In a True Light

by John Harvey

  Instead of answering immediately, Ranch chewed thoughtfully for several moments longer before wiping his mouth with a napkin. ‘I take it you didn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think I only knew more or less by default. She had to tell somebody and, well, with my history I wasn’t about to lay claim. Wasn’t likely to try and talk her out of it, either.’

  ‘Out of what?’ Rachel asked, though she must have known.

  ‘This young woman she knew, she’d gone to France and had an abortion. Stayed away a year, did the grand tour and returned, leaving most of her kith and kin none the wiser. Jane figured she could do the same.’ He speared a piece of lettuce with his fork. ‘It didn’t work out that way.’

  ‘Do you know why?’ Sloane asked.

  Ranch shook his head. ‘She never said. Not directly. A hint, maybe. My guess, the nearer it came, the harder it was to go through with it. After which the time it would have been safe had passed.’ He drank more wine, emptying his glass. ‘I sometimes wonder if somehow Connie knew what her mother had intended; if maybe that didn’t account for the way she turned out.’

  Sloane sat forward, alert. ‘You know her then, Connie?’

  ‘Right up until she and Jane had their big falling-out. Oh, I wouldn’t say we were ever bosom pals. But if I went into the city and she was performing, I’d go along. No hardship that, she was pretty good. Maybe still is. Once, just the once, she came out here. Got pretty bored in the event and couldn’t wait to leave.’

  Close by, a bird called and was still, and Sloane stepped into the silence. ‘Did Jane ever say who the father was?’

  ‘Connie’s father?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not in so many words.’

  There was no disguising the disappointment on Sloane’s face.

  ‘But then,’ Ranch continued, ‘I never really considered it necessary.’ His already creased face creased even deeper in a grin. ‘The way the two of you were at it every conceivable opportunity, I’m only surprised it wasn’t twins.’

  After coffee and brandy, which they drank indoors, Ranch showed Rachel and Sloane to a pair of rooms across the landing from each other and bade them goodnight, leaving them to work out whatever arrangements they wished.

  Rachel caught Sloane looking past her, almost wistfully, at the turned-down bed and, smiling, kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘All that good fresh air. Even if I don’t need a good eight hours, you do.’

  She squeezed his hand, turned into her room and closed the door and, after a few moments, Sloane did the same.

  Tired or not, neither could sleep.

  Rachel fidgeted with her pillows, kicked off the covers, pulled them back; tried reading a magazine. After an hour or so she heard the sound of a piano from below and, getting out of bed, reached for her robe.

  Sloane was at the keyboard, feeling his way, albeit tentatively, through ‘I Let a Song Go Out of My Heart’. When the last chord had faded he lowered the lid and slowly turned towards her.

  ‘I thought you didn’t play,’ Rachel said.

  They sat back out on the porch, a bottle of wine between them, listening to the wind rousting the trees and, distant, the ocean breaking slow against the shore.

  ‘At dinner,’ Rachel said. ‘When you asked Mason about Jane. You heard what you wanted to hear.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘I thought so.’

  Sloane didn’t answer, sat staring out.

  ‘Whatever it is that’s worrying you,’ Rachel said, ‘frightening you, even. I thought you’d dealt with all that when you decided to come back.’

  He looked at her through the almost dark. ‘Maybe it’s not that simple.’

  ‘Oh, Sloane,’ Rachel said with a shake of the head. ‘It rarely is.’

  He leaned forward and flexed his fingers. The wind seemed to have dropped and there was only the sound of water, rolling up, then back. ‘I had this long time,’ Sloane said. ‘I was forty, I suppose. Forty-five. Broody as can be. Sneaking glances at other people’s babies on the street. Maybe you know the kind of thing?’ He looked quickly across at Rachel, then away. ‘One reason or another, it never happened and the thoughts went away. I had a life and I got on with it. Came to terms, the way people do.’

  ‘So now you should be pleased.’

  ‘At the prospect of getting everything turned upside down?’

