Peter May - Freeze Frames

“Don’t go out there,” she said. “I’d feel terrible if anything happened to you?

“Why would anything happen to me?”

“A lot of people have died at the trou in recent years, Enzo. Strayed too close to the edge and had the ground give way beneath them. They’ve roped off all around it now.”

“So if I stay inside the ropes I’ll be fine. And I’m sure you’ll lend me your flashlight.”

She looked up at him, and her face seemed very close to his. He felt her breath on his neck, and smelled the whisky on it. “Of course. But I’d still rather you didn’t go.”

“Nothing ventured, Jane. That’s why I’m here. You do still want to find out who killed your father-in-law?”

“Not at the expense of another life. No risks, Enzo, please. I don’t like the sound of it at all.”

And in truth, neither did Enzo. Everything about the scribbled message in his hand struck discordant notes. He knew perfectly well that it was not Madame Blanc who had put pen to paper to write these words. If she’d had something to say to him she could have said it anywhere, anytime. But someone clearly wanted to get him alone in an isolated and dangerous place, and although it seemed like an obvious trap, he knew that the only way he was likely to find out who had set it was to take the bait.

“I put a heater in your room this afternoon,” Jane said. “I’m sorry, I should have done it before. But I didn’t realise it was going to be so cold. I’d better show you how to work it.” And she disengaged from his arms and started up the stairs to the bedroom.

Enzo followed her with a strange sense of apprehension in the pit of his stomach. He was perfectly certain that he didn’t need Jane Killian to show him how to turn a heater off and on. But he saw the sway of her hips on the stairs ahead of him. Smelled the faint, lingering scent of perfume that she left in her wake. And, bizarrely, he was reminded of the Ouest-France journalist’s description of the former Arzhela Montin as fragrant. It was a long time since he had been with a woman, and his track-record for choosing badly was only likely to be enhanced by a whisky-lowered resistance to temptation.

As he climbed the stairs, he tried to persuade himself that he was misreading the signals. But no, the three previous evenings she had undressed in the fully lit bedroom beyond the unshuttered window opposite. His apprehension began to give way to the first stirrings of desire.

The room was already warm when he entered it. Jane said, “Close the door behind you and keep the warmth in. The heater’s been on for a few hours now.”

He saw that the drapes had been drawn on the window. To keep the heat in? Or because she knew that there would be no show tonight. She took her coat off and dropped it on the bed.

“I put it here, under the slope of the ceiling, so that it would help circulate the heat around the room. You should have told me before that it was so cold in here. I’d have done it sooner.” She crouched in front of the heater. “The controls are at the side here. Two switches, and a thermostat. I’ve set it to full, with the thermostat at seventy. You can adjust it as you like.” She stood up again and turned to face him. Her face was flushed now, her amber brown eyes wide. They seemed to shine, and Enzo saw a hunger in them, an intent that made his stomach flip over.

She was wearing a tight, v-necked sweater with a neckline that plunged to her cleavage. The light from the lamp on the bedside table seemed to pick out the highlights on her short, brown curls. Enzo found his eyes involuntarily drawn to the contour of her breasts, then back to fine, full lips that bore just a hint of red. His mouth was dry.

“You were watching, weren’t you?” she said.

It seemed like a long time before he found a voice to reply. “Yes.” It was barely a whisper in the still of the room.

“I want you.” Her eyes never left his, as she approached him, slowly, carefully. She stopped in front of him and ran her hands up beneath his jacket to slip it from his shoulders. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I set eyes on you.”

Her hands came down again over his chest, unbuttoning his shirt, and then he felt her skin on his. Her palms brushing across his nipples. And he knew he was lost.

Only the light of the digital clock on the beside table lit the room, a faint red glow deepening shadows as they moved in slow unison beneath the sheets. Her skin felt soft and warm against his, and she seemed small and delicate beneath his hands. Her passion had an urgency about it that he calmed with gentle kisses on her neck and shoulders, feeling her rise beneath him, hips pushing hard up against him. Her fingers dug into his back, legs wrapping themselves around him, surprisingly strong. A hand slid past his waist to find him, and hold him, and guide him toward her. His mouth found her nipples, and he felt his own control slipping away.

Then the telephone rang.

“Ignore it.” Her voice whispered breathlessly in the dark.

But it was hard to maintain focus as one long, single ring followed another, penetrating, insistent. He slid his mouth across her breasts, feeling her fingers tighten around him, as the answering machine kicked in, and the voice of a man long dead filled the room.

“This is Adam Killian. Please leave a message after the tone.”

“Shit!” he heard her say, as the long tone sounded. “I never did change the message.”

A woman’s voice followed Killian’s. A voice bizarrely familiar to Enzo. But it was a moment before he recognised it.

“Hello, Enzo? I hope this is the right number. Roger gave me it. He said he had no idea when you’d be back. And I can’t wait any longer. So if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain…”

Jane had stopped moving beneath him, her grip on him slackening. “Who is it?”

“I’ll be arriving on the lunchtime ferry tomorrow. It would be nice if you could pick me up. I take it you’ve got somewhere I can stay. If not, you can book me a hotel room. I’ll see you then.” And she hung up.

Jane and Enzo lay perfectly still in the bed, as if someone had pressed a pause button. The silence between them seemed to last an eternity. Finally, Enzo said, “That was Charlotte.”

She slid out from under him and rolled away to lie next to him, staring blindly at the ceiling. “And Charlotte is?”

“A friend.”

“A lover?”

He wasn’t sure quite how to respond, and thought about how to frame his reply.

“Too long. Your hesitation tells all.”

“I haven’t slept with her for a long time.”

“She seems very keen to see you.”

“We met in Paris before I left. She wanted to talk. But I didn’t have time.”

“And she can’t wait.”

“Apparently not.”

He heard her slow, steady breathing in the dark. “I suppose you’ll be wanting her to stay here.”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Well, you wouldn’t put her in a hotel, would you?”

“I guess not.”

“And the guest bedroom in the house is filled with boxes. So it’ll have to be here.”

“I suppose it will.”

He heard the sound of the covers being thrown back, and she stood up, the silhouette of her naked body just visible in the faint glow of the clock. “We’d better not soil the bed, then. Because I really don’t feel like changing the sheets.” She turned on a beside lamp and crossed the floor, picking up her clothes from where she had dropped them.

“Jane…”

She started to dress. “Yes?”

“You don’t have to go.”

“I think I do.”

He laid his head on the pillow and closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of her pulling on her clothes, then her coat being lifted from the bed. She said nothing as she opened the door, and he heard her footsteps on the stairs, then the front door shutting behind her as she slipped out into the night.