He would have liked to take the picture with him, but it was framed and might be missed. He hesitated. Then he reached out and removed the snapshot of Robert and the two women on Hampstead Heath. There were so many pictures jostling for space here, it was probably safe to take this one.
Time to go. Time to go. Slipping the picture into the inner pocket of his jacket, he left the room, closing the door behind him. Quickly he descended the staircase, now black with shadows. As he reached the bottom stair, a sound made him pause. It was the sound of a key in a lock and it came from the front door-a door which, even as he glanced over at it, was already starting to open.
He made a beeline for the living room door, but the entrance hall with its army of potted plants was a bloody minefield. For one heart-stopping moment he almost kicked over a drooping aspidistra. But then he was in the living room and there, on the other side of the room, were the French doors. His route to escape.
Behind him in the entrance hall a light was switched on, the yellow stain stretching all the way from the hall to the living room door and spilling onto his feet. The sound of a woman's voice, the words indistinct, but the voice itself low-pitched and pleasant. Another female voice, this one light and breathy, saying, "You have to admit, though, he's pretty cute!"
Swiftly he traversed the room, making sure to give the wobbly wicker screen a wide berth. The French door opened under his hand, and he was in the garden. The sultry air and the sound of traffic was a shock after the hermetically sealed atmosphere of the house. He pushed the door softly shut and ran down the length of the darkened garden. When he reached the back door, which would give him access to the alley, he stopped to look back.
The French doors were brightly lit, the stained-glass insets glowing with color, and as he watched, someone pulled the shutters away from one of the windows and opened it wide. He could hear music playing. The garden was redolent with the scent of roses, the night air soaked with perfume.
Two figures were silhouetted against the bright light within. They were facing each other, their heads close together. There was something surreptitious in their posture, secretive even. Gabriel shivered though the night air was blood warm. The scent of roses seemed sickly all of a sudden, making him feel drugged and passive.
As he watched the two women, he felt as though the moment were frozen. A house with two figures in furtive conversation, an intruder looking in from the darkness, a garden awash in fragrance- this was an enchanted world with its own rules, remote from the city of London, which stretched around them in all directions like a pulsing organism. Time in here had stopped-even as it still flowed evenly outside the perimeters of these garden walls.
A car honked loudly, shaking him out of his stupor. What was he still doing here? He felt tired and his hand throbbed where the cat had scratched him. He suddenly had one overriding desire-to get away from this house. He looked back at the lighted window. The figures were gone.
He sighed, relieved now, eager to be on his way. But as he turned to leave, he thought he heard-faintly-the sound of a woman's laughter.
Entry date: 23 June
We still haven't found someone to play with. M thought she had a candidate but what a disappointment he turned out to be. He has no curiosity. No sense of adventure. He is definitely not a candidate for the game.
So M will now use him as a lover only. But I rather doubt he'll satisfy her. Very handsome but he knows it and no woman wants to feel that the man she's with thinks he's prettier than she is. He won't be around for long.
Thinking of which: the ideal lover, who would he be?
A man who is passionate. A man with a militant mind. A man with skilled fingers, who knows how to touch. He will seduce me with gentleness and know me in roughness.
Subtlety. Mastery. Danger.
Where to find such a man? What will be his name?
CHAPTER EIGHT
"So who did you say he was, exactly?" Frankie turned her head toward him and squinted against the sun. She had insisted on an outside table even though Gabriel hated sitting outside. In the country, dining al fresco had a certain bucolic charm, but in the city you were far too close to pedestrians spitting and sneezing all over your food. Not to mention the belching exhaust fumes.
"Isidore? He's an associate of mine. A computer specialist and very good at tracking things down. I asked him to look into Min-naloushe and Morrighan Monk and see if he can come up with anything interesting." Gabriel glanced at his watch. "Punctuality is not his strong suit, I'm afraid. But he'll be here." He lifted his arm and beckoned to the waitress. "More coffee?"
Frankie crumbled the croissant on her plate. "No, thanks. I had enough coffee last night to last me a lifetime."
"How's William doing?"
"Better," she said briefly.
He nodded. She obviously did not feel like talking. And she looked tired. The red dress she was wearing merely accentuated her fatigue, the joyous color at odds with the pallor of her skin, the dry-ness of her lips. There was a great sadness in her eyes.
So she really did care for the guy. He felt a sudden-and unwelcome-pang of jealousy. Frankie belonged to the past. Why did he care about the relationship she had with her husband?
"You really love him, don't you?"
"There's no need to sound quite so surprised."
"But I mean, honest now, Frankie. When you first met him. are we talking head-over-heels?"
She leaned forward. "We're talking butterflies in the stomach, clammy hands, and midnight fantasizing. I have never been more in love with any other man."
"Oh."
She smiled sardonically. "You think that after having you in my life, no other man would measure up, don't you?"
"Of course, not." But come on, he thought silently, what did Whittington have that he didn't? Only a few hundred million dollars.
She shook her head, gave a short laugh. "You're amazing. You've always thought you were 'the cutest thing in shoe leather.' That obviously hasn't changed."
He looked at her coldly.
"Oh, Gabriel. Stop sulking. Tell me about your visit to Monk House. You said apart from the photographs, there were no other signs of Robert?"
He sighed. "No. And I couldn't sense his presence in the house. No imprint."
"What about the woman in your ride, the masked one with the crow? Were you able to pick up an imprint from her?"
"Afraid not."
"Nothing at all?"
He shrugged. "Nothing definite, although I still think we're on the right track. The question is, of course, who was the woman in my ride? Minnaldushe or Morrighan? I've now seen pictures of both of them, but as the woman was masked and her hair covered with a hood, I still don't know which one it was."
She frowned. "Those two are very close. Who's to say it wasn't both of them? "
He shook his head. "I sensed only one woman in my ride. Not two. If a murder had taken place, only one woman was responsible. Only one woman physically placed her hands on Robert Whittington's head and pushed him down into the water. The other sister may be aware of what happened and she may even be an accessory after the fact, but only one of them actually committed the deed."
"The deed. God." She shivered. "It sounds so cold. You do realize you'll have to slam another ride? Try to go back; see if you can make more sense of it this time?"