Dead Romantic

by Simon Brett

  The Mini that was following, however, did merit their attention. The untidiness with which it slowed down after her alerted them, as did its wobbling course across the road. The police driver nodded to his companion and the white car slid out in pursuit.

  Paul’s vision was blurred and it took him a few moments to identify the source of the flashing lights. Eventually he found the rear-view mirror and managed to focus on the car behind. He saw the whiteness and, as it passed under a street-lamp, the blue dome of the light on top. The headlights continued to flash, obviously urging him to stop.

  He only hesitated for a moment before pushing down his foot hard on the accelerator and swinging out to overtake Madeleine. He didn’t have to keep behind her. He knew the address. He could find her.

  An oncoming vehicle made him cut in sharply, causing Madeleine to brake. The police car’s blue light and siren were switched on. When the oncoming car was cleared, the police driver accelerated and pulled out to overtake the Renault. Madeleine tutted and continued driving at twenty-seven miles an hour as the police car surged ahead.

  Paul’s foot was flat down on the accelerator, but the Mini hadn’t as much power as the Rover behind him. He twitched at the steering-wheel to negotiate a roundabout, made too wide a circle and mounted the kerb. By the time he had righted himself, the police car was even closer. He kept his foot down, but the Rover pulled out and drew alongside. The constable in the passenger-seat was waving him down.

  Still he kept going, so the police car surged ahead until it was in front of the Mini, and slowed down. Paul tried to pull out to overtake, but there was a car coming down from the opposite direction, fast. He had no alternative. He braked and stopped the car.

  Both policemen got out and came towards the Mini, one on either side. The one nearer Paul indicated that he should wind down his window. ‘In rather a hurry, aren’t you?’ he said, without humour.

  Paul nodded, trying desperately to think what he should do next. The policeman sniffed and looked across at the passenger-seat where the half-bottle of whisky caught the gleam from a street-lamp. ‘Have you been drinking?’ he asked. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you –’

  But he didn’t get out the rest of the sentence. Paul, who had not switched off the engine, slammed the car back into gear, and accelerated again. The policeman leapt aside as the Mini jumped forward.

  Paul jerked the wheel to the right and pulled out around the police car. There were oncoming headlights close, very close. He swung the wheel wildly and the Mini, missing the other vehicle by a whisker, careered across to the opposite side of the road and came to rest with its right-hand wing buried in a street-lamp. The driver of the other vehicle brought his car to an untidy stop as the two policemen moved vengefully across towards the immobilised Mini.

  At that moment Madeleine’s Renault 5 caught up with them. She noted with disapproval that there had been an accident and pulled out cautiously to go round the stationary Rover. She was aware that the two constables were helping someone out of the Mini, but she could not see who it was. She drove on towards Winter Jasmine Cottage.

  Paul was shaken, but not seriously hurt. The car had not been going very fast at the moment of impact.

  ‘Now what the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ demanded the policeman he had nearly run down.

  ‘I’m in a hurry,’ said Paul, the words loose and slurring on his tongue.

  ‘We could see that,’ said the constable grimly. ‘Is this your car?’

  ‘It’s my mother’s.’

  ‘Oh yes? Can I see your licence?’

  ‘Look, I’m in a hurry,’ Paul was suddenly desperate. ‘I’m in a hurry! I’ve got to go somewhere!’

  The policeman shook his head implacably. ‘No, son,’ he said. ‘You aren’t going anywhere tonight.’

  Chapter 21

  Bernard paused for a moment in his bedroom before he changed his clothes, and thought about his wife. Would it have been better, he wondered, not for the first time, if he had not told Madeleine he was married? Might their relationship have been freer, less inhibited by secrecy and guilt? His feelings for Madeleine were so strong, so well-defined, that their affair should not be limited by outside considerations.

  But, even as he thought this, he felt relieved that his wife had been mentioned. It was better to proceed cautiously at first. The existence of an ailing wife in the background gave him a kind of security. If things didn’t work out with Madeleine, he would have an excuse for ending the relationship: his conscience could not cope with the strains of duplicity. And if his love for Madeleine developed as he hoped it would, then there were many, simple ways of disposing of Shirley Hopkins.

