six fucking months
before
I got caught."

I swung my legs off the bed. A huge pang of
blood
-red pain went up my spine, but I barely
noticed
. I leaned my elbows on my knees, ran one
hand
over the back of my head. I stared at the
beautiful
sea-green rug. "But you did get caught."

"Yes. And I did lose everything. The police
offered
me protection, a reduced sentence, if I
testified
. Is any of this sounding familiar?"

"What happened?"

"I couldn't do it then, not any more than I can
do
it now for you. I skipped from the safe house
they
'd put me into. Then I ran."

"Where to?"

"You already know. As hard and as far as I
could
. I changed my name, hid out in homeless
shelters
, hitched my way up four hundred miles of
country
until I reached this ballbreaking freezer of
a
city, and I got my little handyman's job at
the
Langring." He paused, and I felt the mattress shift,
as
if he had thought of touching me then changed
his
mind. When he went on, he sounded lifeless,
cold
. "At least I was clean. And being poor kept
me
that way. Mostly, anyway. I fell off the wagon
for
a week one time, and... I decorated the flat."

"What made you start using?" The question
was
urgent to me. Plenty of kids had good reason,
not
that I'd ever listened to any. Broken homes,
abusive
parents...
Come on, Rowan. Pull one of
those
out of closet.
"Was it just the celebs and the
brat
-pack?"

"Not even them. At least
--
they gave me the
stuff
, but I used it of my own accord. There's
something
inside some people, you know?
Something just waiting, and it doesn't know what
for
until it gets it." A week ago I'd have denied
this
. Now I thought about the pills I'd flushed down
the
bog, and I shut up, bowing my head. "The first
time
I took heroin, I woke up in a Paris hotel room
with
a lad I'd never seen before and... all the walls
covered
in paintings like these. I thought he'd done
them
. I thought the hotel would sue me, but they
liked
it. They still tell American tourists that
Van
Gogh stayed there."

I could have laughed. If I started, though, I'd
have
wept, or punched a hole through the painted
walls
. "They're after you now, aren't they?
Val
Foster's gang. That's why you're so afraid."

"Yes. When she set Maric up with his
operation
here, she moved some of her cronies in
with
him, people I'd used to know. They must have
seen
me around. It was just dumb luck that I'd
ended
up living in this building. After the Chinese
kids
were murdered here, I knew I wouldn't be left
alone
for long. God - like they had anything to
worry
about from me! Like I hadn't run to the ends
of
the earth already to keep their dirty secrets for
them
. But then your lot started to take an interest in
me
, so they beat me up anyway, just as a
reminder
."

"And that was all? They left you alone after
that
?"

"Yeah. I thought... maybe I'd be okay. I
wouldn
't have to move on again. But then you
came
here, didn't you? And that first night..."

Again came that shift of the mattress, and this time
he
did touch, just the brush of his fingertips to my
nape
. "The first night you were here, I looked out
the
window and I saw her. Val Foster, just hanging
around
across the street. I had to stop you from
leaving
."

And dragging me off to bed was the easiest
way
.
"Val Foster? You're not telling me the
methamphetamine
queen came here in person to
scare
me."

"No. You were secondary. But I think I'm the
only
one she ever lost, the only one who wriggled
out
of her net. She doesn't like to lose control of
anyone
. She wanted to show me her face. I didn't
want
her to get to know yours."

When I thought about how easily I'd fallen,
what
a fucking pushover I'd been, I felt sick enough
to
die. I'd been so lonely, so cold. Anybody's for a
touch
, a kiss, a brush of my own bloody jersey
across
my face. "Well, you sure as shit kept her
from
seeing it. Was that the only reason?"