The Last Temptation (49 page)

‘That dress deserves much more than a takeaway pizza.’ His hand strayed to her thigh, his fingertips brushing the delicate linen and silk mixture.

Oh shit, here we go, she thought. ‘Both the dress and its owner are honoured,’ she said.

He shifted so he was facing her. Gently, he took the cup from her hands and placed it on the table. ‘The least I could do for the woman who has reminded me that it’s possible to laugh.’ He leaned forward and kissed her.

Carol tried to find the appropriate response. She could taste brandy on his breath and it revolted her. But she dared not show that. Equally, she dared not allow herself the luxury of relaxing into an embrace that she found hard to resist. Her
body’s response to him was automatic, animal. In spite of I herself, she found him attractive, and her hormones were f responding independently of her brain. She was kissing him ; with as much heat as he was kissing her. [

His hands were on her body now, pulling her closer. She | didn’t resist, running her fingers over the long muscles of his back. Still they were kissing, tongues flickering in and out of . each other’s mouths, breath coming harder and faster. Now f he was moving on top of her, his hand moving under her dress, a burn against her skin. She didn’t want him to stop, she realized with a shock.

412

Her reason staged a rearguard action against her body’s desire. Images flashed across her brain. The corpses spilling out of a shipping container. Morgan’s mouth telling her Radecki’s human trafficking had to be stopped. The assassinated man on the steps of the GeSa. Then Tony’s face, the eyes reproachful, the mouth rueful. Suddenly, Carol Jordan was back in control of Caroline Jackson. She pulled away from Tadeusz’s eager mouth. ‘No, wait,’ she gasped.

He froze, his hand halfway up her thigh. ‘What’s wrong?’ he panted.

She closed her eyes. ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I just can’t.’

He leaned into her more closely, his fingers pressing more firmly into her flesh. ‘You want to, I know you do.’

Carol squirmed as far as she could get from him, thrusting his hand away from her leg. ‘I did. I mean, I do. It’s just… I’m sorry, Tadzio, it’s all too fast. Too sudden.’

He smacked the palms of his hands hard on his thighs. ‘I don’t understand. You kissed me like you wanted me.’ His voice was raised, his eyebrows lowering over narrowed eyes.

‘It’s not that I don’t. Please don’t think that. But… this is very strange for me. I’ve never had a relationship with someone I’m doing business with. I’m not sure if I can handle it. I need time to figure this out.’

‘Jesus Christ.’ He jumped to his feet and took a cigar from the humidor. He fussed over lighting it, as if making an opportunity to collect himself. ‘I’ve never wanted to do this with anyone I was doing business with,’ he said, his words far more reasonable than his tone. ‘But I don’t see w^y it should interfere with our professional relationship. It could make it stronger. Working as a team. We’d be great, Caroline.’

She reached for her drink and took a sip. ‘That’s what I’d like too. But I need a little more time to get used to the idea.

413

I’m not saying never, I’m just saying not tonight.’ She looked away. ‘And there’s another thing too.’

‘Oh? What might that be?’ He glared mutinously at her.

‘Katerina,’ she said softly.

His face dosed down in the tight mask she’d seen the first time they’d met. ‘What about Katerina?’ he eventually said.

‘You’re the one who said how much I look like her.’ Carol tried for a pleading expression. ‘I need to be sure it’s really me you want to sleep with, not another version of Katerina.’

His eyes clouded and his shoulders drooped. ‘You think I haven’t asked myself the same question?’

‘I don’t know.’ Realizing she’d found the button to push that had turned his anger to vulnerability, Carol let herself relax a fraction.

‘The first time I saw you, once I got over the shock, I told myself I would never lay a finger on you because it would be sick. But the more I’ve got to know you, the more I’ve got to like you. Now when I look at you, I see Caroline, not Katerina. You have to believe that.’

‘I want to believe it, Tadzio. But I think I need a little more time.’

He folded his arms across his chest. ‘I understand. Take the time you need. It’s not like there’s any rush. I’m sorry if I came on too strong.’

She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing to apologize for. At least it’s made us clear the air. Find out where we stand.’

