by Peter James
‘I haven’t!’
‘Oh yes you have. She’s not even called Belinda You’ve lied about your name, about who you really are, about what you do for a living. How many other girlfriends do you have all lined up, waiting for you? Are you doing the rounds of all your conquests? Is Wednesday Lorna’s turn for a shag?’
‘I love you, Lorna. I really do.’
She shook her head. ‘No, if you really loved me you’d have told me the truth long ago. I trusted you. I believed you. I thought you were who you said you were, but you aren’t, are you? Is there anything you’ve ever said to me that hasn’t been a lie?’
He stared at her for a moment. ‘Listen, let me explain—’
‘No, you let me explain. Let me explain just how angry I am. I’m angry enough to destroy your life you lying shit. One phone call is all it’s going to take and your career will be fucked. Believe me. Then one more and it’ll be your marriage. To poor sweet, sick Belinda.’
His face ashen, he said, ‘No, Lorna. Please listen.’
She tapped her ears. ‘I don’t have room in here for any more of your shit, my head’s full of it. Bursting. No more room. Sorry!’
‘I really do love you.’
‘I hate you.’
‘Don’t say that!’
‘You have no idea how much I hate you. Just get out! Get out of here, get out of my life!’
‘Look – I’ll make it up to you. I promise.’
‘You promise? You really think I’d believe any promise you gave me, Greg?’
‘Just let me explain,’ he said again.
She shook her head. ‘No, let me explain. I just have to dial one number on my phone and your career will be over. That’s going to happen ten seconds after you get the fuck out of here, you creep.’
He shook his head vigorously. ‘Lorna, baby, please give me the chance to explain everything.’
She picked up the bar of soap in her hand. ‘See this, Greg? You’re just like this bar of soap.’ She closed her hand on it and the bar shot up in the air then fell with a splash into the bath. ‘You’re just as slippery.’ She glared at him, her eyes demonic, almost glazed. ‘But at least the soap makes me feel clean – you just make me feel dirty.’
‘Lorna, please.’
‘Lorna, please,’ she mimicked. ‘You know the worst thing of all, Greg? I’m actually going to get pleasure out of destroying you. Totally fucking up your career and then your marriage. I really am. Hello, Belinda! You don’t know me, but I can describe your husband’s cock – every inch of it, in fact. I could email you some photos of it, if you’d like, but I imagine you already know what it looks like. Though perhaps you’ve forgotten since it’s so long ago you last had sex – so Greg tells me.’
‘Lorna. Come on. Look – let’s talk reason.’
‘Reason? You sound just like my husband. Let’s talk reason. Do you know what my husband did on Monday? He tried to put dog shit in my mouth. Almost every morning he picks a row about something. And almost every night. Some days I count myself lucky if he just shouts at me. Other days he hits me.’ She pointed to a bruise by her right eye. ‘This is what he did last night after he was released by the police, when he stalked me here and went ballistic. I live in hell and I’ve endured it because I believed your promises that you were going to take me away from all that, that we would have a life together. Your lies.’ She began crying. ‘Your sodding lies.’
He pulled a towel off the rack. ‘Come on, darling, let’s talk about this over a drink. I’ve brought some gorgeous Champagne. Pol Roger, your favourite.’
As he leaned down to put the towel round her shoulders she lashed out, punching him on the chest. ‘Screw you.’
‘Owwww!’ He fell back against the washbasin.
‘Screw you, you bastard!’
‘Lorna! Calm down, this is insane.’
She stood up in the bath, punching him repeatedly.
He grabbed her tightly round the throat and she started spluttering.
‘Are you going to strangle me?’ she gasped, incredulously, still pummelling him.
He pushed her back, trying to hold her at arm’s length, desperately trying to restrain her. ‘Lorna! Stop it! Stop it, Jesus Christ! Calm down!’
She grabbed a bottle of shampoo, flipped up the lid and squeezed it hard, sending a jet of the soapy liquid into his face, momentarily blinding him.
