9. Jimmy
He could never win, whatever spin he tried to put on the situation, on what had happened. On what he’d let happen.
He couldn’t claim Mel had taken him by surprise with her wily seductress skills, her move so swift he’d been unable to stop her. Nobody ever took Jimmy Lazenby by surprise. He was too good to ever be caught off guard.
Okay, so the transition had been abrupt – from tender snuggling, from seeking and taking comfort in their embrace, to that hand dragging down over his ribs, his abdomen, to slipping inside his waistband. To the point where there was no denying, no turning back.
He could have stopped her, though. Easily. Nobody ever moved too fast for him.
But that left the other version of events, where he had known exactly what was happening and he’d let it. He’d known she was vulnerable, her head not in a good place to make choices that would have... repercussions. And still he hadn’t stopped her.
What kind of a person did that make him?
He was being hard on himself, he knew. He’d stopped her last night. Stopped himself .
He’d wanted her so badly. That almost overpowering rush of... of what? Of nostalgia? A petty, egotistical sense of simply knowing he could? Of simple lust?
Of what might have been. A decade’s worth of what might have been, if he’d only been a better person ten years ago.
She was beautiful. Always a looker back then, now she had a knowing beauty, a grown-up beauty. Something he couldn’t even begin to define, but simply was.
They lay together for some time after she’d stretched for a towel to wipe herself clean. Ragged breathing drawing itself out, calming. No doubt both minds racing, not just his.
He was on his back, still mostly in his clothes. His shirt pulled up, his trousers and shorts pushed down. Her leg drawn across his middle, pressing down against him.
He couldn’t stay like that for long. It was morning, the world coming to life again. Time wasn’t going to wait. The urge to get up had nothing to do with being unable to deal with the sudden intimacy.
He went downstairs while she got ready, avoiding the awkwardness of everyday things.
A man was in the kitchen. Of Asian heritage, his skin was almost as dark as his glossy hair and beard.
Jimmy raised his hands apologetically, the man’s look hostile – understandably so.
“I thought so,” the man said, stirring his cup in an agitated manner. “That was a single booking. No extra guests without notification. She–”
“I’m sorry,” said Jimmy, in his best diplomatic tone. He could do nice when he had to. “I’ll pay any extra. It was late and there was no-one around. I only stayed to make sure she was okay – she was assaulted on her way back here last night.”
Only now did the man pause, take in the vivid red smears on the front of Jimmy’s shirt. Odd that he hadn’t registered that straight away – a complete stranger in his kitchen with blood on his clothes – but the human mind behaved strangely sometimes.
“Aw, man,” said the guy. “She okay? That’s bad. Too much of it these days.”
“A few bruises,” said Jimmy. “A bloody nose.”
“Police?”
“The authorities know. It’s being dealt with. She was in shock. I’m an old friend, that’s all. I really would have asked if there had been anyone around last night.”
“Man, that sucks. Listen, you want a shirt? Let me get you a shirt.”
A minute or two later, he came back with a white t-shirt. Jimmy removed his jacket, his shoulder holster, and laid them on the kitchen table. Undid his shirt and removed it, then reversed the process: t-shirt, holster, jacket.
“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
The guy nodded. Said nothing more. Guns had that effect sometimes. Guns and blood and strangers in your house... Only now did it seem the guy’s brain was really catching up, starting to wonder what, exactly, he was in the middle of. Perhaps started to reconsider the consequences of opening his house up to strangers.
“It’s fine,” said Jimmy. “Really. Mel will be down in a minute. She’s just getting ready.”
The guy relaxed a little, perhaps reassured by sounds of running water coming from upstairs. “Coffee?” he said, and Jimmy shook his head.
He sat at the kitchen table. He should have said yes to the coffee.
Last night he’d barely slept. It was a skill he’d learned long ago, to get by without sleep whenever necessary. To grab a few minutes’ power nap here or there and then wake himself. He could go days on end like that.
Last night had been long, though. Always aware of Mel when she lay there motionless, but equally aware of every little move, every little sound. Aware of where she pressed against him. The touch of a hand, the press of a breast or a leg. Aware of when she was dreaming and when she was not, all those little sighs and twitches and flutters of the eyes beneath the lids.
