by John Marrs
As his face moved towards mine, I grabbed both sides of his head, but he took advantage of my exposed torso and hit me in both kidneys. Dazed and winded, I landed two clumsy whacks somewhere around his ears but they only riled him further.
For the first time, I took in his appearance. At six foot five and at least sixteen stone of sculpted muscle, I questioned whether the naked, hairy creature before me was man or beast. I erred towards the latter.
Then he picked up an ornament, raised it above his head and spat as he laughed. I expected his black, widened pupils and salivating mouth to be the last things I’d ever see and had accepted the inevitable when, suddenly, a metal table lamp appeared from nowhere and smashed against his crown. He fell to his knees, his face contorted by shock and incomprehension. The lamp swung backwards, then crashed into him over and over again. The man’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, leaving shiny white ovals, before he slumped face down onto the wet carpet, convulsing.
It was only then I noticed Luciana, her face – smeared in murky redness – hiding behind matted hair. Her underwear was in shreds, and the lamp shook in her trembling hands.
I crawled towards the floored titan and rolled him over, face up, to steady his spasming body.
The first words she ever spoke to me were devoid of all emotion.
‘Leave him.’
‘We should call an ambulance.’
‘We do nothing. When I refused to let him force objects inside me, he said his daughter bites her lip and stays quiet when he does it to her. Let the animal die in the way he deserves.’
I had no case to offer for the defence. Instead, I fixated on the pulp of a man biting deeply into his own tongue. Together we watched as his mouth effervesced with delicate pink bubbles, until the convulsions petered out into nothing. Finally, his brain stopped fighting and his soul began its journey from whence it came, back into the arms of the devil.
From the moment I limped downstairs and alerted Madam Lola to the battle in Luciana’s room, she responded with military precision to remove any trace of the man or his rage. She gave every impression it wasn’t the first time she’d been forced to clean up an unexpected mess.
She slipped into autopilot as she relayed orders to a crowd of horrified girls, gawping at the remains by the door. They scuttled in numerous directions like stray fireworks.
‘Miguel – is there enough gasoline in the truck to reach the ravines?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bueno. Take it around the back. The rest of you, go back downstairs and see to your guests.’
She looked directly at Luciana. ‘Who did this to him?’ she asked.
‘I did,’ I replied, and Madam Lola nodded her head approvingly.
‘Good. No man here would touch her again if they ever learned of this. So you will make sure they don’t.’
An hour later, and Luciana’s face had been occupied by an observant silence for much of the journey, the hush only peppered by her directions.
She gazed at the passing fields from the passenger window. I longed to talk to her but the circumstances were hardly appropriate considering the body of the man she’d just killed lay wrapped up behind us in the back of the truck.
I drove along dirt-track lanes away from the main roads, and wondered how much rage must have been bottled up inside her to watch without pity as the man dissolved into nothing. I understood it completely. I had once been where she was now.
‘Over there.’ She pointed with a torn fingernail.
I pulled the truck over to the side of the road between fields of scorched corn. We removed two shovels and began to dig a grave. The ground was arid and stubborn, so it took us an age to burrow a ditch deep enough for spring’s flash floods not to send his body sailing down the valley like a polythene raft.
The man’s features were indistinguishable under the tightly wound plastic. I used all my strength to pull his hulking frame by his ankles from the truck to the ground below. Then I dragged him along the rough terrain before I rolled him into his hole.
Luciana kneeled down to unwind the plastic covering his head. Then suddenly she pulled out a silver pistol from the back of her jeans. I froze as without hesitation she pulled the trigger twice, shooting him first in the left eye and then in the right. I stumbled backwards as my ears rang.
‘It’s a calling card of the gangs,’ she explained. ‘A bullet in each eye means he’s seen something he shouldn’t have and has been punished. If his body is ever found, the police will think he was executed by one of his own.’
I gave an agitated nod as she wound the plastic back around his head and we shovelled dirt upon him. We threw the shovels back in the truck, but when I turned around, she was standing inches away from me. Then she pushed my aching shoulders against the door, pulled my mouth towards hers and kissed me with a passion my body had never experienced. The pain from her nose brushing against my broken one was excruciating and spread across my face, but it was worth the sacrifice to be so close to her.
She loosened my belt buckle, I removed her T-shirt and we winced as our cuts, swelling skin and emerging kaleidoscopes of blue, yellow and purple bruises collided against each other. And when we had finished, we drove back to the bordello as silently as we’d left.
23 July
Each night she crept into my bed, and we’d make love silently. It was always a slow and sensual experience, unlike our first time with the bitter taste of death and lust in our throats. Then, when she’d decided we were done, she’d slip back into her clothes and vanish like nothing had happened.
Luciana and I never spoke of the day she’d killed a man. In fact, we never spoke at all. I wondered if she made love to me out of gratitude, or whether it was a way of controlling me. Her profession meant surrendering herself to men for their money, so by dictating to me when we had sex, there was no doubt who was in charge.
Her reasoning didn’t matter. If sex was the only means by which I could breathe her air and feel her skin against mine, then I was grateful for anything she offered. And as the days progressed to weeks and then to months, she remained in my room a little longer with each visit.
