Cuts Both Ways

by Solomon Carter

  The promise to do whatever it took to save Lauren from her partner.

  With every passing moment it was beginning to dawn on her exactly what Lauren had been asking of her the whole time. Lauren had set it up so carefully that it was too late by the time Eva realised she’d agreed to something she would never knowingly contemplate.

  Even now, she hardly believed it was possible. There had to be a chance she was wrong. But if she wasn’t wrong, then Lauren was losing it. And if so, Eva had to find another way out with equal care to the subtle way she had been snared. And the sooner the better too.

  But none of that could happen until she was sure. Because one thing Eva would never do, was condemn a friend to death. Even a former friend like Lauren Jaeger. So here they sat, following the clue left by one last heated work email between Jamie Blane and his favourite office helper, Suzie Appleby

  “I don’t get it,” said Lauren. “With all the money Jamie has at his disposal why would he come to a lousy, fleapit like this.”

  Eva sucked her breath through her teeth. “There are plenty of reasons why certain men come to a place like this.”

  Lauren looked at her, the darkness and light of the hotel complex streaking across her face.

  “One,” said Eva, her chest feeling constricted as she spoke, “it’s dirt cheap.”

  “Jamie Blane is many, many things, but he’s never been cheap.”

  “Two,” said Eva. “The reception here really doesn’t give a damn what goes on here. They don’t intervene – no matter what. It’s almost like an unwritten policy. Three, as soon as the deed is done, whatever the deed may be, the miscreants involved can throw their clothes on and drive away. The arterial road is right behind us. Everyone involved can fly home as if nothing has ever happened.”

  “I see, but I would have credited him with a little more class than this,” said Lauren, looking around. “Poor Suzie can’t really be a keeper, not if he’s bringing her to a place like this. I don’t know whether to pity the girl or feel jealous.” But Lauren’s laughter had no mirth in it.

  “Let’s just wait and see, shall we?” said Eva. “Maybe he’s in a hurry. You said he was keeping tabs on his laptop. Maybe he’s worried that you’re onto him. If he is, it could be he’s calling everything off.”

  “What do you mean? If the dagger and rubble bags get returned for a refund, I should act the dutiful housewife and pretend none of this ever happened.

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all,” said Eva. “But if he did get cold feet, it would mean you had time to perfect an exit strategy and protect your interests.”

  “I know what I read in those original emails, Eva. What happened to Jamie’s wife was no accident. Jamie didn’t get cold feet back then, and he won’t get cold feet now. You are my exit strategy, Eva. You. And you’re the only one I’ve got.”

  No pressure there then, thought Eva. None at all.

  There was a silence between them. A silence which stretched as the cold seeped into the car and bit at Eva’s ankles. They looked across at apartment 17, the door number given in Blane’s last hot-under-the-collar email exchange with Suzie Appleby. When they had arrived, fifteen minutes before the liaison was due to start, Blane’s Merc was already parked in the bay outside. Five minutes before the liaison, a small green Ford Ka had pulled into the empty space beside it. The girl inside had inspected her face and touched up her make-up in the mirror. Then she had gone inside, completely oblivious to being watched.

  The light in apartment seventeen burned brightly and as soon as the door was closed, the shadows within joined together to perform the opening rites of the same old dance Eva had been snapping from behind her windscreen for almost twenty years. Finally the hungry couple remembered to close the curtains.

  They watched the window of room seventeen and waited.

  “To be honest,” said Eva, her mind elsewhere as she spoke the words. “I don’t know why he chose this place either. It is pretty grim.”

  “He’ll have a reason, Eva. He always does. And that’s why we need to be here.”

  “Lauren, the reason we’re here is because he wants to screw his secretary. What if that’s it, end of story?”

  Lauren turned to look at Eva. “You still don’t believe me, do you? Even after everything I showed you – all the hoops you’ve made me jump through to get your help, you still doubt me?”

  “Lauren…” said Eva, slowly. “I just don’t like where this is headed.”

  “Neither do I. I’d prefer to stay alive, if I can.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” said Eva, trying to stay calm.

  “Then what did you mean?”