  ‘God, Sloane! What do you want?’ Rising fast, Rachel spilled wine across her hand. ‘Forty years down the line, an easy birth? Smiling babies with blue eyes and blonde curls? Grateful little girls? This isn’t some fantasy, it’s real. She’s real. Real and pretty messed up, from what you’ve said. Connie. Maybe she needs your help, maybe she doesn’t. Could be she’ll tell you to stay out of her life. That’s a risk you have to take. But, Sloane, you have to give her the chance. Give yourself the chance.’ Close enough, she reached out her hand towards his face. ‘I don’t see what else you can do.’

  35

  He took a cab across town, the evening warm, windows wound part-way down; Sloane wearing the suit he’d bought for the opening at the Serpentine, blue cotton shirt, plain leather shoes. Inside the club he sat and drank two whiskies at the bar. The house system was playing a mixture of ballads, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat Cole, a few innocuous instrumentals thrown in. A little over half the tables were full. Stage lights still down, the musicians took their positions on stage. When the barman gestured towards Sloane’s glass, he shook his head. A few testing notes from the bass, a quick shuffle on the snare. The music faded and, as it did, the piano player leaned into the mike alongside his keyboard and spoke Connie’s name. A pause and then she appeared, stepping into the spotlight to sparse applause.

  For the third number Wayne introduced ‘Why Was I Born?’ from the piano, slow-medium tempo, Connie squeezing out the words like sour fruit.

  Sloane thought he would have another drink after all.

  The set over, he waited five minutes before negotiating his way backstage and knocking on the dressing-room door.

  ‘I wondered,’ Connie said, ‘when you’d come sniffing round again.’

  ‘No Delaney this evening?’ Sloane asked.

  Connie laughed a harsh, dry laugh. ‘Vincent’s got other things on his mind.’

  For two days now he’d been like the cat on the proverbial roof, jumping at shadows, bad-mouthing all and sundry to their faces and behind their backs. Something to do with the business, Connie knew that much, somebody asking questions, poking their nose into the trough. When she’d asked him what was wrong, earlier, he’d lashed out and punched her in the face. Tonight he was over in Jersey and good riddance, asking a few questions for himself.

  ‘I thought maybe a drink?’ Sloane said. ‘Somewhere we could talk.’

  ‘Oh, God, why not?’ Connie reached for and lit a cigarette. ‘Give me ten minutes, okay, I’ll see you out front.’

  They went to the bar at the top of the Beekman Tower and sat out on the balcony, the lights of the city veiled in thin mist and cloud. When Connie shivered, Sloane took off his coat and slipped it around her shoulders.

  ‘What happened?’ Sloane asked. Reaching slowly and with care, he turned her face towards him: what had been hidden beneath her stage make-up was just visible now, the bruise spreading across the left side of her face, cheek to jaw.

  ‘Lamp post?’ Sloane said. ‘Door?’

  Connie said nothing, lit a cigarette. The waiter brought their drinks.

  ‘It was him, wasn’t it? Delaney.’

  Connie shrugged. ‘People argue.’

  ‘People get killed.’

  When she shivered this time, it wasn’t the cold.

  Sloane leaned in closer. ‘When we met before, you remember what you said? He’d kill me if he found out. And you were right, I didn’t really take you seriously, figured it was just one of those things people said.’

  Connie was looking at him over the top of her glass. ‘And now?’

  ‘Leave h
im,’ Sloane said.

  Connie shook her head and looked away. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ She drank, dragged deep on her cigarette.

  ‘I’ll help,’ Sloane said.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You got the hots for me or something? That what it is?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What then? Prince Charming? Saint George? My Fairy fuckin’ Godfather?’ Seeing something in his eyes, she stopped. ‘Oh, fuck! That’s it, isn’t it? How she got you to come chasing after me waving some goddamn olive branch. Said you were my fucking daddy.’

  Sloane felt as if he had been struck hard, his skin numb, the air sucked out of his lungs.

  Connie laughed, caustic and rough, the laughter overlaid with tears, a succession of short, breathless sobs. Blindly, she scrabbled for a tissue inside her bag. ‘It’s crap,’ she said, when she could catch her breath. ‘You know that, don’t you? You, my father. Bullshit, it has to be.’

