Slippery Creatures

by KJ Charles

  Will couldn’t begin to answer that. She mused. “Self, self...like monks, you know. Anyway, that’s Kim. I’m quite sure Dr. Freud would have things to say about that, but will he submit to analysis? Of course not. Well, I wouldn’t either, but I’m not complicated so it would be a terrible waste of money. Self-flagellation! That’s it.” She blew a perfect smoke ring. “Anyway, if he’s got your case you’re in luck, because he’s awfully clever. Heavens, listen to the Devoted Fiancée. I’ll be darning his socks next.” She struck a coy pose that belonged on a Victorian sentimental print, her eyes sparkling with laughter. “Now, would you be a dar—a dear and make me a drink? The cocktail things are over there. You see, I feel quite entitled to order you about. If you’re on borrowed-dressing-gown terms with Kim, we shall unquestionably be friends.” She smiled at him. She had a very wide and endearing smile.

  “What would you like?” he managed. Kim’s ‘cocktail things’ proved to be a cabinet with a lot of different bottles, multiple glasses of various shapes, and several silver containers which held slices of lemon and even ice cubes. You could run a night-club in here. Will had no idea what to do with any of it.

  “Do you know how to make a sidecar?”

  He stared at the range of bottles. One of them held blue liquid and another green. Who drank this stuff? “I’m afraid not.”

  “Oh, well, never mind. Gin and tonic, please, with a slice of lemon. I shall treat it as a health cure. Thanks awfully. And that’s another good thing about Kim. Other men might come home to find their fiancée having cocktails with a strange man wearing his dressing gown and take it amiss. I can’t bear that sort of thing, can you?”

  “What sort of thing?” Will was forced to ask as he poured what he hoped was a ladylike measure of gin. He wondered what path this could possibly go down.

  “Jealousy, darling. Possessiveness. It gives me the horrors. People who think they can tell one what to do and who to see as if they own one, or that they have the right to sit in judgement on one’s behaviour. There’s a great deal too much of that about.” She gave her cigarette a darkling look, as though blaming it, and stubbed it out. “What I say is, one can be as moral as one likes but one should have the courtesy to do it in private, like any other bad habit. Goodness me, I didn’t ask, how rude. Did you have any joy from your labours today?”

  “No. No, we didn’t find anything.” He handed her the drink.

  “What a shame. To better fortune soon.” She raised the glass in a toast. “Do make yourself something, won’t you? Is it madly interesting, owning a bookshop?”

  “It’s pretty challenging at the moment,” Will said, with some understatement. “I haven’t done it long.”

  “Kim loves books. I quite like reading—novels, at least—but he likes books as things. I suppose that why he wanted to work with you, he’ll be in his element. Like a fish in a very dusty leatherbound sea. He’s secretly quite old-fashioned, of course. He’s got the most appalling taste in art, don’t you think? So dreadfully conventional.” The words might have been damning, but the smile with which she said them held such deep affection that Will’s chest constricted.

  “I should run that bath,” he said, knowing it was abrupt and ungracious but needing to get out of this room, away from her. “Excuse me.”

  He lurked determinedly in the bathroom, draining the bath, rinsing the grime off its sides and refilling it slowly, and didn’t emerge when it was done. After about five minutes sitting on the lavatory cursing Kim and himself, he heard a door open elsewhere in the flat.

  “Kim, at last!” Miss Stephens-Prince called. “Where have you been?”

  “Phoebe? What the blazes are you doing here?” Kim didn’t sound pleased.

  “Seeking refuge from Mother, of course. I met your new friend.”

  “Oh God. Where is he?”

  “I don’t know why you say it like that.” Miss Stephens-Prince sounded a little hurt. “I haven’t thrown him out.”

  “I should hope not. I was more afraid you’d you eaten him alive.” Kim’s tone was rather more conciliatory this time.

  “Well, I wouldn’t say no, darling, he has divine calves. I do like a good calf. He’s hiding in the bathroom.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Kim muttered as his footsteps approached the bathroom. “Will? I’ve your clothes.”

