Читать книгу Ravenfall - Narrelle M Harris - Страница 7

James watched Gabriel Dare stride down the road in skinny jeans that accentuated the delicious length of his legs and a well-worn, black T-shirt sporting a rainbow flag. The man had radiated a faint aroma of shaving soap, tea and oil paints, which should not have smelled as good as it did.

James wondered how he had so suddenly lost one irritating flatmate and acquired a brand new, sexy as all hell substitute. A braw lad, Granda would have said. Tall and very lean (maybe a touch undernourished), hair dark and tousled, sharp cheekbones and a sensitive mouth; a graceful mover, with beautiful hands and green eyes that shone with quick intelligence. James had always liked his men tall, smart and a tad unpredictable.

Stop that now.

That was no longer possible. That was no longer his life.

And yet, he had a new lodger.

James vowed he could appreciate the lean work of art that was Gabriel Dare, but nothing else was ever going to happen. He’d keep those old impulses – nothing but dead echoes of a real life now – well under wraps. Wouldn’t do to frighten away his fortuitous new lodger, and it wasn’t as if anything could actually develop. James wasn’t sure what was physically possible any more, and surely you needed a soul to love. So, no. No future in that. Dinnae even think on it. Gabriel Dare was going to be a lovely-to-look-at lodger, and nothing more, ever.

A nothing-but-a-lodger who was moving in to the spare room in a few hours’ time.

James’s mouth tilted in a small, pleased smile. He caught himself doing it and stopped. When he looked down the road, Gabriel had vanished from sight.

I’m allowed a friend, though. Aren’t I? Maybe we could be that.

A friend. As though he hadn’t already withdrawn from everyone he knew. Civilian or army friends, how could any of them hope to understand who and what he’d become? He barely understood himself any more.

All fash and blether, Granda would have called it. Truth, Jamie, is you’re nae the first soldier tae come back aff yer heid.

Finally, annoyed with his own see-sawing thoughts, James spent the next few hours checking out Mr Bernetti’s story about the red- eyed wolf near his Barking Road flat.

The plain brown brick flat was situated above a mobile phone shop and a used furniture store, both closed up with roller doors painted respectively yellow and grey. The parking area in front smelled of engine oil and foot traffic. The scent emanating from the pie and mash shop two buildings down, mingled unpleasantly with the oil, traffic fumes, and the stale beer and worse smells from the pub on the next corner, and the dampness in the wind blowing north across Leamouth and the Thames.

The reek of London. He’d grown used to it again, and found comfort in its familiarity, even if it was so much more intense than it had been when he’d had merely human senses.

Unfortunately, steeped in all those other homely smells was confirmation that Mr Bernetti wasn’t entirely delusional. The footpath, three cars and the trunk of the plane tree by the road were pungent with werewolf – wild, predatory and unnatural.

James could detect no scent of blood though, human or otherwise. No killing had taken place here. Perhaps the wolf was simply passing through. James dismissed the idea of seeking out the assistance of another vampire. Selfish pricks, the lot of them, he’d so far found, mainly interested in prancing about pretending to be Byronesque princes in make-believe courts, based on way too much sensationalist fiction.

The only useful information he’d got about being a vampire had come from a human hanger-on who donated blood to his… patron. The kid had been extremely proud of the service he offered. When James expressed his horror that the boy could be a true victim one day, the kid was filled with scorn. ‘Blood given willingly is a hundred times more potent than blood taken by force. Don’t you know anything?’

And no, James didn’t, because the arsehole who’d made him hadn’t bothered to share any details at all, let alone important ones like “murder isn’t necessary if you can find a willing donor”.

James would have scoffed at the purely metaphysical rule, if not for the fact that he’d proven it at the clinic. His patients didn’t know the blood samples he took for tests were used in part to feed him, but the samples were willingly given at least. When that wasn’t enough, animal blood was sufficient to curb his thirst until his next shift at the clinic. He’d never again be reduced to that thing that had woken from death.

Vampires. James loathed them.

Not that there were many of them in London, as he’d discovered when he went seeking answers. Vampires, it seemed, were not plentiful and, James was assured, very difficult to make. Most people lacked the significant level of willpower it took to survive the transition from dead to undead. That knowledge gave him little comfort, though at least it meant that London wasn’t as full of bloodsucking homicidal maniacs as he’d feared when he returned home.

