Reginald Hill - The Long Kill

‘Perhaps. But should you be asking me? In a sense, I’m an interested party.’

‘I hope so. But as your interest is to ensure that Miss Wilson’s sale goes smoothly, you’ll be careful to recommend only the best, won’t you?’

‘Are you always so logical?’ she asked.

‘Very occasionally I act on impulse. And, as you’ve just proved, it usually gets me into trouble.’

She was not to be tempted back to that topic. In a swift easy movement she rose and said, ‘Time to go. The hard bit lies ahead.’

The hard bit wasn’t all that hard, a fairly steep pull up the last five hundred feet of Bow Fell after they had descended from the Crinkles. There they ate their lunch and chatted familiarly enough, but still, despite or perhaps because of the kiss, at a level far removed from the centre of either of them. But it was interesting enough for them to linger overlong and Anya, glancing at her watch, said accusingly, ‘You’ve kept us here too long.’

‘I have?’

‘You’re the official timekeeper, aren’t you? Come on. We’ll need our running shoes.’

In fact by dint of skirting the western face of the Crinkles as much as possible, they were able to retrace their steps to Three Shires Stone nearly an hour more quickly than they had come. Jaysmith walked a little behind for much of the way, admiring the easy movement of her athletic body as she set a spanking pace. He had no difficulty in keeping up with it, but he shouldn’t have cared to try to overtake.

She dropped him in Grasmere after a descent of Wrynose he did not care to remember. When he tried to speak as he got out of the car she said crisply, ‘Sorry. I hate being late. I’ll be in touch,’ and drove off without more ado.

A brush-off? he wondered.

He didn’t think so. On the other hand, her reaction to his kiss had not been promising. Perhaps some panic button had been pressed and she was now in full retreat.

He ate his dinner with little appetite and wondered where it was all going to lead. The euphoria of his decision to retire now seemed light years away. Then it had seemed to usher in an Indian summer of careless peace; now new cares seemed to be pressing in on him from all sides.

‘Telephone call for you,’ said Doris Parker as she brought his coffee.

The words filled him with alarm. He was convinced it must be Jacob, so much so that he almost said, ‘Jaysmith here,’ when he picked up the phone. Fortunately twenty years of caution made him growl, ‘Hutton.’

‘You don’t sound happy,’ said Anya. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting your dinner.’

‘No,’ he said, curt with relief. ‘I’d finished.’

‘Good. I enjoyed our walk today.’

‘Me too. Many thanks.’

‘Were you serious about wanting me to recommend a solicitor?’ she asked.

‘Certainly.’

‘All right. Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. Mr Steven Bryant of Bryant & Grose will see you in his office in Keswick. Have you got a pen? I’ll give you his address.’

He noted it down with directions.

He began to thank her but she went on, ‘Afterwards, would you care to have lunch with me? I should warn you that I will be cooking it.’

‘I can’t think of anything I’d rather do,’ he said.

‘No need to be fulsome,’ she said. ‘Goodbye.’

He realized she hadn’t given him directions to her home after he put the receiver down. No matter. Presumably this Mr Steven Bryant would be able to do that, and if not, he was still sure that nothing could stop him finding her.

He took this certainty to bed with him and lay awake for a while, feeling his happiness lapping round his body like the warm waters of an eastern sea. When at last he slipped into sleep, he took his euphoria with him. Soon it developed form and flesh and suddenly it was Anya’s body, lean, brown and naked beneath his, and above them the sharp bright stars of the Lakeland sky.

They wrestled and rolled, locked together in an ecstasy of contact which threatened to climax in death. As they rolled, each gaining the ascendancy in turn, Jaysmith saw that the stars were wheeling too, shifting their positions and relationships, till the familiar pattern of the northern sky was quite destroyed and another pattern, richer in background, softer in glow, but just as familiar, took its place.

And he knew without needing to look that the flesh against his was no longer the lean, brown body of Anya Wilson, but had become softer, rounder, a deep honey gold. And now he wanted to look and he rose on his elbows so that he could see the delicately boned face, the huge dark eyes, the uncertain smile, at once shy and inviting. Her arms were still round his neck, but he wanted to see more and, despite her protest, he pushed himself upright, breaking her grip, and looked down on the slight but exquisitely rounded body, laughing in his turn as her hands flew to cover her peach-like breasts and the velvety darkness between her thighs.

‘I love you, Nguyet,’ he said, letting his tongue relish the strange cadence of the name which was also the Vietnamese word for moon.

Then, smiling, he added, ‘You are my moon,’ but gave the English word the tonal value which turned it into mun, which in her language meant carbuncle. It was an old joke between them and she giggled and gave the ritual reply, ‘And you are my sun,’ turning sun into the verb used to describe the decaying of teeth.

He laughed with her, then laughter left her eyes, driven thence by the cloudy onslaught of desire.

‘Come close, Harry,’ she whispered.

Gladly he stooped to her again, but found he could no longer get close. There were strong hands gripping his arms, voices shouting. He could no longer see her, there was a door between them, the door of her apartment. Despite the strength of those trying to hold him back, he burst through that door. And now he saw her again, still naked, still prostrate, but her eyes now wide with terror, blood caking her flared nostrils and more blood smudging the honey gold of her wide splayed thighs.

The room was full of soldiers who glared at him angrily. One of them, a dog-faced man in a colonel’s uniform, chattered commands. A rifle butt was driven into his kidneys while a hand dug viciously into his mop of hair and dragged him backwards screaming, ‘Nguyet! Nguyet! Nguyet!’ as he woke up.

He flung back the blankets and fell out of the bed like a drunken man. He sat on the floor feeling the cool night air trace the runnels of sweat down his naked body. Last night, Jacob. Tonight, Nguyet. Why was he once again so vulnerable after all these years? He rose and went to the window and pulled back the curtain. Above the shadowy bulk of fells was the high northern heaven, pricked with countless stars. He watched it for a long time, defying it to do its planetarium act again and rearrange its crystal spheres into the lower, richer, warmer maze of the stars above Saigon.

Nothing happened. Why should it? Once again, it was only a dream. He closed the curtain and went back to bed.

He was early for his appointment next day. Keswick was a very small town and Anya’s directions were precise. The offices of Bryant & Grose, Solicitors were on the second floor of an old house now given over entirely to business and commerce. He thought of killing time with another turn round the block but instead he went in and announced himself.

‘Mr Hutton? You’re expected,’ said the young girl in the outer office. ‘Just go right in.’

As he approached the door indicated, it opened and Anya appeared. She stopped on the threshold and smiled at his surprise.

‘Hello,’ she said. ‘So you’ve decided to be early this morning? And shaven too! That’s a good sign. I was just on my way to start your lunch, but I might as well introduce you now you’re here. Step inside. I’d like you to meet your new solicitor, Mr Steven Bryant. Oh, by the way, he happens to be my father too!’