Lying on his back meant he hadn’t been able to monitor what she was doing to his skin. Mia took a deep breath, feeling nervous. ‘Do you want to get up and take a look?’
He got to his feet and walked to the mirror.
‘Do you like it?’ She was concerned by his silence.
‘Yes.’ He reached out and touched his fingers to the mirror’s face. ‘Yes,’ he repeated. He turned around. ‘It’s more than I hoped for.’
She was relieved. ‘I’m going to put a dressing on it and I don’t want you to take it off until tomorrow, OK?’
He nodded. As he walked away from the mirror, he stumbled slightly.
‘Are you all right?’
‘It’s my weak knee. An old injury. It doesn’t give me too much trouble but it sometimes acts up.’ He smiled. ‘Keep it to yourself, OK? Don’t tell Nick or he’ll take advantage of me next time we spar.’
She nodded solemnly. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’
After he had pulled on his T-shirt, she opened the door for him. As he stepped out, the muted chimes of a church bell floated towards them on the night air. Witching hour.
He touched her cheek with his fingers, a gossamer touch. ‘I love what you’ve done so far. Thank you.’
‘I’m glad you’re pleased.’ She was very aware of his hand on her face.
‘Same time next week?’
‘Same time next week.’
CHAPTER THIRTY
Flash had hooked up his iPod to his external speakers and was playing Skunk Anansie’s ‘Weak’ at top volume. Nick could hear the music even as he entered the building. For some bizarre reason Flash had become infatuated by Nineties protest rock and Skin was his new icon. At about the same time, Flash had also become interested in Barbie dolls, bidding inordinate amounts of money on eBay and other sites to feed this new obsession. An army of plastic, blue-eyed blondes had taken up residence in the office: reclining gracefully on Flash’s desk and peeping out roguishly from behind stacks of books and computer disks. They spooked the hell out of Nick.
‘Weak as I a-a-am, no tears for you…’
Shit. The neighbours were going to kill them. As he stepped into the office Nick motioned urgently to Flash to turn down the volume.
‘What on earth are you thinking? Do you want us evicted?’
Flash shrugged. He looked out of sorts. Flash rarely showed any strong emotion and Nick looked at him sharply.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing. But Mr I’m-so-cool-can-you-stand-it dropped in while you were out.’
Flash was referring to Ash. Flash was the one person who had proven immune to Ash’s charm. ‘He’s creepy,’ he had told Nick after meeting Ash for the first time.
‘Creepy how?’
‘I don’t know, but I feel it here.’ Flash had slammed a bony fist somewhere in the region of his heart.
Coming from someone who counted among his friends people with names such as Lillith, Mistress of Darkness, and who hung out in chat rooms with other grown men who spent their savings on politically incorrect dolls, this was a bit much, Nick thought. He watched as Flash disconnected the speakers, his movements jerky.
‘So what did Ash want?’
‘Said he was in the neighbourhood and wanted to see if you could have lunch with him. I don’t trust that guy, man, I tell you.’
Nick shook his head in warning. ‘He’s a friend, OK?’
In truth, Ash was fast becoming his best friend. Nick was slightly bemused by exactly how quickly the relationship had grown. Ash had become the kind of friend with whom you shared secrets. Nick had never talked to anyone about Mia—not even Okie knew his true feelings—but one night, after a particularly demanding spar, something had opened up inside Nick.
‘I plan on taking things with Mia to the next level.’
Ash’s face was calm. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t done so already.’
‘It’s fear, I suppose. My whole life I’ve been lucky.’ Nick smiled. ‘My mum will tell you the planets have always aligned right for me. But with Mia… I’ve always had the feeling that this might be where the planets will fall from the sky.’
‘When will you talk to her?’
‘Soon.’
‘Before the fight?’
‘No. Don’t worry.’ Nick shook his head. ‘I’ll wait until after.’
‘That’s good. You shouldn’t lose your focus now.’
