"I'm taking you home," she said. "By taxi, not by bike."
He smiled. "Thought you said it wasn't a date."
Jamie gave a sharp laugh. "Guess that concussion isn't too bad then."
After a short taxi ride, Jamie pushed open the door to Blake's flat in the historic Bloomsbury area. The early-morning commuters were walking through the streets, but it was still quiet in the square. Many of the tall terraced houses were affixed with blue plaques commemorating the famous names who once lived here: Darwin, Dickens and even JM Barrie, who created Peter Pan. As Jamie helped Blake inside and up the staircase, she considered that he was a kind of Lost Boy, his beautiful face wracked by pain from past lives that were not even his own. He mounted the stairs slowly, gripping the bannister with his gloved hand.
Blake's rooms were at the very top of the building, a small studio flat nestled in the eaves with a view over the rooftops of London. It was sparsely furnished with a few pieces of wooden furniture. Jamie had been here once before, when she had been crazy with grief and Blake had been out of his mind on tequila. He had looked after her then, and she would help him now.
"Shall I make tea?" Jamie asked, as Blake sat heavily on the bed.
"You don't have to stay, you know," he said. "I'm only going to sleep."
Jamie smiled. "You have concussion, you idiot. I'm staying while you sleep so you don't suddenly die. After all that trouble finding you after the explosion, do you think I'm going to let you out of my sight now?"
Blake managed to return a smile that turned into a grimace as pain crossed his face. He lay back on the bed and closed his eyes, exhaling slowly.
Jamie crossed to the little kitchen, searching in the cupboards for teabags. She found a mostly empty bottle of tequila next to the Tetley. As she made the tea, she noticed another empty bottle of spirits in the recycling. She knew Blake drank, but she hadn't really realized how much until now. He was damaged, but then so was she. They just coped with their grief in different ways.
She carried the sweet milky tea back to Blake, putting it on a side table within his reach. Jamie sat down on the edge of the bed for a moment, looking down at him. The soft morning light from the window touched his face, his caramel skin smooth and unblemished, his stubble almost a beard now. His chest rose and fell rhythmically but every breath was controlled, forced through the pain of bruising to his chest.
If he had been in a different place when the blast went off … Jamie couldn't think of losing Blake that way. After all, he'd only been there because she'd asked him to be and she had put him in danger before. Images of broken bodies came to her mind, the Turbine Hall full of smoke and the bloody corpses of those who had been celebrating only moments before. The full force of the tragedy began to settle upon her now. It seemed surreal, the sensation similar to how she had felt after Polly's death. The realization of obliteration, how fragile we really are on the face of the earth, how easily ended.
Blake opened his eyes and the deep blue was intense as he gazed up at Jamie. He raised one gloved hand to her cheek, touching her face softly.
"Will you lie down next to me?" His voice was soft with a note of vulnerability. "You must be exhausted too."
At his words, Jamie felt a wave of tiredness wash over her. The last few days had been crazy and the events of last night had almost broken her. This was not how she had imagined them being together, but right now, they both needed a human touch.
"As long as you don't think this is a date," Jamie whispered with a half smile, but she felt the prick of tears in her eyes. She lay down next to him, putting her head on the crook of his shoulder, her hand on his broad chest. Blake smelled of smoke and antiseptic and underneath, his own musky scent. Jamie nuzzled closer, he put his arm around her and they slept.
Chapter 21
Dale Cameron breathed a sigh of relief as he walked through his front door and shut it firmly behind him. He was alone at last after the hours of media frenzy that followed the explosion at the Tate. He was still very much awake though – the exhilaration of running rings around the whole lot of them made sure of that.
He stood on the brown welcome mat and took off his brogues, adding them to the shoe rack against the left wall, making sure that they were aligned correctly. He put on his inside shoes, a soft pair of leather moccasins that molded to his feet and allowed him to walk silently on the wooden floors further inside. He hung up his overcoat, adjusting the sleeves so they draped nicely on the peg. He put his keys in the red bowl on the dresser, enjoying the jingling sound as they fell.
Entering his domain was a ritual he relished, especially after a day in the grime of London. When he had cleaned up the city to the point where it was as perfect as his house, his job would be done. And he had made a good start to that in the last twenty-four hours.
He paused by the two portraits that hung side by side in his hallway. His mother's beauty had been captured in a candid shot when he was a child, his own smiling face next to hers as she hugged him close. He had been eleven when she had died of internal injuries sustained after falling down the stairs. He knew what she had been running from, but the police looked after their own and back then, fewer questions were asked about injuries in the home. Dale lifted a finger to her face, as he did every time he came home.
Next to it was a picture of his father, taken in uniform at the height of his career, his face confident. "I have already surpassed you," Dale whispered. Once he was Mayor he would go to that stinking old people's home and spit the words in his father's dying face. That day would come soon now.
Dale smiled at the thought and padded into his study at the back of the house. It was the very model of what a Detective's room should look like, with leather wing chairs, a large oak table and bookshelves with all the latest forensic tomes as well as older first editions behind glass panels. A cigar box sat on the desk and Dale adjusted it so the edges lined up perfectly with the tabletop edge.
He walked to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a generous measure of 62 Gun Salute, one of the best of the Royal Salute whiskeys. Tonight he deserved to celebrate. The list of the dead included noted homosexuals, social justice campaigners, tattoo artists and liberals of every kind. If only that bitch Amanda Masters had died in the blast, but then, perhaps that would have made her some kind of martyr.
He padded behind the desk to one of the bookshelves. He pulled out an Arthur Conan Doyle volume and typed a code onto a hidden keypad. There was an audible click and Dale tugged on the bookcase, revealing a door behind. He pulled a key from around his neck, one he kept hidden under his clothes and on his person at all times. His heart beat faster as he inserted the key in the lock and twisted it slowly, prolonging the pleasure of the moment.
Keeping this place was risky, but a man had to have a way to commemorate his successes and relive his pleasures. Dale needed a sanctuary away from the world, when he could be his real self. It was a tremendous effort balancing the demands of the police with his real agenda. There were those he worked with on other plans, but the group had been damaged in the wake of the Hellfire Caves scandal and the investigation into RAIN had further weakened the inner circle. But now he was close to power and soon they would rally again.