Touching the Dark Read online

  She smiled at him again. This time it was a childlike grin that tweaked the corners of her mouth and made her eyes dance. He tried to say more, but he seemed to have lost the power of words.

  As his drink arrived, she slipped from the bar stool, displaying as she did, the rest of her thigh and a tiny glimpse of red silk, edged with lace.

  “My dinner date,” she announced to the waiting herd of confident young men. “Don’t forget your drink.”

  Then she led him through the tight packed bar and into the quiet of the restaurant beyond, and he went after her, suddenly much too hot in his soft leather jacket and too conspicuous following in Tally Palmer’s gently swaying wake.

  Chapter Three

  Simon still lived in the tiny flat he had first moved to on leaving his parents’ home. It was on the attic floor of an Edwardian house, up several flights of stairs from a communal hall. It had once been student accommodation, the house divided into cramped bed sits with shared bathrooms and kitchens, but since then the landlord had changed twice and the new owner had attempted to go up market, the house itself being on the fringes of the up and coming developments closer to the canal. Simon now occupied the entire top floor, had his own bathroom and a sort of cupboard space that he called a kitchen – and almost double the rent. The lower storeys now housed just a tenant each.

  The front door opened to a buzzer system, in theory, each tenant having to buzz their visitors through, but neither Alec not Naomi could recall a time when the heavy oak door, its paint still peeling despite the renovations, had not been propped ajar by a large grey stone.

  Naomi had visited Simon only once since the new landlord and Simon’s spatial promotion, but so far as she could tell from the smell of the musty hallway, any changes were superficial ones. The hall still stank of stale cigarettes and boiled cabbage and, oddly, school plimsolls. The gritty feel beneath her feet as she crossed the tiled space between door and stairs called to memory just how grubby the floor had always been, no matter who or how many of them lived there.

  Napoleon halted as they reached the stairs, waiting for her to take hold of the rail and tell him to move on. He pressed comfortably against her leg, his tail whacking damply at the skirt of her raincoat leaving the wet and hairy imprints of his pleasure at being inside once more. Alec had been forced to park some way down the road and it was pouring with rain. Napoleon had never much liked the rain. He shook himself, showing remarkable restraint, Naomi noted, but still managing to shower the rest of her coat and her bare hands with odour of wet dog.

  “Are you ok?” Alec asked her, “or would you like me to take your arm?”

  “No, I’m fine, thanks. You go on ahead and give dog and me some room for manoeuvre. Tell Simon to get the kettle on.”

  Alec laughed. He paused to kiss her as he squeezed by, his damp hair dripping onto her face, “Mmm,” he said. “Eau de canine. Lovely.”

  Naomi wrinkled her nose and bent to pat the dog’s still damp coat. “Don’t you take any notice,” she told him. “Mind, you, he’s right. You do stink.” Napoleon arfed happily and wriggled even more closely to her side, then, when she began to move, began carefully to climb the stairs, his pace slow and cautious as a child’s.

  To her surprise, Alec was still hammering on the door when they arrived.

  Maybe he isn’t in?”

  “No, he’s there. I can hear his music.” He banged again. “Simon. Come on, open up or I’ll go and arrest your neighbours.”

  Napoleon whined and dropped his head to sniff beneath the door the sound of faint shuffling came from the other side and the music Alec had spoken of abruptly switched to silence.

  “Ignoring us?” she ventured.

  “Oh, I don’t like to be ignored. Not used to it, you know, are we old man.”

  Napoleon whined again and the beating of his tail increased.

  “Come on Simon,” Alec called again. “Open up. I’m not leaving ‘til you...”

  The door opened with a creak and Simon stood in the doorway.

  “Alec?” he said. He made it sound like a question, as though he wasn’t sure. “Naomi?”

  “Last time we checked. You going to invite us in?”

  Naomi heard him hesitate before he stepped aside. “Sure,” he said. She heard his footsteps falling first on wood and then muffled by carpet as he crossed back into the room, followed by the faints scratching of Napoleon’s claws as he led her in. Alec brought up the rear.

