What Came Before He Shot Her Read online

  One of the doors opened abruptly, silhouetting a well-built man in the light from within. He was obviously the one who’d phoned for the massage, for he hurried forward in the gloom of the corridor, saying, “Lemme help you wiv dat.” He took the massage table from her and carried it easily into the flat. This turned out to be little more than a large bedsit, possessing several beds, a basin, an electric fire, and a single ring for cooking whatever could be cooked on a single ring.

  Kendra was taking all this in as the man set up the table. For this reason, she didn’t take much note of him nor he of her until he had the table unfolded with its legs extended, and she had unpacked most of the accoutrements of massage.

  He set the table upright and turned to face her. She shook out the table’s cover and glanced his way. They both said, “Damn,” at the same moment. It was the man who, on Kendra’s disastrous girls’ night out, had brought Ness home drunk and eager to do whatever he wished her to do to him.

  Kendra was at a momentary loss. She was holding the table’s covering, her arms extended, and she dropped them at once.

  He said, “Well, dis is a bloody awkward moment, innit.”

  Kendra reached a quick decision about the matter. Business was business, and this was business. She said formally, “You said a sports massage?”

  He said, “Yeah. Dat’s what I said. Dix.”

  “What?”

  “My name. It’s Dix.” He waited until Kendra had the table covered, the soft terry cushioning for his head in place. Then he said, “She ever tell you what really happened dat night? It was like I said, y’know.”

  Kendra smoothed her hand over the cover. She opened her bag and brought out her oils. She said, “We didn’t talk about it, Mr. Dix. Now what scent oil would you like? I recommend lavender. It’s most relaxing.”

  A smile played around his lips. “Not Mr. Dix,” he said. “Dix D’Court. You’re called Kendra what?”

  “Osborne,” she said. “Mrs.”

  His glance went from her face to her hands. “You got no ring, Mrs. Osborne. You divorced? Widowed?”

  She could have told him it was none of his business. Instead she said, “Yes,” and left it at that. “You said you wanted a sports massage?”

  “What I do first?” he asked.

  “Strip down.” She handed him a sheet and turned her back. “Keep your shorts on,” she told him. “This’s a real massage, by the way. I hope that’s what you wanted when you phoned me, Mr. D’Court. This is a legitimate business I’m running.”

  “Wha’ else would I want, Mrs. Osborne?” he asked, and she could hear the laughter in his voice. In a moment, he said, “I’m ready, den.” She turned to see him supine on the table, the sheet pulled up discreetly and tucked around his waist.

  She thought a single word: shit. He had an exquisite body. Weight lifting had defined his muscles. Over them stretched skin as smooth as a baby’s. He had no hair that Kendra could see, save for eyebrows and lashes. Not a mark was on him. The sight of him reminded her at the worst possible time of the ages it had been since she’d had a man. This, she told herself, was not what she was supposed to be feeling in her line of work. A body was a body. Her hands upon it were the tools of her trade.

  He was watching her. He repeated his question. “She tell you?”

  Kendra had forgotten the reference. She drew her eyebrows together, saying, “What?”

  “Your daughter. She tell you wha’ happened b’tween us dat night?”

  “I don’t got…I don’t have a daughter.”

  “Den who…?” For a moment it seemed he thought he was mistaken about who Kendra was. He said, “Over Edenham Estate.”

  “She’s my niece,” Kendra said. “She lives with me. You’ll need to turn over. I’ll begin with your back and shoulders.”

  He waited for a moment, watching her. He said, “You don’ look old ’nough to have a daughter or a niece like dat.”

  “I’m old,” Kendra said, “just well preserved.”

  He chuckled and then cooperatively turned over. He did what most people do at first when being given a massage: He cradled his head with his arms. She changed his position, bringing his arms down to his sides and turning his head so he was lying facedown. She poured the oil into her palms and warmed it, realizing at that moment that she’d left her soothing music in the car. The result of this was that the massage would have to be given to the accompanying noise from the pub below, which came up through the floor steadily, impossible to ignore. She looked around for a radio, a stereo, a CD player, anything to make a difference to the ambience. There was virtually nothing in the bedsit, save for the beds, which were difficult to ignore. She wondered why the man had three of them.

