The Tied Man (37 page)

Ironically, it was Blaine who had broken this habit.  The collection of raw, bloody craters that had spread up my arms and across the backs of my hands when we first met was not, she had coldly informed me, in keeping with the image of Albermarle Hall.

So until today’s forthcoming lapse I had stopped the thing with the cigarettes and put my energy into the thing with the temazepam instead.  I was still fucked, but only on the inside now, and that was far less likely to put a client off. 

Inside my head on an endless loop Lilith turned to Gabriel and kissed him hard and laughed at her lucky escape, and I gave one last drag on my cigarette until the tip glowed and then I ground it hard into my skin at a point exactly halfway between wrist and elbow.  Lilith and Gabriel disappeared as the pain surged bright and welcome into the space they had occupied.  I sighed with the closest thing to pleasure I could feel, and Bran wrinkled her nose in her sleep as the slightest scent of burnt flesh drifted over to where she lay.

*****

I spent the rest of that bitter, grey day in the greenhouse, hiding out with a first edition Solzhenitsyn that I’d sneaked out of
Blaine
’s library until the last of the light faded from the horizon and I could no longer keep the autumn damp from seeping deep into my core.  I still wasn’t hungry, but needed a gallon or so of tea to begin to thaw me out.  I also needed to scrounge a couple of paracetamol to take the sting out of my latest branding.  

The kitchen was deserted.  Coyle, already drunk for all Ireland, had retired to the biggest suite in the hall where he would spend the rest of his time keeping a dozen cartels in business and wanking himself blind, unless I did something stupid that summoned him out of his lair so that he could kick my head in for sport.  I had no idea where Henry was, and Lilith was still nowhere to be seen.  I filled the kettle and set it on the stove, slamming it around as though the cacophony could drive away the memory of her sitting, neat and beautiful, at the same table where that bloody newspaper now mocked me.

I pulled my sweatshirt over my head and winced as the fabric pulled away the top layer of my cigarette burn.  I reckoned Henry must have a box of Band-Aids somewhere in his meticulously arranged drawers, and began to rifle through them.

‘You know, you
could
just ask nicely and I’d find whatever it is you’re looking for.’ Henry removed his rain-spattered waxed jacket and draped it over a hook on the back of the door.  He began to follow me around the kitchen, replacing the items I’d scattered over the floor and pushing the drawers back in.  ‘So?’

‘So, what?’

‘What
are
you looking for?  Or are you just destroying my kitchen for the amusement value?’

‘Band-Aid.’ I didn’t look up from my search.  I knew I was sending Henry’s blood pressure sky-high as I scattered his collections of arranged-by-size elastic bands and date-ordered discount vouchers, but it was the nearest thing I was going to get to a laugh that day.

Henry’s face immediately creased with concern, despite the fact I was destroying his universe.  ‘What for?  Have you hurt yourself?’

‘For this, all right?’ I spat, and showed him the burn that was now a weeping, angry red disc. 

Henry didn’t say anything to that.  He simply went to the right drawer and handed me the box.

I didn’t bother with thanks.  ‘Where the hell were you, anyway?’

‘Well I was hardly going to swim back to the bloody island, was I?’  Lilith said from the doorway.  She was still wearing her outfit from the night before.

‘So.  How was your trip?’  I didn’t even try to keep the resentment from my voice.

‘Expensive.’

‘Yeah, I can imagine.  What was it?  A magnum of champagne and a pack of three for your fuckfest with Gabriel bastard James?’

‘Finn!’ Henry snapped.  ‘I’m so sorry, Lilith.  Coyle’s been in, winding Finn up with
that
.’  He pointed to the newspaper as though it were radioactive waste.

‘Fuck off and die, Henry.’  I was behaving like a twat again, and I didn’t care.  The fact that Lilith, who had just had her best opportunity to disappear yet had chosen to return to this madhouse, meant less to me than the front page of The Herald.

‘Ah.  I didn’t plan on you reading that,’ Lilith said.

‘No, I bet you fucking didn’t.’

