Graham Masterton - Innocent Blood

Astrid leaned forward and touched his forehead, and then the tip of his nose, and then his lips. ‘Do you think you’re safe with me?’ she asked him.

He grasped her wrist to stop her from touching him anymore. ‘Any reason why I shouldn’t be?’

‘Because I think that you and I should think of becoming lovers.’

He looked at her narrowly, still holding her wrist, trying to read those stone-washed denim eyes. ‘I lost my only son less than three days ago. You lost somebody too, although you won’t tell me who it is. I don’t think I’m ready for this yet, even if you are.’

‘Meaning that you might be, given enough time?’

When he arrived home he found that Margot was preparing dinner for them both. She said, ‘Hi,’ and busied herself laying the kitchen table. He stood and watched her. Maybe this was her way of telling him that she might, in time, be able to forgive him. She was making wide noodles with fragments of poached salmon and Pacific Rim pesto, which he detested, but of course he had never told her that he detested it.

She had washed and brushed her hair and put on makeup and she was wearing her white silk Saks Fifth Avenue sweater with baggy sleeves and oatmeal-colored slacks. He recognized her perfume, too. Flowers, the same perfume that Astrid wore.

‘There’s some wine in the fridge,’ she told him.

‘Thanks.’

‘How was your meeting with Joe?’

‘Oh, fine,’ he lied. ‘They’re going to give me as long as I want.’

He poured himself a glass of cold Sauvignon and sat down at the kitchen table. Along the top three shelves of the white oak hutch stood rows of white plates and white milk jugs that Margot had thrown herself, at pottery class. Next to the hutch hung a painting of a red-haired woman covering her face with her hands. It was titled Blind Witness .

‘What time is Nevile Strange coming tomorrow?’ asked Margot as she spooned out pasta.

‘He said he’d try to get here by one o’clock. Hey – that’s enough for me, thanks. Really.’

She served herself and then she sat down. He wound some pasta around his fork but he didn’t lift it up. Instead he found himself staring at Margot with an unexpected feeling of resentment. All right, she was talking to him. All right, she might be ready to forgive him. But he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be forgiven – not if it was going to be like this.

She glanced up at him with those big dark Audrey Hepburn eyes. ‘Is it OK? Your pasta?’

‘Sure, it’s . . .’ He waved a reassuring forkful at her.

‘Lynn will probably be here about twelve.’

‘OK, good.’

‘She’s going to bring a photograph of Kathy, like you said.’

He lowered his fork again. This wasn’t going to work. He felt so badly bruised, not just physically but mentally. Their life could never be the same, not after losing Danny. When he looked at Margot, he had the same feeling as watching a home video of a summer day that could never be relived. What had he read in The Process ? ‘You will never pass this way again in a lifetime, effendi.’

‘You’re not eating.’

He frowned down at his plate.

‘You ought to eat something, Frank.’

He couldn’t speak. After a while, she stood up and took his plate away. He heard her in the laundry room, scraping it into the trash. She came back and stood close to him. ‘If you want to come to bed tonight, Frank . . .’

He cleared his throat. ‘Sure, I’ll just . . . watch a little television, you know.’

She stayed where she was. From the way she was fidgeting he could tell that she had something to tell him. ‘Frank . . . I do know that you didn’t let Danny die on purpose. What I said to you – the way I blamed you – well, you have to understand how I felt.’

He nodded, still looking down at the place where his plate had been.

‘I’ve been thinking about tomorrow, and if I can hear that Danny’s at peace . . . that’s all I care about.’

Frank nodded again.

Margot tore off a sheet of kitchen towel and blew her nose. She stood beside him for another minute or so, but he felt too bruised even to raise his head. Eventually she left him in the kitchen and went to the bedroom. When he passed the bedroom door on his way to his study, he saw that she had left it a half-inch ajar.

He crept into the bedroom a few minutes after two A.M., wearing his pajamas, which he never normally wore. He stood still for a long moment, trying to decide if Margot was asleep or not. Eventually, so tired that he felt dizzy, he eased himself under the covers beside her, turning his back to her, as hers was turned to him.

He lay there, unable to sleep, until six fifteen. Then he climbed out of bed as carefully as he had climbed in, and went into the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee.

While the coffee perked, he switched on the television. Charles Lasser was being interviewed on the early-morning news. A huge, bulky man, with shiny dyed-black hair and a head that looked like a half-finished sculpture by Rodin, with a massive brow and a hooked nose.

‘So you’ve doubled your reward to ten million dollars, Mr Lasser?’

‘That’s right. And if necessary I’ll go on increasing it, until these scum are caught.’

‘Some people in the entertainment industry are suggesting that this is nothing more than another Charles Lasser publicity stunt . . . and that you’re using these outrages as a vehicle to promote Star-TV.’

‘Of course they’re saying that. They’re jealous and they’re mean-spirited. But they can think whatever they like and they can say whatever they like. I didn’t get where I am today by being Mr Nice Guy, I’ll admit that, and I know that many people in the television business resent me for being an upstart – and not only that, a highly successful upstart.

‘But in times of crisis, we should forget about personal ill-feeling and work together for our common protection. This is just such a time of crisis, and that’s why I’ve increased my reward. Not a single more innocent life must be lost. Not one more child must be injured. I want to see every member of Dar Tariki Tariqat arrested, tried, and sent to Death Row.’

Eight

Nevile Strange arrived nearly an hour late. He was driving a black Mercedes saloon, which was at least fifteen years old but very highly waxed. The day was strangely overcast, a dull lavender color, and there were distant grumbles of thunder from the San Gabriel mountains. Nevile climbed out of his car wearing a black suit and a black shirt, relieved only by a red poppy in his buttonhole.

‘Sorry, Frank. They wanted me to take a look at the crime scene at Universal Studios.’

‘Bad, huh?’

Nevile looked at him and nodded and the expression in his eyes told it all.

‘Did you pick up anything?’ Frank asked him. ‘Any of those . . . psychic imprints?’

‘A great deal of shock. A great deal of pain. It was a little too soon to make sense of it all.’

‘You’re sure you want to go through with this séance today? We could always postpone it.’

Nevile shook his head. ‘No . . . it’ll do me good to focus on something else. There were so many voices . . . so much chaos.’

Frank led Nevile up the driveway and showed him into the house. As he stepped into the wide, oak-boarded hallway, he stopped and looked around, almost as if he could smell something unusual.

‘Everything OK?’

‘Oh, yes. Everything’s fine.’ But he stayed where he was, turning his head this way and that, and keeping one finger raised, as if he were listening.

‘Danny was your only child?’ he said at last. ‘That’s what you told me, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Odd,’ said Nevile.