Dancing With Shadows. Lynne Pemberton

      ‘Jay Kaminsky.’

      Weston and Beth both stiffened. Nobody spoke.

      Eventually Weston broke the silence. ‘I knew he was out. You got my fax? I read the piece in the Globe.’

      Kelly nodded. ‘He’s here, in Manhattan, and –’ She stopped speaking, squeezing Weston’s hand tight.

      ‘It was a shock seeing him like that, just hanging out at a news-stand buying a paper, looking for all the world like he was on his way to an office on Madison or Park. He was dressed like an uptown lawyer or advertising exec. He’s only a few blocks from here right now. In fact he could walk into this restaurant at any moment. I knew he’d got out, because all the papers announced it. And we all knew his sentence was up. But to see him like that, so close, after so long; wow, it freaked me out.’

      Beth had paled. ‘And today of all days.’

      ‘Yes, today of all days,’ Kelly repeated.

      ‘So what if Jay Kaminsky is out, what difference does it make?’ Weston tried to calm the other two. ‘How can he harm us? What can he do? He’s a convicted felon, an ex-con; who’s going to take any notice of him? Come on, Kelly, relax.’

      When Kelly did not respond she turned her attention to Beth. ‘This year is the twenty-sixth anniversary of our Pact; this is celebration time. We can’t let Kaminsky get in the way. We didn’t back then, so we’re certainly not going to now.’ Weston looked from one apprehensive face to the other. ‘Come on, what’s done is done, no turning back. We’re going forward into the twenty-first century on top, in power, in control.’ Keeping hold of Kelly’s hand, she took Beth’s from her lap and holding it reassuringly tight said, ‘We’ve got each other, nothing and no one is going to change that. Let’s drink to our continuing friendship, and our journey into the next century. Together we can surmount anything: we’re strong, empowered, united.’

      Weston raised her glass and drained the last dregs. Kelly took a sip of iced water, and Beth finished her whisky. Their hands were still joined as Carlos came to the table.

      ‘Message for Mrs Prescott.’

      Kelly was handed a slip of paper. On it was one line, neatly handwritten in black ink: The past always has a future.

      The flight to Washington landed on time. As she walked through the arrivals terminal, Kelly searched the sea of faces for her driver, Jim. A moment later she spotted him rushing through the revolving entrance doors. He waved and stood still watching her approach.

      Kelly felt tired; thoughts of Jay and too much white wine had combined to keep her awake for most of the previous night. Todd was out of town, and wouldn’t be back until later that evening. She moved towards the chauffeur, determinedly pushing all thoughts of Jay to the darkest recesses of her mind.

      When she walks

      She’s like a samba

      That sways so sweet,

      And moves so gentle,

      And when she passes

      He smiles but she doesn’t see …

      Jay hummed the tune but the words that rumba’d through his head were not about ‘The Girl from Ipanema’. They were about the girl from Temple Texas who went on to become the girl from Capitol Hill.

      Long-limbed, with an ease of movement more usual in a Polynesian princess than an apple-pie, homespun American girl, Kelly looked graceful, sleek and majestic to Jay as he watched her cross the arrivals hall. He had a clear view from his vantage position in a telephone booth facing the busy concourse.

      She was carrying a fur coat and a small tan leather bag. Clad in a midnight blue suit, jacket nipped into the waist, straight skirt skimming her knees, Kelly held her neat head high – flaxen hair like a slick of gold paint across her shoulders. Several male heads turned, eyes bewitched, blatantly undressing her, and for a brief possessive moment Jay wanted to hit one particularly lecherous pot-bellied executive. Yet the object of all the attention was totally oblivious. Jay supposed it was the nature of the beast: such a combination of beauty, charisma and raw sex appeal was bound to be so acquainted with admiring glances and goggle eyes that it becomes immune to them.

      He fell into a quick trot behind her, only holding back as she strode out into the sunlight and dipped into a waiting limousine. Moments later, Jay was in the back of a taxi. The black stretch, three cars ahead, inched forward, indicating left. The taxi followed, fitting in behind on the Beltway leading to the I-75 that went into Washington. As the limo picked up speed, Jay imagined Kelly in the back sitting with legs crossed. Idly he wondered if she was wearing pantyhose or stockings, and, if the latter, whether her garter belt was white, black or the flesh colour of her skin.

      In prison every time he’d seen a film clip of a couple in the back seat of a limo, he’d had erotic fantasies of hitching up a full skirt to find stocking tops and milky white thighs belonging to a beautiful, scented woman who wanted him. Always, he would go down on her, while the driver politely readjusted his rear view mirror and turned up the radio.

      The cab had followed the limo across the Potomac river, passing the Marriott Hotel where he was staying as of late last night. When they entered Georgetown they got snarled up in traffic, losing the limo for a few nervous moments. Then Jay caught sight of it again and directed the cab driver into M Street, where the limo was gliding to a halt outside an imposing colonial-style house.

      Jay looked with a pang of envy at the red brick façade, white portico and gleaming sash windows. The house was seriously elegant, it reeked of money and understated grandeur. He watched Kelly get out of the car and go inside before he asked his cabbie to take him back to the Marriott.

      An hour later he was in his room, freshly showered, wearing a towelling bathrobe and sitting in front of a club sandwich and French fries. He’d just taken the first bite when the phone rang. Jay picked it up after four rings. It was the call he’d been waiting for.

      ‘Good to hear you, Luther. When did you get in? Hotel OK?’

      Luther’s voice sounded jaunty. ‘It sure beats the dump I’ve been living in for the last eight months.’

      ‘Good, I suggest we meet for breakfast here in the coffee shop – eight-thirty in the morning.’

      ‘Have you located the –’

      ‘Yes,’ Jay interrupted abruptly; he didn’t trust telephones. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow.’

      ‘I’ll be there.’

      Jay replaced the telephone and sat down on the bed, closing his eyes. But he had too much going on inside his head to contemplate sleep. In prison the nights had been his time for solitary contemplation. How he’d longed for the zookeepers to lock the cages, to shut out the incessant and repetitive male babble. The close of another monotonous day in hell had always been, for him, a relief. Time to dream.

      But tonight, on the outside at last, there was no time for dreams or introspection, tonight was for plans. Jay believed in careful and strategic planning. Every move had to be thought out, like chess of which he was a master, with precision and patience. He had both and he relished the long hours ahead; while others slept he would plot. And by dawn he knew he would be more alert than if he’d had eight hours’ undisturbed sleep.

      Jay hadn’t seen Luther Ross for six years, but he would have recognized his big head anywhere. It was still shaven and gleaming like a bowling ball. When Jay approached the corner table, Luther looked up and his button black eyes were the same, if a little duller, and the gap-toothed grin hadn’t changed – it was as broad and as warm as Jay remembered. He’d used bits of Luther for a character in his first book; not the best bits either, yet Luther had been delighted, thrilled to taste a meagre morsel of fame.

      When the other man stood up he seemed smaller than Jay recalled, but maybe that was the outside – on the outside the world seemed to dwarf everyone in it. As if to compensate Luther had gained a lot of weight and his stomach protruded over