4

Laura sat beside the bed and watched her father drift off to sleep. The daylight gradually faded and soon the only light in the room was from the gas fire. Very gently, so as not to wake him, she leaned forward and eased the cigarette end from between his fingers, scattering ash onto the blanket. She stubbed it out in the grate.

Then she crept across to the door, cursing each creaking floorboard, glancing back to check he wasn’t stirring, and left the room. Shivering in the hall, she grabbed her coat and pulled it around her shoulders. Then tiptoeing to the table she lifted the telephone receiver. She glanced at her face in the hall mirror. She looked pale and tense, and her hair was still damp from the rain.

She dialled the number to her apartment. It rang and rang, then the answer-phone clicked in, and her own voice spoke to her, gratingly cheerful: ‘Hi, this is Laura. I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message.’

‘Luke,’ she whispered. ‘It’s me. If you’re there could you please pick up? I’ve been trying to get hold of you for a couple of days. I’m in London. Dad’s had a fall. I need to talk to you. Are you there?’ She waited, holding her breath until there was a bleep at the other end signalling the end of the tape. She hung up.

‘Damn.’

She picked up the phone again, dialled the number to the office in Paris, asked to be put through to Adam.

‘Hi, Laura. You OK?’ came his bright tone. She could picture him working at his antique desk in the vaulted office, the lights of the Trocadero twinkling through the tall windows behind him.

‘How’s your dad doing?’ he asked.

‘Well, he’s pretty down, I’m afraid. He’s had a really bad fall. I think I’ll probably need to stay in London for a couple of days.’

‘Don’t worry about the work, Laura. It shouldn’t be a problem. Jeremy can cover for you at the Banque-de-Clichy completion meeting tomorrow. All the documents are drafted thanks to your hard work. You take as long as you need.’

‘Thanks. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.’ She was about to ring off when he cut in again.

‘Oh, and when you come back we can have that dinner I promised you. I was going to book the Trianon for Friday evening.’

‘I’m not sure …’ she hesitated, pulling a face at herself in the mirror.

‘No strings attached, Laura. I just want to thank you for everything you’ve done on the Clichy takeover.’

She shivered as she remembered that drunken moment at the New Year’s party. She could hear the thumping music, could feel his hands on her breasts, could taste the red wine on his tongue.

‘Let’s talk about it when I get back, shall we?’ she said.

‘Sure.’ Was there a trace of hurt in his voice?

‘Give my very best wishes to your dad. I hope he gets better soon.’

She put the phone down and caught sight of herself in the mirror again. Her cheeks were flushed. She frowned at her reflection.

‘You bloody idiot,’ she said out loud.

She heard a cough from the top of the stairs and looked up to see Ken standing there in a striped dressing gown. He was red in the face and swaying slightly on the top step. How much had he heard?

‘Laura,’ he said, ‘when did you get here?’

‘About an hour ago. Marge called me this morning. Dad’s just gone off to sleep.’

‘Well, the rest’ll do him good. Come on up to the studio for a cuppa. I don’t think there’s much in your Da’s fridge.’

She hesitated. She thought about Luke again. If she slipped out now and got a taxi on St. Paul’s Road, she could be at the Barbican in fifteen minutes.

As if reading her thoughts, Ken said, ‘You’re not thinking of rushing off again, are you?’

‘I just thought I might pop down to my flat while he’s asleep,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘You know? Check if there’s any post, see if everything’s OK.’

‘Can’t that wait? I haven’t seen you for months.’

Disguising her reluctance, she began up the stairs towards him.

‘Anyway, I thought you were going to get tenants while you were in Paris,’ he said.

‘Oh, it didn’t seem worth it in the end. All that hassle. It’s only a few months.’

‘Lucky to have the choice,’ he said. ‘Your Da tells me you’re earning a massive salary now. Plus bonuses, he says.’

‘He does exaggerate,’ she protested, laughing. ‘I’m always overdrawn anyway, whatever I earn.’

He winked and pecked her on the cheek as she reached the top of the stairs.

‘Only joking, lassie. I’ve no interest in material wealth as you well know. Only it would help if you could introduce me to some of your well-heeled clients or yuppie friends. Someone who might have a passion for modern art? I could do with a patron. Or perhaps you could buy one of my pieces?’

‘I don’t need to, do I?’ she joked back. ‘I can always come up here to look at your art.’

They reached the next landing and Ken held open the door to his studio. She walked into the familiar smells of oil paint and turpentine, mingled with that of the town gas from the leaky fire that flickered on the far wall. The big room was as untidy as ever; discarded tubes of paint, crumpled clothes, newspapers and books littered the floor. The walls were randomly decorated with posters and newspaper cuttings.

Between the windows leaned an enormous canvas, a giant nude crudely executed in brush strokes.

‘Oh, that’s just Betty,’ Ken said, following her gaze. ‘Don’t mind her. She’s nearly finished. Have a seat.’

Laura moved a pile of dirty washing and sunk onto a battered chaise longue. She could feel the broken springs through the worn fabric. She watched Ken boil a kettle on the little gas stove in the corner. He made her a cup of tea in a tin mug and poured a generous measure of whisky into his own cup.

‘It must have been dreadful when Dad had his fall,’ she said. ‘You were with him, weren’t you?’

‘Well, I was just coming up the road. We’d arranged to meet at the library in Hackney, and I was a few minutes late. We were going to go for a pint. But when I came along he was standing at the top of the steps talking to someone. As I got closer I realised they were arguing.’

