Quintin Jardine - On Honeymoon With Death

There was no point in acting like one, though. She slid off me eventually, down on to the bed once more, her back to me this time. She was still shaking with her silent sobs. I heard her whisper something.

‘What is it?’ I asked her.

‘I’m s-sorry,’ she cried out. ‘I told you I was a selfish, manipulative wee bitch, didn’t I?’ Whether she was or not. . and Prim would have agreed with her, that’s for sure. . she wouldn’t have been helped by me telling her that. I put my hand on her shoulder, the one she’d hurt in her fall, and rubbed it gently.

‘Okay, okay,’ I said, quietly. ‘You’ve been through a terrible time, Susie love. You’re not going to make me call you names.’

‘Make love to me again, then,’ I heard her mumble.

‘No, I’m not going to do that either.’ Instead, I put my hand between her shoulder-blades and eased her over until she was lying face down, turned away from me still. I could see that the muscles of her back and neck were bunched and tight, and so I began to massage them, slowly but firmly, drawing the tension from them. There was a bottle of her body lotion, unpacked the day before, I assumed, and lying by the side of the bed. I picked it up, squeezed some down her spine, and began to rub it gently into her shoulders, her back, her buttocks, her legs. As I worked, she began to moan softly, as if I was soothing more than her muscles.

Once I had worked my way down to her feet, I turned her over, with her arms spread wide. She didn’t speak at all; she just lay there, eyes closed as I oiled her shins, her thighs, her belly, her big full breasts. All the time, she continued to make her sound of pleasure, and to move, very slightly, beneath my touch, matching its rhythm.

When I was finished, she opened her eyes, and looked up at me for the first time. She looked cleansed; that’s the only way I can describe what I saw in her eyes. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, and she smiled.

Lazily, she stretched her arms above her head, then brought them down to rest on top of her thighs, her hands framing her diamond of bushy red hair. As I looked at her, I felt myself stirring again; and my lower brain began to engage itself. Then something caught my eye, something I had missed until that moment.

Susie’s skin is porcelain white, like that of most natural redheads. On each arm, just above the bicep, I saw a wide purplish mark, round, almost like a bracelet. ‘What are those?’ I asked. I must have sounded sharp, for her smile vanished at once.

I sat back down on the edge of the bed, and lifted her right arm, gently. I leaned down to look at the mark, then drew her over on to her side so that I could have a better look at its twin. ‘Sit up, Susie,’ I said. She did, awkwardly, her back bent forward. I looked at the marks again. ‘Now stand up for a minute.’

Again, she did as she was told, looking puzzled but without a word. I stood behind her and put my hands on top of the marks, fingers reaching round her arms; then I gripped them and lifted her up on her toes.

‘Ouch,’ she exclaimed, ‘that’s sore.’

Curiosity got the better of her at last. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

I relaxed my grip, lowering her, but kept my hands in place. ‘In the last few days, has anyone touched you like this, lifted you up in this way?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Aye, but somebody has, wee one. You’ve got bruising on your upper arms, nearly all the way round, just where I’m holding you. Someone, or something, has grabbed you hard enough to leave marks.’

‘Could it have been you last night?’

‘It wasn’t. I picked you clean off the floor, remember.’

She looked over her shoulder and up at me, puzzled. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘I’m not certain yet.’ I slapped her gently on the bum, in a way that would have to cease and desist from now on.

‘You go and have a shower, and get yourself dressed. I’ll do the same. I have to think about this.’

I thought long and hard about the whole business as I stood in the shower. Okay, she’d been hurt, she was dazed, she was frightened and, if she’d been sleepwalking, I’d been right to share her worry about her safety, but for God’s sake, there’s looking after, and then there’s looking after . .

I guessed that Susie had been giving serious thought to what had happened as well. Her face is oval, strong-featured, and cheerful, normally, but when she came into the kitchen it was almost tripping her. ‘What do you fancy for breakfast? ’ I asked her.

She looked at me as if I’d offered her a choice between hanging and electrocution; maybe it was just the start of a hangover after all. ‘Coffee,’ she said slowly. ‘Just a nice strong cup of coffee, that’s all.’ She was dressed in tight tan trousers, and the same red sweater she’d worn the day before, a hell of a long way from sackcloth and ashes. As for me, if I’d had a hair shirt I’d have put it on, rather than my Ralph Lauren polo.

The old-fashioned percolator was completing its simple steam-driven process, even as she spoke. I filled her a mug, handed it to her, and pointed to the fridge. ‘Milk’s in there,’ I told her, as I poured my own.

We sat on either side of the breakfast bar, letting the heavy silence build up as each waited for the other to say something. I cracked first.

‘Aye,’ I muttered, ‘the things you do for your friends, eh.’

She looked into her mug, as if she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to start crying again, so I let her off the hook. ‘I’m sorry, Susie. I should never have put us in that situation. I should have known better, but when you asked me to stay with you, I thought, well us being pals and all, and you being scared, well I thought …’

Her eyes came up and held mine. ‘I know,’ she said, ‘and when I wakened up and saw you there with your dong hanging out of your boxers, I just thought well, us being pals and all. . Don’t tell me you never shagged a pal before.’

She shook her head. ‘Please, don’t say any more, Oz. Stop apologising all the fucking time! Leave me with the illusion that you might have fancied me just a wee bit.’

‘Hey,’ I protested, ‘don’t get mad at me. How do you think I feel? My wife. . whom I love dearly, by the way, and who told me not even to think of putting you in a hotel. . is away, and what do I do? Probably the daftest of the many daft things I’ve ever done in my life. Yes, I was worried about you after what happened, but why didn’t I sleep in a chair outside the door?’

‘Good question.’

‘Because it never occurred to me, okay? I thought …’

Her brown eyes flashed. ‘You thought, what the hell, it’s only wee Susie, she’s no danger. Christ, but you are good for a girl’s morale! Couldn’t you even pretend you fancied me? I’m not shy about it. I wanted you. . no, shit, I needed you. . and I had you. Know what? I’d do it again too, only I wouldn’t want you to lower your standards any more.’

Somewhere, my brain registered that Mike Dylan had been right about her; she was really good at being manipulative. ‘Susie, don’t give me that,’ I shot back at her. ‘Listen, if I was in the market for a shag, you’d be the first person I’d ask. It’s not a matter of whether I fancy you or not, or whether I find you attractive. Of course, you’re fucking attractive! You’ve got a body on you that would give a jellyfish a hard on.

‘But allow me a bit of guilt here! Allow me a bit of self-recrimination. Prim’ll be back on Monday and I’ve got to figure out a way of looking her in the eye.’

She reached across the bar and patted my hand. She was smiling again, but there was a hard edge to it. ‘You’ll manage, Oz my son. From what I remember, you’ve managed it before.’