  “You said… you said you wanted us to take pre-emptive action against Jamie. It’s still not exactly clear what you mean by that.”

  “Isn’t it?” said Lauren. Her eyes glinted in the darkness.

  Eva saw the spark of light and wondered what she was thinking.

  “No,” she said. “I’d like you to spell it out, please. For the record.”

  “He’s got a knife, you know that. He’s threatened to hurt my family if I leave him. He’s gearing up to cut me to pieces, Eva. What do you think I mean by pre-emptive?”

  Lauren leaned closer to Eva so the light picked out the details of her face. Up close the beauty of her youth was almost gone She saw the pores, the rough dry skin beneath the make-up, the wrinkles surfacing around her eyes, right down to the pinpricks of her pupils.

  “This is killing me, Eva. He needs to be shown that it’s not going to happen.”

  “Shown? And by shown, presumably he has to be hurt? Beaten up? Hospitalised, maybe? When you looked up our website, I’m hoping you noticed that’s not a service we’ve ever actually offered.”

  “I know it’s not something you offer…”

  “Not at all, Lauren. Not at all!”

  “Come on, Eva. But it is something that you’ve done. I’ve read up on you. Not the website, but where it matters, in the news. There were press articles about how you survived all kinds of things. You made it to the London newspapers, the nationals even once or twice. It was a while back, I know, but you still did it. One of the local papers even ran a story implying that you and Dan were involved in some gangland characters disappearing because of what they’d done.”

  Lauren’s eyes lingered on hers until Eva could only look away.

  She turned cold. The article she had mentioned must have belonged to the late great Gemma Cassidy, the scarf-adorned journalist who had first tried to seduce Dan before the little witch Perry tried to follow her lead. Gemma Cassidy had run an article along those lines once, and since her demise, her successor Alice Perry had threatened to do the very same. Eva would have loved to deny what Lauren was saying. But she couldn’t. Their lives hadn’t been smooth, not in the least. Dan had once been forced to take a man’s life. They had faced more than their share of tragic dilemmas. And once or twice, the cards had come up so bad they really had no choice in the matter. Kill or be killed didn’t even begin to cut it. Eva’s voice gradually returned from under the weight of the accusation.

  “Of everything we’ve done, or not done… we’ve never ever hurt anyone by choice,” said Eva, “and sometimes I still wonder if what we did was the right thing.”

  “I know you, Eva. You did it to save lives.”

  “You knew me once a long time ago. A lot has happened since then – to me, and to you.”

  Lauren didn’t seem to catch on to Eva’s hint. They were different now, more different than she could have ever foreseen. “But you still did it, didn’t you? When the chips were down, you still did exactly what had to be done.”

  “And because of what we’ve done, we live in a world of regret and recrimination. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

  “But at least you live, Eva. At least you live.”

  Eva swallowed and looked close and deep into Lauren Jaeger’s eyes. There was no place to hide. Lauren had changed beyon
d all recognition, and Eva didn’t know how much of it was down to Jamie Blane.

  It was almost twenty past eight and the door to apartment seventeen opened, spilling light out into the evening. They turned their attention to the scene caught in a rectangle of light. Two silhouettes; the male, bare-chested, clasping the smaller woman to his side. The girl looked slight and young. They kissed passionately and spoke quietly to one another before their embrace ended. Jamie Blane stood in the doorway and offered a childish wave as the younger woman walked away to her little car. She blew him a kiss as she got in. Miss Appleby had the figure of a model. She looked much as they had been once. Young, innocent, and full of thirst for life and all its many flavours. Back then Eva had made plenty of mistakes too. Reminded of her own sins, Eva found it harder still to judge the young woman.

  “For what it’s worth that proves the affair,” said Eva. “Now I suppose he’ll drive home to you.”

  “And then?”

  “Then you wait.”

  “But he could try something tonight,” said Lauren. “What then?”

  “I made you a promise, Lauren. If you’re worried about it, I’ll be there downstairs, ready to help, if that’s what it takes.”

  Lauren shook her head in the darkness. Jamie Blane withdrew into the room and shut the door. Inside Eva’s car, the atmosphere became hard and cold. Five minutes later it was worse still, and Jamie Blane was still safe and warm in room seventeen.

