I press the button next to the name plaque that reads ‘S. Bianchi’. I just hope she still lives there. There’s a response almost immediately. A soft, cultured, female voice with no discernible foreign accent. Maybe she’s not Italian after all. It may not even be her real name.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that Mrs Bianchi?’
‘Yes it is. How may I help you?’
‘My name’s Daniel Beckett. I’m a private investigator. I’d like to talk to you about Viola Raleigh, if it’s convenient. I’m working for her father. I’m afraid I couldn’t get you on the telephone.’
There’s silence for a few seconds and I wonder if she’s heard me or if this intercom is working properly.
‘Come on up.’
There’s a loud buzzing and a click. I push the door open and go inside. Everything smells new. The staircase is right in front of me. There’s no lift. When I get to the third floor, there’s only one door, but it doesn’t have a buzzer. It has to be the one. I knock gently and in a few seconds it opens.
I mentioned before that beautiful women easily distracted me and the woman who opens the door to me brings a new intensity to the word ‘distraction.’ I can feel my heart rate increasing as each second goes by.
I would guess that she’s in her late thirties, possibly a little older; it’s difficult to tell. She has a large white towel wrapped around her body and the flesh on her arms and shoulders is damp and pink. Her hair is jet black, long and soaking wet. I immediately feel bad that I’ve got her out of the bath or the shower, which is plainly the case. I swallow so that I can speak.
‘I’m sorry, I…’
‘What can I do for you, Mr Beckett?’
She’s certainly one of the most extraordinarily beautiful women I’ve ever seen. She’s wearing no makeup. She doesn’t need to. The slightly olive skin, heart-shaped face, high cheekbones and full sensual lips make me think that she’s got Italian blood in there somewhere, but her eyes are something else; startlingly and beautifully Japanese, at a guess, but with an exotic and arresting contrast between the epicanthic folds and the iris colour, which is a striking cornflower blue. Her glance is at once seductive and challenging. Please, please don’t let her be wearing coloured lenses.
She runs a hand through her wet hair, revealing a damp, unshaved armpit, and looks me up and down. She’s maybe five foot nine or ten in her bare feet, so the oriental genes didn’t show up in her height, and her figure, from what I can discern, is compact, athletic and curvy. God Almighty. I’ve forgotten why I’m standing here.
‘Er, as I said, I’m working for…’
‘Nathan Raleigh. Of course. Come in. I’ve been expecting you.’
Been expecting me? What can she mean by that? Did Novak give her a call? She used Raleigh’s first name, which I hadn’t mentioned. This must be the right person; she would only know that through Viola.
‘Thank you.’ I manage a non-astonished, rather cool and polite smile as I walk into her flat. I can sense the warmth and dampness of her skin and pick up a faint smell of jasmine and rose.
‘I have a message for your Mr Raleigh,’ she says softly, closing the door behind us.
Before I can turn around to speak to her, my whole world explodes.
There’s a searing, astonishing pain which starts in my lower back and spreads up the whole right side of my body. It takes me one second to realise that I’ve been expertly and savagely punched in the kidney. My eyes are squeezed tightly shut and I concentrate on not falling to my knees in agony. Instantly, in a reflex action I can’t control, I twist my right hand behind my back to do what? Stop it happening again? Rub it better? This is a terrible mistake.
Mrs Bianchi grabs my wrist and pushes my arm up behind my back in a powerful hammerlock. I’m still reeling from the kidney punch as she grabs a handful of my hair, jerks my head back and then uses it to test the structural integrity of a very solid wall. I turn my head at the last second to avoid having my nose broken, but it doesn’t make much difference to the overall percussive effect. I’m now in considerable pain and probably slightly concussed.
The idea pops into my head that she’s trying to kill me. The how or why of it I can sort out later. For now, I’ve got to do something to neutralise this attack before it gets any worse. She’s still got my arm hoicked up hard behind my back. I have to get out of this lock before she dislocates my shoulder or slams me into the wall again. I spread the fingers of my right hand and push my arm right across my back, narrowing the gap between my bicep and ribs. This enables me to twist my arm out of the lock, and as she’s still holding on, do a fast three-sixty turn and throw her half way across the room.
I attempt to go down with her at the same speed and immobilise her in some way, but I’m slightly too slow and she’s up on her feet again. We’re standing about three feet away from each other and she’s taken a defensive stance, her centre of balance low. OK. I know where I stand now. This is karate. Judging from the power of that kidney blow, I really mustn’t let her land another one on me.
Her eyes are blank and unemotional and I can see she’s taking my whole body in while staring straight ahead. This is something that’s being done without any passion. It’s clinical and professional, which makes it very dangerous.
She moves in towards me and tries a straight punch aimed beneath my nose and designed to knock my front teeth out. I block this and try to grab her wrist, but she’s too fast and uses a middle finger knuckle strike against my temple. She didn’t get it quite right, so I’m still here, if a little dazed, and take two steps back to get out of her range for a second.
‘Why are you doing this? What the fuck’s wrong with you?’
‘She told me. She told me that one day he’d send his people here.’
‘What are you talking about?’
