‘They’ll be sorry.’ Hood paced the room.
‘I don’t know why I didn’t come out with it and tell them you had all that stuff.’
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘Because I knew what they’d do. You think I’m stupid? I’m used to this. Me, they’d only slap me around — I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t even mad. That’s the way they are — and they don’t kill women.’ She stared at him. ‘But they would have killed you.’
‘So you saved my life,’ said Hood.
‘But later, after they left, I thought they might have got you. I was frantic, and I almost cried when I saw you last night.’ She was silent a moment, then she said abruptly, ‘They’ll be back.’
‘Not if I nail them first,’ he said.
‘They’re probably looking for you now,’ she said. ‘Just leave me out of it. They’re the worst fuckers — they’re murderers.’
‘I’ve ruined your life,’ he said, and he wanted her to believe it, to take his word for it without asking him how.
She came over to him and touched his face. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re good. You made me happy. I don’t even know you, but I almost love you.’ She held him and said, ‘Sometimes I think everything you say is a lie. I don’t care about that. If you have to lie to make me happy, go ahead — tell me lies. I don’t want to know the truth if it’s going to spoil everything.’
He was moved by her complete surrender; she knew nothing, and yet without belief she trusted him. They were strangers, joined by a corpse: a dead man’s family. But the pity had been refined; she might not know him, but he knew her, and he feared that it would go further, to the narrowing sympathy that would deny him his future. She had been lost. He found her, but now he saw he could only save her by sacrificing himself; that love was all loss, an early death. Yet he could not help what he had felt when he saw her so badly beaten — passion, or blunter still, a kind of lust at seeing her so wounded. Even now, holding her, feeling her frailty, he was heated, and he wanted to hurry her upstairs and make love to her.
She said, ‘I don’t care what you do to those fuckers. But don’t leave me — please.’
‘Don’t say please.’
‘Last night you called me love,’ she said. ‘Say it again.’
He looked down at her. ‘You say I lie.’
‘I want you to lie!’
He kissed her lightly, but as he started to speak, the doorbell rang.
‘Go upstairs,’ he said. ‘I’ll see to them.’
He got a knife from the kitchen, but on his way to the door he threw it down in disgust. It clattered on the floor and was still spinning as he dragged the door open. He sighed and dropped his arms.
‘Yeah, sorry to bother you,’ said Murf, who was tugging at his ear-ring with one hand and pushing at his other ear. He was nervous; the quack was in his voice. He tried to laugh. ‘I hope you wasn’t on the job.’
‘Come in.’
‘The thing is, she’s back,’ he said, stepping in and smoothing his ears with both hands. It occurred to Hood that this was a variation of the gesture balding men usually made with their hair, the pushing and smoothing. ‘The old girl — that filthy great giant, Brodie’s mate. I was having a kip, see, and I heard her come in. I gets behind the door and she sneaks around like. I didn’t know what to do, so I come over here. You want me to put the wind up?’
‘Where’s Mayo?’
‘Out with Brodie. Either in Kilburn or maybe shopping. I don’t know. They took the van.’
‘Maybe the offensive,’ said Hood, smiling.
‘Not a chance,’ said Murf. ‘Like Mayo told me straight. You’re going to do it now, the English offensive — you’re the guv.’ He grinned and widened his eyes and said, ‘Yeah, arsenal rule!’
‘So the secret’s out.’
‘That’s why I got worried. The old girl might find something and rumble us.’
Hood said suddenly, ‘Murf, remember those guys that jumped me at the dog track?’
‘The villains. Shorty and them.’
‘Who are they?’
‘Never seen them before.’
‘But you can find out. They’re agents — fences.’
‘Arfa might know.’
‘Go ask him,’ said Hood. ‘The guy’s name is Willy Rutter. There are some others, but Rutter’s the one I want. He must live around here. I want to catch him at home.’
‘I’ll smash on Arfa’s door,’ said Murf. ‘But what about the old girl?’ He guffawed and showed his teeth. ‘Maybe she wants me to raise her.’
‘Forget it. Find out about Rutter.’
When Murf had gone, Hood went upstairs and told Lorna who it was. Lorna lay on the bed, stiffly crouched, hugging her stomach; but hearing there was no danger, she stretched and relaxed and said, ‘Sit beside me.’
He sat on the edge of the bed and pushed her hair out of her eyes.
‘Tell me a lie.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I love you.’
‘Tell the truth,’ she said impatiently, getting up on one elbow.
He said, ‘I don’t love you.’
She fell back. He thought she was pouting until he realized her lips were swollen that way from a slap. She said, ‘I don’t care if you don’t love me. Anyway, everyone says it, so it’s just another lie. I know you like me, or else why would you stick with me?’ She smiled slowly. ‘And I know something else.’
‘What is it?’ He knew an instant panic.
She said, ‘You’re not a fucker.’
‘But all men are fuckers — that’s what you said.’
‘Not you.’ She drew him down, hugging him and moving her face against his. And as she did he felt his cheeks grow wet, his eyes sting, but it was her tears trickling into his eyes. She was crying softly, and though she tried to control it he could hear the groan in her throat and feel the convulsion; she was sobbing. ‘Don’t leave me,’ she said and held his arms tightly — so tight he felt his wrists tingle and go numb. The girl in her wept, but a woman’s strength held him. ‘Please don’t leave me — please, please, please!’
He thought: Yes, but there is something to do. He was crowded, haunted by the men who had wounded her. The punishment he planned lingered in his mind — that remained, an intrusion between their bodies as obvious as her wounds. The thought prevented him from responding to her plea, but he saw an end to it. He would get them and be finished — discard everything, abandon the house on Albacore Crescent and begin with her. He had enough hope for her, and there was freedom in that hope. Ridding her life of those bastards would rid him of that part of his own past that now seemed a moment of uncontrolled fury, when murdering her husband he had murdered the worst in himself. He embraced her and kissed her and she sobbed, but he felt nothing except an impulse to find Rutter and hammer him. Kill that lurking rival.
She was still pleading, but her mouth was against his neck and he heard nothing.
‘We can’t stay here,’ he said at last. ‘Murf’s coming back.’
Murf arrived an hour later with Arfa Muncie. Seeing Lorna’s bruises, Murf said, ‘Hey, who done you?’ Then he changed the subject, perhaps suspecting that Hood might have beaten her. Muncie looked alarmed; he was silent and eyed Hood carefully as if waiting for a signal to run. But Hood saw how rattled Muncie was (he was picking up Lorna’s china dolls and examining their seals, and testing the firmness of chairs: the junk-dealer’s nervous reflex), and he deliberately put him at his ease, slapped him on the back — Muncie jumped — and said casually, ‘Now where does our friend live?’
‘I can show you,’ said Muncie. ‘I mean, out the window.’