“Talk to Dr. Wolseley.”
Mimi turned sharply to John, questioning with a look.
“Dr. Wolseley first,” he elucidated. “Then both of you canvass Dr. Akers. If he isn’t willing to release me, we’ll have to regroup. You’ll have to spring me somehow. Or I can get Dr. Wolseley to do it. But I’d like the record closed and my name clear, or the meeting with Merchant could be compromised.”
“Could I speak to Dr. Wolseley in the first instance?” Mimi requested.
“Sure. If she’s free. Just come with me.”
The nurse hovered for a moment or so, expecting some form of goodbye, but neither John nor Mimi seemed about to fulfil that convention so he coughed and left the room, Mimi following.
Dr. Akers was perturbed by his colleague’s demeanour, but he reluctantly admitted that he didn’t have enough grounds to detain Stone under the Mental Health Act and there was no recourse other than to let him go.
At the gates of the hospital, Mimi waited for John beneath an umbrella, protecting her expertly curled hair from a summer shower.
He strolled out with his customary swagger, despite the unshaven face and the rumpled clothes. Mimi, watching his progress along the driveway, tried to work out what, if anything, she felt for this man.
He had treated both her and Anna appallingly. He had made no apology for the heartbreak and stress he visited on anyone who stood in his way. He was single-minded to the point of sociopathy, and he didn’t seem to care what anyone thought or felt.
Except that wasn’t quite true. He could have ridden roughshod over her on several occasions, but he had hung back. He seemed to care what she thought of him. And, of course, now she had evidence that he at least loved his mum. That was something, wasn’t it? A spark of hope for him. He wasn’t all bad.
Rolling up at the gates, he smiled broadly, rain streaming down his cheekbones and dripping on to the open collar of his shirt, and held out his arms.
“Mimi,” he exclaimed. “Come to my arms, my gorgeous liberator.”
Mimi wanted to slap him, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to walk into his embrace, but that was what she did, letting his arms both warm and dampen her simultaneously.
“This is serious, John,” she warned. “You are on probation with me. Any funny business and…”
“And what?”
“I’m out. Don’t let me down.”
“I won’t. You and me, we’re a team, Miranda. We are meant to be.”
“Stop that. None of that romantic stuff. It isn’t fair.”
“But I want you. And you want me.”
“You’re married.”
“Ah, yes. We need to sort that out, don’t we?” John sighed, took hold of the umbrella and held it over the pair of them. “Let’s go and talk to Anna.”
With his other arm slung across Mimi’s unprotesting shoulder, he walked her to the Tube station. Mimi knew that her world had changed, forever, in the time it had taken the rain clouds to gather over London.
Chapter Eleven
Anna put her hand over the receiver and turned to Liam anxiously.
“It’s John,” she said. “He’s out of hospital. He wants to meet me at home.”
Liam put down his pint and placed a hand on Anna’s forearm. “What do you want to do?”
Stupid, inappropriate music doodled out of the speakers above them, typical pub-lunch light pop/rock. It didn’t seem an adequate soundtrack to the pivotal moment of Liam’s life.
Don’t go back to him. Don’t give him another chance. Stay with me.
“I need to see him. We have to talk, Liam. You know we do.”
Liam sighed. It was true.
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Don’t you have to go back to work in a few minutes?”
“That doesn’t matter. If you want me to come with you, I will.”
“I… No. It would make things awkward. He already thinks we’re having this ridiculous affair.” Anna laughed, as if to underline what a preposterous notion any liaison between her and Liam would be, and Liam’s heart shrivelled.
“Yeah. Maybe best to go alone. I’ll worry about you though. What if he goes crazy?”
“The hospital must think he’s okay, to let him out.”
“He wouldn’t be the first guy to walk straight out of hospital and into a mass-murder spree.”
“Thanks for that thought, Liam.”
“You’re welcome.” Liam took another glum chug of his beer.
Anna finished her lime and soda, contemplating the bottom of the glass.
