The next morning, when Nicole held the glass carafe up to the light, the coffee looked slightly less muddy than the day before. As she poured the steaming brew into a mug, she felt an inexplicable surge of happiness. Sunlight streamed into the little dining room, suffusing it with the promise of a new day—a fresh world of possibilities.
Thirty-six hours had passed since the nightmare of that first afternoon, and it seemed a lifetime ago. She’d even gained a fresh perspective on last night’s fight with Brad. Now, after a sound night’s sleep, she could see that he had been trying. He had, after all, planned an intimate evening for them. What was that but an attempt to make amends? Of course, that bit about travelers’ hallucinations had been less than tactful. But she was at fault, too, for letting her sour mood get the better of her.
She understood clearly what had to happen next if she was to save the marriage. She’d have to swallow her pride, get him to admit whatever was going on, and forgive him. She wondered, in a momentary return of last night’s anger, just how much forgiveness would be required. With this thought came a sudden vision of Brenda as she’d appeared two nights before, wearing her expression of feigned innocence. Nicole blinked and shook her head, but she couldn’t seem to dispel the image. Was that night the beginning or had it been going on for months?
These thoughts were interrupted by a low rumble at the back of the house. For a brief, panicky moment, Nicole mistook it for an earthquake. She half rose from her chair and looked around for something to dive under if the shaking began in earnest.
Then she heard a door slam and realized the noise was someone entering the house. Heels clicked along the hall; a moment later Alice was standing in the doorway, beaming at her.
“My God — you’re back!” Nicole said, “I was sure you’d taken another assignment.”
“Oh, I’ve been ‘round and about.” Alice’s smile grew wider as she waved her hand vaguely. “Visiting friends, attending to my chores.” She looked happy, and her cheeks were aglow. “Oh, it’s such a be-you-ti-fool day,” she chirped. “Why don’t we go for a dander ‘round London?”
“I’d love that,” Nicole said, before she had a chance to wonder what a “dander” might be. Then she remembered Keaton’s request and went over to the message board on the kitchen wall to retrieve her card. “A detective investigating the break-in wants you to call her,” she said, handing the card to Alice.
“I’ll attend to that later,” Alice said, dropping the card into her pocket. “It would be a crime to waste such a gorgeous morning. Come on. We’ll take the bus and get in some sightseeing.”
Nicole suggested taking the Lowrys’ Renault instead, if Alice would do the driving. “I need some practice before I tackle traffic on the wrong side of the street.”
Alice said, “You can’t drive in central London these days. They have a congestion charge, and there’s no parking.” Instead, the two of them took the tube into central London. They hopped a series of double-decker buses that took them past Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and the Houses of Parliament, then along the Thames to the Tower of London and back toward Trafalgar Square. At each site, great hordes of tourists waited in long lines, just as Nicole and Brad had done on their first trip to the city, several years before. At the time, Nicole had enjoyed the endless round of historic sites. Yet she’d been struck, even then, by the idea that there was more to this city than palaces, museums, and monuments. That had been another argument in favor of the house swap. It would give them a chance to see what it was like to live here.
The day’s final destination was the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square. Alice guided Nicole into the pleasant coolness of the museum. Upstairs, the dining room was only half full. “It’s only 11:30,” Alice pointed out. “We beat the crowds.”
The hostess seated them at a table next to the window. Below, throngs of people swirled through Trafalgar Square, disrupting the resident pigeons who fluttered out of the way. There were tourists being herded on and off buses and wholesome-looking couples with small children in tow. Hanging around the square’s north edge were a number of tough-looking young men.
The restaurant was spacious, handsome, and sunny. Its focal point was a mirrored bar, surrounded by dozens of small round tables set with crisp pink cloths, sparkling crystal, and vases of summer flowers. In the background, the festive clink of cutlery was accompanied by a Chopin sonata, piped in by the sound system.
She gazed around the restaurant. Unlike the tourists outside, most of their fellow diners were well dressed. Alice had removed her lightweight raincoat, revealing a plaid sun dress in greens that made a nice contrast to her red hair.
Nicole felt a little drab in her skirt and white blouse. But the rose-trimmed hat was a nice touch, and she was glad she’d worn it. Looking around the dining room, she saw several other women wearing hats, although none as colorful as hers.
The hostess was leading two men into the dining room. They were in their early thirties and offered a perfect illustration of what would become of the young toughs in Trafalgar Square if they didn’t pull up their socks. Despite the heat, they were wearing black leather jackets, black T-shirts, and black chinos. They had matching hairstyles, greased-up pompadours, and dark circles under their eyes, as if they were badly hung over. As they passed, Nicole caught a whiff of ripe body odor.