  Will opened the door a crack, no more, and stuck out a hand to take the pile extended to him. He didn’t want to see Kim; he couldn’t look him in the eye. He hadn’t been able to look at himself in the mirror either.

  It was very easy to disregard a fiancée who was no more than a name and a blurry black and white image in a magazine. He couldn’t ignore the vibrant Miss Stephens-Prince who quite clearly adored Kim, who spoke to and of him with laughing fondness, who shared jokes with him and was going to marry him and had no idea she’d been talking to a man he’d betrayed her with, twice.

  You shit, Will thought. You utter shit, Kim. If that was my girl...

  No wonder Kim had blown hot and cold with Will. He was doubtless ashamed of himself, and he bloody ought to be. Will was ashamed of the pair of them, and the fact that he hadn’t previously thought of Miss Stephens-Prince as a person rather than a concept, a fiancée in the abstract, was no excuse. If Kim didn’t realise she deserved better, he was a fool, and if he did, he was a knave. Will didn’t think he was a fool. And everything he’d done, Will had aided and abetted. Initiated, even.

  It’s not my job to keep him up to the mark, he thought fiercely. It did absolutely nothing to assuage his guilt.

  He got dressed with some relief. Whoever had cleaned his clothes had done a good job. They’d been beaten, sponged and pressed, and he looked a great deal more decent than he felt when he emerged from the bathroom to brave the sitting-room.

  Miss Stephens-Prince was still there, smoking another cigarette with a rather mulish expression. She’d finished her gin in short order; Kim was at the cocktail cabinet mixing something complicated.

  He glanced round as Will entered. His face wasn’t precisely frozen but it was entirely impassive. “Will. I understand you’ve met Phoebe.”

  Miss Stephens-Prince beamed, the sulky expression vanishing. “Yes, we had a delightful talk. Well, it was more that I talked and he listened, but he was awfully nice about it. Darling, do make Mr.—no, really, I’m simply not going to do this. May I call you Will? And I’m Phoebe, of course. We’re all first names these days, you know, and much better it is for everyone. Sweeping away the barriers of class and sex in the what-do-you-call-it of modern thought, and I’m sure that will be easier with trousers on. Now, let Kim make you a cocktail, Will, he’s quite the mixologist, and come and talk to me properly. Darling, make Will a sidecar. I feel quite sure you’ll like it.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Brandy, Cointreau, lemon juice,” Kim said. “Or would you prefer whisky?”

  “I’m sorry, I really must go.” Will didn’t think he could bear another minute of this. He wanted to punch something, preferably Kim.

  “Oh, no, please don’t!” Phoebe sounded dismayed. “Not on my account. You had things to do, I’m sure. If I’m intruding—” She started to rise.

  “Not at all,” Will said firmly. “I only came to borrow the bathroom because my shop is in a bit of a state. I’ll leave you to your evening.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t.” Kim sounded light, but as he gave Phoebe her drink and turned, his eyes met Will’s, making a quick, direct connection. “Phoebe just dropped in for a chat on her way to meet a friend for dinner. She isn’t staying.”

  Will didn’t know much about women’s fashions, but he was damned sure Phoebe wasn’t dressed for dinner, and she hadn’t said anything about meeting someone else. He was not going to stand here and watch Kim throw her out. “Then you’ll be dining alone because I’m going home.”

  Kim’s eyes narrowed slightly. “For heaven’s sake, have a drink first. We did a solid day’s work, and you deserve one. I need o
ne, I can tell you.”

  “I won’t, thanks, but carry on.” He scooped his things into his pocket. “I’ll be off.”

  Kim exhaled through his nose. “If you insist, but give me a moment first, will you? I want to talk about tomorrow. We still have a lot of work to do and I think we need a quick chat about that. In private, if you don’t mind, Fee.”

  “No need,” Will said. “I’ll see you as and when.”

  He almost enjoyed the frustrated expression on Kim’s face. Almost because he’d have liked to see hurt there. Kim deserved to be hurt. Will was hurt, far more than he should have been because he’d brought this on himself and had no reason to expect better. Phoebe would certainly be hurt one day, and badly. The least Kim deserved was a bit of discomfort when he got trapped in the hole he’d dug for himself between two lives.

