by Peter James
‘Naturally.’ Rowie stared back, and realisation dawned slowly across her face. ‘Oh God – you mean?’
Sam nodded. ‘Yes. With a girl from his office – some hot-shot little Eurobond dealer.’ She gazed down at her soup and rolled the spoon over. ‘Unfortunately, I didn’t immediately twig. I assumed his car had been stolen and dumped, so I rang the boys – I got their number in Scotland from Juliet – to speak to him.’ She shook her head. ‘Can you imagine what a fool I felt? How small I felt? His friends – our friends – they knew. They were trying to cover up for him like a bunch of school kids.’
‘Christ. You poor thing, Sam. You must have felt an absolute—’
‘I did.’
‘What did Richard say?’
‘Not a lot.’
‘And he hadn’t noticed his car was missing from Friday night to Sunday afternoon? What on earth was he—’ Rowie stopped in mid-sentence. ‘Oh, Sam, I’m sorry.’
Sam sighed. ‘I thought our marriage was – you know – something very special, that we – that it was all going—’ She grimaced and stared down at the tablecloth. ‘I thought at least we respected each other. It’s just . . . I don’t know, the way he did it – the timing – I think Christmas is a special time. Am I being ridiculous?’
Rowie smiled and shook her head.
‘All this thing about Aids. That’s been bothering me too. I mean God knows where she’s been.’ She shook her head. ‘But it’s our friends – that’s what’s really got me. Christ, I saw some of them over Christmas. They knew then that he wasn’t going shooting with them and I bet the girls knew too. I haven’t heard a dicky from any of them since.’
Rowie sipped her juice, and spoke over the top of her glass.
‘These things happen, Sam.’
‘You always think they happen to other people.’
‘It doesn’t necessarily mean much. To Richard. It doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still love you very much, not necessarily; a lot of people have affairs just for sex.’
‘I know. Part of me says it’s daft to get so angry – that all men have affairs, and it’s part of married life, and another part feels that I don’t want to touch him ever again. We haven’t made love since. The thought of it makes me feel ill.’ She stared at Rowie. ‘Is that normal?’
‘I don’t know, Sam. All marriages are different. I always thought you had a good marriage.’
‘Yes. I did too.’ Sam shrugged. ‘Richard just seems to have changed recently.’
‘In what way?’
‘It’s hard to describe, exactly. He’s started to make a lot of money – big money – the last eight or nine months. He’s become very pally with a Swiss banker chap who I think’s very weird, but that may just be me. He really fawns over him; rings him all the time to consult him on things. Speaks to him more than he speaks to me.’ She swallowed some soup. ‘The gun at the party . . . he would never have left his gun lying around before. He used to be quite a patient man, but he’s become very snappy. He was quite brutal to Edgar before the party started.’
‘Maybe he’s worried. Everyone in the City’s been very twitchy since the Crash. Did he lose much?’
‘He said Andreas warned him it was going to happen, so he was OK.’
‘Andreas?’
‘The Swiss guy.’
‘Have you ever been tempted to have an affair?’ Rowie asked.
‘No. You get gropers at parties, but they just turn me off. Have you?’
Rowie smirked and ate more bread. ‘It’s been going on for years,’ she said.
Sam felt as if someone had pulled a plug out inside her. The whole established order of the world seemed to be turning on its head. ‘Who with?’
‘A black guy.’
‘What?’
‘My aerobics teacher.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘It’s – strictly sex only,’ Rowie said. ‘You know, I didn’t think women were meant to feel that way, but we have this great thing.’ She smiled apologetically, and looked sheepish, as if wondering whether she should have told her after all.
‘I thought you had a good marriage,’ Sam said. ‘Special, like ours.’
‘Other pastures always look greener. Yup. Our marriage is fine. But James works all the time, and I just started getting . . . I don’t know—’ She smiled again. ‘I’m not in a very good position to pass moral judgements, am I?’
