A Is for Apple (19 page)

But not as painful as my feet. I gave up when they started playing Steps and hobbled over to the bar for another drink, then found a seat on a banquette, hauled my feet up onto the table, and glared at people for walking into me.

“Those are great legs,” came a voice in my ear, and I whipped round to see Marc there with a bottle of Becks.

“Oh. Thanks.” I studied them. They weren’t bad.

“Apart from that massive bruise.”

“Oh. Yeah. Told you, I fell over.”

“Must have been a hell of a fall.” He was still looking at my over-exposed thigh.

“Well. I’m clumsy.”

“I’m so glad you’re driving us home.”

God, yeah, driving. My feet could barely support my weight—although, to be fair, there was a lot of me. I’d never get my feet back into my trainers or get any kind of control over the pedals. All the others had been drinking and besides, I couldn’t ask them to drive Ted. Poor Ted.

Something slower came on and Marc looked at me speculatively. Uh-oh.

“You wanna dance?”

God. My feet had ears of their own and they were screaming in protest already. But wasn’t I supposed to be gaining Marc’s confidence?

“I’ll warn you,” I said. “I’m six foot two in these shoes.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me.”

Liar. It bothered all men if a girl was taller than them. Even Luke complained when I wore big heels. So I did it to annoy him anyway.

I drained my drink and stood up. Marc looked up at me—then a little bit more—and his eyes widened.

“You weren’t kidding,” he said, and I wondered how he hadn’t noticed before.

I’m not one for slow dancing. I always feel awkward and usually, too hot and sweaty. Despite the heroic efforts of the air conditioning, movement made me sweat, and so did being pressed up against someone else.

Marc was so different from Luke it was like they were a different species. But then, if you gave Marc another ten years, maybe he’d have a hard, moulded body too.

Although there were some parts of him that were coming along nicely. And some that needed no encouragement at all.

The song ended and I peeled myself away, avoiding eye contact, and stumbled off the floor, through the crowd and up the steps to the ladies.

In here it was bright, so bright I could hardly see when I walked in. I hadn’t seen the girls since we came in, and I thought I saw Lucy coming out of a cubicle, but when I looked closer it wasn’t her. I checked out my reflection. My face looked like it was melting, but otherwise it wasn’t too bad. I was glad my hair was up, not hanging round my shoulders like a fur coat. I looked down at my feet, which were once more raw in places, and considered going to get my bag from the cloakroom for some emergency plasters. But nothing short of a full cast would have protected my feet adequately now, and even that would probably rub.

Back in the club, there was no sight of Marc. Or of anyone I knew. I hadn’t seen Laurence since I gave him his drink, and I was partly glad now that I was on my own. They’d have to find their own drinks now.

I was bored, though, and the music was improving slightly. I took off my shoes, sighing with relief, and went out onto the dance floor, avoiding sticky patches and anyone with a bottle. A guy who was so very drunk he could barely stand came up to me and started trying to get me to dance with him. I gave him one of my Drop Dead looks and he backed off pretty sharpish.

Nice to know I’ve still got it.

Pleased with myself for burning off so many calories, I retired once more to my banquette, but found it occupied by an enthusiastically necking couple who seemed completely oblivious to everything around them.

In shock, I realised it was Lucy and Laurence.

Go Laurence, I cheered silently, and moved off to get something to drink before I completely dehydrated.

I found another table and spent an amusing half an hour fending off men who were very interested in the backless nature of my top and kept walking past pinging it. One of them was even quite cute, but I reminded myself firmly that I was a taken woman.

“Are those real?” asked one lad, staring openly at my chest.

“No. I’m a man really,” I replied, and he vanished.

I looked at my watch and wondered what time the club closed. I had a feeling the girls wouldn’t want to go home any time soon. They seemed the sort of people who love clubbing and wild parties. Me, I’d prefer a night in with the Scoobies any day of the week. Which just goes to show you how very old I am now.

I went back to see if Laurence and Lucy could be separated, and was surprised to find that they’d vanished.

“Excuse me,” I shouted to the guy in their place, “did you see where the couple here went?”

He shrugged. “Think he went outside. Dunno where she went. Off to the bog I think.” He looked over my little skirt. “You can stay if you wanna.”

Yeuch, no. He had baggy jeans and a Porn Star T-shirt and his hair was in greasy curtains.
Not
my type.

“I have to go and find my friends,” I said, backing away on my bare, blistered feet. He was watching me go, so I approached the bouncer, who was looking bored. “Can I go outside for a second?” I asked, thinking some cool, fresh air would be good.