  But just before eight thirty pm, the man emerged. His hair was slick and wet from the shower. His suit jacket slung over his shoulder.

  “Here we go,” said Eva. “He’s ready to go home.” Eventually, the night would become calm and Eva hoped she would get to go home too. She shifted in the car seat and got ready to start the engine. But Jamie Blane didn’t get to his car. Instead, he closed the apartment door and walked out into the darkness and right past the Mercedes. They watched the man as he strode a long diagonal across the concrete parking strip towards the reception building.

  “He’s heading for the log cabin thing,” said Lauren.

  “The reception,” said Eva. “Maybe he wants to settle up. I told you it’s a pay-by-the-hour sort of place.”

  They watched him continue towards the log cabin building, but when he stepped up onto the kerb, he should have turned left towards the reception. But Blane didn’t turn left. Instead he turned right and walked through an immediate set of double doors. A moment later he appeared as he passed along the windows inside the hotel’s restaurant diner.

  “He’s not settling up…” said Eva.

  “Then what is he doing?” said Lauren.

  They watched as he sat down at a table near the back of the diner –a table already occupied by a man wearing a suit and inspecting the menu. The two men looked at one another and immediately began talking.

  “He had another appointment,” said Eva, in quiet shock.

  “What for?” said Lauren, but her voice was already quaking.

  “I don’t know. But we need to find out.” Eva reached for the door handle.

  “Where are you going?” said Lauren.

  “You should stay here. You can’t be seen anywhere near those two. But I can get closer. They don’t know me from Adam. I’ll go inside, see what I can hear.”

  “What about me?”

  “Stay here, watch, but make sure you damn well keep out of sight. If you want me to try and protect you, then you’d better play your part.”

  Eva closed the car door, eager to be away from the tension, eager to find out the truth behind Jamie Blane. No matter what those emails purported to say, she still wanted the evidence of her own eyes and ears without Lauren’s dubious interference. Now she had her chance. Eva walked through the darkness, avoiding the pools of light cast by the streetlamps so the men in the restaurant wouldn’t see her coming. From both sides of the car park Eva felt people peering from behind the curtains of the long low block. It was partly imaginary, she knew that. But not all of it. Hookers and their clients would have seen her. The hoodlums and the dealers and the louses, and everything in between. She sensed them all. Her heartbeat picked up as she got near the restaurant doors. She stole a last glance through the windows, seeing the men chatting at the far end of the restaurant. Eva calmly strode inside, walking in to the smell of greasy food. She hadn’t eaten. Hadn’t even thought of it. But now the smell of cooking grease curdled her stomach. She saw a kind of self-service bar on the left, bereft of customers and staff; at another station, a single staff member in spectacles who stood by a ladle and a stainless steel bain-marie. He looked up at Eva as she walked past and nodded. Eva nodded back. “Just here for the wi-fi,” she said. “Is that okay?” She kept her voice low

  The young guy nodded. “Fine. If it’s working, that is.”

  “I won’t be long.”

  “Not eating then?”

  Eva shook her head, and the guy shrugged. “Fine. Sit wherever you like.” It was the kind of attitude she’d been hoping for. A place where the staff didn’t care because no one cared. Presumably they knew about the Perryman’s reputation. Eva looked at the tables. A waitress was tinkering with some tablemats at one end of the room, looking bored as hell. At the far end were the two men, one with his back to Eva. The other was Jamie Blane. She recognised his face from his social media profiles, from his work images too. He looked tired, more haggard than in the photos. But there were the same big eyes and round face. The same cavalier-style beard. Blane glanced up from his conversation and caught Eva’s eye. She looked away and began to walk slowly along the banks of tables. She picked one on the opposite side of the room, a few rows back from the men. Hopefully far enough away to reassure them that she didn’t intend to listen, though it was frustrating to have been seen so early. Eva hoped her presence wouldn’t deter the men from speaking openly, but they were bound to be more careful now. From now on Eva would have to rely on her good hearing and a little luck. She sat down with her back to the men and felt their silence, them watching her back. The waitress walked over and offered a half-hearted smile.

