The Ice House (16 page)

‘Can he stop it? Can he have people waiting for it?’

‘Not in the airport itself, I wouldn’t think. But he will handle it. He will want to make sure your daughter is above all safe, whatever course of action they choose.’

She
couldn’t handle it. She started to breathe quickly, felt the panic starting.

‘The people you spoke to – they told you to tell nobody the arrangements, right?’ he said. ‘That’s standard. But they’re not here, in this car, so they have no idea what you’re saying, what you’re telling me. So I suggest you tell me it all, everything that’s happened. Then after that I suggest we ignore whatever shit they fed you, because all it will lead to is you flat on the ground with a bullet in the back of the head. And meanwhile your daughter will be in London, with a man called Carl Bowman. That’s what Mr Rugojev is working on right now. This is a solvable situation. You understand? Almost anything is solvable if you throw enough money at it, and Mr Rugojev has no shortage of funds. So take deep breaths, think it over and stay calm. You’re on the run, you’re desperate, sure – but you’re not alone, not any more. And I can get you to London within five hours.’

26

He had only ten days left in London when it started. Afterwards, telling it to themselves, Liz would always say that it started the very first time she saw him, that something had passed between them in that moment, with her standing in her bathrobe in the stairwell, that the subsequent days were a nightmare of deception for her as she struggled to keep it from him, to give him no clue. But Carl could never bring himself to believe that, because he had seen nothing in her eyes but disdain.

What
he
remembered as the start was the hours before they went out to the club, ten days before he was to leave, when she was getting ready to go out. She had told him during the afternoon that she was going to go to a club and had asked if he would insist on dragging along behind her. She hadn’t seemed too irritated by the prospect, so he had thought that perhaps by then she was getting used to him being there, though she still talked to him only infrequently, beyond the necessities.

He had replied that that was what he’d been asked to do by Viktor – stick with her – so, yes, he would be coming. If she didn’t want that then she would have to contact Viktor. Then she had said, ‘Well you might as well enjoy it, then. You can come up to my room while I’m getting ready, keep me company – instead of being a freaky shadow lurking round the corner. Pretend you’re my girlfriend.’ He had frowned at that, not being sure what she meant. ‘And bring some wine,’ she’d added. ‘You look like you would never enjoy anything without a drink.’ Was that true, he wondered? It was not how he imagined himself.

He had been asked to shadow her, to watch out for her, so the dynamic between them was peculiar. She occupied a tiny suite of two attic rooms on the top floor of the house, and as far as he knew then she was officially a minor member of Viktor’s staff – he had not asked her what else she might be. Whereas he had the use of Viktor’s rooms – the whole of the third floor – and he was family, clearly above her in some respect. He had access to Viktor’s funds too – a practically unlimited resource, relative to the things he needed – whilst she had only the wage Viktor gave her, he assumed, which might or might not include some extra remuneration for additional services. That was how he thought of it, and it shamed him afterwards to recall that, though certainly her spending habits were frugal enough; in two weeks she hadn’t gone out during the evenings at all. But his having to follow her around, dutifully alert to some non-specific threat, as if
he
were the hired hand, the mere employee, skewed things and made it seem like she was the one in control.

It was the first time he had been inside her room, that night, though he had thought about it often enough, wondered what it was like, what she had done with it in terms of furniture and decorations, what she did inside it when alone. It had become a bit of a habit during the long afternoon hours, when she was mostly up in the room, for him to sit down in the kitchen thinking about her. He sat in the kitchen instead of his own rooms because then he would see her if she emerged to go out, or get something to eat. There were ‘work’ reasons to do that, of course, and when he thought about her up there above him, moving around, listening to music, reading – whatever it was she did – it never strayed further than that. There was nothing obviously sexual about it. In fact, there was nothing sexual about the way he was reacting to her at all, at least nothing that he would recognise as sexual from the way these things had progressed with other women in his life. There was no thinking about getting into bed with her, or touching her, or kissing – thoughts of that type seemed like some kind of dirty betrayal of whatever it was he felt about her. But what exactly was that?