My deepest fear had always been discovering the one I loved was finding love with another. But because Luciana’s profession was to have sex with other men for money, it wasn’t adultery. It was business. I didn’t doubt for a moment that I was her only extracurricular activity. It was the perfect partnership, and the most mutually monogamous relationship I’d ever had.
14 November
I rolled onto my side and faced the door when I heard the handle turn. I smiled and pulled back the bedsheet to invite her in, but she chose to sit in an armchair by the window opposite my bed. She lit a cigarette and began to blow smoke rings.
Finally, following six months of nocturnal liaisons, Luciana cast her die and waited cautiously to see where it might land.
‘My name is Luciana Fiorentino Marcanio,’ she began carefully, ‘and I was born and raised in Italy.’
I propped myself up against the headboard and listened closely.
‘I came to Mexico with my mother after my father tried to have us killed. He was a wealthy but vicious man who abused her, convinced she was having affairs with anyone who paid her attention. He was her only love, but his paranoia and insecurities wouldn’t allow him to believe that. My mother was not strong enough to leave him. She tried her best to please him and win his trust, but when you accuse someone so often, eventually they will give in and prove you right. He drove her into the arms of one of his business colleagues. And eventually my father found out. He paid for her lover to be killed, but not until he’d had him castrated. The first my mother knew of this was when she found his genitals in a gift-wrapped box on her dressing room table.’
I lit up a cigarette of my own and took a long drag. I was captivated by her story.
‘As my sister Caterina and I grew up, he told himself we too would become whores like my mother,’ she continued. ‘He was suspi
cious of our every move and hired guards to escort us to and from school so we would not mix with boys. But Caterina and our gardener’s son Federico became close – he was probably her only friend apart from me. And when my father saw them talking together, he had Federico beaten so badly the poor boy could never work again. Caterina was inconsolable and blamed herself. When she looked to the future, all she saw was more of the same and she could not live like that. She waited until my father’s birthday before she cut her wrists and died in one of his vineyards. I found her body.’
She paused and glanced down at her feet.
‘Naturally my mother and I were devastated. But it was like someone flicked a switch in her head. She’d already failed one daughter and she wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. So with only our passports and some money our housekeeper gave us from her savings, we ran away and never saw him again.’
Luciana closed her eyes.
‘The man I killed who attacked me . . . he was not the first to have died at my hands. My mother and I fled to London to stay with cousins, and finally life was good. It wasn’t like Italy where we lived in a gilded cage – we had nothing of material value, but we had our freedom. Then my father’s people tracked us down. A man appeared at our apartment and shot my mother’s cousin and her son through their heads. He was going to kill her too, but he didn’t see me in the kitchen behind him. I took a knife and stabbed him in the neck, but not before he pulled the trigger and hit my mother in the leg. I patched her up and we fled, eventually making our way to Mexico, where my father would never think to find us. We began working here, selling our bodies to survive, and over time, it became like any other job.’
‘The man we buried,’ I interrupted, ‘did your father send him too?’
‘No, he was just a monster who couldn’t recognise the monster in me. I have killed twice, and I know you have killed too.’
She paused again and watched as I froze.
‘I saw the way you looked at me in my room that day. Most men would have run for the hills, but you stayed. You had fallen in love with me because you thought you had found a kindred spirit. I knew then that, for whatever reason, you had done something awful but necessary to protect yourself. And there is nothing more awful than taking a life. You knew me.’
I considered telling her there and then about my past, but it was her moment, not mine.
‘What happened to your mother?’ I asked. ‘Is she still in Mexico?’
‘Yes,’ she smiled. ‘She’s downstairs. And her name is Lola Marcanio.’
‘Your mother is Madame Lola?’ I asked, taken aback.
She nodded. ‘I know what you’re thinking – how could she allow her daughter to keep working as a whore? Well, she has no choice! When we eventually saved enough money to buy out the previous madam, Mama tried to persuade me to give it up and help her manage the place instead. But it’s not what I wanted. I assist her with the bookkeeping but I continue to prostitute myself. Maybe I do it to spite my father; maybe I just like being in control of something when I grew up controlling nothing . . . I don’t know. But, right or wrong, I make my own choices and my own living, and this job is what I choose to do.’
Luciana stubbed her cigarette out in an ashtray and stared outside at the rooftops of the dimly lit town.
‘Why are you telling me this now?’ I asked.
‘Only our old housekeeper knew where we were and she didn’t tell a soul. I received a letter from her this morning informing me my father was dead. So now I’m ready to go home to Italy. And you are coming with me.’
CATHERINE
Northampton, twenty years earlier
22 October
The swirling ‘s’ in Nicholson gave away the name of its author before I opened the envelope.
I wondered why Simon’s stepmother Shirley had written to me after five years of mutual silence.
A white card lay inside with a photograph of Arthur attached. An added Post-it note read: I would really appreciate it if you all could come.
I gazed out of the window and into the garden. Arthur’s and my paths hadn’t crossed since I’d barged back into his life demanding to know who Kenneth Jagger was. And it had been a long time since I’d given either of them any thought.