My back is killing me. She sidles slowly towards me. I can tell she’s going to attempt a kick next. I keep my eyes on her whole body. Her gaze quickly flicks across my chest and then my groin area.
She’s so fast I barely see the kick coming, even though I was expecting it. Just before it makes contact with my lower chest, I bat it away and try to grab her ankle, but fail. She fires off three more speedy punches aimed at my face and neck and as I block them I can see a faint look of concern flash across her face.
The towel she has wrapped around her body has become loose and I realise what she’s going to do before she does it. She grabs the towel and rips it off her body, twirling it like a lasso. There’s a half second delay while my dumb, male brain takes in the lithe, sweating body, the wide hips, the thin strip of pubic hair and the exquisite, ripe breasts. That half-second delay is all it takes and she knows it.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had a heavy, damp towel thrown with considerable force wrap itself around your head, but it’s an extremely unpleasant sensation. The painful impact, the slap of the material in your face and eyes, the brief fear of suffocation; it’s shocking, painful and disorientating. To have this followed up by two skilled karate kicks to the stomach doesn’t improve things at all.
I’m down now, and for the first time I think I’m going to come second in this bout. As I scrabble to get the towel off my face and stand up again I feel a strong grip on my throat and start to feel my consciousness going. My assailant tears the towel off my head and for a second I think she’s going to use it to break my neck.
My eyes are stinging and watering and I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus. I look up through my tears to see Mrs Bianchi sitting astride me, her eyes full of hate and her grip on my throat unrelenting. This is the first time I’ve had the crap kicked out of me by a naked woman, so at least that’s something.
‘She said it would happen. She said your boss goes crazy at the thought of anyone else touching his daughter. She said I’d get a visit sooner or later. Well you tell your boss that this is what happens, you piece of shit. The next time, I won’t be so gentle. You’re lucky you’re still alive.’
‘Listen,’ I croak. ‘I’m not one of…’
She tightens her grip on my throat and forms her left hand into a fist which she draws back, the knuckle of the middle finger prominent and ready to strike. I don’t want another one of those in my face so I shut up.
‘What did he tell you to do when you got here? Tell me!’
Objectively, this is very good indeed. Very effective and professional and causing a level of pain that makes we want to give up and go to sleep until it’s all over. I’m actually feeling fear, and if I was a genuine Raleigh thug like Purple Tie, for example, I’d have spilt any beans I had to spill by now and be begging for mercy. It’s awful, but despite everything, I can’t stop myself from looking at her breasts. Well, at least she’s giving me a chance to speak. She loosens her grip on my throat slightly.
‘I’m a private investigator. I’m been working for Raleigh for less than forty-eight hours. He employed me to find his daughter. She’s been missing for two years. Someone reported her missing again three weeks ago, so he knows she’s still alive. I think that person was you. I just want to ask you some questions. I’m not one of Raleigh’s heavies.’
‘How did you know about me?’
‘I went to see Emile Novak. He gave me your address.’
‘Who told you about Novak?’
‘I’d rather not say for that person’s safety. It wasn’t anyone connected with Raleigh.’
OK. I’m recovered enough to do something about this. While she’s pondering my last answer, I simultaneously grab the hand she’s choking me with and push the elbow up and across, throwing her face down onto the floor so hard that she almost bounces back up again. I move with her and lock her arm diagonally across her shoulder, while kneeling down by her side. She lets out a small ‘ah’ as she hits the carpet. She struggles for a second, then realises that she’s close to having her shoulder dislocated and quietens down. The muscles of her back ripple as she wriggles and tries to adjust to a less uncomfortable position. Something in my brain is trying to tell me that this is really sexy. I try to block it out.
‘Now listen. You’re obviously a senior martial artist. You must realise that everything I’ve done since your initial attack was defensive. You must also realise that I could dislocate your shoulder right now if I wanted to. I didn’t come here to hurt you in any way. Viola obviously gave you some sort of warning about her father and the goons who work for him. I am not one of those goons. I’m met them, though, and I know the sort of people you may have been expecting and who Viola may have warned you about. Does any of that make sense to you?’
She tries, unsuccessfully, to get up. I’m sitting side-on to her now on my knees, keeping the shoulder lock on with my right arm. I place a hand on the small of her back, to indicate that she should stay where she is.
‘But you are still working for him,’ she says, her voice muffled by the carpet.
‘Yes. That’s true. But I’ve been trying to find the person who reported Viola as missing. The police knew, but wouldn’t share the information. I thought that if I could find that person, then I could find out the name that Viola was working under the night she disappeared. Then I could go to the hotel and try and find out what happened. If that person was you, I just want to ask you some questions. You don’t even have to answer them if you don’t want to. There’ll be nothing I can do if that’s the case. I’m going to let you go now, OK? Please don’t attack me again. I’m probably going to be peeing blood for a week as it is after that kidney punch.’
My eyes are still stinging and watering from having that bloody towel thrown in my face. A very effective ploy, which I must remember the next time I’m in a fight wearing only a wet towel. I slowly reduce the pressure on her shoulder, waiting for any sudden movements. Despite the damage she’s inflicted on me, I really don’t like inflicting pain on her. I release her shoulder completely and stand up, walking backwards about five paces in case she decides to have another go. For the first time since coming inside, I take a look at her flat.