  “Are you eating tonight?” said the girl.

  “No. I’m just checking my emails, and then I’ll be gone,” she said, making her voice loud enough for the two men to hear.

  The girl nodded. She seemed disappointed that the only other female around would be off so soon. She ambled away and Eva picked up her phone and fixed her eyes on the screen. She tuned into the men’s conversation as it picked up again, but now in whispers. Her eyes scanned her texts with Dan. She missed his calm and his counsel. He saw the world differently to her. He always had a different perspective. But then she knew the other case was all consuming too, so she couldn’t bother him.

  “…awful behaviour…”

  The words rose on the air louder than the whispers that surrounded them.

  “…don’t deserve this…”

  It was Blane, either vocalising his suffering, or condemning Lauren’s flaws. If not for the knife, the cleaning order and the emails, it would have been easy to assume the conversation was a plain old man-to-man griping session. Two friends chewing the cud over one friend’s love life. Blane was screwing around, and that made him nothing more than typical of half the men she had observed in her entire career. And how many of those were killers? Less than a tenth of one per cent, maybe. And probably less than that…

  “…she makes Lauren seem like a breath of fresh air. A total relief.”

  “They always are,” said the other man. “Until they’re not.”

  A deep voice, cutting, cynical and dismissive. Maybe not so friendly after all. Maybe it was a business-type conversation – one where Blane was being overly chatty. She needed to hear more. She needed to hear all of it. Eva strained her ears and narrowed her eyes to block out the phone screen. Everything faded but the sound of the words, some audible, some not.

  “I have to get out of it. I’m telling you, it’s unbearable.”

  “In thought you�
��d made the decision already. You don’t need to re-hash it now. You just need to—”

  “I know. I know. I need to push the button.”

  “You said it. Because if you don’t, you’ll be saying the very same things in a week’s time. Then in a year. Still meeting the girl you really like in dirty hotel rooms. Is that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “Of course you don’t”

  “Which means?”

  “You know what it means. It means stop talking. I’m not going to be your agony aunt, or your fricking life coach.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. That’s not who you are. Just make the decision and stick to it.”

  “It’s made. The decision is done.”

  “Is it?”

  “Yes, it is. So the question now is when does it happen?”

  They fell silent as Blane considered his answer. Blane’s voice was a whisper. The other man’s voice was louder. He was confident, less guarded, like he didn’t give a toss whether he was overheard or not. Eva’s heart thudded. She listened with bated breath, hoping, waiting, willing the words to come. The instruction. She wanted to hear it as much as she dreaded it. Because as soon as he said the fateful words Eva knew she would have no choice but to act. And under so much pressure, Eva hoped she would have the time and space to make the right decision.

  Laughter intruded into her hearing, blocking the men’s voices. Female laughter. It soon got louder, smothering the world in noise. The diner’s double doors opened, slammed and the laughter came in with them. Eva’s eyes snapped up from her phone screen. Blane and his companion looked up from the back and their words stopped altogether. Three raucous fools breezed in and looked around. Two of them were women, with long hair, youngish faces and eyes bright with booze or some other stimulant. The women were in their twenties. The guy walking in between them was in his forties, or maybe fifties. His hair was thin and he had a shark-like aspect to his face, and a gold tooth glinted among his molars as he chuckled. The girls laughed along with him, but Eva sensed all of it was fake. Obligatory but fake. The women were well dressed for hookers. Fashion clothing, probably from the high street, even if it was all a little on the short side, all just a little too tarty. Eva didn’t like to judge, but she was a realist. She knew the street and knew the signs. This guy was a jerk, not a pimp. Eyes bigger than his belly, and probably paying through the nose for it, which was his business. The girls didn’t look like junkies. They looked like the type who charged good money, which meant the job was almost a career choice. Or a well-paying hobby. Which meant Eva didn’t have much sympathy for any one of them. And most of all, she resented their presence. The trio dumped themselves down at a table near the front door, but their chatter filled the whole diner. Eva looked across at them and one of the women glared back at her. She muttered something and the other two immediately laughed at Eva’s expense.