It was obsessive, he knew that. It wasn’t normal for him to sit for hours on end wondering what she might be wearing as she read her book – throughout those three weeks, he remembered, she was reading the same book, something by a writer she had told him was South African. Or guessing whether she did little dances for herself when she had her music on. He couldn’t hear her music unless he went up to the landing below the room, but every time he had tried that there had been music and sometimes a noise of footsteps on the boards, rhythmically, as if she might very well be dancing with herself. She had told him she was into jazz but he had never heard any jazz coming out of the room. It was always pop or dance when he heard it. There was a current hit by Scooter that he heard often, though didn’t know its name – he hated Scooter.

He went up at about nine, as she had instructed, with a bottle of champagne, a single fluted glass, and a couple of cans of beer, not sure what was expected of him but definitely nervous. She was on the bed in a pair of ragged jeans and a T-shirt, the book in her hands, leaning back against the headboard. ‘I thought you were never coming,’ she said, sliding off the bed. She had already showered, it seemed, and her hair was almost dry, hanging in thick, tangled red locks. He wanted to put his hands into it, but – incredibly –
still
didn’t think that was something sexual.

‘You said nine,’ he said. He knew it was exactly nine without looking because he had waited on the landing below for it to be exactly nine.

‘You brought champagne?’ She stood in front of him, ducking slightly because the roof of the room sloped at an angle above her bed. ‘But only one glass? Are you mad? I’m not drinking alone. You’ll have to go and get yourself a glass.’

‘I brought beer. I thought I would drive you …’

‘We’ll catch a cab. Beer is for real men. You’re my girlfriend, remember?’ She winked at him and he suspected she might have been drinking already, though there was nothing to suggest that other than her changed manner. He was confused but did what she said, went back downstairs and got another glass. He was halfway back up when he heard the champagne cork pop and the music start. This time a song he knew well, Flip and Fill’s ‘Shooting Star’, with Karen Parry vocals, a dance hit that had been big the winter before, even over in the States.

He had sat on the bed. There was only one chair in the room, at a table in the dormer window on which sat an open laptop – the source of the music, he was to discover, which was being played from a program he had then only heard of – iTunes – and fed through an amp and speakers. These had been a gift from Viktor and might have given away a lot about what was going on had he known anything about the price of such things, because while Viktor happily spent money on his women, he didn’t usually spend
that
much. It would have been a surprise to him back then to learn that you even
could
spend that kind of money on a music system.

The speakers were mounted on the wall, the amp set on top of a set of bookshelves filled with paperback books – he looked through the titles, but had read none of them. He had expected there might be pictures on the walls, posters, even, things from her past – but there was nothing. The room itself was a bit shabby, the paint old, discoloured and flaking off around the window frame. The window had been open, the night warm.

The single chair was unavailable because she sat on it, facing him, and explained what was going to happen as she poured him a glass of the champagne. What was going to happen was that she was going to get ready and he was going to advise her as to what to wear, what to do with her hair, what jewellery to put on, what shoes, et cetera – and while doing all that they were going to chill, listen to music and drink, get to know each other a little. At around eleven they would catch a cab into town and he would pretend to be a friend of hers, and gay – so as not to put off any men she might be interested in.

And so it had happened, almost. He sat in the bedroom, on the bed she slept in, he thought, and she disappeared into the other room and put clothes on, came out, showed him. She stood in the centre of the room, no more than a metre in front of him, turned, held her hands up, showed him what she had chosen, her eyes always on his, a teasing half-smile on her lips, knowing exactly what she was doing. He sat rapt, bewildered by her attentions, puzzled by her intentions, sipping the drink very carefully, trying not to stare too obviously at those freckles, trying instead to think of something to say about a long series of dresses, skirts and tops, as he slowly revised his view about her relationship with his brother.