  She began the massage. He had extraordinary skin: dark as black coffee, with the feel of a newborn infant’s palm, while just beneath it the muscles were perfectly defined. He had a body that indicated hard manual labour, but what encased it suggested he hadn’t held a tool in his life. She wanted to ask him what he did for a living, that he should be fashioned so magnificently. But this, she felt, would betray an interest that she wasn’t supposed to feel towards a client, so she said nothing.

  She remembered her massage instructor explaining something that, at the time, had seemed rather mad. “You must get into the zen of the massage. The warmth of your intentions for the client’s comfort should transmit itself to your hands until the you of you disappears, so there is nothing left but tissue, muscles, pressure, and movement.”

  She’d thought, What bollocks, but now she attempted to go there. She closed her eyes and aimed herself towards the zen of it all. “Feels bloody good,” Dix D’Court murmured.

  In silence, she did his neck, his shoulders, his back, his arms, his hands, his thighs, his legs, his feet. She knew every inch of him, and not a centimetre of his body was different in condition from any other. Even his feet were smooth, not a callus anywhere. When she finished this part of the massage, she concluded he’d spent his life floating in a vat of baby oil.

  She asked him to turn over. She made him more comfortable with a towel she rolled up and placed behind his neck. She picked up the bottle of oil to continue but he stopped her by reaching out and grasping her wrist, at the same time saying, “Where’d you learn dis, anyway?”

  She said automatically, “Go to school, mon. Wha’ else you t’ink?” And then, the correction because she’d spoken almost out of a dream state, matching his dialect simply because—she told herself—she’d achieved the zen that her instructor had spoken of, “I’ve taken a course at the college.”

  “Give you high marks.” He grinned, showing teeth that were straight and white and as perfect as the rest of him. He closed his eyes and settled in for the second half of the massage.

  Because she’d inadvertently slipped from Lady Muck, Kendra felt found out. Her discomfort propelled her through the rest of the massage. She wanted to finish and be gone from this place. When she’d completed her work on his body, she stepped away and wiped her hands on a towel. The procedure was to give the client a few minutes at the end of the massage to lie on the table and savour the experience. But in this instance, Kendra just wanted to be out of the bedsit. She turned from the table and began to pack up.

  She heard him move behind her and when she swung around, she found him sitting up on the table, his legs dangling over the side, watching her, his body still lightly glistening from the oil she’d used upon him. He said, “She tell you the truth, Mrs. Osborne? You never said and I can’t le’ you out ’f here till I know. The sort you t’ink I am? Not the truth, innit. She ’as down below”—by this he meant the pub—“an’ I go in cos I get a glass of tomato juice from the bar. She dead drunk, and she letting two blokes dance wiv her in a corner and feel her up. She got her blouse open. She hiking her skirt like she means—”

  “All right,” Kendra said. All she could think was fifteen years old, fifteen years old.

  He said, “No. You got to hear
cos you t’ink—”

  “If I say I believe you…”

  He shook his head. “Too late for dat, Mrs. Osborne. Too late. I get her out ’f the pub but she t’inks dat means wha’ it don’t. She offer it all, wha’ever I want her to do to me. I say fine, she can blow me—”

  Kendra flashed her eyes at him. He held up a hand.

  “—but we got to get to her place to do it, I tell her. The only way, see, I c’n get her to say where she lives. I drive her there. Dat’s when you show up.”

  Kendra shook her head. “You was…No. You were—” She didn’t know how to express it. She gestured to her breasts. She said, “I saw you. Raising up.”

  He turned his head, but she could see he was doing it to think back to that night. He finally said, “Her bag was on the floor. I fetchin it. Woman, I do not do kids, an’ one t’ing I c’n see is she’s a kid.” He added, “Not like you, not like you at all. Mrs. Osborne. Kendra. C’n you walk over here?” He gestured to the table, to himself.

