His hand around mine was warm, strong. He pulled me down on the seat and I leaned in against him, that solid shoulder, smell of cedar and clean wool, everything black and silver and shifting and the water murmuring on and on at our feet. “When I thought we’d lost you,” Daniel said, “it was . . .” He shook his head, took a quick breath like a gasp. “I missed you; you have no idea how much. But it’s all right now. Everything’s going to be all right.”
He turned towards me. His hand came up, fingers tangling in my hair, rough and tender, moving down across my cheek, tracing the line of my mouth.
The lights of the house spun blurred and magic as the lights of a carousel, there was a high singing note above the trees and the ivy was whirling with music so sweet I could hardly bear it, and all I wanted in the world was to stay. Strip off the mike and the wire, into an envelope and down the postbox to Frank and gone, skim off my old life light as a bird and home straight here. We didn’t want to lose you, silly thing, the others would be happy, the rest of our lives they would never need to know. I had as much right as the dead girl, I was Lexie Madison as much as she had ever been. My landlord throwing my awful work clothes into bin liners when the rent dried up, there was nothing there I would need now. Cherry blossom falling soft on the drive, quiet smell of old books, firelight sparkling on snow-crystalled windowpanes at Christmastime and nothing would ever change, only the five of us moving through this walled garden, neverending. Somewhere far in the back of my mind a drum was throbbing hard for danger, but I knew like a vision that this was why the dead girl had come a million miles to find me, this was why Lexie Madison all along: to wait for her moment to hold out her hand and take mine, lead me up those stone steps and in by that door, lead me home. Daniel’s mouth tasted of ice and whiskey.
If I had thought about it, I would have expected Daniel to be a fairly crap kisser, in a meticulous kind of way. The fierceness of him took my breath away. When we pulled apart, I don’t know how much later, my heart was running wild.
And now, I thought, with one tiny clear drop of my mind. What happens now?
Daniel’s mouth, the corners curving in a tiny smile, was very close to mine. His hands were on my shoulders, his thumbs moving in long gentle strokes along the line of my collarbone.
Frank wouldn’t have batted an eyelid; I know undercovers who’ve slept with gangsters, given out beatings and shot up heroin, all in the name of the job. I never said anything, not my business, but I knew well that was bollocks. There’s always another way to what you’re after, if you want to find it. They did those things because they wanted to and because the job gave them an excuse.
In that second I saw Sam’s face in front of me, eyes wide and stunned, clear as if he were standing at Daniel’s elbow. It should have made me cringe with shame, but all I felt was a wave of pure frustration, smashing over me so hard I wanted to scream. He was like this enormous feather duvet wrapped all around my life, smothering me to nothing with holidays and protective questions and gentle, inexorable warmth. I wanted to fling him off with one violent buck and take a huge breath of cold air, all my own again.
It was the wire that saved me. Not what it might pick up, I wasn’t thinking that straight, but Daniel’s hands: his thumbs were maybe three inches from the mike, clipped to my bra between my breasts. In one blink I was as sober as I’ve ever been in my life. I was three inches away from burned.
“Well,” I said, stalling, and gave Daniel a little grin. “It’s always the quiet ones.”
He didn’t move. I thought I saw a flick of something in his eyes, but I couldn’t tell what. My brain seemed to have seized up: I had no idea how Lexie would have got herself out of this one. I had a horrible feeling that she wouldn’t have.
There was a crash inside the house, the French doors banged open and someone erupted onto the patio. Rafe was yelling. “—Always have to make such a huge fucking deal out of everything—”
“My God, that’s rich, coming from you. You were the one who wanted to—”
It was Justin, and he was so furious his voice was shaking. I widened my eyes at Daniel, jumped up and peeped out through the ivy. Rafe was pacing up and down the patio and raking a hand through his hair; Justin was slumped against the wall, biting hard at a nail. They were still fighting, but their voices had dropped a notch and all I could hear was the fast, vicious rhythms. The angle of Justin’s head, chin tucked into his chest, looked like he might be crying.
“Shit,” I said, glancing back over my shoulder at Daniel. He was still on the bench. His face blurred into the patterns of leaf shadow; I couldn’t see his expression. “I think they broke something inside. And Rafe looks like he might hit Justin. Maybe we should . . . ?”
He stood up, slowly. The black and white of him seemed to fill the alcove, tall and sharp and strange. “Yes,” he said. “We probably should.”
He moved me out of the way with a gentle, impersonal hand on my shoulder, and went out across the lawn. Abby had collapsed on her back in the grass in a whirl of white cotton, one arm flung out. She looked fast asleep.
Daniel knelt on one knee beside her and carefully hooked a lock of hair off her face; then he straightened up again, brushing bits of grass off his trousers, and went to the patio. Rafe yelled, “Jesus Christ!” spun round and stormed inside, slamming the door behind him. Justin was definitely crying now.
None of it made any sense. The whole incomprehensible scene seemed to be moving in slow, tilting circles, the house reeling helplessly, the garden heaving like water. I realized that I wasn’t sober after all, in fact I was spectacularly drunk. I sat down on the bench and put my head between my knees till things stayed still.
I must have gone to sleep, or passed out, I don’t know. I heard shouting, somewhere, but it didn’t seem to have anything to do with me and I let it go by.
A crick in my neck woke me. It took me a long time to work out where I was: curled on the stone seat, with my head tilted back against the wall at an undignified angle. My clothes were clammy and cold and I was shivering.
I unfurled myself, in stages, and stood up. Bad move: my head went into a sickening spin, I had to grab at the ivy to stay vertical. Outside the alcove the garden had turned gray, a still, ghostly, predawn gray, not a leaf moving. For a second I was afraid to step out into it; it looked like a place that shouldn’t be disturbed.
Abby was gone from the lawn. The grass was heavy with dew, soaking my feet and the hems of my jeans. Someone’s socks, possibly mine, were tangled on the patio, but I didn’t have the energy to pick them up. The French doors were swinging open and Rafe was asleep on the sofa, snoring, in a puddle of full ashtrays and empty glasses and scattered cushions and the smell of stale booze. The piano was speckled with shards of broken glass, curving and wicked on the glossy wood and the yellowing keys, and there was a deep fresh gouge on the wall above it: someone had thrown something, a glass or an ashtray, and meant it. I tiptoed upstairs and crawled into bed without bothering to take off my clothes. It was a long time before I could stop shivering and fall asleep.