Eye Contact (32 page)

‘It’s the thought that counts,’ Naysmith murmured, pouring himself an orange juice. ‘Why didn’t you wake me?’

‘You looked so peaceful, it seemed a shame to disturb you,’ Kim said. ‘Plus, when I tried shaking you, you didn’t respond.’

‘I’m still asleep now.’

‘Sit down and I’ll make you some coffee.’

‘Thanks.’

She got up and tousled his hair as she went over to the counter.

‘Do you remember Javier? From Sam and Dave’s barbecue?’

Naysmith lifted his head and shot her a bleary frown.

‘Wasn’t he a photographer or something?’

‘That’s right.’ Kim glanced over her shoulder. ‘He’s got an exhibition in Bristol. Sam asked me if we wanted to go with them.’

‘Sure.’ Naysmith rested his head on his hands. ‘When is it?’

‘Next Sunday evening.’

Her voice continued but Naysmith barely heard her, his mind suddenly racing.

‘I thought you were going out next Sunday?’ he asked casually.

Not next weekend – any time but then.
He’d spent too much time planning the climax of the current game, checking things, arranging things, all for a weekend when she was supposed to be busy . . .

‘No. Jane had to cancel. And this might be more interesting anyway.’

Shit.
He sleepily rubbed his eyes to avoid looking at her.

‘Not sure if I can do Sunday night,’ he said carefully. ‘I’ve got a breakfast meeting on Monday and I told Ken I’d go up to town for a few drinks, then stay over.’

Kim said nothing. He glanced across at her but her face was unreadable.

‘You said you were out that night,’ he shrugged.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Naysmith watched her as she took her book from the table and left the room. Changing his plans now would certainly be tiresome and might introduce unnecessary complications. He really didn’t want to risk it. Kim might be a little sulky for an hour or so, but she’d be okay. And he’d make it up to her, maybe take her somewhere nice for dinner . . .

He downed the last of his orange juice and sat for a moment before pushing back the chair and standing up.

‘I’m going to go and get the papers,’ he called as he moved through to the hallway. ‘Do you want anything?’

No answer. She must still be cross with him. He shook his head and reached for his jacket.

Outside, the village was dull and shadowless beneath an ugly grey sky. Pulling the front door shut behind him, Naysmith jammed his hands into his jacket pockets and walked briskly down the lane.

He stopped off at the bakery on the way back to buy a crusty loaf, then made his way home, tearing off little pieces of warm bread and eating them as he walked. The clouds were darker now, and he was glad to get back before it started to rain.

Entering the kitchen, he placed the loaf in the bread bin and dropped the papers on the table. Kim was probably still annoyed about her weekend plans and he thought it might be better to give her some space. He knew he had some emails to check so he went upstairs to the study and settled into his chair. Most of the mail was unimportant – follow-ups to meetings and a couple of conference calls to add to his calendar – but there was also a draft contract that he’d been waiting for and he decided to go through it now while he had the time. There were a couple of minor errors, but those were quickly fixed and, once satisfied, he hit the print button.

Nothing happened.

On the screen, a message flashed up:
Out of paper
.

‘Kim?’ he called, as his eyes searched the room. ‘Have we got any more printer paper?’

‘Is it on the shelf?’ Her voice came from the bedroom.

‘There’s none there.’

‘Then we must be out.’

He sighed and saved the file for later – it could wait if it had to. As he shut down the email program, he caught a movement at the edge of his vision. Turning his head, he saw Kim standing in the doorway, watching him.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

He held out his hand to her but she turned away and started down the stairs. Naysmith rubbed his eyes for a long moment, then reluctantly got to his feet and slowly followed her down to the kitchen. All this fuss over an exhibition for someone they barely knew – it was just getting silly now.

She had her back to him, standing at the sink and filling the kettle as he walked into the room.

‘Kim?’

She turned round, her eyes on him as she returned the kettle to its base and switched it on.

‘Yes?’

‘What’s bothering you?’ He realised that he had instinctively positioned himself directly between her and the doorway. He hadn’t meant to . . .

