Her own, he saw, were sad and remote.
"Believe me," she said. "You wouldn't want to."
An hour later, he was still with her. She was on the hard sofa and he reckoned that she was asleep, but he couldn't be sure. There was a duvet cover in the bedroom — no linen, just the white cotton shell of the duvet itself — and she didn't stir when he brought this through and laid it over her. He'd already turned off most of the lights.
He knew that he ought to slip out quietly. Leave her, walk away. He'd already done more than most people ever would.
But he kept turning the strange syllables of her name over and over in his mind.
And, for the second time and without any prompting, he found himself wondering what they'd make of her in the valley.
He couldn't even think of taking her back with him, that much was certain. Imagine the complications. Everyone would jump to the wrong conclusion, even Ted Hammond; especially Ted Hammond, who worried over Pete like a mother hen. He kept hinting at how Pete, though hormonally sound, wasn't getting any younger, while the supply of eligible women in the valley was meagre at its best. There was the passing-through traffic of summer, but Pete didn't find that he was much tempted by the seductive signals of bored rich women — or rather, bored women with rich husbands — of a certain age. The men came to play with their big boats, their wives cast an eye along the dock and saw Pete. Maybe it was the way that he had to clamber aboard and ram in the pump nozzle when they called by for fuel, started them thinking and gave them all kinds of ideas. He didn't exactly have to beat them off with a stick, but some of them were so upfront it could be embarrassing. They tended to have tight, well kept figures, expensive bleach jobs, and the skin tone of a crocodile handbag after a lifetime's forced tanning. Thanks, but no thanks.
Somebody like Diane Jackson, though… that was a different proposition entirely. She was a Mrs, but as far as he'd been able to ascertain her husband had long ago been booted out into the street with his hat thrown after him. She'd arrived in the valley only a few months before, to work on the Liston Estate at the head of the lake. She lived in the big house, she sometimes came down to the yard on Estate business. They'd kind of eyed each other and although nothing had exactly happened yet, there was something in the air that said that it might. Something like the highlycharged sense of impending lightning.
Or maybe he was kidding himself.
Maybe, for all that he'd been thinking, he really wasn't anything more than a walk-on in the drama of her life. A couple of lines to say, not even a name to be remembered. Whatever the case, he could be sure of one thing; come home with a good-looking stranger in tow, and his chances with said Mrs Jackson or anybody else would nosedive within hours of the gossip mill getting to work.
Ah, well. Then it would be back to his daydreams of Deborah Harry and a baby oil massage, and wait until some other prospect might open up in his life.
Alina's hand was out from under the cover and turned slightly, so that the inside of her arm caught the faint electric light from the almost-closed bathroom door. The edge of her sleeve had fallen back to show a line of tiny, puckered scars down the soft part of her forearm. He frowned. There was always the possibility that she was actually an addict, and that the rest of it had been a lie; but these were white and long-healed, more likely a permanent record of an abuse that had once been inflicted upon her.
So it probably was all true. He didn't doubt it now, and hadn't really needed this evidence to persuade him.
"I only wish I could do something more," he whispered, mostly to himself.
And she heard him.
"You don't know what you're saying," she said from the darkness. She spoke softly, but she sounded as if she was fully awake. "But it doesn't matter. After tonight, you won't see me again."
"What do you mean?"
She raised herself onto one elbow, and the duvet slid from her shoulder. "I mean that I'd hurt you. I'm like a rusalka."
"A what?"
"You'd say, a heartbreaker. I have it on the best authority."
He moved around the sofa, and crouched down before her. As once before, her face was in shadow with only the slight, bright flicker of her eyes to betray her attentiveness.
He said, "Listen, don't worry about me. I can look after myself."
"That makes no difference. I'm not just an ordinary runaway, it's not that kind of a situation at all. I could be the worst thing that could ever happen to you. I use people, and then I betray them. It's not a choice that I make. But it happens, again and again."
He shook his head, half smiling. "I don't understand you," he said.
"That's right," she said. "You don't."
At which point, there was a sharp knock at the apartment's door.
Alina shot upright, any hint of drowsiness gone, as tense as a hunted cat getting a scent of the pack. "It's probably nothing," Pete said, rising, but as he turned to go to the door he could sense her wary, watchful presence behind him. The fact of it was, he was a little uneasy himself. When it came down to it, he'd no right to be here other than on Mike's say-so, and that could prove to be an authority of little substance. And then when the shit that he'd handed you hit the fan, Mike was the kind of person who'd shrug and then offer to sell you a washcloth.
A woman stood outside.
She seemed surprised to see Pete. She was around forty, trim and well preserved, anxious-looking and in a dressing gown. She said, "I'm sorry. I saw the light and I thought… I thought Doctor Singer had come back."
"I'm a close friend of his," Pete improvised quickly.
"Oh." she hesitated. "I'm sorry to ask, but…"
"Is something wrong?"
She picked her words carefully, uncertain of being misunderstood by someone she didn't know. "Well… there's a strange character hanging around outside. I'm not sure, but he seems to be looking in all the windows."
Pete felt himself unwind a little. A peeper? Here was something that he could handle, much better than being put on the spot as a squatter. He said, "Just give me a minute," and he stepped back inside. Alina had switched on the table lamp next to the sofa; she looked rumpled but alert, and presumably she'd heard what had been said.
"I have to go out for a few minutes," Pete told her. "Will you be all right?"
"Of course," she said, and she glanced at the woman in the doorway.
"I'm sorry," the woman said. "I won't keep him long."
Alina nodded briefly, as if to show that she didn't mind. Pete told Alina to lock the door behind him, just in case; and as they went out into the stairwell, Pete couldn't help reflecting on the woman's attitude. She'd been deferring to Alina.
Borrowing her man.
They went down to the next floor.
FIVE
Her name was Janis, and she was a nurse; a senior staff nurse, and she'd known the occupant of the upstairs apartment well. Pete decided to say nothing on the subject, or risk betraying some fundamental ignorance. Her flat was larger than the one they'd left, with two bedrooms and a decent length of lounge. It was in the semi-chaos of redecoration with the furniture all sheeted, the walls stripped down to the plaster, and the smell of drying paint in the air.
"Sorry about the mess," Janis said. "I'm doing it all myself."
"No worries," Pete said, stepping over books which had been stacked in the middle of the room and protected by old Sunday colour supplements spread out over the heap. "Does this happen a lot?"
"Two or three times a year," she said. "You get a lot of single women in the flats. It's a bit of a magnet for peculiar types."
He stood at the window. They were on the opposite side of the block now, facing across the street to where the grounds and towers of the hospital complex stood. With the curtains open and the lights behind him, Pete's silhouette would be easily visible to anyone who might be prowling around out there.