James followed the trail of the werewolf west then south, down Plaistow road, but he lost the scent of it at the A13. Too much car pollution.

James wasn’t sure whether to be concerned or relieved. It wasn’t like he knew what he was supposed to do with a werewolf if he found one. He’d keep an eye out for trouble, though. He wasn’t going to tolerate some monstrous thing threatening his community.

He returned home as the light was falling to find a van parked outside the flat. A woman was talking with Gabriel as he stood on the kerb with a rucksack, a small suitcase, an easel and half a dozen canvases propped up on the red brick fence. The woman was in her mid-40s, James guessed, impeccably dressed, her dark hair dyed with red streaks and twisted up in a chignon.

Gabriel lifted his chin in a minimalist greeting. ‘James.’

James eyed the stuff on the kerb. ‘Is this it?’

‘I live simply,’ said Gabriel.

‘You live like a vagrant,’ said the woman, with affectionate frustration. She held her hand out to James. ‘You must be Dr Sharpe. I am Helene Dupre. Please let me assure you that Gabe isn’t half as irresponsible as he sometimes appears.’ Her accent retained a blush of French.

James shook her hand, noting the softness of her skin, her subtle floral perfume, the way her nails were trimmed and painted in the barest of colours, and that her grip was firm and confident. ‘Oh, I don’t mind if he’s exactly as irresponsible as he appears. I promise I’m only about half as civilised as I look.’

She hooted with delight. ‘Oh, I see what you mean, Gabe. No wonder you like him.’ She turned an impish grin on James, ignoring Gabriel’s pained expression. ‘He said you had an outré sense of humour.’

James cocked an eyebrow at Gabriel, a smile ghosting his mouth, which pulled an answering one from his new lodger. ‘No humour here, Ms Dupre. Mr Dare and I were in deadly earnest when we mutually agreed not to murder each other in our sleep.’

She waved her hand dismissively. ‘Oh, please, it’s Helene. And this is for you.’ She produced a cheque from her purse. ‘Though I can give it to you in cash tomorrow, if you prefer.’ At James’s puzzled frown, she expanded: ‘Gabe’s rent for the next month.’

James took the cheque but the puzzlement didn’t vanish.

‘It’s my advance,’ explained Gabriel, ‘She’ll take it out of my sales. Assuming there are any.’

‘Of course there’ll be sales,’ Helene admonished him, ‘your work is gaining its audience at last.’

‘It’s not why I do it.’

‘I know, Gabe, but be a dear, shut up and enjoy the money while it’s coming in.’ Helene opened the side of the van. Gabriel picked up one of the canvases by the fence and placed it onto a shelf inside.

The van was set up to carry a number of canvases securely, each on an individual shelf with a length of Velcro to hold the canvas in its slot. James examined the next painting Gabriel lifted into the van.

At first glance, the painting was nothing but smudged shadows, sombrely coloured, moody and almost threatening. Even so, the patterns and colours were arresting – and then James saw the figure emerging from an oppressive atmosphere. The figure was indistinct. Her eyes – definitely her eyes – were old and full of pain; yet dignity, too. Here was a wisdom that came of knowing too much, too soon, and the defiance from having survived the experiences that had given her such knowledge. She had strength in her. Courage. The darkness hadn’t beaten her yet.

‘That’s extraordinary,’ James said when he found his voice, ‘There’s so much hope in it.’

Gabriel paused in the act of picking up the third canvas. ‘Not depressing? Or brutal?’

‘No,’ said James, ‘Why would you say that?’

Helene grinned at Gabriel. ‘You’re right. He’s smart as well as funny.’

Gabriel looked pained again. James tried not to preen too obviously. He thinks I’m smart and funny.

‘Don’t you have somewhere to be, Helene? Somewhere far away from here?’

‘Oh, no doubt,’ she said breezily, ‘But I can’t imagine it would be as fun as this.’

Gabriel finished loading the last canvases into her van. ‘I’m sure it is. Much more fun. Unless you’d rather witness the unparalleled entertainment of me unpacking my worldly goods.’

‘Pfft,’ Helene plucked her keys out of her handbag, ‘As if that will take you more than three minutes.’