  He was not ungrateful to her. She had taken the pressure off him on many occasions. The fact that people knew him to be married had frequently saved awkwardness, and the fact that his wife was crippled had prevented curious probings into his private life. People were so bloody nosey, so prurient, it was difficult to keep any secrets. But respect for his sick wife had kept everyone at a distance from Bernard; colleagues from work had not come to visit him at home; a few had suggested social engagements, but he had always had the excuse of his wife’s infirmity to make polite refusals. He had used the excuse in all his previous employments during the last five years, the seven other teaching jobs he had had before Garrettway.

  Shirley explained so much about Bernard. She explained his shyness, his lack of sociability, his unwillingness to mix with people outside a work environment. She answered unspoken questions about his sexual nature; she made him a respectable eunuch. People thought (as Stella Franklin had): Poor man, he must have all the normal masculine urges and yet he’s saddled with a crippled wife; he can’t have much of a sex life, it must be very difficult for him. And, having reached that conclusion, the curious then put him from their minds and asked no further questions. Which was exactly what Bernard wanted.

  Shirley was, in fact, the ideal partner for him. It was the perfect relationship.

  So long as he didn’t fall in love with someone else. It was then that his security was threatened. There had been other women before Madeleine, affairs that had nearly started, but which had failed and from which he had escaped, using the excuse of Shirley. And, though each skirmish had left him confused, frightened and exhausted, he had on each occasion managed to drag himself back to sanity, to reassert the status quo.

  But none of the other women had affected him as Madeleine did. For the first time in his life, at an age when he had almost written off the possibility, Bernard Hopkins had fallen in love and, though he tried to argue against it, he knew that this was the affair he had to see through. Madeleine offered him a chance of catching up on all his lost opportunities, of living a normal life, and in those circumstances his relationship with Shirley became irrelevant.

  It would no longer work. If things turned out well with Madeleine, Bernard would not need Shirley. And, her value as an excuse gone, the existence of a wife slowly succumbing to multiple sclerosis would become nothing more than an embarrassment. He would have to get rid of her.

  But not yet. See how the weekend with Madeleine went. Keep the options open. Bernard had learned by experience to be prudent, not to rush into things. He might still need Shirley, and his wife might once again have to provide the excuse for which he had invented her.

  The idea had come to him suddenly when being interviewed for his first new job after his mother’s death five years before. The principal of that particular language school had asked if he was married and the affirmative answer came out instinctively. Once the lie had been perpetrated, Bernard recognised its advantages and began to add to it.

  The name had been the first embellishment. Shirley, his mother’s name, had come automatically to his mind. And, from the moment she had been christened, the new Shirley Hopkins showed her worth. From the start, she protected her husband from speculation. But then a colleague asked him to come to dinner with his wife, and Bernard,
again instinctively, had had to invent Shirley’s illness. As his creation grew and developed, he found increasingly that she helped to fill the void his beloved mother’s death had left in him.

  Bernard Hopkins looked around the bedroom of the house where he had lived all his life, with both parents till his father’s death fifteen years before, then with his mother until she too had died, ten years later. And since that time, alone.

  He looked at the single bed in which he had slept all his life. He looked at the clothes laid out on it. He felt calm now, as he slowly undressed. And calm as he put on the brown herring-bone sports-jacket and dark grey flannel trousers which had belonged to his father, and which Bernard Hopkins had worn for the killings of four prostitutes, the most recent of whom had been called ‘Mandy’.

  Chapter 22

  Madeleine knew that she was likely to arrive at Winter Jasmine Cottage before Bernard. He had told her of his class with the Italians and given her Mrs Waterstone’s instructions about the key under the water-butt. It suited her well to be there first. She could look around, start their dinner, make up the bed, change into her black dress, maybe add a few little feminine touches to the place, be welcoming when Bernard arrived.

