The First Cut (13 page)

He thought about killing RJ, but what was the point? He gave him a punch in his left eye which knocked him clean out. RJ never heard his cry of anguish from the bathroom when Troy discovered that there was no soap in the flat.

Troy reeled along a south London arterial road searching for a pub or café. He couldn’t get back in his car and touch his steering wheel with his dirty hands. About a quarter of a mile further on he found a parade of beaten-up shops and a greasy spoon and hurried to the bathroom past a series of plastic tables stuck to the wall and chairs bolted to the floor. He washed his hands four times with the liquid soap, scrubbed his nails on one hand with the backs of his nails on the other. He calmed right down instantly and came back out into the café. A square lady with large sweat circles under her armpits was manning a boiling urn. He slid into a plastic seat.

The square woman came over. ‘What can I get you, handsome?’ she asked, licking her finger and flicking the pages on a dog-eared pad.

‘Tea.’

‘Right you are.’ She shuffled off.

Troy knew it wouldn’t all go to plan. He knew that not every contact on Darek’s list would be lucrative, or found. He thought of Lyndon, probably being massaged by a Moroccan juvenile under an orange tree. Well, he wanted his own tropical verandah and personal services. And by God, these conniving, lying, greedy, murdering motherfuckers were going to give them to him.

‘Penny for your thoughts?’ The square woman slid the cup over towards him. He smiled thinly.

Troy had only one: Greg Peterson.

N
icky struggled to keep her eyelids open. The room had turned ninety degrees. She sat up, disoriented, and a pain in her head exploded. She was on the floor of the drawing room, still in her clothes, an animal fur draped over her. The rough hairs of a big cat whose descendants were nearly extinct poked her palm. Her neck was stiff and her hip numb. The candles had burned down to black stains on the plates and the grey dawn was breathing a new day into the room. A plane rumbled overhead, drilling into her headache. Adam was not here. Had she spent the whole night on the floor? She had no idea. She stood in a hurry, annoyed and alarmed that she was still here. She saw a glass of water and drank it greedily, then tried to stagger to the door, but the sofa appeared before her and she sank down into pleasing softness. Better than the floor, was the last thought she could process.

It was Adam rubbing her arm that woke her fully in the end. The day was acid bright, the dawn long gone. ‘You need to wake up. You’ve been out for hours and hours.’ He pulled her upright. ‘I made you a black tea.’ She took the cup without answering and drank it down. ‘Do you feel all right? You suddenly fell asleep last night and I couldn’t wake you. But it’s nine now. You’ve been asleep for more than twelve hours. Do you need to see a doctor?’

‘I’m fine.’

She ran her hands distractedly through her hair, embarrassed. Sitting side by side like this on a sofa had all the awkwardness of the first moments of the morning after the night before, without any of the pleasure to look back on. She desperately tried to remember what on earth had gone on, but it was all a blank. ‘What happened last night? Why did I suddenly fall asleep?’

Adam shrugged, but he didn’t meet her eye. ‘I think you had too much to drink.’

The silence was heavy between them with things unspoken.

‘Remember that when you nodded off I spent the night by myself.’ He was defiant now. ‘Not so much fun in that.’

Nicky said nothing. She was still trying to compose herself and banish the cotton-wool feeling from her head.

‘Do you want a bath?’ He was smiling now as he changed the subject.

‘I thought there was no electricity.’

‘There are no lights. There’s a gas boiler that heats the water.’

She felt grubby and stiff and a soak would wake her up. He led her to an upstairs bathroom where there was an old roll-top bath. It had fat taps with the metal flaking off and a precarious plastic bridge linking the sides, bending in the middle with the weight of old shampoo bottles and dried-up bits of soap. The water was boiling and as she made shampoo peaks in her hair she tried to make sense of how she could fall asleep so soundly for so long. She had a blank, funny feeling in her head. She felt aware of how fragile she was, how she needed to be handled carefully. Misgivings she couldn’t articulate swirled around. Had he drugged her? He was part of the Rohypnol generation, after all. She forced the thought sharply from her mind. ‘Get a grip, Nicky,’ she scolded. She rubbed herself dry with a towel so threadbare it made her skin turn pink.