  “Your cleaning lady abandoned you?” Alec questioned as he closed the door behind them.

  “What? Oh..oh yeah. I just don’t seem to have found the time...been busy you know.”

  “Really. Your mum seen it this way?”

  “What?” He took a deep breath and released it heavily. “No, she hasn’t and I know what you’re saying. It’s a mess. I’ll get onto it. Anyway, I’m not a kid anymore. This is my place she doesn’t have to check to see I’ve tidied my room.” He paused and Naomi felt his scrutiny. “Don’t mean to be rude, but what are you doing here anyway?”

  “Came to see you, isn’t that right, Nomi.”

  “That’s right. We thought, what should we do on this wet afternoon. I know, we’ll visit Simon. He’s always made us welcome.”

  “You’ve seen my parents,” Simon said flatly. “And they’ve sent you round.”

  He sighed again and Naomi heard him drop into the old fake leather chair that usually stood in front of the window. It creaked beneath his weight.

  She moved forward cautiously. There used to be a sofa at right angles to it. Red, covered with a mountain of cushions that Lillian had made. She found the arm of it with her fingertips and moved around, Napoleon guiding her now. “All right to sit down? Nothing I’m going to regret? Only last time I didn’t ask I found the dish of jelly Sam had left there.” Her nephew, Sam, was five years old.

  Simon almost laughed. “No,” he said. “Nothing as terrible as that, despite Alec’s description. Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but...well, mum and dad, they worry too much. I’m fine. Really fine.”

  She felt Alec move something from the seat beside her and plonk himself down. “They don’t seem to think you are,” he said “and I have to say, you don’t look like it to me either.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about you and Tally,” Naomi chimed in. “I hear you were getting along really well.”

  “But these things do happen,” Alec added. “And when they do, it’s no good just letting yourself go.”

  “Letting myself...Alec you make it sound like I’m some middle aged frump. I’m not letting anything go...”

  “Sounds like that’s the trouble.” Alec paused and Naomi could feel the younger man’s anger and frustration bristling from across the room.

  “They’re worried about you, Simon,” she told him softly.

  “They’ve got a right to be from what your mum was saying.”

  “A break up of a relationship hurts for a long time, we all know that.” Alec continued, “but learning to let go of it and go on with your life is all part of being grown up.”

  “What is this? Good cop; bad cop? Look, I’ve been a bit down, I’ll admit to that, but since when has depression been a criminal offence. Stupid, just stupid, them sending you round like this. Like I was ten or something and needed a big brother.”

  He got up, the chair creaking again and the soft padding of his carpeted footsteps changing to the sound of hard soles on wood. “I think you’d better go,” he told them. “I’ve nothing to say about it and you’ve no right, either of you, to poke your noses in.”

  “Being your friends gives us that right,” Alec told him firmly “and looking at the state of you, I think your mum and dad have every reason to be worried.”

  “Why, cause I’ve not cleaned my flat? God’s sake...” He took another deep and heavy breath. “Look, I’ll admit to being upset. I’ll admit to behaving just a bit weird, but I was hurting, Alec. I love that girl.”

  He sounded so mour
nful when he said this last that Naomi could not help but feel for him.

  “And I know she still loves me,” he added softly. “Whatever she may say.”

  There was a moments silence as they absorbed his words, then Alec rousted himself from the couch and took Naomi by the hand, pulling her after him.

  “So you don’t have her pictures plastered all over your bedroom walls,” he asked. “Or files and tapes and all that rubbish your mum talked about. You’re not stalking the girl...”

  “Stalking her?” Simon was outraged. “I’m not stalking her. What do you take me for, some bloody pervert?”

  Simon’s living room was not large. A few paces brought Alec to the bedroom door and before Simon could interfere he had swung it wide.

  “A shrine to the great Miss Palmer” Alec said. “Simon, I think this is what your parents meant?”

