And yet . . .
Why did he feel as if the games they’d played all these years-the Temptation games, the Revelation games, the Rejection, Vilification and Damnation games-were not quite over? His intuition, like his strength, was dwindling: but he was certain that something was amiss. He thought of the way the woman at his side smiled; the secret on her face.
“Is he dead?” he suddenly asked her.
The question appeared to flummox her. “Of course he’s dead,” she replied.
“Is he, Carys?”
“We just saw his funeral, for God’s sake.”
She felt his mind, a solid presence, at the back of her neck. They had played this scene many times in the preceding weeks-the trial of strength between wills-and she knew that he was weaker by the day. Not so weak as to be negligible, however: he could still deliver terrors, if it suited him.
“Tell me your thoughts . .” he said, so I don’t have to dig for them.”
If she didn’t answer his questions, and he entered her forcibly, he’d see the runner for certain.
“Please,” she said, making a sham of cowardice, “don’t hurt me.”
The mind withdrew a little.
“Is he dead?” Mamoulian inquired again.
“The night he died . . .” she began. What could she tell but the truth’ No lie would suffice: he would know. “. . . The night they said he died felt nothing. There was no change. Not like when Mama died.”
She threw a cowed look at Mamoulian, to reinforce the illusion of servility.
“What do you construe from that?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied quite honestly.
“What do you guess?”
Again, honestly: “That he isn’t dead.”
The first smile Carys had ever seen on the European’s face appeared. It was merest hint, but it was there. She felt him withdraw the horns of his thought and content himself with musing. He would not press her further. Too many plans to plan.
“Oh, Pilgrim,” he said under his breath, chiding his invisible enemy like a much-loved but errant child, “you almost had me fooled.”
Marty followed the car off the highway and across the city to the house on Caliban Street. It was early evening by the time the pursuit ended. Parked at a prudent distance he watched them get out of the car. The European paid the driver and then, after some delay unlocking the front door, he and Carys stepped into a house whose dirtied lace curtains and peeling paintwork suggested nothing abnormal in a street whose houses were all in need of renovation. Alight went on at the middle floor: a blind was drawn.
He sat in the car for an hour, keeping the house in view, though nothing happened. She did not appear at the window; no letters were thrown, wrapped in stones and kisses, out to her waiting hero. But he hadn’t really expected such signs; they were fictional devices, and this was real. Dirty stone, dirty windows, dirty terrors skulking at his groin.
He hadn’t eaten properly since the announcement of Whitehead’s death; now for the first time since that morning, he felt healthily hungry. Leaving the house to creeping twilight, he went to find himself sustenance.
53
Luther was packing. The days since Whitehead’s death had been a whirlwind, and he was dizzied by it. With so much money in his pocket, every minute a new option occurred to him, a fantasy now realizable. For the short term at least he’d decided to go home to Jamaica for a long holiday. He had left when he was eight, nineteen years ago; his memories of the island were gilded. He was prepared to be disappointed, but if he didn’t like the place, no matter. A man of his newfound wealth needed no specific plans: he could move on. Another island; another continent.
He had almost finished his preparations for departure when a voice called him from downstairs. It wasn’t a voice he knew.
“Luther? Are you there?”
He went to the top of the stairs. The woman he’d once shared this small house with had gone, left him six months ago taking their children. The house should have been empty. But there was somebody in the hall; not one but two people. His interlocutor, a tall, even stately man, stared up the stairs at him, light from the landing shining on his wide, smooth brow. Luther recognized the face; from the funeral perhaps? Behind him, in shadow, was a heavier figure.