All of them were designer labels, she told him, all of them the height of what was presently fashionable. Most of them were outrageously revealing, either very see-through, or slipped off her shoulders, or split up to her waist. And all the time there was a heady mix of scents in the air, not just the perfume she sprayed quickly on her wrists and neck, but also the soaps and shampoo from the shower. Every woman’s room he had ever been in had smelled like this – clean, scented, intoxicatingly alien – but it hadn’t meant what it did now.

The first chance he had he picked up the perfume bottle she had used and sniffed carefully at the top. She came out as he was doing it. She was wearing a very light, silver, ankle-length dress that was so thin he could clearly see her breasts and nipples. He got his eyes quickly off them as she said the name of the
perfume. ‘But in the bottle it doesn’t smell like it does on my skin,’ she said. She held a wrist under his nose. ‘See?’

Red with embarrassment he quickly took a sniff, caught the warmth from her body mingled with the perfume.

‘What do you think?’ she asked. She turned in the dress and he heard it moving against her skin.

‘You have a lot of dresses,’ he said, awkwardly. ‘They’re all beautiful. I like them all.’

‘You don’t think I look like a slut in this thing?’ She frowned at him. ‘Be honest, please.’ She took a drink from her glass and stayed there, daring him to look.

He shrugged, very uncomfortable. ‘I thought you said they were all designer clothes?’

‘And rich people can’t look like sluts?’

He didn’t know what to say. He had nothing against sluts, after all – one or two of the most attractive women he had been with had been prostitutes, or ‘friends’ of Viktor, which until this moment had more or less amounted to the same thing. ‘They can, obviously,’ he offered. ‘But that kind of woman can look great too. I think you look incredible in everything you have put on.’

‘I hate them all.’ She moved her hair out of her eyes. ‘I fucking hate them.’ The frown was very intense. ‘They were gifts,’ she said, with a sigh. ‘You must have guessed that.’

He had. He didn’t know what to say.

‘You don’t have to like them,’ she said. ‘I didn’t choose any of the things you’ve seen so far.’

‘So show me something you chose.’

She went back into the other room like she was offended, closed the door. He was to find out later that it was in fact her bedroom – with a large double bed and a little more space – the bed he sat on was only used as a couch or guest bed.

The music stopped and she shouted through for him to change the playlist. He didn’t know how to do that but turned the chair round and sat in front of the laptop. He expected to see a list of songs, but instead saw at once that what was on top was her email program. What he was looking at was a list of messages. They were all from the same person though – he read the name before he could get the mouse up and close it down – it was impossible for him not to see the name, though he wasn’t trying to do that at all. The list he could see was about forty mails, all sent over a two-day period, all from Viktor.

She stepped back into the room and he looked round guiltily, feeling like he’d been caught snooping. She was wearing the same jeans and T-shirt she’d had on when he’d first got there. ‘You look best like that,’ he said, too quickly.

She smiled. ‘These are my clothes. This is me.’ But she had seen what he was looking at. She stepped over and focused on the screen. ‘You saw that?’ she asked.

‘Yes. Sorry. It was on top.’

‘They’re mails from your brother.’

‘I saw that too. Sorry.’

‘I get about twenty a day, at least. It’s been like that for the whole time he’s been away.’ She leaned forward and used the mouse, scrolling down through the list, showing him. Every­thing there was from Viktor.

‘The dresses are from him too.’

He nodded. ‘I realised that.’

‘The mails are all love letters. Or at least he thinks they are. He thinks he loves me, but he doesn’t really know how to write a love letter.’

He looked up at her. ‘He tells you he
loves
you?’ He felt an awful weight in his stomach. He had badly miscalculated Viktor’s position.

She nodded. ‘That’s why he wants you to watch me. To make sure I don’t meet anyone else. He told me that if he catches me with anyone else he’ll kill me.’