by Rees, Kevin
The phone rang.
‘Cotrane.’
‘It’s Jarvis.’ He paused, trying to gauge her mood from the one word. ‘I wanted to find out if they’d scanned anything useful from Thoragan’s brother.’
‘Why didn’t you ring them and find out yourself?’ Cotrane answered, wincing at the unnecessary harshness in her tone.
‘I understood they would contact you first. I apologise for disturbing you.’
‘Wait!’ The word hung in the air. ‘Have you had breakfast?’
‘Not yet,’ he replied.
‘Why don’t I make us both some? Come over right away.’ She smiled, sensing the tension melting between them.
‘Grabbing my keys as we speak. Ten minutes okay?’
‘That’ll be enough time to get it all together,’ Cotrane said, putting down the phone.
She pulled on a cord, letting the blinds move from vertical to horizontal allowing fresh light to bathe the room. Cotrane realised she only had her robe on and rushed to the bathroom to get ready for her partner. A small part of her wondered what would happen if she kept it on and let the scenario play out. She knew Jarvis was a considerate lover, having spent some time with his ex-wife who lamented her stupid fling with his brother. But then it would break a rule she had about mixing business and pleasure, especially with your partner. Too clichéd.
By the time the bell rang, Cotrane had managed to shower and dress, grind coffee, and prepare eggs, tortilla and spicy vegetables. He’d thankfully taken nearly twenty minutes to get to her apartment. She welcomed him in and turned back to the vegetables sizzling in a pan. The fragrant aromas floating in the room descended on Jarvis, causing his stomach to rumble. He was a good cook, but didn’t see the point of making elaborate meals for one. Maybe he could repay Cotrane for the breakfast and resurrect his culinary skills.
‘Hard or soft?’ Cotrane shouted over the sizzling pan.
For a moment, Jarvis wanted to laugh at the innuendo. ‘I take it that’s eggs? Hard, please.’
Cotrane scooped out the vegetables and placed them in the middle of the tortillas. She returned to the pan and cracked in four eggs. When they were cooked she added them on top of the vegetables and expertly folded over the tortillas.
‘Sit at the table. It’s ready,’ Cotrane said, bringing over two plates.
The smell of coffee and food brought the man to the table quicker than fleas to a dog. They both sat opposite each other and ate quietly at first. Jarvis complemented her on the meal and had the look of a man tasting something glorious. Cotrane watched him savour each mouthful. He ate with a rigid poise, no doubt instilled into him from childhood, and held the knife and fork delicately, in the way you might think they would fall easily out of his hands and clatter off the plate onto the floor. After each mouthful he would pause, chew slowly with his lips pressed firmly together, swallow quietly and wipe his mouth before taking another bite. In contrast, she noted, he held his coffee by wrapping the whole mug in his large hand. His forefinger and middle finger slipped inside the handle to provide a little stability while his thumb curved around the top. Cotrane wondered how his palm could ignore the heat. From the mug he took loud slurps unashamedly, leaving drips to feather their way down the outside like little tributaries to mark the spills. The way he ate intrigued her. The food was easy — strict parents. When he was older, coffee became his rebellion.
‘You’re looking at me strangely. Have I got egg on my chin?’ Jarvis paused, eager to return to the superb breakfast.
‘You’re a contradiction, Jarvis, that’s all. Please go on with your meal. I’ll make you another...if you want,’ Cotrane said, assuming the answer would be yes as he was almost finished, even with his quaint way of eating.
‘Thanks,’ he managed, as the last mouthful was swallowed after only a few chews and not the obligatory fifteen. He watched her chop up some more onions and peppers. ‘I stopped to pick up the report on my way over. The tech was trying again, but I persuaded him to let me have what he’d got so far.’
That’s what she liked about him — good initiative. ‘What does it tell us? Anything useful?’
He helped himself to more coffee and quickly scanned the pages. The smell was distracting as another plate was put down in front of him. ‘Nothing significant.’ He passed over the two pages and launched into the hot tortilla.
‘Here’s something. Look.’ She pointed to a spike in the readout and a time noted underneath. ‘Seems Janathen wanted to hold onto this memory. Problem is they can’t access it.’
‘There’s something else,’ Jarvis said between mouthfuls. ‘Janathen was dying of advanced liver failure. He was receiving treatment every few days. They tried several grafts and re-grows, but he kept on drinking. A woman I spoke with told me she wouldn’t be surprised if they also found something in his brain, like a tumour, when they properly autopsy it.’
‘What makes her think that?’ Cotrane asked. Her eyes narrowed, trying to remember anything unusual about the man demanding to get into the scanning room.
‘She was one of the technicians in the room when Janathen burst in waving his gun. Even though he appeared drunk and didn’t make sense, she felt it wasn’t due to a high level of intoxication. He resembled someone with a substantial tumour affecting his functioning.’ Jarvis finished speaking and resumed eating.
‘That’s what she reckons, huh?’
‘Hmm.’ Jarvis nodded and swallowed. ‘Could be why the techs aren’t getting anything?’