‘Who says anything’s bothering me?’ Her voice was measured, but she folded her arms as she spoke.

‘I do,’ he said softly. ‘Now what is it?’

The kettle began to steam and bubble on the counter. Naysmith waited patiently, his eyes locked on Kim until she finally raised her head and met his gaze.

‘Are you seeing someone else?’ she asked, quietly.

He had misread her. It wasn’t missing the exhibition that bothered her, it was the thought that he might be deceiving her. And he wasn’t, at least not in the way she thought . . .

‘No,’ he said, gently.

There was a long pause and Kim eventually lowered her head to stare at the floor.
Didn’t she believe him?

‘Really no,’ he told her, more firmly.

Kim bit her lip and peered out at him between strands of hair that had tumbled down across her face.

‘Do you believe me?’ he asked.

She said nothing, absently toying with her hair as she stood with her back to the counter. Naysmith moved across the room and took her hand.

‘Do you believe me, Kim?’

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded slightly. ‘Yes.’

He moved closer, putting his arms around her shoulders. She remained still, passive, as he leaned forward, gently kissing her cheek, nuzzling her neck, loving the smell of her hair.

‘Rob?’ Her voice was soft, almost a whisper. ‘Are you keeping something from me?’

He paused, just for a heartbeat, and kissed her neck. Straightening up, he gazed down into her large eyes. So beautiful, so vulnerable.

‘Does it matter?’ He reached up and began slowly to unbutton her blouse, gradually revealing her smooth, pale skin. Her breathing was quicker now, her exposed chest rising and falling beneath his hands.

‘Please, Rob. Is there something?’

So perfect, her dark eyes shining, his brave little Kim.

‘Yes,’ he told her simply. At this moment, any other answer would have been unworthy of her, and unworthy of him.

Still gazing up at him, Kim blinked and sighed. It sounded almost like relief.

‘Thank you,’ she whispered. Her arms crept up to encircle his neck and she buried her face in his shoulder. It was a curious reaction, and he was surprised how much this glimmer of honesty had meant to her.

She yielded to his kiss, her body arching in response as his hands caressed her back, then stood pensively as he hitched up her skirt and calmly slid her underwear down to her feet.

‘Rob?’

‘What is it?’ he asked as he undid his belt buckle.

‘Will you tell me?’

Naysmith put his hands on her hips and lifted her up to sit on the edge of the kitchen counter, then gazed thoughtfully into her eyes.

‘Not yet,’ he said softly.

Kim nodded hesitantly, reaching out to touch his arm.

‘But one day you will?’

‘Shhh.’ He gently put a finger to her lips and smiled kindly. She studied him for a moment and shyly smiled back.

He caressed her smooth legs, spreading them apart and moving between them. When had she become so important to him? The door was open now – only slightly, but it would be almost impossible to close. He moved forward, kissing her slender neck, closing his eyes as he nuzzled her hair. Her body felt warm against his, and suddenly he didn’t care – the desire for her swept aside the growing turmoil of emotions.

For now.

Harland pulled the front door closed behind him and dropped his keys in the bowl. The house was silent but somehow that didn’t matter just now. He rubbed his eyes as he walked through to the kitchen. It had been a quiet day but he felt strangely weary as he shrugged off his jacket and draped it over a chair. Opening the fridge, he took out a bottle of sparkling water and held it against the side of his face, relishing the invigorating cold on his skin.

Work had settled down again, back to a dull routine that was almost welcome after the recent upsets and problems.

Almost
welcome.

He’d spent an unrewarding afternoon behind a parade of shops on the Lawrence Weston Estate. There, between the commercial wheelie bins and the torn black refuse sacks, someone had noticed a pair of feet sticking out from under a piece of old cardboard. They’d called it in, and somehow it had fallen to Harland – perhaps as a punishment, perhaps because he didn’t have anything more important to do.

