Lady of the Shades Read online

  ‘Who is he and why are you hiding from him?’ I murmur.

  ‘Someone I know and don’t want to meet.’ She removes her napkin from her lap. ‘Do you mind if we leave now? I know we haven’t finished, but . . . ’

  ‘That’s OK.’ I signal the waiter for the check, keeping my body between Deleena and the mystery man. Once I’ve paid, I rise carefully, let her tuck in behind me and head for the exit, shielding her all the way, asking no questions, trying not to stare at the table of strangers as we pass.

  I picked up a knife as we were standing. I didn’t let Deleena see. I keep it held by my side, ready to sweep it up defensively if we’re threatened, old habits kicking in automatically. Nobody living sees me palm the knife, but the ghosts spot it and press forward, leering, sensing blood. They’d love it if things went bad. I imagine it’s what they long for more than anything else in the world.

  But this time the ghosts are disappointed. The man doesn’t spot Deleena. Once outside, she slips around the side of the restaurant and stands staring across the river, arms crossed, shivering. I say nothing, waiting for her to tell me what’s going on, calmly pocketing the knife. Part of me wishes I’d been given a chance to use it. That part misses the old days. It wants them back.

  ‘This looks bad, doesn’t it?’ Deleena croaks.

  ‘An ex-boyfriend?’ I guess.

  ‘God, no, nothing like that. Bond Gardiner? Never!’ She looks up at me. ‘Does that name mean anything to you?’ I think for a minute and shake my head. ‘He’s . . . well, I guess there’s no other way to put it. He’s a gangster.’

  I frown. ‘What does he have to do with you?’

  ‘He wanted to open an account with my bank. My superiors rejected his request, but I was charged with breaking the bad news to him. He lost his temper and said some vicious things, stopping just short of open threats. He sent a card the next day apologizing for his outburst, but still . . . ’

  ‘You don’t want to talk to the scary gangster again.’

  ‘Right.’

  We share a smile. I’m relieved it’s nothing serious. There’s a lot I don’t know about Deleena. All sorts of dark thoughts had been flitting through my mind. The ghosts look sullen. They start to drift into the background again. My power over them is growing. I almost turn and flip them the finger, but then I’d have to explain that to Deleena.

  ‘Where now?’ I ask.

  She shrugs. ‘Grab a cab? Head up the West End and catch a late film?’

  ‘I’d rather go for a walk.’

  ‘OK.’

  I’m staring at her, pressed against the wall of the restaurant. She looks so young in the shadows. Beautiful. I reach out and brush her hair from her eyes, then run a finger down her cheek and over her chin.

  Deleena stares back, lifting her head slightly, lips thinning into almost invisible lines. This is the first time I’ve made an advance. I’m not pushing for sex – I don’t want our first time to be out in the open, against a damp wall – just a kiss. Normally I wouldn’t feel nervous, but with Deleena I’m petrified. If she turns her head away, where does that leave us?

  I lean forward slowly, lips opening, giving her plenty of time to object. She doesn’t move. I press my lips softly to hers, hold a moment, withdraw and gaze into her eyes, searching for encouragement.

  Deleena parts her lips, edges forward, stops. ‘Ed . . . I know you’ve been patient. I know we haven’t discussed this. I know you must be wondering what I’m up to.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ I whisper.

  ‘I want to.’ The briefest, shakiest of grins. ‘But in my own time. Don’t rush me, Ed, please?’

  ‘I won’t.’ I steal another short kiss. ‘I’m in no hurry.’

  ‘It’s OK if we just kiss?’ she asks.

  ‘We don’t even have to do that,’ I tell her.

  ‘I don’t mind kissing,’ she says, and now she’s smiling. ‘Just go easy with the wandering hands.’

  ‘I’ll be the perfect gentleman,’ I swear, taking her into my arms as she stands on her toes and embraces me, opening her mouth, exploring my lower lip with hers, tugging at it teasingly with her teeth, then allowing her lips to slide over mine, sealing the kiss.

  We stand in the shadows, joined. I let my hands move down to the base of her spine, but no further. She presses closer into me. Through her warm tongue and lips I detect the brisk beat of her pounding heart.