When she came to the kitchen he was carefully lining up slices of bread under the gas grill, humming a tune she didn’t recognize. She did the washing-up as he cooked. She picked up a cup and was about to tip the contents down the sink when she realized it still had the remains of her coffee from last night. Adam had his back to her, buttering toast. She sniffed the contents, and then sniffed again. An aroma of coffee hit her. She watched the black liquid swirl away down the plughole. After a moment she sat down.

‘Since you’re still here, I can show you the grounds. We can swim in the lake.’

‘I don’t swim in lakes.’

‘There’s nothing to be frightened of. The bottom is sandy—’

‘I don’t swim in lakes,’ she said, far too sharply.

He didn’t reply. For the first time their conversation wasn’t flowing; she felt guarded and suspicious. He turned, opened a cupboard and pulled out a tin of treacle, then sat at the table. ‘There’s no jam; it goes mouldy when no one’s here. But this is just like honey.’ He opened the tin and plunged in a knife, drawing out an elongating strand of black treacle, runny in the heat. He scraped it across the toast. Nicky had to overcome an urge to gag. She shoved her chair back so violently it crashed to the floor, making Adam jump.

‘What’s the matter?’

Nicky felt the sweat break out across her chest. An image of Grace, lying on the lawn in the moonlight, her blood as black as treacle as it ran over her lifeless chest, came to her with such force that she stumbled as she raced for the toilet and hurled violently. A moment later she heard Adam behind her.

‘Are you ill?’

She was shaking all over, that horrific night coming back with brutal force. She sat on the toilet seat and tried to get a grip on her fraying imagination. She must be sick. How could she have fallen asleep for so long and now be a shuddering wreck, haunted by images she had spent years of her life trying to erase? She wanted to connect to the outside world, to hear familiar voices, to phone work and apologize for not being there.

‘Can I borrow your phone?’

He paused. ‘Who are you calling?’

His tone of enquiry was all wrong. ‘Does it matter?’ She was often quick to rise and couldn’t keep the irritation from her voice.

‘It’s just that there’s no way of charging the battery, so I try to keep calls to a minimum while I’m here, otherwise it’ll run out.’ He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out his mobile. ‘But here, of course you can use it.’

Nicky looked at the small black lifeline and felt ashamed. This was a man who had saved her life just over a week ago, who had jumped into a swirling river and risked his own neck for her, who had put her up in his house and spent an evening alone as she snored away, drunk on too much red wine. She made a quick call to Maria but she wasn’t there. She left a message explaining that she was ill but would be back tomorrow.

‘If you’re sick, I can look after you.’ She watched him blocking the doorway of the toilet. He was so large she couldn’t see the hallway beyond him.

‘I
really don’t want you to go.’ Adam was playfully trying to pull her handbag off her shoulder as she approached the car. The shadows were lengthening across the grass again as the hot day wore on.

‘But you know I have to.’ Her shoulders were warm where they’d caught the sun when she and Adam had lounged on his terrace. Her misgivings about her night asleep had faded, but sexual tension was building and Nicky knew she had to be going. She didn’t want an affair; she didn’t want to lie any more to Greg. It was time to go.

She opened the car door and looked back at Adam. He wore a pale blue T-shirt that accentuated his deepening tan, the fabric taut across his chest. I’ll probably never kiss anyone as beautiful again, she realized. Suddenly, with a last burst of enthusiasm that a reluctant party guest discovers when they know they can finally leave, Nicky reached out and kissed him goodbye.

It was a mistake. He was a much better kisser than she had been expecting. As he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him she thought she was being playful; she thought his youth and looks meant he didn’t feel and couldn’t be hurt. But he was giving his all, and she was acting like a child.

She pulled away sharply and got in the car. She started the engine and the roof began to recline. She felt herself blush to the roots of her hair. She could feel Adam’s eyes boring into her. Nicky suddenly very desperately wanted to leave. She was playing with fire, and she would get burned.

She put the car in reverse, turned and started down the drive without looking back. In a few moments she would be away from the house, the shame of how she was manipulating Adam would start to lessen, her guilt at how she was testing her marriage would recede. She tried to accelerate but something was wrong; the car felt unbalanced, veering to the side. She stopped and got out and saw that the front tyre was completely flat.

