Jonathan gasped. 'Not... not a virgin?'
'I suppose I should have told you earlier. Before you gave your heart away.'
'No. No. You were right to conceal it until I had a chance to discover your redeeming qualities. It's just that... just give me a little time to get used to the idea. It hurts a little at first. And for God's sake, don't ever tell me his name!'
'Oh, God! How can you twist the knife like that?'
'Simple as pie. I just take it by the handle, and—'
'Ouch! You gormless twit!'
Eventually they kissed, then they nestled into what had become their habitual sleeping entwinement. The rain rattled on the window, and the wind exercised the Chinese tonic scale. At last, Jonathan slipped into a deep sleep.
'Jonathan?'
He gasped awake, sitting up, hands defensively before his face. 'What?'
'Why do you think I'd make a terrible nun?'
'Good night, Maggie.'
'Good night.'
Putney
It was midmorning when Jonathan arrived back at the Baker Street penthouse, having driven rapidly up from Brighton with the windows of the Lotus down and the wet wind swirling his hair.
The day spent alone had been good for him. His nerves were settled, and he felt fit and fast. It had rained without letup—a drowning, drenching rain that gushed down drainpipes and frothed into the gutters. He had bought a cap and a scarf and had walked slowly through the deserted Lanes and out onto the blustery piers—his wide raincoat collar the outer boundary of his vision and caring.
It was best that Maggie had not come with him. She was a wise girl.
He had eaten in a cheap cafe, the only customer. The owner had stood by the rain-streaked front window, his hands tucked up under his stained apron, and lamented the high cost of living and the weather, which, he had reason to know, had been changed for the worse by Sputniks and atomic tests.
To keep a low profile, he had stayed at a cheap bed and breakfast place, the energetic, talkative landlady of which recognized his accent and asked if he had ever met Shirley Temple face to face—bless her soul with that good ship Lollypop and that blackie who used to dance up and down the stairs (they can all dance, you have to give them that). Too bad all the picture houses were being made into bingo parlors, but then they don't make movies like that anymore, so maybe it wasn't such a loss. Still... the landlady hummed a bit of 'Rainbow on the River' to herself. No. He had never met Bobby Breen either. Pity.
That night he had jolted awake—stark awake so suddenly that ugly fragments of a nightmare were caught in the light of memory before they could scurry into the dark of the unconscious. The Cloisters. Strange had not bought his story and was going to kill him. Two-mouths rode on a bronze horse, both of them grinning. Leonard's drooping eyelids revealed only bloodshot whites. He was choking... gasping in a mute attempt at laughter. Amazing Grace was there—haughty, nude. He was strapped to an exercise table. An altar. Eccyclemic violence.
Then the images had faded, all sucked down into the vortex of the memory hole. He had smiled at himself, wiped the icy sweat off his face, and gone back to sleep.
As soon as he entered his penthouse flat, before unpacking or even removing his overcoat, he telephoned Vanessa Dyke. All morning he had been uneasy about her, fearing that she would return to London early for some reason. The phone double-buzzed again and again, and he felt a sense of relief. Then, just as he was going to hang up, there was a click and a male voice said, 'Yes?'
Jonathan thought he recognized the voice. 'May I speak to Miss Dyke?' he asked, apprehensively.
'No, you cannot. You certainly cannot do that.' The voice was mushy with drink, but he now recognized it.
'What are you doing there, Yank?'
'Oh, yes. Dr. Hemlock, I believe. The man who makes jokes about the Feeding Station.'
'Pull yourself together, shithead! What are you doing there? Has anything happened to Van?'
It was a different, an empty and weak Yank who responded. 'You'd better come over here.'
'What is it?'
'You'd better come over.'
Goddamnit!
He angrily snapped open the drawer of his chest. Automatically he checked the load of the two .45 revolvers: five double dumdum bullets in each cylinder and the hammer over an empty. He put the guns in the bottom of an attache case and covered them with the half-dozen newspapers he had purchased outside his hotel, each one carrying an article on the forthcoming auction of the Marini Horse, and the news that it would be on display at the National Gallery today. The papers would provide an excuse for the attache case when he brought it to The Cloisters.
But first Vanessa.
He stepped from the cab and paid the driver, then he turned up through the open gate and the shallow garden with its tarnished hydrangeas.
Yank opened the door before he knocked, a vagueness of expression and a toppling rigidity of stance indicating that he had been drinking. 'The bad guys beat you to it, Jonathan baby. Come on in and make yourself at home.'
Jonathan pushed past him into the sitting room where he and Vanessa had taken tea a few days before. It was cold now, and damp. No one had thought to light the fire. The portable typewriter was still on the spool table by the window, and reference books were open upside down beside it. The Spode from which they had drunk was still laid out, the cozy slumped beside the pot, the evaporated lees of tea a dark stain in the bottom of the cups.
She had never left for Devon.
Jonathan glanced around at the quaintly old-womanish furniture, the lace curtains, the antimacassars. Everything accused him.
'Dead?' he asked perfunctorily.
Yank was standing in the doorway, supporting himself against the frame. 'She struck out. Dead as a doornail—or was that Marley?'
'Where is she?'
'Yonder.' He waved in the direction of the kitchen beyond a closed door. He picked up a bottle of Vanessa's whiskey and poured some into a glass.
'Cloisters?' Jonathan asked, taking the glass from him and setting it aside.
'Who else, amigo? Their modus operandi is a calling card. It was done in the style of the Parnell-Greene murder. I think I'd best sit down.' He dropped into an easy chair and let his head rest on the antimacassar as he breathed orally in the short pants of nausea. 'There must have been three or four of them. They...' He wet his lips and swallowed. 'They raped her. Repeatedly. And not just with their... with themselves. They used... things. Kitchen utensils. She died of hemorrhage. She's in there. You can take a look if you want. I had to, so it's only just that you should.' He stood up too quickly, his balance uncertain. 'You know? You know what I was thinking? It was probably the only time she ever made love with a man.'
Jonathan turned half away, then spun back, driving the heel of his hand into Yank's jaw. He went down in a boneless heap. It was unfair, but he had to hit somebody.
There was a half-filled suitcase on a chair. She must have been packing when they walked in on her. On the carpet was a long cigarette burn. The cigarette had probably been slapped from the corner of her mouth.
He steeled himself and stepped over Yank to enter the kitchen. She was on the kitchen table, covered from face to knees with a raincoat. Yank's. Only the torso was on the table. The bare, unshaven legs hung over the edge.