  ‘Deleena,’ I moan, but before I can say any more, she silences me with another kiss and soon I’m lost. Words become meaningless. The ghosts are forgotten. There’s only me, the night and her.

  FIVE

  I’ve been sleeping quite well since I started seeing Deleena but I know tonight’s going to be a bad one. Back in my hotel room, I dig the knife from the restaurant out of my pocket and study it solemnly. I’m amazed by how quickly the old instincts kicked in. If we had been attacked, I’d already played out various scenarios in my mind’s eye, plotted my defensive strokes and our route of escape. The knife isn’t the sharpest or sturdiest, but I’d automatically accounted for that. In my hands it would have been an adequate weapon.

  I remember other nights and other knives. Drunken nights when I wept like a baby and held the tip of a knife before one of my eyes, wanting to drive it through my eyeball and deep into my brain, the ghosts egging me on, silently urging me to follow through and join them in their shady sub-world.

  They press closer towards me now, eagerly searching for any chink that they might be able to manipulate to their advantage. It doesn’t matter if they’re not real, if they’re only projections of my inner turmoil. At times like this they present an all-too-real threat. They look so hateful. An observer who could see them would think I was a victim, a sympathetic figure under attack from malevolent forces.

  I know better. I deserve my ghosts. They’re entitled to their spite.

  I lay the knife aside and sigh. ‘Knock yourselves out,’ I tell the disappointed spirits, then I start to get ready for bed and the nightmares that I’m sure will find and torment me.

  Joe and I have been driving around, looking for places I might be able to use in the book. I’m keen on the back streets which spread out from the oddly named Elephant and Castle. Very centrally located, yet many of the shabby old houses look like they’re stuck in the past. The area has a grim, eerie feel to it. I take notes of street names, parks, schools, shops, deserted buildings.

  Joe is behind the wheel. He’s moodier than usual, hasn’t said much. Finally, once we’ve wound up the scouting mission and have crossed the river, he says, ‘Do you think you can use any of those places in the book?’

  ‘Probably. I like the Elephant and Castle. Any idea where the name comes from?’ Joe grunts negatively and takes a sharp, aggressive left turn. I study him curiously. ‘How’s your mother?’ I ask.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘And work?’

  ‘Same old.’ He looks across at me. ‘What’s with the questions?’

  ‘You seem out of sorts.’

  He grunts again, then slows and finds a place to pull over. For a couple of minutes he doesn’t say anything, and nor do I. In the end, he sighs. ‘You’re gonna hate me. I shouldn’t say anything. I wasn’t going to and I still don’t know if I should.’

  ‘What’s up, Joe?’ I ask, worried now.

  ‘I wasn’t prying,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t poking my nose in. I just . . . You remember I told you I’d been asking my friends about Deleena?’

  That wasn’t what I’d been anticipating. I thought he’d been digging around in my past. I let out my breath and nod, relieved.

  ‘I went to see Shar’s boyfriend last night,’ Joe says. ‘He has an old VCR that was on the fritz. I asked Shar about Deleena. I was curious.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I’m not sure what’s coming, but at least it has nothing to do with my past.

  Joe hesitates, then comes out with it. ‘Shar doesn’t know her.’

  I digest the information, then seek clarifi
cation. ‘Shar doesn’t know Deleena?’

  ‘She doesn’t have a Deleena Emerson on her books. None of her clients even has a name like Deleena Emerson.’

  ‘Did you describe Deleena to her? Maybe she uses another name when –’

  ‘How could I describe her?’ he cuts in. ‘I’ve never seen her.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ I stare at the dashboard, bewildered.

  ‘I should have kept my mouth shut,’ Joe mumbles.

  ‘No. You were right to tell me.’

  ‘What will . . . ?’

  ‘Please. No questions. Just leave it with me.’

  ‘OK.’ He taps the steering wheel. ‘You want to hang out here a while or go back to the hotel?’

  ‘Back to the hotel.’ I smile humourlessly. ‘I’ve got a date to prepare for.’

  We meet in a pizza house. Deleena is a woman of varied tastes. A Michelin-starred restaurant one night, Burger King the next. I order a ham and mushroom pizza, Deleena opts for pepperoni. A bottle of house white.