‘You crazy bitch!’ His eyes stinging and in a red mist of rage, he lunged forward and grabbed her shoulders, pushing her away. She fell back into the tub, sending water slopping over the sides.
‘You lying, cheating bastard. I’m going to destroy you. Oh, you think you’re untouchable, don’t you? I’m going to teach you a lesson you’ll never forget!’ She heaved herself up. ‘I’m going to make that call now.’
‘No!’ he shouted in fury. ‘Don’t you fucking dare!’ He slapped his hand against her forehead, forcing her back down into the tub again, pushing her head right under the water for a brief moment. Then released her.
As she raised her head she spluttered, looking bewildered, struggling to breathe for a moment. Then, her voice panicky, she yelled at him, ‘You jerk! What are you going to do? Kill me?’
Wriggling and twisting, she tried to worm out of the bathtub. In total panic, he grabbed the hairdryer in his left hand and held it above her. ‘Don’t move or I will fucking kill you.’
Lorna made a desperate lunge to lever herself out of the bath. Wild with anger, he shoved her hard back down with his right hand. There was a crack, as loud as a gunshot, as the rear of her head struck the tiled wall. As she slumped down, he saw a split in the tile where the contact had been, and a smear of blood.
Shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
The hairdryer suddenly whirred into life. Everything became a blur. He tried to focus, but couldn’t; all he could see was mist, red mist – blood-red mist. He ran, crashed into a wall, ran again, fell over a chair, had to get out, out, out, had to get out.
He found the door, opened it and lurched into the corridor, his eyes blurred, like looking through fogged negatives, fogged red negatives, stumbling down fire-escape stairs, crashing from wall to wall. Then out, through the side entrance he normally used onto Vallance Street, tugging on the baseball cap and dark glasses he always wore to hide his face when visiting Lorna. Outside. The roar of traffic on the seafront a short distance away. Cold, damp wind with a salty tang.
He walked. Walked. Turned right, away from the seafront. Walked. Saw traffic lights in the distance. He was on a main road. Get on a minor road, mustn’t be seen. Had to think, somehow, had to calm down, had to think.
Had to.
Oh God, what had he done?
Go back in and say sorry. Beg forgiveness. Just like her husband did every time he beat her up. Sure, she would buy that, wouldn’t she? In her current mood.
How badly had he hurt her just now?
He turned left, into a wide, quiet street, and walked quickly, head bowed, clenching and unclenching his fists in agitation. He was hurrying, he realized, running almost, a man on a mission without a mission, without actually having anywhere to go.
Got to go back inside. Apologize. Explain. Got to calm her down. Explain he’d had a shitty day at work. This wasn’t him. He’d never hurt a woman in his life.
He loved her. Shit, he really did. She just had to be patient, give him time; that photograph wasn’t how it really was, no matter how it looked to her. Really. It wasn’t.
OK, so he hadn’t been totally honest with her. But he could explain that photograph, if she would just calm down and listen. He could.
He smacked head-on into someone. Someone rock hard.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ he gasped, winded.
Then realized he had walked into a pay-and-display parking machine.
11
Wednesday 20 April
No crowd was too small to swallow up Seymour Darling. He looked almost invisible even when standing or sitting on his own. A small, thi
n man, who bent like a reed in the wind whenever anger blew inside him, which was much of the time.
Small and insignificant enough to almost be concealed by his own shadow, to the outside world Darling cut a meek figure. Inside, he seethed.
He seethed at the world which gave him nothing and took from him all the time. Took, took, took. As if he was doomed to be forever paying off a fucking debt just for having been born. All the world conspired against him, and laughed at him. The other kids had laughed at him because of his name. Darling, darling, darling! they’d teased.
He seethed at his ex-employers, at arrogant Mr Tony Suter, CEO of Suter and Caldicott Garden Buildings, who had ‘let him go’ after ten years of loyal service. True, he had made a few miscalculations as their South East Region salesman. But they could have given him a second chance, and they chose not to.
Just like his previous employers had chosen not to.
And now he was being screwed by his current employer, who hadn’t told him when he started that he would only get paid his commission when the client paid them. Bastards.