When she got up in the middle of the night, he’d closed his eyes, not wanting her to know he was awake, but when she emerged from the bathroom sometime later she caught him looking. She hesitated, then seemed to think What the hell? That t-shirt did nothing to cover her legs, the white lace of her underwear, and after an initial tug at the hem she did nothing to stop it riding up as she walked.
She had such a powerful effect on him. Always had.
He’d shifted position as she slipped under the covers. Was intensely aware of where all his blood was rushing.
He lay there like that for some time. Hard and aching. Glad of the bed covers separating them, aware that his willpower was a thin layer of brittle ice by now.
He got up, went to the window and looked out into the darkness. Let it pass.
When he went back to the bed she’d turned onto her side and drawn her knees up, leaving only a narrow space for him. He shrugged out of his jacket and holster and dumped them on a chair, considering his options. Then he eased the covers so they wouldn’t pull tight on her when he lay on top of them again, and settled down at her side.
All night, that tension had been there. He’d battled it. He’d won. He’d done the right thing.
And then this morning...
He couldn’t win, couldn’t come out of this looking good. Either she had taken him by surprise, or he’d let her. He’d given in. Whether that ice had finally shattered or melted didn’t really matter.
And he understood the significance.
If he’d given in last night to a passion driven by adrenaline and instinct it would have been just that. An animal thing, a fight or flight thing. A lapse in judgment and willpower. She could have hated him forever for it and that would have been just fine. He’d have deserved it.
But this... What had happened this morning was a considered thing. Deliberate. And because of that, it had meaning. Feelings were involved. Intent. Rather than a one-off thing, this was the start of a story yet to unfold, and he didn’t know if he was ready for that.
If he ever would be.
He wasn’t a relationships kind of person. He had come to understand that. He’d learned long ago never to trust anyone. That was natural, given his upbringing, his family and the people around them. In his world you only ever trusted people on the way to pain and an early grave.
That was a fine philosophy for his work, for the man he’d become. But not for relationships.
He was okay with that.
It was who he was.
He knew not to let anyone close.
Not to trust.
Not to start a story with them.
§
She came down. Blue jeans, black t-shirt, gray suede jacket. Swollen nose, grazed chin, and something new in her eyes.
Her landlord took one look at her and left the room. This was shit he didn’t want to be involved with – not so much the gun, the bruises, the blood on the shirt, but the look on her face.
“I can’t do this,” she told Jimmy. She spread her hands as if to indicate the scale of this thing she couldn’t do. “This. Us. Whatever it is. I can’t fall. Not again. I won’t let myself.”
Jimmy looked at her, only now understanding the levels of denial under which he’d submerged himself.
“Fall?” he said. “Me neither. I have nowhere left to fall. I fell ten years ago and I never climbed out.”
He shrugged, looked away, looked back at her, at the understanding in her eyes, the knowledge that, deny it all she liked, this thing between them had a momentum she couldn’t divert. It always had.
How could he fall, when he’d never stopped loving her in the first place?
“Breakfast?” he said.
She nodded. Breakfast.
§
Breakfast was simple. Not falling, less so. You can’t stop that happening. You can deny it, and not act on it, but that’s different.
They found a greasy spoon café just off the High Street, a place that had been there for as long as either could recall and didn’t appear to have changed at all in that time.
Jimmy ordered full English, the first proper meal he’d had in nearly two days. Mel had fried egg sandwich, brown sauce.
They’d barely spoken as they walked here, Jimmy, at least, because he didn’t know what might be a safe topic of conversation but he did know enough to realize he was out of his depth.
Why had he said that? The falling, already fallen, shit. His life was measured in doing things because they were likely to achieve a desired outcome. He didn’t just do or say things for the sake of it. He didn’t blurt.
He didn’t let people in.
And he couldn’t read Mel this morning. Of course he couldn’t. He couldn’t tell if her assertion that she wouldn’t let herself fall again was because she’d already fallen – or was falling – or if it was her mentally and emotionally running a mile from what they had done.