They made a very strange pair. One was tall and almost skeletal, while the other was short and hugely fat. The skinny one had no chin at all while the other had a lavish set of double jowls. As Nicole studied them, they reminded her of the men she’d seen at the house two nights before. It was their body types, the contrast between them. She told herself not to be crazy. It had been too dark for her to get a look at their faces.
The men were seated at the next table. They ordered beer, then sat in silence while the white-coated waiter trotted off to get it.
“You haven’t told me much about yourself, Nicole,” Alice was saying. “What sort of work do you do?”
Nicole hesitated. Since she’d left home, she’d barely thought about work. “I’m the office manager for a big law firm,” she began. “When Brad found out he had to spend the summer in London, I decided to come along. So I took a leave and arranged the house swap with the Lowrys.”
“That was crafty,” Alice said.
“Oh, Brad didn’t think so, and my boss was pretty upset. He said he’d try to hold the job for me, but he couldn’t promise. To tell you the truth, I don’t even know if I want it. I’ve never considered it permanent. I was looking for work, and my friend Norma—who had the job before me—needed back surgery. She asked me to cover for a few days until they found a long-term sub.”
Alice listened intently, giving an occasional nod of encouragement. Despite the differences between them or the fact that they’d grown up on opposite sides of the world, Nicole had the feeling Alice knew exactly what she was talking about.
“They never did find a substitute,” Nicole went on. “Once she was better, Norma decided that wild horses couldn’t drag her back to Bascomb, Rice, Smith & Di Angelo. The atmosphere there is pretty frantic—constant pressure, a crisis a minute, very stressful. But I liked it. I mean, at first I did. I’m good at managing people, and I never knew that before. It was sort of an ego trip, having the paralegals and secretaries do what I told them and asking my advice.”
Outside of work, she and Brad were busy getting married and nesting — buying the condo and fixing it up. Then all of a sudden, they were settled, both working ten, twelve hours a day, sometimes straight through the weekends. On Nicole’s last birthday, she’d woken to a full-blown life crisis that made her job — her whole life— seem pointless and empty. There had to be more than getting up each day to the same routine— jogging, dashing off to work, coming home, eating take-out, going to bed.
Several of her friends had recently become mothers, and Nicole could see how fulfilled they were. For the first time, she began to think seriously about having a baby.
Brad had balked at the idea. “How can we start a family when we need two incomes just to make the payments on this place?” he argued. “Besides, we don’t have room for a kid here. We don’t even have a yard.”
She brought it up more than once, prepared to argue that all these material things didn’t matter to an infant. But Brad was especially adept at dodging the topic. Before Nicole could marshal her thoughts, he’d be starting up his computer, answering his phone, or on his way out the door.
His attitude surprised her. She’d always thought he was crazy about kids and imagined he would be eager to start a family as soon as she said the word. One of the things that had first charmed her about him was his relationship with his niece, Tiffany. Nicole loved watching him crawl around on the floor, making the little girl giggle. But now that Tiffany had grown into a wiry eleven-year-old, it was Nicole who had a relationship with her, not Brad.
On Brad’s birthday, Nicole put a huge effort into a party, inviting his friends, coworkers, and bosses, many of them in a position to help his career. Looking around at the gathering, she realized there wasn’t a single person there she cared about or even much liked. As for Brad, he was in his glory, working the crowd, talking sports, and making quips about the latest political flap.
Nicole stopped talking when she noticed her new friend’s attention had shifted to the next table. The two men were staring at them, openly eavesdropping.
Alice threw Nicole a quick wink, then swung around in her chair. “Getting an earful, are we?” she said.
The fat one raised his hand and stuck two fingers up at her, shaking them for maximum effect. Alice returned the salute. “Scum,” she said, in a tone loud enough to include the nearby tables.
People turned to stare, and Nicole felt her face go red. Unperturbed, Alice gave Nicole another wink. “Sorry about that,” she said. “Please go on.”
Lowering her voice, Nicole continued. She was trembling, and she couldn’t seem to stop talking. Although she wasn’t given to easy confidences, she found herself revealing her innermost thoughts to Alice. She even mentioned her suspicions about Brenda.
“You’ve got to have a word with that man of yours,” Alice said in a low voice. “Ach, they’re all alike.” She made a sour face. “Always ready to make a fool of you, if you let them.”
