(1998) Denial

by Peter James

  I didn’t even think about a condom.

  She didn’t say anything.

  Their eyes met. He thrust himself in even further. She was smiling, that look of trust, and this trust gave him confidence, there had never been anything like this in his life, he could hold himself, he could hold back, he really could!

  She was taking him into her. This thing of his. This huge, incredible thing-beast-serpent was pushing up inside, pushing away ripples in its path, pushing ripples that spread out into vast shock waves of pleasure way beyond her physical body, and deep into her soul. She was dreaming, nothing could feel this good, she had to be dreaming, this was –

  OhMichaelohMichaelohmyGodMichael!

  He was coming in deeper still. This thing, this thing that she couldn’t – couldn’t take in further – this was the nucleus of her body now, everything else clung to it.

  And now she and this man-beast-Michael were locked together, travelling together, racing on some rock that had broken free from Earth, free from gravity, soaring through a firmament of darkness and stars, with a fuse burning inside each of them, burning harder, faster. Pumping, pumping her insides, pumping these waves that were engulfing her.

  Then the bomb imploded inside her, and seconds later, inside him too. She was drawn, screaming with pleasure into some dark hole, some black hole, wormhole, incredible black vortex of pleasure that felt like it would never, ever, end.

  Afterwards she lay there in shock. She couldn’t believe how good it had been, and he was still on top of her, still inside her, still hard as rock. It was a full minute, maybe two, maybe even longer than that, before either of them was capable of speaking.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Oriental massage – call Viki!

  Strict discipline! Call Miss Whiplash!

  For a really sensuous massage, phone Carla.

  Fantasy woman. Let delicious Divina pander to your whims!

  Twenty minutes after he had left Michael Tennent’s house, Thomas Lamark dialled the number on the card. He was hesitant; he had never done this before. A woman answered. Her voice was common but maybe he could get her to change that.

  ‘I saw your ad. Divina?’

  She sounded wary. ‘Where did you get my number?’

  ‘In this call box. At the bottom of the Earl’s Court Road.’

  ‘You’d like an appointment?’

  ‘Are you free now?’

  ‘I have an hour, if you come round right away.’

  ‘What colour is your hair?’

  ‘Red.’

  ‘Do you – do you have a blonde wig? Long blonde hair? Wavy?’

  ‘Want me to put that on for you?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Ten minutes later, Thomas pressed the buzzer of the narrow door sandwiched between a betting shop and a café. He identified himself through the speaker-phone, entered and climbed a narrow, dimly lit staircase.

  When he reached the landing at the top, a door opened. A woman stood there, much younger than he had imagined from her voice, mid-twenties at the most, and plumper than he had visualised. She had a friendly, soft-featured face that he found neither attractive nor ugly, long platinum blonde tresses and was wearing a cream satin dressing gown loosely fastened.

  ‘Thomas?’

  He stared at her cleavage. ‘Yes.’

  She eyed him carefully, then beckoned him in, closing the door behind him.

  He entered a small room lit with a red bulb inside a paper globe lampshade. There were large mirrors on the wall and on the ceiling. The narrow double bed had a candlewick coverlet, and there was a mangy red carpet on the floor. Ventilation was from an open window behind Venetian blinds, and an electric fan on the dressing table.

  ‘Would you like a drink, Thomas?’

  ‘No thank you.’

  ‘Not a Coke or anything?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He was feeling awkward. There was a sickly sweet smell of perfume that he did not like. This was not what he had imagined.

  ‘Let’s get the financials out of the way before we start, shall we, Thomas? It’s one hundred pounds for the hour, unless you want anything a little kinky, then it would be extra.’

  Startled by her directness, he fished two fifty-pound notes from his wallet and handed them to her. In return she gave him a condom in a foil wrapper.

  Then she untied the sash of her dressing gown, let the front fall open, and leaned back provocatively. ‘What would you like me to do to you, Thomas? A little massage first?’

