assessments. The idea of her glamorous appearance, at variance with her bloody career, intrigued him. Her apparent candour, versus her beguiling intention, aggravated him. He began to engage with the notion of her, and this was neither pleasant nor ultimately conducive to his aim.
His discomfort continued, and increased, to the extent that he began to look forward to their next encounter, and wish that their association would develop into something more substantial as soon as possible. As it came about, he was not disappointed.
Their next significant meeting was, again, at Somerset House— but how it was transformed! Christmas was upon them, and now the central court was filled with an ice-rink from side to side, with kiosks for wine and spirits. Again, it was busy, but now the leisured crowd were either whirling in a great circle around the ice, or chattering busily at the edges.
The assassin was very steady on his skates, so long as he stood firmly still; but the throng had no sympathy for such steadfastness, and jostled him aside every moment.
Thamesis smiled an acknowledgement of his presence as she swished past, but he was unable to pursue or detain her. On each swift, agile circuit she would skim near his station and lap him once or twice, delighted at his helplessness, while she was without bounds.
‘Thamesis, don’t rush off,’ he cried, reaching out, but snatching back his hand to retain his upright stance.
‘Oh, I hoped you were here to atone for your theft, not to deprive me again,’ she returned, as she swept by.
Frustrated, he reached a second time, to grasp her fleeing arm— the reach overbalanced into a lunge, and immediately he toppled and sprawled into the frost. She swerved to avoid him— he skidded like a puck, arms flailing forward, beneath her skate-blades— and instantly she sliced the little finger clear from his hand.
What do I need to say of pain, rage and blood-soaked ice? These you may imagine for yourself; all I can add to the scene is what you might not expect: that Thamesis cried out, while he merely clenched his teeth; that she threw her arms around his shoulders and raised him with desperate care; that her concern for his plight was so affectionate and tearful that the ambulance men (when they arrived) supposed her to be his wife, and that this was a conjugal maiming. They suffered her to accompany him to hospital, where the staff assumed the same, and treated her in kind.
He was obviously rather occupied with his loss, and its agonising effects, but even so, did not ignore her attitude, and allowed himself to be comforted by it— really, her tender interest in his injury was very becoming in a murderess. She might merely be playing out her role, certainly; but he thought— he felt— that she was genuine. And in response, for perhaps the first time in his life, something genuine seemed to awaken in him, too, momentarily— even to the extent of agreeing to her insistence, once he was sufficiently bandaged and dosed, that he must commit himself to her hospitality, and allow her to nurture him back to as much health as he could ever expect to regain. He did not forget the risk while he agreed— the threatening situation that it implied, of his health being extinguished altogether— but he went so far as to forget to remember.
‘Thank you for your sympathy,’ he told her, once she had ensconced him on a couch in her city apartment, high above a conduit off Coleman Street. ‘You’ve already told me I’m to expect nothing more.’
He was drained and tired from the medication and the ordeal. She adjusted the cushion behind his head and momentarily stroked his hair, before sitting beside him on a low stool.
‘Sympathy’s all you deserve,’ she said gently. ‘I know you wouldn’t appreciate anything more.’
‘How do you know? I’m as good as a stranger to you.’
‘Oh, no— worse,’ she teased. ‘I know one thing about you: you’re quite different to me— you have a heart— here, I can feel it beating under your shirt— a little slowly, perhaps, because of the drugs, but beating nonetheless. What you lack to go with it, and what I have, are feelings.’
He closed his eyes for a moment as her palm touched his chest, and frowned his reply, rather than speak.
‘But that’s no flaw in a man,’ she continued. ‘Feelings don’t become him anyway— he’d rather think straight, think accurately. He’d rather be sure and strong, than emotional and weak.’
‘She knows I’m a killer, then,’ he observed lazily to himself. ‘The widow told her.’
‘But look at you now,’ Thamesis went on. ‘All your strength laid down. I warned you I’d punish you.’
Now he looked up into her face, almost contentedly. ‘Ah, yes, my terrible crime. Well, haven’t I paid you enough for whatever I took?’
