The Birthday Girl (20 page)

'Penny for them?' Freeman asked.

Katherine's head jerked up. 'What?' she snapped. Then she saw his look of concern and her face softened. 'Sorry, Tony. I was miles away.'

'Anything I can help with?'

She shook her head. 'I was actually thinking about Lennie Nelson, believe it or not. I was wondering what my father would have made of him.'

'He'd probably have given him very short shrift. Your father didn't appreciate outsiders sticking their noses in his business. I know he thought long and hard before allowing me in.'

'That's true,' she said, smiling at the memory. 'He had you pegged as a fortune hunter, remember?'

Freeman doubted that he'd ever forget. Katherine's father 160 STEPHEN LEATHER had either scared away or bought off all her previous suitors, and he'd attempted the same with Freeman. He had never told Katherine about the old man's last attempt to drive him away. It had been in the study of the Williamson mansion in Annapolis, a book-lined room with a roaring fire and a Chinese rug on the floor. It seemed to Freeman that he'd spent a long time staring at the blue hand-woven silk rug and its images of dragons and snakes as the old man had outlined his terms: a cheque for fifteen thousand dollars and a one-way ticket back to Scotland, in exchange for agreeing never to see Katherine again. The old man hadn't been quite that direct - there had been a long preamble about the family, their desire to see Katherine married to someone of her own class, someone of her own intellectual standing, someone who could keep her in the lifestyle to which she'd become accustomed - and there was a lot of ego-massaging, about how Freeman was a nice guy, salt of the earth, hard-working and no doubt totally trustworthy, but that really he wasn't right for the only child of one of Maryland's most powerful industrialists. Not to say richest. Freeman could still picture the rug in his mind.

'Still, you won him over, didn't you?' Katherine's words jogged him out of his reverie.

Freeman smiled and nodded. He couldn't remember exactly what he'd said to the old man, not the precise words. He knew that he couldn't show anger, or hatred, that any show of emotion would prove only that Katherine's father was right, that he was unworthy of her hand. He explained that he had been put in an impossible position, that he had no wish to take her away from her family, and that he knew her well enough to understand that it would be an impossible task anyway. Katherine's love for her family, and her father in particular, went far beyond anything she could ever feel for a lover. So if her family rejected him, he had no alternative but to walk away. The old man had smiled and reached for his cheque book, but Freeman had shaken his head. The money wasn't important, he'd said. The money was nothing. Freeman's family owned several farms in the north of Scotland, and while he'd never be as rich as Katherine's father, he'd certainly never be short of money. It was the first and only THE BIRTHDAY GIRL 161 time he'd spoken about family money with the old man. He had turned on his heels and walked out of the study, sure that it was the last time he'd ever set foot in the mansion. He was wrong. The following day Katherine phoned, inviting him to dinner. With her father.

The old man never mentioned the discussion in the study, and Freeman could never work out whether the offer to pay him off had been a genuine one, or if it was just the final test to see whether he really loved Katherine. Whatever, the old man had given his blessing and six months later they'd married.

'Yeah, eventually I did,' he said. 'I doubt if Nelson would have been able to. Your father would have run him out of town.'

'Lynched him, more like,' Katherine said. She was joking, but her father had views that wouldn't have gone down well in present-day politically correct America.

'I think we should give Nelson the benefit of the doubt,' Freeman said.

'We'll see,' she mused, picking up her tumbler and looking at him over the top. 'Did you speak to Mersiha?'

'About what?'

'Don't give me that wide-eyed innocent look, Freeman. You know what about. Whatever you said, she was as nice as pie tonight.'

'Nah, it's your cooking.'

Katherine sniffed pointedly. 'I hope that's not a crack about my culinary abilities. Wasn't the stew thawed enough?'

'The stew was thawed just fine. My compliments to the chef.' He ducked as the magazine sailed through the air, missing his head by inches.

'By die way,' Katherine said. 'Did you ever ask her about that cartridge I found?'

Freeman shrugged. 'The opportunity didn't came up,' he said. 'But I had an idea.'

'Uh-oh.' She sipped her drink and waited for him to continue. 'I'd like to take her away for a few days. A sort of vacation.' 'Father-daughter bonding?'

'It went really well today, Kat. She spoke about her brother for the first time. I think she's starting to open up.'

