The Geranium Kiss

by John Harvey

  Still no answer, no response at all. He continued to sit there and look at me and his face was so full of dumb self-pity that I could have jabbed my fist into it a few times for the joy of jolting him out of it.

  But maybe I was being hard on him; maybe he had something to feel real sorry with himself for; I hoped that it wasn’t what I feared it might be.

  ‘Right. Let’s try something a little more likely. You were in the house around the end of the afternoon and it was getting good and dark, the way it does now. Suddenly, without notice. There was a knock on the door and you went over to one of the windows and peeked out. You didn’t like what you saw. Maybe you didn’t know his name, but you’d seen him around and that was enough. A big guy who hung around the cab office sometimes, big and nasty and used for throwing someone else’s weight around for them. He might even have thrown a little of it at you in the past.

  ‘Anyway, you don’t want to stick around to see him and he’s not the kind of guy to let a shut door put him off. So you head off out into the garden and hide behind those trees. He uses his bit of plastic and lets himself in, turns the place over and finds nothing. Leaves. You get back into the house. A while later, I arrive and start snooping about. You play the same game. Only this time you’re not quite so careful, or perhaps my hearing’s better. Whichever it is, it doesn’t matter. The result’s the same.

  ‘I’ve got to you first. And you’d better be glad about that. It could have been your big pal and it could have been the cops. It still could be either. So you’d better sing to me before either or both of those others come and beat the living shit out of you.

  ‘And I don’t think you’d like that very much, would you, Jimmy?’

  He didn’t answer that one either, but the vein in his head began to throb all the more fiercely, which told me as much as I wanted to know.

  ‘So what’s it to be, Jimmy baby, are you going to take your chances with me, or wait and see who finds you on your hands and knees in the trees next time around?’

  ‘How … how do I know that you’re not with them? Either of them. How do I know you won’t pass me over to them when I’ve talked to you?’

  I shook my head. ‘You don’t know, Jimmy. But if I were you I’d take that chance for now.’

  His head sank down between his legs and for a moment I thought he was going to faint. But slowly he sat up straight again and the holes where his eyes were were as empty-looking as pits in the snow.

  ‘Where is she?’ I asked.

  ‘Not here.’

  ‘But she’s alive?’

  He almost jumped in the chair. ‘Of course she’s … I mean, there’s no way … nothing I could do to hurt her.’

  His head went down again.

  ‘Oh. Christ!’ I said, ‘This isn’t going to be another tale of true love gone wrong, is it? Spare me that crap!’

  ‘Don’t you … don’t you … just don’t, that’s all.’

  Which was pretty clear, but not clear enough. I wanted a whole lot more and I wanted it fast. But one look at him told me that the only way I was going to get it was to start him off gently and let him tell it his way, with only the gentlest of promptings from me. I realised that but I wasn’t making any rash promises to anybody … about the prompting being gentle, I mean.

  ‘Come on then, Jimmy. Let’s take it more or less from the beginning. I know that you used to drive her to school and back, but that was a couple of years ago. What happened since then?’

  ‘I don’t … it’s not … where to start. You see when I was driving her to school, she … I don’t know … there was something about the way she looked at me when we arrived or when I picked her up. It was as if she … well, as if she liked me, you know?

  ‘I didn’t do anything, say anything. How could I? She was the boss’s niece. Anyway, she was half my age. Then one day she started talking to me. Not about anything in particular. What she said didn’t matter. I wasn’t really listening. It was her eyes. They used to be flat-looking as a rule, but when she spoke …

  ‘No, I didn’t bother with what she said. Just looked at her. I think … I think she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.’

  The head went back into his lap, cardigan hunched across his shoulders. After a while he hadn’t moved; I reached forward and lifted him up. Tears were running down his face, noiselessly, endlessly.

  He looked ugly and stupid and pathetic.

  ‘Did you get in touch with her, or she with you?’ My voice was hard and fast.

  He didn’t bother to wipe his face, simply stared at me as though his eyes were melting.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I drove her for a term, then I was switched. That was the normal thing. I didn’t mind. After all, nothing had happened. Then … it was a long while later … I suddenly knew that I was missing her. After that, there was no way I could stop thinking about her. I started hanging around places where I thought I might see her. Outside the school, her house. Times when she’d go out shopping with her mother. Anything.’

  ‘She knew you were doing this?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. She knew. She saw me and looked right through me.’

  ‘That didn’t stop you?’

  ‘No. It couldn’t have. And besides, she was with somebody else all the time. So I convinced myself that even if she wanted to speak or smile then there was no way in which she could have.’

  ‘So you let all this build up inside you until you were totally obsessed with her and then you decided that you’d snatch her, get some cash from her conveniently rich uncle and head off into the hazy romantic sunset together.’ I was smart. I had it all figured out.

  But I was wrong.

  He reached out and touched my hand. His fingers were thin, cold; I let them rest there until the coldness had begun to get through to me, then pushed them away.

