Myshka kissed him, long and slow, angling her pelvis into his groin as she did so. “He is holding you back,” she breathed. “You do not need him.”
“No, no I don’t,” Warwick groaned as she sank to her knees in front of him. He heard the slow rasp of his zipper and his eyes flickered to a close. “Not like I need you.”
62
It was late afternoon before Kelly finally plucked up the courage to contact Matthew Lytton.
A part of her was aghast that she could possibly want to have anything to do with the man. But another part wanted—no needed—an explanation. About why he’d done what he’d done.
If she was going down again at least this time she’d know the reason behind it.
Email seemed like the coward’s way but she went for it. He’d spelled out his private email for the forensics lab and Kelly had always been good at remembering details like that.
She set up an anonymous email account and composed a brief message but her fingers stilled with the cursor hovering over the send icon.
Annoyed with herself, she pushed back her chair and jumped restlessly to her feet, shoving her hands into her pockets as if to stop them doing something she’d regret.
“Let it go Kel,” she said out loud. How many times had she said those words to herself? They didn’t help.
She was glad she was alone in the flat. Tina had a job manning the phones at a local centre for battered wives. Elvis was . . . wherever he drifted to during the day—when he could peel himself off the sofa. Kelly was still not entirely sure of the relationship between Tina and the silent youth. As far as she was concerned it was none of her business.
Besides if he wasn’t encouraging Tina to shoot up, beating her or pimping her out, then he sounded like a real step up on half the male company her friend had endured over the years. It was a pleasure to see her clean and focused.
Still, there were worse things a man could do to a woman. Betrayal came top of Kelly’s list.
“I’ll regret it if I don’t do this,” she said, decisive now. And she sent the email winging through cyberspace before she could think better of it.
The laptop displayed a busy symbol for maybe a second or so, during which time Kelly was nearly overwhelmed by the temptation to pull the plug on her impulse. Then it was gone and too late.
For the next half an hour nothing happened and she was filled with a sense of anticlimax.
He might not reply for days, she considered. He might not reply at all.
If Tina was here she knew her friend would be giving her stick for reaching out to Lytton. For giving him a second chance.
Would those five years inside have been easier to bear she wondered, if she’d known who and why?
No probably not.
She busied herself activating the phone which had been charging since Tina brought it in. Then she stood by the window gazing down into a tiny paved square that the planners no doubt envisaged as a communal play area between the blocks rather than the windswept No Man’s Land it had become.
Below her the figure of a black teenager with a lanky stride walked diagonally across the square, hands deep in the pockets of his sweatshirt, baseball cap slanted to a hip angle. Kelly was reminded—suddenly and painfully—of Tyrone. Of his clumsy affection. A crush he’d never have the chance to outgrow. She felt her eyes threatening to fill.
As if coming to her rescue the laptop let out a subdued ping. She bent towards it and saw one new email waiting for her. The address was anonymous like the one she’d just set up herself but there was no mistaking the sender.
Lytton.
This was what she’d been waiting for but now it was here she was strangely reluctant to open it. She shook herself and punched the key. The message was not what she’d been hoping for. A two-word terse response.
Call me.
A cellphone number followed. Nothing else.
Kelly sank slowly into the chair still staring at the words. True, her own message had not been much longer but she’d expected more than this.
Again she hesitated. She wasn’t clever enough with computers to know if staying online was dangerous. The tangible rather than the virtual had always been her field of expertise. Could he backtrack her location?
Somehow she doubted the police would be hovering over his shoulder at this moment as they had been with Tyrone’s mother.
As a halfway house measure she switched to instant messaging instead.
KJ—Just tell me why.
He swapped over without a blink, the answer batting straight back at her.
ML—Could ask you the same question. Why run out on me?
Was he testing her to see how much she knew?
KJ—Why did you send him after me? she countered.
ML—Send who?
She paused. Ah well . . .
KJ—You know who—the man at the racecourse. The one from the warehouse.
Again the response was almost instant, with exasperation coming through loud and clear.
ML—I know nothing about this. YOU were using ME remember?!?
Kelly sat back. She’d expected placatory lies not indignation. She’d expected to be able to cling to a righteous anger of her own, not be beset by sudden doubts.
KJ—Just tell me WHY Matthew.
She realised after she’d sent it that the words held nothing but a weary defeat.
There was a longer pause before his reply this time. She imagined him sitting frowning over a laptop of his own somewhere—somewhere more upmarket than Tina’s Brixton bolt-hole that was for sure. At last another message came through.
ML—We NEED to talk. I’ll meet you. You choose where.
He was clever she acknowledged. Somewhere safe would be too public. It would invite recognition and capture. Somewhere remote would do half his work for him.
Damn him.
Kelly picked up the cellphone and stabbed at the keys.
“Matthew Lytton.”
“I’m listening,” she said. “So talk.”
“Kelly! Where are you? No don’t answer that,” he said before she could do so—even if she’d been inclined. “I don’t expect you to tell me.”