Closer, page 2
I was staring.
I was staring and she’d seen and that small, full-lipped mouth quirked into a smile, and one eyebrow lifted inquisitively.
I looked away, looked back, and she was still smiling, studying me openly now.
I was falling. Had fallen already. Gone.
Napier has told me more than once that I give my heart too freely, and maybe there’s some truth in that. Maybe that’s what happened that night, but what I’d never known before was how you can keep on falling beyond that point.
I found myself standing next to her. How had that happened? Had she moved, or had I?
She leaned in close, her shoulder pressing briefly against my upper arm. “It’s at times like this I really wish I smoked.” Then she gave that little sparky smile I would soon love, and added, “But you’ll have to do, yeah?”
With that, she took hold of my arm and pulled me away from the group.
Moments later we stood on a broad terrace at the back of the building, overlooking a bend in the Thames.
“Sorry,” she said.
I could tell immediately that her manner was different now we were away from the crowd. There was something of the nervous animal about the way she would glance at me and then away, the way she had to keep moving, leading me across to the balustrade where the view of the city was best, then turning, spreading her arms, laughing, turning again.
“Why would you be sorry?” I could think of no reason.
“For dragging you away. For being so rude – ‘you’ll have to do’ – where did that come from? I’m not normally so brash, but Julian was boring me silly. He’s an aspiring actor, you see, and that crowd were from the BBC and he was trying to impress. Except his idea of making an impression is giving a five-minute monologue about his strange aunt from Windhoek.”
And that was another thing I learned about Cassie almost straight away: that when she was nervous she felt the need to fill every silence, and for some reason, being with me on that terrace made her nervous.
I didn’t help matters. I let her talk on, a stupid grin plastered over my face. Where Cassie found comfort in words, I would retreat to silence – perhaps the perfect match.
Eventually, she ground to a halt. “What?” she said.
I shrugged. It was a long time since a woman had made me feel so delightfully stupid. It could only be a passing moment at a party, I knew, but I could still enjoy it.
“I’m Matt,” I said, offering a hand for her to shake, and dipping my head just a fraction.
“Matthew, I like that.” And I learned another thing: she was the only person who could call me by my full name and me not mind at all.
She took my hand. “I’m Cassie,” she said. “Cass. Whatever.” She laughed, to cover a moment of slight awkwardness, and we let our hands drop.
“So, what brings you to a do like this?” I asked, as we turned to lean on the balustrade, looking out across treetops to the sweep of the river.
“Work,” she said. “I’m in PR, spinning celebrities’ images for the media. Freelance work, wherever the contracts take me.”
“And tonight they brought you here.”
She nodded. “You?”
“Old friends and obligations,” I said. “Which makes it sound petty and me unappreciative, which I’m not. It’s good to do these things, support the charities.”
“Remind me,” she said, “which charities are we supporting tonight?”
She had me. “I...” Napier was involved in so many worthy causes. I was always happy to lend my support, but I had to admit it was often a bit of a blur. “I don’t remember,” I confessed. “But I do genuinely like to do my bit. I–”
She silenced me with a finger pressed briefly to my lips, laughing. “I was teasing,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
I didn’t mind.
Just along the terrace from us, a small group spoke in Italian, and I couldn’t tell if they were arguing or joking with each other.
I caught Cassie looking and said, “The Ambassador. I could introduce you, if you like?”
I don’t know why I was so keen to impress her, or why I was doing so in such a clumsy way.
She shook her head. “I’m happy just catching my breath,” she said. “If you don’t mind?”
Again, I had the impression of someone who had put on a front in the party, but was more at ease away from the crowds. I couldn’t help but feel a connection because of that.
“I’m happy too,” I said. “We should stay out here as long as you like.” I hated that she might think I’d been trying to get away from her company.
“You’re a gent,” she said. Again, I couldn’t tell if she was teasing or not, and didn’t yet understand that so many of her comments lay somewhere on the boundary between truth and tease.
“So who are you working for?” I asked after a time.
She shook her head. “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” she said. “You know.”
I did. Or at least, I thought I understood. Everything is image these days, to the extent that those whose image is being managed did not like to acknowledge to what extent they did so. I could imagine Cassie assigned to some celebrity or other, perhaps part of that group she was with from the BBC, monitoring and guiding every interaction her client had, while appearing to be just another part of the crowd.
Again, I felt on the other side of an invisible divide, the working-class boy risen above his station.
“And you?”
I didn’t know quite what she was asking. Why I was here, or who I was, or even what right I had to be here?
I smiled. “Oh, I’m just a hanger-on,” I told her. “A boy from the Borders who made good.” It was only later she told me that one of her first impressions of me was of a man who played himself down, in a gathering where everybody was doing their utmost to build themselves up. It wasn’t an act of mine, though. I simply felt no need to be as pushy as everyone else.
“A life in two sentences,” she said. “If you were Julian you’d still be telling me your life story half an hour later.” Julian the South African actor with the aunt in Windhoek, who so loved the sound of his own voice.