‘Is anybody?’ Sam pushed her soup bowl aside and picked at her salad. ‘How’s Justin? Was he very upset after the party?’
‘No,’ Rowie said. ‘He thinks it was all very exciting, that it was all part of the Punch and Judy show. How about Nicky?’
‘I think he’s very shocked still. Richard keeps going on about how resilient kids are, but I’m not so sure.’
Richard had paid the Punch and Judy man five hundred pounds to keep him from calling the police.
‘I don’t want you to teach Nicky to shoot any more.’
‘It wasn’t his fault.’
‘I keep thinking what might have happened. Just a few inches lower and he would have killed that man – or Nicky – or any of the children.’
‘It was mother’s bloody fault.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘It was. Leaving a cigarette burning on the hall table. Christ, if I hadn’t seen that the bloody house would have gone up. I was so angry, I just forgot about the gun, I suppose. That’s what I must have done . . . I still can’t believe it. I always lock it away, and put the cartridges on top of the wardrobe. I was sure I had done that. Certain.’
She’d tried to tell him she had dreamed it and he’d told her not to be ridiculous.
‘I’m not sure how resilient adults are either,’ Rowie said.
They stayed and talked until it was past three, about men and life and kids and people they used to know and didn’t any more but bumped into or heard of from time to time. Sam tried to ease the subject of dreams in, wanted to talk to her, wanted to say ‘I dreamed it would happen’ but the chance didn’t come and there wasn’t a break in the conversation where she could bring it in without feeling foolish.
Rowie suggested Sam took the afternoon off and they went shopping. Hell, how many afternoons had Sam taken off in the past three years, and surely everything could wait until tomorrow? So they went shopping. They tramped Covent Garden, then went across to South Molton Street and each bought stuff the other admired, and thought would look great, and Sam wondered why she was bothering to look great for Richard, and why Rowie was bothering to look great for James, and when Rowie bought a really zany tracksuit number she knew that was not for James’s benefit at all.
Then suddenly Sam found the chance and told Rowie, and instead of making her feel a fool Rowie said she could understand; that she could tell when things were going to happen herself, she told Sam; she got FEELINGS. She had an aunt who was very psychic, who always had the same dream the night before there was going to be a death in the family: she’d see a stranger in the distance walk on a beach at low tide and go into the sea and disappear, and the next day a member of the family would die, but she could never tell who.
They had drinks in a wine bar they stumbled across in Hanover Square, and then more drinks, a bottle or so of Chardonnay. It was good. Sam wondered if Archie at her dinner party would have approved of it. They got pissed, really, seriously, pissed, until they were clinking glasses and giggling like schoolgirls, and Rowie told her not to worry, everyone had FEELINGS about things from time to time and some people had stronger FEELINGS than others, but Sam was fine, she wasn’t going nuts, and a hooded man from the past wasn’t coming to get her. She was probably shaken up by Richard’s affair and it was triggering off all sorts of unpleasant things in her mind.
That was all.
So go home.
Relax!
OK?
Sam grinned and started walking to clear her head, feeling vaguely guilty, but not that guilty, that it was late and she
hadn’t rung Richard and she’d missed Nicky’s bedtime. She hadn’t made up her mind whether to collect her car or take a taxi, and knew she shouldn’t try to drive because she was smashed, but somehow she found herself in Covent Garden when the rain started to come down as if a tray of water had been tipped out of the sky, and there wasn’t a taxi in sight, so she sprinted for the car park.
17
The rain seemed to stop as abruptly as it started, leaving the London night in a shiny black lacquer on which spangles of light danced, winked, glinted. She glanced out of her side window and could see the reflection of the Jaguar on the black tarmac as clear as if she was driving beside a lake.
A Belisha beacon winked at her and she stopped. A man hurried over the crossing holding a broken umbrella.
