He paid the tab he’d acquired during the business meeting he’d attended with a wad of notes from a Cartier wallet. I gave him a seductive smile, downed my drink and followed him out the door. We drove back to his. He ran inside the moment we arrived and reappeared moments later carrying a bottle of champagne which we drank in his convertible classic Aston Martin with the roof down, watching the rough waves smashing against the boulders lining the sea wall, the exterior security light bouncing off the metallic bonnet.
He received a call on his mobile phone, looked annoyed when he answered, walked into the house to talk, and apologised when he returned. ‘My godson,’ he said. ‘He’s fallen out with his father, again. He and his partner need somewhere to crash.’
I guessed from the fallout and his pronounced vocabulary the lad was gay and his parents – Humphrey’s friends of twenty plus years – didn’t approve.
‘Friends and family first.’
‘It’s late. I’d drop you home but—’
‘You’ve been drinking. I’ll order an Uber.’
‘I so wanted to bend you over the bonnet and—’
I was saved by the sound of tyres on gravel. The godson. He stepped out of the car and in seconds his smartly groomed boyfriend was at his side.
Humphrey turned to greet them, and I swallowed down the nauseating thought of the white-haired, wrinkled man whose clothes stank of whiskey and cigars, old enough to be my grandfather, pounding away on top of me.
‘Hiya,’ said the godson, waving at me as if we were old friends. His boyfriend nodded hello.
I introduced myself. Humphrey acted like we knew each other, and I played along. I liked the idea that I hadn’t met Humphrey after I’d just left a client’s hotel suite needing a piss, and had only used the golf club’s toilets to avoid being questioned by the receptionist seated behind the desk at the entrance who’d seen me dressed in two different outfits arm-in-arm with two different men in the same vicinity twice in one day.
We played card games, drank expensive wine and ate pre-cooked food that Muriel had prepared then stored in the fridge. When his godson and his partner called it a night and went upstairs, Humphrey and I stayed up late eating yogurt-dipped fruit pieces until I pretended to fall asleep on the sofa.
He spread a chenille blanket over me, his hot breath grazing my cheek as he retreated without attempting to steal a look beneath my low-cut taffeta dress, then the door clicked closed behind him.
The moment his feet hit the top step of the staircase I got up and hunted the room for valuables. I Googled the value of several items and realised he was worth far more than I’d imagined and I lay back on the sofa, closed my eyes and fantasised about the kind of life I could have if I lived in a house like the one Humphrey owned.
I survey the room now.
The hand-carved French oak headboard, the Tibetan wall hanging, the Aztec-style throw folded on the linen chest, are all familiar yet untouched.
I stand, and wobble to the bed where I land on the soft, Egyptian cotton covered duvet and close my eyes to stop the room from spinning.
When I awake it’s dark and frost has gathered at the corners of the windows where the glazing meets the sill. It sparkles in the moonlight.
I rub my arms to warm them as I descend the stairs and enter the utility room to turn the heating dial on the boiler up high. I wait for the reassuring hiss that indicates the valve has opened further before I close the door to muffle the noise being emitted from the clunky old pipework.
There are a couple of envelopes on the doormat. I collect them as I cross the hallway, scraping my fingers on the stiff, coarse, boar hair mat inside the porch as I do.
I read the letters while I wait for the kettle to boil. The first is an itemised bill for Humphrey’s mobile phone contract. The second is an arrears notice from American Express. Both must be paid within twenty-eight days.
I dump the letters in the sewing drawer that closes with a smooth, soundless subtlety that Humphrey’s debt collector lacks.
I turn to the window. ‘There’s a door, you know.’
‘You’d invite me in?’
He forces the open kitchen window wider, hoists himself up, and with one foot in the sink and the other on the draining board he clambers through, trampling on the crystal ashtray filled with the distinguished butt-ends of cigarettes I don’t remember smoking the night before.
We stare at each other for a moment, neither one of us willing to look away first. When he raises an eyebrow my lip twitches with the wish to smile.
