‘Gaston.’
‘Gaston doesn’t want you to hurt me.’
‘He does. Said I could.’
Mary started to tremble. There was a lock on the inside of the bathroom door. Could she pretend to do what he wanted: get inside before he could follow her and lock him out! She might be able to, if she was quick: quicker than she’d been when she tried to run away from the woman the other time. She could pretend to dance a little first, make him sit down to watch to give herself the chance. What if he got to her before she locked it, like the woman had done? She’d be even more trapped then. Have to do what he wanted. Or he’d hit her. He’d said he would hit her: wanted to. ‘I want to go back into my room now.’
He shook his head. ‘Not any more.’
‘You mustn’t hurt me. Do anything bad to me.’
‘I can.’
‘If you do you’ll go where bad people go.’
He frowned at her, head to one side. ‘What?’
It had been the ultimate threat against Victor, when she’d wanted to make him cry. How much longer could she go on talking, keeping him away? She still felt sick and now her throat was beginning to get sore. I won’t make Victor cry ever again, God. I promise. ‘You know where bad people go?’
‘Jail.’
‘That’s it, you’ll go to jail.’ Mary seized on the word. ‘Go to jail for a very long time. For ever.’
‘No one knows.’
‘They’ll find out.’
‘Can’t.’
‘My father can. He’s a very important man. Lots of special people work for him.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘If you go away – leave me alone – I’ll tell my father you were kind to me,’ promised Mary. ‘Then they won’t send you where the bad people go.’ She wanted to make pee pee: already felt wet. Do the other thing: very much wanted to do the other thing. Her stomach was rumbling, making rude noises. She tried to keep her bottom tight together.
‘ME NOW!’
The words roared from him, furiously. He’d shown no sign of losing his temper and Mary screamed out in shocked surprise at the unexpected noise. He was coming towards her, arms outstretched, hands cupped, and she cringed back against the seat, trying to slide sideways round the tiny table so that she could run. Run where? She didn’t know. Just run. Around the room. Anywhere. Run to the bathroom. He snatched out, grabbing her arm as she darted to her right, pulling her towards him and Mary brought her other hand up, trying to push him off. His smell was much worse, not just his body but the breath from his ugly mouth. He was grunting, squeezing her.
‘STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!’
Mary was scarcely aware of the words at first, not until the woman reached them, beating at the man with open-handed slaps. The woman got between them, slapping the man again and again. He roared, not a word, just a sound, and slapped the woman back and she screeched, clawing at him so that Mary saw blood burst out on his face. Mary fell back against the table, hearing it split as it tilted, spilling her back on to the bench.
The man wasn’t fighting back any more. He was standing with his arms cupped about his head, trying to protect himself but mostly just standing there, letting himself be beaten. And the woman was beating him, aiming her blows, kicking him, and shouting in French. The man began to retreat towards the door under the onslaught and she kept up the attack, driving him from the room and disappearing through the door, still clamouring at him in French.
It was only then that Mary saw there was someone else, a man she hadn’t seen before, standing just inside the entrance. He was very tall and oddly thin, his stomach curved in instead of out, the strangeness made more obvious by the way his shoulders humped, bringing him forward. His mask was frightening, black leather cut with spaces for just his eyes and his mouth but very tight, like a skin over his head and face. He carried the sort of bag that doctors used.
In bad English he said: ‘Poor little one. Poor, poor little one.’
‘Don’t hurt me,’ pleaded Mary, her voice catching in a sob. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’
‘I won’t,’ said Pieter Lascelles. ‘I promise I won’t hurt you.’
Mary was sick and she’d wet herself and there were tiny blood spots inside her knickers that frightened her but the woman said she wasn’t ill but that it was growing up, becoming a woman, and she wasn’t to worry. Until they dried, after she’d washed them, she didn’t have to worry about u.p.’s.
The woman had showered her and afterwards cuddled her on the cushioned bench. Mary lay with her legs curled up, wanting to be held, wishing the man with the skin mask wasn’t in the room with them, spoiling it. Mary didn’t want anybody else with them: she liked it with just her and the woman.
It took some time for the catch to go out of Mary’s voice as she told the woman what had happened and all the time the woman held her and smoothed her hair and several times Mary felt the woman press her lips to her head, kissing her. Over and over she kept repeating ‘poor baby’ and ‘my poor darling’ and ‘poor love.’
‘He wanted to hurt me,’ sobbed Mary. ‘Said Gaston said it would be all right. Wanted me to dance. Shower and dance.’
‘It’s all right. All over now. He won’t come here ever again.’
‘I want you.’
‘I know you do, my darling. I’ll take care of you now: I’ll always take care of you.’
‘Please don’t leave me alone.’
‘I’ve got to: there are things I have to do. But you’ll be safe.’ She pulled away from the child. ‘I want your backpack: the one we looked through last night.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to use it for something.’
‘All right.’ Mary felt important being able to lend the woman something she wanted.
On their way into Antwerp Lascelles said: ‘She’s very pretty.’
‘And she’s mine!’ declared Felicite.
The gaunt man looked across the car towards her. ‘Would he have killed her?’ There was no emotion in his voice.
‘I think so.’
‘He’s a liability: all your people are. Can you stop him coming back again?’
‘Yes,’ said Felicite shortly.
‘I think we should get it over with soon.’
‘When I’m ready, not before.’
‘She’s not just pretty,’ mused the doctor. ‘Remarkably brave considering what she went through back there.’
Felicite was at the Mehre gallery, confronting the brothers. Charles sat even more huddled than before in the upright chair, crying. Gaston stood defensively by the window, as if he saw it as a way of escape. There was no pretence of drink-offering hospitality.
‘I didn’t know he’d gone. I sent him to collect a bureau in Ghent.’
‘Liar!’ accused Felicite. ‘You sent him to kill her!’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
Gaston stopped protesting.
‘Who of the others knows?’ Felicite demanded.
‘All of them.’
‘Bastards!’
‘What are you going to do?’
Felicite didn’t know. That realization made her even angrier. They weren’t obeying her any more. ‘Wait,’ she said inadequately. ‘You can wait – all of you – to find out.’
‘Gaston said I could,’ mumbled Charles from his isolated seat.
Claudine lay with her head into Blake’s naked shoulder, liking the way his arm felt holding him to her: liking the whole feel of his body along the length of hers. It had been wonderful. She couldn’t remember how long it had been – couldn’t remember sex – but she didn’t think it had ever been like this. He’d been incredible. Always thinking of her before himself, her pleasure before his, but at the same time there’d been a frenzy, an urgency more than passion the first time and then he’d taken her again, twice, and each time she’d come. She’d forgotten that, too. Now she felt wonderful. Relaxed, from the sex and the Librium, but with no tiredness. Instead her mind was pin-sharp and her skin burned, tingling against his.
‘You OK?’
‘Wonderful.’ There had to be another word! ‘You?’
‘You wouldn’t know.’