Gabriel lifted his rucksack onto his shoulders and reached for his suitcase, encountering James’s fingers as he, too, went to pick it up. They both pulled away as though an electric current had zapped through them.

Helene spared them further observations, though not a delightedly smug smile. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘I have places to be, and you have worldly goods to unpack and the charming Dr Sharpe–’

‘James,’ said James.

‘And the charming James no doubt has a list of house rules to give you, beyond “Rule one, flatmates will not attempt reciprocal homicide”.’

‘Rule two is about not drinking milk straight from the carton,’ said James, ‘So the list isn’t all that interesting.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Gabriel, grinning slyly at him, ‘I’m looking forward to negotiating Rule Three about helping each other hide the bodies.’

‘As long as you pay the rent on time,’ said James faux-sternly, ‘I’m open to negotiation.’

‘I’ll leave you two to flirt,’ said Helene, getting into the van.

‘I’m not!’ James began to protest. The van pulled away.

He turned to Gabriel. ‘I don’t flirt. I don’t do that. Relationships. I don’t. And anyway, I’m straight.’ Which was a lie, lie, lie. When he’d been alive, James had dated both men and women. Now he was… whatever he was.

Alone.

Gabriel, he finally noticed, was just as mortified. ‘No. Of course not. I’m not… I mean. No. It’s fine. Helene has a ridiculous sense of humour, pretty intrusive at times, and she…’ He swallowed hard. ‘Helene has known me since I was very young. She was my au pair, and she likes to tease,’ he ended awkwardly.

Until now, Gabriel had mainly spoken with a wry humour. James found this new flustered version quite appealing too.

‘Ah,’ said James, smiling mock-ruefully. ‘Perhaps hers is the first body we’ll dispose of together, eh?’

‘The second,’ replied Gabriel in a like tone. ‘I have a relative who tops my list.’

James had someone else entirely on the top of his, but since his was a real list, and if he ever got his hands on the bastard who’d turned him there’d be nothing but dust and no corpse to dispose of, he chose not to mention it. Instead, he reached for Gabriel’s suitcase – once more, just as Gabriel did – and their hands met. This time, James left his fingers on the handle.

‘I’ll take it,’ he said.

Gabriel resettled his rucksack over his shoulders and hefted the easel. ‘All right,’ he agreed. Then he followed James into the flat.

It had been a mistake, Gabriel thought, to walk behind James Sharpe upstairs into the flat, because the doctor did indeed have a lovely arse, and it was shown off very nicely in those formfitting dark jeans he wore. With James a few stairs ahead of him, too, the loveliness was at eye height. Also mouth height. Biteable height. Fortunately, Gabriel had excellent impulse control.

Stop, he told himself firmly. He’s not interested. He’s made that perfectly clear, even if he was lying about being straight. No straight man ever looks at another man’s mouth like that. It’s clear he doesn’t want an entanglement, and I’m not getting into another doomed relationship. It’s irrelevant that he’s smart and funny and has a killer smile and the voice of an angel and a biteable arse and beautiful arms and, god, those hands of his. I want to warm them up for him.

James smiled at him when they reached the door, and Gabriel, with that superb impulse control, simply offered him a bland smile in return.

James pushed the door open, took the suitcase through and turned again, amusement glimmering in his blue eyes. ‘Consider this a formal invitation to enter.’ James’s expression was fleetingly sad and then sardonic once more.

Gabriel stepped past James and walked to his new room. He flung the rucksack on the bed and propped the easel against the wall. He’d shop for bedding tomorrow. The sheets Baxter had left weren’t too clean, but Gabriel had slept on worse, and less. Then he’d get his art supplies from Helene’s place, and work out what else he needed.

James dropped Gabriel’s suitcase by the wall and withdrew again. ‘Tea?’

‘Ta, yeah.’

‘Right then. No milk, sorry.’

‘I’ll live.’

A melancholy smile greeted the comment. Soon after, they sat down to strong black tea. James sipped his slowly, as though every mouthful was elixir.

‘You Scottish, then?’ Gabriel asked.

‘Technically. I lived in Edinburgh with my mother and Granda until I was 15. We came to London after Granda died. Mum got a job at the London office of her insurance company. I lost most of the accent at school. How about yours?’

