Читать книгу The Black Sun - James Twining - Страница 21

Clerkenwell, London

5th January – 8.35 p.m.

Tom had never really been one for possessions before now. There had been no need, no point even, in owning anything: until recently he had rarely spent more than two weeks in the same place. He had accepted that this was the price for always having to stay one step ahead of the law.

It was not, in truth, a price that had cost him too dear, for he had never been a natural hoarder or acquirer of belongings. He had got into the game because he loved the thrill and because he was good at it, not so he could one day enjoy a comfortable retirement sipping cocktails in the Cayman Islands. He’d have done the job for free if money hadn’t been the only way of keeping score.

He was, therefore, well aware of the significance of the few pieces he’d recently bought at auction and scattered throughout his apartment. He recognised them as a tangible sign that he had changed. That he was no longer just a packed suitcase away from skipping town at the slightest sign of trouble, a mercenary wandering wherever the winds of fortune blew him. He had a home now. Roots. Responsibilities even. To him, at least, the accumulation of ‘stuff’ was a proxy for the first stirrings of the normality he had craved for so long.

The sitting room – a huge open-plan space with cast-iron struts holding up the partially glazed roof – had been simply furnished with sleek modern furniture crafted from brushed aluminium. The polished concrete floor was covered in a vibrant patchwork of multicoloured nineteenth-century Turkish kilims, while the walls were sparsely hung with late Renaissance paintings, most of them Italian, each individually lit. Most striking was the gleaming steel thirteenth-century Mongol helmet that stood on a chest in the middle of the room, leering menacingly at anyone who stepped into its line of sight.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ Dominique panted as she came through the door, hitching her embroidered skirt up with one hand and clutching her shoes in the other. ‘Went for a run and sort of forgot the time.’

‘Well, at least you’re here,’ Tom said, turning away from the stove to face her, his face glowing from the heat.

‘Oh no, Tom, he hasn’t cancelled again, has he?’ she said. ‘Let me guess. He had a card game, or greyhound racing, or he got tickets to a fight?’

‘Right first time,’ Tom said with a sigh. ‘At least he’s consistent.’

‘I can’t believe that you used to place your life in the hands of someone so unreliable,’ she said as she sat down at the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen area from the main sitting room and slipped her shoes on.

‘Yeah, well, that’s the thing. Archie never got the job wrong, not once. He might forget his own birthday, but he’d still be able to tell you the make and location of every alarm system in every museum from here to Hong Kong.’

‘You don’t think it’s all getting a bit out of control?’

Tom rinsed his hands under the tap as she finished rearranging her top.

‘He’s always been a gambler of one sort or another. It’s in his nature. Besides, in many ways this is an improvement. At least now he’s just playing for money. The stakes were much higher when we were both still in the game.’

‘If you ask me, the gambling’s all an excuse anyway,’ she said, her eyes twinkling. ‘I think he just doesn’t like your cooking.’

Tom grinned and flicked water at her.

‘Stop it,’ she laughed. ‘You’ll ruin my mascara.’

‘You never wear make-up.’

‘I thought I might jump on the bike and go to a club after dinner. Lucas and some of his friends said they would be going out. Do you want to come?’

‘No thanks.’ He shrugged. ‘Not really in the mood.’

‘Are you okay?’ she asked.

‘Me? Fine. Why do you ask?’

‘You just seem a bit down, that’s all.’

Tom hadn’t mentioned the afternoon’s detour with Turnbull. There was no reason to, and besides, he didn’t really want to relive the whole Renwick discussion again. The wounds were still too fresh. Wounds that he clearly wasn’t concealing particularly well.

‘It’s nothing.’

‘I just wondered whether it was because…well, you know, because it’s today?’

Tom gave her a blank look.

‘What’s today?’

‘You know, his birthday.’

‘Whose birthday?’

‘Your father’s, Tom.’

It took a few seconds for the words to register in Tom’s brain.

‘I’d forgotten.’ He could barely believe it himself, although part of him wondered whether, subconsciously, he’d deliberately blocked it out, like all those other things he’d blocked out from his childhood. It was easier that way. It made him feel less angry with the world.

There was a pause.

‘You know, it might help if you sometimes spoke about him with me. With anyone.’

‘And say what?’

‘I don’t know. What you felt about him. What you liked. What annoyed you. Anything other than the big hole you’re always trying to step around.’