Nicole shifted uneasily in her seat. She wished she hadn’t been so candid about Brad to someone who didn’t even know him. “What about you?” she asked. “How long have you lived in London?”
Alice confessed she was a relative newcomer herself, from a small town in Northern Ireland. “I lived in Ballycastle all my life. I came to London a little more than a year ago because of my brother Sean. He got himself into a spot of bother here. I was hoping to straighten him out …” Her voice trailed off.
The waitress had arrived with their orders, salad niçoise for Nicole and lasagna for Alice. The two men stared as the women began to eat. When Alice caught the fat one looking at her—his eyes small and mean—she made a face, bugging her eyes out, like a schoolgirl rebuking a rude boy. His stare continued; he didn’t even blink.
Nicole was struck by the thought that these men might not be here, sitting at the next table, by accident. What if they were the same men who’d been prowling the backyard two nights ago? What if they’d followed her and Alice into the museum? She told herself to stop being crazy. It was the break-in. If she looked at anyone long enough, she’d start imagining they had something to do with it: Like the man eating by himself in the corner, who bore a slight resemblance to Reinhardt. If he didn’t have that mustache, she’d probably be telling herself he was Reinhardt.
Meanwhile, Alice had gone strangely silent. Something about the way she’d spoken of her brother, Sean, had piqued Nicole’s curiosity. She had the feeling he was in jail, living on the streets, or worse. But she understood enough about human nature not to push for more information. If she waited and moved the conversation back in that direction, she’d get the whole story.
As the waitress handed them the dessert menu, a cell phone went off in Alice’s purse. She pulled it out and answered it, then listened intently for about thirty seconds. “I’ll be right there,” she said. Then she hung up and dropped the phone back into her purse.
“I’m so sorry, Nicole,” she said. “It’s my own fault—something I forgot to take care of. I—I really must go.” She stood up, as if she were going to bolt, then remembered herself and sat down. Opening her purse, she pulled out a couple of bills, pushing them across the table to Nicole. “This is for my share of the meal,” she said. “Let me tell you how to get back to the house. The easiest way is by tube. There’s a station down the road. I have a map. I’ll mark the route.”
“That’s okay,” Nicole said. “I’ll take a cab.”
Alice shook her head. “I hate to see you throw your money down the drain.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Nicole said. “By the time I leave, I’ll be too tired to deal with the tube. I’ll just grab a taxi.”
“All right,” Alice said, pushing back her chair. “If you’re sure.”
After Alice was gone, Nicole paid the check and left the dining room. On her way down the stairs, she spotted Alice in the lobby, hurrying out through the double glass doors. As Nicole paused at the railing, she noticed the two thugs walk by. They were heading down the stairs in the direction of the exit Alice had used. Nicole thought of the alley they’d walked through on their way here. She pictured the men overpowering Alice, forcing her into a car. She debated running after her new friend to warn her. Then she realized how ridiculous that was. After all, it was broad daylight. This was London. And Alice was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.
When Nicole reached the lobby, she focused her attention on the list of exhibits. “British Impressionists in the Lake District.” That sounded lovely. It was on the upper level.
She boarded an elevator and pushed the button for the upper floor. The door was starting to close when she heard the sound of running, and a man’s voice shouted, “Hold it.” (He dropped his “H,” so it came out, “’Old it!”) She punched the button, and the door sprang open.
There stood the two men from the next table. The fat one stared at her intently as if he had something to say. The door began closing again, and the skinny man stuck his arm in. With a snap, the door retracted and the two stepped inside. As they moved to the back of the car, the door closed and the air was filled with the smell of unwashed bodies.
Nicole drew in a breath and held it, wondering how long it would take to reach her floor. She noticed the men hadn’t pushed a button for their destination. Maybe they were headed for the same floor and the British Impressionists, but she didn’t think so.
The elevator was new and virtually noiseless, except for a vibration and a barely perceptible hissing sound. She began to wonder if it was moving at all.
As the seconds ticked by, she could feel them behind her, staring at her back. Her uneasiness grew, and it was hard to resist an impulse to punch the red emergency button. Take it easy, she told herself. Calm down.
At last the hissing sound stopped. After a jerk and a dull thud, the doors flew open. To Nicole’s enormous relief, a cluster of tourists hovered by the door, waiting to get on the elevator. She shoved her way through and bolted off, leaving the two men to fight their way through the crowd. She didn’t wait to see where they were headed. Only when she got to the end of the corridor did she look back. No one was there.
