John Harvey - Cold Light

“You haven’t got any milk.”

“I know. I’m sorry, I …” He had looked back at her, helplessly. He still hadn’t found the way to cry.

“You stay there,” Lynn had said. “I’ll nip down to the corner shop and get some.”

By the time she had come back, the tears had been there, clear in his eyes. They sat in the airless room, drinking tea, while he told her about the first time he had met Nancy, the time he got a cramp during his run; the first time and the last.

“I should have g-gone after her,” he said. “Instead of letting her walk off the way she did.” Panic and guilt jostled in his voice. “If I’d r-run after her it wouldn’t have happened.”

“You weren’t to know that.”

“But if I had.”

“Look, it was her choice. She didn’t want to be with you. Not any longer. If you’d gone haring after her, she wouldn’t have thanked you.”

Tears tumbled down Robin Hidden’s face. “N-now she would.”

When he sobbed, she’d gone and stood beside him, patting his shoulder, telling him it was okay to cry, feeling genuinely sorry for him at the same time as she sneaked glances at her watch.

“Don’t you think,” Lynn had said later, pieces of tissue wadded and damp on the floor, “it would be a good idea if you got out of here? Went away somewhere. You’ve got family.”

He hung his head. “I don’t want to go there.”

“Friends, then. Isn’t there this friend …?”

“Mark.”

“Yes, Mark. Couldn’t you go and stay with him? Give him a ring.”

“I suppose … Yes, I suppose I sh-should.”

“I would. If I were you. Climbing, isn’t that what you do?”

“Yes.”

Lynn had looked back once from behind the wheel of her borrowed car, half expecting to see him looking down, but between the half-drawn curtains the window had been bare. “How am I ever going to get used to it?” Robin Hidden had said. “The fact that I’ll never s-see her again. Not ever.”

Lynn realized, as she released the plug and climbed out of the bath, that she had been thinking of her father all that time; then and now. When it came to it, how would she get used to never seeing him again? At least, not alive. “Dream, dream, dream,” sang the Everly Brothers. Reaching out, Lynn switched off the radio. She was still drying herself, one foot on the side of the bath, when the doorbell rang.

Michael was standing outside, a bottle of wine wrapped in green tissue paper balancing in the palm of one hand. “I thought you’d have had a busy day. Time to relax, maybe, wind down.”

Lynn had pulled on her terry-cloth dressing gown, belted tight. She could see his eyes, quick to where it hung open a little at her breasts. That look.

“If it’s not convenient, I’ll just leave this and go, why don’t I? Early as it is, you could be ready for your bed.”

She stepped back and let him inside. “Wait a sec while I get dressed.”

Michael smiled.

“There’s a corkscrew in the kitchen,” she said over her shoulder, moving to the bedroom. “Drawer to the left of the sink.”

She put on blue jeans, a cream sweater over a cotton roll-neck, sports shoes on her feet. Michael was sitting on the two-seater settee, leafing through that evening’s Post , two glasses of red wine stood on the low table before him. “Amazes me,” he said, “the way people open themselves up like this.” The front page held a picture of a weeping Clarise Phelan being led towards a waiting car by her husband. MY AGONY by murdered girl’s mother . “I mean, wouldn’t you want to keep those feelings private?”

Lynn took her glass over to the easy chair angled towards the small, rented TV.

“I expect, though, you’ve seen some progress now, what with the poor girl’s body and all.”

“Oh, yes,” Lynn said, “as a matter of fact, we have. Quite a few new leads just today.”

“And you,” Michael tasting his wine, “you’re more at the center of things?”

“In a way, yes, I suppose I am.”

He put down his glass and crossed the room, not hurrying, smiling all the time with his eyes. As he leaned down towards her, Lynn instinctively braced herself, a vestige of fear. His mouth was strangely soft and his lips as they slid over hers were pleasantly warm and curranty from the wine. His tongue pushed gently and she let it in.

“I’ve been thinking about that for the longest time,” he said. He was sitting on the arm of the chair, leaning across her, face pressed close against her neck. “Really, the longest time.”

“A few days, that’s not so long.”

“Oh, no. Longer than that.”

She shifted her head away till she could see his face.

“You didn’t recognize me, did you?” Michael said.

Not taking her eyes from him, Lynn shook her head.

“And you don’t now?”

“No.”

His hand was stroking her arm, fingers beneath the sleeve of her sweater. “It was the monkey suit …”

“The what?”

“Dinner jacket, evening dress, black tie. I’ve noticed it before, the way it changes a man.” He smiled again and she noticed for the first time a chip of green in the gray-blue of one eye. “Moss Bros, cheaper than a trip to your local neighborhood plastic surgeon.” The smile widened. “‘Let me get those.’ Remember?” He took a twenty-pound note from his top pocket and passed it in front of her nose. “You were wearing a blue dress. Such beautiful shoulders. And your hair, your hair was pushed up at the back like this …”

She caught hold of his wrist and held it fast; his pulse she could feel beating against her ear.

“You do remember now, don’t you? Or did I make that poor an impression?”

What she remembered was the black suit, smart, one face amongst others, ranged along an overcrowded bar. The voice, pursuing her away, offering to buy her a drink later, but surely the voice was not the same?

“That policeman you were with then, wasn’t that him I saw being interviewed this evening on tele? The one talking about the body?”

Lynn nodded. “My inspector. Resnick.”

“Good, is he? At his job. What would you say, a good copper?”

“Yes, that’s what I’d say.”

Michael made to move his hand from her hair and she let it go. He brought down his face to kiss her again and just before he did she said, “Meeting me on the road that evening, when I almost crashed the car-was that a coincidence or what?”

His mouth brushed against her lips. “Oh, I don’t think there’s any such thing as blind coincidence, do you? I prefer to think it’s all pre-ordained, part of some wider plan. Whatever …” Kissing her again, “… will be, will be.” More strongly, she kissed him back. “No songs,” Michael sighed, “like the old songs.”

“I think I’d better go.”

They had slid to the floor between the chair and the settee, Lynn’s sweater was bunched up by her neck, the belt loosened at the top of her jeans. Michael lay with one leg between hers, not looking at her, tips of his fingers making small circles on her skin.

“You’re sure?” Lynn said.

“I think so.” Still not looking at her, strange for a man who usually did nothing but. “Early start tomorrow, busy day.”

Lifting his leg, Lynn rolled away from him; sitting up, she smoothed her sweater into place. “Me, too,” she said.

“Catching up with your man.”

“Could be.” On her feet, she tightened her belt. “We can always hope.”

“Yes,” Michael said. “Can’t we?”

Lynn leaned forward to kiss him, but he slid his face away. She picked up the wine glasses, one from the table, one from the floor.

“Here,” Michael said, “let me take those. I need a drink of water. Trouble with red wine, leaves you with such a thirst.”