‘I’ve always been here,’ she said, and she kissed me with her lips of velvet, as she had never kissed me before. ‘I believe in destiny. You’re part of mine, I’m part of yours. We were set on a course towards each other.’
‘And will we go on together, we two, Springtime and Oz?’
‘Who knows? Right now we’re together, and that’s what counts.’
I crouched above her, burying my face in her belly. As I flicked my tongue in and out of her navel, she gasped and arched her back. ‘I want you now. I need you now. Come into me now.’
I placed a finger across her lips. ‘Time enough,’ I said, although she could feel that I was more than ready. I bent and kissed the inside of her thighs as she spread them wide, licking my way towards her. She moaned again. ‘Now, Oz, now.’
‘Yes, Primavera, yes!’ I covered her and she took me into herself with a supple movement, into the sweetest embrace I had ever known. We lay entwined, barely moving. Her tongue was in my mouth again, her fingers wound through my crinkly hair. She pulled my head back and looked at me with smouldering eyes. ‘You pass the audition. The job’s yours!’ she hissed.
Then her eyelids flickered and she began to shudder, gripping me tight, inside, tighter than I had ever imagined. Her fingers dug into my back, and she cried out, once, twice, again, again, again, again. And then I realised that two voices were calling out and that one of them was mine. I was lost. As I thrust into her and as she grasped me with her thighs and held me there, we were washed, on the high seas, by wave upon wave of sensation, by a feeling that every nerve-ending in our bodies was being bathed in soothing oil.
At last, we lay still. Her eyes were closed, and there was a sheen of sweat on her face. I licked it off; she tasted salty and sublime on my tongue. I felt myself start to subside, but she held me inside her. ‘No, don’t go,’ she sighed. ‘I want to keep you there for ever.’
‘That’s all right with me,’ I said. ‘I can’t think of a better place to be. Primavera Phillips, you are the most beautiful, wonderful woman I have ever met, and I love you.’
She smiled up at me in the darkness, and smoothed damp hair away from my forehead. ‘And I love you too, Oz Blackstone,’ she murmured. ‘It’s been a crazy week, but this … this is like a dream.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘like a dream I’ve had before.’
In which we find another stiff in Prim’s bed, a sort of justice is done and there is a twist in the tale
We made it back to Edinburgh on Sunday, via Portsmouth and points north, including Peter’s hotel in Middleton-One-Row, where the three of us got completely stupid drunk, and, as I recall, Prim and I did something even stupider involving the absence of condoms.
The last few hours of the weekend, we spent tidying up the loft, before we enjoyed the unimaginable luxury of making love and sleeping together in our own bed, even if we did have a clearly contented iguana for company.
Next morning I phoned Archer, got through to him personally and in the most solemn voice I could manage, made an appointment to see him at three-thirty. Then I called Jan, and, putting aside my aversion to pubs at lunchtime, arranged to meet her, and Ellen, and the kids, who were all still at her place, in Whighams at one o’clock. That gave us some time to kill.
‘Oz,’ said Prim, as we lay in bed, under the light from the belvedere, ‘sooner rather than later, I’ve got to go back to my flat, to pick up the rest of my things.’ I didn’t want to go back there, and neither did she, but she was right. It had to be done.
It felt strange parking in Ebeneezer Street. It was the place where I’d met Prim, yet I felt uncomfortable, still a stranger. It was her turf, not ours.
She must have read my mind. ‘Oz, love,’ she said as we climbed the dusty stair. ‘Would you mind if I sold this place? Or would you think I was rushing things?’
I looked over solemnly. ‘Maybe you should hold off,’ I said, and then I kissed her. ‘Until tomorrow. We’ve got a few things to do today.’
She unlocked the door and went to step inside, but I held her back. ‘Hold on,’ I said, laughing. ‘Let me check the bed. Just in case there’s a body in there.’ She grinned as I looked round the bedroom door.
There was a body in the bed. It was Miles Grayson. But it was a brand new bed, and fortunately, he was very much alive. Dawn lay on his far side, hunched down as if she was trying to hide. I don’t know which of us went pinker faster. ‘I see you took our advice,’ I said to her.
‘Oz!’ said Miles, the sound of his voice bringing Prim bursting into the room. ‘Where the hell have you two been? Dawn’s been worried about you.’
‘So I see,’ said Prim, archly, but with a smile.
‘We just nipped over to France for a few days. To sort of, get to know each other, like.’ A sudden thought struck me. ‘Here, while we were away, we had this terrific idea for a film script. Come for dinner tonight and we’ll tell you about it. We owe you a beer anyway.’
‘Yes,’ said Prim to her sister. ‘And bring the rest of my clothes while you’re at it.’
I flipped a card from the breast pocket of my Savoy Tailors’ Guild suit on to the bed. ‘That’s where we live. See you tonight. You be bad now!’
The whole team was gathered in Whighams when we got there, filling one of the low alcoves. There was a glass of draught Coke waiting for me, and a glass of white wine for Primavera. She jammed herself into a corner, on the far side of Jan. I sat down between my nephews and my sister and gave them all hugs. ‘Everything all right, Ellie?’
She smiled at me. ‘We’ll see, Oz. We’ll see. I’m going to stay at Dad’s for a while, to see if I can get something of my old shape back and to see if Allan comes for me. If he does, I’ll decide then whether I’ll go back or not. The bugger’s got to want me though.’
She whispered in my ear. ‘Is this it then? Are you happy?’
‘Ecstatic.’ I whispered back.
‘Good. Jan isn’t, though.’
‘Eh?’
‘You don’t have a clue about women, do you, son?’
That was too deep for me. I finished my Coke and went up to the bar for another round. As the barman was filling the tray, an Armani suit appeared by my elbow.
‘Did you hear about Ricky Ross?’ said Dylan, looking uncharacteristically solemn.
I looked at him, puzzled. ‘I’ve been away. What about him?’
‘Suspended. See your murder in Ebeneezer Street? It turned out that Ricky was screwing the victim’s wife. Now she’s been charged with the murder.
‘We checked every detail about Ebeneezer Street that night. We found out that our traffic boys handed out a ticket to a car parked on a double yellow line there, just about the time that Kane was killed. It turned out that it belonged to his wife. She admits that she was there, but she swears he was alive when she left. I don’t believe her though. We’ll see whether the jury does.
‘After we pulled her in she screamed bloody murder and shouted for Ricky. When he said he couldn’t do anything she told us everything about him and her. He said that he’d encouraged her to leave the wee chap, and that he’d been blazing when she said she wanted him back. She even suggested that he might have done the murder.
‘There’s nothing to substantiate that, but being implicated in a murder inquiry’s enough. He’s out, and that’s for sure.
‘I’ll tell you something, Blackstone, just between you and me. If you ever repeat it, I’ll deny it all. Ricky really fancied you for it. He thought that you and the actress girl had set it up between you.’
His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You had a break-in at your flat, aye?’
I nodded, wondering. ‘That was Ricky,’ he said. ‘I nearly shit myself when he told me he’d done that.’
‘Nice of him. I don’t feel sorry for him now. Here, I hope we’re in the clear now. Ricky’s theory was pure mince, you know.’