‘You know what he did to me.’ Tom could feel the instinctive resentment building in his voice. ‘He blamed me for my mother’s death. Blamed me, as if it was my fault she let me drive the car. I was thirteen, for God’s sake. Everyone else accepted it was an accident, but not him. I got sent to America because he couldn’t bear to see me around. He abandoned me when I needed him the most.’

‘And you hated him for it.’

‘That’s not the point. The important thing is that I was prepared to try and start over. I really was. And you know what? It was working. We were just beginning to get to know each other again, to find our way back, to build something new. Then he died. I almost hate him more for that.’

A long pause.

‘You know he never forgave himself for what he did to you?’ Dominique sounded awkward and her eyes flicked to the ground.

‘What do you mean?’

‘He talked about it a lot. It never left him. I think that’s partly why he took me in. To try and make things right.’

‘Took you in? What are you talking about?’ Tom said, frowning.

‘The thing is, he never wanted to tell you, because he thought you might be jealous. And it was never like that. He was just trying to help me.’

‘Dom, what are you talking about? You’re making no sense.’

She took a deep breath before answering

‘I never knew either of my parents,’ she began, her normally confident voice strangely small and muted, her words rushed as if she was worried that, if she paused, even for a second, she wouldn’t be able to begin again. ‘All I remember is being passed from foster home to foster home as quickly as it took me to set fire to something or get into a fight. When I was seventeen I ran away. Spent a year living on the streets in Geneva. I was this close to the edge…’

Tom had always known that Dominique had a darker side. That she was a little wild. This, however, was totally unexpected.

‘But those stories about your family, about studying Fine Art, about going to finishing school in Lausanne – you made that stuff up?’

‘We all have our secrets,’ she said softly, her eyes locking with his. ‘Our own ways of blocking out the things we’re trying to forget.’

‘Did my father know?’ He picked up a knife and began to slice some vegetables distractedly.

‘I first saw him at a taxi stand one night. I think he’d just been to the cinema. A re-release of Citizen Kane or something. I never expected him to see me. Normally people would be halfway home before they’d notice their wallet was gone. But not your father. He was so quick.’

‘You stole his wallet?’ Tom hoped that his voice didn’t betray the fact that he was not so much shocked as impressed.

‘Tried to. But he caught me with my hand still inside his jacket. And the amazing thing was that, rather than call the police, he just told me to keep it.’

‘He did what?’ Tom couldn’t help smiling as he pictured the scene.

‘He told me I could keep it. But if I wanted a fresh start in life, I should bring it back to him at his shop and he would help me. I stared at that damned wallet for four days, desperately wanting to open it and take the money, but knowing that, if I did, I might lose my one chance to get out. And then on the fifth day I went to see him. Just as he’d promised, he took me in. Gave me a job working in his shop, taught me everything I know. He never asked for anything in return. I wouldn’t be here today without him.’

For a few seconds Tom was silent. Dominique’s confession certainly explained some of the contradictions in her character that he had never quite been able to put his finger on before. Less clear, was his father’s motivation in helping her, or indeed his reasons for keeping it a secret. Every time Tom thought he was beginning to understand him, a new revelation seemed to draw yet another veil between them.

‘He should have told me,’ Tom said, unconsciously gripping the knife he had been slicing the vegetables with until the tips of his fingers were white. ‘You both should.’

‘You’re probably right,’ she said. ‘But he was worried about what you might say. I think we both were. I’m only telling you now because I think that today, of all days, you should know that, all the time he was with me, he was trying to make up for not being with you. He knew that he would never be able to forgive himself for what he had done. But he always hoped that, one day, you’d understand and not hate him so much.’

There was a long silence, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator and the throb of the oven. Abruptly, Tom threw the knife down with a clatter.

‘I think we should have a drink. A toast. To him. What do you think? There’s a bottle of Grey Goose in the freezer.’

‘Good idea.’ She gave him a brave smile and swiped a finger across the corners of her eyes. Then, standing up, she crossed to the refrigerator. The door to the freezer compartment came open with a wet, smacking noise.

She gave a short sharp scream.

Tom was across the room in an instant. She pointed into the freezer, the cold air swirling inside it like fog on a wet winter’s morning. Tom could just about make out what she was pointing at.

An arm. A human arm. And it was holding a rolled-up canvas.