The Wreckage - Michael Robotham [141]
“No… maybe.” She chews on the inside of her cheek. “He was writing something.”
“What was he writing on?”
“I didn’t see.”
“With a pen or a pencil?”
“A pen. He dropped it and I thought he was trying to look at my legs, but he just went back to writing. He only really noticed me when Zac and I kicked off.”
“You started arguing?”
“That was our shtick, you know. Our grift. That’s what Zac called it. We argued. He hit me. I cried.”
“Someone else could have stepped in.”
“We’ve been doing this for a while. I know how to position myself, so the mark is closest. I was just a few feet away when Zac hit me across the face. I went down, but this guy just didn’t react. I mean, Zac was standing over me and this guy was just staring straight through me like he was watching it all on TV and any moment he was going to reach for the remote and change the channel.”
“What happened then?”
“Zac calls me some names and storms out. I was sitting on the floor pretending to cry, thinking to myself, this guy must be really cold. What does a girl have to do to get his attention? Then he finally reacted.”
“He came over.”
“Yeah. He picked me up. Got some ice. Bought me a drink. He wanted to call the police, but I talked him out of it. Then I did the old, “My keys! My phone!” routine and started to cry again. He put his arm around me and I sort of leaned into him. That’s when I knew I’d hooked him, you know. Physical contact. You melt into a guy’s body and it triggers his protective instincts.”
“Where were you sitting?”
“At his table.”
“What did you talk about?”
Holly screws up her features. “It was odd.”
“What was odd?”
“He didn’t offer to let me use his phone. It was sitting on the table on top of a book.”
“What sort of book?”
“It had a dark cover.”
“He’d been reading it?”
She pauses, thinking. Then she opens her eyes and lifts her head, staring at Joe like he’s just performed a magic trick. “He’d been writing in it.”
“A notebook?”
“Yeah. Must have been.”
Holly is annoyed at herself for not remembering earlier. Joe doesn’t labor the point. He takes her through the encounter, minute by minute until she reaches a point in the story where they leave the bar.
“What did he do with the notebook?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“Was it still on the table?”
“No…” She pauses. “He put it in his jacket pocket.”
“Which pocket?”
“Inside. Just here.”
She puts her hand on her left breast.
“I remember that jacket because Zac liked it so much.”
“What do you mean?”
“When we were robbing his place, Zac was saying how much he liked the jacket. It was camel-colored, you know. Cashmere. Expensive. Zac had his share of problems, but he knew stuff about clothes. He had this dress uniform—he kept it after he left the army—and every button on that thing shone. It was kept like brand new, folded in tissue paper and stored in a special box.”
Holly closes her eyes again and Joe takes her mind back to the house in Barnes. She has grown accustomed to describing scenes in detail, picturing them in her mind, not rushing the chronology of events, but slowing it down. Richard North had been quite drunk when they arrived at the house. He couldn’t get his key in the lock. She did it for him.
“He still wanted to get into my pants. They’re all like that. They start off telling me I can use their phone and then they offer me the spare room and then they try for the big prize.”
“Is that what Ruiz did?”
Holly opens one eye. “Not exactly.”
“What about Richard North?”
“He was Mr. Hopeful. He said he had condoms, but couldn’t find them. I poured him a drink, which I spiked. He slobbered all over me and then passed out.”
“Where?”
“On the sofa downstairs. That’s when Zac arrived in a foul mood because it was raining and miserable on a bike. I searched upstairs. He took downstairs. Cash. Jewelry. Mobile phones. Nothing too big, because we had to carry it on the bike.”
She describes the house, picking out colors and features, remembering the posters in the little boy’s bedroom and his bed shaped like a racing car. Joe doesn