“What more do you want to know?” I asked her. I couldn’t work out how I could be simultaneously so unsettled by her, and so relaxed.
“Everything,” she said. Then she leaned in, kissed me briefly on the cheek and, before I could respond, was backing away, arms spread apologetically. “But duty calls,” she said. “I told you I was here working.”
Then she turned and headed back inside.
I stood for several minutes, replaying snippets of the encounter in my head. Trying to work it all out, and failing.
It was nothing, a passing exchange, a girl I’d never see again. But when I closed my eyes all I saw was that smile, and the way it transformed her features. The nervous meeting of a look and then those blue-green eyes flitting away. The way she’d talked so much to start with, and then we’d segued into silences that communicated just as much.
Falling. Fallen. All those fragments that, in hindsight, you can see were part of the journey, the fall.
She was mid-twenties, at a guess. Ten years or so wasn’t an insurmountable age difference, but in my eyes it was still significant, enough to make me feel like a dirty old man.
And I didn’t even know why I was dwelling on it so much.
It was a thing that had happened, and now was past. An interlude.
I glanced down, and saw the small clutch bag on the flat top of the stone balustrade. Was it hers? I couldn’t remember if she’d had one, but it was the same turquoise as her dress, and her eyes. And if the bag had been here already when we came out, then surely one of us would have noticed?
Not me, perhaps – too distracted – but I had the impression that Cassie rarely overlooked anything.
Except her own bag!
I picked it up, reluctant to check inside for any item that might confirm the identity of its owner – too much of an intrusion.
I went back into the party. I found the BBC group immediately, but she was not with them.
“Excuse me,” I said to a man I perhaps vaguely recognized from the TV. “There was a woman with your group earlier. Cassie. Turquoise dress. You haven’t seen her, have you?” I raised the bag feebly, leaving him to fill in the gaps.
The man shrugged, shaking his head. “Sorry, dude,” he said. “No idea.”
I turned away, surveying the room, but no luck.
A few minutes later I came across Napier.
“Mattie, my boy,” he said. I still automatically thought of him as Napier, a boarding school thing where we’d always addressed each other by our surname. For some reason, he’d called me Mattie from the outset – something to do with the protective role he’d adopted, perhaps; maybe a little rebellion of his own against the system.
I raised the bag again, and he said in his campest voice, “Well, I never saw it in you, laddie. Welcome to the club.”
“There was a girl,” I said. “A woman.”
“Of course there was.”
“She left this.”
“Blown away by your charms?”
“Couldn’t wait to get away from me.”
“Have you looked inside?” Then, when I shook my head, he said, “Well do so, laddie. There’ll be something with her address on it. Or maybe a tenner or two in her purse. Either way, you’re winning.”
The first thing I found was an iPhone with the screen locked.
“Ask Siri whose it is,” Napier said. “You can usually do that even if it’s locked.”
“Siri: whose phone is this?” The phone didn’t respond. I tried swiping up and sideways to reveal some of the controls, but everything was locked.
“Girl likes her privacy,” Napier mused.
There was a lipstick, some tissues, a small purse with a couple of bank cards and some coins.
“Not even a tenner?” Napier laughed. “It really isn’t your lucky night, Mattie.”
Then, tucked into a side pocket, I found a hotel key card, in a cardboard fold that bore the name of a hotel.
§
I found the place easily enough, a discreet little hotel close to Covent Garden. I could have called ahead, but didn’t. It was a five-minute walk, heading north away from the Thames, through narrow streets and alleyways until I stood before the building. It could almost have been a family home rather than a hotel, and I guessed there could be no more than eight or ten rooms for guests.
The hour was late and the door locked. When I buzzed I had to wait a couple of minutes for a young man to come and open up.
“I... You have a guest. Cassie Deane. She left this.”
“Ah, yes. The one who had no key. I give the bag to her.”
He reached for the bag but I kept my grip on it. It was not that I distrusted the young man, but simply that I wanted to see it safely into Cassie’s hands.
“If you don’t mind,” I said. “I’d rather see she gets it.”
“Whatever,” said the man, with a shrug. “You wait?” He indicated a sofa in the hotel’s reception area, while he turned away and reached for a phone.
A short time later, Cassie appeared from a doorway.
She saw me, took a moment to recognize me, it seemed, then gave that little smile, a shrug, and said, “I am so grateful, Anthony.”
“Matt,” I reminded her. “I’m Matt.”
“I know. I was teasing. Matthew.” She took the bag, then leaned closer and kissed me on the cheek for the second time that evening.
I made to turn away, my duty done.
“Drink?” she said. “A thank you? There’s a bar next door.”
I glanced down. She was still in that figure-hugging turquoise dress, but had bare feet.
She shrugged, then stepped past me to the door, leading me outside, barefoot, to the bar next door.