  ‘I didn’t think that. Never. I knew it was hopeless. Maybe that was part of the trouble. Maybe I should have gone round to her place and knocked on the door …’

  ‘Oh, Jesus! Come on! You’d have got pitched out on your third-rate arse so fast there wouldn’t have been time for you to fart! Who do you think you are? Some fucking knight in shining armour who wants to rescue the fair maiden from the wicked king?’

  He closed his eyes and opened his mouth and slowly let out a deep breath as though I had just punctured his last vision. Well, if that was so, then it was about time.

  The only thing visions were good for was hiding the truth. You had to imagine the real and not the illusion if you were to have any chance at life. Only it was too late to show Jimmy Burton that simple fact. Much too late.

  ‘What did happen then? Cause someone’s been phoning up and asking for a whole lot of money on the understanding that Cathy’s been kidnapped and that someone has to be you. So you’d better level with me fast.’

  ‘All right. One day she was in town with her mother; they were in this place drinking tea or something and she smiled at me when her mother wasn’t looking. A little while later she gave me a note. It was when she was on her way out. It told me to meet her.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Near her school. She … I don’t know how, but she just seemed to be able to come out and see me.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We went for a walk. She told me about Crosby, her uncle. Told me that he … he was always after her, around the house. You know what I mean. She said that one night, when her mother had been away, he had … had …’

  The hand came out searching for mine again and this time I allowed it to stay there. I needed to hear the rest of the story.

  ‘He had gone to her room and … and forced her to make love to him.’ The words tumbled out in a rush, falling over each other in their haste.

  ‘He raped his own niece?’

  ‘Yes.’ The voice was so quiet that it
seemed to be coming from another person, another room, another nightmare.

  ‘Why didn’t she tell someone … her mother, the police?’

  ‘She was frightened. Crosby said that he would give her this money when she was eighteen if she …’

  ‘If she kept putting out for him?’ I suggested.

  ‘No! She never did anything like that again! Never! She swore it to me. It was because he was afraid she’d tell people, because he felt guilty … I don’t know.’

  ‘Then why the kidnap? Why the ransom for the same amount?’

  ‘He’d begun to get after her again, tell her that he couldn’t keep away from her, had to have her. She kept her bedroom door locked and stayed out of his way. That was when he threatened to withhold the money. She … she didn’t like that.’

  ‘She liked money,’ I said.

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ The vein was bulging through his skin again. ‘She was used to living comfortably.’

  I waved my hand round the room. ‘Not like this.’

  He didn’t answer that. But at least his hand was back where it belonged.

  ‘She suggested that we get the money by pretending that she had been kidnapped. And then we would go away.’

  I stood up and glared down at him. ‘Christ! You did think it was all fairy tales and happy endings, didn’t you. What a … !’

  He interrupted me. ‘She loved me. She said so. She wouldn’t have come here otherwise, would she? She wouldn’t have slept with me.’

  Burton stood up and faced me. For the first time that evening he looked as though he had achieved something he could be proud of. Had done something he believed in, could believe in himself for.

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you? Well, it’s true. That was what she said when she asked me to help her. She said I could sleep with her, make love to her, if I did what she said. She said she wanted me.’

  I sneered at him. ‘Sure. She wanted you. She wanted you as long as you were going to help her get some money. Then how long do you think you would have lasted? She sold herself to you like any other cheap tart, any other whore. The only difference is that her price is higher!’

  The vein seemed as if it would burst; the red spot glowed more brightly; his fists clenched. He stood there in front of me and pulled himself straight. He was around the same height as myself. I thought I had said enough to needle him into taking a poke at me and I hoped that he would.

  I wasn’t sure why, but more than anything else I wanted the excuse to knock him around the room.

  He wasn’t going to let me down. He swung his arm faster than I thought he would and the blow was strong enough to send me back into the edge of the table.

  But I didn’t mind that. I didn’t mind that at all. He was coming for me again and I slid under his right arm and my face was close enough to his for me to see clearly the foul pallor of his skin. I brought up my fist into his stomach and moved quickly to one side so that his head didn’t jerk down into my own. I caught him with a left as he dropped forward and he grabbed for me and held fast.

  It took my knee to free myself from his hold. He spun round on the edge of the armchair and slid across the floor until he landed in the sideboard. There was a crash of crockery from inside it and when his body rolled off, the doors opened and broken and cracked saucers and plates splintered out.

  I picked Burton up and his lip was cut from where my knee had gone hard into his mouth. One eye had a swelling already rising up above it. He didn’t seem to have much fight left in him, which was a shame. I don’t know what I thought I was doing, but it could have been some fool idea about knocking the sense back into him.

  I wanted to show him the stupidity of building a dream of a life round a young girl. So I hit him. Then I hit him again. I wanted to punish him for his delusions. Maybe I wanted to punish myself.