  She drove with care down the rutted track from the main road. She might have missed the little turning off to the cottage but for the very specific instructions Bernard had given her. It felt later than it was; there had hardly been any traffic since Pulborough. It was a dark night, but her headlights already caught the sparkle of frost on the ground, which was hard and dry. There had been no rain for ten days.

  All she felt now was excitement. The fear had gone, leaving only a flutter of anticipation inside her. She was secure in her disguise, secure in her alibi. Madeleine Severn was driving to meet her lover.

  She gripped the steering-wheel with her gloved hands and peered ahead as the laurel hedge appeared in her headlights. The Renault 5 turned in through the entrance and stopped on the crisp gravel so that the full beam illuminated Winter Jasmine Cottage. It was perfect – small, old and beautiful. Her fantasies could not have provided a better setting for her sacrifice.

  Even in November, Winter Jasmine Cottage looked comforting; in the summer it must be heavenly. A new fantasy started to grow in her mind, of the two of them living permanently somewhere like this, working together in the garden on long hot afternoons, hearing the calls of birds and the cheerful cries of children.

  She took a torch from the glove compartment and stepped out of the car. The coldness of the air stung her cheeks. The night was absolutely silent. There was no distant hum of traffic, and no birds sang. The crunch of her shoes on the gravel sounded unnaturally loud.

  It was a lonely place, but it did not frighten her. On the contrary, its isolation felt so right that it made her even more excited. Here was somewhere outside normal life; it fitted exactly the specifications she had mentioned to Bernard: ‘somewhere magical, somewhere private, that’s just for us.’ She recalled that when she had first said this, she had followed it with the quotation from Marvell,

  ‘The grave’s a fine and private place,

  But none, I think, do there embrace.’

  The idea seemed funny and she giggled aloud in the darkness. It was so wonderful to know that she would soon be with Bernard, someone who understood her literary allusions, someone who could complete quotations for her, someone who was intellectually as well as physically compatible. At last the man had been found who would complement the infinite variety of Madeleine Severn.

  The torch-beam found the water-butt. It was propped up on bricks, so she had no difficulty in reaching underneath for the key. She went round to the front door and opened Winter Jasmine Cottage.

  The light, when switched on, revealed that the door opened straight into the living-room, though there was a curtain on a rail to act as a draught-excluder. The cottage’s interior also matched Madeleine’s fantasies. The living- room was small, with chintzy curtains drawn back from diamond-paned windows. It was dominated by a large fireplace, which took up most of one wall. In front of this two armchairs were cosily spaced. They were covered in material with a design of pheasants on it, worn but not shabby. Behind them was a small dining-table with two chairs. Everything seemed to be planned for two. On the walls hung a selection of paintings, glassware and wood- carvings, souvenirs from the Waterstones’ holidays in Europe before the war. In one corner stood an old harmonium with faded purple silk panels. The ceiling was low and bisected by a black, uneven beam.

  The first thing Madeleine did was to close the curtains. The tiny room at once became more intimate. Then she turned her attention to the fireplace, and found that Mrs Rankin, the lady who looked after the cottage between lets, had done her job well. In the wrought-iron basket-grate a fire was laid, balls of newspaper surmounted by kindling and then logs of increasing size. A well-laid fire, all done according to the best girl guide principles. On the oak mantelpiece was a box of matches and a note reading: ‘Logs in cupboard to left of fire.’ Madeleine put a match to the newspaper, which immediately flared and set up an efficient crackle amongst the kindling. She opened the adjacent cupboard and found that, true to the note, it was stacked high with neatly symmetrical logs.

  Before she went out to unload the car, Madeleine turned off the overhead light and switched on two table-lamps. Their softer glow, mingled with the flicker of the growing fire, was more aesthetically pleasing.

  She managed to carry everything in one trip, the cool-box containing the food, her suitcase and her briefcase. She put them down in the living-room and went to investigate the kitchen.