The worst of it was done by the time he got there, and it was outside, so the only real smell was the reek of the rubbish, but it wasn’t pleasant. There was nothing special about the body – a white male vagrant in his late forties – and he knew as soon as he arrived that it was just another miserable old soak, someone who’d finally lost his tenuous grip on life and slid into the dark. Tragic but meaningless. He knew that the investigation – and everything he was doing – wouldn’t really matter. When a person’s life had so little worth, his death didn’t seem to count.

He pierced the plastic covering on a pasta meal and put it in the microwave, setting the timer for three minutes.

At least these dregs jobs were keeping him away from Blake. He hadn’t seen the Superintendent since he’d returned to work, which was probably the way both of them wanted it. The less they said to each other the better. And Pope had been conspicuously absent too, first with the Shirehampton case, and then recently working on something ‘rather important’ over in Fishponds. Doubtless the little brown-noser was chasing the high-profile stuff, anything to get himself noticed, promoted. And good luck to the little bastard, just so long as it took him somewhere far away from here.

The microwave was beeping impatiently. Harland opened the door, removed the plastic tray carefully and sat down at the table to eat.

Later, when the washing-up was done, he clicked through the channels for a while, but there was nothing on TV. Switching the set off, he stood up and moved across to the bookcase. Head tilted, his eyes scanned the spines, looking for inspiration. So many books, each with its own associations and memories. Here was one he’d read by the pool in Italy a couple of years ago, and there was another that had been his companion when he’d been laid up in bed with the flu. They were both good, but he wanted something else, something he hadn’t read, something where he didn’t know the ending. Tracing a finger along the uneven books, he mouthed the titles silently to himself, until his hand paused.

It was a novel that he’d started reading once but never finished. It had been at his bedside when he came home to the empty house that first night, one more thing overtaken by his loss. He pulled it from its place on the shelf and looked at it. There was still a till receipt acting as bookmark, only a few chapters in.

By nine thirty, he was yawning. He put the book down on the kitchen table, and opened the back door. Standing in the garden, he lit a final cigarette and exhaled smoke that drifted up into the evening sky, his eyes following the wisps as they spiralled and faded.

He thought back to the dead vagrant, a man not much older than himself, skin leathered by the sun and years of drinking. The matted black hair, shot through with grey, eye sockets deep and dark, Salvation Army clothing stained and wrinkled. He wondered if anyone else was thinking of the man, if anyone wanted to know about him, if anyone cared. He wondered if the man himself even cared – had he lost his grip on life, or had he deliberately let go?

He stubbed out his cigarette against the brick wall, tiny orange sparks cascading to the ground, then went inside. Bolting the kitchen door behind him, he yawned and made his way through to the living room. Out of habit, he moved towards the sofa bed, then paused, remembering. Straightening up, he turned and walked back to the doorway, where he stood for a while, thinking. Then, head bowed, he switched off the light and closed the door.

In the kitchen, he retrieved the book from the table and took it to the foot of the stairs. Everything down here was in darkness now – the only illumination came from the upper landing, yellow light spilling down from above to pool around his feet. He placed his free hand on the banister and sighed. Then, yawning and weary, he went upstairs to bed.

It wasn’t the sort of hotel he usually stayed in. Places like this catered for the basic business traveller – tables for one in the nondescript restaurant, a cheerless bar with intermittent Wi-Fi, and a discreetly billed porn channel in the room if you were lucky. Bland and sterile accommodation for bland and sterile people; an experience that was utterly impersonal . . .

. . . and that was what made it so suitable. The few staff that were there took no interest in him – he was just another lonely figure walking along the featureless, carpeted corridors, and tomorrow he’d be forgotten. Just as he wanted to be.

At least the room would be clean. Naysmith put his shoulder against the door to keep it open as he lifted the holdall in from the hallway, then found the light switch. He turned to fasten the security chain behind him, pausing as he went to slide it home, staring thoughtfully at the shiny metal chain in his hand. He stooped to the holdall, unzipping it and drawing out a pair of black gloves, which he pulled on. Opening the door slightly, he carefully rubbed clean the outer and inner handles with the edge of his sleeve, then repeated the process on the light switch. Replacing the chain, he turned to look at the room, with its many smooth and polished surfaces. He would keep his gloves on.