THE NORTH. M1
She frowned. North. She was going north. Christ, she was sloshed. What was the time? What the hell was the time? London seemed quiet, too quiet. She stared at the clock, and could hear it ticking loudly, suddenly, like a grandfather clock.
Quarter to ten.
It felt like 4 a.m.
Quarter to ten. Christ. Had she and Rowie been drinking all this time?
She came into Swiss Cottage, and a car hooted angrily on her inside.
‘Oh sod off,’ she shouted into the dark, swinging the steering wheel, then heard the angry horn of a taxi right beside her. She braked cautiously and blinked, the lights blurring together. Slow down. Got to slow down. Wrong direction. Got to head for the City.
But she turned further away, going up Fitzjohn’s Avenue towards Hampstead. A white Ford Capri, sitting up on huge wheels, drew alongside her and a yobbo gave her the thumbs up. She turned away contemptuously, then dropped down into second gear and floored the accelerator. She felt the tail of the Jaguar snake as the rear wheels spun, then eased off, felt the tyres bite, heard the roar of the engine, felt the surge of power as she accelerated forwards. She pulled right across, overtaking in the oncoming lane, saw headlights coming down the hill towards her, closer. The engine was screaming, she changed into third and missed the gear. There was an angry grating and the car began to slow down, the headlights almost on top of her now. She was still stabbing the gear lever, trying to find the gate, and jerked the wheel hard to the left. The lorry passed her, inches away, shaking her with its vibration and its slipstream.
Shit.
Then she saw the police car coming down the hill, slowing, as if it was looking for somewhere to turn and come after her.
Stop.
Stop, she thought. Got to stop.
Don’t be stupid. Get away!
She swung right, without indicating, into a side road and accelerated down it. It came out into a busy street, brightly lit, with shops, restaurants, cafés, pubs. Hampstead High Street.
Shit.
She turned left, then saw another side street on her right, and turned into it. It had trees, cars parked down both sides and large terraced houses. She looked at her mirror for signs of a car following. Nothing. She slowed right down, crawling along, until she found a gap, and pulled into it. She switched off the ignition, then the lights, and breathed out. Quiet. So quiet, she thought.
She climbed out of the car into the strange translucent light and looked up, hazily, at the full moon that was burning down between the branches of the trees. Bright, she thought, brighter than the sun. She walked along the road then stepped onto the kerb to avoid a car which came thundering down, far too fast, as if it had been deliberately trying to hit her, and she stood for a moment, watching its tail lights disappear.
She glared up at the brilliant moon again, then walked on down the road, afraid of the shadows of the trees, like dark pools of blood. Afraid of the trees themselves that seemed to be watching her, and afraid of the brilliant light of the moon in the open that lit her up, exposing her like a startled rabbit caught in a car’s headlamps.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she came out into Hampstead High Street. Cars. People. Noise. The glare of the moon was diffused by the streetlights, by the lights from the shop windows. She felt safe now and looked around for a taxi. Two passed in succession, both carrying passengers. A greasy-looking man in a Japanese sports car slowed down, peering at her. She turned away and noticed a red, circular tube sign a short distance away. She glanced once more up and down for a taxi, then walked up the street and into the station.
It was grimy, draughty, and seemed to be empty, apart from the woman in the ticket office, who stared at Sam through the Plexiglass window. A severe, elderly woman with her hair raked sharply back, her face caked in make-up and her lips a brilliant ruby red. Something about her reminded Sam of her aunt.
‘Wapping,’ Sam said. ‘I’d like a ticket to Wapping.’
‘Return?’ said the woman sternly, as if it was a reprimand.
‘No, I just . . . I just want to go there.’ She was conscious that she was still drunk, slurring her words, stumbling over them, and her mind raced, trying to find the word she wanted, but it ducked away elusively, like a child dodging behind dark trees. ‘I don’t want to come back.’
‘We don’t do one-way from this station,’ the woman said, her head not moving as she spoke. ‘No singles.’