  “Miss Stephens-Prince,” Will said, with a nod of farewell, and strode out. Kim said, “Will, wait!” sharply behind him. He didn’t stop or look round, but headed down the stairs of the mansion block at some speed. By the time he got out, he was almost running.

  Damn Kim. Damn him and damn himself, too, for a fool. It wasn’t as though he hadn’t been warned about Kim. Cowardly, vacillating, treacherous, no moral fibre, engaged: he’d been told it all and he’d still let himself believe there might be something between them, that the physical pull and the instinctive liking and the companionship added up to anything worth having.

  Not at this price. Not at the price of betraying someone to whom Kim had made promises, who’d opened her heart to him, and even, instantly, to Will as his friend. If you couldn’t have a thing without hurting someone who didn’t deserve it, you shouldn’t have it.

  Will had seen wedding rings on a couple of partners in Flanders, but that had been different. The urgency of wartime and the possibility of there not being another chance ever; the distance from home; the fact that nobody ever promised more than snatched moments. It wasn’t like spending a night and a day in companionship. It wasn’t the same as inviting a man into your home, your bed, and smiling into his eyes and making it seem like you had more to offer than a quick fuck.

  He wouldn’t have minded being Kim’s quick fuck. He objected violently to being part of a betrayal.

  He strode on, propelled by anger at himself as much as Kim, then saw a tram slowing for a stop up ahead and sprinted for it. He was still in the habit of saving pennies, but there was an unpleasant light drizzle in the cold air and his hair was a little damp yet from his bath. He’d treat himself to a swift journey home and a good solid meal, and then do another hour or two in the shop, alone again.

  He hated Kim for making him feel more alone than he had before.

  The tram took him all the way to St. Martin’s Lane. He briefly considered going straight to the warm, inviting cafe over the road, but it didn’t have a licence, and he was in a foul mood. He would go home first, he decided: have a drink by himself, pick up a book to read with his dinner, and calm down.

  So he turned into May’s Buildings, and saw men coming out of his shop.

  He stood and stared, hardly believing his eyes. They must surely be emerging from the shop next door—but they weren’t, it was his front door, bold as brass.

  “Hoi!” He set off for them at a run, bellowing threats at the top of his voice. There were two of them, wearing pinstriped suits like office workers, with his door standing open behind them. They glanced round in alarm as he approached but they didn’t run, and as he skidded to a threatening halt, a third man emerged from the shop door.

  “Ingoldsby!” Will roared. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Captain Ingoldsby drew himself up. “Mr. Darling—”

  “Do you have a warrant? Do you? Do you have my permission to enter my private property in my absence? How dare you break into my shop!”

  “Please calm down.”

  “Breaking and entering!” One of his neighbours had emerged to find out what the noise was. Will swung round to him. “Call the police! These men broke into my shop. I’m pressing charges.”

  “That would be extremely ill-advised,” Ingoldsby said.

  “Don’t you tell me about ill-advised.” Will was fizzing with rage. “Police! Hey, police!— You show me your warrant to search my premises and I’ll stop making a fuss. No? Well, then. Police!”

  To his delight, a constable appeared round the corner, a man Will had met and chatted to as he went round on his beat. Captain Ingoldsby made an exasperated noise in his throat as he proceeded over.

  “Trouble, Mr. Darling? What’s going on here?”

  “These men broke into my shop,” Will said over Ingoldsby’s reply. “I just got back and look at him, he’s standing there on my doorstep! I want to press charges for breaking and entering.”

  The constable did look at Ingoldsby in his smart suit, and the two rather red-faced men hanging around him. One of them was Price, Will realised, who had tried to warn him about Kim. Fucker. He shot him a resentful glare.

  The constable cleared his throat. “Anything to say for yourselves?”

  Ingoldsby flicked out a card. “My name is Captain Charles Ingoldsby and I work for the War Office. This is official business, constable.”

  The policeman’s eyes went wide. He glanced at Will, who snapped, “I don’t care what he does. It doesn’t give him any right to break into my premises!”

  “No, indeed. Mr. Darling. Did you break in, sir?”