He pointed to the girl on the admissions desk. “Need to get your hand stamped.”

The girl rammed a rubber stamp down hard on my hand and I looked through the redness to see the word TART imprinted on my skin. I scowled. The men got a GEEZER stamp. Not fair.

I stepped outside and breathed in the glorious air. So clean and cold and clear. Ahhh.

“Laurence?” I called. “Are you out here?”

Silence, but something was moving on the other side of a couple of giant wheely bins. “Laurence?”

Foolishly, I stepped around them, the tarmac cold under my bare soles. I was checking the ground for broken glass and other nasties, but at a sharp sound behind me I snapped my head up.

“Laurence?”

And then I tripped over something, someone grabbed my arm and twisted it behind my back, making me yelp, and something sharp pricked the skin of my inner arm.

“Fuck,” I yelled, thinking, someone’s trying to inject me. Someone’s stuck a needle in my arm!

There was a plastic crack and something snapped against my skin. My assailant shoved me, hard, and I fell facedown into the grubby shadows behind the bins.

“Hey,” I started to shove myself to my feet, aware of footsteps behind me, running away. But then I saw what I’d fallen on, and I forgot about looking for anyone.

I’d fallen on Laurence, and he didn’t look like he was breathing.

By the time I’d blown some air into Laurence’s lungs and mercifully, spattering him with frustrated, frightened tears, got him breathing again; by the time I’d gone back into the club and requested the phone from the girl at the desk, explained that it was for emergency services and wrestled it from her grasp; by the time I’d called for an ambulance and police too, for good measure; by the time I’d got the bouncer to go and tell the DJ to make an announcement for Clara, Amber, Lucy and Marc to meet me outside; by the time the ambulance had arrived, the club was shutting down, the girls were crying and I had to get Marc to go in and fetch our handbags. The hot, grumbly weather decided to break, smashing great big raindrops down on me as I sat on the ground, holding Laurence’s still hand.

I couldn’t find my ticket, but I explained what the bag looked like as I handed Laurence over to paramedics and tried to tell the police what had happened. Now, I judged, would not be the best time to tell them I was a government agent and didn’t really have to answer any of their questions, so I acted like a normal person (well, as much as was possible) and told them what they wanted to know.

“Something pricked your arm?” the policewoman asked. She was probably only a couple of years older than me but she looked tired, really tired, not just physically, but sick of attending scenes like this in the middle of the night. I couldn’t blame her.

“Yeah.” I squinted at my arm in the darkness. “A needle or something. But it broke.”

“It broke before it pierced the skin?”

“No—well, I thought it went in.” I rubbed the vein below my inner elbow. There was something there. “I think it might have broken off…sort of…in me.”

She looked horrified, in a weary sort of way. “Mike,” she called to the paramedic tucking a blanket around Laurence’s body and hurrying him into the ambulance, out of the rain. “We’ve got another one for you.”

I repeated the story to Mike, obviously another veteran of club/drug crises, and he told me I’d better come along to the hospital for blood tests.

“No telling where that needle might have been,” he said. “You need to get it out or you could get infected.”

What I really wanted to do was go home. Marc and the girls needed me for lifts and I didn’t want to leave Ted here. Thoughts of my warm, soft bed drifted by me. And with the immortality of youth, I was sure there was nothing really wrong with me.

And, I needed to keep an eye on Marc and the girls. I wasn’t at all happy about the fact that I’d let them out of my sight tonight.

“Can’t I do it tomorrow?” I pleaded. “If I don’t drive then they’ll be here all night.”

“We can take them home,” the policewoman said, not looking too pleased at the prospect.

“What about my car?”

“I’m sure there must be someone who can bring you back here tomorrow. Where do you live?”

“Stansted. Near the airport.”

“Oh.” She considered this. “That’s quite a way.”

No shit, Sherlock.

“I’m not going to the hospital,” I said, and finally saw Marc emerging from the club with my bag.

“Had to wait until all the others had gone,” he said apologetically, handing the kitsch little clutch over. I glanced at him, then at the policewoman, and lowered my voice.

“Can I speak to you in private?” I said, and she frowned, but led me away to the far side of the ambulance where the rain as coming down harder.

I withdrew my wallet from my bag and pulled out my military ID.

“I don’t actually have to do what you say,” I said apologetically.

She inspected the card. “Special agent?”

“Uh-huh.”

She shook her head. “Damn. Had one of your lot over near the airport a couple of weeks ago. Cocky bugger, he was.”