He lifted up his padded and swaddled hand. She softly lowered it again, and nodded.
‘What was it, by the way?’ he asked.
‘A syllable,’ she answered, with warm mischief, ‘every time you spoke my name. I have three, you see, and you snatched one.’
To prove it, she pronounced the name correctly, and he closed his eyes once more, with a smile.
‘To rhyme with nemesis,’ he murmured.
Following an intimate conversation like this, their progress to becoming lovers was rapid: for once that mutual realisation is reached, it is natural to rush towards consummation.
It does not take an angel to stir love in a devil— just another devil who is looking for an angel too. And doubtless these were a pair of devils, death-brokers, and they knew it— but neither feared it, because they were each used to inflicting death themselves. They were wary, of course— the man especially so, since he knew her mission was to deceive, and kill him— but he gave a kind of consent to her, a willingness to believe in her affection, and accept the consequence if he was wrong. The threat excited him. He observed her moods intently, flexing his knowledge of human character, betting his belief in her truth against his own survival. Besides, he enjoyed the savour of power it gave him in the relationship, knowing that he too was deceiving, and might attack at will. So while Thamesis imagined herself to be the powerful one, magnanimously sparing him, all along he was sparing her, and for the same reason; so it happened that they each stayed their hand— no fatal accident befell him, nor did she succumb to some inexplicable but deadly illness. They locked each other in love.
Nevertheless, that love was a heady and feverish novelty to him, which did not altogether suit. He felt out of control, as though possessed, and daily surprised and balked at himself. Urges to protect and cherish another person were alien to him, as though they had been artificially grafted onto his psyche; nothing like this had inspired him before, and he found it difficult to accept.
‘How is it possible? What makes it happen?’ he asked her one evening, while they were entwined on that same couch together.
‘What, and what?’ she whispered, with a kiss.
‘This sensation— what makes me want you, when I’ve never wanted anyone before, and can’t dream of wanting anyone else again?’
‘Look at me,’ she said playfully, stroking his jaw. ‘You can’t help yourself needing me, that’s all.’
‘You?’ he argued, sitting up. ‘You, who told me outright you’ve no heart, and then cut off my finger! I’m mad to need you for that!’
‘That’s all it is— you’re mad. And I’ll tell you why: love is madness, and I commanded you to love me.’
‘Commanded me!’ he laughed. ‘Really! And how did you do that?’
‘I can do whatever I will with love,’ she explained, casually. ‘It’s my gift.’
‘But how did you acquire that gift?’
She kissed him again. ‘Don’t you know who my parents are? The river Thames and the moon.’
‘I didn’t realise those two were lovers.’
‘Oh, yes— the river fell in love with the moon, long, long ago, which is why he moves to all her whims. Then, one day, he caught her reflection and wouldn’t give it back, so ever since the moon is bound to love him, too.’
‘How romantic,’ he grimaced. ‘But I’ve heard
that the river gave birth to you, Thamesis, so he must be your mother, not your father.’
She smiled and shook her head. ‘Well, whichever it was, they’re my parents, and when I was born, each of them gave me a gift. The moon gave me power over love, and the river gave me power over death. It’s that power over love that gives me power over you.’
‘What a miraculous child you are, then— all the more so for being the offspring of a cold rock and some dirty water.’ He embraced her tightly, but studied her features all the while. ‘It’s just like you to have some fantasy explanation.’
‘Beware,’ she hinted. ‘Your cynicism may be mistaken, and my fantasy all fact.’
That night he was awoken by the slight movements of Thamesis getting up. Feigning continued sleep, he watched her, lit by the full moonlight pouring through the bedroom window. She paused, apparently to determine whether he slumbered on, and, once satisfied, crept out. He remembered that a fortnight before she had snuck from their bed in a similar way, and retreated to the kitchen for an hour or so— and even upon that first delicious Christmas eve night, a fortnight before then, she had absented herself in the same manner, though he thought little of it at the time. A pattern now became clear, however, and he silently rose, to pursue and observe her.
She went to the kitchen as before, but did not remain there, as he had assumed she would. Rather, she opened a small service door,