Cotrane sat back and gazed out of the window. The view outside was lost as she thought about Janathen, Thoragan and the President. If they couldn’t get anything from the scan they would have to switch to plan B. She needed to speak with Aquino and get him out of Thoragan’s.
‘Finish up quickly. We need to get to the President.’ Cotrane went over to her gun locker and took out her weapon.
Jarvis knew something had just occurred to his partner. He drank down his coffee and followed her out of the door, mourning the last few mouthfuls of food left on his plate.
‘Would you inform the President that breakfast will be served in the main dining room as and when he would like it?’ the servant said, stooping before the two guards outside the door. He received the slightest twitch of acknowledgement from one of them. The old man turned and ambled down the stairs. He didn’t like the two men much. It reminded him of his school days, when the boys used to call him names because of a weakness in his back that made him stoop. Bullies, he didn’t like them one bit.
‘Mr President, breakfast is available when you want it, sir.’ One of the guards spoke through the door without going into the room. He heard Aquino shout his thanks and returned to the stiff pose both guards had adopted on either side of the doorframe throughout the night.
Inside the bedroom, Aquino threw the heavy covers off. He hated sleeping in strange beds. Always having to get used to the mattress and pillows, which were either too soft or too hard, and took away the thrill of being somewhere else. This morning, though, he had woken up pleasantly surprised by the lavish room Thoragan had supplied. The bed was comfortable and he’d slept well. Even his neck was loose, and not stiff and painful like most mornings. Beside him, his wife was beginning to stir, her gentle breathing just reaching his ears. He had forgotten to include some of her aides when he hastily put the plan together. But she was resourceful and would cope. They would return home later once he had a report from Cotrane.
‘Darling, is it morning already?’ His wife yawned and stretched.
‘Good bed, huh?’ Aquino smiled down at her. ‘Just like ours.’
‘Perhaps we should both start using it again,’ she said, leaving a cold, distant silence between them.
Aquino felt no more words would be his best policy and went to the bathroom to prepare.
His wife turned towards the window and looked up at the deep blue sky. A single tear spilt onto the pillow, a token memory of their younger days when they were so deeply in love
it hurt to be apart. Perhaps it was her fault. He was, after all, the President. But he was also her husband and had responsibilities to her. Recently — and much to her shame — those responsibilities had been taken by others. She still loved and cared for him deeply. Another tear followed the first and she hastily dabbed at her eye. It would do him no good to see her like this. The fat man downstairs would exploit anything that saw him win favours or claw more power. She didn’t care what her husband was going to do to him as long as it was something incredibly vicious. The man could go and rot for what he said about her. The gossip and rumours were hurtful to Gabriel. Thankfully, most of the people she kept company with had moved on somewhere else. Cotrane had suggested that they were gone, but she said it in a funny way, and in a tone she didn’t care for.
‘The bathroom’s yours,’ Aquino said, emerging from the room, furiously rubbing a towel through wet hair.
Giselle got out of bed and hesitated for a moment before walking over to him. She held his wrists, gently urging his head out of the white towel. Aquino stopped and looked at her. She pressed her lips onto his and kissed him. Her fingers sought his neck and began to gently caress his warm skin. Aquino had used a larger towel to wrap around himself, which started to slip. He scrambled to catch it. Before he could, his wife grabbed his wrist again. The towel fell, leaving him naked in her arms. She pressed her body tightly against his, arousing him. He lifted the thin material she had worn in bed over her head and felt her hard nipples dig into his chest. Aquino dropped his hand and rubbed his fingers over her stomach, catching her moan in his mouth as his tongue found hers. He lifted her up in his arms and took her to the bed. Her eyes were fully dilated, and he could taste the pheromones in the air. She held onto his hardness and rubbed her hand up and down urgently. He slid onto the bed, the connection unbroken, and worked his fingers gently inside her. She groaned with pleasure, but it was her gift to him. She broke out of his arms and moved further down the bed, staring up at him from between his legs like some wild cat. Her tongue flicked, catching the tip of his penis. Aquino lay on his back and moaned as quietly as he could. She used her tongue expertly before sliding his shaft slowly into her mouth. Aquino drew in a sharp breath as a warm wetness overtook everything. He gently touched her head as it bobbed up and down, and felt himself becoming more excited with each stroke.
‘Get on top of me,’ he gasped.
Giselle slid her body up and connected with him. She rocked her hips and thrust herself down. Aquino had moments before they would both come, and knew the guards outside would think he was being killed and rush in. He put his hand on her mouth. It didn’t slow her down. Her moans became a muffled roar as ecstasy lit up her body like a million volts of electricity. Aquino orgasmed a moment after her, feeling several years of tension drain away in one, fluid moment.
His wife sank down onto his chest, panting heavily and began to laugh.
‘What are you laughing about?’ Aquino said, gently stroking her hair.
‘Do you remember how my mother and father would stare at you, knowing we just had sex because you kept trying to disguise the noise by coughing loudly?’ she chuckled. ‘And that party we had’
‘Oh! The one where they gave me that present. Cough mixture.’
‘And you opened it at the table with all the family staring at you.’
