Loved by Mr. Night

Chapter 3

Aria examined her reflection in the full length mirror of the hotel lift, glancing over her shoulder, satisfied by the way that the skin tight black jeans emphasized her firm bottom. The cream, soft leather vest clung to all the right places showing her toned sun-tanned arm and athletic shoulders to maximum effect. More rock chick than glamourous, and topped off with a luscious mop of dark jet black hair, tousled perfectly to give of the I-am-fun—and I-am-carefree- look, which was far from the truth of who she really was.

But for the next few hours Aria just wanted to savour the moment of a job well done. It was more than a job to her. It was an ambition. She had waited exactly twenty years to watch that bastard get the finally what he actually deserved.

Revenge was indeed a dish best served ice-cold.

She pulled down her sunglasses and winked at herself in the mirrors as the lift doors opened into the palatial foyer of London’s Ritz hotel. Nobody was ever going to think of looking at her here. After all it was sometimes, rather most of the times extremely useful to have an identity that would make her invisible and help her disappear at any point of time. Those halfwits back at Costa del Sol would be sifting through the smouldering embers of the house.

Fuck them!

The jungle drums would be beating all over Glasgow by now, and that was something that definitely put a dent in her plans but the bastards would never find her.

She eased herself on to a stool at the bar and ordered a large vodka and tonic, watching the barman as he kept pouring and waiting for her to signal him to stop. She didn’t.

“My kind of barman,” Aria whispered, as she lowered her shades for a fraction of a second so their eyes met.

“My kind of woman,” said the barman with a hint of an accent.

He had that been-around-the course glint that said he knew who was up for it and who was not from the moment they walked to the bar. She liked that in a man. Straight and to the point. Aria flashed him a flirty smile. She took a long lingering drink and watched from behind her glasses as he cleaned the tumblers at the far end of the bar, sneaking furtive glances at her. She smiled inwardly at her. Just for the sheer hell of it, she thought that she might even get laid tonight.

Aria remembered the day that she had done it. She had not looked up at the waitress who had slammed the mug of coffee on the table, but she felt like getting up and punching the hell out of her. Just because Aria had suggested her that she get off her mobile and take her order, the waitress had made her even longer. She had clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to calm herself down.

She knew that she could not let that short fuse of hers f**k everything up. She was wound up big time, no wonder that would be the case. She had never killed before.

Neither was Aria prepared for the range of emotions coursing through her. At first it had been total euphoria as she had stood watching the house burn down--- with that twisted bastard inside. Burnt to a crisp, he would be. She had even felt her face smile as she had calmly walked away, got into her car and sped off into the night, adrenaline pumping her on as she hammered up the motorway and out of Costa del Sol. Then, there was a dread that she might get caught.

She had been totally wired since, jumpy as hell, and even quicker to the red-mist rage than normal. But guilt? No chance.

The coldness of the ‘murder’--- because that’s how the cops would view it—wasn’t what made her nervous. Killing that bastard was good karma! The bad karma was that they were looking for her and she had disappeared off the face of earth. She knew that if they ever tracked her down then she was going to attempt her way to dance her way out of it, say that she knew it was ahit and she did a runner because she might be next because of the association that she had with the victim.

As she finished her drink and put down the glass on the counter she felt that he was no victim.

And as she recalled her sister’s blank face she quickly brushed away the tears that came to her face and sniffed.

Man up, it’s nearly over, she told herself.

The following morning, Aria arrived at Euston just in time to catch the ten o clock for Glasgow. She stepped on board and slung her small case in the overhead rack, where she could keep an eye on it, then slumped on the seat hoping that no one was going to join her at the other side of the Formica table.

She could have gone in First class. Money was not the problem. But first class was never all that busy and she didn’t want to risk being in a place where she might be easy to spot. You never know who was on a train from London. It could be anyone from her contacts at the police or the people that she had been trying elude. Any of the toe-rag drug runners making a drop or a pick-up for the firm could be sitting on the train; even that far down the food chain everyone would have heard who had been murdered.

