Two miles away, in Von Joel’s dimly lit room at the hospital, the nurse called Jackie had come in carrying a kidney dish covered with a folded cloth. She put down the dish, drew the blinds on the connecting window, then took a chair and eased the top under the door handle. Von Joel pushed himself up in the bed, smiling at her. Jackie turned to face him, undoing the buttons on her uniform dress. “Not too many,” Von Joel whispered. “I want you to keep it on.”
“Kinky.”
“What a lovely old-fashioned word.” He beckoned her to the bedside. She came and stood beside him. He realized she was trembling. “You’ll have to indulge an invalid, darling.”
He put his arm up around her hips. She bent down and he kissed her softly on the mouth. His arm began drawing her forward, gently unbalancing her. She looked at him.
“Are you sure about this?” she whispered. “I don’t have very long and I mean, you’re hurt...”
“It’ll be a terrible day when I’m hurt that badly,” he said. “And it’s not as if I’m handicapped, is it? I mean, they took away the cage from my legs, and look” — he held up his right hand, bandaged thickly at the wrist — “no sling.”
“You were supposed to keep that on.”
“I’ll put it back after.”
“After what?” Jackie said coyly.
He squeezed her hip once, firmly, before letting his hand drop away from her.
She drew back the bedclothes, looked down at him. “Jesus...”
“I said I wasn’t handicapped, didn’t I?” He pulled her down on top of him and held her by the wrists, guiding her hands to the sides of the bed, making her grasp the security rails.
She panted against his neck as he pulled up the hem of her uniform, exposing sheer black stockings and the garters she had put on for his benefit. His knees probed between hers, spreading her legs until she was astride him.
“Don’t move,” he whispered in her ear. He kissed her mouth and shifted his body, the slightest motion of his hips. Suddenly he was inside her.
She gulped. “My God...”
“Don’t move!” he insisted. “I told you!”
She groaned as his hips drove against her, a measured thrust, jiggling her, making her hang on tight to the rails. As he began moving faster Jackie tensed her legs, dug her knees into the mattress. His hand crept around her hip and spread out flat on her rump.
“Okay,” he whispered as she began to moan. “You can move.”
She didn’t need to be told twice. She began bouncing on him, drawing him to her, her neck taut as she cried out.
“Oh, yes! Now, baby! Now!”
Out in the corridor a night-security guard stopped near Von Joel’s room, listening, convinced he had heard a woman scream. As he listened he heard it again, softer this time, more of a dying howl. He heard it one more time, muffled, and now it seemed more like the kind of sound cats make in the dark. He stood there for another minute, straining his ears. Everything had gone quiet.
Inside Von Joel’s room Jackie was standing by the bed tucking strands of hair under her cap. Von Joel lay back under the covers, serene, a faint smile on his lips.
Jackie patted the cap to make sure it was centered. At the door she removed the chair from under the handle. She picked up the kidney dish she had brought, took it to the side of the bed, and whipped off the cloth with a magician’s flourish, revealing a portable telephone.
“You know I could get into trouble for doing this,” she whispered. “You can have it until I go off shift.”
She put the telephone on the bedside cabinet. On her way to the door she stopped.
“While I remember, will you thank your mum for the brooch? It was very kind of her.”
Von Joel nodded. “She’s a very sweet lady,” he said. “Sadly, she can’t get around so much lately, but if you take another little note for me tonight, I think she’ll appreciate it. Just leave it at the hotel reception.”
As Jackie opened the door he held up the phone. “Thank your sister for me!”
Faint daylight glowed on the curtains as Lola opened her eyes. She turned her head on the pillow and saw Larry bending over a chair, peering down behind it.
He was fully dressed.
“Where are you going?” she said.
“Home. I can’t find my tie.”
He went through to the sitting room, closing the door behind him. Lola turned and saw that the light on her telephone was blinking. She picked it up. Waiting, she noticed Larry’s wallet lying on the bedside table and flipped through the contents.
“Hello? Senorita del Moreno, you have a message for me?” She scrabbled for a pencil and wrote down a number. “Yes? What time did the call come? Thank you. Any other messages left for me at the desk? No? Oh, gracias... Thank you, no, no, I’ll come down to the desk. Good-bye.”
She sat up properly, wedging a pillow behind her, then dialed the number she had written down. After the second ring Von Joel answered.
“Oh, my love, my love,” she whispered, snuggling down. “Dios mio, te echo de tnenos...”
She continued to croon to Von Joel in Spanish, telling him first how she missed him, then turning to practical matters and explaining that, almost at the same time as she and Charlotte sat planning how to locate Sergeant Jackson, he had shown up at hotel reception.
“He was here, yes, the little sergeant... Honestly!”
Larry walked into the bedroom, holding up his tie.
“Found it,” he said. “Oh, sorry.” He froze in the doorway. “You on the phone?”
“Hang on,” Lola said into the telephone, “my friend is just leaving.” She looked up at Larry. “It’s my papa — say hello.”
Larry shook his head and backed away.
“Oh, come on,” Lola coaxed, “he won’t mind me having someone in bed with me... Say Buenos dtas...”
Larry, feeling distinctly silly, leaned down over the bed and let Lola put the receiver to his mouth.
“Buenos dias,” he said.
“That’s good morning,” Lola told him as he straightened again. Into the phone she said, “You would like him muy bien, Papa.” She mouthed little kisses at Larry as he went to the door, knotting his tie. “Don’t forget your wallet, Sergeant Jackson,” she called.
He came back, took the wallet, and squeezed her shoulder. She pouted at him and pulled the duvet over her head. When he left she tossed the duvet aside and giggled into the telephone.
“He came all by himself, in the literal sense. No, he’s gone.” Her face became serious as she picked up her pencil and pad. “What’s the next move?” She nodded. “No problem. He said he would contact me tomorrow. Bank?”
She lay back, nodding again, making notes, cradling the telephone as if it were Von Joel himself.
17
At nine-fifteen that same morning, his head still feeling charged and imprinted with Lola, Larry faced DCI McKinnes and found himself staring down both barrels of the chief’s rage.
“Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at?” McKinnes stood like a fighter on the attack, one shoulder forward, jabbing a finger at Larry. His voice rose above the hubbub in the incident room. “If I’d thought it was necessary for you to visit Myers’s wife I would have organized it!”
“I just reckoned it would help with my interrogation if I had—”
“Anything you needed to know,” McKinnes yelled, “You should have discussed with me! You should have put it through the right channels!”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry. Jesus. Listen. You, Sergeant” — McKinnes jabbed with his finger again — “have access to Eddie Myers. You’ve also got a wife and two kids. Think, man! Eddie Myers’s ex-wife is married to a bloke who’s done time! If this new husband starts yapping — who knows who he frigging knows? I said I would deal with Italy at the right time! My time, not yours!”