  Her breasts were nothing like his mother’s. These were bigger, rounder, upright, they looked unreal. The nipples were horrible, tiny dark things, like studs.

  And she had a thick, unruly bush of black pubic hair.

  His eyes went up to her wig, then down to her pubic hair. His mother’s had been blonde, tinged with grey recently, but still blonde.

  This black was horrible.

  ‘Something wrong, Thomas?’

  ‘You have black pubic hair.’

  She grinned. ‘Sorry, I haven’t got a pubic wig, darling!’

  He did not like the way she made fun of him. He was making a mistake in being here, he realised. This wasn’t how he had imagined it; this wasn’t what he wanted. From what he had seen in films, he had imagined he would be in some vast gilded chamber, with a sunken bath, crystal chandeliers, champagne on ice.

  And a woman who looked like his mother.

  In her cheap wig, this woman was insulting his mother’s memory.

  ‘Can you speak differently?’ he asked.

  ‘Speak differently?’

  ‘Do you know the actress Gloria Lamark?’

  She shook her head.

  Anger rose inside him.

  ‘Did she speak lah-di-dah, Thomas? Do you want me to speak lah-di-dah?’ She feigned an upper-class accent. ‘Do yew meeeen speaaakke laike theas?’

  ‘Tell me that you want to touch my choo-choo,’ he said with an edge of desperation.

  Reverting to her normal voice, she said, ‘Your what?’

  Reddening. ‘My choo-choo. Tell me that you want to touch my choo-choo.’

  ‘Choo-choo? What’s your choo-choo, darling?’

  He pointed at his flies. ‘My thing. Penis.’

  ‘You call it choo-choo?’ She looked at him in astonishment, then burst into a cackle of laughter. ‘Choo-choo!’

  He stared lividly back at this ghastly creature, with her sickly sweet smell and her studs for nipples and her fat flesh and ghastly black tangle of hair, then dug his hand into his pocket and pulled out his coin.

  He tossed it in the air palmed it.

  She caught the glint of gold and asked, ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Tails,’ he said. ‘Tails, Divina. You’re very lucky.’ He turned and walked out of the room, ran down the stairs, and out into the street, then hurried around the corner to where he had parked Dr Goel’s Ford Mondeo.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  What’s wrong with me?

  The Gregorian chant filled the car with a sound that alternated between high and low pitch. The choral voices crashed out of the speakers, unearthly, like voices of the dead. They shrilled in Thomas’s ears, boomed in his heart.

  He drove in a mist of rage, a man possessed, with demons in his soul. He wanted to kill someone tonight, anyone, it didn’t matter who – a guy, a girl, a junkie, a wino, anyone.

  It would be Dr Michael Tennent’s fault.

  You will have blood on your hands, Dr Tennent.

  With the sickly sweet smell of the prostitute’s perfume still in his nostrils, he headed towards the West End, anxiety nagging him: maybe the psychiatrist had caught sight of his face. What if the bitch had made a note of his licence plate?

  No. They’d just glanced at him, that was all. They hadn’t seen his face, hadn’t written down his number. They weren’t interested in him. They were just interested in each other. Even so, he had been careless. Stupid.

  Why couldn’t he and Divina have been int
erested in each other?

  Why did you laugh at me, Divina?

  What on earth is the matter with me?

  The traffic was heavy up the King’s Road. He was forced to slow down, drift along with it, part of a long line, like jigging along in a cut-out car in some theme park ride.

  The ride was called Virtual London.

  Weirdos swirled past in the current; some were hovering in groups as if they were caught in eddies, some were massed outside the entrance to clubs like scum slopping against a river bank. Everywhere he looked the street was full of floaty weirdos. Come on, step off the pavement in front of me, make my day.