'And you want to go alone? Just the two of you?'

'If that's okay with you. It would just be for a few days. We could all take a vacation together later on in the year if you like, but yeah, I'd like to do this on my own. I really think it'll help.'

'Where would you go?'

Freeman leant forward. 'That's my brainwave,' he said eagerly. 'I'm going to find somewhere like Bosnia. Somewhere that'll remind her of her home. Mountains. Forests. Farmland. If I can get her in that environment, but also an environment where she feels safe, I think it might set her thinking. And talking.'

Katherine frowned. 'I don't know, Tony. It might be a bit much for her.'

'I don't think so. Besides, I'll be careful. I'm not planning to put her through the third degree. I'll take her hiking. Fishing maybe. And we'll talk. If she wants to. Hell, I can't do any worse than Art Brown. His files were devoid of any insight into her psyche. Plenty of observations, but he hasn't a clue as to why she's the way she is. I'm sure I can do better than that.'

'You're sure? You're sure it won't do more harm than good?'

'No, I'm not sure. But she'll be sixteen in a few days. She'll soon be an adult. I don't want her to have these nightmares for the rest of her life. And what about college? How do you think she'll get on if she's still sleepwalking in her twenties?'

Katherine nodded. 'Where would you take her?'

'I don't know. Colorado maybe. I'll speak to a travel agent.'

'When?'

'She's due a week off soon, right? That thing they do in Maryland to save money in winter.'

'You mean Energy Conservation Week? I think the idea is to save the world's natural resources.'

'Yeah, whatever. It's the perfect opportunity. I could make it a birthday present. Just a few days, a week at most.'

'You're sure you're not just trying to get away from me?' she said, pouting.

Freeman walked over and knelt down before her. 'Don't be silly, Kat. I love you.' He kissed her on the lips. He could taste the THE BIRTHDAY GIRL 163 brandy and Coke. She kissed him back, sliding her hand around the back of his neck and running her fingers through his hair. He broke away first. 'I'll always love you,' he said, his eyes shining with desire.

'I know,' she said. She kissed him again, harder this time.

The drive from the city centre to his house in Tuscany Road was always a major ego boost for Nelson. On the way up Charles Street he crossed North Avenue and its crack-houses, hookers and street beggars which typified Baltimore's urban decay, the image the city fathers tried so hard to gloss over by promoting its convention centres, Inner Harbour shopping malls and baseball stadium. Though he'd never admit it to anyone, North Avenue was where Nelson came from. He'd been brought up in a twobedroomed cockroach-infested row house close to the corner of North Avenue and Greenmount, one of five children, with a father who left when he was three months old and a mother who sold heroin to make ends meet. She was long dead, his mother, and so were two of his brothers, one of a drugs overdose, the other shot by a burglar high on cocaine. That was par for the course in Baltimore. What wasn't typical was the fact that Nelson had escaped from his background, had worked his way through college and graduate school and had started on a career path that was going to take him all the way to the top. There wasn't anything a young, good-looking, ambitious black male couldn't do with a Democrat in the White House and affirmative action the order of the day.

Further up Charles Street, between 29th and University Parkway, was Johns Hopkins University, where he'd studied with a vengeance, studied harder than anyone had ever studied before because he had something to prove and something to escape from. He'd spent more hours in the library than he had in bed, and when he wasn't studying he was flipping burgers at Burger King, washing dishes at countless restaurants and bagging groceries for overweight white suburban housewives.

After four years he left Hopkins with a BA, dishpan hands and student loans that kept him on a diet of beans and rice for a long time. It had also given him an appetite for work that stood him in good stead in the world of banking. He was always first at his desk and he made it a point not to leave if there was anyone else on the floor.

Nelson could see that Jenny was impressed by the large colonial houses shaded by leafy trees with two-car garages and lawns that needed ride-on mowers. He slowed down and drove the Jaguar up to his house. 'I love it,' she said as she walked up to the front door. 'How long have you lived here?'

'A couple of years,' he lied. He'd actually bought it just six months earlier and it was mortgaged to the hilt.

