Orphans and Strangers, page 34
The complimentary bubble bath made the bathwater feel soft and silky. Lying back, Lisa let it sooth her. It was heaven. Usually, when she had a bath at home, it was with one ear listening out in case BJ needed something.
Wrapping her body in one of the big, fluffily bath towels, Lisa rubbed the steam off the mirror above the hand basin and studied her face and neck. “Not bad for middle age and the mother of two grown-up children,” she smiled at her reflection.
She pulled the shower cap off and let her hair fall onto her bare shoulders. There was a sprinkling of grey hairs at her ears and temple, but otherwise it was still glossy and healthy-looking.
She let the towel drop and examined her breasts. She frowned. They were not as firm as she’d liked them to be. “But what woman’s are at my age,” she consoled herself, pulling on the complimentary white towelling dressing gown.
A tea tray sat waiting for her on the small side table. The bed had been turned down and a soft glow was coming from the two matching side lamps.
“This is the life,” Lisa chuckled.
Piling the pillows into a pyramid against the quilted headboard, she poured the tea and lathered clotted cream on top of the buttered scone. After a second cup of tea and another scone, she picked up the message from where it had landed beside the bedside telephone.
For a minute, the one-line sentence jumped and danced in front of her eyes.
“I must see you tonight.”
Scott.
Startled, Lisa slopped the tea into the saucer, sending a milky spray over the crisp white bed linen. Scott was here and he wanted to see her. Tonight! Shaking, she picked up the note and read it again. I must see you tonight, he’d written.
She scrabbled about in her handbag for a cigarette. Stepping out on the balcony, her eye was caught by a young woman jogging. It was Trisha.
Lisa’s knees trembled. She couldn’t let Trisha know she was meeting Scott. She might let it slip to BJ. They’d need to meet in his room. She’d ring Reception, explain he was an old friend of hers, and ask for his room number.
She scrambled into her clothes and scrutinised her image.
A flushed middle-aged woman stared back at her. She wrenched off the matching jumper and cardigan. “Maybe a blouse and just the cardigan,” she muttered. “It’ll have to do. It’s all I have with me. At least my hair looks half decent,” she sighed, toning down her flushed cheeks with her Yardley powder puff. She smacked her lips together and checked that her lipstick hadn’t gotten on her teeth.
Her hand trembling, reached out for the bedside phone. “I’d be better going down to the desk. That way I can find out Trisha’s room number as well. Make up an excuse—tell her I’m not feeling well and am going to have an early night. With Scott!”
Chapter 76
The door of the hotel suite gave a soft click as it closed. Ready for her jog, Trisha limbered up in the air-conditioned corridor. She inhaled the powerful, pungent scent of the flowers as she passed a man cradling a huge bouquet of blooms.
Scott checked the room number and whirled around. “Excuse me… Miss Armstrong?”
Trisha couldn’t believe her eyes. It was the man who had accosted her in the London hotel.
“These are for you,” he said tentatively.
Not waiting to hear his stammering apology, she jogged away from him. The door to the stairs banged behind her, cutting off his words and beheading some of the flowers as he rushed after her.
He fell into step beside her, still clutching the bedraggled blooms, as she slowed to walk through the foyer.
“Your photographer Claude said I owed you a personal face-to-face apology for my inexcusable behaviour. I wanted to get it all cleared up—out of the way before my son’s wedding.”
Trisha’s heart jumped into her mouth. Oh my god, he was Claude’s assignment—the father of the groom. No wonder she had thought there was something familiar about him that night in the hotel. He was her Aunt Lisa’s old flame, who had taken her and Isobel to the seaside when they had been on holiday in Ireland. He’d been pig-ignorant to Lisa on the drive home that day too.
Trisha turned on him. “Do you really think a bunch of flowers will make up for the humiliation you caused me? And spare me the devoted family man and father bit!” she ground out, jogging away from him as they came out into the grounds.
“What about the damn flowers?”
“Give them to whoever you insult in the hotel tonight,” she muttered, increasing her stride.
