Last to Know: A Novel(47)

Regret is a terrible emotion; it erodes the soul with its “what if’s” and “might have been’s” and “if only’s.” The truth was there was only the present, and currently Harry had had enough of that.

He lifted his hand and glanced at his watch. Unlike his gift to Rossetti, his was plain, serviceable, inexpensive. He was not a man who needed that pricey kind of glamour, not a hot guy on the loose, like Rossetti, who he’d bet right now was in some club doing his best to forget the earlier events, dancing with some cute chick who would definitely fancy him and with whom he might end up spending the night. Lucky Rossetti, to find forgetfulness, even temporarily.

Jemima’s face floated in front of Harry’s closed eyes: her flame-red bangs shaggy over her pale blue eyes; her eagerness to grasp at life and become a detective when she had no knowledge of what she was doing; her ruby mouth and pale skin, her aliveness, for God’s sake.

Harry checked his watch again. It was exactly five minutes later than the last time he’d checked. It was probably midday in Paris. Where Mal was. Alone. Or last time they’d spoken she had been alone. Anything might have happened since then.

The love of his life was a very attractive, sometimes he would say even a beautiful, woman. On her “good days” was how Mal qualified being beautiful—when her hair was just right and she’d slept properly and wasn’t made up for the TV cameras. How she hated that makeup, she so preferred bare skin and lip gloss and her special perfume, Hermès 24 Faubourg, which Harry believed only Mal wore because nobody else seemed ever to have heard of it, and the name of which, Mal had explained, was in fact the address of Hermès in Paris. Its soft spiciness hung like her own aura around her, leaving a hint behind when she left a room.

Harry not only knew Mal’s perfume, he knew the very scent of her skin, of her womanliness, the texture of her, the supple smoothness, her gold-painted toenails and her pink fingernails, her laugh that began like a silly little-girl snort in her nose and which always embarrassed her. He knew the sound of her TV voice, the different sound of her voice on the phone, the sexy sound of her when they made love. He knew, he decided, everything about Mal. Except exactly where she was right now and whether she would even talk to him again.

He looked at his cell phone, lying right there next to the bottle of Jim Beam and the half-filled glass—one of the glasses Mal had bought him as a gift because she said his supermarket ones were undrinkable from. “When you’re having the good stuff, that is,” she’d added with a wicked smile. Of course Harry’s wineglasses were Riedel because he would never pour a good wine into a thick glass, when the fragility of the glass against your lips enhanced the flavors and pleasure of the wine … What was he thinking! Fuckin’ call her, find her, talk to her, tell her you are dying here alone, tell her you can’t go on …

He picked up the phone, pressed speed-dial, heard it ringing, once, twice, three—

“What now?” Mal answered, sounding aloof.

“I can’t go on,” Harry said simply. “I’m quitting. Somebody I knew, a young woman, was murdered tonight and I was the one that found her. I might be responsible. She was young, Mal, she was so alive, so eager for her future. I almost think she must have been the way you were at her age, wanting to be like you, a TV detective. And now she’s dead and I’m supposed to find who killed her. Rose Osborne’s husband is a suspect, the blond girl is a suspect. I can’t do it, Mal. I’m guilty.”

He heard her deep intake of breath, then she said, “I understand. I’m not sure you are quitting for the right reasons, but I understand. I never thought I’d say this, but I want you to think about it first, Harry. And if you want to talk to me, then get on the next flight. Okay?”

“Okay,” Harry said. And this time he meant it.





36


Rossetti was not surprised when Harry called him in the middle of the night. He was used, anyhow, to odd-hour telephone calls. He was surprised, though, by what Harry wanted.

“Come get the dog” was exactly what Harry said.

Rossetti, the cool guy who always had an answer, was taken aback. “You mean, like come and get Squeeze? What the f*ck for? What am I gonna do with him?”

“Look after him for a few days while I’m in Paris,” Harry said.

Rossetti took in the sound of him. “You’re slurring your words,” he said. “That’s booze talking, Detective, not common sense.”

Harry’s sigh was magnified in Rossetti’s ear and he held the cell phone away, staring amazed at it. This was so not Harry.

“It’s my heart talking, Rossetti,” Harry was saying. “I can’t take sitting here alone, except for my dog, remembering that poor murdered girl bleeding out with her broken pearls strewn around. I can’t bear to think I might be responsible. I don’t want to be the man who has to speak to her family, to attend her funeral, to nail the guy that killed her. I’m cracking, Rossetti, and I need you to take Squeeze because I’m off to Paris to see Mal. See if she can put me back together again.”

Rossetti understood. His friend’s life was at crisis point. “If anybody can help you, it’s Mal,” he reassured him. “Go to her, my friend. I’ll come round now and collect the dog. Don’t worry, I’ll care for him like he’s my own kid.”