‘Something wrong?’ She heard his feet crunching towards her.

Nicky said nothing. She bent down and examined the tyre, tracing her fingers over the grooves in the rubber. ‘Is it flat?’ She heard his voice above her, his shadow falling in the afternoon sun across her shoulders. Her finger felt the long gash in the rubber without her having to see it. That was no nail or shard of glass. She stood up and opened the boot with cold efficiency. She was angry but thought it best not to show it; she felt it was important to pretend. Beneath her calm exterior something darker and more sinister was growing: alarm.

Nicky yanked at the protective cover over the spare wheel. She knew about cars. She wasn’t some sap who needed to call the AA if she got a flat. Her dad had tinkered with a series of broken-down cars in their driveway all through her childhood. She’d hung out with him for hours, watching and helping him. Adam didn’t know that. She felt a sour thrill of petty victory. Adam came from a generation where cars were built by robots in Osaka and a rite of passage for a young man didn’t include getting greasy under a bonnet. She knew something he didn’t. She would get the spare on and get the hell out. She needed to be out of here –
now
. Tomorrow morning at the office was looming in her mind. Deadlines and office politics and news round-ups and washing and ironing were where her thoughts were turning now.

She started yanking at the spare until Adam came to her rescue. ‘Let me help you. Don’t fight it.’

He pulled it out and together they rolled it towards the front of the car. Nicky went for the jack. She opened the bag and pulled out the piece of heavy metal. Adam was crouched down looking at the front wheel.

‘You’ve got a problem.’

‘No shit, Sherlock,’ she snapped.

‘I think this is what’s called a space-saver tyre. Look, it’s smaller than the one on the car. It saves room in the boot, but means you can only drive very slowly once it’s on and you probably shouldn’t drive back to London with it. It’s designed to get you to a garage where they can deal with it.’

‘Well, let’s get it on and then I can deal with it.’

Adam shrugged, as if he was indulging her. He set up the jack for her and she began to try to undo the bolts on the wheel. They wouldn’t budge.

‘Let me try.’ She watched with mounting frustration as his forearms strained against the bolts. ‘They’re mechanically tightened, you know.’ He put all his effort into trying to get one to budge. He didn’t need to add that getting the wheel off was going to prove impossible.

She swore loudly as a plane began its roar over the house. ‘Give me your phone, Adam.’ He didn’t move. ‘Please can I use your phone?’ She held out her hand.

‘You don’t need to go.’

‘I don’t need to go. I
want
to go.’ Nicky folded her arms. It was her way of keeping control, of not flying off the handle, which she was about to do.

‘There’s something I don’t understand. You seem so keen to get home, but what for?’

‘What for? For my job, my husband, my family, my friends, my plants. For me, Adam.’

‘Greg’s thousands of miles away. He won’t even know that you’re not there. Just stay a few more days. I need you here, I really do. We’ll have fun—’

‘Give. Me. Your. Phone.’

‘I’ll get it if you promise to stay for longer.’

‘Don’t try to blackmail me.’

They locked eyes and Nicky didn’t look away. He gave in. ‘It’s all cool and the gang.’ He walked back into the kitchen, then returned and handed over his mobile, with only a third of the battery life left.

‘You’d do better phoning the garage tomorrow. It’s just past six so they’re closed now.’

‘I’m going to phone the AA.’

‘Wait, wait. Before you waste any more of that battery, think for a moment. They can only put this spare on for you, which won’t get you back to London anyway. Wait till the morning, phone the garage and they can do the whole thing for you. Then you won’t have the hassle of getting a new tyre in London. And the tyre won’t appear on Greg’s bill. You can avoid some awkward questions.’

She thought for a long moment. What he was saying made perfect sense, of course. This was one of life’s irritations that were sent to test one. She was acting like a spoiled child. If she phoned for a taxi to a station and took the train home she still had the problem of Greg’s car being stuck here. It would mean a return journey at a later date. She knew it was better to get it sorted tomorrow, and leave then. She took the business card that Adam held out to her, looked at him defiantly and dialled the number. He frowned. After two rings a recorded voice announced that Mason’s Garage was closed and gave their opening hours. She felt reassured; the outside world was there, after all.