I quash the idea of his wallet in my hand by pouring boiled water over the tea strainer filled with loose Darjeeling. I pour in thick creamy milk, deposited on the doorstep each morning by the farmer who tends to the cows and sheep surrounding the land I now own. I add a teaspoonful of sugar and, as I stir it into the cup, I recall the dusting of snow that fell onto the car park outside the window of my psychiatric suite.
*
The sky was a pure Icelandic-white, the leaves on the trees had ceased to rustle, the birds no longer chirped, and I could see my breath in front of my face as I fell on my knees at the news that the man I loved was dead.
*
My uninvited guest clicks his fingers in front of my face. ‘Earth calling Mrs Philips.’
‘What?’ I snap.
‘Your husband. I need to speak to him.’
Keep up that attitude and you’ll be fucking joining him.
‘Why does Humphrey owe you money?’
‘Don’t play games with me.’ He steps forward.
‘I’m not.’ I move towards him.
He huffs and shakes his head in mock disbelief. ‘You’re going to tell me you don’t know how Lord Fancy-Pants earned all this,’ he indicates the room, ‘despite sharing his bed?’
‘He doesn’t include me in his business ventures and I don’t enquire.’
‘Don’t tell me, you spend his money blissfully unaware of where it comes from, never dig into his private affairs, never ask how he became so wealthy in such a short amount of t—’
‘He said he’d inherited the manor and made the rest of his fortune buying and selling property, stocks and shares, and… Why are you shaking your head?’
‘He sold up, moved his funds and put them into high interest savings accounts years ago which he told me he’d recently withdrawn. This house isn’t even his.’
‘W… what?’
‘It was his ex-wife’s. Belonged to her father.’
‘She’s dead.’
‘Yes, and he’s been living off her private pension for the past three years because he only has a state funded one of his own.’
‘How do you know all this?’
‘His ex-wife’s sister inherited the house.’
‘How do I know you’re not making all this up?’
‘The deeds are in her name. Check it out for yourself if you don’t believe me.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Why not?’ He winks, goes to remove his coat. I shove him in the chest. He doesn’t even blink but a smile curves one side of his mouth. He grabs my wrist, removes it from its upright position in preparation to attack and eases it slowly down to my side. ‘Where is he, Mrs Philips?’
I gaze into his penetrating eyes until I feel my cheeks warm.
‘He’s done a runner, hasn’t he?’
‘If he has, he never informed me of his plan to do so.’
‘You expect me to believe you have no idea of his whereabouts?’
‘Think what you want. It’s of no concern to me.’
He looks me up and down. Goose bumps follow his eyes as they trail across my skin. My stomach flutters.
He stares at the only wedding photograph of Humphrey and me that is on display. It sits inside a sterling silver gilt frame on the mantle. He moves away from me, picks it up, examines it, puts it back down. ‘What does he do for you?’
‘I love him.’ I can’t disguise the inauthentic inflection that’s entered my voice.
‘You love the idea of him, of this.’ He gestures to the room, lowers his voice. ‘I warned him off you. When he told me he’d met this young, busty, blonde bird. I told him that a woman of your pedigree could only be interested in his money.’
‘I love him.’ The words, this time, come out through clenched teeth.
He leans in close. His woollen jumper smells of tree bark and his mouth of spearmint. ‘You,’ he points at me, ‘have a problem.’
I turn my head, feel his breath kiss my chin.
‘You’ll be panning the river for gold before you get a pound out of him.’
‘Maybe.’ I turn back to face him, reach for his shirt collar, tug his face towards mine and headbutt him.
There is a crunch of bone. He wears a stunned expression on his face. Slick blood instantaneously drips from his nose, down his mouth and slides along his jawline before landing on his sleek camel-coloured shoes. His dark eyes bore into mine. Then he has one hand covering the exposed jagged cut that the impact of my forehead has caused to his otherwise handsomely sharp features and the other round my throat.