He unlocked the front door and ushered her in, switching the lights on as she walked into the hallway. She looked around appreciatively, put her bag by the door, and went into the sitting room. As always the room was immaculate he spent so little time there it rarely got untidy. There were two leather chesterfields either side of a fireplace with a gas fire that looked like it was filled with real coal, a steel and chrome shelving system which contained his stereo and CD collection, and a big-screen television. Nelson had seen the furniture in the window of a downtown store and had bought it as a job lot. He'd even gone to the trouble of matching the thick-pile carpet to the colour used in the window display. 'Can I get you a drink?' he asked.

'Sure. What have you got?'

'I've got vodka in the icebox.'

'Great.'

Nelson went into the kitchen and opened his refrigerator. He had a bottle of Absolut next to his ice cubes, but in the vegetable chiller he saw something he thought Jenny might appreciate even more. He took the bottle of Tattinger champagne out and carried it into the sitting room with two long-stemmed glasses. She was standing by the window, toying with a vase of freshly cut flowers. His cleaning lady replaced them every three or four days. 'How about this instead?' he asked.

'Terrific,' she said. 'Are we celebrating?'

Nelson popped the cork and deftly poured the champagne into the two glasses. 'Meeting you,' he said. 'It's the best thing that's happened to me for some time.'

'Sweet-talker,' she said, taking her glass. She raised it in salute, then sipped. 'Mmmmm, good,' she said. She looked at the fireplace. 'Does it work?' she asked.

'It's gas, but it looks like the real thing,' he said. He put his glass on the mantelpiece and knelt down on the sheepskin rug in front of the fire, turning the gas on and pressing the igniter button. Yellow and red flames flickered among the fake coals. As he straightened up he felt Jenny's hand touch the back of his head and then stroke his neck. He rested his cheek against her thighs and closed his eyes. She knelt down beside him and put her glass on the hearth and before he knew what was happening she was kissing him, her lips pressed tightly against his, her soft tongue probing between his teeth. He kissed her back, passionately, and his hands reached for her breasts, stroking them, teasing the nipples until they hardened. She broke away, gasping for breath. 'Do you have any pillows?' she asked.

'Pillows?' he repeated, confused.

She stroked the sheepskin rug, her scarlet nails highlighted by the white fur. 'I've never done it on a sheepskin rug,' she said.

Nelson grinned, unable to believe his luck. 'I'll be right back,' he said.

He rushed upstairs, took off his jacket and grabbed two pillows from his bed. He had a sudden thought and went through to his bathroom. He gave himself a couple of squirts of a minty breath freshener and from the top shelf of his medicine cabinet he took two Trojan condoms. He didn't like wearing them, but more and more girls insisted on it, until they got to know him anyway. He was halfway out of the bathroom door when he had another thought and returned for a third. He didn't want to have to break off for replacements if things went as well as he expected them to. He slipped the condoms into his back pocket.

When he got back downstairs, Jenny was standing naked by the fireplace, holding the two champagne-filled glasses. Her clothes were in a tidy pile on one of the sofas. 'What took you so long?' she asked, handing him a glass.

Nelson dropped the pillows on to the rug and loosened his tie with one hand as he took the champagne. Jenny clinked glasses with him. 'This is going to be the best,' she promised. She'd arranged her long blonde hair so that it hung over her breasts and almost to her crotch. It was the most erotic sight Nelson had ever seen - she was naked and yet at the same time hidden. His throat felt as dry as sand and he gulped the champagne down in one go. Jenny picked the bottle of champagne off the mantelpiece and refilled his glass. As she moved, Nelson could see the triangle of soft blonde curls where her thighs joined.

He took his tie off and threw it on top of her clothes and began unbuttoning his shirt. He couldn't take his eyes off her body. For the first time he saw a scar across her stomach, a slightly raised line that wound from her navel across to her left thigh. It wasn't a clean surgeon's cut but jagged and rough as if it had been a long time healing. He found the scar suddenly thrilling. He could picture her in a knife fight, eyes narrowed, crouched like a tigress.

'Let me do that,' she said, stepping forward. She undid his buttons, taking her time and scratching his chest with her nails as she worked, her eyes fixed on his. He lifted the glass to his lips and drained it. She took it from his hand and put it on the coffee table. Nelson stood behind her, and as she straightened up he cupped his hands around her breasts. She groaned throatily and leant against him, slipping her hands behind her back and between his thighs. He nuzzled his face in her hair. Her perfume was intoxicating and he breathed it in. Her hands moved expertly, touching and teasing him until he felt he was going to burst.