by William Paul
Angela watched Fyfe bring in the third sack and dump it on top of the others. He closed the door, took something from his pocket and handed it to her. She studied the train ticket and smiled hugely.
‘You really are going to help me get away, aren’t you?’
‘Did you ever doubt me?’
‘Just a little. Why are you doing this?’
Fyfe didn’t have a simple answer to that question. ‘For old times’ sake,’ he said.
‘Our old times didn’t amount to much.’
‘More’s the pity.’
‘When is the train?’
‘Two hours from now.’
Angela took him by the arm and led him along the corridor into the bedroom. She had to keep him from thinking clearly. She had to make the time pass so that he could not have the chance to change his mind. The dogs came over to sniff at Fyfe’s hand and went back to their places in front of the fire. She went ahead of him and turned back to face him.
‘Did I tell you, Dave? I’ve been away from home a long time but I’m still just an old-fashioned Edinburgh girl at heart.’
‘You are?’
‘Oh yes. I’ve been away a while it’s true but it never leaves you. You know what I mean, don’t you, Dave? An old-fashioned Edinburgh girl is all fur coat…’
She switched off the light. The red glow of the gas fire rippled over the movement of the black and silver fur as it slipped off her shoulders to fall silently at her feet. Without hesitating she crossed her hands, took hold of the hem of her short dress and pulled it up over her head in a single motion. The dress joined the coat on the floor. She kicked off the high-heeled shoes and was completely naked in front of him.
‘All fur coat,’ she repeated, affectionately cupping the side of Fyfe’s neck with the palm of one hand. ‘And no knickers.’
She pushed him back on to the bed and fell on top of him. He hindered, rather than helped her frantic efforts to get his clothes off. Finally they had sex without exchanging another word. It did not take long. Angela remained on top, making all the right noises, her fingers interlocked with his, hair hiding her face. In the semi-darkness he turned his head to the side and watched the reflection in the mirror copying their every movement. When he arched his back he could see a fat full moon hanging through a gap in the curtains in the upper half of the streaming wet window. Its surface seemed to form the image of the bowed head of a long-haired woman looking down on him, standing out from its background like a profile on a cameo brooch. There were thin black bars on the window. When Fyfe blinked and refocused to try and see the moon more clearly they sliced the bright shining disc into strips.
Angela’s hot breath touched his face and flowed over it like a liquid substance. Her hair covered his eyes and her mouth closed over his. The moon was eclipsed. The climax came with the new darkness, emptying him of all guilt and all doubts for as long as it lasted.
52
Fyfe dreamed of making love to Sylvia while Brother Patrick stood over them, arms folded into the opposite sleeves of his habit. As they broke apart and lay panting in the afterglow, the monk stole away soundlessly on his air-cushioned soles to be replaced by Angela’s naked figure appearing out of the darkness and running towards him until she tripped and rose in the air to come plummeting down on top of him, hair streaming back, fingers like claws, teeth bared.
Fyfe opened his eyes. An instant of utter panic electrified him and his entire body tensed in anticipation of the imagined impact. Nothing happened. Slowly, he relaxed.
Angela was leaning on an elbow beside him staring into his face. Through the triangle formed by her arm he could see the mirror and himself and the straight line of her spine and the roundness of her buttocks. She continued to stare. One breast lay on his chest, a hand played idly along the inside of his leg.
‘Why are you doing this for me?’ Angela asked.
Fyfe tried to shrug his shoulders but it was impossible because he was lying on his back and she had him pinned to the bed. ‘Why not?’ he said.
‘There has to be a reason,’ she insisted. ‘There has to be a reason why we’re here together like this. Why you and I should be in this situation.’
‘When you discover what it is let me know, will you?’
She shook her head, smiling, and her hand moved up his leg. ‘Why are you doing this for me?’ she asked again.
In the mirror Fyfe saw his hand caress the small of Angela’s back, slowly following the smooth curve of her backside. They made love again much more slowly. Both of them kept their eyes open trying to stare the other out as the quietly building crescendo of biological passion became the only thing of importance.
He must have slept again, dreamlessly. The next thing he was aware of was lying on his back with Angela sitting on the edge of the bed, still naked, her back erect, applying make-up to her face. She turned her head, pouted with blood-red lips and blew him a shiny wet kiss. He snatched at the air to catch it.
‘It’s time to go,’ she said. ‘What are we going to do about the money?’
‘It belongs to you, Angela.’
She did not look round. ‘That’s all right, then,’ she said.
53
Angela dressed in a red blouse, black trousers and sensible shoes. Fyfe poured the banknotes into the three suitcases and put Angela’s clothes into the empty sacks. There was just enough space in the cases for the swap-over. The dogs got excited, anticipating departure.
‘Do you want a share?’ Angela asked.