‘Yes, you’re right. But after the fight: watch me. I’m going to take my mum’s advice and sweep her off her feet.’
Flash was gesturing sullenly at a large manila envelope. ‘That came for you.’
Nick sat down in his swivel chair and opened the envelope. Inside was an old back issue of Fighter’s Own. Nick had sent away for it because it contained a feature article on Ben Dobb, one of the fighters who had died as mysteriously as Valentine.
Despite his growing frustration, Nick had not given up on his dead fighters. He was thinking of them as ‘his’ fighters now—they had become part of his life. Even when he was doing something else, they were ghosting through his subconscious: these men with their honed bodies, their bright eyes—full of piss and vinegar—exhorting him to pay attention, to find out what had happened.
Once or twice Nick had been tempted to take Mia and Ash into his confidence, but each time he decided against it. He especially did not want to upset Mia—it would be better to wait until he had more evidence.
Evidence, however, was proving hard to find. He had spoken to a host of people: trainers, girlfriends, wives, friends, even employers. Everyone he had talked to had said the same thing: these men had no enemies and they were healthy and at peak fitness. ‘Jumping out of his skin’ was how Ben Dobb’s trainer had described the physical condition of his fighter. ‘He had never been this primed in his life,’ said the trainer of Travis Dean, one of the kickboxers. And still, their hearts had stopped working.
Nick had also spoken to Dean’s and Dobb’s GPs. One had snubbed him, but the other had been more forthcoming. ‘During the post-mortem they tested for everything, Mr Duffy. Allergies. Poisons. Drugs. They did very thorough bloodwork. They had to, because the man had a big insurance policy and the insurers wanted to make quite sure everything was above board.’
Insurance policy. Maybe filthy lucre was involved. Nick even toyed with the idea that all the wives and girlfriends had formed an evil conspiracy in order to collect fat pickings. A red herring, of course, and more suited to a plot twist in one of Rick Cobra’s adventures. Dean had turned out to be the only fighter with an insurance policy on his life. ‘We always meant to do it,’ Lisa Engel, the girlfriend of Steve Grindle, the boxer, told him. ‘Especially with Steve standing a good chance of getting hurt inside the ring, but we simply couldn’t spare the money.’
The article in Fighter’s Own was bland and did not provide any new information. Discouraged, Nick tossed the magazine into the waste-paper basket.
But there had to be something. Some small overlooked detail that was key. If he kept looking, he would find it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
It was many years since he had walked the hospital corridors as a doctor but the smells were instantly familiar, as was the green dusk in the darkened rooms where damaged bodies reposed on their high metal beds.
It was very late. Visiting hour was long over and in this long, empty passage the light was dim. He had used the stairwell in order to bypass the nurses’ station and so far he had gone undetected.
He touched his hip and felt the dressing underneath the shirt. He had just finished another session at the studio and his skin was still tender from the needles.
These hours that he and Mia spent alone, wrapped up in their own space—the outside world kept at bay—were the most intimate he had ever spent with another person. He was even deliberately willing himself to dream about their time together: an obsessive attempt to relive those moments again and again. Behind his closed eyes would flit images of her face: the s
oft mouth, the angled cheekbones, the skin blotted of colour—dramatised—by the bright light from the lamp at her shoulder. Her fingers touching his body with such skill, even as the needles sparked his jangling nerves. Pleasure, pain. Her eyes were ringed with lashes as dark as pitch. As her gaze met his, he thought of summer nights and light enclosed in darkness and mirrored water.
Confusion.
The corridor stretched out in front of him, the linoleum floor gleaming with that peculiar hospital sheen. What was he doing here? He would have found it hard to express in words his reasons for this furtive, late-night visit. All he knew was that he was becoming confused and that he needed to remind himself what his journey was all about.
What was the greatest desire? To live forever? Or to love forever?
He lingered at an open door. This room was lit and he could see easily. The patient inside was a woman. The bed was raised and she was half-sitting, half-lying against the hail-white pillows. Her eyes were closed and her thin arms stretched out on both sides of her body. One foot peeped from the bedclothes.
