JOHN’S NEW CAREER remained a mystery to his wife. At dinner the previous Saturday, Howard had explained to her the need for a company that could handle press interviews, personality profiling, agent deals and contracts, but John could tell that she saw it all as rather pointless and expendable. Helen could not see that PR had much tangibility as a career. Her parents had been farmers, working in a world where there was little time for frivolities, and she had retained much of her mother’s puritanism. It was a trait she had tried in vain to check. She had once confided that she longed to be passionate instead of practical, but that violent emotions had never come naturally to her.
John, on the other hand, had always held his feelings at bay, subconsciously realising that he had traded any youthful grand plans for the quieter pleasures of family life. This was an area of guilt that neither of them discussed, and they both knew why. On summer evenings Helen caught him standing in the garden with his hands in his pockets, staring into the distance, lost in thought. At these moments he was unfathomable and unapproachable, and she simply waited for him to return to her once more, a faraway smile fading on his face. Her patience with him had always been a source of wonder.
As they cleared the table together he listened to her plans for the week, watched her flick a strand of unruly red hair from her eyes as she stacked the dinner plates.
‘We have the Hutchinsons coming over after Josh’s school play,’ she reminded him. ‘I know you’re not crazy about them, but at least they arrive with a decent bottle of wine and never stay beyond ten thirty.’
‘What date is that?’ He started to rise from the table.
‘I’ve told you twice. You’re not listening.’ She pushed him back into his seat. ‘Stay there, I don’t want you making a mess of my kitchen.’
‘Where is Josh, anyway?’ he called as she left the room.
‘Out with Cesar, where else?’ she replied. ‘I’ve a feeling the pair of them are up to something. I found a box of matches in Josh’s blazer this morning. I think they may be smoking. You’d better give him the old “if you could see inside a lung you’d be sick” lecture.’
The telephone rang. Helen’s hands were wet. She searched for a towel in vain. ‘Can you get that, darling?’ she called. ‘If it’s Josh, tell him he can have an hour and no more.’ Their son usually rang at this rime with an elaborate, implausible excuse for his late return.
‘John? Is that you?’
He recognised her voice instantly, and glanced uneasily towards the kitchen extension. ‘Ixora, what’s the matter?’
‘I feel guilty about calling you at home, but I didn’t know what else to do.’ She sounded as if she’d been crying.
‘John? Who is it?’ Helen came in wiping her hands on her jeans, her interest piqued. ‘Is everything all right?’
He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and turned to her. ‘Just work.’
‘John, are you still there?’
‘What’s happened?’ He tried to make the inquiry sound casual.
‘He forced his way in here . . .’
‘Who?’
‘The man who followed me when we left St Martin’s. Matteo. Oh God, this is so hard on the phone. He tore my dress . . .’
‘Wait there. I’ll come over, just – wait.’ He replaced the receiver slowly, trying to restore his composure. Helen was seated behind him, a look of consternation on her face.
‘Who was that?’
‘Someone from work. I have to go in for a while.’
‘Oh John, not again, not tonight! It’s the first evening we’ve had alone together for ages.’
‘I’m sorry, there’s nothing else I can do.’ It would be best for both of them if he left quickly without further explanation. He kissed her lightly on the lips and pulled his jacket from the back of the chair.
By the time he pulled up outside the house, night had fallen. The wind had begun to rise, tearing the first few dying leaves from the trees in the dark garden.
She opened the door on the second ring and stumbled into his arms, bursting into tears. As he stepped back from her he could see that the top of her dress was torn apart. He quickly pulled her inside and closed the door. As usual, the house was in semi-darkness. He groped about for the hall lights and switched them on.
‘Christ, what did he do to you?’ The top of her chest was stained with a pair of livid blue bruises. Scratches covered the upper part of her left arm. Her lower lip was cut.
‘He rang the bell – I couldn’t see through the glass and opened the door. He pushed his way in, shouting at me.’
‘What was he saying?’
‘I don’t know, I think it was something about you.’
‘This is nuts. He isn’t even the one who attacked me at the BBC. Why would he mention me?’
‘I told you, he’s jealous. I tried to reason with him, tried to make him leave but he wouldn’t go. Then he grabbed me and hit me. I began to scream and he ran out.’
‘You have to go to the police, Ixora, this has gone far enough.’
