Warhol's Prophecy

‘I’m sorry if I interrupted anything, I should have called first and asked if it was OK to come round,’ he said apologetically. ‘But I didn’t think you’d mind.’

‘I don’t,’ she said softly.

They sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity, drinking their coffee, gazing at one another. But it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, Hailey realized. There was no need for them to speak. No desperate attempts were necessary to fill the gulf between their snippets of conversation.

It feels right, doesn’t it?

She watched as he finished his coffee.

This stranger.

You’ve met this guy only twice, and you’re now sitting drinking coffee with him in your own kitchen.

‘You certainly have got a beautiful house,’ he said finally. ‘It must have involved a lot of work.’

She nodded.

‘A lot of ambition too,’ he added. ‘This place is like a sign that you’re both successful, isn’t it?’

‘It’s not meant to be. We liked the house, so we bought it. Quite simple really.’ She smiled, but her smile wasn’t returned.

‘But people will look at this house and know that someone successful lives here – someone with money,’ he insisted.

‘It’s our home, Adam, not a status symbol.’

‘When I’m famous I’m going to have a house so big you’ll need golf carts to get from room to room.’ He laughed.

‘And servants?’

‘Probably. A couple of maids, a cook, a butler. Whatever famous people have.’

They both laughed.

‘Call me if you need a PA,’ she joked.

‘I will,’ he told her, reaching across the table.

Even without thinking, she touched his outstretched fingers with her own.

The contact felt as if someone had pumped a small electrical charge through her.

‘I’d better go,’ he said quietly.

‘You don’t have to rush off, Adam,’ she assured him.

‘I was intending to visit my father,’ he told her. ‘I ought to go now.’

She nodded. ‘Is he very bad?’

‘He probably won’t even recognize me,’ Walker said philosophically. ‘But at least I’ll be there for him, for an hour or two.’

‘It must be hard for you.’

‘Sometimes he remembers things. He’ll talk about things that happened years ago. Other times he just stares at the wall – or at me. He asked one of the nurses to throw me out once. It’s a horrible disease.’

‘What about the rest of your family?’ she wanted to know. ‘Do they visit too?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said quickly. ‘We’ve never been a close family. We don’t keep in touch.’

‘Not even with your sister, the one whose little boy was killed?’

‘Like I said, we’re not that close.’

Hailey nodded, deciding not to press her point.

‘I once said to my father that it was ironic – with him having been a vicar all his life. He’d served God, and then God had done that to him: taken his mind. Amusing in a perverse kind of way, isn’t it? God must have one hell of a sense of humour.’

Walker got to his feet.

She walked with him to the front door.

‘Thanks for the coffee,’ he said. ‘Sorry again for barging in.’

‘I’m glad you did.’ She touched his hand and held it for fleeting seconds.

‘Give my regards to your husband,’ he told her.

She nodded.

‘He won’t mind that I came by, will he?’ asked Walker.

‘He’ll be sorry he missed you.’

She moved to open the door, in the process leaning close to him, close to his face.

Hailey could smell him distinctly, that musky scent from his leather jacket.

She swallowed hard.

Again her heart was thudding that little bit faster.

‘Tell Becky I called,’ said Walker, as he stepped out into the porch.

‘I hope things go all right with your father,’ she said.

He nodded and turned to walk away.

‘See you again,’ she said.

I hope.

He waved.

She watched until he had disappeared around the corner.

26

THE WIND WHIPPED around the Scorpio, occasionally shifting it slightly to one side.

Adam Walker sat behind the steering wheel, looking out at the building before him, his eyes fixed hypnotically on the red-brick edifice that faced him.

Bayfield House Nursing Home was a modern building in about four acres of its own grounds. It housed around twenty-five residents, between the ages of sixty and ninety, some disabled in mind or body, others merely losing the battle with advancing years.

There was a good ratio of staff to residents, and they did their best to make day-to-day life enjoyable for their charges. There was a doctor on the premises twenty-four hours a day.

Walker swung himself out of his car, and headed up the short path towards the double doors that led into the main reception.

He pulled up the collar of his jacket, then muttered something to himself, spun round and headed back to the Scorpio.

He reached onto the back seat and grabbed the cellophane-wrapped bunch of flowers. He’d bought them at a garage on the way.

Every time he visited here, he brought flowers.

That was what you were supposed to do, wasn’t it?

Adam trudged back up the path and pressed the security buzzer next to the front door. The closed-circuit TV camera peered down at him as he looked up into its single eye.

A moment later there came a whirring sound, and the doors opened to allow him access.

The main reception area was empty.

There was a large, low table surrounded by leather-upholstered chairs in the centre. Corridors led off from the reception area like spokes from a wheel hub.

Walker made his way slowly along the central corridor, glancing into open rooms along the way. They, too, all seemed to be empty.

For one bizarre moment it appeared that the entire nursing home had been evacuated. As if its residents had merely disappeared. He wondered if he might come across a steaming cup of tea left unattended. This place was like an earth-bound Marie Celeste.

Then he heard voices coming from the day-room up ahead.

Through a pair of glass double-doors he could see several of the elderly residents seated in high-backed chairs in front of a television. As he walked in, he also noticed two nurses in attendance.

First one, then the other smiled at him, and he reciprocated, crossing over to the younger of the two.

She was wearing a light blue uniform, her long hair tied in a ponytail pulled back so severely from her hairline