His fingers pressed harder inside her.
The lights changed to green and they crossed, turning left, up the hill. She gripped his hand, removed it and placed it on his own thigh.
‘You make me feel so sexy, Lynn.’
Twenty minutes later they were seated on the outside terrace of the Karma bar, on the boardwalk of Brighton Marina. Despite the fierce glow of the gas heater above them, she was freezing. Reg Okuma puffed on a huge cigar and she sat, huddled in her coat, sipping a whisky sour, which he had insisted she would like – and actually she did. She would have liked it a lot more, though, if they had been inside.
A couple of other tables were also occupied by smokers, otherwise the roped-off terrace was deserted. Below them, in the watery darkness of the Marina basin, yacht rigging clacked and clanked in the biting wind.
‘So, my beauty,’ he said, lifting his glass to his lips, ‘tell me more about you.’
‘First tell me how you know that my daughter is ill,’ she said frostily, keeping up her guard.
He puffed on his cigar and she caught a whiff of the rich, dense smoke. She liked the smell which reminded her of her father at Christmas, when she was a child.
‘Beautiful Lynn,’ he said, in a rich, chiding voice. ‘Brighton and Hove may be a city, but you know, in reality, it is just a small town. I was dating a teacher at your daughter’s school. One night I was picking her up, and I saw you. I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I asked her who you were. She told me about you. That made me desire you even more. You are such a caring person. There are not enough caring people in the world.’
97
Everyone drove on the left in Cyprus. Which made the country a ready marketplace for fencing stolen British cars. Of course, there were other countries as well, but Cyprus was the most lax at checking up on them. Provided you did a good job of filing off the numbers from the chassis and engine block, and replacing them and the documentation with good forgeries, you weren’t going to have a problem. Vlad Cosmescu had long known, from some of his acquaintances in this city, that if you wanted a car to disappear without trace, the most efficient method was to send it to Cyprus.
He was not a sentimental man, but watching his beloved black SL 55 AMG Mercedes being driven into a container, under the glare of the arc lights on the busy quay of Newhaven Harbour, gave him a twinge of regret. He took a last drag on his cigarette, then tossed it on the ground. A few yards from where he stood, a crane hoisted another container up in the air and swung it towards the deck of a ship. A horn beeped as a driver wove a fork-lift truck through the chaos of crates, containers, people and vehicles.
England had served him well and he’d had a good run in Brighton. But to survive in life, just like in gambling, you had to discipline yourself to quit while you were ahead. With the discovery of the wreck of the
Just one more day and then he would be out of here. One last job to take care of. Tomorrow night he would be on a plane to Bucharest. He had a nice pile of cash tucked away. Lots of opportunities open to him. Maybe he would stay in Europe, but there were several other places that took his fancy: Brazil, in particular, where everyone said the girls were beautiful, and many of them were interested in working in the sex trade abroad. Somewhere warm definitely appealed. Somewhere warm with beautiful girls and nice casinos.
The English had an expression for it. How did it go? Something like
But maybe marine connotations were not entirely appropriate.
98
Later they walked back along the wind-blown, almost deserted boardwalk, towards the multistorey car park. Fuelled by three whisky sours and half a bottle of wine Lynn was feeling mellow. And sad for Okuma. He had never known his father. His mother had died of a drugs overdose when he was seven and he’d then been brought up by foster parents who had sexually abused him. After them had followed a series of care homes. At fourteen, he’d joined a Brighton street gang, the only people, he said, who had given him any sense of self-worth.
For a while he’d made money as a runner for a local drug dealer, then, after a spell in an approved school, had got himself into the Business Studies course at Brighton Poly. He’d married, fathered three children, but, a few months after graduating, his wife had left him for a wealthy property dealer. Since then he had decided that the only way to achieve any kind of status was to make a large amount of money. That’s what he was trying to do now. But so far his life had been a series of false starts.
A few years ago he had concluded that it was hard to amass big money, quickly, through legitimate business enterprises, so he had taken to scamming the system.
‘All business is a game, Lynn,’ he said. ‘Right?’
‘Well – I wouldn’t go that far.’
‘No? I understand how collection agencies work. You make your big money on what you can get back from debts that are already written off. That’s not a game?’
‘Bad debts ruin companies, Reg. They put people out of work.’
‘But without entrepreneurs like me, the businesses would never start in the first place.’
She smiled at his logic.
‘But, hey, we should not be talking shop on a romantic date, Lynn.’
Despite her haze of alcohol, she remained totally focused on her mission. Tomorrow morning she had to transfer the balance of the funds to the account of Transplantation-Zentrale. Whatever that took.
Okuma had his arm around her shoulders. Suddenly he stopped and tried to kiss her.
‘Not here!’ she whispered.
‘We go back to your place?’
‘I have a better idea.’
She dropped her hand down, against his zipper, and gave his erection a provocative squeeze.
Back in his car, in the darkness of the half-empty car park, she pulled his zipper right down and slipped her fingers inside.
Within a few minutes, it was all over. With a tissue, she dabbed a few places where he had squirted on her blue overcoat.
He drove her home, meek as a lamb.
‘I’ll see you again soon, my beautiful one!’ he said, sliding his arm around her shoulders.
She popped the door handle, clutching the canvas bag tightly. ‘That was a nice evening. Thank you for dinner.’
‘I think I love you,’ he said.
From the relative safety of the pavement, she blew him a kiss. Then, feeling sick inside, and more than a little drunk, she hurried into the house, her brain a maelstrom of confused emotions. She went into the downstairs toilet, shut the door and knelt with her face over the bowl, thinking she was going to throw up. But after some moments she felt calmer.
Then she ran upstairs and into Caitlin’s room. It was sweltering hot and smelled of perspiration. Her daughter was asleep, iPod headset plugged into her ears, the television off. Was it her imagination, or the light, she wondered? Caitlin’s colour seemed to have gone an even deeper yellow since this morning.
Leaving the door ajar, she went into her own bedroom, took off her overcoat, placed it inside a plastic dry-cleaning bag and, feeling sick again, squashed it into the bottom of her wardrobe.
Downstairs, in the sitting room, Luke was sound asleep, with a repeat episode of
Luke woke with a start as she came in. ‘Hi! How was your evening?’
Lynn, the wine rushing straight to her head, felt her face reddening. It was a good question. How was her evening?
She felt dirty. Guilty. Dishonest. But at this moment, she did not care. Looking down at the canvas bag full of banknotes, she said quietly, ‘It was fine. Mission accomplished. How’s Caitlin?’
‘Weak,’ he said. ‘Not good. Do you think-?’
She nodded.
‘Tomorrow?’
‘God, I hope so.’
For the first time ever, she hugged him. Held him tight. Held him like the lifeline he now truly was.
And felt the drop of his tears on her face.
Then they both heard a terrible scream from upstairs.
99
Shortly after midnight the doorbell rang. Lynn sprinted down the stairs and opened the door. Dr Hunter stood on the front step, dressed in a suit, shirt, tie and overcoat, holding his black bag. He looked tired.
For an instant, she wondered incongruously about his suit – had he put it on just for this visit, or had he been on call all night?
‘Ross, thank God you’re here. Thank you. Thank you for coming.’
She had to struggle to resist hugging him in gratitude.
