The Sculptress (8 page)

“Perhaps you can tell me where he went?”

“Sure. He opened a restaurant in Wenceslas Street. Lives in the flat above it.”

“And how do I find Wenceslas Street?”

“Well, now’ he rubbed his jaw thoughtfully ‘by far the easiest way is to hang around for half an hour till the end of my shift. I’ll take you.”

She laughed.

“And what would your girlfriend say to that?”

“A ruddy mouthful. She’s got a tongue like a chain-saw.” He winked.

“I won’t tell her if you won’t.”

“Sorry, sunshine. I’m shackled to a husband who hates policemen only marginally less than he hates toy-boys.” Lies were always easier.

He grinned.

“Turn left out of the station and Wenceslas Street is about a mile down on the left. There’s an empty shop on the corner. The Sergeant’s restaurant is bang next door to it. It’s called the Poacher.” He tapped his pencil on the desk.

“Are you planning to eat there?”

“No,” she said, ‘it’s purely business. I don’t intend to hang around.”

He nodded approval.

“Wise woman. The Sergeant’s not much of a cook. He’d have done better to stick with policing.”

She had to pass the restaurant to reach the London road. Rather reluctantly she pulled into its abandoned car park and climbed out of the car. She was tired, she hadn’t planned on talking to Hawksley that day, and the young constable’s lighthearted flirtation depressed her because it had left her cold.

The Poacher was an attractive red-brick building, set back from the road with the car park in front. Leaded bay windows curved out on either side of a solid oak door and wist aria heavy with buds, grew in profusion across the whole facade. Like St. Angela’s Convent it was at odds with its surroundings.

The shops on either side, both apparently empty, their windows a repository for advertising stickers, complemented each other in cheap post-war pragmatism but did nothing for the old faded beauty in their midst. Worse, a thoughtless council had allowed a previous owner to erect a two-storey extension behind the red-brick frontage, and it gboomed above the restaurant’s tiled roof in dirty pebble-dashed concrete. An attempt had been made to divert the wist aria across the roof but, starved of sunlight by the jutting property to the right, the probing tendrils showed little enthusiasm for reaching up to veil the dreary elevation.

Roz pushed open the door and went inside. The place was dark and deserted. Empty tables in an empty room, she thought despondently.

Like her.

Like her life. She was on the point of calling out, but thought better of it. It was all so peaceful and she was in no hurry. She tiptoed across the floor and took a stool at a bar in the corner. A smell of cooking lingered on the air, garlicky, tempting, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten all day. She waited a long time, unseen and unheard, a trespasser upon another’s silence. She thought about leaving, unobtrusively, as she had come, but it was strangely restful and her head drooped against her hand. Depression, an all too constant companion, folded its arms around her again, and turned her mind, as it often did, to death. She would do it one day. Sleeping pills or the car. The car, always the car. Alone, at night, in the rain. So easy just to turn the wheel and find a peaceful oblivion. It would be justice of a sort. Her head hurt where the hate swelled and throbbed inside it. God, what a mess she had become. If only someone could lance her destructive anger and let the poison go. Was Iris right?

Should she see a psychiatrist? Without warning, the terrible unhappiness burst like a flood inside her, threatening to spill out in tears.

“Oh, shit” she muttered furiously, dashing at her eyes with the palms of her hands. She scrabbled in her bag for her car keys.

“Shit! Shit! And more bloody shit! Where the hell are you?”

A slight movement caught her attention and she lifted her head abruptly. A shadowy stranger leant against the back counter, quietly polishing a glass and watching her.

She blushed furiously and looked away.

“How long have you been there?” she demanded angrily.

“Long enough.”

She retrieved her keys from the inside of her diary and glared at him briefly.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged.

“Long enough.”

“Yes, well, you’re obviously not open yet, so I’ll be on my way.” She pushed herself off the stool.

“Suit yourself,” he said with supreme indifference.

“I was just about to have a glass of wine. You can go or you can join me.

I’m easy either way.” He turned his back on her and uncorked a bottle.

The colour receded from her cheeks.

