Serve her bloody well right if he didn't turn up, she thought as she walked up the road towards Earl's Court tube station, head down against the wind.
When she emerged at Notting Hill Gate a few minutes later, it was well past ten, but the streets were still busy with late shoppers and patrons coming and going from the restaurants and pubs. Waiting to cross at the light, she saw the woman beside her start to step out into the path of a 52 bus barreling round the corner into Pembridge Road. Kristin grabbed the shoulder of her jacket and yanked her back, feeling the draft rock her as the bus passed.
"Christ!" she said, loosing her hold, her heart pounding. "Can't you watch where you're going?"
"Sorry," the woman mumbled, without looking at her, and when the light changed she walked on, head still down.
Some people, Kristin thought, shaking her head, but then she was crossing Notting Hill Gate, and the door to one side of the Gate Cinema yawned before her.
There was no bouncer, as Monday was a light crowd, but it was only as she started down the stairs into the club that she remembered it was salsa night. The driving beat of Latin music rose up to meet her, and as she reached the basement she saw that instead of the usual milling bodies, couples were dancing in sync, touching. Her heart sank. That temptation was a complication she didn't need, and she wondered if Dom had remembered and had chosen the club because of it.
She pushed her way through the knot of people blocking the bottom of the stairs, into the purple-blue glow of the light from the bar. One of the bartenders, a pretty blond girl, waved at her, but she shook her head and kept looking.
Then she saw him, sitting alone, in the corner farthest from the bar and the dance floor. He'd washed his hair and dressed with obvious care, and she wondered if the pallor of his face was simply a reflection of the lights from the bar.
When he saw her, he smiled and stood, beckoning her over, and when she reached him he kissed her, brushing his lips against her cheek.
Kristin shivered and pulled away. "I came to talk, Dom." She sat on the banquette, putting a good foot of space between them.
"Let me get you a drink."
"No, I don't want-"
But the barmaid came by and Dom signaled her, ordering her a mojito. He was drinking, Kristin saw, neat whisky, never a good sign.
"You look gorgeous." He ran a hand down her arm.
"You think?" she retorted. "You should have seen me on Saturday."
"Look, love, things just got a bit out of control. I-"
"They're only as out of control as you want them to be, Dom, and I'm-"
The barmaid brought her drink and Kristin took it, giving the girl an absent smile. She took a drink, tasting mint and lime and feeling the kick of the rum as it went down. Dutch courage. She needed Dutch courage.
"Drink up," Dom said quietly, and she saw then that in spite of the whisky he was sober, and there was no affection in his gray eyes. "And tell me about the cops."
Kristin swallowed. The fear she'd damped down since that morning came back in a rush. "She said it was personal, the inspector, that she was doing a favor for a friend, a woman named Erika Rosenthal. She said the brooch had belonged to her friend and it was lost during the war. She wanted to know who was selling it."
"You're sure you didn't tell her?" Dom's voice rose.
"No. Of course not," she said, thinking how perilously close she had come to spilling everything. There had been something sympathetic about the inspector, with her open face and coppery hair. "And Khan read them the lawyer act. But I don't-"
"You have to take it out of the sale." Dom was sweating now, the calm of a moment before gone, and when he raised his glass, his hand shook.
"Take it out of the sale?" Kristin stared at him. "Are you mad? You know I can't take it out of the sale. Only Harry can do that."
"Harry's convinced himself his twenty percent will keep the wolves from the door. He-"
"Twenty percent?" Kristin's voice shot up. "You offered Harry twenty percent, against me risking the wrath of Khan for my four percent bringing-in fee?"
"I'd have made it up to you, Kris. But now-"
"Now, nothing. You and Harry work it out between you." She set down her glass, miraculously empty. "As far as I'm concerned, I don't know you-or Harry-from Adam, and I took in that brooch in good faith. And if it sells, you can keep my bloody four percent."
She stood, the room spinning as the alcohol hit her system. The rhythm of the samba playing on the DJ's turntable seemed almost tangible in the air. Steadying herself with a hand on the back of the banquette, she leaned over and kissed Dom, very lightly, on the cheek. "'Bye, Dom. Have a nice life."
When she reached the street, she looked back, but he hadn't followed, and she didn't know if she felt relief or despair.
Quickly, she walked round the corner into Kensington Church Street and started south, and when a 49 bus came along she got on. It would take her through South Ken, and she had a sudden desire to see the familiar museums and to pass by the showroom. It was, she told herself, all she had left.
But when the bus trundled past the Old Brompton Road, she stayed on, resisting the impulse to stop and look in the showroom windows. After all, if Khan found out she'd known there was something dodgy about that brooch, he would fire her in a heartbeat, and then there would be nothing at all.
It was only as the bus neared the King's Road that she realized Dom had changed his mind about the sale even before she'd told him about the cops. She got off, still thinking, walking slowly towards World's End. The road was empty, the pub dark-somehow it had got to be past closing time.
She waited to cross at the light, pulling her cardigan up around her throat, wondering just what she would say to Khan if Harry Pevensy did pull the brooch from the sale. Khan would hold her responsible, and there would be hell to pay. She felt suddenly exhausted and a bit dizzy, as if the alcohol had taken an unexpected toll on her empty stomach.
The light changed. As Kristin stepped off the curb, she heard the high-pitched squeal of tires on tarmac. Turning towards the sound, she saw a blur of motion, oncoming, and had the odd impression of lights reflecting off a smooth expanse of metal.
Her brain sent flight signals to her body, too late. And at the moment of impact, she felt nothing at all.
CHAPTER 7
1940
Aboard the Excambian, December 13, midnight
It had been a long time, but they had been happy years, personally, and for all people in Europe they had had meaning and borne hope until the war came and the Nazi blight and the hatred and the fraud and the political gangsterism and the murder and the massacre and the incredible intolerance and all the suffering and the starving and cold and the thud of a bomb blowing the people in a house to pieces, the thud of all the bombs blasting man's hope and decency.
– William L. Shirer, Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent,
1934-1941
Kit lay awake, watching the numerals on his bedside clock change. One minute before his alarm was set to go off, he reached out and tapped the button. Tess was lying on the floor by the door, gazing at him balefully. He'd tossed and turned so much during the night that he'd pushed her off the bed, and her feelings were hurt.
"Here, girl." He patted the bed. She stood, giving her customary wiggly stretch, then padded over to the bed and leapt up, but without much enthusiasm. It appeared he was not quite forgiven. He rolled over, lifting her wiry little body onto his chest, and she obliged by licking him on the chin. "There, that's better," he said, and scratched her behind the ears.