“No, I’m not talking about Kate. I mean, more generally. I’m not bothered about that.” Laura mumbled something under her breath that Gareth didn’t catch. “Sorry?” he said.
“I said I was lonely,” she whispered. When she looked at him, there was a solitary tear making its way down her cheek. “I just wanted some intimacy. Kate was there, I’d had too much to drink, and it just happened.”
Gareth reached forward and used his thumb to brush away the tear. When Laura didn’t react, he slid his hand to the side of her neck and left it there.
“Laura?” he said. “I’m sorry.” She looked at him, blinking back tears.
“So am I,” she replied. “Gareth, I really like you, but…” Her voice tailed away.
“But what?” he said, softly.
“But Jennifer.”
“You’re not her, and I would never want you to be.”
“What do you want?” Laura asked. Gareth paused before replying.
“I take it dinner’s no longer an option?” he asked. She smiled, picking up her glass of wine with one hand and placing the other one over Gareth’s which was still on her neck.
“You’ll have to scrape it out of the bin.”
“I want to go back to my flat and have a shower. Clean my teeth.” Laura’s face started to fall as he said this, so he continued quickly. “Then I want to sit next to you on my sofa with a glass of wine. Accidentally put my arm around your shoulder in the hope that you’ll turn to look at me so that I can kiss you.” He could see the beginnings of a smile on her face.
“Then what?” she asked, finishing her drink and putting the empty glass on the table next to Gareth’s almost untouched pint.
“I think you know what then, Laura,” Gareth replied.
“Then you ask me if you want to go somewhere more comfortable?”
“Something like that, yes. What do you think?”
Laura removed Gareth’s hand from her neck and moved it to the table. When she looked at him, she had an impassive expression on her face.
“I think yes to the shower and toothpaste,” she said. “It might sober you up a bit. But no to me coming round to your flat, and no to behaving like teenagers on the sofa.”
Gareth’s face fell as he looked at Laura. He suddenly felt foolish, like a schoolboy being turned down when he’d asked the girl of his dreams for a date and she’d laughed in his face.
She reached down into her bag and pulled out her phone. The next thing Gareth knew, she had called someone.
“Can I get a taxi to take me home, please?”
41
Ronnie wasn’t sure what it was that woke him up—the girl in his bed screaming or the front door to the small house being kicked open. They could even have both occurred at the same time, but it didn’t matter either way. The end result was the same: a stream of policemen clad in body armour running into the bedroom screaming something unintelligible in Balinese. He didn’t need to know what they were shouting about, though. One thing he did know was that he was in deep shit.
He had just about got to his feet when the first policeman through the door shoulder barged him, knocking the breath from his body as he was shoved back onto the bed. The girl’s high-pitched screams got louder as one of the other policemen grabbed her arm and started hauling her toward the door. Ronnie felt a couple of pairs of strong arms grabbing his, and he was flipped onto his front. The next thing he felt was a knee on his neck.
“Okay, okay!” he shouted, slapping his hand on the mattress. “Get off me.” A policeman barked something at him that he didn’t understand. “English! English!” Ronnie shouted. “I’m English!”
It felt to Ronnie like an eternity, but eventually the pressure on his neck was released and he was hauled into a sitting position on the bed. He rubbed his neck and looked around the room. There were three policemen, all with beige jumpsuits and body armour. They wore black helmets, had bandanas over their faces, and handguns strapped to their waists. In the doorway was a fourth policeman. He was in his late thirties or early forties, well-built, and dressed in the standard uniform of the Balinese police; a beige shirt with breast pockets and navy-blue trousers held up with an elaborate belt. Above his right breast pocket was an embroidered badge with his name—Sukarba—and above the other pocket was a gold metal shield. Epaulettes with a series of stripes completed the uniform.
“Name?” the policeman barked.
“Phelps. Ronnie Phelps. Listen, this is all some sort of mistake. I–”
“Enough!” He said something in Balinese and two of the policemen grabbed his upper arms and pulled him to his feet. A moment later, he was thrown into the back of a squat jet-black police van that was parked in the courtyard between the houses. Just before the door of the van was slammed shut, Ronnie saw two men being led to another van, their hands zip-tied behind their backs. He wasn’t sure, but thought they were probably the same men from the previous evening.
Two hours later, Ronnie was sitting in a bare jail cell with breeze block walls and a concrete bench that he assumed passed for a bed. The cell was barely ten foot on each side and had a hole in the floor with a fetid stench coming from it. The toilet.
He had been photographed, fingerprinted, and had a DNA swab taken from the inside of his mouth, all watched silently by the policeman who spoke English. Then he had been thrown into the cell, his calls for a lawyer ignored, and left to stew.
Ronnie looked up as the metal covering over a hole in the steel door snapped open. A pair of eyes peered inside, and then it closed again. A second later, he heard the door being unlocked and the policeman with the epaulettes walked into the cell. The door closed behind him, but wasn’t locked. The policeman stood, his arms folded over his chest, and looked down at Ronnie for a few seconds before speaking.
“Why did you come here, Phelps?” the policeman asked. “You came here for our children?” Ronnie looked at the name badge on his chest.