After a while, her outrage subsided, and she realised she had left the grounds of the hotel and was jogging in the adjoining golf course. She slowed to a walk and headed back into the hotel grounds.
Approaching the small Remembrance Monument to men lost in the WWII in the grounds of the hotel, she saw the man again. He was placing the flowers at the bottom of the cenotaph.
Letting the heavy glass door of the hotel slam behind her, she pounded up the stairs. The man followed.
Sweating with fear now, Trisha fumbled the key in the lock. Gasping for air, Scott lounged forward and leaned against the jamb of the door, his hand on his chest, his breath coming in short spurts.
“You a model or a damn Marine?” he wheezed. “I need to sit down—heart problems.”
He looked at the mocking smirk on Trisha’s face. The sassy little trollop is enjoying this, he thought as he slid down on the floor.
“Brandy… heart,” he wheezed. So this is it, Scott thought. Survived the war and the Japs, and I are going to take a heart attack and die half in and half out of this bitch’s hotel room! Shit! He couldn’t even remember her name.
Trisha stood over him, her own heart jumping about. He was sweating profusely. His lips had a blue tinge to them, like her Uncle BJ’s had sometimes.
“See this,” she snarled, pulling a security alarm out of her pocket. “This can wake the dead. If you as much as move a limb from this spot while I get you a drink, I’m pulling the cord.”
The neat brandy burned Scott’s throat and made his eyes water. Trisha stood watching him, waiting for him to go.
“I only wanted to give you the damn flowers, apologise and explain…”
“Explain!” Trisha exploded. “You and your friends acted like horny, hormonal adolescences on their first bellyful of booze.”
Scott Osbourne hung his head. The tightness in his chest was easing. “I deserve that. I did act like a pig,” he murmured, running his hand over his sweating face. “We’d just closed a big deal on beef exports… out to have a good time our last night in London.” He held up his hand as Trisha opened her mouth to speak. “I’m not… bullshitting you. The guys couldn’t believe their eyes. Your photo was all over centre page of the tabloids. You must admit, the shots were pretty sassy. You can’t blame the guys for jumping…”
“It wasn’t my idea to put those photos in the papers. Not that it’s any of your business.” Trisha’s hand shook as she gulped down her own drink. “It’s not only women who take revenge,” she sneered, the brandy beginning to calm her. “My so-called boyfriend did because I wouldn’t do a porn film for him.”
Scott shook his head. “What a god-awful thing to do. I hope you sued the bastard for every cent he has,” Scott said, holding out his glass for a refill.
A hysterical giggle gurgled in Trisha’s throat. This was ridiculous. He was defending her honour now.
Scott proffered his glass once again. This time she refilled it.
“I’m not making excuses, but things have been damn pressured this past year, what with my son’s wedding and my wife’s drinking…”
“Please! Spare me—things are tough and my wife doesn’t understand me,” Trisha snorted.
“May I?” Scott said, moving to close the door as another passing guest stole a curious glance into the room.
“Tell me about him—the boyfriend,” Scott asked, refilling both their glasses and sitting again.
“He was a manipulative, egotistical rich shit. He used me to live out his twisted fantasies.”
Trisha hand gripped her glass. Once she started talking, she found she couldn’t stop. She told him about her plunge into depravity with Seymour, that had almost cost her her modelling career.
“Seymour used my body as a commodity, but when he was rational, the sex had been unbelievably great,” she confessed. “I miss it,” she said, eyeballing Scott.
“No! Let’s not go there,” Scott said hastily. He could hardly believe he was turning down this young, vibrant body. “We need something to eat to sober both of us up,” he mumbled, reaching for the phone. “Let’s book a table downstairs, get something to eat, and go out—see a bit of Belfast nightlife…”
Trisha started to strip off her sweaty joggers. Stretching up, she released her mass of black glossy hair from its ponytail. It cascaded down her back and over her breasts like a dark waterfall.