‘No, I can’t do that.’
‘Why not, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Don’t you have to report to them as well? What will they say if we tell them about two separate assaults by two different people? They’ll want to know more, and then the press will get hold of it, I know they will.’
‘Maybe you have a point.’ He threw up his hands in despair. The whole thing was becoming crazy. ‘Look, I’ll go and see this Matteo. Where does he live?’
‘No, John, I don’t want you involved in this. I’ll deal with it in my own way.’
‘What are you going to do, buy a pit bull? Come on, Ixora, you’re my only client. If anything happens to you I’ll get the blame. Where does he live?’
‘I won’t tell you.’
‘Fine. I’ll find out for myself.’
She followed behind as he headed for the kitchen, and the bag which lay open on the scrubbed pine table. She grabbed his arm as he ran through the pages of the leather address book. ‘He’s dangerous, John, he could hurt you.’
‘Yeah, and I could hurt him. I’ll be back soon.’
He had read enough of the address to know that it was in the most run-down part of King’s Cross, sandwiched somewhere between the bookies, the porn shops and the cut-rate hotels. He located the block of flats in the triangular section of land bordered by canals, gas-holders and a weed-covered network of shunting yards. The building was due for demolition soon, and had been allowed to fall apart in order to escape listing as a place of historic interest. Parking his car in the forecourt, he slipped a small tyre-iron from the tool-kit on the front seat into his jacket pocket. If there was trouble, he would be ready. As he searched the laundry-laden balconies, he wondered how Ixora had come to meet someone living in a place like this.
The man he sought lived on the seventh floor and, incredibly, both lifts were out of order. On the stairs he passed a wheezing old woman laden with shopping bags, but she refused his help when he offered to carry them for her. The graffiti-smothered corridors stank of urine and boiled cabbage. More than half of the flats were boarded up.
On the seventh floor, none of the lights were working on the balcony. Heavy metal music pounded behind closed doors. The flat he sought had a steel panel bolted across the entrance lock. Finding no bell, he rapped his knuckles against it and waited for the sound of bolts being drawn back, bracing himself for trouble. He saw at once that the man who opened the door was the same one he had encountered with Ixora. His Mediterranean features were heavy and handsome, his hair slicked back in a fashionably square cut. Deep brown eyes glowered beneath a ridged forehead. He was dressed in a white vest and jogging slacks; hard-packed muscles bunched in his broad neck and tattooed chest. Although no more than five feet seven inches, he looked powerful and dangerous.
‘Okay, Matteo. Do you know who I am?’ asked John.
As he recognised his visitor, Matteo’s expression sharply transformed. John had been ready for some kind of aggressive reaction, but now he suddenly saw that this was the last thing on his mind. Instead of anger, he saw fear. Matteo held the door wide.
‘Yeah, I know who you are. You better come in.’
The flat was filled with huge, cheap items of furniture, as if Matteo had moved from a larger flat and had tried to cram its contents into half the space. Stacks of boxed video, stereo and home computer units suggested that he was either an electronics retailer or a fence.
He led the way to an equally cluttered kitchen, opened a battered refrigerator and yanked out two cans of beer. Throwing one across to John, he gestured to a chair.
‘I don’t know what to tell you, man, ’cause whatever I say you won’t believe me.’ Matteo’s accent placed him as Spanish-American.
‘Try me,’ said John. ‘I’m pretty gullible. Let’s start with why you go around punching defenceless women in the face.’
‘You don’t know, man, you just don’t know what’s been goin’ on here.’ He shook his head sadly. If he’s attempting to elicit sympathy, thought John, he’s picked the wrong man.
‘You’re involved with Ixora, right?’ He pointed a finger.
John took a slug of beer. ‘What do you mean, involved?’
‘You work with her.’
‘Yes, I do. She could have had you thrown in jail for assault, but she let it go. Why should she do that? Why the hell are you following her?’
‘I’m not following her, man. I’ve got better things to do with my time than chase around after that bitch, believe me.’
‘That position’s already been filled,’ said John. ‘Do you know that she’s being watched all the time?’ He wondered if the man who had attacked him in the corridors beneath Broadcasting House was related to Matteo, or even in his employ. ‘Christ, you went to her house tonight and you hit her.’ He was trying to stay calm, keeping his voice in a low, soft register, but the thought of this sweat-stained lowlife threatening Ixora barely allowed him to keep his anger in check.