He managed a faint smile. ‘I have a good feeling about this, Caroline.’

The too, Tadzio. But I want to be sure.’ She straightened her dress and stood up. ‘And now I think I should go home.’

His light was still burning, the curtains wide open. It had been the first thing Carol had checked as she stepped out of

414

Tadeusz’s Mercedes and said good night to his driver. She felt dishevelled and faintly dirty from her scramble on the sofa, but she didn’t care. The need to see Tony was too strong for her to want to waste time restoring herself to a pristine state.

The door opened so swiftly she could almost have believed he was waiting for her knock. Tony smiled appreciatively at the sight of her. ‘You look stunning,’ he said, ushering her through to the living room. ‘How did it go?’ he asked as he followed her through. They stood inches away from each other. She looked breathtaking, he thought, her hair gleaming against the darkness of the window, her lips slightly parted in a tentative smile. There was an air of arousal about her that gave him a pang of distress. He recognized it as jealousy. He wanted her to feel that way about him, not a creep like Radecki who was nothing more than a gangster with a veneer of sophistication.

‘It couldn’t have gone better earlier in the day. He took me out into the country and showed me how he runs his trafficking operations on the waterways. And this afternoon, we had a meeting with his sidekick, Darko Krasic. God, he looks a total brute. Now there’s a man who would make a girl think twice about breaking her cover. And he hates me. He’d snap my neck as soon as look at me if he thought I was going to do anything to damage his precious Tadzio.’

‘God preserve us from male bonding. That must have been scary,’ Tony said.

‘It was. But it helped me concentrate on being Caroline. And it worked, Tony, it really worked. We’ve got a deal. We’re off to Rotterdam at the weekend to check out the illegal immigrants he’s going to supply me with and we can nail him hi the act. Morgan will be like a dog with two tails when he gets my report!’

Tony nodded. ‘You’ve done really well.’

415

She shrugged. ‘I couldn’t have done it without your help.’

‘Don’t be daft, of course you could. So how did this evening go? Were you celebrating your new business relationship?’ He couldn’t keep an edge of bitterness out of his voice.

‘He tried to jump me,’ she said, with a moue of distaste. ‘But I managed to fend him off. It’s tricky, making sure I give him enough rope to hang himself without me getting entangled in it too.’

‘It can’t be easy,’ Tony agreed, the words dragging out of him.

She took a step forward. ‘He’s an attractive man. My body seems to find that harder to resist than my head does. And that’s very confusing.’

Tony stared at the floor. He was afraid to look at her. ‘Just as well you’re so thoroughly professional,’ he muttered.

Carol put a hand on his arm. ‘It wasn’t my professionalism that got me out of it. It was because I kept thinking of you.’

‘You couldn’t stand my disapproval, huh?’ His familiar lopsided smile crept out of hiding.

She shook her head. ‘Not exactly. It was more about reminding myself what I really want.’ She moved closer to him. He could feel the heat rising from her body. Without thinking, he opened his arms and she stepped into their circle. They stood together, hugging so tight they could feel the thud of each other’s blood. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the sweet smell of her. For the first time since his visit to Schloss Hochenstein, his mind was freed from the images of horror it had generated.

The reprieve didn’t last for long. Carol ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his head and spoke softly. ‘I’m sorry. All I think about is me. How has your day been?’

His body stiffened in her embrace, and he gently moved away from her. ‘You don’t want to hear this stuff,’ he said,

416 .,

i

crossing to the table and picking up the bottle of Scotch sitting there. He raised his eyebrows at her and Carol shook her head. He poured a stiff drink and dropped into the upright chair by his laptop. He sipped at the whisky and shook his head. ‘Trust me, you really don’t.’

Carol perched on the end of the sofa, only a few inches separating their knees. Tm not exactly a horror-story virgin,’ she reminded him. ‘You know how this stuff eats away at you. So come on, share the burden.’

He stared down into his drink. ‘Kids. They were just kids. It’s not like I don’t know in graphic detail what gets done to children.’ He frowned. ‘But that’s individuals. One sick bastard preying on kids. So that’s manageable, because they’re beyond the pale. They’re not like us. That’s what you reassure yourself with.’ He swallowed more whisky.