And now I held an order of service for his funeral in my hand.
25 October
‘I’m convinced he died of a broken heart,’ Shirley admitted quietly after Arthur’s cremation. ‘Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not blaming you. But after your visit, he was never the same again.’
The children, unamused at being dragged to the funeral of a grandparent they barely remembered, sat in the corner of Shirley’s living room huddled around a game on a mobile phone. Meanwhile, she’d ushered me into the kitchen, away from the small number of mourners.
‘He’s alive, isn’t he?’ she asked solemnly, looking me straight in the eye. ‘I mean Simon: he’s alive.’
I hesitated, reluctant to reopen a can of worms I’d struggled to keep a lid on. But secretly, I longed to tell someone. She poured herself a glass of wine and offered me one, but I shook my head.
‘A few days after you last saw Arthur,’ she continued, ‘he told me you’d been to the house to ask about Kenneth. Then he told me the story about Kenneth being Simon’s real dad. Well, I hadn’t had a clue but I could understand why he’d not said anything, because he loved Simon like he was his own. It hurt him having to rake it all up.’
‘I’m sorry, but I had no one else to ask,’ I replied, now wondering if I’d done the right thing in dragging up his painful past.
‘He knew you must have asked for a reason, so he contacted Roger for help in finding Kenneth. I think Arthur told him Kenneth was an old schoolfriend or some fib like that. To cut a long story short, Roger put Arthur in touch with the prison and they told Arthur what they’d told you – that after Simon went missing he’d turned up there.’
‘I haven’t said anything to the kids,’ I replied defensively. ‘I don’t think they should know.’
‘I wouldn’t have either,’ said Shirley firmly. ‘It would only cause more damage. I saw what it did to Arthur. He couldn’t understand what he’d done to make Doreen and his only child abandon him. Try as I might, I couldn’t convince him it wasn’t his fault. He did his best to put a brave face on it, but he became very depressed. He knew deep down Simon wouldn’t be coming home, and eventually his heart became too heavy for him. He just gave up.’
No matter what I’d thought of Arthur in the past, he’d always tried to do his best by his son, but it wasn’t enough.
‘Do you still not have any idea why he left?’
‘I don’t know, Shirley. I just don’t know.’
‘This is long overdue, but I’m sorry,’ she added, grasping both my hands. ‘On behalf of both of us, I’m sorry we didn’t give you the support we should have, and I’m sorry for the accusations. We were awful to you – and I, like Arthur, will go to my grave regretting that.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied. I knew she meant it. And now that I realised she and Arthur were two more of Simon’s casualties, all those years of bitterness between us began to drain away. I would not let him destroy anyone else.
Shirley smiled appreciatively, took her glass and made her way back into the living room.
‘Do you have any plans for Saturday night?’ I asked. She shook her head. ‘Come to ours around six for something to eat so you can meet your grandchildren properly.’
She gave a grateful nod, and a new chapter in our relationship began.
Northampton, today
5.50 p.m.
It began as a smirk, but it wasn’t long before she was unable to mask it, even by pretending to cough.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, placing a hand over her mouth to stem a fit of giggles. He glared at her, spooked by her reaction. He’d witnessed a range of them throughout the day, but none that resembled amusement.
‘I don’t mean to be rude,’ she c
ontinued, ‘I really don’t. But how am I supposed to react when you tell me you fell in love with a prostitute?’
She removed a tissue from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes, still chuckling at the absurdity of it. She wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told her yesterday that her missing husband was about to reappear and explain how he’d been on a twenty-five-year, round-the-world jaunt. Oh, and along the way he’d murdered one of her best friends and given his heart to a whore, who, like him, had no qualms about killing people.
As her laughter faded, she wondered if she’d ever be able to completely get to grips with all he’d said and done. Every time she tried to get her head around a new revelation, along came another that dwarfed the last. She needed a moment to collect her thoughts, alone.
She said nothing when she left the room and headed for the garden. Once outside, she didn’t know what to do with herself, so she unpegged the clothes from the washing line and put to good use the breathing techniques she’d learned in her Pilates classes.
He remained in the living room, thinking about Arthur. For so long, memories of his father had been attached to unhappy ones of Doreen. He’d failed to appreciate the man behind the mother, the man who’d loved him as his own.
Neither of his parents had gone to their graves knowing what had happened to their son. Only Kenneth had had matters resolved, and he’d been the one who least deserved it.
‘Sorry, Dad,’ he whispered, and wiped the corners of his eyes with his hand.
6.00 p.m.
‘If it’s any consolation, I didn’t plan to fall in love again,’ came his voice from behind, startling her.
She stood in the kitchen with a red tea towel in her hands, like a matador in a bullring. The more she’d asked herself how a whore could give him a better life than she had, the more she wound herself up.
‘How much did she charge you?’ she snapped. ‘Fifty pounds? A hundred? Or did you get a discount for being a regular customer?’
He didn’t respond because it was clear that anger was bringing out a petty side to her. He weighed up whether it was worth trying to explain it to her again, or if she was only going to hear what she wanted to hear.
