19
The Pearl
Randall didn’t take Fawn and Hamish to see Lord and Lady Peckworth. Instead, the car meandered through London to Park Lane.
‘Hamish…’ she said softly.
‘Don’t think you can bargain with me,’ he snapped.
‘I’m sorry I’ve upset you. I promiseit won’t happen again,’ she said, crossing her fingers. The car pulled up and stopped abruptly outside the Dorchester hotel. Hamish stepped out of the car and held the door open for Fawn.
‘Out,’ he said.
Fawn sank back into the darkness of the car, hoping she might just vanish.
‘Out.’
‘Not until you tell me why we’re here.’
‘Fawn…’ Hamish’s voice held a warning,and Fawn quickly pulled on the handle of the far side passenger door, ready to run, but instead she fell straight into Randall’s arms who carried her struggling body over to Hamish. Fawn was ready to start screaming but Randall quietly whispered in her ear, ‘Remember now, dearie. I know about the boy.’
If that hadn’t been enough to silence her then moving the left side of his jacket awayto reveal the hilt of a gun that was tucked into the waistband of his suit trousers certainly was.
‘Quiet now.’ Randall spat on the floor and Fawn could feel her hands shaking and her options running out. If she screamed, if she warned anyone, she’d put Walter’s life in danger and yet if she followed Hamish into this hotel, she knew she was putting herself in peril. No matter which wayshe turned she felt walls building up around her and caging her in.
‘Let’s not cause a scene now, darling,’ Hamish said, taking off his jacket and placing it around her shoulders. ‘We wouldn’t want to be making the wrong sort of headlines, would we?’ Together they ascended the steps into the Dorchester and into a lift that would take her ever closer to Hamish’s room.
Walter waited for forty-five minutes. After the first ten, he became worried and after the full three quarters of an hour he was close to pulling out his hair. When he finally decided she wasn’t coming, he quickly scaled downthe ladder, grabbed his bag from the stage door office and locked up at fast as his shaking hands would let him. As he bolted the padlock on the door, an overheard conversation pricked his ears.
‘Honestly, there was more blood than I could handle.’ Walter turned to see two police officers walking past the theatre.
‘Poor bugger.Bothears, you said?’
‘Both ears, clean off.Found him just round the corner in an alley behind some bins. Not a thing left of them on ’is ’ead. Whoever did it was an artist with a knife.’
‘An artist and a devil. You caught him yet?’
‘Nah. The victim’s too scared to talk. Thinks ’e’s gonna lose more than just ’is ears next time. Looks like whoever it was ’as threatened every body part on the poor soul.’
Walter watchedthe police officers come and go, their conversation taking with it every last bit of hope he had in his body. He prayed to whoever was listening that they weren’t talking about Lenny.
Leonard. Do you have trouble with your ears?
You wha’?
Because not once have you ever seemed to be able to listen.
Walter felt his stomach turn and he retched and doubled over but nothingcame up. The cold of the night was setting in quicker than usual and his fingers were icy as he wiped away the saliva from his lips. Walter thought about running after the police officers, telling them everything he knew about Randall and Hamish and what sort of men they were, but Fawn’s voice echoed in his head:You don’t think someone like Hamish has connections? I won’t have been the firstwoman Hamish has treated like this and where was the law then?
Walter went to run back into the theatre but there was nothing he could do from in there except hide and he’d had more than enough of hiding.
‘OhGod.’ He crouched down in the street and held his head as the world started to spin and he let out a sob. He didn’t know where to begin looking for Fawn and even if he foundwhatever lavish party, club or hotel Hamish had taken her to, he wasn’t the sort of person they’d allow inside anyway. The door to the pub opposite stage door opened up and he was drenched in its warm light and like a moth, he followed it.
Walter’s hand slid up his pint glass as Hamish’s hand slid down the back of Fawn’s dress. Bodies crowded at the bar and someone jostled the drink outof Walter’s hand, soaking his shirt as Fawn threw a glass of champagne in Hamish’s face. Anger bubbled up inside Walter, clouding his mind and he lunged for the man who had barged him, as Hamish lunged for Fawn. A glass crashed to the pub floor as Walter tangled with another man, while Fawn struggled against Hamish’s arms and knocked over a lamp which shattered against the marble floor of the hotelroom. Walter yelled in pain as Fawn cried out for help. Walter struggled, but he was smaller and weaker than the man he’d chosen to take on. Fawn was too. Walter felt himself being pinned to the ground, bracing himself for a punch or two but all he could think about as the blows came one after another was Fawn. And as she now lay silent and numb, looking up into the ecstatic eyes of Hamish Boatwright,her throat like broken glass from the screaming and her body aching from the struggle, she closed her eyes and tried so very hard to make her mind leave her body and travel to the safety and warmth of the night before when she’d lain in Walter’s arms.
The whole world seemed to have increased in volume and even the sound of the key turning in the key box was too much for Walter’s sore head. The noise of the keys jangling together as he passed each set over to the actors sent a wave of nausea through his body, but it was his black eyes that were causing him the most discomfort. Swollen and bruised, he could barely seethrough them and there was no way of sitting in his desk chair that didn’t make him ache all over.
‘Well, don’t you look handsome.’ Hamish slotted his cane through the hatch and lifted Walter’s chin to the light to inspect the damage. As he lifted his face, Walter could see Fawn standing behind Hamish, her eyes lowered, her face sallow and gaunt as she swayed slightly on the spot. Hamishlaughed under his breath and held out his gloved hand. ‘Keys,’ he demanded, but Walter didn’t move.