‘But the terrible thing about this, Carol, the thing that makes me feel like I’ve swallowed some corrosive poison just by knowing about this stuff, is that it was a collaborative effort. Dozens, probably hundreds of people were involved in what was done to those children. Their parents hid behind their own sense of powerlessness and let those bastards take their kids away. And for what? Because they were physically handicapped. Or because they were mentally deficient. Or just because they were difficult little buggers who didn’t stick to the rules.’ He ran a hand through his hair, his face revealing his troubled bewilderment. Carol put a hand on his knee and he covered it with his own.

‘And then the doctors and nurses. Not ignorant peasants, educated people. People like you and me. People who went into this line of work presumably because they had some desire to heal ?he sick. But an edict went out from on high and suddenly mey stopped being healers and started being torturers and murderers. I mean, how can you get your head

round that? I’ve never had a problem understanding the self deception involved in being a concentration camp guard. When you feel vulnerable, demonizing some outsider groupin like Jews or gypsies or communists isn’t such a big step for most of us. But these were German children. Most of the people who destroyed their lives were probably parents themselves. How could they dissociate what they were doing for a living from their own domestic lives? For some of them at least, it must have wrecked their heads.’

He shook his head. Tm good at empathy. I’m good at feeling the pain of people who can only function by transferring their own pain on to other people. But I’m damned if I can find a shred of pity for anybody who was involved in committing the acts I’ve read about today.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Carol said. ‘I shouldn’t have brought you into this.’

He forced a tired smile. ‘No need to apologize. But, if I’m right, and our killer is a victim at one remove from what happened in those so-called hospitals, then I’ve got to say, he’s not the only one who’s to blame. The people who really carry the responsibility for these murders are way beyond the reach of our justice.’

In the street below, Radovan Matic couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d spent a boring evening outside Tadeusz Radecki’s apartment block, fully expecting to be there till the early hours at least. No red-blooded male would let a woman like that leave his apartment without giving her one. And from everything his Uncle Darko had said about Radecki, the man was no monk. He’d been mildly surprised when Radecki’s familiar black Mercedes had pulled up outside the building just after ten o’clock, and astonished when Caroline Jackson had emerged alone a few minutes later. ^ ^

4i8 ,|

He’d followed the Merc back to her place, and been lucky enough to find a parking space directly opposite as she walked inside. He decided to wait until he saw her light come on, then call his uncle in the hope he’d be allowed to go home to bed. Rado got out of his car and moved into the shadows of a florist’s doorway so he could better see the apartment block.

Minutes ticked past, and no light appeared at the windows he knew to be hers. What was going on? He knew from watching her previously that as soon as she walked in, a glow from the hall could be seen at the living-room window. Yet the rooms remained in darkness. Had he made a mistake? Was he watching the wrong window? He counted them off from the first-floor corner window, just to be sure.

That was when he saw her. Unmistakably. But she was in the wrong place. Instead of being on the third floor, she was on the first. And she was with a man who definitely wasn’t Tadeusz Radecki. As he watched, they moved closer together, clearly having some sort of intense conversation. Then they were in each other’s arms.

The bitch had come straight from Radecki’s apartment to this other man’s embrace. Rado reached for his phone. This was something his uncle needed to know about. And fast.

Krasic was there inside twenty minutes. He’d run every amber light the length of the Ku’damm in his eagerness to discover Caroline Jackson doing something she shouldn’t be doing. He parked across somebody’s garage entrance and barrelled up the street to his nephew’s vantage point. ‘What’s happening?’ he demanded\

Rado pointed up to the’ oblong of light on the first floor. ‘That’s where she was. Her and this bloke. Tadeusz’s driver dropped her off/and her lights didn’t go on. Next thing was, I spotted her in the first-floor window with him. They were

419

talking, then they were snogging. Then they disappeared. So I’d say at a rough guess that they’re shagging, wouldn’t you?’

‘I told him not to trust her,’ Krasic growled. ‘So what number is this apartment?’