Scott’s eyes riveted on the dark mound of pubic hair partially hidden by her zipped top. He watched hypnotically as the top fell on top of the discarded joggers. Desire shot through him. He wanted her.
And she knew it.
Suddenly, Scott was stone cold sober. It was a trap. A trick—in illusion—like the Japs used to torment the prisoners: mind games. This was her way of getting her revenge on him. As soon as he made a move towards her, she’d set off the damn security alarm and scream rape.
“Can I help you?” a voice said. Scott whirled around. Fuck! The damn receptionist was still on the line. He’d forgotten he was still clutching the phone in his hand.
“Can I help you?” the receptionist voice said again, a faint trace of irritability creeping in.
“No, no, I don’t believe you can,” Scott said weakly.
Chapter 77
Detective Maloney’s leaving party was in full swing. Satisfaction ripped through Tomas. His transfer to Fermanagh had come through. In his ten years in CID, he had made some good friends—and some dangerous enemies, he mused, his eyes scanning the crowded room.
“Congratulations, we’ll miss your banter and cool head around this place, not to mention that Waterford twang of yours,” Bertie, an older man said. Sliding his hip on to the bar stool beside Tomas, he tried to catch the barman’s eye.
“It’s an odd location to transfer to, given your track record of successful undercover surveillance and arrests with the paramilitaries in Belfast,” he said.
“Thanks, appreciate that,” Tomas smiled, sipping his drink. I wonder what he would think if I told him my reason for applying for the transfer wasn’t entirely to do with policing, Tomas thought.
George Armstrong had given him the brushoff since he returned home.
“Stay the fuck away from me. They’re beginning to think you’re my bloody handler,” he’d snarled.
Tomas was jolted out of his reverie by Bertie offering to buy him another drink. Tomas shook his head. “Thanks, Bert, the missus has booked a table for a bite to eat in the Quays Quarter. It’s more than my life’s worth to turn up half-cut,” he joked. “We think we have trouble with the vigilante boys and the boys at the barricades; they’re a stroll in Botanic Gardens compare to Violet’s temper. She’s already champing at the bit about the transfer,” he laughed.
Bertie looked a bit concerned. “Keep your personal weapon handy when you’re out eating, son. We’ve walking behind too many coffins lately,” he advised. “The Provisional IRA—and indeed others—would be glad to see the back of you, Tomas,” he said. Tomas drained his glass and looked at him enquiringly.
“You heard something, Bertie?”
“You know your arrests of some of the fanatics who believe they are defending Ulster against the IRA are not always welcome in some quarters,” he said, glancing across the room to where two plain-clothes men were drinking.
Tomas straightened his shoulders. “Killing is killing, regardless of what part of the community it comes from,” he said, following Bert’s gaze.
“Any word about that case at the Met you were interested in—where the old biddy got her head bashed in?” Bertie asked, catching Tomas off guard. “Wasn’t there a lad from Fermanagh helping police with their enquiries?” he said, eyeing Tomas.
It took all of Tomas’ police training to hide his startled surprise. Old Bertie must have come across the reference to George’s arrest in London, he thought. Instinct told him his colleague had information to impart to him.
“I’ll just have a mineral,” he said.
“Fuck’s sake. You can’t stand there and let your parting glass be a mineral at your own leaving do, son.”
“Was there something you wanted to tell me, Bertie?”
Bertie moved out of earshot of the barman.
“Your patch in Fermanagh takes in the village of Ballet?”
Tomas nodded.
“Intelligence has it that the Belfast boys are using a farm in Fermanagh as their country headquarters. It’s owned by an ex-army veteran and his son. The father is a decorated WW2 veteran, not long back from England. The son has a bit of form, so he has.”
“William Armstrong and his son is George,” Detective Maloney said quietly.
Bertie nodded. “Once the IRA gets wind of their activities…” Bertie didn’t need to say any more. Tomas knew the farm would be raided, and anybody there suspected of being a UVF member would be shot dead, including George. He’d have to try and get him out of there, fast.
“That’s good to know,” he said, getting up to leave.