  I’ve been keeping conversation to a minimum. Deleena senses something wrong but pretends that all is normal. She tells me about her day at work and how much she enjoyed last night – we went to a beer festival and drank from massive wooden pitchers – and makes suggestions for tomorrow. I respond with sniffs and shrugs, waiting for her to get frustrated and force the issue.

  ‘OK,’ she finally says, laying down her knife and fork. ‘What have I done?’

  I finish the slice of pizza I was working on and wash it down with a mouthful of wine before replying. ‘I know that you’ve been lying to me.’ Deleena stiffens but says nothing. ‘Shar doesn’t know you. You’re not one of her clients.’

  She rocks forwards and backwards, face neutral, hands on the table, fingers at rest. ‘You can leave now if you want,’ she offers. ‘I’ll take care of the bill.’

  ‘I’m going nowhere until you explain.’

  ‘Why bother?’ she says. ‘If I’ve lied once, I’ll probably lie to you again. The wise thing would be to walk away, delete my number from your phone and hang up if you ever hear from me again.’

  ‘I thought about that. A week ago I might have. But now . . . ’ I want to reach across and shake answers from her, but I settle for a glare. ‘Is Deleena even your real name?’

  ‘No,’ she says coolly. ‘It’s Andeanna. I am a client of Shar’s — that much is true. Check with her. She’ll recognize the name this time.’

  ‘Why feed me an alias?’

  ‘I’m sure you can guess. It’s not especially complicated.’

  ‘You’re married?’ I ask, and she nods. That simple gesture almost drives me from the table and out of her life. Only her expression of utter misery holds me. ‘Do you love him?’

  ‘Christ, Ed!’ She laughs blackly.

  ‘Do you love me?’

  She’s shaking now. Can’t look me in the eye. Slides her hands under the table so I can’t see them trembling. ‘It’s not as simple as that,’ she croaks. ‘There are things you don’t know.’

  ‘So tell me.’

  She raises her head. Tears are welling in her eyes. I ignore them and focus on her lips, reading the words as they form, alert for lies. ‘You remember that man we ran into? Bond Gardiner?’

  ‘He’s your husband?’

  ‘No. Emerson is my maiden name. My married name is Menderes. My husband is –’

  ‘Mikis Menderes,’ I interrupt, one jump ahead of her.

  She blinks, taken aback. ‘You know him?’

  ‘Mikis Menderes, aka the Turk.’

  ‘You know who he is? What he is?’

  ‘I’ve read about him in the papers,’ I lie

  ‘He makes the papers in the States?’ she frowns.

  ‘No,’ I correct myself, quickly tweaking my story. ‘I read about him here, on one of my previous trips to the UK.’

  ‘Then you know why I’ve been so afraid to get close to you,’ she says. ‘Why my heart beat with terror the first time we kissed. Why I didn’t want to let things go any further. You know why you should walk away and never look back. Because if Mikis finds out about us . . . if he even suspects . . . ’

  She can’t continue, and I can’t think of anything to get her started again. We sit, staring at one another, until a waiter checks to see if we’re finished. I nod, and he asks if we’d like anything for dessert. ‘No thank you,’ I mumble, then pay up and escort Deleena – Andeanna, Mrs Menderes, wife of one of London’s most notorious gangsters – outside into the uncertainty of the sultry, menacing night.

  PART TWO

  SIX

  It’s amazing how quickly one’s impression of a place can change. Last week I was in love with London, its architecture and layout, its people, its aura. Now the buildings look old and crumbling. The people have grey, pinched faces. It feels like a city of the lost.

  Three days have passed. No word from Andeanna. I still can’t accustom myself to her new name. I should be working on forgetting both, wiping them from my memory. Deleena, Andeanna, what’s the difference? She’s poison no matter what she calls herself. A married woman who lied. Worse, a married gangster’s woman. What if the Turk’s henchman had seen us that night in the restaurant? What if he’d caught us kissing and run to tell his boss?

  I’m furious that she sucked me in like that. I can protect myself when I have to. Mikis Menderes doesn’t frighten me. But unaware of the risk, I would have been taken by surprise and left to the mercy of a man who had no cause to show me any.