Single. That was the word. Single. Why had it been so difficult? she wondered.
‘I’ll have a double then,’ said Sam and, almost immediately, the make-up on the woman’s face began to crack, and her lips parted and widened. For an instant, Sam was frightened as the woman’s expression changed and her mouth widened even more, then her shoulders began to shake up and down and her eyes sparkled. She was laughing. Sam realised; she was roaring with laughter. At her joke.
‘Have a double!’ said the woman. ‘Have a double.’ She roared again, and Sam grinned happily, feeling warm, warm deep inside.
‘Funny. That was so funny.’ She winked at Sam and jerked her head. ‘Go on, that was so funny I couldn’t give you a ticket after that.’ She jerked her head, ‘Go on. If the inspector catches you, tell ’im Beryl said it was all right.’
‘I ought to pay you,’ said Sam.
‘Nah.’ She jerked her head again, and Sam walked off past her and through the empty barrier.
She found herself facing a bank of lifts, with large steel doors, more like goods lifts than passenger lifts.
She pushed the button for the lift and waited. Faintly, behind her, she heard a peal of cackling laughter from the woman in the ticket office, and smiled to herself. The woman laughed again and the tone changed slightly, as if she was laughing at her rather than with her. Then she saw the sign in front of her, red letters on white board, huge. So huge, she wondered how she could have missed it: OUT OF ORDER.
She walked to the staircase, and then began to descend the stone steps that spiralled down, around a steel-cased shaft, listening to the clacking echo of her footsteps. WARNING. DEEPEST STATION IN LONDON. 300 STEPS. USE ONLY IN EMERGENCY. Somewhere in the distance she heard a clank and a rattle, and the sound of voices. The wall stayed relentlessly constant, unrelieved even by graffiti. Grimy drab tiles.
Christ. Like going down into a public lavatory.
The sign was right, the stairs seemed as if they would go on for ever, and she wondered how far down she was now. It felt deep, very deep, but there were no markers, no clues, just the same monotonous downward spiral, around the shaft. She passed a cigarette butt that looked as if it had been recently stamped out. It was getting darker, she realised. Further away from the moon. The colour seemed to be going from the tiles, and the temperature was getting colder.
Then she felt the jerk of a hand around her neck.
For a split second she was furious, then fear surged through her, paralysing her.
No. Not me. Please not me.
She was pulled backwards so sharply she thought her spine was going to snap, and she cried out in pain. She felt something in her neck, pushing in, crushing the bone and pushing out the air, choking her. She felt the hand, hard, rough, over her mou
th, crushing her lips against her teeth, and tasted blood. She tried wildly to bite the hand, felt it jammed up against her nose. It smelled of onions.
Like Slider.
Please God it’s Slider. Please God this is a dream and I can wake up.
She heard a door open, and felt herself being dragged through. She tried to kick, to break her mouth free and shout, then she was pulled again and her feet slid away completely from under her, and she was arched backwards, violently, her scream of pain trapped in her throat.
The light faded completely, and she heard the clang of a door closing.
She was in pitch darkness. Herself and her attacker.
She heard his breathing, hoarse, panting. Malevolent.
Help me. Please. Don’t let this be happening.
She felt a hand, rough, calloused, sliding up her thigh. She struggled wildly, but could not move. The fingers reached the top of her tights, and she felt them rummage harshly through her pubic hairs for an instant, then thrust up deep inside her, his fingernails cutting her like a knife, and she wanted to scream, but still the hand was over her face.
Oh God, no you bastard, let me go. No, no.
Then she felt her panties tugged down, and heard them ripping.
She tried to bite again, tried to wriggle, but his grip was like a vice, and every movement was agony. She stared, wide-eyed, into the darkness. There was a click then a whirring sound somewhere in the room. Think. Think, for Christ’s sake. Self defence. Hurt him. Fingers in his eyes. His eyes. Which way was he facing?