‘We had such great times. I would give this up to get back to them.’ Aquino turned her face up to his. ‘You know I would. Give all this up for you.’ Tears began to form at the corners of her eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter what’s gone on in the last few years. I just want you to know I love you, and I wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for you.’
‘Let’s go home and do this again, Gabriel... Please.’
‘We will, I promise.’
A knock on the door interrupted the intimacy.
‘Yes?’ Aquino said gently, moving his wife onto the other side of the bed.
‘Miss Cotrane and Jarvis are waiting downstairs, Mr President,’ the guard said.
‘Tell them I’ll be down in five minutes.’
‘Gabriel?’
‘Start packing, I’ll go down and speak with them.’ Aquino picked up the towel and disappeared back into the bathroom.
Giselle put her nightdress back on and laid out his clothes. When Aquino emerged he was fully focused on his people downstairs and the inevitable disconnect between them had surfaced again. For all his words and promises, once he was in this mindset, another man stepped into the room. He said nothing as he dressed, ignoring her small remarks about his collar or his choice of jacket. He kissed her on the cheek like he would a minor political supporter and left her alone in the bedroom. Giselle couldn’t stop the dam from breaching and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door shut.
Flanked by his two bodyguards, Aquino descended the stairs to greet the guards and saw immediately something wasn’t right, especially in Cotrane’s normally stern expression.
‘Good morning.’
‘Good morning, sir. Did you sleep well?’ Cotrane inquired.
‘Very well. I must compliment my host on the standard of his guest room. Where is he?’ Aquino said.
The four bodyguards exchanged glances and shrugs. It didn’t matter; the charade was finished. Cotrane had taken a call from the tech on the drive over who informed her there was nothing more he could do to extract information, and the woman Jarvis had spoken with had been right. When they autopsied Janathen’s brain, they found a tumour the size of a lemon eating away the grey stuff.
‘I regret, sir, the scan has given us nothing,’ she reported. ‘Janathen Thoragan, we have to conclude, was working independently when he was killed.’
‘Or murdered, depending on which side you view it from. Good morning, Mr President.’ Thoragan emerged out of the small bathroom next to his library. He heard the two guards arriving and eavesdropped on the conversation. This changed everything for him.
‘What do you mean murder, Praetor?’ Aquino said, turning towards the man. ‘He was shot because he was about to run down Miss Cotrane.’
‘I wasn’t there, sir, and, respectfully, neither were you. So how do we know Miss Cotrane didn’t recognise an old lover who abandoned her and took revenge?’ Thoragan shrugged. ‘Merely a different supposition.’
‘Mr President, I think it would be best if we left immediately,’ Cotrane interrupted, ignoring Thoragan.
Aquino nodded and whispered to his guards to fetch his wife. The bodyguards waited until Cotrane nodded before leaving Aquino’s side.
Thoragan leant against one of his more bizarre statues and stared at the woman, smiling in the way a snake mesmerises its prey before striking. The seed had been planted and he was an expert gardener when it came to cultivating a rival opinion. Whatever their plan had been it had failed. Aquino knew it, and all they could do now was retreat like vermin.
That was until Aquino spoke.
He had been quietly waiting for the right moment to come, just like the magician who reveals how a trick was done to his audience. Aquino looked at bloated face of the man whose surface was more transparent as his plans became too intricate for him to hold onto. Thoragan was being squeezed into a corner. The business with Janathen was regrettable, as the brain scan would have resolved everything, but there was still a way to bring him down.
‘What of Cruz-Smith, Miss Cotrane?’
Thoragan stiffened as Aquino mentioned his former spy.
Cotrane paused, turning her ice-cold stare onto Thoragan and spoke directly to him. ‘I believe the evidence Mr Cruz-Smith will provide would incriminate anyone who hired him to break into your house in an attempt to assassinate you, sir.’ She turned back to Aquino. ‘With your permission, I will personally take charge of that investigation and ensure arrests are made by the end of the day.’
‘Wait! You haven’t got any scans — the brain...his brain was torn to pieces.’ Thoragan gestured pathetically to Aquino. ‘There isn’t evidence, surely. And he’s de
ad...’ Thoragan froze. He looked from Cotrane to Aquino, seeing a slight upturn on the President’s lips.
The sound of feet descending the staircase interrupted the standoff. The two bodyguards appeared first, flanking Aquino’s wife. Without a word, Giselle walked out of the house and into a waiting car. Aquino’s moment was soured by the icy bitterness frozen on her face as she walked by him.
One of the bodyguards appeared at the door gesturing urgently to the guards. Jarvis went over and took a message. The three onlookers watched as Jarvis stiffened. He ordered the man to take the president’s wife home and motioned to Cotrane. She read the tension he was trying very hard to conceal. Excusing herself, Cotrane went over to her partner. Jarvis bent down and whispered. She nodded and glanced at Aquino, who stood watching them. He knew something terrible had happened.
‘What is it, Miss Cotrane?’ Aquino demanded. ‘Speak.’
She appeared reluctant to talk and glanced over at Thoragan, who stood with a peculiar look on his face — a mixture of fright and madness.