“I owe it to this baby to try and make a life with its daddy,” she said in an attempt at apology. “If we can make it work. We have to try. And, you know, I love him so much. I want it to go back to the way it was. I’d do anything to have that back.”
“Yeah.” It was a whisper, and Anna almost didn’t catch it.
“Do you really think he’s been seeing Mimi behind my back?” she asked with a hint of desperation. “It’s so—weird. Weird of her. Weird of him. Just—not like them.”
“Dunno.” It was a hostile, hopeless grunt.
“I just can’t believe it. We must have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. He’ll have an explanation for me. It’ll be something silly. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”
“Like he did about us?”
“He didn’t mean it. He was being insecure. Perhaps he was a little bit ill. But he’s better now. Maybe they’ve put him on medication.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“I’m going, anyway.” Anna stood abruptly and picked up her handbag.
Liam accompanied her out of the bar—the very place where Anna and John had first met—and stood with her on the pavement, feeling sick at the thought of letting her go.
“I’ll worry about you, you know,” he said, taking her hands and squeezing them. “If he does anything—even the slightest thing—that you aren’t comfortable with, get away from him as fast as you can. Call me. Call me as soon as you’ve finished. In fact, if you don’t call me by three o’clock, I’ll call you. Okay?”
“Stop fussing, mother hen.” She laughed. The glow on her cheeks was for John, Liam saw. She had hope. The lustreless Anna of the past couple of days was gone. That was the Anna he had had a chance with.
“Right,” he said. “Seriously, take care.”
He stooped to plant a light kiss on her forehead.
“Liam,” she chided, wiping the trace of moisture from her brow. “I’ll be fine.”
Then she turned and left him all alone.
“I don’t understand.”
“Is it so hard?” John, sitting beside Anna on the sofa, his hands twining hers around and around, tried his utmost to look sympathetic and sorry. “I know now that I made a mistake. I took advantage of you. It was wrong of me, and you are free to go. File for divorce. Cite whatever you like. I won’t offer any contest.”
“But…you love me. You have to. What we had…”
“It’s in the past. And I was ill. I realise that now.”
“You weren’t ill when we met. You were…wonderful.”
“I was ill. I was on the rebound. I hadn’t dealt with my grief.”
“I won’t believe it.” Anna’s voice, though querulous, teetered on the verge of tears. “You can’t make me believe it. What about the baby?”
“I’ll pay maintenance. We can sort out access. I’m not abandoning you.”
“Why does it feel like you are then?” Anna lost her battle with the tears and they leaked out willy-nilly, streaming down her cheeks.
Meanwhile, in the room next door, Mimi waited for Liam to pick up his desk phone.
“Afternoon, Recorder and Sunday Post,” said his spiritless tone.
“Liam, it’s Mimi.”
“What the fuck do you want?”
“Don’t hang up! It’s important. It’s about Anna.”
“What about Anna?” His concern cut through the hostility li
ke skate blades through ice.
“I need you to look after her. John is going to ask for a divorce and I’m sure you realise it’ll be devastating for her. For reasons that are too complicated to explain, I probably won’t be able to be there for her. Please, I’m begging you, can you take my place?”
“What’s so fucking important that you can’t be there for your best friend? You are shagging him, aren’t you?”
“It’s complicated. I can’t go into it now. I just need you to tell me—”
“Yes, yes. Of course I’ll look after her. Poor kid. She’s been used up and hung out to dry by that bastard.”
“Thank you, thank you. Good. Listen, I need you to be waiting outside the house. Get there as soon as you can.”
“I’m at work!”
“Make an excuse. I can’t have Anna leaving there alone. I don’t know what she might do.”
“Where are you anyway? Why aren’t you here?”
“I’m out on a story. So you’ll be there? Yes?”
“Yes, okay.”
“Goodbye.”
An hour later, when Anna went pelting down the garden path, half-blind with tears, Liam caught her at the gate, took her in his arms, and guided her safely away.