‘Arguing? Who was it?’ Laura sat forward in her chair.

‘It was some shabby old guy. Could have been a tramp. Your Da was shaking his fist at him and got so agitated he picked up his stick and started waving it at the man. Then he lost his balance and went crashing down the steps. I rushed to help him. He’d bashed his head and I couldn’t get any sense out of him. When I looked round for the old guy, he’d buggered off.’

‘Did you ask Dad who it was?’

‘I tried when he was at the hospital. But he was so confused and in so much pain that I just decided to leave it. I figured that he’d tell me sometime if he wanted to.’

‘There was an old man watching the house when I got here today, Ken,’ she said. ‘He looked like a tramp as well. I asked Dad about it, and he went as white as a sheet. It was really weird. I’ve never seen him like that. Eventually he admitted that it was someone he’d known in the war. Someone from his camp.’

‘That’s very odd,’ Ken frowned. ‘After all these years. Did he say what the man wanted?’

‘No. He wouldn’t talk about it. Completely clammed up.’

‘Well, he’s never spoken to me about the war. And I’ve known him for nearly thirty years.’

Laura fell silent, staring into her cup. The image of the young woman in the photograph came back to her. Something must have prompted Dad to dig it out after all these years. Was it the encounter with Leech that had brought back her father’s memories?

She toyed with these thoughts, turning them over and over in her mind, searching for answers, but after a while her niggling worries about Luke resurfaced. Was he in a hospital somewhere, or in a police cell? If she went to the flat, she would be able to use the phone to make enquiries.

‘I’ll have to go in a minute, Ken,’ she said. ‘I really do need to go to the flat.’

‘I should be careful. There are a lot of undesirables out there on the streets this evening. Rent-a-mob militants. Violent bunch.’

‘It’s OK. I’ll get a taxi.’

‘Well, finish your tea first. Tell me what you’ve been up to in gaie Paris.’

‘Oh, nothing much. I have to work really long hours. It’s just like London really.’

‘No time for art galleries?’

‘Well, sometimes. I went to the Jeu de Paume last weekend.’

‘And what about boyfriends? It’s a while since you split up with that banker chappie, isn’t it? What was his name? I forget.’

‘Matthew. Yes, we split up a few months ago, just before I went to Paris. You’re being quite nosey, Ken.’

‘What about that guy I saw you with last time you were home? In the Island Queen.’

She stared.

‘I don’t remember that,’ she said, playing for time.

‘Oh, I don’t think you saw me. You were sat at a table in the corner. You looked quite engrossed, the pair of you, so I didn’t disturb you. He didn’t look your usual type at all. Quite the hippy. Long hair, five o’clock shadow, leather jacket.’

‘Oh,’ she said frowning, as if trying to remember. ‘You must mean Luke Goddard. He’s just a friend of a friend. I brought him here once actually. He met Dad. Didn’t you meet him then?’

‘No. I’m sure I’d have remembered. What did Tom make of him? Not exactly ideal husband material, is he?’

‘Ken! Luke’s just a friend. As a matter of fact Dad and he hit it off really well. They got talking politics. Luke’s really left wing. He supports loads of really worthwhile causes.’

She stopped herself. She was sounding too enthusiastic.

‘And?’ Ken was watching her face, a teasing smile on his lips.

‘Like I said, he’s just a friend,’ she said looking down, studying the dregs of tea. ‘There’s nothing in it.’

Ken raised an eyebrow.

‘If you say so.’

* * *

The streets were surprisingly quiet as the taxi hurtled through Islington and Clerkenwell. Laura saw a few people standing outside the pubs drinking, and little groups of men walking quickly together as the cab rattled through Smithfield Market and headed up Cheapside. As the cab neared the Bank district, it passed a row of buildings that were under construction. Workers and cranes operated by floodlight.

The taxi drew up outside the hi-tech apartment block next to the Barbican. Laura paid the driver and took the lift to the tenth floor. The flat was smelt unfamiliar as she let herself in, of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol.

‘Luke?’ she said tentatively.

She switched on the light. There were dirty cups and half-finished pizzas in cardboard boxes on the coffee table. Newspapers were scattered around. She noticed a week-old copy of the Socialist Worker. She glanced at the headline: ‘Police Use Heavy Tactics on Innocent Protesters.’ An overflowing ash tray and several lager cans were on the floor, spilling their contents onto the white carpet. A grubby duvet and pillows lay on one of her leather sofas, as if someone had been sleeping there.

‘What the hell?’ Luke really was the limit. She’d said he could stay here if he needed to, but this was a bit much.

In the galley kitchen dirty plates were piled on the side while the tap dripped into scummy water in the sink.

She went through to the bedroom. Perhaps he was asleep in there. She switched on the light.

There was a shape under the bedcovers. Laura felt a wave of relief and a shiver of excitement, despite the state of her flat. She would surprise him. She kicked off her shoes and rushed forward, realising how much she had missed his touch in the weeks they’d been apart.

‘Luke,’ she pulled back the covers.

‘My God!’ She jumped back in shock.

It wasn’t Luke in her bed, but a younger man. His thin face was pale, and purple bruises ringed the flesh beneath his eyes. His blond hair was matted and dry. He was snoring gently through half-open lips that were crusted with sores. Grunting at the intrusion he rolled over and his eyes flickered open for a second. He raised a bony arm to shield his eyes from the light. On the inside of his wrists, Laura saw red needle punctures lining his veins.

‘Who the hell are you?’ she asked.

He stared back at her vacantly through bloodshot eyes.