  After a while there didn’t seem to be any point in hitting him any more. I laid him across the torn fabric of the armchair and walked out into the street. I needed the fresh air: also I needed to make a phone call.

  There didn’t seem to be any danger of Burton getting up and running for it while I was away.

  A few hundred yards further down the road I found a call box. Crosby Blake’s voice came on the line. I told him who it was and he didn’t seem too happy.

  ‘Where are you? The idea was that you would be here when the kidnapper called, or at least be within touch. What do you think I’m paying you for?’

  I was beginning to wonder.

  ‘Never mind where I am,’ I said. ‘Have you had a call?’

  ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘During the afternoon.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said he would overlook the fact that the news had been leaked if I would find the money by tomorrow morning. I said that I would and he said he would call later this evening to make the final arrangements.’

  ‘You told the police?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘But listen, Mitchell, will you be here when he calls again?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  ‘I don’t think he’ll be phoning.’

  I put down the phone quick, thought for a few seconds, then dialled another number.

  By the time I got back into the house, Burton was sitting up and shaking his head.

  ‘You got any scotch anywhere? Or brandy?’

  He shook his head. ‘There was some whisky. Cathy finished it.’

  ‘So she boozes as well! What kind of school is that she goes to?’

  He got up and looked as though he was going to try to hit me again, but this time I wasn’t interested.

  I said, ‘Sit down and don’t waste my time. Besides, I want some more information.’

  He thought about it, then sat back down. Perhaps he was starting to learn sense after all.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ he said resignedly.

  ‘The most important thing?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Where Cathy is.’

  He stared up at the light, shut his eyes tightly, then looked down at the floor.

  Oh, no, I thought, he doesn’t even know that.

  He confirmed it. ‘I don’t have an idea.’

  ‘Shit!’ I said. ‘What sort of kidnapper are you, anyway?!’

  He didn’t have to answer.

  But in a way he did. He said, ‘She stayed here for the first two nights. Wouldn’t come down from the room upstairs. Wouldn’t get out of the bed. I brought food up to her. And stuff to drink. All the while she told me about the phone calls, the things to say. Then when I went out to make the call and saw the newspaper I got frightened and wanted to forget the whole thing. She wouldn’t let me. Said all we had to do was change the plans slightly. Get the money as soon as possible.’

  ‘But just in case anything went wrong, she was getting out while she could?’

  ‘No. Yes. I don’t know. It made sense if she left here and met me after I had the money.’

  I said, ‘It never occurred to her you might take the cash and run?’

  His look answered that one for me as well. She had never been more certain of anything in her life: and rightly so.

  ‘How were you going to get in touch?’

  ‘After I picked up the money, tomorrow morning, she was going to call me.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At a call box in Liverpool Street station.’

  ‘And you’ve no idea where she is?’

  ‘No.’

  He got up and wandered out of the room, only just managing to negotiate the doorway. I followed him through the hallway and up the stairs. He went into one of the rooms: a bedroom. Looked at the bed. Stood there for maybe five m
inutes, simply staring down at the tangle of sheets and blankets, the pillows without covers.

  Then he turned around and walked past me as if he didn’t know I was there. He went on into the bathroom. I let him alone for a few minutes more and then went in.

  Burton was sitting on the edge of the bath, staring at his own face in the mirror. I wondered what he saw there, what he thought about it?

  On the back of the sink there was an open razor. The blade was starting to rust along the edge. I looked down at the blade, then at Burton, then at his reflection.

  There was a knocking on the door downstairs. I thought I knew who it would be. I went out of the bathroom, shutting the door behind me. I didn’t look back.

  Downstairs, I let them in. I could see the bulge of the Magnum Tom Gilmour had brought back from New York, sticking out through his jacket. I tapped the butt and said, ‘You won’t be needing that. He’s upstairs in the bathroom. Thinking about putting an end to it all.’

  Gilmour pushed past me but I called after him.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘he won’t actually do it. He’s just enjoying thinking about it and how fucked up he is. He wouldn’t have the guts to cut his own toenails with a sharp pair of scissors.’

  Gilmour snorted and turned away, continued up to the bathroom. I walked past the two other cops at the door and down into the street. I wasn’t as certain about Burton as I had made out: maybe I didn’t want to stick around and see if I was right or not. Though I couldn’t think why.

  It was late when I got back to my place. A quick shot of Southern Comfort didn’t do anything to bring me round. I sat slumped in the chair and tried to think clearly but it was no use. I was too tired and there were still too many loose ends.

  What was the use of being a great detective and finding the kidnapper first if that didn’t finish anything? It only seemed to start things off all over again.

  What I needed was another break. That didn’t seem about to happen, so I had another drink instead.

  And then someone knocked on the door.

  There were times when I thought that was all my business was about. People knocking on your door or calling you on your telephone. Usually you didn’t know who it was going to be and when you found out you wished you hadn’t. More often than not it was trouble.