‘My what?’

‘Your accent. Though it’s not an accent as such, but the way you talk shifts about. Ah. Sore point?’

Gabriel poked moodily at his black tea with a spoon, even though the sugar was well dissolved. He put the spoon on the saucer with a clink. ‘Not everyone notices,’ he said.

‘It’s only sometimes. I’ve got a good ear.’

‘I’m out of practice, I suppose. I tried to get shot of the posh accent when I was at university.’ And after, when it could get him beaten up by people wondering why a posh kid was sleeping rough. Gabriel tried to be wry about it. ‘What gave me away?’

‘You mentioned Helene was your au pair. You have some grand turns of phrase, as well.’

‘And here was me thinking I was doing proper Estuary English, an’ all.’

‘Tell you what,’ said James, all seriousness, ‘I won’t tell anyone you’re secretly posh if you don’t tell anyone I’m secretly dour.’

‘Was that a secret?’

‘Aye. A right crabbit auld bastart, my Granda used to say.’ James’s mouth quirked. ‘But he used to call me a wee scunner as well.’

Gabriel didn’t know what a wee scunner was, but that nostalgic glimmer in James’s eye suggested it was fondly meant.

Talk was more businesslike after that, though James’s house rules were simple. After tea, James insisted on washing the tea things, so Gabriel retired to unpack his few belongings and choose the best place for his easel.

That done, he stood at his window and looked out across the patch of grass behind the flats; across red brick walls to tight-packed houses, ramshackle sheds, lights coming on in small windows in homes all across Plaistow and West Ham.

No ghosts here, he decided. I can be safe here. Everything’s going to be fine.

After living for the first few days on Tesco’s sandwiches – there was hardly any food in the house and Gabriel was responsible for his own groceries anyway – Gabriel did a proper shop. He returned with provisions to find James watching the news.

Gabriel stared at James sitting motionless in front of the screen, so devoid of movement and colour that Gabriel could have sworn the man was dead. Gabriel had seen dead people in his time, and he knew that nothing living was ever that still.

He’d seen other things that looked dead too, but he’d touched James when their hands had met over his suitcase. James was real, solid flesh, not a wisp of light or the product of a febrile mind. Other people had spoken to James. Baxter and Helene and the estate agent. No way was James a ghost.

Cautiously, Gabriel placed the bags on the floor, walked over and poked James in the shoulder.

James jerked away from him as though scalded.

‘Sorry,’ said Gabriel, keeping his tone level. ‘Just checking.’

‘Just checking what?’ snapped James.

‘That you’re real and still breathing.’

‘I…’

James’s expression tumbled through all kinds of reactions, none of which Gabriel had been expecting. Irritation. Horror. Distress. Shame. That last one made no sense.

‘I had a flatmate once,’ Gabriel explained conversationally, ‘Well, flatmate’s overstating it. We went to sleep under the same bridge. I woke up in the morning and he was as dead as a doornail.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t ask. It was a bad week and I had to sleep rough, that’s all. Denton was 40 going on 300 by then, or his liver was, so it was hardly a surprise. At least he’d had a hot meal for a change. Sometimes,’ Gabriel pouted thoughtfully. ‘I wonder if it was the pie and mash that did for him, but I couldn’t have said no to the poor bugger.’

‘Ah. Well. Sorry. Still breathing.’ James spread his hands in a demonstrative gesture and took a deliberate deep breath through his nose. ‘See?’

Gabriel grinned. ‘Well, keep it up. The paperwork for reporting a death is tedious, and more to the point, if you shuffle off the mortal coil, what am I supposed to do for a place to live?’

‘If you like, I can leave you the old pile in my will,’ said James thoughtfully. ‘There’s nobody else to take it. Then you can have all the fun of scoping out lodgers and making the monthly payments.’

‘Now you’re giving me motive for murder.’

‘I’ll take you with me to see my bank manager next time I have to negotiate a delayed payment. Then see how motivated you are to stab me in the gullet.’

‘I wouldn’t stab you. Too messy.’

‘Aye?’ James’s good humour had returned, and he awaited elaboration.

‘Poison, maybe. Or I’d take you for a walk by the canal, smack you with a rock and push you in.’

