The Leopard(121)

‘I don’t know. Because there was something about the way … the way they were standing, their body language.’

‘Exactly. The subconscious understands much more than the conscious mind. He was so sure it was consensual sex that he simply went back to bed. It wasn’t until long after, reading about the murders and being reminded of a half-forgotten scene, that he had formed the idea it might have been rape.’

‘A game,’ Kaja said. ‘That might smack of rape. Who does that? Not a man and a woman who have just met at a cabin and sneak out to become a little better acquainted. You have to be a bit more comfortable with each other.’

‘So it’s two people who’ve been together before,’ Harry said. ‘Which to our knowledge can only be . . .’

‘Adele and the mystery man. The eighth guest.’

‘Either that or someone else turned up that night.’ Harry flicked ash off the cigarette.

‘Where’s the loo?’ Kaja asked.

‘Through the hall to the left.’

He watched the cigarette smoke curl upwards into the lampshade over the table. Waited. He hadn’t heard the door open. He got up and went after her.

She was standing in the hall staring at the door. In the dim light he could see her taking gulps of air, could see a moist pointed tooth glistening. He placed a hand on her back and even there, through her clothes, he could feel her heart beating. ‘Do you mind if I open it?’

‘You must think I’m mental,’ she said.

‘We all are. I’m opening it now, OK?’

She nodded, and he opened the door.

Harry was sitting at the kitchen table when she returned. She had put on her raincoat.

‘Think I’ll have to go home now.’

Harry nodded and accompanied her to the front door. Watched as she stooped to pull on her boots.

‘It only happens when I’m tired,’ she said. ‘The door stuff.’

‘I know,’ Harry said. ‘I’m the same with lifts.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘Another time maybe. Who knows, perhaps we’ll see each other again.’

She fell quiet. Took a long time to zip up her boots. Then, all of a sudden, she stood up, so close to him that he was aware of her scent following her, like an echo.

‘Tell me now,’ she said with a wild expression in her eyes he was unable to interpret.

‘Well,’ he said, his fingertips tingling, as if he had been cold and was warming up again. ‘When we were young my little sister had very long hair. We had been visiting my mother in hospital and were about to get into the lift. Dad was waiting downstairs, he couldn’t stand hospitals. Sis stood too near to the brick wall and her hair got caught between the lift and the wall. And I was so horror-stricken that I couldn’t move. I watched Sis being dragged up by her hair.’

‘What happened?’ she asked.

They were standing a bit too close, he thought. They were standing at the limits of their personal space. And they knew. He took a breath.

‘She lost a lot of hair. It grew back. I … lost something else. Which didn’t grow back.’

‘You think you failed her.’

‘It’s a fact that I failed her.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Old enough to fail her.’ He smiled. ‘Think that’s almost enough selfpity for one night, don’t you? My father liked you curtsying.’

Kaja chuckled. ‘Goodnight.’ She curtsied.

He opened the front door for her. ‘Goodnight.’

She moved onto the steps and turned.

‘Harry?’

‘Yes?’

‘Weren’t you lonely in Hong Kong?’

‘Lonely?’

‘I watched you while you were asleep. You looked so … alone.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was lonely. Goodnight.’

They stood there half a second too long. Five-tenths of a second before and she would have been down the steps and he would have been on his way back to the kitchen.

Her fingers closed around his neck and pulled his head down as she hoisted herself up on tiptoes. Her eyes lost focus, became a glittering sea and then she shut them. Her lips were half open as they met his. She held him and he didn’t move, just felt the sweet dagger in his stomach, like a rush of morphine.

She let go of him.

‘Sleep well, Harry.’

He nodded.

She turned and walked away. He closed the door quietly behind him.

He cleared away the cups, rinsed the kettle and had just put it away when the doorbell rang.

He went to answer it.

‘I forgot something,’ she said.

‘What was that?’ he asked.

She lifted her hand and stroked his brow. ‘What you look like.’