‘I can’t. I’m a policeman,’ Fyfe said and almost burst out laughing. He was a fine, upstanding example of moral perfection and ethical behaviour. Who did he think he was kidding? He wasn’t a white knight rescuing a damsel in distress. He was a selfish bastard, interested only in his own gratification. A little extra cash in hand wouldn’t hurt. Maybe he would resign and live off it. Why not? It was a tempting proposition. He would find some way of explaining it to his wife.
‘Are you sure?’ Angela said.
‘On second thoughts I wouldn’t mind a little financial windfall. How much is there?’
‘I haven’t counted it.’
‘Well, it’s your money.’
‘I wouldn’t have it if it wasn’t for you.’
‘True enough.’
‘Here. You take one suitcase, and I’ll have the other two. Is that a deal?’
‘Sounds fair to me. Easy come, easy go.’
‘I couldn’t have done it without you, Dave.’
The tall windows were all in darkness as they left, curtains pulled back and tied at the sides like sinister wraiths, backs to the wall, peering round the corner. Not a word was spoken during the short journey to the station. It was just before midnight and the city was hoaching with late-night drinkers. Fyfe realised that he was running the risk of being recognised but he made no attempt to hide or hurry. He was totally convinced everything was working out. The engagement party would be in full flow by now. Lord Greenmantle would be seated in his fireside chair with Sylvia standing at his shoulder, accepting the congratulations of their colleagues. John Adamson would never know he owed his freedom and his death to sexy Sylvia, Fyfe’s sometime lover, who had taken the edge off the bad temper of a hanging judge at the opportune moment. If Greenmantle had stayed grouchy, Adamson would still be in prison and a lot of people would still be alive. Fyfe would still be a poor man.
Down the ramp into Waverley. Jill lay at Angela’s feet. Number Five sat on the back seat. Fyfe parked the car and, without asking, heaved out the two bigger cases. He escorted Angela to the train. They found the compartment and checked in with the sleeper attendant. She went in first and he dumped the cases on the bunk.
‘Will you be all right, Angela?’ he asked.
‘Thanks to you I will be.’
‘Do you need anything?’
‘I can get by.’
‘Look me up the next time you’re passing through. I’m in the book. Dial 999.’
‘I don�
�t know where I’ll end up.’
‘Send me a postcard.’
He turned to go but she grabbed his shoulder. ‘You’re not going to leave without kissing me goodbye, are you?’
‘Since you asked so nicely.’
They kissed, long and slow, and he left. Dozens of people were saying their farewells on the platform. Fyfe wondered absently if he and Angela would ever meet again. She would be down on her knees in the compartment now, counting her money. He would go back and count his.
Already he could see his immediate future scrolling ahead of him. The visit to Gus Barrie’s to discover the murder scene. He would grind some broken glass into the soles of his shoes, touch things unnecessarily to leave prints. The piecing together of events would be a difficult exercise over the course of the day. Fyfe would be sceptical, hard to convince. Was it not possible somebody else could be involved? No evidence. Maybe not. He would slowly allow himself to be persuaded. Everything would be accounted for. All the loose ends would be tied up nicely, the package wrapped and stored away. An announcement would be made that no one else was being sought in connection with the inquiry. Case closed.
Fyfe was not afraid of being found out. His policeman’s intuition told him he was on a winner. Only two people in the world knew what had happened. He was one of them. Angela was the other and she would never tell. They understood each other so well. It was their secret. Another intimacy they shared.
He was a real criminal now, beyond the pale, a survivor of invisible armed robbers, of corrupt priests who fell off cliffs and monks sneaking around noiselessly in white Reeboks, of pale-skinned redheads lying dead and a grinning judge in red robes with a blonde on his knee and a pardon in his hand, of cold-eyed gangsters and a swimming pool full of bloody water, of a sexy old friend in a fur coat and nothing else. There were no rules in the book to extricate him from this situation. Strange how he didn’t feel any different from the day before.
He would decide on a suitable hiding place for his share of the booty, somewhere simple like behind the cold water tank in the loft. And he would have an endless ready supply of spending cash. Maybe he would stick a bundle in a brown paper envelope and send it north to Brother Patrick. He would definitely compose a resignation letter to Hunky Dunky and carry it around with him for use whenever the feeling came over him. He estimated there was maybe two hundred thousand pounds in the suitcase if he was lucky. What a fool he was. If he was going to be a criminal he might as well be a rich one. The original robbery had netted well over one million. He could have had double the amount he had settled for so easily. He should have taken half. He still could. The train was still at the platform. He hesitated, turned and looked back. No. The moment had passed. There could be no going back now. It was a different time. A different world.
Sally would arrive back the next morning, probably at the same platform. He would be there to carry her cases to the car.
‘How was your weekend?’ she would ask.
