TWENTY-FOUR

Trying to get some emergency traction on a floating sunbed is not easy. I had a moment of wild panic, feeling the air-chambers move beneath me, providing a platform like wet lasagne. I was desperately trying to get a glimpse of my travel bag which I’d dropped by the table when I poured myself some juice. Inside was the envelope from Clayton, my sole reason for being there and without which I might as well have consigned myself to a lifelong exile somewhere so remote even God couldn’t find me.

I finally managed to flop to the side of the pool and haul myself onto solid ground, spitting a lungful of chlorinated water across the patio. When I rubbed the water from my eyes, I looked up and saw my travel bag was where I’d left it by the table. Thank God.

‘For a moment, there, I thought I was going to have to come right in and rescue you.’

The voice was low and languid and tinged with amusement, and came from the shadows near the refreshment table. I squinted, my eyes still blind after the glare of the sun off the pool, but all I could see was a long, bare leg swinging to and fro, with a stylish sandal hanging from five elegantly painted toes.

Then the owner of the voice stood up and stepped out from the shadow towards me, shaking my shirt gently in one hand as if to dislodge any dust that might have landed on it. A faint jangling sound came from a clutch of bracelets on her wrist.

It was only when I saw the amusement wasn’t confined to her voice, and that her eyes were looking down at a point below my navel, that I remembered I was naked.

Caught between the urge to flip backwards into the pool and to suck my stomach in and try to look good, I was saved the decision when she handed me my shirt and turned away.

‘I picked up your things to save them getting creased in the sun,’ she said by way of explanation, and went back to the table and poured two glasses of orange juice. Her voice was a slow drawl, the vowels stretched and drawn out as if the effort to release them for public hearing was almost too much bother. The effect was not a million miles away from Lauren Bacall. To my London-tutored ear it sounded alien and affected… and, either in spite of or because of the circumstances, unbelievably sensual. But that may have been because I was naked and my imagination was instinctively getting ahead of itself. ‘Down here everything wilts in the humidity, y’know?’ She glanced back with a raised eyebrow as I covered my embarrassment with my shirt. ‘And I mean everything.’

I sighed and wondered how long she’d been watching me. Humidity, my eye. Hadn’t she noticed that thing about men and cool water before?

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, retrieving my trousers and the rest of my things and grabbing a large, fluffy towel. ‘The gardener – Frank? He said it was okay to take a dip. But I didn’t have a costume.’

‘Costume?’ She handed me a glass of juice. ‘Oh, you mean swim shorts. Say, are you from New York or Canada or what?’

‘England, actually,’ I said, and remembered that many Americans wouldn’t recognise a British accent and often confused it with one from north of the border. ‘England, UK,’ I added helpfully.

‘Oh, I know where England is,’ the woman said, and sat back down by the table. ‘I may live in the boonies, but I have travelled, y’know.’

While she obligingly turned her gaze away, I towelled myself dry and got dressed. It gave me a chance to study her profile. She was tall and slim, with auburn-tinted, glossy hair cut to her shoulders, and clear, dark eyes that still had an air of amusement. Her mouth was wide and curled at the edges, and one eyebrow was slightly cocked as though she found the world permanently puzzling. She was wearing a thin cotton sundress with brown polka dots on a cream background which set off her evenly-tanned skin to perfection. She wore no jewellery apart from the bracelets on her wrist. I put her age at somewhere in the late thirties.

‘I’m Jake Foreman, by the way.’ I may have been presentable at last, but it didn’t stop me feeling ridiculous for having to introduce myself in such circumstances. After all, in one sense she was now better acquainted with me than people I’d known for years.

‘Well, hello, Jake.’ She nodded formally and sipped her drink, then looked at me. ‘And I’m Lilly-Mae Breadon. Gus said someone would be dropping by, but he didn’t say who.’ She glanced at my bag on the floor by the table. ‘You’ve got a little something for him, right?’

‘That’s right. Is he going to be long?’

She waved a hand. ‘Well, you ask me, the only person knows that for sure is Gus. He takes just as long as he likes about most everything.’ The tone sounded mildly vexed, as if she was talking about a child beyond her control, but who was okay, all said and done. She used a fingertip to wipe a trace of orange juice off her top lip. ‘It all depends on what it is you’ve got for him, I guess… and how bad he wants it.’ She looked at me with those wide open eyes and the trace of a smile which made the hairs rise on the back of my neck. It was like being zapped by a laser, and I felt my breathing drag to a stop. Somewhere in the trees something screeched, a high-pitched sound which made me jump. Lilly-Mae seemed unaffected by it.

‘So, are you gonna tell me what it is, Jake?’

The question threw me – almost as much as the use of my name. I was surprised she was interested, and for a moment wondered if this was another test. I also wondered what her relationship with Mekashnik might be.

‘I can’t,’ I said truthfully. ‘Boring papers, as far as I know. Are you related to Mr Mekashnik?’

Lilly-Mae gave me a sideways look and ignored my question. ‘Oh, I doubt they’re boring, Jake. I doubt that very much. Still.’ She stood up, the matter closed. It brought her nearer to me, and I could see she was nearly my own height, and carried with her a delicate perfume with traces of lemons. She eyed me directly and nodded towards my glass.

‘Bring that with you, Jake. How ’bout we go for a walk? I’m sure Gus will be along soon. On the way you can tell me all about yourself.’ She walked away and skirted the end of the pool, her long stride taking her out across the grass towards the trees. I stopped to pick up my travel bag with the all-important envelope and hurried after her. As I caught up, I couldn’t help but admire the movement of muscle down the back of her thighs under the sundress, or the fact that the dress had no back above the waist and showed a bare expanse of smooth, well-toned and tanned skin.

‘To save you asking,’ she said conversationally, ‘I’m, shall we say, a visiting friend.’ She turned her head to fix me with her eyes, and I realised that she had dropped the country-girl drawl. ‘No more, no less. Gus likes to think of me as a trophy as far as his brain-dead, gun-carrying buddies are concerned, but since they don’t matter anyhow, who cares? How about you, Jake? Have you really come all this way to deliver papers?’

Brain-dead gun-carrying buddies? That didn’t sound much like a leading arms dealer. I’d been expecting a smart, modern office full of suited employees armed with nothing more lethal than the latest iPad, with maybe a warehouse nearby full of things that only went bang in someone else’s war far, far away. Before I could reply, a car engine sounded from round the side of the house, followed by doors slamming and footsteps echoing across the patio. Lilly-Mae stopped and turned, rolling her eyes in what looked like vexation, and muttered, ‘Shoot. Just as we were getting acquainted.’ Her face took on a welcoming smile and she waved a hand in greeting. ‘Hi, Gus, darlin’. Guess who I’ve got here?’ The drawl, I noticed, was back in place.

‘I know very well who you’ve got there, Lil,’ a deep voice replied sourly. ‘Just where’n hell were you planning on taking him is what I want to know.’

The muscles in my back flinched at the man’s aggressive tone and I turned round to see a big bear of a figure standing by the pool, dressed in work jeans and a check shirt, with two other men behind him, both dressed similarly and with lookalike faces. Their bunch-shouldered stance gave them the look of a wrestling tag team, but in comparison to the first man, they looked fairly harmless.

In his hand was a rifle with a telescopic sight, pointing right at me.