I hadn’t noticed while she was beating the shit out of me, but everything is predominantly green, black and white. It looks stylish and costly and was almost certainly put together by an interior designer. Walls, ceiling and carpets are white, but two of the walls are covered in green and black bamboo photo prints which look as if the same artist did them. There’s a huge grey suede sofa with big matching cushions and two black leather and chrome Bauhaus-style chairs around a big, black wooden coffee table. The table is covered in fashion magazines and books.
On the far side of this room there are two doors; one is leading to a flash-looking kitchen and the other looks like a spare room of some sort. When I came in through the front door, there was a corridor to my left, which presumably must lead to the bedrooms and bathroom. The whole place is enormous and must have cost a fortune.
I watch her as she gets up and pats her hair back into place. There’s no sign that she’s been in any sort of altercation and she acts as if nothing unusual has happened. She’s without any self-consciousness regarding her nudity and walks slowly and with poise across the room, staring at me with mild curiosity.
‘Would you like a coffee?’
‘Thank you, yes. Black with a dash of milk. No sugar.’
‘Come in the kitchen.’
I follow her out of this room and into the kitchen, which is somewhere down the corridor I noticed earlier. She walks like a catwalk model and I have to drag my eyes away from the small muscle movements in her buttocks and the small of her back. I’m still on my guard; I’m not going to let myself get distracted by her body again. Apart from that, I feel slightly dizzy and don’t know that I’d be up to another full-on attack.
The enormous kitchen is all chrome with a black, rubber floor. It looks like something out of a superior kitchens catalogue. There’s a monochrome photographic print of a dead tree on one of the walls. There are three bar stools. I take my jacket off, sit down on one of them and watch her click on the kettle and prepare the coffee things. As she waits for the kettle to boil, she turns to face me. I really don’t know where to look.
‘Why does Nathan Raleigh want to find Viola?’
‘He said not knowing where she was or what had happened to her was killing him. He wants her to come home. If she’s still got a drug problem, then he’ll send her to rehab.’
‘You said he reported her missing two years ago.’
‘Something like that. The police contacted him when she was reported missing a second time. They have to. That was about three weeks ago. Was that you?’
I’m pretty sure that it was. I just want to hear it from her. I wish she’d get dressed. I’m starting to feel the effects of her nakedness.
She pours out two coffees into white tulip-shaped cups with ‘Deli-Med’ written on the sides in the colours of the Italian flag. She places one in front of me and sits on the other side of the kitchen bar. I can feel that she’s thinking about whether it would be prudent to answer my last question. I still can’t take my eyes off her breasts.
‘I take it that Raleigh laid on the concerned father schtick with a trowel.’
‘I guess so. He had tears in his eyes. I was moderately convinced.’ I look out of the window at the Fifties-style flats across the road. I take a sip of coffee and immediately feel nauseous.
‘And what is going to happen if and when you find Viola? Did he tell you that?’
&n
bsp; ‘No. He just said that it would be the end of the job when I found her.’
‘Are you ex-police?’
‘No. Does that make a difference to anything?’ I take a long look at that beautiful face. I’m curious about the racial mix behind it, but I don’t think this would be a good time to ask.
‘Not necessarily. I don’t know how much I should tell you,’ she says. ‘I’m only concerned with Viola and I don’t want to do anything that would put her in harm’s way.’
‘The police can’t act on this at all. You do realise that, do you? If a person like Viola turns up out of the blue, the police will naturally tell the person who reported her missing in the first place, but as she’s over eighteen, they can’t make her go home or anything. As far as the police are concerned, if she’s decided to be a missing person a second time, then that’s her business. They’re not taking it too seriously. That’s why Raleigh hired me.’
‘I am afraid that if I help you in your investigation, then I will be complicit in delivering Viola to her father, which is the last thing I want to do.’
‘Why? What’s the…’ I can feel my nausea turning into a strong desire to vomit. Mrs Bianchi gives me a curious look.
‘Are you alright?’
‘Do you have a bathroom where I can throw up?’
She stands and rushes around to my side of the bar, takes my shoulders in her hands and quickly guides me down the corridor to her bathroom. I turn both taps on and throw up in her sink. ‘I’m sorry. I…’
I throw up again. I feel like shit. Mrs Bianchi has her hand on my back. I look up and see the reflection of her nakedness in the sink mirror. She smiles at both my prurience and helplessness.
‘This is my fault,’ she says. ‘Take your clothes off. I’ll run you a bath.’
12
CHERRY BLOSSOM
I’m lying in a warm bubble bath in a strange woman’s flat. The aches and pains all over my body were on fire when I got in, but now they’re calming down a bit and I think I’ve puked all I can. My back still hurts, though. I take a look at the bottle on the side of the bath. It’s Thymes Goldleaf bubble bath with bee pollen, honey and aloe vera. I feel like I’m being spoiled.
Kiss Me When I'm Dead Page 16