  She should have told me. If she’d been married to an ordinary guy, I might have been able to accept the lie. But my life was on the line and I never knew. She treated me with contempt and I don’t want anything to do with a woman who plays games like that. I should blow this city, set the book elsewhere, turn my back on London without a farewell glance.

  Except . . .

  I feel her lips on mine every time I close my eyes. I haven’t fallen in love often in my life, but whenever I have, I’ve fallen hard. If I could be logical about it, I’d take the view that I don’t know Andeanna well enough to claim that I love her. But I know what I feel. She has me hooked. How can I leave her behind when my heart aches with every step I take without her?

  Two more days pass. My ghosts are having a whale of a time. My misery has given them a new lease of life, so to speak. They circle me like sharks, darting at me when I least expect it, clawing at my face with their insubstantial fingers, mocking me, mutely urging me to end it all, to join them in their shady realm and take what I have coming for what I did in the past.

  I tried immersing myself in the book, but I couldn’t concentrate, and not just because of the hyperactive spirits. I’d be sitting over a pile of notes with Joe – he’s been compassionately tight-lipped, never mentioning Deleena – and my mind would wander. I’d think how like a ghost she’s become, gone from my life, never to return, irreclaimable, uncontactable. Except she isn’t dead and she can be tracked down. I could take her in my arms again and . . .

  I told Joe I needed a few days to myself. He said to ring when I felt like it and not to spare a thought for him in the meantime. I took to the countryside, chose a direction at random and drove west, into territory that was all virgin to me — I’ve rarely been outside London on any of my trips to the UK. It was difficult driving – the ghosts kept wrapping themselves in front of my eyes, obscuring my vision – but having to focus on the road helped take my mind off my troubles. I wound up in far-flung Devon, which I spent yesterday exploring, clambering over moors, pushing myself physically, ignoring my ghosts, trying to forget about Andeanna.

  I tossed and turned in the back of my rented car the first night, the ghosts writhing around me, half in and half out of the car’s structure. Then I booked into a cottage that has been converted into a B&B. I slept sweetly, exhausted after my hard day, and didn’t dream of Andeanna. There was even a moment when I woke when she wasn’t in my thoughts. Then the memories returned. I groaned, rolled over
and started planning another day of harsh, demanding exercise.

  That was when my phone rang. I wasn’t going to answer, but nerves got the better of me and I lunged for it, only to discover it wasn’t Andeanna. It was Jonathan Wood, my agent. He was in London and wanted to arrange some meetings with prospective publishers. Soul Vultures is being reprinted here, and a couple of editors have been in touch, wanting to know what I’m working on next. I asked to be excused from the negotiations, but Jonathan was adamant. He doesn’t get over to England often (he’s in town drumming up business for another of his clients) and he said it would be crazy to miss such a golden opportunity.

  Returning to London was the last thing I wanted, but professional hunger got the better of me. I was loath to waste all those years of hard work, especially over a woman who would probably laugh with vixen delight if she found out how deeply she’d cut me. ‘OK,’ I sighed. ‘Let’s meet this evening and you can tell me more about it.’

  So I’m back. Evening has come and gone. I met Jonathan in the bar of his hotel, and we passed a pleasant few hours discussing the re-release of Soul Vultures, and my new work, which I told him would be called Pillars of Fire or Spirit of the Fire. I promised to toss together a summary to present to the editors in the morning.

  The ghosts have been sluggish since I got back. They feed on negative energy. When my mood improved – when work distracted me from my dark thoughts – they lost a lot of their power and had to settle back into their familiar holding pattern.

  I rang Joe on my way back to the Royal Munster but got his voicemail. I left a message, then settled down to work. Joe calls an hour later when I’m in the middle of a wild oasis of notes. I growl into the mouthpiece, ‘Get over here. I need you.’

  ‘Is this about the book or . . . ?’ he asks diplomatically.

  ‘The book.’

  ‘I’ll be with you in a flash.’

  I tell Joe about my morning meetings. He wants to come with me, but I say that isn’t a good idea. I haven’t told Jonathan about my partner and I’m not sure how he’ll react. The longer we wait, the fewer objections he can make. I explain all this to Joe, but I can see he’s disappointed. I’ll make it up to him later, take him on tour with me, let him sit in on interviews, stuff like that.