As she followed the signs leading to the exhibit, she wondered why she’d let herself get so wound up. Even if these men were serial killers, she reminded herself, the National Gallery was a public building with plenty of security guards. Even in L.A., with all its violence, the museums were safe.
She entered the exhibit and was soon lost in scenes of unimaginable tranquility—small boats gliding on deep-blue lakes, woolly lambs grazing in green-carpeted meadows, fluffy white clouds drifting over fairy tale villages.
An hour later, she put her glasses away and headed out of the exhibit, resigned to paying the cab fare home. She was much too tired to find her way back to the house on an unfamiliar subway.
Nicole saw them as soon as she entered the hallway leading to the elevator—the two men in leather jackets. They weren’t doing anything, just waiting. The fat one was slouched against the wall under a no-smoking sign; the thin one crouched on his haunches, dragging on a cigarette.
Her heart froze. Their faces went alert when they saw her, and she could tell they’d been waiting for her. Although it made no sense at all, at that moment she knew her first instinct had been right. They had been following her.
She stopped. Both were now standing at attention, poised and ready. For what? She had no idea. She just knew she had to get away. She turned and headed back along the empty corridor. Now that she thought about it, she realized the exhibit had been deserted when she left. Earlier, she’d seen a guard. Where had he gone?
Just then she noticed a wooden sign. It showed a hand with its index finger pointing down a small sub corridor. Written on it were the words: WOMEN’S TOILETS.
She turned and glanced back. The men were moving toward her at a normal pace, not in any great hurry.
She darted down the sub corridor, walking quickly in the direction the sign had pointed. It was hard to keep herself from breaking into a run. At home, she was a devoted jogger, and these men looked anything but fit. On the other hand, their legs were longer than hers. Better to pretend she hadn’t noticed them and was simply on her way to the ladies’ room. When she got there, she’d lock herself in and scream for help.
She reached the point where the hallway turned at a right angle before it continued on, but there was still no door marked WOMEN’S TOILETS. It occurred to her that the sign might have been pointing in the wrong direction. Perhaps these men had turned it to confuse her.
As she entered the next section of corridor, her heart leapt. A WAY OUT sign, blinking red neon, was less than fifty feet ahead. Beneath it was an open stairwell.
She took a deep breath and started to run. The men behind her began running, too, their shoes slapping against the floor. She ran faster.
As she suspected, they were badly out of shape. After the first few steps, she could hear them grunting and panting as if they were ready to drop. Meanwhile, Nicole sprinted easily, widening the gap between them.
As she neared the exit sign, her body relaxed in the certainty that she was going to make it. But on the very next step, her foot came down wrong, twisting her ankle with a sharp, searing pain.
She managed to stagger on another few steps before the short man grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her face-first against the wall. She gasped, trying to catch her breath to scream. He seemed to anticipate this and clapped his hand over her mouth. It stank of stale tobacco and another smell that didn’t bear thinking about, sharp and repugnant. When she sank her teeth into the fleshy pads of his palm, he twisted her arm behind her back until it felt as if it were going to snap. The pain was excruciating.
“This is how it’s gunna be.” He spoke in a low voice, his mouth next to her ear. “Scream an’ I break yer focking arm. Keep yer trap shut, and I let ’er go. You choose.”
When she gave a nod, he released her wrist and took his hand away from her mouth. At the same time, he slammed his body against hers, pinning her to the wall. She could feel the weight of his great belly against her back. Against her left buttock, she felt the tip of an erect penis.
“Nothin’ to get all aere-ated about,” he purred into her neck as he ground himself against her. “We’re just givin’ you a frennly little worda warnin’. Cause we don’t want nothin’ happenin’ to a nice little bit a skirt like you.” His breath was foul, as if every tooth in his head were rotting.
“Tell yer old man he better pay the guv for that load a stuff. Cause Ben is ready to kill ’im. ’E’s got ’til 6:00 tomorrow night. You tell ’im. Maybe he gave us the slip, but you know where he is, and we know just how to find you.” This last part was hissed—or, rather, sprayed— in her ear.
“Let’s get outa here,” came a second voice. “I hear someone coming.”
“Remember wot I said,” the first man hummed against her neck. “Or it’s yore arse.” As he said this, he gripped her rear with both hands.
Without warning, he took a step back, releasing the pressure of the great stomach that had pinned her to the wall. As she tumbled to the floor, the two men disappeared down the stairwell.