Torched in his famous Costa del Sol villa where he had retired to five years back. He had left Roy Delacour, the hoodlum who had become like a son to him to take over the business.

Rumours were going to be flying all over the shop as to who was responsible --- there would be claims from rival gangs from Glasgow to Manchester that it was their hit. But alarm bells would have rung at the very top of the organization when they could not get hold of Aria any longer.

And once they discovered that her body was not in the all burn-out villa along with the bastard’s, there would be some serious s**t flying all around. Because Aria was the accountant.

Of course no one knew her there as Aria. She was Emma to them.

Aria drained another bottle of mineral water she had brought with her and bought another coffee from the trolley that passed. Gazing out of the window she sipped from the paper cup as the countryside whizzed by. She sometimes forgot how green it actually was back at home. She had been away for too long.

Aria recalled that the first time she had been introduced to Robert Jackson he had said that she did not look like an Emma. She would be more suited to something dark and mysterious like Rosa, exotic and sexy but Aria had retorted,” Maybe my mom did not know that I would grow up to be looking like this??”

And the bastard had broken out in raucous laughter and said that he liked the girl who knew how to speak her mind. He said that he liked her and now only he hoped that she could do the job as well for which she had been brought here. It was a dedication--- more than that, it was a vocation. In the past few years, whatever she had done in her fake life, which got as real as it could be had been orchestrated so that she could finally achieve the retribution her mother and her sister deserved. Even though it was too late for both of them.

The landscape of Aria’s childhood sped past her in such a flurry of images. Train trips down in the Scottish coast to Helensborough, her mother’s adoring face while Aubrey would make all kinds of fun games that she had learnt from school during the journey---- before it was all so brutally snatched away.

Aria yawned and sat back but her mind was too full of business to sleep. She knew that she need the rest and she needed to speak to Rob as well regarding the article but her thoughts wandered back to the previous night at Ritz, and the barman, who she had surprised by whispering her room number as she left the bar.

Then she had surprised him even more when she had kept him up most of the night with the s****l athletics until they had both collapsed, exhausted. When she had asked him to leave so she could get a couple of hours’ sleep he did not look in the least resentful. If that had been a man treating her like that then she would have been probably been upset--- though no man she had slept with had ever asked her to leave the bed.

Aria carefully took out the little green book out of her handbag and ran her forefinger down the various bank account numbers where she had stashed away a fortune in the past three years, ever since Robert Jackson had been gullible enough to allow her access to his accounts.

Fuck him!!

He was so stinking rich and just that only on the misery of others that he would not even know exactly how much money he had anyway. That was what it had made so easier for Aria because Jackson had been too busy and caught up with his bevy of sycophant film producers and writers who fussed around him, delighted that he had agreed to let them make a movie of his chequered life, to notice that Aria was systematically plundering his bank accounts, siphoning cash to various personal accounts she had set up in different countries. It would forever take for them to disentangle the complexities of her handiwork on Jackson’s investments. But that would not stop them from being suspicious.

As she closed the diary a piece of paper fell out on her lap. She studied the scrawl on the paper, at first wondering what it was then she remembered picking it up from her contact whom she had met regarding this Ripper 2.0 murder case in the café at the King’s Cross. She strained her eyes to read it but all she could make out was the name of a company Damaria Corp.. She did not know why she had taken it up in the first place, but stuffed it back in her handbook without thinking again.

As the train disgorged its passengers onto the platform at Glasgow Central station, Aria stepped out and melted into the crowd. She was wearing fairly ordinary clothes and nothing too shabby or even too high profile which might attract attention in her direction. Aria tied her hair back and pulled on a black baseball cap with brim pulled low over her eyes, and she strode through the concourse and she did not linger to look at the throng of people coming and going, living ordinary lives, making their way home from work, heading down for the weekend to be with their loved ones.

She walked out in the late afternoon sun and filled her lungs with the fumes of the Glasgow traffic. She was home. So close. But just for a moment.

Aria jumped into a black taxi and closed the door.

“Where to, doll?”

“Bridge of Seir, Please.”