  He cruised Sloane Square, then traversed Belgravia to Hyde Park Corner and on down Piccadilly. He was driving fast now, except the traffic was gumming up ahead as he closed on Eros. He was doing better, he had found a rhythm, found the trick of bullying past slower vehicles. It was easy, all you had to have was nerve! Force open a gap! And ignore the angry flashing of lights!

  He crossed the junction on a dubious amber, then accelerated hard up Shaftesbury Avenue, pavements flooding over with kids, freaks, spilling off the kerb. He wanted to feel the thud of a body on the front of the car, he wanted to see some freak come barrelling over the bonnet and explode against the windscreen. He swerved in towards the kerb but nothing happened. He was driving right through people as if nothing was there!

  He wondered if his memory was tricking him, the way it did trick him sometimes. Maybe he wasn’t in Terence Goel’s navy blue Ford Mondeo 16 valve, maybe he was at home, sitting at his computer, playing a game, driving through Virtual London.

  This was just a game!

  I’m indestructible!

  He overtook a stalled taxi, caught another light on the final flicker of amber, made a left into Tottenham Court Road. Then his rear-view mirrors threw a dazzling glare at him. Some jerk behind driving on full beam. He heard a siren, just a short burst of two-tone, the lights flashed again, full-beam then low-beam and when they dropped back to low beam, his mirrors were a riot of strobing blue light.

  He felt a flash of anger at himself, then flipped his indicator and pulled over into the kerb. Headlights swung in behind him.

  Concentrate!

  Had he been mistaken about how much Dr Tennent or the girl had seen? Had a neighbour reported the number-plate of the car?

  He lowered the window and in his mirror watched a policeman climb from the car behind, pull on his cap and approach him, a flashlight in his hand.

  The beam momentarily struck Thomas in the face, dazzling him, then was switched off. He blinked, annoyed, but kept calm. The policeman was in his mid-twenties and looked younger. Thomas observed that he pressed his face right up close to his own, presumably to try to detect alcohol on his breath.

  ‘Your house on fire, is it, sir?’

  He looked at the officer blankly. In his surprise at the question, he almost forgot to adopt the Bostonian accent of his friend Dr Goel whose car he was driving. ‘My house?’

  There was a faint reaction to his accent. The policeman seemed to soften, but only a fraction. ‘You seem to be in a bit of a hurry, sir.’

  Thomas applied maximum charm. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I guess I get lost in London. I’m trying to find my way back home, down to Cheltenham and I’m going round in circles.’ He accompanied his explanation with a suitably beguiling smile.

  ‘You’ll be going round in an ambulance if you carry on driving like that, or else some innocent person will. Have you been drinking this evening?’

  Still utterly charming. ‘No, I do not believe in drinking and driving.’

  ‘You mean you can drive as badly as any drunk when you’re sober? Is this your vehicle, sir?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘And who is the registered owner?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘And your name is?’

  ‘Dr Goel. Dr Terence Goel.’ Thomas spelled it out for him.

  ‘Right, Dr Goel, the manner of your driving leads me to believe you may be driving while under the influence of alcohol, and I’m going to ask you to take a breath test. Step out of your car, please.’

  Thomas climbed out; the officer shielded him from the passing traffic and ushered him onto the pavement. He noticed a woman police officer sitting in the car that had pulled up behind him. She was talking on the radio. Probably checking his licence plate. Thomas had no worries there.

  ‘Are you a resident of this country, Dr Goel?’

  ‘Yes.’ People were looking at him and he didn’t like this.

  ‘Do you have an English driving licence?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ A whole group of people had stopped and were gawping. They were irritating him. The clammy air was irritating him. This policeman was irritating him. He had the square, bony face of a flyweight boxer.

  Now the policeman was shining a torch in through the passenger window of the Ford Mondeo. ‘Where have you been tonight, Dr Goel?’

  Thomas figured it was best to stick as close to the truth as possible. ‘Visiting friends in Barnes.’

  ‘This is a bit of a detour if you’re heading for Cheltenham, isn’t it?’