“Tall, blond hair, really good bone structure?”

“You know him?”

Intimately. “We work together.” I put my ID away. “Can we go now? You’ve got everyone’s addresses and everything?”

She nodded gloomily. “I suppose this will go to higher powers? Attacking an agent and all that?”

“You’d be surprised,” I replied, and we walked back around the ambulance.

“Watch your feet,” the policewoman called as I hobbled away, leading the gang through the fierce rain.

Marc walked with me, mostly silent apart from when he pointed out the broken glass or chewing gum on the pavement. The three girls walked along together, all of them competing for biggest diva, but Lucy crying hardest of all, especially when we heard the ambulance whistle past.

The drive home was long and quiet and tense, and for me, really painful. My feet were not only raw, but dirty and hot and prickly. There was dust and dirt in the burst blisters, and they hurt like fuck. Not to mention the broken needle in my arm, which I’d somehow managed to hide from the others.

Luke was going to love this.

My dreams were distorted, uncomfortable and hot. People in dark cloaks with giant syringes were coming after me, stabbing me repeatedly in the arm until it ached and throbbed, pushing me to the ground where Laurence lay grey and bleeding, then jumping on my feet until the bones crunched.

I felt like I’d hardly slept at all—it was nearly light when I finally fell into bed, naked, my clothes in a wet dirty heap on the floor—and when someone lightly brushed my shoulder I jumped.

“What?”

“You were dreaming,” Luke said, and I opened my eyes a crack to see him sitting on the edge of my bed. Sometimes I wish I’d never let him have a key. But then he’d probably have broken in anyway.

“Go away.” I yawned.

“That’s nice.”

“I’m really, really tired. What time is it?”

“Ten.”

“Blegh.”

“Sophie,” Luke chided, “you have to get up and look respectable. Great Aunt Tilda’s garden party, remember?”

I put my face in the pillow and moaned.

“How’d it go last night?”

In flashes, I remembered. The rain, the stabbing club lights, the thud of the sub-speakers from outside. Laurence, pale and dead-looking, the jab in my arm—

I sat up. “I have to call the hospital.”

“Ah, underage clubbing. Who had their stomach pumped?”

“No one. One of the boys was attacked. He—”

But Luke had grabbed my arm, and I winced.

“Sophie—what the hell—?”

I looked down. The needle was wedged under the skin of my inner arm, just below the elbow. There was a red line scoring down to it, like a track mark. I hadn’t even looked at it properly last night. I’d just told myself to take a trip to the doctor’s in the morning and I’d be fine.

“Oh,” I said. “I got attacked too.”

“There’s something in your arm!”

“Yeah. I think it’s a needle.” I tried to think of the right word for it.

He stared at me. “Like a hypodermic needle?”

“Yes!” Clever Luke.

He took a deep breath, still holding my arm under the elbow, trying to look calm. “There is a hypodermic needle in your arm,” he said, nostrils flaring.

“Only half of one,” I said helpfully.

“
There is a hypodermic needle in your arm.”

I felt a further correction would not be helpful.

“I was going to tell you,” I lied, “but my phone ran out of battery.” There. Nearly true.

“Why didn’t you go to the hospital straight away?”

“It’s not that bad,” I said, looking at it doubtfully. The skin around the needle was puffy and pink, my arm throbbed a little, but on balance I think my feet hurt worse.

“Sophie,” his fingers were nearly cutting off my circulation now, “do you know where else that needle has been?”

I shrugged. “How would I—”

“Do you realise you could have got hepatitis? Or worse?”

I stared at my arm. That hadn’t occurred to me.

“Jesus.” He dropped my arm pretty sharpish and left the room. I got up, pulled my dressing gown on—God, I hurt everywhere—and padded out into the living room after him. Tammy was sitting on the kitchen counter, looking plaintive. I put my hand out to her, then withdrew it.

“Sorry, baby. Mummy might be contagious.”

“Can you be serious?” Luke snapped. He had my Yellow Pages out and was going through the hospital listings. When he found one he liked, he grabbed my phone and stabbed at the buttons.

“You can use my phone if you want,” I said, and he glared at me.

“Hello, casualty? My girlfriend has a needle stuck in her arm, right under the skin…a hypodermic needle. It’s broken off. She was attacked,” he added sharply.

He listened for a while as I moved over to the kettle and switched it on, examining my arm as I went.

“Right. I thought so. I’ll bring her up. Thank you.”

He put the phone down and turned to me. “Get dressed.”

“Sir, yes, sir.”

“And for God’s sake take your makeup off.”