  She said, “Why?”

  “Cos you a beauty, an’ I want to kiss you.” He smiled. “See? I don’t lie ’bout nuffink. Not ’bout your niece. Not ’bout me. Not ’bout you.”

  “I told you. This’s my business. ’sF you think I—”

  “I know. I phone you up cos I see the handout in the gym, dat’s all. I don’t know who shows up an’ I don’t care. I got a competition to get ready for, an’ I need my muscles seen to. Dat’s it.”

  “What sort of competition?”

  “Bodybuilding.” He paused, waiting for her to comment. When she didn’t, he said, “Working towards Mr. Universe. I been lifting since I was thirteen years old.”

  “How long’s that, then?”

  “Ten years,” he told her.

  “You’re twenty-three.”

  “Problem wiv dat?”

  “I’m forty, man.”

  “Problem wiv dat?”

  “Can’t you do maths?”

  “Maths don’t make me wan’ to kiss you less.”

  Kendra stood her ground, without really knowing why she was doing so. She wanted his kiss, no mistake about that. She wanted more as well. The seventeen years between them meant there would be no strings, which was how she liked things. But there was something about him that made her hesitate: He seemed twenty-three in years only. In mind-set and behaviour, he seemed much older, and that spelled danger of a kind she’d avoided for a very long time.

  He slid off the table then. The sheet he’d been wearing slipped to the floor. He came to her and put his hand on her arm. It slid to her wrist and he said, “Truth is truth, Mrs. Osborne. I phoned up f’r a massage. Money’s over on th’ table. Wiv a tip ’s well. I di’n’t ’spect anyt’ing else. Bu’ I still want it. Question is, do you? Anyways, jus’ a kiss.”

  Kendra wanted to say no because she knew saying yes meant going to a place she ought to avoid. But she didn’t reply. Nor did she walk away.

  He said, “I don’ jus’ take. You’re meant to answer, Mrs. Osborne.”

  Someone else inside her did the talking. “Yes,” she said.

  He kissed her. He urged her mouth open, one hand on the back of her neck. She put her hand on his waist and then slid it over his buttocks, which were tight, like the rest of him. And like the rest of him, they filled her with wanting.

  She broke away. “I don’t do this,” she said.

  He knew what she meant. “I c’n tell dat,” he murmured. He drew back and looked at her. “I don’t ’s’pect nuffink. You c’n leave if you want.” With his fingers, he traced the curve of her cheek. With his other hand, he grazed across her breasts.

  The caress finished off what resistance she had. She stepped back to him and lifted her mouth to his as her hands reached for his waist again, this time to remove the only article of clothing that he had on.

  He said, “My.” And then, “Dat’s my bed. Come ’ere.” He led her to the bed nearest the window and lowered her to it. “You a goddess,” he said.

  He unbuttoned her blouse. He freed her breasts. He gazed on them, then upon her face before he lowered her to the mattress and lowered his mouth to her nipples.

  She gasped because it had been so long, and she needed to have a man’s worship of her body, feigned or not. She wanted him, and in this moment, the fact of the wanting was the only thing that—

  “Fuck it, Dix. Wha’ the hell you doing? We had a bloody ’greement!”

  They separated in a rush, scrambling for sheets, for clothing, for anything at all to cover themselves. It came to Kendra that there was a distinct reason for the room’s three beds. Dix D’Court shared his accommodation, and one of his flatmates had just walked into the room.

  Chapter

  7

  On the night Ness saw the Blade come out of the Harrow Road police station, she made a decision. To her it was a simple one, meant to be, but it put her on a path that would forever alter the lives of people she would never meet.