It was easier to say nothing. To walk side by side, mind racing. To close up, as he always did.
Food was good. Peppery sausages, beans, hash browns, thick bacon, eggs that were crispy and caramelized around the edges, fried bread that dripped when he raised it from the plate.
He looked at her. Still he couldn’t read her, and he understood that was a part of it all – the hidden layers, the mysteries.
He told himself to stop with the bullshit.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said.
“Me neither.”
They carried on eating for a time.
“Last night,” he said, finally. Immediately, he saw the question in her eyes: Which part of last night was he referring to? “That guy,” he added hurriedly. “In the park. That escalated everything. You’re right, it meant you’d touched a raw nerve, but that could be anything, not necessarily Harriet. Glenn doesn’t like people sniffing around his activities.”
“So what do you suggest?” Both of them, businesslike now – kidnapping and violence far safer ground than what was happening between the two of them.
“I need to get to the bottom of that, at least,” said Jimmy. “I’ll go and see Glenn, put some pressure on. One way or another he’s going to tell me why he sent that ugly bastard out to scare you last night.”
“You think he’ll tell you?”
He had to look away from those eyes. He hated these feelings. Couldn’t handle them. It wasn’t part of who he was anymore. His life was all about finding ways to have the upper hand in any situation, to always be in control of what was controllable, and at least stack the odds for what wasn’t.
This stuff, this thing, didn’t fall into either category. There was nothing to control, there were no odds, it just was.
She was still waiting for an answer.
“He’ll talk,” he said. Glenn, at least, fell into one of those more familiar categories: not someone he could control, but certainly someone where Jimmy could play the odds: he knew how his brother’s mind worked, knew the buttons to press.
“You’ve heard nothing more?” he asked now. “From any of your friends? From Harriet’s friends?”
She shook her head, but still glanced at her phone as if she might have missed something.
Seconds later, her phone whistled to signify a call, and the two of them flinched at the unlikeliness of the timing.
“Penny,” said Mel, looking apologetic, eyebrows raised in question.
Jimmy nodded, turning his attention to what was left of his breakfast. For a moment he thought she was going to take the call outside, but he shrugged in answer to another questioning look and she remained at the table.
“Hi, Penny. Yes, I knew it was you. How are you? I mean... Never mind. No, no. Not at all. No, nothing new, I’m afraid. I’ve been asking around, showing people the photo you gave me, but no luck. Have you...? No? No, I promise I will. Really. Of course I don’t mind you calling.”
She put the phone back down on the table and sat back. “Sorry about that,” she said.
“No, it’s fine. Really. The mother, right?” He knew who Penny Rayner was – he’d memorized the file.
Mel nodded. “She calls at all kinds of times. Uses me to check on Harriet.”
“Because they don’t speak?”
Another nod.
“There’s nothing more there? Between the two of them? Nothing that might explain all this?” He couldn’t help speculating. If chasing Glenn turned out to be a false trail – that connection was pretty flimsy and circumstantial, after all – then where else to look? In missing persons cases the answer nearly always lay close to home...
Mel looked shocked. “No!” she said. “They don’t talk, but there’s no animosity there. Penny wouldn’t have anything to do with Harriet’s disappearance.”
“She wouldn’t be putting her up, then? Giving her somewhere to lie low, if she had to for any reason?”
“No. They don’t have that kind of relationship. That’s why Penny calls me. It makes her feel like there’s a link there. There’s no animosity, they just can’t handle each other. They can both be quite challenging, in their own way.”
“That photo you were showing around. What’s the significance?”
“None really. It’s just what Penny gave me. I think she felt she had to give me something tangible. Something that meant something. I’ve got access to hundreds of pictures of Harriet on my phone, after all.”
“These things matter.”
Mel nodded, looking down at her empty plate. “Funny how an old photo like that feels more real than anything else, right now. I think Penny understood that. Thank you for rescuing it last night.”
There was a lull, then, a sense of things unsaid.
Finally, Mel said, “Before we were interrupted by Penny’s call... There was a lot of ‘I’ll do this’ and ‘I’ll do that’... Not ‘we’. I’m not a passenger. I’m here for a reason, Jimmy. You can’t sideline me.”