  Sloane waited until she was looking at him again. ‘Suppose it’s not?’

  Connie held his gaze. Traffic noise rose muted from below; the sound of a piano, staid and genteel, from the lounge behind them; sirens on Second Avenue. She scraped back her chair. ‘I have to go to the bathroom.’

  ‘You’ll come back?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll come back.’

  When she did, she seemed more settled, calm; she lit another cigarette and slowly released the smoke into the air. ‘I want to tell you a story,’ she said. ‘About Vincent and me.’

  A nerve set up its erratic pulse at the corner of Sloane’s eye.

  ‘The first time he met me, I was about as low as it was possible to get. Least, that’s what I thought. He got me working again, set me straight. Gave me an inch of self-respect. So then, when he turned around after that and walked out after someone else, quit me cold, I came apart. The drink, everything got out of control. By the time the affair was over and Vincent found me again, I was working for this guy in Portland, Oregon, the Triple X Escort Agency. A cellphone and a bunch of business cards he’d leave around the airport and hotels, in the back of cabs. Hooking, more or less.’

  She glanced at Sloane, then closed her eyes.

  ‘Vincent went crazy. Slapped me around, knocking some sense into me. Made me take him to where the guy lived. The two of them, they got into this fight. Vincent finally smashed the guy’s head against the wall and then he beat him and kicked him and beat him some more and, God help me – I don’t know, I must’ve been high – I joined in. And when we were through he was dead.’

  Connie took a long drag on her cigarette. She looked at Sloane through the waft of smoke, but his face was giving nothing away.

  ‘I think he was dead a long time before we stopped.’ She reached for her drink. ‘I helped Vincent clean up the room, every mark, every spot of blood. The body we took downstairs in the service elevator and stuffed in the trunk of Vincent’s car. We’d wrapped it in plastic bags, sheets and towels. We must’ve driven round for hours, looking for a place to dump it. Ended up in some part of the city I never knew existed. Projects, places boarded up. Finally stopped by this piece of wasteland, dogs roaming around in packs, barking, making a hell of a din. Vincent chased them off long enough for us to tip the body out, drag it into the middle.’ Ash fell from the end of her cigarette. ‘By the time we were driving away and I looked around, you could see the dogs coming back.’

  She shivered and Sloane took the glass from one hand and set it down, took the cigarette from the other and stubbed it out. He put his arms round her and held her close.

  ‘So you see,’ Connie said finally.

  ‘What?’

  Their voices were quiet, hushed.

  ‘Why I can’t ever leave him. Why he can keep leaving me and then keep coming back.’

  ‘No,’ Sloane said.

  ‘We killed someone. Together. Murdered him.’

  ‘No.’ A slow shake of the head. ‘You didn’t kill him, he did that. You were – what? – an accessory at worst.’

  ‘I could still go to prison.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘And besides, if ever Vincent thought there was the least chance I’d talk to the police or anyone …’

  Sloane started as a face appeared on the other side of the glass, but it was only the waiter, looking out to check they were all right. Seeing his reaction, Connie caught hold of his hand.

  ‘If it weren’t for this,’ Sloane said. ‘What you just told me. Could you walk away?’

  Connie looked at him and shook her head.

  ‘You love him?’

  ‘No. I don’t think so. Not any more.’

  ‘Then why …?’

  ‘I need him.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Look,’ Sloane said. ‘One way or another, you’ve got to get Delaney off your back. Which either means going to the police and telling them what you told me …’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Then come back to England with me.’

  She looked at him sharply, then laughed. ‘Now I know you’re crazy!’

  ‘I don’t see what’s so crazy about that.’

  ‘What the fuck would I do in England?’

  ‘The same as the rest of us, sit around reading Jane Austen, eating crumpets for tea.’

  ‘Funny!’ But she was smiling, just a little.

  ‘Either way, you get some space, get yourself some counselling, go into detox, whatever it needs.’

  ‘And what do I do for money while all this is going on?’