‘Fuckin’ right I hit her, man. You would have, too.’ John watched the self-satisfied smile spreading across his opponent’s face and the tyre-iron began to weigh heavily in his pocket, the metal warming to his body temperature, as if somehow becoming an extension of his flesh.
‘She told me your name – John? Well, listen, John, my business is with her. She’s been driving me fuckin’ nuts. You should really stay away from her, as far away as possible. She’s a special kind of jinx. A bad omen. Like, if you saw her at sea, your ship would straightaway hit a fuckin’ rock, you know what I mean? Bitches like that shouldn’t be allowed to walk around.’
Matteo had just raised the beercan to his lips when John leapt from his seat, the tyre-iron suddenly in his hands. Slamming Matteo’s head back against the refrigerator door, he pinned the steel bar across his throat, crushing his windpipe. ‘Now listen to me. I want some answers out of you and fast, otherwise I’m going to choke the air out of you until you’re dead. Nod your head.’
The head moved rapidly up and down. Unable to catch a breath, Matteo’s face was beginning to blacken. John relaxed his grip slightly. He had surprised himself, but although his pulse was racing he felt calm and in control of the situation.
‘Okay, now start at the beginning. Where did you two meet?’
‘Far ’way from here. You never hearda the place, it’s so far away. I took some pictures of her.’
‘What kind of pictures?’
‘Not the kind you’re thinkin’ of, believe me.’
‘And you followed her here to London?’ Perhaps Ixora had made a bad career move, taken a lucrative modelling job and posed for a few nude snapshots. It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened. He thought of Crawford, Monroe, Madonna. ‘Were you blackmailing her?’
‘Maybe, but not ’cause I wanted to.’
John tightened his grip on the tyre-iron once more. Matteo’s face began to suffuse with trapped blood. ‘Then what, you made her have sex with you?’
‘No, man, you got it all wrong. She came on to me. Thought she could buy me off. I’m tellin’ the truth, she tried to kill me. Look at this.’ He slid his free hand beneath the bar and turned his neck to John. Two small, deep gashes had been cut several inches apart, narrowly missing his jugular vein. The wounds were freshly scabbed. Fear flickered in Matteo’s eyes. Whether or not he was telling the truth, he seemed desperate to be believed.
‘I don’t understand,’ said John. ‘Why on earth would she try to kill you?’
‘Because I know about her past, man. I’m probably the only one, and now she’s gettin’ this big career she doesn’t want it fucked up by someone like me. She gets me into bed with her, takes me to the fuckin’ moon and back, then waits till I fall asleep and tries to cut my head off with a fuckin’ carving knife.’
John took his knee from Matteo’s chest and eased up on the bar. He fell forward in his chair, gasping for breath.
‘Why did you attack her in the street? Because she’d come at you with a knife?’
Matteo stopped massaging his throat. He looked puzzled. ‘Wait a minute, you’re gettin’ your wires crossed. I hit her ’cause she did this to me.’ He gestured around the room. ‘She ruined me, man. You think I was always like this? I was a professional photographer, I was bringin’ in the big money. I’m livin’ in this sleazebag shit because of her. When I found out what she’d done I came after her to get back my share. I found her swanning around with you and I guess I just saw red.’
John felt that he was somehow misunderstanding their conversation. Each explanation made less sense than the last. Down the hall a child had started screaming. He dropped the tyre-iron to his side and tried again. ‘Okay, you say she seduced you, then tried to stab you. Let’s forget about her reasons. When did this happen?’
‘Two nights ago.’
So he was lying after all. Ixora had told him that they hadn’t seen each other for two months. Besides, two nights ago she’d been getting the smoked-salmon-and-baby-rack-of-lamb treatment at Le Gavroche with the head of the agency and some guy from the Daily Mirror Entertainments page.
‘I’m going to choke you again if you don’t stop lying to me, Matteo. This happened two months ago.’
‘Two nights ago, man.’ He threw John a wounded look, as if surprised that he wasn’t being taken seriously. ‘Take a look at the wounds – do they look a coupla months old to you?’
John’s sense of reality was starting to shift. What had he got himself into by coming here? He raised the tyre-iron to Matteo’s throat once more and pushed hard.