“Do you feel bad?” Mimi, standing by the door, watched John as he took in the scene from the picture window at the front of the house.
“Bad? Guilty, you mean?”
“Yes, guilty. Her life, needlessly in ruins, because you made a mistake.”
“Don’t be dramatic, Mimi. It isn’t in ruins. She’s twenty-three, she’s beautiful.”
“She’s pregnant by a man she adores, who wants rid of her.”
“That’s scarcely unique.”
“You’re heartless.”
John whirled around. “Actually, I’m not. I have our version of a heart, just like you Earth people. It works differently, that’s all.”
“Does it have compassion? Regret? Remorse?”
“None of those are anything to do with the function of the heart.” John frowned, genuinely bemused. “Don’t you understand basic biology?”
“Yes, I do, but you seem to have misunderstood some of the most common facets of humanity. Whatever is translating your motivations into Earthly ones isn’t doing a very good job.”
“In my world,” John said, crossing the room to Mimi, crowding into her space so that she took an alarmed step back, “we do not waste time with unprofitable emotion. All those things you mentioned—remorse and so on—have no place in our thoughts. I’m sorry if it shocks you, but it’s our way. We are pragmatists.”
“I’ve no problem with pragmatism, but you take it to an extreme. You need to balance it. I don’t think I’d like your world.”
“No, well, yours isn’t really cutting it for me. But under the circumstances…”
“Yes. About those.”
“When do I get to meet Merchant?”
“I had a message from my editor. He’s set up a meeting for tomorrow night, at the Fleet Street Ball.”
“Excellent. You’ll come with me?”
“Try and stop me.” Mimi sat herself down on the sofa, chin in palms, trying to put the huge list of questions in her head into some kind of order.
John sat next to her, too close, his hip nudging hers. She tried to move away, but he put a hand on her thigh.
“Don’t be unfriendly,” he wheedled.
“What happened to the real John Stone? Caroline’s real brother?”
“He died,” John said flatly.
“Yes, but…did he…have to? What happened?”
“I didn’t kill him. My ring took me to the place where I could be most confident of a seamless matter transfer. This was complicated by the fact that I needed the same thing for my mother. So, it could have taken me to any hospital, any killing field, any famine-stricken encampment. But it so happened that it took me here.”
“You needed a body—a vacant body.”
“Yes. Well, two vacant bodies. When we got here, we had no physical form. We were particles in the air, waiting our chance to take an empty shell and fill it. We hovered here for a few seconds. Stone was overdosing on some drug or other. At first, I was anxious for Mother—I thought the ring had got the coordinates wrong and there would be no body for her to inhabit. But once Stone slipped out of life, and I slipped into his body, his housekeeper came in and collapsed with shock at the sight of it all. Heart attack, I suppose. And there was Mother’s chance.”
“I see. So you didn’t…murder anyone.”
“No. The commandeering of the bodies has to be done quickly—before the heart stops beating altogether. You have to be on the scene. But the ring chose well. I didn’t know if the requirement for a rich host body would be a little beyond its capabilities. It couldn’t have picked a better man for the job. Stone is rich, powerful, influential. Not bad-looking either.” He flashed his eyes at Mimi, who had to look away to prevent a wave of desire coursing through her.
“Certainly not modest,” she snapped.
“Oh, the personal qualities are all mine,” John boasted. “I don’t know what sort of man John Stone was. Presumably he was experiencing some sort of suicidal despair. I wouldn’t know about that.”
“What do you know about? What human emotions can you feel? Any? Or none?”
John raised his eyebrows and took a deep breath, stretching his neck back against the luxurious upholstery.
“Loyalty. Anger. Impatience. Frustration. Desire.” His voice deepened, fingers drumming on the tight material of Mimi’s skirt. “Lust. Passion. Exhilaration. Pleasure.”