  “You have no right. Alec, you’re treating me like some kind of suspect.”

  Naomi heard him cross the room and slam the bedroom door. “Pictures,” he said. “Just some bloody pictures. Look, Alec, you might be capable of just switching yourself off. Refusing to feel anything, but I can’t. I can’t just chuck stuff away and pretend it never happened. I love her. I’m going to get her back.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to be taken back?”

  The silence fell heavily between them and then Naomi heard the bedroom door being opened again. “Look if you want to,” Simon said gruffly. “Pictures, that’s all, just bloody pictures. Look at them and then go back to mam and tell her it’s nothing to worry about.”

  Alec stepped into the bedroom and Naomi could hear his footsteps, softer now on another carpeted floor.

  “Photos,” Alec said, “newspaper clippings, old pictures. Is this Tally as a child?”

  Naomi shifted closer. Knowing that his commentary was for her benefit.

  “And these are new,” Alec commented. “What did you do, Simon, borrow a long lens from one of the guys at work? Cause if I’m not much mistaken, that’s what you’d need to see in through her window like that.”

  “It wasn’t like that...”

  “Stalking was the right word to use after all.”

  Alec sighed, “Simon, to be truthful, I thought Lillian and Samuel were making a big fuss over nothing....”

  “That why you came in here acting like a stormtrooper, treating me like some common criminal?”

  “If you took these without her knowledge that’s exactly what you are.” Alec paused, calmed himself. “I know, I came in mob handed, but one look at you told me there was more to this then either your mum or dad had been letting on. I’ve never seen you like this, not even when you went through your scruffy stage as a teenager and boy, were you a mess then. But look at yourself now. When did you last shave, or shower for that matter. You’ve not turned up for work looking like that?”

  “I’ve been sick,” Simon said defensively. “I took a few days off, that’s all.”

  “This isn’t like you.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “Obviously not!”

  “We only want to help you,” Naomi interceded quietly. “And you’re right, we did come down heavy. You’re not a little kid.” She let go of Napoleon and took a few hesitant steps to where she guessed Simon was, reached out and touched him, finding his bare arm beneath her fingertips. Close to, his scent was as musty as the downstairs hall, Simon who was always so careful about the way he looked, the way he smelt.

  His other hand closed gently over hers and she felt him move, his head resting against hers. “I just don’t know how to handle this,” he told her softly. I’ve never felt like this before.”

  She hugged him then, big sister-like, slipping her arms around him and drawing his head down onto her shoulder. It wasn’t a comfortable position, he was a tall man. Naomi wasn’t small, but Simon still had a good few inches on her, but it was a measure of how miserable he felt that he remained there, wordless and unhappy until finally she pulled away.

  “Whatever we can do, we will,” she told him. “You know that.”

  She felt him shake his head. “You meant that,” he said, “then you’d help me to get her back.”

  Chapter Four

  After they had gone, Naomi and Alec, Simon had spent the afternoon raging against the injustice they had done to him. Bursting into his home and making accusations that were...all too true. He had known it, admitted to himself just how difficult his behaviour had been, how probably reprehensible, but he had not wanted, still did not want to let his anger go or put his pain aside.

  He had been so certain of his feelings for Tally and of hers for him. Never more certain of anything in his entire life and to suddenly lose that had been more than he could bear.

  He stood in his bedroom, the curtains open and the darkness gathering outside. Rain still falling but less noticed now against the steel grey sky giving way to night, He stood, cradling a glass in his hands, sipping occasionally, staring at his gallery, his encapsulation of the life of Tally Palmer, laid out in neat, straight rows against the pale blue walls.

  Some of these he shouldn’t even have, he knew that. He had taken them...stolen them, Alec would have said, as surely as he had stolen those images of Tally photographed with the aid of a long lens and a camera borrowed from a colleague. The fact that the colleague had been unaware of having lent the camera to Simon, he supposed, was also not so good. Further cause for blame.