“Officer Sukarba, please. I can explain.”
“I think that might be difficult when you were found with a child in your bed.” The policeman’s English was excellent with barely a trace of an accent.
“I didn’t know she was a child. I never asked for a child. I asked for a woman.” Sukarba fixed Ronnie with an icy stare, obviously not believing him for a second.
“Do you know how much trouble you are in, Phelps?” Ronnie looked at the floor to avoid his gaze. “We have searched your apartment. We have your passport. We have your DNA,” Sukarba took a couple of steps toward Ronnie, “in a child who has not even started to grow into an adult. You’re looking at five years as a minimum. Five years here before we deport you back to the United Kingdom. I hear paedophiles are not popular in British prisons.” He smiled grimly. “They are even less popular here, and we don’t have as many guards to protect you. Have you heard of Hotel K?”
“This is all a terrible mistake,” Ronnie said. “I want a lawyer.”
“There is no segregation in Kerobokan jail,” Sukarba continued, ignoring Ronnie completely. “You will just have to take your chances in the general population. Murderers, rapists. I would imagine you’d be very popular. For a while, until you’re no longer fresh meat. Then?” He brought his hand up to his throat and mimed a cutting gesture. “One less Westerner.”
“There must be something that can be done?” Ronnie said, trying to hide his desperation. Sukarba looked at him, his eyebrows raised.
“What do you mean?”
“There must be a way round all this.” Ronnie was thinking quickly, trying to work out how to phrase what he wanted to say. “Some sort of arrangement, perhaps?”
“Are you trying to bribe me, Phelps? You know that is an offence?”
“Not bribe, no,” Ronnie replied. It was just the two of them in the cell, and he doubted that there were any recording devices when there wasn’t even a toilet. “But perhaps some sort of contribution to a charitable cause might help?”
Sukarba sucked air i
n through his teeth at Ronnie’s words, and a look of displeasure crossed his face. But Ronnie was looking at his eyes and recognised the look in them. It was greed.
“A charitable cause, you say?”
“Yes,” Ronnie continued. “A generous contribution which would see all of this go away. The charges, the photographs, the fingerprints.” It was only the charges that he was really bothered about. He’d never been arrested in his life, so his prints and DNA wouldn’t be in any databases. But if he was re-arrested in the future, he didn’t want them in some computer somewhere ready to be flagged up as belonging to a paedophile in Bali.
“It would have to be very generous indeed,” Sukarba replied, “but I do know of a potential charity that might benefit.”
“How generous?” Ronnie said, knowing full well that the policeman was talking about his own bank account.
Sukarba paused for a moment, pretending to think. Ronnie looked at the man, knowing that this was the real reason for his visit. To see how much he could roll Ronnie for.
“Two hundred and fifty million rupiah,” the policeman replied, staring at Ronnie with a similar expression to the man the previous evening. Challenging him to try to barter. Ronnie did the maths in his head. That was almost fourteen thousand pounds.
“That is generous,” he said. “I don’t have that sort of money.”
“Then our conversation is over.”
“But I can get it. If I’m released.”
Sukarba glared at him, and Ronnie knew that he was weighing up the odds. Fourteen grand in Bali was the equivalent of a hell of a lot of money and in the end, as it usually did, greed won the argument.
“Okay, you have ten days to raise the funds. If you don’t, then you will die in Hotel K within a week. On that, you have my word.”
He turned on his heel and rapped his palm on the door. It opened, and the policeman stepped through before turning to look at Ronnie.
“Ten days,” he said before the door slammed shut behind him.
42
Gareth opened his eyes and stared at the bedroom ceiling, knowing that there was no way he could get back to sleep even though he’d only had a couple of hours, if that. Outside the window, he could hear birds singing and there was a shaft of bright sunlight coming in through a chink in the curtains.
He slipped back the covers and padded to the bathroom. According to his watch, it was just after six in the morning. Sunday was about the only day of the week that he could have a lie in, and it was sod’s law that he’d woken up so early. He washed his hands and paused on the way back to the bedroom, wondering whether to put the kettle on. Deciding against it, he climbed back into bed and laced his hands behind his head, closing his eyes against the light.
As he lay there, he thought about the events of the previous day. In particular, what Dave had told him about Laura and the subsequent conversation that he’d had with her in the Heartsease. The surprise he’d felt when Dave had dropped his bombshell had been almost physical—it was like a blow to his solar plexus. At first, he’d been sceptical when Laura had told him that her phone had died, but the more he thought about it, the more he realised that she had been telling the truth. He remembered her looking at her phone in the restaurant and saying something about the battery being almost out—that was why he had phoned for the taxi, not her.
In terms of her going back into the city, he could see why she had done that. Her friends were out, and she’d gone back to join them. Gareth probably would have done the same thing if the roles had been reversed.