  Thomas silently cursed his error. ‘Uh, you know, I’m like – I get real confused in London.’

  The officer opened the passenger door, reached in and picked up the two tape cassettes off the passenger seat. He held the first one to the interior light, then turned to Thomas. ‘A Ray Charles fan?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘“Georgia On My Mind” – great song.’ The officer gave him a brief, stiff smile. Thomas was not sure whether to read anything into it. Had someone reported him playing it outside Dr Michael Tennent’s house?

  ‘And this other tape, sir? What does it contain?’

  ‘Work.’

  ‘What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a scientist – I work for your government. The information on that tape is classified. I have to insist you put it down immediately.’

  A fraction chastened, the officer put the cassettes back on the seat. Thomas enjoyed the moment. He dug a hand into his pocket and closed his fingers around his coin. Then as he followed the policeman towards the car, and waited as he reached in and removed the breathalysing equipment, Thomas flipped the coin and trapped it on the back of his hand.

  Tails.

  ‘It’s your lucky night, Officer,’ he said.

  The breath test was negative. The policeman asked Thomas to blow a second time and it was still negative. He gave Thomas a brief lecture on road safety then released him with a caution and detailed instructions to the M4.

  The cemetery was only a small deviation from the route.

  It was half past midnight. Thomas borrowed the torch Dr Goel kept in his glove-box. The gates were locked and he had to clamber over them; then he dropped down onto the drive. It was light here, close enough to pick up some of the glow of the street lighting, but ahead the centre of the vast cemetery lay as black as a lake, beneath the stars.

  He switched on his torch, and swiftly made his way through the car park, past the chapel, and along one of the well-tended paths.

  The newer graves were towards the rear. He didn’t need to look at the dates on the headstones: he could tell from the glints of Cellophane that wrapped recent bouquets, from the scents of flowers and recently turned earth.

  It took him a full five minutes of walking fast to reach the ragged strip where his mother lay. Then he stood still, his anger rising as he scoured the grass with the beam of the torch.

  Bitch.

  She was here, under this soil, stiff and silent, the way she had been when he had last held her in his arms, the way all the rest of the people in here were. Dead. Gone. No longer a person, reduced to the state of cadaver.

  He stared down at the ground, then suddenly shouted, ‘You stupid bitch, why did you have to die? Why?’ His voice rose to a scream. ‘Why? Why? Why?’

  Then he sank to his knees. The moon was riding high in the sky, it was nearly full, bu
t there was one bit missing; it looked like a bent coin.

  He pressed his face right down into the grass and breathed deeply, trying to catch just a small trace of Chanel No. Five. But all he could smell was earth and grass. He got to his feet, kicked the strip of grass sending a divot skimming into the shadows.

  Lie there, you bitch, what do I care?

  Then, aloud, he said, ‘Lie there all fucking night!’

  Chapter Thirty-five

  A dying drumbeat of fear rolled through the fading dream.

  The darkness was loud, deafening, pressing in on him. Michael burst out through it, from deep sleep to instant thrumming consciousness.

  Someone was walking across his bedroom floor. A shadowy figure appeared by the window.

  Oh, Christ.

  In his confusion he remembered a car. There had been a car outside and Amanda had been freaked out by it –

  Amanda?

  It was coming back fast now.

  Amanda was here, they were sleeping –

  Where was she? He put out an arm and felt empty sheets. Fear roiled through him. Phone the police. Find a weapon.

  A clank. Brass curtain rails rattling on the rod. A strip of streetlighting exploded into the room and the figure shone like a ghost.

  A naked woman. Amanda, peering out of the window.

  In his relief, the whole room seemed to lighten up. Michael held his breath, watching her in silence, drenched in her musky smells and his own perspiration.

  The curtains rustled back together, not quite as tightly as before, leaving an orange chink.

  ‘No one there,’ Amanda said, turning towards him as if knowing he was awake.