This is what it did. The unknowables. The way something like this thing opened up vulnerabilities. Expectations and assumptions.
Difficult questions and even more difficult answers.
“This is what I do,” he said, trying to keep it simple, no room for discussion or negotiation.
“I know. You’re one of the good guys. You’ve already told me that.”
He couldn’t tell if she was cross with him or taking the piss. Or somewhere in between the two. Was that how relationships went, always somewhere on a sliding scale between love and frustration? He couldn’t remember, it had been so long.
“I am,” he said. This whole thing had been made so much more complicated by Mel’s involvement. More messy. Things needed simplifying now.
“I know how to handle people like Glenn,” he said. “Like that guy last night.”
That silenced her. He could see she was reliving that. You don’t easily forget the feel of hands around your throat, of not knowing what you might have to endure before maybe dying – and even if her life had never been at risk, the fear was the same, the not knowing.
He felt bad for putting those thoughts back into her head, but he needed her to understand the seriousness of all this.
“You have a gun,” she said. “Why? What are you, Jimmy? What have you become?”
“Maybe I’m exactly what I always was. I’ve just found a place to be me.” He wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that. Perhaps wanting her to work out he was referring to ten years ago, to him not being good enough for then, so how could he be now?
She still studied him. He wished he knew what was in her head, but simultaneously was glad he didn’t. Put him in a hostile country, in a city run by rebels or ganglords, surround him by people who wanted him dead or worse... he could handle that. He was equipped. He’d been in some grim situations in his time with Section Eight, but he’d come through them all.
But this. Nothing could prepare him for all this shit.
“Is it even legal?” She nodded toward his concealed holster, and he knew she meant more than just the gun. Is what he does legal? Is he legal?
“It depends who’s asking the question,” he said. He hated sounding so evasive. It made him sound as if he was bigging himself up with layers of mysterious glamour. She deserved more of an answer than that, even though he knew he was crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed. “I make things happen,” he said. “Or I stop them from happening. I’m on the right side. Legal and illegal aren’t always clear-cut – people like me operate in the space in between, if that makes sense?”
She nodded. “Kind of. I can’t work out if you don’t want to tell me about it, or you can’t.”
“I can’t answer that,” he said, and they laughed awkwardly.
“You need to go back to London and leave this to me,” he told her again. “What do you want? You want your friend back. If so, then I’m your best chance. Your old man wouldn’t have sent me here if he didn’t think I was the best person for the job.”
He reached for her then, covered her hand on the table with his. “Last night... this morning... I don’t know what that was. I don’t know what this is. But we need to put it on hold for now. Let me do this thing. And then maybe we can meet up. Have a drink. Talk. Whatever.”
He could have put it so much better. He should have. But she did this to him. Always had.
She drew her hand away, and he hated the way his mind raced, trying to work out why.
“It’s hard,” she said, finally.
Frustration. That was what it was. Having to accept the logic of his arguments, that she should be the one to step back, leaving it all to him. Having to accept her own powerlessness in a situation where so much was at stake.
He unlocked his phone with his thumbprint, tapped for the keypad, and turned it to face her. “Give me your number,” he said. “I’ll let you know as soon as there’s any news.”
It was a cynical move on his part, he knew. The simple act of tapping in her number and pressing ‘call’ so they each had the other’s number, was like a psychological act of signing off, an acceptance of how things would be. By doing so, she was stepping back, and yet how could she refuse the simple act of exchanging numbers?
Outside, they paused, suddenly self-conscious. How to do the most simple things? Every choice a measure of where they’d reached, what this was between them.
“I’ll call,” he said, knowing it sounded like such a damned platitude.
“You’d fucking better,” she said, and the curse cut through, the little smile.
She tipped her head up then, one hand flat on his chest. Pressed her mouth to his.
Everything else, then – the awkwardness, the uncertainty, the unspoken and unanswered questions – it all fell away.
He wanted to keep kissing her, hated it when she pulled away.
Hated the awful, sinking feeling that this might actually be the last time he felt those lips against his, because he genuinely had no idea how all this was going to turn out.