‘You’ve thought this through.’

‘I got bored yesterday. It passed the time.’

James’s laughed morphed into a positively infectious giggle, setting Gabriel off. Gabriel liked James’s laugh, the more so because most of the time James seemed unspeakably sad. A happy James was a lovely thing.

‘So,’ said Gabriel. ‘How would you get rid of me?’

‘Fork to the kidney,’ said James without hesitation. ‘And I’d eat you over a couple of days. Dispose of the evidence in a nice French casserole with peas and tatties.’

‘Bullshit. You’d never eat me. You never eat.’ Gabriel smirked at James’s startled expression. ‘Baxter said so, and you’ve nothing in the house except that half pack of gingernuts he didn’t finish nicking off you. In any case, you’re a doctor. You’d use me for terrible experiments in the cupboard under the attic stairs. Like Dr Moreau.’

‘Sprung,’ said James ruefully, but the startlement had fled.

Gabriel unpacked the groceries neatly into the kitchen cupboards while James returned his attention to the TV. That done, Gabriel picked up a fresh apple from the mound he’d stacked in a dusty fruit bowl, dropped into the spare chair and bit into the fruit.

‘I googled your stuff online,’ said James, muting the program. ‘At the Dupre Gallery. Your work’s extraordinary.’

Gabriel knew what the critics said of his art; the ones who hated it, and thought it “cheap emotional exploitation”, as well as the ones who loved it. Dare’s art, said one of the favourable analyses, paints glimpses of street life, homelessness and crime with compassion as well as a palpable sense of danger. Another had called his work stark but humanising. On the whole, Gabriel didn’t much care what the critics thought of his work one way or the other, though it was, as Helene said, a relief that some were selling at last. Anything that kept him from having to use his father’s money was a good thing.

But Gabriel liked it very much that James liked his work.

‘My family would prefer I painted things that were more conventional,’ he confessed suddenly. ‘They think my work is too dark.’

‘The world is dark,’ said James. ‘You find the hope in it anyway. That’s important. The capacity to see hope in the darkness is important.’ His tone was oddly yearning.

‘I think so,’ said Gabriel, taking another bite of his apple. He wondered exactly what in James’s experiences had made him understand, and long for, hope in the dark and dangerous places of the world.

Over the next fortnight, Gabriel and James settled into a comfortable routine.

True to his word, James didn’t pry into Gabriel’s odd visitors, who arrived sporadically from Gabriel’s third night in his new home. He noticed them, though. Haunted, harried people. Young people who looked out of old eyes; old people who looked out of eyes dimmed with pain. The people from Gabriel’s paintings.

Gabriel made sure that James was aware of the visitors, whatever time of the night they arrived, with a soft tap on the bedroom door. James was always awake, betrayed by discreet tell-tales from his small bedroom – the soft footsteps pacing the carpet, the crinkling hush of pages turning, and a low light that glimmered faintly under the door. Other nights, Gabriel would hear his landlord padding about the living room on bare feet. He went out for a glass of water once to see the doctor watching the lamplit street.

As far as Gabriel could tell, James Sharpe rarely ate, either – the half packet of gingernuts remained undiminished, although James drank black tea regularly and an uneaten biscuit often rested on the saucer. He had no friends that Gabriel could see and James never spoke of any.

James had other peculiarities, harder to define. Like the day Gabriel returned from the paint suppliers mid-morning only to find James setting out teacups and biscuits as the door opened.

‘How did you know I was coming home?’

‘I heard you on the stairs.’

Gabriel hadn’t made a sound on the stairs, he was sure.

On top of this was the afternoon he’d taken his sketchbook to the garden to capture the shrivelled ivy vine’s patterns on the brickwork. One moment, James was a dozen yards away at the laundry door, and the next moment he was at Gabriel’s side, a wasp held by the wings in his pinched fingers.

‘It was on your neck,’ James explained. ‘About to sting you.’

‘You’ve got good eyesight,’ Gabriel had noted, determined not to be startled at the speed and unlikelihood of the rescue. ‘And quality reflexes, as promised.’

James was odd.

Which could as easily describe me, Gabriel thought, and didn’t dwell on it.

He had other problems. Some of his street acquaintances had, for want of a better term, disappeared.