  The Blade was not a pleasant man to look upon. He radiated danger in a manner so pellucid that he might have been wearing flashing lights around his neck instead of what he was wearing, which was a gold Italian charm meant to ward off the evil eye. He also radiated power. The power drew people to him; the danger kept them where he preferred them to be, which was subservient, tentative, and eager. He’d learned to cultivate behaviour most apt to intimidate, both because of his size and because of his physical attributes: At only five feet five inches tall, he could have been marked as someone easy to take down; completely hairless and with a face so sharply pulled back from his nose that the front of his skull looked more like a beak than anything else, he’d also learned early that there were only two ways to survive the environment into which he’d been born. He’d chosen the route of mastery rather than the route of escape. It was easier and he liked things easy.

  Close to him, Ness had felt both the power and the danger, but she was in no state to be affected by either. Her encounter with her aunt, followed by her visit to Six on the Mozart Estate, had put her in a place where the last thing she cared about was self-preservation. So when she took in the details of the Blade—from the cowboy boots that gave him additional height to the cobra tattoo that made a statement by curling down from his head and onto his cheek—she saw just what she was looking for, which was someone capable of altering her state of mind.

  What the Blade saw was what she offered superficially, and he was ready for that. He’d spent four hours in the police station—which was two hours more than he had ever agreed to—and while there had never been any question about whether he’d be back on the street as soon as he’d done the song and dance required of him, he hadn’t produced for the police in a manner they liked, so he’d been at their mercy. He hated that, and hate set him on edge. He wanted to remove the sharpness of that edge. There were several ways to do this, and Ness was standing there blatantly promising one of them.

  When his ride arrived, he didn’t therefore climb into the passenger seat and tell the driver—one Calvin Hancock, whose copious dreadlocks were carefully capped in deference to the manner that a hairless man might be suspected of preferring to see them—to take him to Portnall Road, where a seventeen-year-old girl called Arissa was waiting to service him. Instead, he jerked his head at the backseat for Ness to get into the car and he climbed in after her, leaving Calvin Hancock in the position of chauffeur.

  He said to Calvin, “Up Willesden Lane.”

  Cal—as he was called—looked into the rearview mirror. This was a change of plan, and he didn’t like plan changes. Having taken on the responsibility of protecting the Blade, having successfully done so for five years, and having received the questionable rewards of this success—which were the Blade’s companionship and a place to sleep at night—Cal knew the risk of impulsive decisions and he knew what his own life would be like if something happened to the other man.

  He said, “Mon, I t’ought you wanted Rissa. Portnall’s clean. She been
keepin it dat way. We go up to Willesden, no way in hell we c’n tell who be dere you walk in.”

  The Blade said, “Fuck. You questioning me?”

  Cal put the car into gear as answer.

  Ness listened and admired. When the Blade said to Cal, “Give us a ziggy,” she felt a frisson of wonder and excitement when the other man obediently pulled the car to the kerb, flicked open the glove box, and rolled the spliff. He lit it, took a hit, and handed it back to the Blade. His glance met Ness’s in the rearview mirror as he moved the car back into the nighttime traffic.

  Next to her, the Blade leaned back. He ignored her, which made him seem even more appealing. He smoked his cannabis and offered Ness none of it. She ached and put her hand on his thigh. She slid it to his crotch. He knocked her away. He did it without a glance at her. She wanted to be his slave.

  She said in a murmur that came to her from the countless films she’d seen and the bizarre image of successful human contact they provided, “Baby, I do you. I do you in ways make your head feel like it goin to ’splode. Dat what you want? Dat how you like it?”

  The Blade tossed an indifferent glance her way. He said, “I do you, slag. When and where. It don’t happen opposite and you best remember that from the start.”

  What Ness heard was only “from the start.” She felt the warm, wet thrill of what the words implied.

  Calvin drove them north, away from the Harrow Road and beyond Kilburn Lane. Fixed upon the Blade as she was, Ness made no note of where they were going. When they finally came upon an estate of low brick terraces sprawling through a system of narrow streets with most of the lamps and all of the security lights long ago shot out, they might have been anywhere from Hackney to hell. Ness couldn’t have said.

  Cal parked and opened the passenger door on Ness’s side. She slid out. The Blade followed. He handed the roach to Cal, said, “Check it out, den,” and leaned against the side of the car as Cal disappeared along a path and between two buildings.