  “I did not,” Ingoldsby said smartly. “I have a key.” He stepped out, locked the door behind him in a demonstrative way, turned, and held out the key between finger and thumb.

  Will snatched it before the policeman could. “What the devil— How did you get this?”

  Ingoldsby’s eyes met his, a cold, hard glare. “I suppose you are at Vine Street station, constable? If Mr. Darling chooses to press charges, please ask Superintendent Waddleston to contact me at the War Office. I think that should suffice.”

  The constable was clearly out of his depth. “Mr. Darling, if there’s no break-in—?”

  “They were trespassing on my premises. You saw them. And I didn’t give him that key!”

  “No? Then who did?” Ingoldsby enquired, and let that hang a moment. “I think that will do. Good evening.”

  “Wait a moment,” Will said harshly. “I want to be sure they haven’t walked off with my books, since they were trespassing on my property. I suppose I can insist on that much?”

  Ingoldsby opened his coat and turned out his pockets with an expression of profound sarcasm. His men did the same, then the three turned and left without further ado. Will stared after them, humiliated, enraged, and with a growing sense of nausea.

  “Well, now,” the policeman said, in a tone that clearly meant Now what?

  Will toyed with the idea of asking him to have a look at the shop, but he didn’t have the strength. The place was a mess anyway, and if they had found anything, he wouldn’t be able to tell.

  “I don’t know,” he said, suddenly exhausted. “Could you—I don’t know—could you just keep an eye? There’s been a lot of funny business here. You know I reported a break-in last week? If whoever’s on the beat could poke their heads round now and again, I’d be grateful. I’m going inside.”

  He locked the door behind him. It was pitch dark inside, in part because Ingoldsby and his men had pulled down the blinds to go about their work, a little domestic touch that made him quite furiously angry all over again. He turned on the lights, and went to check the top drawer of his desk. As he’d expected, the spare that lived there was missing. Because, of course, he held it in his hand. He put it back and shut the drawer.

  They hadn’t made a mess. There was no sign of anything disturbed on the desk or in the back room. Even his knife was still there. He thought a moment, then walked up and down the rows of shelves.

  He’d dusted thoroughly the other day, but his and Kim’s work today had raised a vast amount of dust. It lay in a thi
ck layer on the edges of the bookshelves, a fine powder clearly visible in the electric light, and even more so once he’d fetched an electric torch. He beamed that on each shelf in turn.

  There was a drag mark through the dust in front of an edition of the complete works of Shakespeare. It was neatly lined up with the books on either side, but it had unquestionably been moved. Will pulled it out to mark the place. A few books along was a second drag mark, also Shakespeare, and he found a third on the next set of shelves. He went over the rest of the bookshelves methodically, but saw nothing else.

  He took the three volumes to the desk, poured himself a large whisky, and sat down to make himself face the facts.

  Kim had had his inspiration about the secret being written in a book. He’d packed Will off to the bath, told him to take a long time, even removed his clothes to keep him in the flat. They’d had that conversation with the promise of all night. Then he’d made a telephone call and gone out, and when his fiancée had appeared unexpectedly, he’d tried his hardest to detain Will instead of getting rid of him like any sensible adulterer.

  But Will had left, which had been no part of Kim’s plan, and got home as fast as was humanly possible, and he’d just caught Ingoldsby and his men heading out of his shop. If he’d walked, or waited two minutes for the next tram, they would have had time to raise the blinds and lock up, and Will would never have known they’d been there.

  The conclusion was inescapable. Kim had taken the spare key at some point today. He’d had some sort of brainwave about which book the secret was hidden in, and set out to keep Will busy thereafter. He’d contacted Ingoldsby to tell him to search the shop while Will was in the bath, and gone out to give him the key. And once Will had left, he must have telephoned someone to warn Ingoldsby he was on his way back and tell him to clear off. Doubtless that ‘someone’ was one of Will’s neighbours. He was being watched, after all, and it seemed there was no limit to betrayal.

  Will knocked back about half his drink in a swallow. What had Phoebe said of Kim? If he’s got your case, you’re in luck. He’d thought it was a figure of speech, just as he’d thought that Kim had turned up by chance in the first place. It seemed he’d been wrong.