I inhale a whine, reach for his fingers to tear them away but he presses them harder until my pulse is thumping like bass in my ears and the room spins. He lets go just as I begin to fear he won’t, and I gasp and inhale as much oxygen as I can.
With his palms flat on the wall at either side of me and his eyes pinning me to it he licks a droplet of blood from his mouth, so close to mine I can almost taste it. His temple is throbbing, his breath quickening against my own. He pushes himself back, leaving a bloody handprint smeared across the matte paintwork. He turns away and retreats to the bathroom.
I follow, stopping in the doorway.
He grabs the large box of Kleenex from the cupboard below the sink, tugs a handful of tissues out, scrunches them in his palm and presses them against his nose.
He grunts as I appear behind him, roll some tissues into the shape of a sausage and take the opportunity to shove it up one of his nostrils, where the most blood has gelled to his upper lip while he’s folding more, those in his hand already soaked through.
He grabs my wrist, presses his thumb into the two pressure points there and jerks my hand away. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he says, nasally.
I bite my lip, watching his biceps flex while he washes his face. He looks up, catches my reflection in the mirror above the sink, sees me staring at him, reaches back and says, ‘Pass me the hand towel,’ his voice calmer. He dries his face with his eyes set on mine.
‘How well do you know Humphrey?’
‘A lot better than you it seems.’
‘Yet you’ve no idea where he’d hide out.’
I take the damp towel from his hand, a spark of static from his woollen jumper sends me backwards as though I’ve received an electric shock.
‘I don’t need to.’
He steers me out of his way and side-steps a pile of laundry parked in front of the bathtub to exit the bathroom.
‘I don’t understand.’
He sighs, turns around. ‘I’ll make it clearer for you then, sweetheart. You’re going to find your husband.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘You will.’
‘But what if I can’t?’
‘As his wife the debt will fall on you.’
‘No.’
‘Is that a no I won’t look for him or no I won’t pay it back?’ he scowls.
‘I’ll pay you.’
‘It’s a lot of money Mrs Ph—’
‘How much?’
‘The Man lent him twenty grand.’
‘I’m sure I can find enough objects within this house to cover it,’ I say, eyeing one of the paintings in the hallway. ‘How long have I got to…? Why are you shaking your head?’
‘Your husband baulked, Mrs—’
‘Bethan! Please, call me Bethan.’
He raises his chin, nods once. ‘Humphrey disrespected my uncle with his disloyalty.’
‘How much more money do you want in compensation?’
‘With interest I’ll see if I can get it down to thirty G.’
‘And that’s it? You’ll leave us alone?’
‘You’ll have no fear of reprisal, Mrs P.’
I guess he intends to harm Humphrey, so I suppose it’s a good job he’s already dead.
DI LOCKE
Then
Rick Kiernan was sentenced to an indefinite life sentence for the murders of five women, plus ten years for raping Katrina Leonard at knifepoint. He would never be released. But nothing could satisfy the itch to find that one missing link in the chain of evidence we had on him that would nail him for the murder of Jane Doe. Which was why I was on my way to HMP Berwyn to pay him a visit.
Although I’d led the team who’d investigated, arrested, interviewed and collated the evidence against Rick that would lead to him getting locked up, we’d never met. I was hoping that my dark hair and fair skin would increase the likelihood of eliciting a confession from him.
I entered the building, dropped my car key and phone into the plastic box, and did the airplane pose while a security guard scanned me for metal. The rod bleeped until I removed my wedding ring. Then I waited in the visitors’ room until my name was called.
There was a boy playing with a duck toy that quacked every time he slotted a shape into its stomach. The girl sitting on the floor next to him, who I suspected was his sister, squealed with glee every time then passed him another shape. They repeated the game several times before the girl grew bored and crawled towards the bookcase to grab a copy of Spot the Dog which she began to chew the corner of. In a plush leather chair, a woman sat and read. And a man sighed and stared out of the window.