“Are you Sergeant Hawksley?”

He lifted the cork to his nose and sniffed it appreciatively.

“I was, once. Now I’m just plain Hal.” He turned round and poured the wine into two glasses.

“Who’s asking?”

She opened her bag again.

“I’ve got a card somewhere.”

“A voice would do just as well.” He pushed one of the glasses towards her.

“Rosalind Leigh,” she said shortly, propping the card against the telephone on the bar.

She stared at him in the semi-darkness, her embarrassment temporarily forgotten. He was hardly a run of the mill restaurateur. If she had any sense, she thought, she would take to her heels now. He hadn’t shaved and his dark suit hung in rumpled folds as if he’d slept in it.

He had no tie and half the buttons on his shirt were missing, revealing a mass of tight black curls on his chest. A swelling contusion on his upper left cheek was rapidly closing the eye above it, and thick dried blood encrusted both nostrils. He raised his glass with an ironic smile.

“To your good health, Rosalind. Welcome to the Poacher.” There was a lilt to his voice, a touch of Geordie, tempered by long association with the South.

“It might be more sensible to drink to your good health,” she said bluntly.

“You look as though you need it.”

“To us then. May we both get the better of whatever ails us.

“Which, in your case, would appear to be a steamroller.”

He fingered the spreading bruise.

“Not far off,” he agreed.

“And you? What ails you?”

“Nothing,” she said lightly.

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are.” His dark eyes rested kindly on her for a moment.

“You’re half alive and I’m hail dead.”

He drained his glass and filled it again.

“What did you want with Sergeant Hawksley?”

She glanced about the room.

“Shouldn’t you be opening up?”

“What for?”

She shrugged.

“Customers.”

“Customers,” he echoed thoughtfully.

“Now there’s beautiful word.” He gave a ghost of a chuckle.

“They’re an endangered species, or haven’t you heard? The last time I saw a customer was three days ago, a skinny little runt with a rucksack on his back who was scratching about in search of a vegetarian omelette and decaffeinated coffee.” He fell silent.

“Depressing.”

“Yes.”

She eased herself on to the stool again.

“It’s not your fault,” she said sympathetically.

“It’s the recession. Everyone’s going under. Your neighbours already have, by the look of it.” She gestured towards the door.

He reached up and flicked a switch at the side of the bar. Muted lamplight glowed around the walls, bringing a sparkle to the glasses on the tables. She looked at him with alarm. The contusion on his cheek was the least of his problems. Bright red blood was seeping from a scab above his ear and running down his neck. He seemed unaware of it.

“Who did you say you were?” His dark eyes searched hers for a moment then moved past her to search the room.

“Rosalind Leigh. I think I should call an ambulance,” she said helplessly.

“You’re bleeding.”

She had a strange feeling of being outside herself, quite remote from this extraordinary situation. Who was this man?

Not her responsibility, certainly. She was a simple bystander who had stumbled upon him by accident.

“I’ll call your wife,” she said.

He gave a lopsided grin.

“Why not? She always enjoyed a good laugh. Presumably she still does.” He reached for a tea towel and held it to his head.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to die on you. Head wounds always look worse than they are. You’re very beautiful.

“From the east to western Ind, No jewel is like Rosalind.”

“It’s Roz and I’d rather you didn’t quote that,” she said sharply.

“It annoys me.”

He shrugged.

“As You Like It.”

She sucked in an angry breath.

“I suppose you think that’s original.”

“A tender nerve, I see. Who are we talking about?” He looked at her ring finger.

“Husband? Ex-husband? Boyfriend?”

She ignored him.

“Is there anyone else here? Someone in the kitchen? You should have that cut cleaned.” She wrinkled her nose.

“In fact you should have this place cleaned. It stinks of fish.” The smell, once noticed, was appalling.

“Are you always this rude?” he asked curiously. He rinsed the tea-towel under a tap and watched the blood run out of it.

“It’s me,” he said matter of factly.

“I went for a ride on a ton of mackerel. Not a pleasant experience.”

