Warhol's Prophecy

Hailey crossed to the bed and pulled the duvet up around Becky’s shoulders, then she bent down and kissed her little daughter on the cheek. Satisfied that she was well settled, Hailey edged out of the room and made her way downstairs.

She stood beside the phone in the hall for a moment, then picked up the receiver. Her index finger was shaking as she pressed the digits.

It was ringing.

She swallowed hard. Waiting.

Still it rang.

Put it down.

Two more rings and she’d try again tomorrow, when . . .

The phone was picked up.

‘Hello,’ said a voice thick with sleep.

‘Adam,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s me, Hailey Gibson.’

She transferred the phone to the other ear.

‘We need to talk,’ she said.

Silence.

‘Adam, are you still there?’ she persisted.

‘Talk about what?’ he said sleepily. ‘I thought it was all over between us.’ He coughed. ‘Besides, have you seen the time?’

‘Meet me on Friday,’ she said. ‘Please.’

‘Why not tomorrow?’ he wanted to know.

‘I’m too busy. Can you meet me, or not?’

Another silence.

‘Where?’ he asked.

‘The Happy Brig.’

‘Just like old times,’ he said, but the laugh that followed was grating and hollow. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘Adam . . .’

He hung up.

78

THE ROOM WAS small.

Rob had stayed in Travelodges before, so he knew what to expect: the basics. Bed, bathroom, TV, tea- and coffee-making facilities: that was about it.

He’d unpacked his meagre supply of clothes, and now he lay on the single bed gazing at the ceiling.

What a fucking night!

Almost killed by a nutter in a car, then discovering that his wife had been unfaithful with the man who had tried to kill him.

He rubbed both hands across his face and let out a deep sigh. Thoughts were still spinning around inside his head.

And, worse still, an idea was beginning to form that he could barely stand to entertain. What if Hailey had known that Walker planned to kill him?

He sat up slowly, the very thought almost unbearable.

What had gone on between Walker and his wife?

Had his own affair with Sandy Bennett driven her to such lengths, such frenzies of rage? How far would she go to gain revenge on him? He knew he had hurt her, and hurt her badly.

But surely not this . . .?

She couldn’t want him dead.

Could she?

Rob swung himself off the bed and padded into the bathroom, slapping on the light.

The fluorescent light above the mirror sputtered into life and he studied his tortured reflection. His red- rimmed eyes, his pale skin.

He shook his head. His reflection imitated his movement.

The face he was gazing at was that of a man totally at the end of his tether. Shattered, drained, as if every emotion has been torn from him.

She had betrayed him with another man. Lied to him.

(As he had done to her)

But surely she would not have plotted to kill him? To rob their daughter of a father?

He refused to believe it, and yet there was something gnawing away at the back of his mind. Some cancerous thought that refused to leave him: a feeling of such terrible malignance that it ate into his subconscious.

He wouldn’t believe it.

He couldn’t.

Tears began to flow from his puffy eyes and he gripped the sink tightly, watching that tortured visage before him.

‘Why?’ he whispered.

He pushed his head forward, connecting with the mirror, pressing his flesh against the cold glass for a moment.

Then he drew back and repeated the action. Harder this time.

The impact left a small white mark on his flesh.

He held onto the sink so hard it seemed he might pull it off the wall.

For the third time he drove his head against the mirror – so hard this time that he felt momentarily dizzy. Still the tears ran down his cheeks.

‘Why?’ he said again as he did so. And the word was accompanied by an angry crack.

The mirror had splintered. The glass was split cleanly from top to bottom.

Rob studied his distorted reflection in it.

Saw the blood running down his face from the gash just below his hairline.

He watched as droplets of crimson fell into the sink and flowered.

Rob felt little pain from the wound. In fact he looked at it with something akin to bemusement, watching the red trickle coursing down his face as surely as the tears that still flowed from his eyes.

The real pain was inside him.

Inside his heart.

Inside his soul.

And it was excruciating.

79

HAILEY WAITED FOR the ringing phone to be picked up, the receiver of her own jammed between her shoulder and ear as she typed. The words flickered on the screen before her, but she hardly saw them.

She’d managed barely three hours’ sleep the previous night, and it felt as if someone had attached lead weights to her eyelids.

The phone continued to ring.

She sat back from her keyboard, stifling a yawn.

Perhaps later she’d ring Becky’s school and make sure she was OK. The child hadn’t wanted to go to school that morning, and there’d been more tears.

After last night, life looked like being one endless catalogue of tears again, she mused.

Still the phone was ringing.

The answerphone wasn’t switched on, so the person she sought was home. They just weren’t answering.

She was on the point of setting the receiver down.