The Birthday Girl (18 page)

Anderson brushed his lips against her hair and then kissed her shoulder. He nipped her with his teeth, not hard enough to hurt but enough to make her gasp again. 'No,' she said, but even she could tell from her voice that her heart wasn't in the denial. Anderson's hands roamed up and down her body,

always returning to her breasts, and she felt him press himself against her.

'I want you,' he whispered.

'I can tell,' she said.

'I want you now,' he said, his voice thick with desire. Katherine sipped at her drink. Anderson tightened his grip on her breasts as if to punish her for her nonchalance. 'Now,' he repeated.

'No,' she said, putting the half-empty glass down. She twisted around so that she was facing him. Anderson's hands moved as she did so, sliding back over her breasts as if held there by magnets. 'Not here.'

'He won't be back for hours,' he insisted. 'You know what he's like when he's on that boat.'

His head jerked forward and he fastened his mouth to her lips, slipping his tongue between her teeth like a lizard. Katherine almost gagged. She pushed him away. 'Maury, no,' she pleaded.

'Come on,' he said. He tried to kiss her again but Katherine twisted her head to the side and his lips landed on her cheek.

'What part of no don't you understand, Maury?' she said.

'The part where your mouth says no but your body says yes,' he said.

Katherine couldn't argue with that. She could feel how hard her nipples had become under his caresses and she was breathing like a train. Anderson could play her body like a violin, and he knew it. 'Bastard,' she whispered. Her insides had turned to liquid. Anderson's eyes burned into her as if he knew how wet she was between her legs, how ready she was for him. 'This isn't fair,' she said. Anderson moved his face towards her, more slowly this time, and she let him kiss her, softly at first, and then with passion. His hands moved confidently to the top button of her dress, his lips never leaving hers. The button popped and he moved down to the next one.

Katherine put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back. 'No,' she said, more firmly this time.

'No?' Anderson seemed genuinely stunned by her refusal. 'I told you right at the start, never in this house.'

'But they won't be back for ages,' he whined, like a small boy being refused the last chocolate biscuit.

'It's one of the rules,' Katherine said. 'If you want to play the game, you have to obey the rules.'

'Rules are made to be broken,' he said, trying to kiss her again.

'Not this rule,' she said.

'You're crazy,' Anderson said. 'We've made love in motel rooms all over Maryland. What's the difference? You have a weird sense of morality.'

'First of all, we've never made love,' she said, putting her fingers on his lips to shut him up. 'We've had sex, and I'm not saying it's not great sex ...' Anderson grinned and she glared at him. The grin vanished.'... but it's not love, Maury. Don't ever confuse what we have with love. Okay?' He nodded. Katherine kept her fingers pressed against his lips. 'Second of all, it's not morality. It's etiquette. This is Tony's home. I'm not going to desecrate it by having sex with you, or any other man, in his bed. Do you understand?'

She slowly took her fingers away from Anderson's lips. His eyes sparkled. 'How about we do it on the floor, then?' he said.

Katherine laughed, and pulled him towards her, kissing him hard on the lips, keeping her eyes open so she could watch him. She moved her right hand down his chest, tracing circles around his stomach, feeling the muscles there tense and hearing him groan with pleasure. She pressed her lips harder against his, biting and nibbling as she slid her hand between his legs. He was panting as they kissed, though his eyes were still tightly closed. She stroked him through his trousers, then, like a farmer grabbing a wayward chicken, she seized his balls and squeezed. He jerked away as if he'd been given an electric shock, but Katherine maintained her grip.

'Ow, ow, ow,' Anderson said, his eyes wide open.

'Maury, believe me, this is hurting me more than it's hurting you,' Katherine said sweetly.

He shook his head. 'No, no, no,' he said, shifting his weight from foot to foot. 'Let go. Let go. Let go.'

Katherine released some of the pressure, but gave his testes a 144 STEPHEN LEATHER little squeeze to let him know it could be reapplied at any time. 'Now listen to me, Maury, stop thinking with your dick and go arrange us a motel room. Just nod if you agree.'

He nodded enthusiastically. His eyes had begun to water and Katherine couldn't help but smile. 'There's a good boy,' she said, and patted the front of his trousers.

Freeman sat staring at the horizon, only half aware of Mersiha's slight corrections to the wheel as she kept the red telltales horizontal and flat against the sail.

'What are you thinking about, Dad?' Mersiha's voice jolted him out of his reverie.