In the restaurant, out of habit, he peopled watched. Knowing the nervous facial expressions and body language of terrorists had saved his life before. Pressing his arm to his body, he felt the comforting feel of his personal weapon. He tensed as a lone man walked in and unbuttoned his long black coat; if he intended to pull out a submachine gun, he’d have worn a zipped jacket, Tomas thought.
Chapter 78
The receptionist arched an enquiring eyebrow. “Mr Osborne has requested we hold all his calls,” she said coolly.
“Yes. But he didn’t mean me.” Lisa said, trying not to waver under the woman’s keen scrutiny.
“Is this your first stay with us, Mrs…?”
“Mrs Armstrong-McKnight,” Lisa said, hoping the double-barrelled name would impress the woman enough to give her Scott’s room number.
“I hope everything is to your satisfaction?”
Lisa could feel her resolve to remain calm slipping. “Mr Osborne’s room number,” she persisted.
“Would you like to speak to…?”
“I don’t need to speak to anybody else. What I need is the number of Scott’s room!”
“Mr Osborne is not in his room. But I can take a mess…”
Lisa’s lips straightened into a thin line. “He sent me a message… he had to see me tonight!”
The woman lowered her gaze, but not before Lisa saw a pitying look flit across her face. “He’s having… drinks with his… niece. I believe she’s a model from one of the top London Fashion Houses.”
Lisa gave the receptionist a perplexed look. Then the penny dropped. “You mean Trisha Armstrong?”
The receptionist’s face remained impassive.
“Trisha is my niece, actually.” Lisa said, as haughtily as she could manage.
“If you say so, madam,” the receptionist murmured.
“I’ll find him myself,” Lisa muttered, turning in the direction of the bar.
The receptionist gave a soft cough. “They are not in the public bar, madam.”
“Residents’ lounge?”
The receptionist shook her head as she ran her eye down the guest register. “Oh, yes, I do beg your pardon, madam. I see your niece, Miss Armstrong, booked you in. Your niece is in 803. She has requested an extra key. I wonder, would you be kind enough to give her this,” she said, proffering the key.
Lisa felt as if a swarm of butterflies had taken residence in her stomach. Scott must be having drinks with Trisha and Claude. That’s why they were in Belfast. Claude must be the photographer for Jay Osborne’s wedding. She’d have to be very careful. Trisha mustn’t suspect there was anything between her and Scott. That’s how Scott knew I was here. Trisha must have mentioned it and Scott took the opportunity to be with me, she thought.
She listened outside Trisha’s door, expecting to hear the murmur of voices. There was only silence. She stood for a minute, debating what she should do. I’ll go back to reception and leave a message for Trisha to say I am tired and will see her at breakfast, she thought.
She had her finger on the button to summons the lift when she realised she was still clutching the spare key to Trisha’s room.
The door whined a little as it opened.
“Tidy as ever, I see,” she muttered, stepping over the clothes on the floor. “Wow! This is pure luxury compared to my room,” she gasped. Two small matching sofas covered in soft velvet faced each other. Between them, a marble-topped coffee table was littered with fashion and photography magazines and an assortment of empty glasses.
“Didn’t take Claude long to get into the Irish liquors and brandy shots,” she mused, noting the empty mini bar and leaving the spare key on the table.
She couldn’t resist opening the door to the bedroom to have a peek.
Her eyes were immediately drawn to the bed. Trisha’s hair was spread like a raven’s wing against the stark white silken sheets; her long painted nails raking over a man’s back, leaving long red railway tracks in their wake. Ecstatic moaning sounds filled the room.
“Say you love me. Say you love me,” Trisha was moaning.
“Damm right I love you, babe. I haven’t had ass like yours since I was a rookie,” the man chortled.
Lisa froze like a deer caught in headlights at the sound of Scott’s voice.
Chapter 79
Ma Higgins’ old house looked as dilapidated as ever, except there was a clean pair of curtains in the downstairs room with the lock on the door he had ‘flitted’ his father from, the makeshift room in the attic, George thought.