I looked in the mirror. Blegh. He was right.

I couldn’t be arsed with a shower, but I bathed my feet in the sink (Luke decided he was impressed with my agility and said he’d take advantage of it when he was sure I wasn’t going to give him anything. Told you he was an unromantic sod) and packaged them up with plasters and thick socks. I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt and added a baseball cap to cover up my hair, which really needed washing after the smoke and sweat of the club. When I was done, I looked like a teenage junkie. Great.

Luke put me in his car and drove me up to the Princess Alexandra Hospital, where we waited for a couple of hours before someone came along with a scalpel, cut open my arm to get the needle out, and promptly hit a vein. Blood gushed everywhere, and the young doctor went pale.

“Right. I’ll, er, I’ll just sew that up, shall I?”

Luke rolled his eyes at me. He’d tried to blag us to the front of the queue with his Special Agent status, but it hadn’t worked. I’d read
Hello!
,
Okay
and
Chat
magazines until I thought my brain might explode. Tired and grubby, and in pain from several sources, I waited patiently while my arm was cleaned and stitched up, and then a needle was inserted into my other arm (check out the irony of that) so they could check my blood for hepatitis or AIDS or whatever other nasty things Luke was convinced I had.

On the way out, I asked the receptionist if she could get me any news about Laurence. To my shame I realised I didn’t know his last name, but I gave her admission details and she came back with the news that he was in a coma, following a heroin overdose.

“Will he be okay?” I asked, clutching Luke.

She shrugged. “The sooner he wakes, the better.”

“But you don’t know when that will be?”

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

I walked out, holding tightly onto Luke. Suddenly I realised what someone had been trying to do to me. I was pretty certain Laurence wasn’t a user. I don’t know why—call it another hunch. Someone had injected him, and then they’d tried to get me, too.

“Heroin,” Luke said, looking impressed as he dragged me back to the car. “That could explain why you’re so tired. You’re still stoned.”

“I am not stoned. I don’t think any of it went in me.”

“You don’t feel happy and relaxed?”

“I’m in too much pain to be relaxed.” I clutched the bottle of painkillers they’d given me and considered becoming addicted to them.

“Oh. Well, if it hurts, you’re probably not stoned. It’s supposed to relieve pain. That’s sort of the point.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” I collapsed into the car. “Luke, someone tried to kill me.”

“Again.” He touched my face. “Remind me not to let you out of my sight.”

“It’s not as if I’ve even done anything.”

“You’re a spy, sweetheart. That’s enough.”

I thought about this on the way home, drowsy with painkillers and antibiotics and lack of sleep, looking down at my arm which bore a fresh bandage. If this went on any longer I’d soon be totally mummified.

I guess as long as I was trying to find, infiltrate and stop bad guys, then the bad guys would be trying to stop me. And while SO17 might stop people by putting them in jail, nasty people weren’t so nice. They preferred to remove you permanently.

Sometimes, I could see how they had a point.

“Luke,” I said as we pulled up at my flat, “do you know if it’s just Marc and his mother going to this party?”

“I haven’t seen the whole guest list. Why?”

“No reason.” I didn’t want to say it until I’d thought about it some more.

“Do you still want to go?”

I nodded. “I need to.”

Luke looked me over and seemed to decide I’d do. “Okay. But please wash your hair.”

Out came the clingfilm to keep my bandage dry while I showered. I stood looking at the contents of my wardrobe for quite a while, making faces, until Luke—already looking smart and lovely in chinos and a linen shirt that had somehow escaped my blood fountain, the pristine bastard—asked me what was wrong.

“What kind of party is it?”

“A garden party.”

“Yes, I know, but is it the sort of party me and my friends have where we eat pizza and get smashed and listen to cheesy pop?”

Luke shook his head slowly.

“I didn’t think so. I get the feeling I should be wearing something floral.”

“And…?”

“And I don’t feel very floral.” I narrowed my eyes calculatingly. “It’s not going to rain any more, is it?”

“I don’t think so. It’s cooler than it was. There’s a breeze. Why?”

I pulled out my leather jeans. “I’m
really
not feeling floral.”

So my feet hurt and my arm ached and my thigh was throbbing from the effect all that dancing had had on the bruise. So what. I swallowed some more pain pills and swiped on some eyeliner, and felt a lot better for it.

Luke took one look at my outfit—leather jeans, red boots, sheer black top that showed off my DD cup bra—and decided he needed to change too.

“Just no leather,” I said, as we got in his car and went back to his place, already running late.

“Why not?”