A woman entered the room, apologised for the wait, and escorted me down the corridor and into the community hall. It wasn’t like any prison I’d been in before. There was no queue to get in, the staff were dressed as informally as the residents, and negative terminology such as prisoners, prison officers and cells were considered as bad as curse words.
She showed me to a sofa cut off from the other six by a partition that made it appear as if it was stationed inside a lounge that looked like it belonged in a hotel.
I paused midstride when I saw a familiar face staring back at me from another.
I mouthed ‘what the fuck?’ before my escort turned to usher me towards the man I was there to see.
As I sat opposite Rick, a coffee table containing two cups, two plates and an open box that housed several packets of biscuits parked between us, I couldn’t shake the fact my mate Craig was sitting on the sofa two back from mine.
What’s he gone and done now?
MELANIE
Then
After Tony, came Owen, followed shortly by Ian, then Robert, and a series of others I cannot name. My mother’s bedroom door was a revolving one and each man who crossed the threshold was as revolting as the last.
One swindled money out of her bank account then left hastily to visit his sick cousin. When my mother reported him missing the police told her his name and age didn’t match anyone registered on the electoral roll. Another punched my mother in the face and split her lip when she questioned why he’d brought a man he’d met in the pub who’d just been released from prison back with him, to our home. And yet another broke the valve inside the cistern with ounce bags of cocaine he was storing there, causing the overflow inside the toilet to… well, overflow. Adrian was the one she married.
His imprisonment, their subsequent divorce, and my mother’s depression is how I ended up living alone with Gran.
Every failed relationship drained my mother’s empathy more. She stopped swearing and weeping when teetotal Adrian, wearing chinos and a shirt he’d ironed himself, and carrying the keys to his BMW, moved in.
He walked out of the living room and stopped to survey my legs. ‘You’ve grown two inches since you last wore those. Come on, I’ll take you into town to buy some new clothes.’
>
I rolled my eyes and my mother saved me the embarrassment of explaining why that would be uncool. ‘She’s sixteen, Ade. Give her the money. She can go with her friends.’
He packed picnics for us to eat during day trips to Tintern Abbey, the Wye Valley, or the Brecon Beacons, and listened to my problems when I fell through the front door drunk and my mother was too angry to discover why I was set on ‘pissing my life away’. He offered to pay for me to continue my studies at Cardiff University and didn’t argue when I left my veterinary degree six months into the course to ’shack up with a man too immature to have any prospects’.
He drove us to Pembrokeshire for a caravanning holiday and kept my mother’s wardrobe up-to-date without protest.
‘I should have known,’ said my mother afterwards, her head buried in Gran’s neck, clinging onto her like a child who’d woken from a nightmare. ‘He was too good for me, for us.’
The signs were there, but we didn’t know what they were.
I returned from my mid-term waitressing job early one day and caught Ade – as he preferred to be known – watching porn on a DVD. I continued past the part-open living room door, jogged up the stairs and sat in my bedroom and tried to block out the muffled moaning that radiated from below by plugging my earphones in and listening to Clubland Xtreme at full volume.
Another time I recognised his car parked near the primary school as I raced to the bus stop. Other than his obviously healthy sexual appetite and the fact he’d pulled a sickie from work there was no indication he was anything other than the calmly confident gentleman he portrayed himself to be. He was quiet, well-spoken, well-mannered, and well-educated. I never felt uncomfortable in his presence, had no inkling he was a sexual predator. Because he wasn’t interested in me.
I was in my bedroom reading the latest edition of Mizz magazine when I heard the letterbox flapping vigorously. I thought it was Gran in a panic because next door’s cat had chased her down the path again, but when I opened the front door to two police officers my stomach somersaulted. I knew Ade appeared too good to be a truly honest man. He’d fooled us both.
I called my mother in from the garden where she sprang up on the sun lounger, tipping the glass of ice-cold lemonade down her tanned bikini-clad chest. She turned to look at me. ‘What have you done?’
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