He gripped the edge of the small sink and stood staring into it, head lowered in exhaustion, like a bull before the coup de grace of the matador.

“Are you all right?” Roz watched him with a perplexed frown creasing her forehead. She didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t her problem, she kept telling herself, but she couldn’t just walk away from it.

Supposing he passed out?

“Surely there’s someone I can call,” she insisted.

“A friend. A neighbour.

Where do you live?” But she knew that. In the flat above, the young policeman had said.

“Jesus, woman,” he growled, ‘give it a rest, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’m only trying to help.”

“Is that what you call it? It sounded more like nagging to me.” He was alert suddenly, listening to something she couldn’t hear.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, alarmed by his expression.

“Did you lock the door after you?”

She stared at him.

“No. Of course I didn’t.”

He dowsed the lights and padded across to the entrance door, almost invisible in the sudden darkness. She heard the sound of bolts being thrust home.

“Look-‘ she began, getting off her stool.

He loomed up beside her and put an arm around her shoulder and a finger to her lips.

“Quiet, woman.” He held her motionless.

“But-‘ “Quiet!”

A car’s headlamps swept across the windows, slicing the darkness with white light. The engine throbbed in neutral for a moment or two, then the gears engaged and the vehicle drove away. Roz tried to draw away but Hawksley’s arm only gripped her more firmly.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

They stood in silent immobility among the tables, statues at a spectral feast. Roz shook herself free angrily.

“This is absolutely absurd,” she hissed.

“I don’t know what on earth is going on but I’m not staying like this for the rest of the night. Who was in that car?”

“Customers,” he said regretfully.

“You’re mad.”

He took her hand.

“Come on,” he whispered, ‘we’ll go upstairs.”

“We will not,” she said, snatching her hand away.

“My God, doesn’t anyone think about anything except screwing these days.”

Amused laughter fanned her face.

“Who said anything about screwing?”

“I’m going.”

“I’ll see you out.”

She took a deep breath.

“Why do you want to go upstairs?”

“My flat’s up there and I need a bath.”

“So what do you want me for?”

He sighed.

“If you remember, Rosalind, it was you who came in here asking for me.

I’ve never met a woman who was so damn prickly.”

“Prickly!” she stuttered.

“My God, that’s rich. You stink to high heaven, you’ve obviously been in a fight, you plunge us into total darkness, moan about not having any customers and then turn them away when they do come, make me sit for five minutes without moving, try to manhandle me upstairs….” She paused for breath.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she blurted out.

“Oh, great! That’s all I need.” He took her hand again.

“Come on. I’m not going to rape you. To tell you the truth I haven’t the strength at the moment. What’s wrong?”

She stumbled after him.

“I haven’t eaten all day.”

“Join the club.” He led her through the darkened kitchen and unlocked a side door, reaching past her to switch on some lights.

“Up the stairs,” he told her, ‘and the bathroom’s on the right.”

She could hear him double-locking the door behind her as she collapsed on the lavatory seat and pressed her head between her knees, waiting for the waves of nausea to pass.

The light came on.

“Here. Drink this. It’s water.” Hawksley squatted on the floor in front of her and looked into her white face. She had skin like creamy alabaster and eyes as dark as sloes. A very cold beauty, he thought.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“What?”

“Whatever’s making you so unhappy.”

She sipped the water.

“I’m not unhappy. I’m hungry.”

He put his hands on his knees and pushed himself upright.

“OK. Let’s eat. How does sirloin steak sound?”

She smiled weakly.

“Wonderful.”

“Thank God for that! I’ve got a freezer full of the flaming stuff. How do you like it?”

“Rare but-‘ “But what?”

She pulled a face.

“I think it’s the smell that’s making me sick.” She put her hands to her mouth.

“I’m sorry but I really think it would be better if you got cleaned up first. Mackerel-flavoured sirloin doesn’t appeal over much.”

He sniffed at his sleeve.

“You don’t notice it after a while.” He turned the taps on full and emptied bath foam into the running water.

“There’s only the one loo, I’m afraid, so if you’re going to puke you’d better stay there.” He started to undress.