She could always do that: make me smile out of nowhere. Walking barefoot in the streets of London, using my toothbrush, saying things out of the blue, like, “You lied to me. You’re really a detective. You must be to have found me so easily.”
Ah, hindsight. I took that comment, then, as a joke. It was only much later that I realized that if a bumbling amateur like me could find her – a professional, a practiced coverer of tracks – then perhaps she’d always intended for me to do so.
We sat on tall stools at the bar. I had a glass of Glenmorangie. She had Bulldog gin with tonic and a slice of cucumber.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. So much so, that she had to say, “Stop it!”
“What?”
“Looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“With... with those eyes.”
And I realized then that maybe she felt something of what I did – the instant, powerful attraction. Had she been falling too?
“My name is Matt Scullery. I’m thirty-four, an investor and financial consultant. I grew up in a housing association semi in Galashiels, went to a posh school on a scholarship scheme, and then I inherited my late uncle’s failing Tweed mill. I turned the mill around and now I have a stake in several Tweed mills in the Border. I like hiking, art, rugby, jazz.”
“You sound like I’m interviewing you for a job.”
“I just thought we could get the basic details out of the way.”
“I like your style.” She took a sip of her drink. “So why do you want the role, Mr Scullery?”
I raised my eyebrows. “How could I possibly not?”
She blushed, looked away, then looked back at me again, studying me closely now.
I wish I had a photograph, something more fixed than my memory of the way she sat there, her head tilted slightly to one side. The little smile on her face, the way those blue-green eyes fixed on me and seemed to look deep.
“Did you enjoy the party?”
I held her look a moment longer, not wanting to let go that moment of what felt like deep connection, then shrugged and said, “I’m not sure ‘enjoy’ is the word. I played my part, supported the efforts of a few friends to do some good in the world – whatever that was.”
I liked her laugh. Wanted to make her laugh again, soon.
We talked about the party, about my life and – less so – about hers. She was a private person. I respected that: there were too many like South African Julian in the world, all too ready to tell everyone everything on the first encounter.
And somehow, in what felt like only a few minutes, it was after midnight and the bar was closing.
I looked around. We were the last customers. I hadn’t noticed everyone else leaving.
We stood, walked to the door and then I remembered she was barefoot. She would always be the girl who walked barefoot in London, for me. I already hoped she would be more, too.
We stopped at the glass doors to her hotel. The young man sat behind the front desk, but made no move to open the doors. I assumed Cassie’s keycard would let her in here, as well as to her room.
“Thank you,” she said. She gestured with that little clutch bag.
I smiled. “It was my pleasure.”
I took a step back, away from her. I’d seen her back to her hotel. It was the right thing.
I’m not old-fashioned, by any means, but something made me tread with caution – respect, perhaps, or a fear of making the wrong move.
She closed the distance, stretched up and kissed me on the cheek once more.
Slightly awkward, now, we moved apart again.
“I...”
“I...”
We both spoke at once, and then stopped.
She smiled.
“Will I see you again, perhaps?” I asked.
“I hope so.”
Then she stepped closer again, and this time her lips pressed against mine.
My arms closed around her, my hands coming to rest on her hips, drawing her against me.
Lips parted, tongues pressed, retreated, pressed again.
I moved one hand up to the back of her head, and this time kissed her deep.
Our bodies melded together, hard and soft. I felt the swell of her breasts against my chest, felt my own hardness against her – and, oh, the way she gave a slight twist of the pelvis in response.
We pulled apart, and I remembered to breathe again, and then she was one step, two steps, away from me, almost skipping, she moved so lightly.
“I... How will I find you again?”
That impish little smile again. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll manage,” she said. “Just as you did tonight.”
And then she was gone, pushing through the glass doors, letting them swing shut behind her before I had time to decide if there was a hint of an invitation in the way she moved.
I turned away. I didn’t understand what had just happened, what was still happening in my head. I’d never felt so out of my depth with a woman.
How could she be so confident I’d find her again? Was it simply that she would be staying at this hotel for the foreseeable future?
Or was she one of these people who believed in fate, and that if it was meant to be then our paths would cross again?
I started to walk toward Holborn.
After a short time I pushed my hands into my jacket pockets and that was when I found the note she must have slipped there. A simple fold of paper with a telephone number.
When I saw that slip of paper I smiled for perhaps the hundredth time since meeting her, and thought it a neat trick.
It was only hindsight that made me wonder much later if that, too, had all been part of a carefully choreographed seduction, a weaving of her web.
But whatever, it worked. I called her the next day.
Of course I did. How could I ever not have done so?
2. ...Said the Spider to the Fly
Later in the afternoon of Cassie’s vanishing act, I found Napier again.
Even though it was summer, he wore a heavy coat as he stood by the stone shack that served as one of the estate’s bothies, part of the way up a hillside near Auldbrigg Haw. This had always been one of his favorite spots, and I’d have guessed to look here even if I hadn’t been pointed in this direction by Peter Macpherson, his chief of security.