But right now his grievance was focused elsewhere. On that evil, scheming bitch Lorna Belling. It was his wife, Trish’s, fiftieth birthday next week. For years, Trish had hankered after an MX5 sports car. He’d decided to use the remainder of his redundancy money to buy her one, even though they did not get on. He saw the car as a temporary way of making a peace offering, but more as an investment, something to sell for a profit after she died. On eBay he’d found the perfect model. Ten years old, bright red, the colour she’d wanted, just two owners, and low mileage – 45,000. Put on sale by a woman called Lorna Belling. She had a good sales record on eBay – clearly faked, he now realized.
They’d taken the car for a test drive. It was real, proper. She was asking £3,500. He’d offered £2,800 and she’d accepted. They’d shaken hands and he’d paid the money – money he could not really afford – by PayPal.
Then the bitch, Lorna Belling, had told him she had not received it.
She was lying. Fucking bitch, she had conned him.
She didn’t know who she was messing with.
He stood in the shadows again, across the street from her love nest. Her dirty little secret love nest.
Her visitor had just come out.
She was up there on the third floor, alone.
That dirty little adulteress bitch needed a lesson. Don’t mess with Seymour Darling. She was about to be sorry.
Very sorry.
12
Wednesday 20 April
He was calming down now; an hour had passed, he realized, as he strode along the Hove seafront promenade by the Lawns, passing the beach huts, heading back towards the King Alfred leisure centre. A plan was forming. Apologize. He knew what he had to say to her, to convince her that he really was going to leave his wife for her.
He was sorry he’d lost his rag. He never normally lost it, ever. She knew that. All the sympathy he had shown her over these past lovely months. All those afternoons and early evenings when they had lain in bed, entwined, talking about that monster, Corin, and their future together.
Please, please don’t let her have made that call. Please. Please don’t. My career. God, my career.
He realized he needed to hurry back, to stop her.
They’d both been mad, totally out of character; she’d bloody started it. But surely they could work through this, sort it out? She had been angry, OK, he could understand. It wasn’t the way it looked, really it wasn’t. He’d explain to her, when they were both calmed down. Then everything would be how it always had been between them.
He loved her. He wanted a life with her. They were soulmates. So often he had told her that and she’d looked into his eyes and said the same back to him.
He reached the block of flats, let himself in the front door and climbed the stairs, not wanting to risk getting stuck in the lift. Lorna had once been stuck in it for three hours.
Back inside the flat, he closed the front door and called out, a tad apprehensively, ‘Lorna? Darling?’
Silence.
The room was dim, with no lights on and no music playing.
He didn’t like the silence.
Nor that he could not see her.
‘Lorna?’
He pressed the light switch on the wall but nothing happened.
‘Lorna!’ he called out again, walking towards the bathroom. ‘Lorna, darling?’
Had she left? Gone home?
Oh God, Lorna, please still be here.
Then, entering the dark bathroom, he smelled burnt plastic. Where on earth was she? Shit. He felt sick with fear. He went back into the living room and dialled her phone. Seconds later he jumped as he heard it vibrating right behind him.
His panic deepened.
She always had the phone with her, on silent. So they could talk whenever she could get away from Corin.
He switched on the torch app on his phone and went back into the bathroom, walking slowly. Slowly. Pointed the beam at the water.
Saw the cable.
And froze.
Lorna lay back in the tub, where he had left her. Beneath the surface of the water. Looking utterly, stunningly beautiful.
Utterly motionless.
The hairdryer in the bath with her.
No. Oh please, no.
His heart plunged down through his insides. He saw the cable, and the blackened plug socket.
Noticed again the acrid smell of burnt plastic.
He dived for the socket and yanked the plug out of it.
‘Lorna!’ he cried. ‘Lorna! Lorna!’
Christ. Had he done that? Had it fallen in, during his earlier fury?
He tried, desperately, to replay exactly what had happened. No, surely not, it wasn’t possible, was it? He hadn’t done that?
Please, God, no!