'Sorry, what?' he replied, though he'd heard the question. He was playing for time, thinking of an answer so that he wouldn't have to tell her what was really on his mind.

'You looked really sad,' Mersiha said.

Freeman could see himself reflected in the lenses of her sunglasses. He was about to say that he was thinking about work, but he held himself back. If he ever hoped to get Mersiha to open up to him, he had to be equally honest with her. Lies, even white ones, would only dilute their relationship. 'I was thinking about Luke,' he said quietly.

Mersiha swallowed and looked up at the mainsail, avoiding his gaze.

'I miss him,' Freeman said.

'I'm sorry,' she said.

'No, there's nothing for you to be sorry about. I think about him a lot. I was just thinking how great it would be if he was here, enjoying this.'

'Did you ever take him sailing?' Mersiha said.

Freeman shook his head. 'No, we didn't have a boat then.'

'He was seven when he died, wasn't he?'

He nodded. It was the first time Mersiha had asked questions about Luke's death, and Freeman wondered if in the past he'd THE BIRTHDAY GIRL 145 been giving off signals that it wasn't a subject to be broached. 'Three weeks after his birthday.'

The wind changed suddenly and Mersiha made quick, expert corrections to the wheel. The boat's speed remained constant. Freeman nodded his approval at her skill. 'What happened, Dad?' she asked. 'I know it was an accident, but I never...' Her voice tailed off as if she were worried about going any further.

'I was driving my car. Not the Lumina. The car we used to have. Luke used to love riding in the car. That's why I was thinking about how much he'd enjoy the boat.' A forty-foot twin-masted ketch passed them on their port side and Freeman waved at the helmsman, an elderly man in a bright blue windcheater. 'What he really liked to do was to sit on my lap while I drove.' He licked his lips. His mouth had gone suddenly dry. 'Katherine always told me it was stupid, and she'd never let me do it when she was in the car. I'd taken him with me to the mall, to pick up something. Food. Bread, I think, and some other things that Katherine wanted. Luke kept asking me if he could drive. I said no, but he wouldn't stop. He didn't cry, he knew that if he cried he'd never get his way, he just kept on asking politely. Eventually, when we were only half a mile away from home, I let him have his way. He took his seat belt off and sat on my lap, playing with the wheel, hitting the horn.'

Mersiha had stopped looking up at the sail and its red telltales. Freeman's reflection appeared to fill the lenses of her glasses. 'I didn't see the truck. Not then. When I think back now I can see it, I can remember everything. The small teddy bear tied to the front bumper, the garland of flowers hanging from the driver's rear-view mirror, the look on his face. His mouth was wide open. I think he was screaming. Or maybe he had the radio on and was singing along with it. That's all in my memory, but I know that at the time I wasn't aware of seeing it. The police told me later that he'd taken the corner too wide. He was only a few feet over , the middle, but it was enough.'

^ 'Was the driver drunk?'

'No. In a way it might have been better if he had been, then at least I could have blamed him. The road was narrow, the bend just a bit tighter than he'd expected. He wasn't speeding, he just 146 STEPHEN LEATHER drifted over the middle. We slammed into him.' Freeman took a deep breath, filling his lungs with salty air. 'It took less than a second. One moment Luke was sitting on my lap, giggling and holding the wheel. Then the car started to spin and Luke was thrown forward. The windshield shattered at the same time I don't know if it was the crash or Luke hitting it. I tried to grab him. I caught hold of his left leg but he was moving too fast. Inertia, you know? He was only seven years old but the acceleration was just too much. It was like trying to hold on to a racehorse. If I hadn't been wearing my seat belt, I would have been thrown out too. Sometimes I wish I had been.'

'No,' Mersiha said firmly. 'You mustn't say that.'

'AH I had left was his sneaker. He went under the rear wheel of the truck as the car spun away. The car went off the road and hit a tree. When I came round I was still holding the sneaker. They had to cut me out of the car, but other than a few cuts and bruises I was fine. I didn't even have to stay in the hospital. I was fine and Luke was dead.' Freeman was glad that he was wearing sunglasses because he didn't want Mersiha to see the tears in his eyes. He blinked behind the dark lenses.

'It wasn't your fault, Dad,' she said. She was gripping the wheel so tightly that her knuckles had whitened.

'Oh yes it was, pumpkin. There's no one else I can blame. The guy driving the truck was just doing his job. The car's safety system protected me just like it was supposed to. If Luke had been wearing his seat belt he wouldn't have died. That's all there is to it.'

