‘I can’t see him,’ I said. ‘You’d better go ahead and find your book.’
Sylvie mumbled something doubtful and we both wandered around. I stopped in front of a display of globes. I could always go back to the flat if he didn’t show. I felt a touch from behind and then arms around me, someone nuzzling my neck. I turned round. Adam. He put his arms round me in the way that felt as if they were wrapped around me twice. ‘Alice,’ he said.
He let me go and I saw there were two men with him looking amused. They were both tall, like Adam. One had very light brown, almost blond hair, smooth skin, prominent cheekbones. He wore a heavy canvas jacket that looked as if it should have been worn by a deep-sea fisherman. The other was darker, with very long wavy brown hair. He wore a long grey coat that reached almost down to his ankles. Adam gestured to the blond man. ‘This is Daniel,’ he said. ‘And this is Klaus.’
I shook their very large hands in turn.
‘Good to meet you, Alice,’ said Daniel, with a little bow of the head. He sounded foreign, Scandinavian maybe. Adam hadn’t introduced me but they knew my name. He must have told them about me. They looked at me appraisingly, Adam’s latest girlfriend, and I stared right back, willing myself to hold their gaze and planning another shopping spree very soon.
I felt a presence at my shoulder. Sylvie. ‘Adam, this is a friend of mine, Sylvie.’
Adam looked round slowly. He took her hand. ‘Sylvie,’ he said, almost as if he were weighing the name in his mind.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I mean, hello.’
Suddenly, I saw Adam and his friends through her eyes: tall, strong men who looked as if they had come from another planet, dressed in odd clothes, beautiful and strange and threatening. She stared at Adam, mesmerized, but Adam turned his attention back to me. ‘Daniel and Klaus might seem a bit out of it. They’re still on Seattle time.’ He took my hand and held it against his face. ‘We’re going round the corner. Want to come?’ This last was addressed to Sylvie and he looked sharply back to her. I swear that Sylvie almost jumped.
‘No,’ she said, almost as if she had been offered a very tempting, but very dangerous, drug. ‘No, no. I’ve, er, got to…’
‘She’s got to buy a book,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she said, falteringly. ‘And other things. I’ve got to.’
‘Some other time,’ said Adam, and we left. I turned and gave Sylvie a wink, as if I were on a train that was pulling out of a station and leaving her behind. She looked aghast, or awestruck, or something. As we walked Adam put his hand on my back to guide me. We made a few turnings, the last of which took us into a tiny alley. I looked questioningly at Adam but he pressed a bell by an anonymous-looking door and when the catch was released we walked up some stairs to a snug room with a bar and a fire and some scattered tables and chairs.
‘Is this a club?’
‘Yes, it’s a club,’ said Adam, as if it were too obvious to need mentioning. ‘Sit in the next room. I’ll get some beers. Klaus can tell you about his crappy book.’
I went through with Daniel and Klaus to a smaller room, also with a couple of tables and chairs. We sat at one. ‘What book?’ I said. Klaus smiled. ‘Your…’ He stopped himself. ‘Adam is pissed with me. I’ve written a book about last year on the mountain.’ He sounded American.
‘Were you there?’
He held up his hands. There was no little finger on his left hand. The ring finger was half gone as well. On his right hand half the little finger was gone.
‘I was lucky,’ he said. ‘More than lucky. Adam pulled me down. Saved my life.’ He smiled again. ‘I can say that when he’s out of the room. When he comes in I can go back to telling him what an asshole he is.’
Adam came into the room clutching bottles, then went out again and returned with plates of sandwiches.
‘Are you all old friends?’ I asked.
‘Friends, colleagues,’ said Daniel.
‘Daniel’s been recruited for another Himalayan package tour next year. Wants me to go along.’
‘Are you going to?’
‘I think so.’ I must have looked concerned, because Adam laughed. ‘Is there a problem?’
‘That’s what you do,’ I said. ‘There’s no problem. Just watch your step.’
His expression became serious and he leaned in close and kissed me softly. ‘Good,’ he said, as if I had passed a test.
I took a sip of beer, leaned back and watched them talking about things I could barely understand, about logistics and equipment and windows of opportunity. Or, rather, it wasn’t that I couldn’t understand them, but that I didn’t want to follow what they said in its details. I felt a glowing pleasure in seeing Adam and Daniel and Klaus discussing something that mattered intensely to them. I liked the technical words that I couldn’t understand, and sometimes I sneaked a glance at Adam’s face. The urgency of his expression reminded me of something and then I remembered. It was the expression he had worn when I had first seen him. When I had first seen him seeing me.
Later, we lay in bed, our clothes scattered where we had thrown them, Sherpa purring at our feet – the cat came with the property, but I had named him. Adam asked me about Sylvie. ‘What did she say?’ he asked.
The phone rang.
‘You get it this time,’ I said.
Adam made a face and picked it up. ‘Hello?’
There was a silence and he put it down again.
‘Every night and every morning,’ I said, with a grim smile. ‘Somebody with a job. It’s beginning to give me the creeps, Adam.’
‘It’s probably a technical fault,’ Adam said. ‘Or someone who wants to speak to the last tenant. What did she say?’
‘She wanted to know about you,’ I said. Adam gave a snort. I gave him a kiss, biting his lovely full lower lip slightly, then harder. ‘And she said I should enjoy it. So long as I didn’t actually get injured.’
The hand that had been caressing my back suddenly held me down on the bed. I felt Adam’s lips against my ear. ‘I bought cream today,’ he said. ‘Cold cream. I don’t want to injure you. I just want to hurt you.’
Eleven
‘Don’t move. Stay just as you are.’ Adam stood at the end of the bed, staring down at me through the viewnnder of a camera, a Polaroid. I stared back, muzzily. I was lying on top of the sheets, naked. Only my feet were under the covers. The winter sun shone weakly through the thin closed curtain.
‘Did I go to sleep again? How long have you been there?’
‘Don’t move, Alice.’ A flash momentarily dazzled me, there was a whir and the plastic card emerged, as if the camera had poked its tongue out at me.
‘At least you won’t be taking it to Boots to be developed.’
‘Put your arms above your head. That’s right.’ He came over and pushed my hair away from my face, then stood back once again. He was fully dressed, armed with his camera, a look of dispassionate concentration on his face.
‘Open your legs a bit more.’
‘I’m cold.’
