Deep (Zarry AU)

Last

It's quiet in the Hollywood Hills. The steel caps on Harry's cowboy boots tapped obscenely on the tarmac of the road that wound up to the house. The late-afternoon air seemed to buzz with the heat. Harry was walking the few steps from his car to the intercom on the head-high double gates. No name on the panel. He pressed the buzzer, heard its far-off scratching sound.

Harry swung his arms, looked about, as he waited for a response. Paps hung out in the bushes here; he knew that, despite the gating at the bottom of the hill and the security patrol cars and the odd helicopter. But he hadn't been bothered to come in full-on disguise; he was too tired. Whether it was the pain he still suffered around one cheekbone or whether it was the painkillers he still had to pop for it, he didn't know. Instead he was wearing his black fedora and sunglasses, a vague attempt at anonymity which he was now realising had the opposite effect. He had the dim sense that he might regret today.

Through the intercom a heavily-accented woman said "Yes hello".

"Umm... it's Gary. Gary Miles. I'm here to see Wayne."

There was a long pause, then the woman's voice returned. "I will let you in."

The gates seemed to take an age to open. For the first time Harry noticed a camera on a pole above the side of the gate where the intercom was. It followed him as he climbed back into the S-Class. He popped another painkiller while he waited, then curved the car into the sweep of the sun-bleached driveway.

Somehow he had expected Zayn's housekeeper to be South Asian: instead she looked from further east of where he grew up: Vietnam, at Harry's guess. After so much travelling he thought he could tell these things. She smiled to greet him but then walked with her head down; if she recognised Harry she was too professional to show it.

She had opened the large, dark-wood front door onto a predictably white, tastefully minimalist interior. Harry was almost disappointed; this was standard Hollywood decor. As if reading his mind, the housekeeper said "Mr Malik has not been here long; no chance to change much."  Harry smiled politely.  She was pretty but for once he hardly noticed.

Harry walked on, and as he passed her she seemed to move backwards, imperceptibly, away from him. He could hear music. An old track – eighties-style electronica – what the f- was Zayn doing listening to that? Harry caught some of the lyrics.

I am alone but adored

By a hundred -

The music stopped abruptly. The housekeeper was following Harry, who had started wandering towards where the sounds were coming from.

"No no," she said, hurrying past him and signing to his left. "This way, please."

He turned and followed her direction, down a short flight of white stairs and through a doorway. A long corridor followed, glass on one side revealing a long, Japanese-style garden, and a wall on the other side half-covered with graffiti. Harry recognised Zayn's hand in the random mix of colour and style; half-readable words and half-recognisable faces. He stopped to look at one. Its mouth was too large and its chin a sharp triangle but Harry knew immediately who it was from the long hair that curled skyward above the face. Underneath, two letters bulged and body-popped: S.A.

Harry winced.

He continued walking and the corridor opened into a long, split-level lounge, filled with light. Even through his sunglasses Harry had to squint. Two of the walls were glass; through the side wall Harry could see a white stone terrace and, in the far distance, the jagged line of the hills, smudged by smog.