Chapter 26 My Enemy’s Enemy Is My Friend #3
No one was in the drawing room, so Jimmy went into the kitchen.
Honor was sitting at the table, a half-eaten cheese sandwich set aside in favor of a cigarette—several, going by the butts in the ashtray.
She said nothing, just glared at him and gripped her tumbler of whisky.
Her scarlet lipstick marked the rim like a blood smear.
Honor was exhausted. She couldn’t face another confrontation. “I think I’ve made myself quite clear,” she began. “Nevertheless, I shall make myself clearer—”
“You don’t get it, do you?” Jimmy sat down across from her, pulled the plate toward him, and bit into the sandwich.
“Your problem is…” He paused to chew and swallow, waggling his finger at her as he did so.
“You’ve had a lifetime of stepping over other people to get what you want.
Never any consequences for you, isn’t that right?
Well, sorry, Elsie, but now there are. You think I won’t rat you out for having two husbands?
” He ate the rest of the sandwich. “Just watch me.”
“But I’ve done what you said you wanted. I’ve given you back the money—the money that by rights belongs to Saul!”
“Well, you’ve given me a bit of it. And maybe it does belong to him, but it won’t bring his family back, will it? To me, it’s less than I’d have earned over fourteen years, if I weren’t stuck inside. So I don’t think it even makes up for—”
Honor got stiffly to her feet. “Jack, please. I’ve got a splitting headache. I’ve had enough.” She left the room, glass of whisky in hand. He followed.
“You won’t be the only one getting arrested,” he shouted at her back. “George’ll be getting her collar felt an’ all.”
She swung around. “What are you on about?”
“It’s funny, actually. Abortion and bigamy have similar penalties under the Offenses Against the Person Act. Maybe you two can share a cell at Holloway.”
Taking a step back, Honor placed a hand on the drawing room doorjamb. She brought her glass to her lips and tipped back what was left.
They stood there without saying anything, eyeing each other, their stubborn wills in deadlocked combat. Then he gave her a strange placatory smile. For a brief, unmistakable moment, she saw his father’s face in his.
An angry man was shouting at Saul in a language he didn’t understand.
He tried to shout back, but no sound came out.
He was at the camp in T?b?resti, shoveling rocks, and the camp was also the cinema where Mina worked.
It wasn’t safe for her there, he suddenly realized.
Why had he never told her that before? He must find the girl and help her escape.
If only he weren’t so cold! Then maybe he’d be able to unstick his bare feet from the icy gravel.
The only way to unstick them, it seemed, was to keep shoveling.
The clattering of the rocks grew so loud that Saul was jolted awake. Above his head, several thumps shook the ceiling. The light fixture vibrated, glass against metal. He had a foul taste in his mouth and a dull throb in his left temple. What time was it?
Mina, her feet aching after a long day, had arrived home and let herself in with her latchkey.
An unfamiliar and irate feminine voice issued from the drawing room.
Intrigued, she pushed open the door to see a strange young woman in a fur hat.
She was yelling at Jimmy, who was backing away from her toward the fireplace.
“I won’t let my babies grow up without their father. My children are innocent. They’re not going through what I did because of a scumbag like you.”
Mina was so admiring the young woman’s coat, a shawl-collared pink-and-gray tweed with deep mink cuffs, that it took a moment to notice she had a gun.
That was stylish, too, gold and mother-of-pearl.
She pointed it at Jimmy, who lunged and managed to knock it out of her hand.
Then with incomprehensible speed he was on top of her.
He slammed her head against the floor once, then twice, then three times. Mina started screaming.
The girl’s face turned a terrible shade of purple.
She whimpered pathetically.
There was nothing else to do. Mina grabbed the knife from her handbag and plunged it into Jimmy, somewhere near the top of his spine.
It made a queer scraping noise. Or maybe Mina just felt it.
A roar of pain was muffled by a gurgle. He was face down, slumped and sort of threshing on the girl’s upper body.
She pulled herself free, got on her hands and knees to crawl to her gun, and stood up.
Somehow her fur hat had remained on her head.
Her breath was coming in hoarse, staccato bursts.
“Are you all right?” said Mina. “Are you hurt?”
Saul appeared, almost immediately followed by Honor, Robbie, and George. They all started talking at once, and the girl pushed past them out of the room. The front door slammed.
“Mina,” said Honor, placing a hand on her shoulder.
Mina looked down. She hadn’t realized she was still holding the knife. Dropping it, she burst into tears.
A fine spray of darkening blood had patterned her lavender coat. Like a Japanese painting, thought Honor.