‘Nothing special,’ he would reply.
In the car Jill was sitting behind the steering wheel and Number Five was beside her on the passenger seat. He climbed in and shooed them away. Number Five jumped in the back. Jill went to her usual spot below the dashboard and turned round three times. Before he had started the engine both had heads on front paws and eyes closed.
‘Sleep peacefully, my bairns,’ he said quietly. ‘Sleep well.’
SLEEPING PRETTY
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter One
Wednesday, 21.10
He ducked below the low lintel of the cottage door. It was dark inside. A blast of loud unintelligible music surrounded him and made him hold his hands up to his face as an instinctive form of defence. He hesitated, blinking behind the thick glasses he wore, allowing his eyes to adjust to the gloom. He rolled his shoulders to fight off cramp and opened his mouth to be able to breathe more easily. He moved along the corridor.
The air in the cottage was almost opaque. It had a curious taste as he sucked it down his throat into his lungs. He felt for the light switch and flicked it up and down several times, but it didn’t work.
The loudness of the music was making the floorboards vibrate. A sliver of doubt about what he was doing inserted itself like a sharp blade into his mind. For an instant the air congealed into solidity and he choked on it, coughing harshly. Then he recovered and was at the living-room door. It was already open. The music fled out of the room, streaming round him like an invisible wind.
Directly opposite he could see the dull orange glow of a damped-down fire. To one side the flickering green and red display lights of the CD player danced like thin electronic flames. On the other side was an armchair and sitting in it Laura, his fantasy lover.
She was dressed all in white. Her head was bowed. Her face was hidden by dark tumbling hair. She seemed not to notice him. This was the Laura he had watched develop from a child into a precocious teenager and then a beautiful, irresistibly sexy young woman. Somewhere along the line the loyalty of the family friend had got hopelessly mixed up with the gut-aching lust of the unrequited lover. He had been frightened to do anything about it, too frightened of his own emotions and the consequences it might have for his own neatly-ordered life. Ron Gilchrist was too old for her, too middle-class, too respectable, too married, too frightened to change. But then she had come looking for him, and he could not resist her. He did not want to and he did not try to. So when she had called for help earlier that day he could only respond instantly.
The long, frantic drive north in his Range Rover had ended outside the whitewashed cottage in a short skid on the loose gravel of the approach road beside the familiar car already parked there. At the southern tip of Loch Maree the rounded mass of Slioch, 3000-foot high, had reared from the rocky landscape to guide him.
Gilchrist drove fast, foot pressed to the boards, knuckles pale, passing everything else on the road. A hotel flashed by. Its windows glowed like the cutaway holes
in the lampshade they had by the fire at home, the one with the Victorian inn and the stagecoach pulled by straining, wide-eyed horses. Then into the forest, entering a black avenue with trees on each side like the ribs of some great monster’s belly, and at the end of it the white walls of the newly familiar cottage glowed in the headlights. A front tyre bumped clumsily over the brick-lined verge of the flower-beds, flattening a row of beautiful blue irises. Swirling dust rose around the wheel arches of the Range Rover, hugging its metallic contours.
Already from the driving seat he could hear the loud music inside. It was muffled by the white stone walls and curtained windows. Twenty yards away on his right the loch shone blackly under a clear but rapidly darkening sky. A rowing-boat was pulled up on the narrow shingle beach. Oars projected from its sides like folded wings. In the middle of the loch he could just make out the humps of the wooded islands like whales lying at rest in the water. Beyond them was the deadend vertical wall of the far shore.
And all the time he was remembering the keening edge of desperation in the voice over the phone four hours before.
‘She’s acting strangely, Ron,’ she kept repeating. ‘She really is. I don’t know what she might do next. I’ve never seen her like this before. I’m scared, Ron. I’m so scared.’
And here Laura was, sitting alone in the roaring half-darkness. Around her the black iron fender and the undersides of the exposed ceiling beams shone darkly. Selina the black cat, a smudge in the darkness, sat at her feet, watching him with glittering green eyes.
‘Laura,’ he said, entering the room. ‘What’s happened?’
The music drowned everything. His footsteps made no sound. The cat moved away silently. Gilchrist went forward. Her head seemed to move or maybe it was just his shadow passing over her. He reached for Laura’s hand as he crouched down in front of her. His legs were sore and stiff from the hours of driving. Pains beset every muscle. He had to move slowly.
How often had he dreamed of being alone with Laura in a situation like this? How often had he secretly dreamed of lying beside her with her hair soft and warm on his chest and her fingers intertwined with his? When they ate together in restaurants he hoped people would think they were lovers. Every time they met he had hoped she would suddenly confess her secret desire for him. He was shocked when she did, rendered completely speechless, afraid that she was teasing him. But she was genuine and the affair had begun barely a month before.