Gareth couldn’t help but think about what Dave had seen in the club. Laura, with Kate. It wasn’t curiosity, but at the same time it was. He didn’t get how someone could be attracted to both genders in a physical sense, but he didn’t have any issues with it. Far from it. In his opinion, what people did with other consenting adults was entirely up to them, and they should be allowed to do what they wanted to do without being criticised or judged for it. But he’d never thought about another man in that sense, and didn’t think he ever would. Gareth frowned when he remembered the look on Laura’s face the previous evening when she’d talked about being put into a neat little box after he’d asked her if she was bisexual. That was, he reflected, a stupid thing for him to have said.
He didn’t think he’d ever sobered up as quickly as when he’d returned from the toilet and seen Laura sitting in the corner. She was sitting in what he considered his seat. It was where he had been sitting all evening. It was where he had been sitting when he saw Jennifer for the first time.
Gareth opened his eyes and blinked a couple of times, realising that it was the first time he’d thought about his wife in a while, probably since he’d left Annette’s house the previous day to go to the football match. She had waved him off in a way that reminded him of Jennifer. She used to stand at the door and wave when he left for a match, knowing that she had at least a few hours peace and quiet. He closed his eyes and wondered. If Jennifer had been watching him last night, what would she have thought?
His thoughts turned again to Laura, and the moment when he had brushed the tear from her face the previous evening. The way she had looked at him, her eyes dark and unreadable. Thinking about how she looked at that precise moment caused an inevitable physical reaction, and Gareth felt himself stirring underneath the covers.
He thought about how disappointed he felt when she had called for a cab and told him that they wouldn’t be going back to his place to mess about on the sofa. Then, the corners of her mouth had started twitching.
“You can have a shower at mine,” she had said, “and I’ve got a spare toothbrush. We’ll take the wine straight into the bedroom.” Then she had leaned forward and kissed him.
He turned to look at her now. Laura looked as if she was still asleep. Her hair was mussed and a strand of it lay across her cheek. She stirred as he moved it and her arm slid across his chest before slowly moving down his abdomen.
“Morning,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. Gareth gasped as her hand found what it was looking for. “Mmmm, you’re up early.”
43
Laura realised as soon as she walked into the office that, for once, Paul had beaten her to it. The windows were already open and there was no pile of post on the mat inside the front door.
“Paul?” she called out as she walked to her desk and put her handbag down.
“I’m in here, my dear girl,” his familiar voice boomed out from his own office. “The kettle’s just boiling.”
Laura smiled as she made her way to the kitchenette to make them both a cup of tea. One day, perhaps, he would surprise her, but it wasn’t going to be today. As she waited for the kettle to boil, she ran over the week ahead in her mind. They were due in court later in the week, and there was still a lot of preparation to be done for the case, so they both had a couple of busy days coming up.
Once she had made the tea, she picked up both mugs and walked back into the office. She put her own tea on her desk and made her way into Paul’s office with his mug. When she walked through the door, to her surprise, Paul was sitting in one of his armchairs instead of behind his desk. Not only that, but he wasn’t wearing his trademark three piece suit, but a pair of tan-coloured slacks and a maroon polo shirt with an embroidered horse on the breast. She’d only ever seen him not wearing a suit a handful of times, and never in the office.
“Gosh, look at you,” she said as she put his mug down on the table. “Are you playing golf later or something?”
He laughed, a deep belly laugh that she loved.
“No, no,” he said, picking up his mug. “Sit down, my dear. I just need a few moments of your time.” He gestured at the armchair opposite his, and Laura felt a prickle of unease. He had never asked her to sit in his office before. If he needed something, he always came out to speak to her. It was only paying clients who were invited into the inner sanctum.
“Is everything okay?” she said as she perched on the edge of the armchair.
“Yes, yes, absolutely fine,” Paul replied, waving his hand. Laura breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh, thank goodness. I thought you were about to fire me or something.”
“Fire you?” Paul laughed again. “Goodness me, no, my dear. No, it’s not that.”
“Okay, so what is it? Don’t keep me in suspense,” Laura said, smiling.
“I just need to take a bit of time off, that’s all.”
“But you never take time off, Paul. You were even in the office on Christmas day.”
“I was not,” he replied, a smile crinkling his face. “You little fibber.”
“You’re the fibber, Paul. I saw the lights on when I went for a run.”
“Oh, well, guilty as charged in that case.” His smile started to fade. “You know those tests I had up at the hospital?” He stuck his index finger in the air. “Including that one?”
“Yes,” Laura mumbled. She had a horrible sinking sensation in her stomach that he was about to say something she didn’t want to hear. She was right.
“Well, it turns out I’ve got a spot of the old cancer, my dear.”
Laura’s face dropped, and she suddenly felt dizzy.
“Cancer?”
“Just a touch. All quite treatable, by all accounts, so there’s no need to be alarmed.”
“What type?” she asked, not in the slightest bit reassured. Paul looked around the office theatrically and lowered his voice.
“Bum cancer,” he said in a conspiratorial tone. Despite the gravity of the situation, Laura laughed.
“Paul, I don’t think you can get bum cancer. Do you mean prostate cancer?”
“Yes!” Paul chuckled, slapping his thigh with one hand. “That’s the badger. They’re going to whip the troublesome little bugger out and then I’ll be right as rain, you’ll see.”
Gareth Dawson Series Box Set Page 78