‘She lies to you, man,’ Matteo was crying in rasping breaths. ‘She’s a disease with no known cure. Hurting me won’t make no difference. You’re being taken for a fuckin’ ride, you’re a career move, a stepping stone. She lies to you just like she lies to everyone.’
As John walked through the stinking corridors of the block of flats, the photographer’s rasping chuckle echoed on in his head.
On the way back to Chelsea he almost broadsided a truck by failing to notice the traffic signals at Hyde Park Corner. The more he discovered about Ixora, the less he understood. Even if it transpired that she had never lied to him, he wondered if he would ever really be able to trust her.
Nothing about Ixora seemed clear or straightforward. Her behaviour, her very presence seemed to elicit abnormal responses from the men who came into contact with her. Being so attractive, so desirable, she was forced into a position of constant demurral, and this was bound to make enemies for her. But Matteo seemed an unlikely candidate for any kind of romantic dalliance. Living in squalor, nursing grudges against the world, he may have grown obsessive about the glamorous young model everyone admired. Perhaps he felt Ixora represented everything that was wrong with his life.
John pulled to a halt outside the house a little after 10.30. Ixora was waiting in the hall as he pushed the front door open. She was wearing a cream silk blouse fastened high at the neck, and a plain black skirt. At odds with the elegant severity of her clothing, her face reflected pain and confusion. He walked past her into the lounge and switched on one of the table lights. As he did so, the Persian cat fixed him with a malevolent eye.
‘I don’t know why you always have to make it so dark in here,’ he muttered irritably. ‘Let’s throw out some of the shadows, shall we?’ He crossed to an oval rosewood table by the heavily draped windows and switched on a second light. The room was unbearably hot, the boiler pumping scalding water through creaking pipes, even though the evening was mild. Ixora followed obediently behind him, sitting in the armchair he indicated for her.
‘I’ve just had a meeting with your friend,’ he said quietly. ‘Matteo says you were with him on Tuesday night.’ Ixora shifted forward in her chair and started to speak, but was silenced with a raised hand.
‘Let me finish. He says you seduced him, and then you tried to kill him. He insists that you ruined him, whatever the hell that means, which is why he attacked you in the street. Now, either he’s completely crazy, or you know something you’re not telling me.’
‘John, I don’t see how you can think for a single second that I would hide anything from you.’ Her voice was filled with indignation. ‘He’s a habitual liar. Everything he says is untrue. Why do you think I stopped seeing him?’
John was not fully convinced. ‘Where did you meet?’
‘In Barcelona, a long time ago. He was a photographer, a very good one. He came here and looked me up. But things didn’t go well for him. He lost several big assignments.’
‘Why?’
‘Drinking. Fantasising. Acting wild, I don’t know. He treated me as if I had been placed on earth to save him. John, this is crazy, either you learn to trust me or you don’t, I have to know. Please don’t turn out like the rest.’
‘What do you mean?’
She waved her hands in a gesture of dismissal. ‘You’re not like the others. You didn’t go after Matteo just because it was the right thing to do. Can’t you see what’s happening between us?’
He shifted uneasily. ‘You tell me.’
‘You have to learn to trust your basic instincts, John. Why do you think you’re trying so hard to help me?’ She reached her arm up around his neck and kissed him lightly. Her lips were surprisingly cool. John felt as if he had touched a live wire. In the few brief seconds he had seen her on the steps of the station, he had never dreamt that this moment might actually come.
He took a step away from her and turned to the hall, where a grandfather clock had begun to chime. Ixora crossed her legs in a slither of nylon, watching him, waiting for his next move. She was, without doubt, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his entire life. The chimes ceased after the eleventh. Helen would have grown bored waiting for him. She would probably be in bed by now, reading.
‘I have to go, Ixora,’ he said finally. ‘You understand that. I’m a married man.’
‘I know.’
‘I love my wife. There’s too much at stake.’
‘I know.’
‘You’ll be all right now.’
Before she could protest, he left the house and walked back to the car. Seated with his arms across the wheel he found himself unable to drive away. Ixora represented everything he had dreamed of and would never have. She was like a member of an alien species, so far beyond his reach, and yet she wanted him. All the drama, sensuality and adventure he had ever craved was here, just a few steps away from where he sat. This was the moment. Now or never.