  Slowly, Simon perused the images and his gaze finally came to rest on the picture of a grave, unsmiling child, with long fair hair and bright blue eyes. She was dressed in a dark blue frock, the lace of a white petticoat peeping out from beneath the hem and all around her bloomed flowers, trumpet headed lilies standing tall and straight as though forming an honour guard on either side.

  The child Tally gazed out at him with a quite unbending stare.

  Chapter Five

  When she was nine years old her aunt grew lilies in the garden. The scent of them filled the open space between the chicken house and the rabbit pens, a fragrant interlude between the stink of chickens and the warm straw, hot fur scent of lop eared animals.

  When they visited that summer, Tally’s birthday had not long gone and her aunt had promised her a present. Tally had waited patiently all the afternoon, while the women gossiped and the men drank beer, boredom and anticipation growing with the passing time. And finally she had laid down among the lilies, listening to the buzzing of the insects and the soft drone of men’s voices as they set the world to rights and she had fallen asleep in a shady perfumed bed heated by the summer sun.

  In the late afternoon, when she woke to hear her mother calling, she realized that in her sleep she had broken one long stem of flowers. It had fallen across her lap and the pollen stained her best blue dress with brilliant scars of yellow.

  She picked up the stem of flowers and pulled the dress away from her body. Sun drunk, she was afraid that the stain would go right though and paint her skin. Pollen yellow marks, so bright she thought that they might burn. And when they saw it, the women fussed and flapped, her mother declaring that the stain was there forever and the aunt smiling and urging her to take off the dress so she could “rub it through now,” before the stain had time to set.

  She remembered, she stood there in the garden, just dressed in a clean white petticoat, still clutching the stem of flowers while the adults fussed and her head grew muzzy with the heat. Her uncle gave her lemonade and rubbed her cheek with his part grown whiskers, teasing and chatting until his wife came out again. In one hand she clutched the best blue dress, wet and tucked inside a plastic bag. In her other she held a box wrapped in birthday paper and tied with bright red cord.

  “Open it in the car,” the aunt smiled. “Your mammy wants to go now.” Then she took the stem of lilies from Tally’s hand. “You don’t want that my darling. Not in the car, it’s unlucky having lilies inside a house or in a car.”

  “Why?” Tally wanted to know
, and the aunt smiled at her again. An all teeth smile that showed pink gums and the patches on her mouth where the lipstick had all worn away.

  “They’re angel’s flowers, Tally dear. Their scent is like the breath of angels. You don’t put angels in your car.”

  And then she hugged her niece and kissed her goodbye and Tally did her best to turn her face so that the aunt kissed her cheek and not her mouth. The aunt had false white teeth that clacked and clattered when she kissed and breath that smelt, Tally thought, of rotting gums. She much preferred the scent of flowers.

  Then the aunt let her go and she stepped back, watching as the others said goodbye and gently rattling the birthday box trying to guess what might be inside. And while no one looked, she plucked a single flower from the lily stem and breathed it in. Inhaling deeply, the pollen filling her head like a sunlit drug, she breathed the scent of angels.

  Chapter Six

  Two days passed and Naomi had little time to think about Simon. She had called his parents and reported back that they had talked to him and that he did at least appear to understand their concerns.

  She wished fervently that she could have told them more, but Simon was right, he was no longer a child and in the final analysis, all they could do was to be there should he ask for help. She was aware though, that Lillian particularly had been hoping for more and could not shake off the feeling that somehow she had let her friend down.

  It was ten thirty p.m. on the fourth of January and threatening to snow when her doorbell rang and, frankly, the last thing she wanted was unexpected company. She had settled in for the evening with Alec, watching a video – Alec watching and commentating, Naomi listening and asking far too many questions. They had split the best part of two bottles of red wine between them and were just contemplating bed. Answering the door to young men carrying large cardboard boxes had not been on their list of things to do.

  Alec activated the intercom. Simon’s voice, rather plaintively asking to be let in.