'You think about it a lot, don't you?'

Freeman nodded. 'Every day.'

'I dream about Stjepan all the time,' Mersiha said. 'I miss him.'

'I guess when someone dies you miss them for ever. It doesn't hurt so much after a while, but you always miss them.'

Mersiha smiled. 'Yeah. I guess.' She concentrated on the telltales for a while, keeping the boat slicing through the waves with deft touches to the wheel. 'It isn't your fault, Dad,' she said eventually. 'Sometimes bad things happen. You just wanted to make Luke happy. It's not your fault the truck was there.'

Freeman sighed. Deep down inside he knew that Mersiha was right, but he'd blamed himself for so long it would take more than sympathetic words to take the hurt away. Katherine had blamed him too, initially with razor-sharp words that had cut deeper than any knife and later with ice-cold looks and turned cheeks that had wounded more than the words. They'd eventually reached an uneasy truce, continuing to talk about Luke without Katherine apportioning blame, but to Freeman it seemed that the reproach was always there, lurking in the background.

He stood up and lumbered along the deck to stand behind Mersiha. He put his arms around her slight body and hugged her tight as he rested his chin on the top of her head.

Ahead of them was a smaller yacht, and Mersiha steered away from it, giving it plenty of room. The mainsail started to flap and Freeman released his daughter to pull on the main sheet until the sail was properly trimmed. 'Dad?' she said.

'What's up?'

'Nothing.' She stared at the yacht as it passed on their port side but didn't acknowledge the young couple who were sailing it. Freeman gave them a half-hearted wave. He could tell from her silence that it wasn't nothing.

'Come on, pumpkin. What is it?'

She seemed to struggle with herself for a few seconds before answering. 'Well,' she said hesitantly, 'I was wondering .. .'

'Yes?'

'Well, was I a replacement for Luke?'

Freeman frowned. 'A replacement?'

'You know what I mean. Luke died, so you wanted another child.'

He took off his sunglasses and shook his head. 'Oh no, don't think that,' he said. 'I wanted you to live with us because of who you were, not because I wanted to replace Luke. I'll always love Luke, and I'll always miss him, but Katherine and I weren't looking for another child.'

'Katherine can't have more kids, right?' 'That's right.' Freeman was surprised that she knew that.

'I heard her telling one of her friends once,' she explained. 'It made me wonder if that's why you adopted me.'

'We adopted you because we love you. You, Mersiha. Not a replacement for Luke. In the same way that Katherine and I are now your parents, but we'll never take the place of your real parents.'

'I guess,' Mersiha said.

The boat was well over on its side as it carved through the water, so Freeman had to hold on to the guard rails to make his way back to the wheel. He stood by Mersiha's side and put an arm around her shoulder.

'I hope I don't die,' she said. Freeman felt a rush of sadness at the matter-of-fact way she said it, and for a moment he was lost for words. After he'd read Brown's file and realised how little hard information it contained, he had gone to a large bookshop in Towson and bought a handful of psychiatric books. One had been on child suicides. He had selected it only because it had a long section on teenage depression, but what he'd read about suicide had scared him. According to the book there were one thousand teenage suicide attempts every day in the United States - and eighteen were successful. Eighteen children killing themselves every day of the year. The most common trigger for suicide was the loss of a parent, either through death, divorce or separation. Admittedly five times as many boys attempted suicide as girls, but for both boys and girls firearms were the method of choice. He put his hand into the pocket of his jeans and his fingers touched the brass cartridge case. He'd been meaning to ask Mersiha where it had come from, but realised that it wasn't a subject that he could raise now. It would suggest a lack of trust, that he and Katherine had been spying on her. All the books had been adamant on one point - there was no point in confronting children directly. Their thoughts had to be explored circumspectly so that they didn't think they were being quizzed. He had to get through to her by communicating rather than confronting. Mersiha had made a start - for the first time she'd lifted the veil that hid her innermost thoughts. Freeman had learned more about her during the few hours they'd spent on the boat than Brown had gleaned from months of questioning, and he wasn't prepared to spoil it by asking her about an empty cartridge which in all probability she'd picked up while THE BIRTHDAY GIRL 149 out walking her dog. As she looked up at the telltales on the mainsail, Freeman hooked the cartridge out of his pocket and flipped it over the side, into the white-foamed water.