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Kinga pulled a lighter from the inner pocket of her jacket.
The suit sat baggy on her frame, the cut masculine, round buttons spanning the length of the right side lining. She produced a cigarette from the same pocket, slightly bent and wrinkled. Kinga lit up, placing it between her lips.
"You want one?" She asked, taking a deep inhale from the cigarette. "I know you smoke sometimes."
"How do you know?" Clay muttered defensively. He shook his head.
"I watched you," Kinga said. "Have been for a while now."
His face must have contorted, or else she simply found his confusion amusing. The seriousness of her tone dissipated like the grey wisps from the end of her cigarette. A smile parted her face, one that caught him off guard.
It was a tear in the image she had presented of herself. A hint of gum above gleaming white teeth. Her top lip shrunk, tucking beneath itself. She was a child on the playground who had just said 'tag, you're it'. Clay felt his annoyance buck. How could she be so cavalier? Was this all an elaborate ruse to toy with him? The thought stung, his humiliation slicing deeper than the terror of the car chase.
"That's not funny," Clay said.
"Was it meant to be?"
"I don't know. I didn't ... I didn't say it."
"Yes but what do you think?" Kinga pressed, tilting her head. "Do you think I was being funny?"
Clay's throat was wrapped in razor wire. He shook his head. She nodded slowly.
"I think you would be right. I've been told I have an odd and acquired sense of humour," she mused. "Like the taste of olives or mature cheese. Few can spot the punchlines, even fewer than appreciate them."
Clay squared his posture with the wall behind him. While Kinga's mysterious appearance at Signy's had leant time and space a syrupy quality, as though he had been wading through honey, but the evening had doused Clay in ice cold clarity. He had stumbled into something far larger than Brock's death and had almost died for his efforts. Kinga's insistence on maintaining her shadowy airs grated against his skin.