He stepped inside and stopped next to the bed, staring intently at her face. She must have been quite lovely when she was young: her bone structure was elegant. But the skin round her chin hung loosely. The flesh underneath her arms was slack and wrinkled. Her scalp was very pink. He looked at her foot and saw that the toes were delicate. The toenails were yellow and thickened like horn.
He knew nothing about this woman but he did not need to see her charts to know that she was dying. It was as though he could sense the organs labouring; could sense the armies of restless bacteria lying in wait. He imagined he could see through the skin to where rampaging enzymes strained against the walls of fragile cells, getting ready to break through those glistening membranes like an acid deluge—eating, digesting, liquefying, cannibalising the body until it collapsed, spent of light, on to itself.
The woman stirred and her head moved against the pillow. She opened her eyes. As her gaze rested on him, she gave him a smile of such sweetness, his heart ached.
Gratefully, he took her hand in his own. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You have helped me.’ Her fingers twitched tiredly. ‘Go back to sleep,’ he whispered. ‘Go back to dreaming.’
Obediently, she closed her eyes. He gently placed her thin hand on to the bed.
He walked along the empty corridor, his tall figure gliding past open doors and darkened rooms, now heedless of the patients resting inside, decay on their breath. He knew his resolve was steadied. He was back on track.
The greatest desire: to live forever. The ultimate goal. What confusion could there be?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
‘Hi, there, Mia.’ Lanice, Scorpio’s night receptionist, lifted her eyebrows at Mia. ‘What are you doing here? It’s pretty late.’
‘How are you, Lanice? How’s George?’
‘You’ve just missed him.’ Lanice smiled. ‘But you won’t recognise him, Mia. He’s a different boy.’
George was Lanice’s fifteen-year-old nephew and, until a year ago, a hell-raising kid. But when a video appeared on YouTube showing George fighting another boy and almost tearing off his ear, Lanice decided enough was enough. Mia remembered the video well. The images were grainy—the fight had been filmed on a mobile phone by another pupil looking on—but the ferocity and ugliness were in sharp focus. Kicking, biting, clawing at each other’s faces: there was nothing remotely graceful or disciplined about the encounter. Even worse was the baying glee of the students—many of them girls—who were egging the two boys on. The very next day Lanice had marched George down to the dojo and given him into JC’s care for an hour. JC stuck a head guard on the boy, pushed gloves onto his fists and told him to keep his chin down. George had never looked back.
‘Anyone else in the dojo?’ Mia asked as she pushed through the turnstile.
‘One guy, I think. And a few others upstairs in the weight room and in the swimming pool. But I’m getting ready to chase them out and close up.’
‘I won’t be long,’ Mia promised.
The dojo was empty except for a lumbering, overweight man she did not recognise who was desultorily punching one of the heavy bags. After ten minutes of throwing a series of awkward combinations, he left.
It felt strange to be alone in that giant room and made her realise anew how big the place was and how high the ceiling with its exposed rafters. As she moved from one position to the other, her reflection in the mirror seemed ghost-like. Turn, push, sweep, throw. Turn, push, sweep, throw.
She must have done these movements thousands of times before. Form, visualisation, intent: Chilli’s mantra. Get the technique right, visualise how you would use the technique against an opponent and then perform with intent. But as she slipped from one movement into another, she remembered Ash’s words the night he had rescued her from Art’s attack. There is fighting and there is fighting. The one is pure and idealised; the other, anything but.
How would she shape up if she found herself in a real combat situation? If her experience with Art was anything to go by, not very well. But combat was not her mission. Her gift was to protect—not through violence, but through healing. Martial arts was a way of increasing her chi sensitivity and her healing powers, not a way to pound someone into the ground.
Lanice stuck her head round the door. ‘Fifteen minutes, Mia.’
Mia lifted her hand in acknowledgement. She had time for one more set.