How could I put this in a PC, non-offensive way?

“You’ll look gay.”

“That’s nice.”

“Sorry, Luke, but you would. If you put on leather jeans—don’t tell me you still have them?”

“I could still have them,” Luke said moodily.

“But you don’t?”

“…No.”

“If you wore leather jeans, I’d seriously have to call your sexuality into question. Me, the girl you’ve been screwing senseless for months.”

“You never call Spike gay and he’s always wearing them.”

“That’s because he’s Spike. He’s in his own class. He could wear pink and still look straight.”

“Are you saying I looked gay when I wore them in Cornwall?”

“No, ‘cos you were dressed up as Spike for the party.” And damn, he’d looked good.

“So Spike’s not gay, but I am?”

I couldn’t help laughing. “Of course not. You’re very straight.” He’d stopped the car in the yard now, and I leaned across and kissed him. “Very straight.”

But Luke pulled back, and I looked at him, hurt.

“You,” he began, and looked nervous. “You could be…”

“Contagious. Right. I’ll have to carry a warning.”

“Sophie, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s okay.” I got out of the car. “I’m all right. If I drop off into a coma I’ll be sure to remember as my last thought how glad I am that you didn’t get infected.”

He came after me, bleeping the car shut.

“It’s not funny.”

“No.” I stopped, annoyed now. “It’s not. Blood poisoning is the least of my worries. I could be HIV positive. Fuck knows where that needle’d been.”

“Probably it was only Laurence…”

“Probably? Oh, thanks.”

I flumped down on his chesterfield and flicked through the news channels on Sky, half expecting there to be something about Laurence on there. But I guess teenage overdoses are too common for ordinary news.

Luke came out, wearing black jeans and a snug, pale blue T-shirt. He had big boots on and he was scowling.

“Mmm,” I said, “much better. Are you sure you won’t kiss me?”

He looked mardy. “How long will it take for the blood test results to come back?”

“Fuck knows. This is the NHS. Probably about a week.”

Luke sighed. “I’ll see if Karen can speed them up.”

His Great Aunt Tilda’s house was about an hour’s drive away and I was surprised when he suggested we take my car. And then I realised that Great Aunt Tilda would probably be terribly grand, and that a Defender would look a hell of a lot better than a Vectra, sitting there in the driveway. Or round in valet parking. I didn’t know how rich she was.

In fact I barely knew anything about Luke’s family at all. I knew they must have had money, to continue sending him to Eton. I knew they weren’t close to him. That’s all I knew.

Luke insisted I wasn’t to drive and I, mindful of all the drugs I was now on, agreed and winced as he thrashed Ted’s gearbox around.

“Be nice to him,” I said. “He’s been through a lot.”

“Not as much as you,” Luke said.

He turned off the B-road onto a long, straight lane with wide grass verges on either side, bordered by high brick walls. It looked like the entrance to a grand country house, but there’d been no indication it was private at the junction.

And then we came to a road crossing the long lane, and opposite from us was a sign announcing Gravely House. The lane had been part of the drive. Luke went straight over and through the wide, open wrought iron gates, and we followed the long drive up through more carefully tended green lawns until a house came in view.

Well, I say a house. Really it needed its own postcode. It was huge. It would have made Buckingham Palace look like a garden shed. There were wings and crenellations and outbuildings and a flock of gardeners tending the borders. I got the feeling that looking after this place was a bit like painting the Forth Bridge—no sooner had you got to one end than the other needed attention.

Luke glanced over at me.

“You okay?”

I nodded. “It’s, uh, impressive.”

“Yeah. She opens it up for public viewing most of the year. The party is to celebrate her getting her home back.”

“Your great aunt really owns this place?”

He nodded. “Bit of a white elephant. Costs so much to keep she barely breaks even.”

But still. I was impressed when my mum inherited her mother’s flat. My flat. One bedroom and no garden. You could live a lifetime in this house and never see the same room twice.

“Do we have to go inside?” I asked. “Only my feet still hurt and I think it might take me a week to get from one end to the other of this place.”

He grinned. “We don’t have to go inside. Unless it rains and we’ll go in the ballroom.”

Dear God.

“That’s good,” I said, “because I think I might need Ted to get around this place.”

“Well, he’s a Defender. He’ll fit right in.”

“See, my car is very useful.”

“Hmm.”

At the front door of the house Luke pulled up and a young man in a suit came and asked for his invitation. Luke showed it, and the young man wrote out a ticket which he stuck to the rear view mirror, then he got in and drove Ted away.