  ‘We’ll come up with something. Your mother’s Foundation maybe, some kind of loan, advance.’

  ‘God! You’ve got it all figured, haven’t you?’

  ‘Not till this minute.’

  ‘And if I say no?’

  Sloane took his time. ‘Maybe you’ll live to regret it. Maybe.’

  He got to his feet.

  ‘I’m going to stay here,’ Connie said. ‘Have another drink.’

  ‘Okay. You know where I’m staying, same place as before.’ On a napkin he wrote down Rachel’s name and address. ‘If I’m not at the hotel, try here.’

  Scarcely bothering to give it a second glance, she folded the paper and pushed it down into her bag. ‘Thanks for the drink.’

  Sloane hesitated only a moment before stepping off the balcony back into the building, leaving her alone. Down on the street he hailed a cab and paid the driver to sit idling until she came out and then, at a distance, followed her home.

  36

  Rachel had been at her desk for the best part of an hour, sorting through the mail. She was leafing, amused, through the miniaturised portfolio of a young photographer from Port Arthur, Texas – No, I am not Janis Joplin, nor have I ever been – when the receptionist interrupted her.

  ‘There’s someone in the main gallery I think you ought to see.’

  Rachel read the concern in her eyes.

  Delaney was standing in front of a larger-than-life portrait of a child’s face, the face a collage of overlapping newsprint.

  ‘Rachel Zander?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Vincent, Vincent Delaney.’ A smile creased his mouth and was gone. ‘It’s good of you to spare me a little of your time.’

  He was wearing a dark suit with a purple shirt, purple and black tie. Black leather shoes that shone. His hair, cuffs, everything about him just so, except he looked somehow out of place, out of time.

  ‘I believe you know a friend of mine,’ Delaney said.

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Connie.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Connie Graham.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Delaney took a pace forward, just one but it was enough to have Rachel glancing up at the security camera in the top corner.

  ‘You do know her, then?’

  ‘No.’ A quic
k shake of the head, a step away.

  ‘That’s strange. Your address, it was in her purse.’

  ‘This address?’ The response too fast, the voice pitched too high.

  Delaney slowly shaking his head. ‘Not here,’ he said, ‘your apartment. Private. Personal. Safe.’ Smiling now, smiling with his eyes, the cruel curve of his mouth. ‘The one place you can lock all the windows, bolt all the doors. Keep out the bogeyman.’

  The pre-recorded voice echoed around them: He’d kill us if he got the chance.

  Rachel’s legs, the backs of her arms, were like ice.

  Delaney snaked out a hand.

  There was a movement in the space behind them, visitors to the gallery. Delaney broke the tension deliberately, moved towards one of the canvases on the side wall, closer to where Rachel was standing. Painted with meticulous attention to physical detail, it showed the trunk of an eviscerated body in a field. A tableau of body parts arranged against a sunlit, storybook background, leaves and actual pieces of grass and weed stuck to the edges of the frame. Little Grey Rabbit meets Hannibal Lecter.

  ‘You like it?’ Delaney asked.

  Rachel shook her head. She didn’t know. She did. She saw it for what it was, not what it was pretending to be.

  ‘It’s here. Your gallery. Your choice. Or so I suppose.’ Delaney’s voice a gentle croon, persuasive.

  ‘It has certain qualities …’ Rachel began. ‘It speaks to …’

  ‘To who?’ Delaney asked, close enough to touch. ‘Maybe that should be to whom, I was never sure.’ And then he laughed a surprisingly musical laugh. ‘To people like me, I’d suppose.’

  His fingers brushed her arm and she jumped back, eyes closed.

  When she opened them again, seconds later, he was behind her and she turned, searching for him, betrayed, bemused.

  ‘You know what this all lacks,’ Delaney said, sweeping his arm through an arc to encompass the room. ‘This stuff on the walls. The excitement. The thrill. The pleasure in the pain.’

  She stood there for a long time after he’d gone, unable to move. And only when her staff had assured her they had searched the building twice and that he was nowhere in sight did Rachel permit herself to step back inside her office.