“No!” Jonah said with explosive glee. “Oh my God, Benedict Spenser. You let Stephen Day tie you up. You tart.”
“I didn’t let him, he arrested me,” Ben protested, which was the wrong thing to say. He should have slapped Jonah down. They weren’t on these terms any more. But they had been, and it felt so natural, so alive. “Anyway, I don’t believe a word of it.”
“God, well, nor did I. Who would? You’ve seen Day, whereas his lordship’s absolutely delectable, if you like that sort of thing—”
“Do you?” Ben found himself interrupting, with hostility.
Jonah’s eyes came swiftly to Ben’s, a distinct glow to them. “Well, if you ask me, he’s a bit Blackpool, you know. Nice for a holiday, but you wouldn’t want to live there.”
“You’re ridiculous.” Ben had to hold back the smile. He wanted to laugh, wanted so much to have Jonah spin his implausible gossip and make the world a lighter, easier place.
He didn’t want to stop this and talk about awful things, and for just a moment he thought, Perhaps we could not. Just forget. Just ignore. Just have a few minutes on the train where the past wasn’t with them, where he could inhale Jonah’s scent and maybe even sit by him instead of apart. Feel the warmth of his thigh against Ben’s, have Jonah’s fingers tangle in his own, perhaps even, when the train passed through a tunnel and all was dark, he could steal a kiss and things could be as they had been once more…
Insanity. Sheer bloody insanity.
Ben stamped down on the little bubble of happiness, and Jonah saw him do it. The smile stayed on his lips, but the light left his eyes, and he was already nodding as Ben said, heavily, “Come on.”
Jonah took a deep breath. “Yes. Right. Where was I?”
“Lady Bruton. The job.”
“Well. She told me that she wanted me to work for her. She needed me to steal, incriminate Miss Saint, and get a ring of some value from Day. It was all aimed at him, you understand. Another operatic sort of person, Lady Bruton. I said no. She said I’d do as I was told, or she’d make me.” He made a face. “She was frightening. Half-mad, horribly disfigured, consumed by revenge, far, far stronger than me, and she didn’t take no for an answer. That was why I did the Tring Museum job, you see. It fell into my lap—obviously it did, it was a trap—but at the time it seemed like a marvellous opportunity to make a lot of money very quickly. Because I thought we might have to run, you and me.”
“You never told me that.”
“‘Darling, I can walk on thin air and a warlock is trying to make me steal a magic ring,’” Jonah mimicked. “No. I didn’t say anything. I still hoped I could make it go away. It was stupid of me, but I didn’t want it to touch you. And then I did the job, and you were there.” He was staring out of the window as he spoke. “I didn’t mean that to happen.”
“How could it not?” Ben asked. “I’m—I was a policeman.”
“I don’t know. I don’t plan very well, Ben. I just…run, really. Keep on going and try to stay a bit ahead.” He took a deep breath. “But Lady Bruton was so far ahead of me. I never had a chance. I got away from the museum, that night, and I doubled back and went home—”
“I went home,” Ben said furiously. “You never came back.”
“Oh, I did. I came back long before you could have and found Lady Bruton in the sitting room, and… She made me come with her. Dragged me to some barn in the middle of a field, and there was this man there, Newhouse. The painter. He had a cat.” Jonah swung back to Ben, eyes blazing. “He’d done a picture. And she held me to a chair and made me watch while he changed it. He took off its legs, and he did things to its eyes and—oh Jesus, Ben, it took hours. Hours. He wouldn’t stop. That was why we were in a barn, so nobody heard the screaming. And halfway through, they, uh, they showed me… He’d sketched you. It was a good picture. I don’t know how he got it—”
“There was an artist, back at the station, in September. He said he was illustrating a novel.”
“They’d planned it all.” Jonah’s shoulders were slumped, defeated. “God knows how far in advance. We never had a chance, did we? Anyway, they showed me they had you, and then he went to work on the cat again, until I said, yes, I’ll do whatever you tell me, and Lady Bruton smiled at me, and she said, ‘I know.’”
“God. But—”
“I wanted to tell you,” Jonah overrode him. “Say goodbye. I begged her to let me, and she said I could, but I had to meet them in Hemel Hempstead at noon on Thursday. This was Tuesday night. She said I could have a day, but Newhouse would start work on your picture at noon on Thursday if I wasn’t there. And that would have been fine, except for the bloody justiciary.”