The wind was hammering at the windows when I emerged. By the time I was dumping my dirty dinner plates into the sink, I’d almost managed to forget about Meg. Then I caught my reflection in the darkened window. No wonder the sight of me had concerned her. My cheeks were hollow, my blue eyes lackluster and dull, the skin under them smudged gray. I scratched at a week’s worth of stubble and pushed back my over-long hair, scowled and turned away.
* * * *
Two more restorations came into the workshop the following week. I worked into the night almost every day, much to Clem’s bemoaning of our electric bill. But progress was steady, which pleased the clients, and I was able to sink myself into the work and forget everything else, which pleased me.
The weather got colder and darker. We had four solid days of heavy rain. Puddles appeared in the Glenroe hallway and I lost an entire half-day to patching up a new gap in the roof. It was only when I was working out a new labor schedule on the workshop calendar that I realized Meg’s club opening was the next day. I guiltily checked my mobile where I’d left it on the workshop windowsill, the only place it got signal. I had two voicemails and a string of increasingly impatient texts.
I’ve not forgotten. See you tomorrow.
I sent the message then returned to where Clem was grouching over the corroded exhaust of a vintage Sunbeam. I helped him remove it and spent the rest of the day fitting the new one, refusing to think about what the next day might bring.
* * * *
The drive from Glenroe to Glasgow was the best part of three hours on a good day. Saturday dawned in sheeting rain and howling wind. It took me well over two hours just to reach the main road, splashing through rushing run-off and crunching over rain-loosed gravel and branches. There was virtually no other traffic, even when I reached the A9, but I still drove my faithful X-Trail slower than was necessary, scowling out into the gray curtain of rain with a hard knot in my stomach.
The traffic increased as I approached the city. The knot tightened. The buildings jostled together and glowered down at me, soot-stained and dark with rain. Pedestrians filled the pavements, battling with umbrellas or hurrying along in waterproofs and overcoats, heads bent against the wind. Everywhere there were people…thousands of people. The noise and the sights crowded in on my brain. I wondered how I’d ever managed to live there.
When I finally reached Meg’s building, she welcomed me into the open plan, terracotta-painted apartment with a warm hug and a relieved expression.
“You didn’t think I was coming, did you?”
She shrugged but had the decency to blush a little. She cooked us dinner in her chrome kitchen, a light but incredibly good dish of Thai chicken with lemongrass served with a really very good dry riesling. I virtually inhaled it, grudgingly admitting that it made a welcome change from microwave curries and corner-shop red.
“Good?”
I nodded, swallowing the last mouthful of wine.
“I’ve ordered a car for nine p.m.,” she said. “Now don’t bunch up.” I hurriedly schooled my face. “You never know, Alec. You might even have fun. Stranger things have happened.”
I muttered something noncommittal and took myself off to the guest bathroom to shower, concentrating on not thinking about the fact that the photograph of Meg and David that had been over the bookcase was gone. I’d never let myself think about how his leaving might have hurt Meg too, never let myself think too much about how it might have all been my fault.
“There’s the Alec MacCarthy I remember,” Meg said when she joined me in the sitting room an hour later. “You look great.”
She was being nice. I looked…better. I’d stopped at a barber on my way in and had brought one of my black suits that still just about fit. The shirt was new and I’d worn the charcoal Armani tie she’d sent me for my thirtieth birthday. It was the first time it had been out of its packet. It was a nice tie, and I still remembered how to do a perfect Windsor knot, but the mirror over Meg’s ornate bathroom sink had showed it around the neck of a hollow-eyed stranger with pallid skin and a grim expression.
“Thank you,” I said, managing a smile. “You look wonderful.”
That, at least, was true. Meg had long ago cornered the market on looking effortlessly exquisite, even in the backward little town we’d grown up in. A high-paying job and healthy lifestyle certainly hadn’t harmed her graceful entrance to her thirties. She’d chosen a silver-gray gown that complimented her walnut-colored skin, oiled her ebony curls into decorative braids and wore a very simple but startling pair of platinum earrings that accentuated her long neck. She’d probably spent a large amount of money and time on her subtle makeup, but her wide, white smile was all she really needed.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely, holding my gaze for such a long time that I wondered what else she might be trying to say. She held out her elbow. “Shall we?”
Night had fallen in all its streetlight-tinged glory. There were shouts, laughing, sirens and the squawking of car horns. It had stopped raining, but the air stank of wet tarmac and exhaust fumes, and the chill was damp and pervasive.
“Remember that some of the people there tonight know my boss,” she warned as we climbed into the waiting BMW. “Or could be my future bosses. Or clients.”
“I’ll behave.”
She pointed a dusky-pink fingernail at me. “Promise me?”
“Why am I invited again?”
She patted my knee but didn’t answer.
Lure had been built into a renovated building near Glasgow Central station. Seeing the vast Victorian façade, which I’d known only as an exhaust-blackened ruin, newly sand-blasted and lit up with projections of slowly rotating stars whilst people in dinner suits and gowns sauntered to the entrance, was unsettling, like I’d stepped into a different time. Meg’s eyes shone. Several large gentlemen in suits checked our names and IDs on various lists on the way in. They all eyed me and my driving license with varying degrees of uncertainty before waving me along.
We were beeped through the security scanners then funneled to a bejeweled and gowned woman wearing a pair of incongruous blue medical gloves.
“Good evening, Madam. Sir. A very small and painless blood test is required to enter this evening.”
“A blood test?” I said.
Megan elbowed me in the side. “Of course,” she said, holding out her hand. The woman took Meg’s finger and pressed it briefly to a palm-sized device that clicked. Meg winced then put her finger to her mouth. The woman examined the screen of the device for a moment. When it flashed green, she smiled and handed Meg a tissue.
“Welcome to Lure.”
Meg inclined her head and moved on whilst the woman repeated the process with me. I felt the tiniest prick against the pad of my finger. I was handed a tissue to clean the tiny bead of blood after her screen had again flashed green.
“They’re not taking any chances,” Meg murmured as she guided me through to a cavernous, glittering hall.
“What are they afraid of, exactly?”
“What do you think?” she whispered before falling into awed silence as we were swept by the crowd through to the atrium bar. The vast space was decorated with muted LED lighting, an understated color scheme and simple yet clearly eye-wateringly expensive furniture. The arched ceiling had been restored to its nineteenth-century glory, navy and gold tiles glimmering like a night sky. The rhythmic beat of a chart dance tune thumped through the air. At least a dozen handsome bar staff served the milling clientele with drinks in long-stemmed flutes and heavy-bottomed crystal tumblers. It smelled like new paint, overpriced aftershave and champagne. Everyone was beautiful, richly dressed, smiling broadly, dripping with jewels and designer accessories and exchanging witty, sexually charged banter with abandon.