Warhol's Prophecy

85

HAILEY SAT IN the car park of the Happy Brig, puffing on a cigarette.

She wasn’t sure how many she’d smoked since she’d arrived, but her throat was feeling raw. However many it was, she had a feeling it was too many.

He was late. Perhaps he was doing it on purpose.

Paying you back?

More than once she had wondered if Walker would show at all.

Why should he? After everything that had happened between them, who could blame him if he failed to appear?

Feeling sorry for him now?

She tried to push the butt into the ashtray, but it was already full. She tossed it out of the side window instead.

Again she checked the dashboard clock: 1.16 p.m.

How much longer?

Even when he arrived, if he ever did, she wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to say to him.

‘I know you didn’t beat my husband almost to death, but did you push dog shit through our letterbox, slash the tyres on Rob’s car, and then try to kill him by running him off the road?’

Simple.

She was reaching for another cigarette when she saw his Ford Scorpio swing into the car park.

Hailey watched as he parked about three vehicles away from her and clambered out. She, too, slid from behind the steering wheel and walked towards him.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ Walker said.

‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ she told him.

‘I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,’ said Walker, and she heard the slight hint of sarcasm in his voice. ‘I couldn’t imagine why you wanted to speak to me. After all, you’ve gone to such great lengths to avoid me.’

‘Don’t make this harder than it already is, Adam.’

He shook his head. ‘You’re amazing, Hailey.’ He smiled humourlessly. ‘Why is it so hard for you? I’m the one who’s been treated like an idiot. All I wanted to do was talk to you, and when I tried you didn’t want to know. And, all the time, all I wanted to do was apologize to you. What’s so bad about that?’

She exhaled deeply.

There was a long silence, finally broken by Walker.

‘So what do we do now?’ he wanted to know. ‘Stand here and talk about the weather? You were the one who called me at two o’clock in the morning. So I assumed it must be important.’

‘Things have been happening,’ she said vaguely.

‘What kind of things?’

She told him about the slashed tyres, the dog shit, the incident with Rob and the maniac in the other car.

‘And last night Rob was beaten up,’ Hailey told him finally.

‘You think I’m responsible, don’t you?’ It sounded more like a statement than a question.

‘At first I did. I—’

‘How could you?’ he interrupted angrily. ‘Why would I want to do anything like that? Why would I want to hurt you or your family?’

‘It started not long after you and I . . .’ She hesitated, as if reluctant to finish the sentence. ‘After I asked you to stop calling me.’

‘And you thought it was some kind of sick fucking revenge?’ he rasped. ‘What do you take me for, Hailey?’

‘I didn’t know what to think, Adam.’

‘You think I’d do that just because you wouldn’t speak to me? Give me some fucking credit, will you? I think you’re flattering yourself a little, too, don’t you?’

‘Meaning what?’ It was Hailey’s turn to be angry.

‘I think a lot of you, but not that much,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t want revenge. I just wanted to be friends.’

She nodded slowly.

‘Rob knows what happened between us,’ she told him. ‘Or at least he thinks he does. He thinks we were having an affair. He’s walked out on me.’

‘Didn’t you tell him the truth?’

‘I tried. I told him everything, but I can understand the way he feels.’

‘After what he put you through? Don’t you think he’s being a little hypocritical?’

‘So what was I supposed to do? Call you and get you to come round to our house and explain that we didn’t ever have an affair? That it wasn’t really anything for him to get worked up about, because we didn’t have sex? Not real sex, as we didn’t go all the way. Do you think he’d have accepted that?’

Walker looked at her in silence. He could see how tired and wan she looked.

‘Who did attack Rob?’ he said finally.

‘No one knows,’ she told him. ‘Rob didn’t recognize them. And the police don’t have any idea.’

‘How is he?’

She shrugged. ‘I saw him this morning,’ Hailey said. ‘He’s feeling much better. The doctors say he can come home in a couple of days. He’s worried about how Becky will react. He still looks pretty bad, even though the worst of the bruising and swelling has started to go. He really doesn’t look very pretty.’ She swallowed hard.

‘How’s Becky?’ Walker wanted to know.

‘She’s fine, I think. We’ve managed to keep most of this from her. Well, until Rob got beaten up.’

‘Have you got any idea who would want to do this to him?’

Hailey shook her head. ‘I wish I had. And I wish I knew where the bastards lived, because I’d like to do to them what they’ve done to us.’

‘What do the police say?’

‘They try their best, but they haven’t even got any suspects. What’s that expression: “We’re all pissing in the wind”?’ She smiled bitterly.

‘If there’s anything I can do, let me know. Anything.’

She met his gaze and held it. ‘I’m sorry for thinking you might have been behind this, Adam. But I didn’t know what to think.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said softly.

He reached out and touched her cheek.

Hailey pressed her own fingertips to his hand, then stepped back.

‘I’d better go,’ she said, her voice low.

He watched as she climbed into the Astra.

In her rear-view mirror she could see him still standing out in the car park, watching as she pulled away.

She touched her cheek where he’d put his fingertips.

It was as if she could still feel his warmth on her flesh.