Lilith ignored me and picked up the paper.  She stood and slowly read that bloody article from beginning to end, an infuriating smile flickering across her lips as she took in the most amusing details.  Finally she folded the pages perfectly in half and dropped it in the bin.  ‘Well that worked.’

‘What did?  Sorting out your next shag for when you’re done here?’

‘No.  My impromptu attempt at misdirection.’  She pulled an elastic band from her ponytail and shook her hair free.  It hung in damp strands across her face and I finally realised just how exhausted she looked.  Then I thought about what had caused that exhaustion and my anger sparked once more.

‘Don’t play with me, Lilith.’ I tried to barge past her.  She caught me by the shoulder.

‘Finn, the most I did with Gabriel was drink forty cups of coffee so I could get back to Albermarle before my curfew.’

‘Yeah, right.’ I pulled my arm away but didn’t move from the spot.

‘You were about to tell us how the trip went, Lilith,’ Henry chimed, desperate to break the storm that was building in his sacred space.  He ignored my glare and began to brew the tea that I had started half an hour earlier.

‘Like I said, expensive,’ Lilith reiterated.  ‘And I’ll tell you why, shall I?’ she asked pleasantly.  ‘No?  Well, I’ll tell you anyway.’  She pulled an overnight bag from where she had dropped it in the doorway and threw two packages across the table.  ‘Twenty pounds on presents for my favourite boys.’

Henry got a baseball cap decorated with a flashing
Tower
Bridge
.  I got a t-shirt that read
‘My friend went to
London
, and all I got was this fucking t-shirt.’

‘Another twenty for enough speed to let me drive three hundred miles nonstop without falling asleep at the wheel,’ Lilith continued.  This shocked me.  Lilith was the second straightest person I knew after Henry – God knew what she’d been up to for her to end up scoring a bag of street phet.  She pulled her hair back into its ponytail and looked me straight in the eye.  ‘And thirty eight thousand in used notes to buy a thirteen-year old rent boy from
Blaine
’s
London
brothel.’

I thought I’d misheard.  By Henry’s nonplussed expression, he felt the same. 

‘You did
what
?’  I finally managed to ask, searching Lilith’s face for any sign of a wind-up.  I found none, but in truly looking at her for the first time I realised her nonchalance was only skin deep.  In reality, she was completely wired: her pale eyes glittered in an unnaturally wan face.  Too slowly, I began to understand.  ‘Jesus Christ, Lilith, what did you
do
?’

‘Oh goodness, what... I mean where... I mean, how?’ Henry babbled.  All Finn could do was slump mutely into the nearest chair and stare at me.

As a precautionary move I used my inhaler before I began.  ‘I waited until the paps had set up camp on Gabe’s doorstep, then left by the fire exit.  I went to Marley’s, spoke nicely to the doorman, started bidding at ten grand, and kept going up until I found his price – a one-way ticket back to Poland and a small apartment in Lodz, apparently.  He brought Jake to me, I bundled him into a taxi  - which is where the last thousand went, incidentally – and sent him to a safe house in
Brighton
.’  I started to laugh.  ‘
My
safe house.  My conscience-appeasing, sorry-for-being-rich charity.  I’m bloody glad I didn’t invest in a cat shelter – I’d have been totally fucked for somewhere to send him.’

‘Does
Blaine
...’ Henry began, but I was ahead of him.

‘No-one does.  Even the place itself doesn’t know I’m its benefactor.  My agent’s always given me hell for not using it in my publicity – it would give me a ‘much-needed human face’ apparently.’

‘So he’s truly out of her reach?’  Henry asked, and I could hear the fragile, unfamiliar hope in his voice.

I nodded.  ‘And if...
when
the worst comes to the worst and Blaine finds out that he’s gone, even Gabriel’s in the clear – it just looks as though I did a runner on him after we shagged.’  I quickly looked at Finn.  ‘Even though we didn’t, much to his disappointment.’

