Our Kind of Cruelty(21)

‘Excuse me,’ I said as I walked over to stand right in front of him. He looked up at me, a slight smile on his face.

‘Yeah,’ he said, his accent deeply American.

‘I saw you a while back approach a young woman. She came out of a building on Chancery Lane and she helped you with something on your map. Directions maybe?’

He smiled. ‘Oh yeah.’ But then he scrunched up his face. ‘How do you know?’

‘I saw.’

‘But that was a while back.’ Something shifted in his eyes, and he sat forward.

‘What did you say to her?’ A feeling not unlike electricity was running up my legs.

‘What? I asked her directions.’

‘No, after that.’ I could tell he was slow-witted.

‘I asked her if she wanted to go for a drink.’ He sipped from the beer as if to prove his point and I thought it would have been easy to ram the bottle in as far as it would go so he choked on the glass. ‘What’s this about, man? Have you been following me or something?’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Did she ask you to speak to her?’

‘No.’ He laughed. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘She’s my girlfriend.’ I tried to keep my voice even against the still of the night. ‘We play this game. I just thought you might be part of it. It’s OK to tell me. It won’t ruin anything.’

He looked over his shoulder. ‘Is this for some TV show or something?’

‘No, I’m serious. I’m not going to do anything to you. I just need to know if she paid you to speak to her.’

‘This is fucked-up shit.’ He put the empty bottle on the ground and opened another. ‘D’you want one?’

‘No.’ I could smell the hops from where I stood and I knew how delicious it would taste. ‘Look, who are you? What do you do?’

‘Fuck, man, are you serious?’ I could see the glint in his eye, almost as if he was enjoying the game as much as V and me. I nodded. ‘I’m American,’ he said pointlessly. ‘Just travelling through Europe. Working here and there. Nothing serious. I was lost and asked your girl for directions. She’s pretty and I thought I’d try my luck. She said no; I went on my way. Nothing more or less.’

I breathed into the soles of my feet. ‘Thanks.’ I turned and walked away. I could hear him laughing behind me, the sound following me out of the now dark park.

He was just the sort of person to enjoy being part of our Crave, or to need the money enough to do it even if he didn’t want to. V had no doubt paid him to keep quiet. And of course she would anticipate me following him and talking to him. That would have been part of the deal. I felt I was starting to understand our situation better, that the rules of our new Crave were becoming clearer. It was obvious this wasn’t a game to be played in one night or one moment and it was also clear that the stakes were very much higher. I just had to work out what the end point was and when it was meant to take place. Not, surely, I felt, before the wedding, which was now only ten days away.

I woke the next morning with my alarm and pulled myself out of bed and into my Lycra. My head was heavy and my muscles sluggish and only when I returned home from my run did I notice the half-empty bottle of vodka and remember what I’d done when I’d got home the night before.

My CDs were splayed across the floor of the kitchen by the garden doors, their contents spilt like entrails. I couldn’t remember playing any, but it seemed likely I had. I went to the stereo and saw the volume button turned up to max.

I made an effort to say hello to Lottie at work that morning, planning some sort of apology which didn’t actually appear when I saw her blush and look at the floor. I found it hard to concentrate on work and sought Kaitlyn out with an excuse about some figures I could have worked out in my sleep.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked as I leant over her desk while she inputted the numbers.

‘Yes, fine,’ I said breezily.

She turned and looked up at me, her unnaturally blue eyes quivering slightly. ‘You look a bit rough.’

I stood up. ‘Really?’ When I’d shaved that morning I had noticed a redness around my eyes and thought maybe I’d lost a bit of weight on my face.

‘I hope you’re not working too hard.’

‘No, it’s fine.’

‘And last night, Mike, I …’ She blushed and I desperately tried to search my mind for whether or not I had seen her the previous evening, although I couldn’t have.

‘What?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing. It just looks like you had a rough night.’

‘I’m fine.’

She went back to the numbers, tapping against her keyboard. ‘Is everything all right at home?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

She stopped typing and turned to me. ‘I know we haven’t known each other very long, but you can talk to me if you’d like, you know.’

I knew I was going to have to say something because Kaitlyn clearly wanted more than I was giving her. ‘There is something. I get really carried away with my music sometimes and I think I listen to it too loudly. I’m worried I’ve annoyed Lottie.’

But she ignored the question. ‘Doesn’t it annoy Verity?’

‘She’s away at the moment. With work.’