“You said…you promised.” Mimi’s breath was short, the small, rhythmic beats of his fingers against her inflaming all kinds of needs inside. She tensed, trying her best to blot out the sensation.
“What did I promise?” John’s lips were low, brushing her ear. She should stand up, move away, but her own stupid captive desires prevented her.
“Remember? That you would stop trying to enslave me through sex? I’ve said I’ll help you.”
“Who’s trying to enslave anyone?” he whispered. “I just want you. Just for the sake of wanting you. I’ve no ulterior motive. Just lots of ulterior blood rushing around me every time I’m near you. You make me reckless. You make me so…very…horny.”
Miranda’s ear burned, the hairs around it on prickly end.
“Come on. Who’s it going to hurt? You want me. I want you. Let me have you, Mimi. Let’s take the edge off all this distracting lust. Then we can concentrate on our strategy.”
Mimi felt that familiar melting sensation at her crotch. She was looking into a perilous abyss of sex, knowing that if she fell, she would never find a way out. If she succumbed to John, she would belong to him. There was no return.
“You can feel all those things,” she gasped, clinging to the remnants of her self-control. “What about love, John? You never mentioned love.”
“There are so many kinds of love. Why do you people only have one word for it? I can feel some of them. Not all of them.”
“Unselfish love.” Mimi trembled. “Love for another. The love Anna feels for you.”
“What’s unselfish about that?” John’s words in Mimi’s ear were like extravagant poison, irresistible opiates. “She got what she wanted from me. She got protection, luxury, hope, a sense of belonging she’d never had. She got plenty. And she got fucked like she’ll never be fucked again, of course. Let’s not forget that.”
“John…” With a superhuman effort of will, Mimi dragged herself off the sofa, away from his toxic temptations. “Let’s stick with the plan. The meeting tomorrow. Let’s keep this on a professional basis.”
John’s lip curled. “You’re no fun.”
“Where’s Luana?”
“Sleeping in her room. She’s exhausted. The stress of thinking she had lost me has told on her. I need to check on her.”
“Right. You do that. I’ll fix us some supper. You must be hung
ry.”
“I don’t really get hungry,” John noted. “But I certainly didn’t eat any of the muck that passed for food in that hospital. So yes. Supper is good. We’ll sketch out a plan of attack for tomorrow’s meeting with Merchant. Then I need to work on the machine. I’m so close, Miranda. So very close. I just need a couple of things…a couple of Merchant’s millions and I’m there.”
“Good. Right. I’ll see what I can find in the kitchen.”
The night was long and the night was hot.
Liam lay on his scratchy brown sofa inside his airless sleeping bag, staring up at the ceiling, listening to indie guitar bands on his headphones. The trouble with these indie guitar bands was that every second song was about a special girl, a frustrated love, a yearning. In the end, he tore them off and tried to read a lad mag instead. “How to Get Yourself Into Her Head (And Get Her Into Your Bed).” Right. He threw it aside. Was there any self-help guide in the world for the man who wanted another man’s pregnant, lovelorn wife? Perhaps he should try and write his own.
Anna, wide awake in Liam’s rumpled sheets, held her hands over her still-flat stomach, trying to think of a future for herself and her child. What would they do? Where would they live? How would they live? John had the money, but who would give them the love? Where did that love go, that huge, sincere, overwhelming love John had poured all over her? How could it just disappear? It made no sense. And then she was going over it again, and over and over until the questions whirled and merged and her head ached.
Mimi, cocooned in silks in the eighth guest room, breathed in scented air and heat. Her back arched up off the sweat-pooled sheets, and she rubbed compulsively at her clit for the third time that night. When would this ache of lust just stop? When would her need for him dissolve? What would it take?
She climaxed again, hips trembling, patches of fabric clinging to her.
“John,” she panted, “Take me, John.”
John, in the basement, flicked a switch, watched a light flash, smiled.
“Whenever you’re ready, Mimi,” he murmured, then he got to work on the circuitry.
Under His Influence Page 17