After she finished the set she walked from light switch to light switch, plunging the dojo into darkness one section at a time until finally she stood at the door.
She looked back at the empty room stretching eerily ahead of her and for a moment she thought she could sense the shades of long-retired fighters; hear the rasp of their calloused feet on the mats, the faint echo of their fists on leather. They lingered like ghosts who refused to accept their time had passed and there were no more fights to train for.
Turning off the last light, she closed the door softly behind her.
• • •
The ladies’ changing room was locked. Mia turned the knob of the door a few times but it would not budge. Lanice must already have closed up, not realising Mia still had to retrieve her gym bag.
Mia walked back to the entrance but the front desk was empty. The revolving glass doors were silent, the lobby deserted. Against the ceiling, a fluorescent light sputtered and hummed.
She simply had to get inside the ladies’ changing room—her bag was in there. She could have tried picking the lock—it was a skill she had acquired a couple of years ago from a client who had done time for burglary—but she wasn’t exactly in the habit of carrying picks with her. And even though the door was old-fashioned and might submit to a credit card, she didn’t have one on her. It was inside her purse. Behind the locked door.
For a moment she stood, thinking. There was another way in, which led through the men’s changing room and then through the sauna area before opening up in the ladies’ dressing room. Maybe she should take a chance and slip through. The overweight man who had been punching the bags was probably gone by this time. Of course, it would be just her luck if the men’s changing room was locked as well.
The door opened beneath her hand. The long, narrow room with its rows of lockers and stark wooden benches seemed empty. But she could see damp footprints on the cement floor and a pair of sodden swimming trunks lay in a wet puddle. There was the sound of water running. Someone was taking a shower.
She peered cautiously round the corner. Unlike the women’s showers, the stalls in here did not have glass partitions and were completely open.
He was standing with his back to her and he was washing his hair. The shampoo ran in foamy bubbles down his neck and his muscled back. It was Ash.
She stared at his figure: the broad shoulders, the narrow hips. There was a clear tan line between his waist and his buttocks. On one cheek sat a tattoo: the bold black ideograms were large and beautifully executed—they
could have been drawn by a master calligrapher. Chinese characters? Japanese? She did not know, but it hardly mattered. What mattered was that Ash had told her he did not have any tattoos.
There are moments in life when you recognise that something significant is happening but you do not understand what it is. Understanding only comes later, with hindsight. As she stood there, Mia knew this was such a moment.
He suddenly stilled his movements and she realised he had sensed her. He started to turn around, his hand groping for the towel. She gave a big step backwards. Turning on her heel, she rushed through the open door behind her and headed back to the entrance.
Lanice was once more at her desk. ‘Whoa! What’s up? You seen a ghost?’
‘Open up so I can get my bag, Lanice. Where were you?’
‘Oh, sorry. I went upstairs to hurry up the guys using the weight room. Here you go.’ She tossed the keys to Mia.
Mia grabbed her bag but wasted no more time in the locker room—she would shower at home. She didn’t want to take the risk of bumping into Ash.
Why had he lied to her? It wasn’t a big lie—but it was still a lie and lies always damage trust.
The question stayed with her as she returned home and prepared for bed. She slid in between the smooth sheets and stared at the shadowed ceiling.
What did she know about this man?
She thought back to that moment she first saw him standing in the door: a black shape against the light. Darkness and luminosity—a glimmer man. Adrian Ashton was a man of contrasts. A healer who identified with combat. A man of great charm whose eyes hinted at a turbulent inner life. He was an enigma, and trying to fathom who he was was like trying to see a rainbow in the dark. Was this why she found him fascinating? Maybe it was precisely the precarious balancing of forces, which she sensed lurking inside him, that so attracted her. And there was no use pretending any more. She was drawn to him.
Turning on her side, she pressed her warm cheek into the cool pillow. She remembered his powerful shoulders, his graceful legs and the water flowing down his strong back. The black tattooed marks vivid against the pale skin.
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