  This was again tiny, but well equipped. Mrs Waterstone, when deciding to let out the cottage, had invested in all the hardware that her tenants might expect, electric cooker, fridge, washing-machine, even a dishwasher. Madeleine put the chicken curry in the oven to warm up slowly and loaded the rest of the food into the fridge. Everything in the kitchen, she noted with satisfaction, was spotlessly clean.

  Back in the living-room the fire was burning merrily, casting a deep orange glow on the white walls. Madeleine picked up her suitcase and brief-case and went through the white door with a black latch which opened on to the steep stairs.

  The upper floor of Winter Jasmine Cottage comprised a small landing, an equally small bathroom and, between them, taking up most of the space, the bedroom, whose window looked out over the front garden. Madeleine drew the curtains, which had on them a design of honeysuckle, and turned her attention to the bed. It was a generously proportioned double-bed with a dark wooden headboard. On either side stood a table with a green-shaded lamp. She switched these on and turned off the overhead light. As it had downstairs, the lower lighting source made the atmosphere more intimate.

  She realised that, considering the weather, the room was remarkably warm, and saw that Mrs Rankin had switched on the electric heater under the window. On it was a polite note requesting tenants to turn off the power before they left.

  The bed was made up with clean cream-coloured blankets, a beige eiderdown and a fringed brown bedcover. Madeleine noted approvingly how well this colour scheme would go with the Laura Ashley sheets and pillow-cases, as she opened her suitcase and took them out. They were still in their cellophane wrappers. She had not removed her driving gloves since coming in to the cottage and had difficulty in undoing the packaging.

  Taking off the gloves, she looked at her hands. To her annoyance, she saw that the eczema (or whatever it was) had got worse. There were more cracks along her knuckles and inside them a sticky redness showed. She resisted the temptation to scratch. It was infuriating. Everything else was so perfect, and she had to get this. However right it felt and however cool she was trying to be about it, the adventure was taking its toll on her. Still, nothing she could do. Have to make the best of it. It was a small thing, after all. She got some of the cream she had bought from the chemist out of her sponge-bag and rubbed it optimistically onto the affected area. Then she returne
d to the sheets, but, finding her hands too slippery, put the gloves back on and managed to make the bed without difficulty.

  She plumped up the pillows in their crisp new cases, folded back the top sheet and surveyed the effect. It was very satisfactory. She felt comforted by her good taste; the sheets couldn’t have been more appropriate.

  There was something missing, though. After a moment she realised what it was and took the new white nightdress out of her suitcase. She laid it across the right-hand side of the bed. She felt sure that Bernard would want to be on the left. She couldn’t explain why; it was just an instinct, one of those things that lovers know about each other without asking.

  She looked at her watch. It was nearly half-past eight. He would be arriving soon. She must get changed quickly, so that she was ready to greet him. She shook her hair out of the beret and removed the rest of her disguise, folding the garments neatly and placing them in her suitcase. Then she slipped on her black dress and, surveying herself in the mirror, prepared to tie the braided silver belt. A thought stopped her. Hair first – it wouldn’t do to have loose hairs showing on the dress. She took it off again, sat in front of the mirror and started to brush the red-gold hair that was her chief glory. She had washed it that morning, calculating the time-lapse carefully. By evening she knew it would have lost its just-washed fluffiness but retain the gleam imparted by her herbal shampoo.

  So it proved, and she brushed the hair into its customary artless abandon with considerable satisfaction. She reached for the silver Celtic clasp, and gathered the red-gold strands behind her nape in readiness. But she changed her mind. The moment for her hair to be released could come at some other point over the weekend. The image of Millais’ The Bridesmaid came to her. For this evening, the first evening, the important evening, she would wear her hair loose.

  She replaced the dress and adjusted the belt to a properly casual knot. She took off the gloves in which she had been driving. Then she drew out of her toilet kit a spray of her distinctive flowery perfume, puffed a little behind her ears and onto her wrists. For a moment the giggly thought of spraying it elsewhere occurred to her, but she put it from her mind.