He lifted her out of the bath and laid her on the sitting-room floor, kneeling on the carpet beside her. There was still some daylight outside, just enough to see in this part of the flat. ‘Lorna? Lorna?’
He pressed his mouth to hers, frantically trying to recall everything he had learned about CPR in the last refresher course he had done, and began to alternate mouth-to-mouth breathing and chest compressions, a rhythmic thirty pumps, two breaths, thirty pumps, two breaths, thirty pumps, two breaths, his panic growing deeper by the second.
13
Wednesday 20 April
Roy Grace’s anxiety was growing deeper by the second. Tomorrow afternoon he was due to fly to Munich to meet Bruno. He knew very little about the boy. He had some information from the German lawyer and from Anette Lippert, the mother of Bruno’s friend, Erik, with whom Bruno was currently staying. And he’d had a couple of stilted phone conversations with him, not really knowing what to say, after his attempts at Skyping with him had failed.
He didn’t even know Bruno’s birthday, at this moment, and he had only seen a few photographs, including one taken a couple of years ago in a park, with Sandy, that had been emailed to him by Anette. But fortunately Bruno spoke good English. In the photographs he was nice-looking, neatly dressed, but with a deep sadness in his expression that the smile he had put on for the camera could not hide.
All he really knew, from what Sandy had written in her suicide note to him, was that this child was the reason why she had disappeared all those years back, leaving Roy bewildered and distraught – and searching for her for the last decade.
He felt totally ill-equipped to take Bruno on. How was the small boy going to feel meeting his father for the first time? How would he feel about leaving Munich and coming to England? To live with an entirely new family?
Should he take him to attend the burial of his mother? He’d talked to a child psychologist friend of Cleo, who told him he should, that it would be important for him to have a sense of closure with his mother, and to have a place he could return to in future years to pay his respects.
There was another problem for him. Sandy
had left no instructions on whether she wanted to be buried or cremated, as was often the practice in German wills. He remembered once, many years ago, they’d discussed it briefly out at dinner one night, when the subject of death had come up – the husband of an old friend of Sandy’s had drowned in a sailing accident on holiday. He was pretty sure Sandy had said she didn’t care, that when you were dead your spirit departed from your body, leaving it an empty shell. She didn’t care what happened to her shell. Roy and her parents had decided that burial would provide somewhere more tangible for Bruno to visit than a name on a crematorium memorial wall or a plant in a Garden of Remembrance.
He was in his office, with his workload of Crown Prosecution files in front of him. He was meant to be preparing for an important forum here in half an hour. Present would be DC Emma-Jane Boutwood and Emily Denyer – Emily Gaylor’s new married name – to discuss the financial aspects of the forthcoming trial of ‘black widow’ Jodie Bentley. But he was unable to concentrate on anything other than what would happen in Munich tomorrow.
Now that he and Cleo were married and had a son of their own, Noah, life was good. Or had been until the events of the past few weeks, when Sandy had surfaced in a hospital in Munich after being hit by a taxi, and had then committed suicide, leaving him the note informing him they had a son, Bruno.
And, suddenly, his life was turned upside down.
A son he had never known about, but now had no option but to care for. Permanently.
He picked up his phone and dialled a police friend and colleague, recently promoted Superintendent Jason Tingley, who had a son, Stan, of a similar age to Bruno. He asked him a load of questions about what a boy of ten might be interested in. Tingley was helpful and gave a large amount of information and advice, but Roy ended the call feeling even more worried. So much had changed; the world for a child today was so very different from how it had been for him.
Apart from football, Stan Tingley’s world was one Grace knew virtually nothing about, and it revolved around few of the things he was familiar with. Stan had a vocabulary of slang; Snapchat and Instagram were his social media platforms. He rarely watched conventional television, instead he used the screen to play FIFA and a shooting game on his PlayStation. And he had his own YouTube channel. Tingley offered for the two boys to meet, inviting Bruno to come over to their home. Maybe the boys would click and become friends, Grace hoped. Finding friends for Bruno and getting him into a school where he’d be happy were going to be priorities.