In fact, for a man who had thought his luck was in, Gabriel James had been a perfect gentleman.  Forbidden to ask any questions whatsoever, he had simply provided me with an internet connection and made coffee whilst I went about my clandestine work.  By the time I left his mews apartment at three in the morning, he still didn’t know where I was staying, or why I refused to talk.  Most importantly, I had never once mentioned
Blaine
’s name.

‘Strictly speaking, there’s nothing to link any of it to
me
until Blaine tracks down the doorman and has him shot in the head – it could simply be a coincidence that I was in London at the same time.  Although that might be being a little optimistic.  And that’s about it.’  My heart began to pound as I addressed them both.  ‘Beyond that, I have no idea how much shit this is going to cause for any of us, but it was the only opportunity I was going to get.’  I placed my hand over Finn’s and this time he didn’t pull away.  My voice began to break as I pleaded, ‘And for God’s sake would you say something!’ Even his fury was preferable to this wall of silence as he stared at me as though I were an alien being.

Suddenly he leapt to his feet.  I stood to meet him and he flung his arms around me, burying his face in my hair.  ‘You came back,’ he whispered.  ‘You did all that, and you still came back.’

I felt my legs buckle with exhaustion and relief, and still he bore my weight.  I let my arms slip through his, reaching around his slim waist to return the embrace.

‘You stupid, mad cow,’ Finn continued.  ‘Jesus fuck, Lili, you could have gone. Why the hell did you come back to this?’

I pushed away just enough to let my eyes meet his.  ‘Why do you think?’ I asked, and was pulled back in so hard that the breath was squeezed from me.

‘You’re shivering,’ Finn said.  ‘Go and run yourself a bath,
a chuisle
.  Get warmed up.’ 

‘What did you call me?’

‘Ah. 
A chuisle
. Gaelic. ‘My darling’.  I prefer the proper translation, mind you.’

‘Which is?’

He gave a bashful smile.  ‘My pulse.’ 

I waited for Lilith to move, but she stood rooted to the spot.

‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.

‘I
really
don’t want to be alone right now.’

I didn’t even start to argue.  Didn’t want to, truth be told.  ‘Give me ten to get cleaned up a bit, huh?  I’ll come to your room.  Coyle will be out of his skull by now, so we should be safe enough.’

Lilith sighed with relief.  ‘Yeah, I saw his face gurning at me from behind a bedroom blind when I came up the path; he looked pretty hammered.  Thanks.  Thanks a lot.’  She turned on her heels, gave Henry a quick hug, picked up her bag and headed off to her quarters.  The simple promise of my company had reassured her enough to move, and I was still smiling like an idiot as I lit my cigarette.

‘Don’t say it, Henry,’ I warned.

Henry raised an eyebrow.  ‘Would it make any difference in the world if I did?’

‘Nope.’

‘Then I won’t say it.’

‘Good man.’ 

*****

I was on my way to Lilith’s room when  Henry called me back.

‘One moment.’  He disappeared into his vast larder and I heard him rifling through whatever the hell he kept in there.  When he emerged, he was cradling a wine bottle that was encrusted with a good century’s worth of dust.  He passed it to me with the tender care of a midwife handing over a newborn baby.  ‘Carpe diem, Finn.  Well, carpe noctem to be accurate, I suppose.’

‘It’s a bit fuckin’ grubby, isn’t it?  Haven’t you got a clean one?’ I teased.

‘Philistine,’ Henry tutted.  ‘For your information,
that
is a Ville de la Domaine Romanee Conté worth approximately eight hundred pounds on today’s market and considered to be a king amongst wines.  If you gulp it back in the same manner you insist on imbibing most alcohol, you will hear an entire chorus of angels sobbing.  At least Lilith will appreciate it.’

‘Thanks for this, little man.’ I was suddenly awkward with the enormity of what we were all doing.

‘She’ll never miss it.’  He brushed my words away with his hand.  ‘An insignificant gesture, all things considered.  Just raise a toast on my behalf, would you?  Perhaps ‘To a courage few possess’?’

I grinned.  ‘How about just, ‘Eat, drink, for tomorrow we die’?’