‘Sing for me,’ he purred into her hair. And when she did, her lips brushing the satin-smooth of his freshly shaven cheek, the edge of his moustache, he closed his eyes. What she knew, through the haze of alcohol, to be her mellifluous voice, dissolving into his aftershave and the scented patina of his hair.
* * *
The fresh air was a shock when they came up to street level and, aiming for the taxi rank, they hardly exchanged a word. Queenie, giddy from the half a dozen whisky macs, twirled along the pavement in the way she had done on the dance floor below. Her heels clattering beneath a hotchpotch of stars showing between the breaking clouds that, shiny as policemen’s buttons, looked close enough to pluck free.
‘I’ve had the most wonderful evening, Charles.’ She shimmied towards him through the empty Soho street. ‘I know it’s late, but I’m not the least tired.’ She giggled into her hands.
He stopped to stare at her. Taking what was to be a final pull on his cigarette before throwing it away. He drew her towards him and kissed her full on the mouth. The stiffened brim of his fedora colliding with the bridge of her nose. Beyond them, the flux of the city melted and merged: the rumble of traffic, the occasional glare of passing headlamps, the smell of recent rain on the pavement.
Then he flung her aside as he had only minutes before with his cigarette.
‘This isn’t what I want.’ His expression fierce, it was as if he hated her all of a sudden. ‘This is not what I do.’
With a thousand things to say, Queenie couldn’t form any one thought into a coherent sentence. They swam around her head, slippery as eels, and her mind was incapable of pulling them free.
‘Charles?’ Queenie found her voice, at last. ‘Don’t go. I don’t want you to go.’
Clouds bashed together. They covered then uncovered the moon. She tilted her head to them and wished the night sky would turn a blood-red and echo her mood. And what was her mood? Reckless, she told herself. Reckless.
‘Don’t let’s go home yet.’ She seized his hand.
‘But everything’s shut.’
‘Follow me.’ She led the way. ‘I know just the place.’
21
Lucky the good-looking couple were too engrossed in one another to notice him: an unremarkable man in a trilby and raincoat, standing in a spill of gaslight, watching. One of his favourite hidey-holes, this narrow gap that fell between these two high buildings. He didn’t speak, he didn’t move. But his eyes were busy. The pale blue of them, sharp as daggers from behind horn-rimmed spectacles, ferreted them out of the dark. When he had finished looking at the elegant man in his expensive suit and fedora, a man he thought he recognised from somewhere, he twisted his attention to his female companion. It was she who was of real interest.
She was everything his wife wasn’t: there was nothing homely and passive about this one. She was what he termed a seductress. Look at her, manipulating and seducing that man. There was no doubting she knew how to use her feminine wiles. He blamed his smothering sisters for the sense of sexual inadequacy he always felt in the presence of women, especially alluring and gregarious ones like this. Women like this mortified and ridiculed him, but there was no denying they were his darkest desires and what he fantasised about when he did what he did to the ones he could overpower. And it was with the idea of overpowering this woman taking shape in his mind that he decided to follow the glamorous pair along the labyrinth of deserted streets to find out where they were going.
22
Unaware of the murderous intent which prowled the shadows listening to their receding footfalls – the slap of his shiny shoes, the click of her heels – Queenie fell into step alongside Charles, and they left Soho and moved into Mayfair. When it began to rain, he removed his jacket and held it over their heads as they negotiated the maze of cobbled lanes and murky alleyways, passing under an archway just as a clock struck three.
‘I know where we are,’ Charles said when they reached the stage door of the Mockin’ Bird.
She felt his eyes on her as she took the key from her bag and guided it into the lock. He held the door open for her. Close to her back, his breath on the nape of her neck, she shivered in anticipation. The club looked different. Smaller. Plainer. But she knew which lights to put on and did, reluctant for the mood to change between them.
Glad to be out of the rain, she dropped her shawl and Charles draped his jacket over a bar stool. She poured them each a whisky and put a record on the turntable. When she went to the lavatory, she leant her forehead against the cool mirror. She was drunk. Had she ever been quite this drunk before? She couldn’t remember.
Back in the bar, she began to waltz. Slowly. Holding out her hands for him to join her.
‘Dance with me.’
‘I’m not sure that’s wise.’
‘Isn’t it rather too late for that?’
He joined her. Reluctant. Shifting his feet, imitating hers. She kept her eyes on his and whispered, ‘One-two-three, one-two-three.’ Showed him where she wanted him to put his hands. Stopped when the music stopped. They waited, listening as the stylus crackled in the groove and the rhythm changed. Charles made an arch of his arm and Queenie passed under. His hand, too fast for hers, caught the string of glass beads around her neck. The string snapped and the beads bounced around the dance floor, into the darkened corners of the club.
‘Leave them.’ She didn’t want it to break the magic. ‘I’ll find them later.’
She led him downstairs to the dressing room. Warm and dark as a pocket. She kicked off her shoes and slipped the bow of her dress and let it float to the floor. She felt him move towards her, wrapped in darkness. Close enough to feel his breath on her skin. She dropped down onto the chaise longue, where, without warning, she sensed his nakedness, tender and vital, moulding the length of her spine. Unable to resist him as he soundlessly sought her out from beneath the silky material of her camisole. She was giving him the something he must have read in her a long time before now. There was no need to question it, so she didn’t. Not then. She simply turned onto her back and let him slide her out of her underwear, before directing him to where she needed him most.
* * *
When later came, Charles stooped to retrieve a glass bead on his way out of the club. Then he found another. He picked them up and passed them back to her, warm from his hand. She looked at the fragile lines of his open palm. All she needed was one small sign. One word and she would abandon everything and go with him. Be whatever he wanted her to be. But he didn’t speak. He lifted his jacket from where he’d left it, put on his hat and, without turning back, pushed out into the damp, ash-grey dawn. Unaware of the skulking menace in raincoat and trilby, who, having followed them to the Mockin’ Bird some hours before, had been waiting patiently for them to re-emerge.
23
A thin grey morning. Chilly for September. Inside the church, there were flowers, pink as seaside rock, and Eric Osbourne waiting for his bride by the altar. Smart, in his hired morning suit and smelling of Potter and Moore. Queenie waited for her father to turn and look at her, wanting to share a smile, but he didn’t move, so the opportunity was missed. Queenie, Joy and Terrence loitered in the narthex, reluctant to take up their positions until Charles had arrived. Where was he? Queenie hadn’t seen him since their night at the Blue Note over three weeks earlier and was eager to get the inevitable awkwardness over. She looked at Joy. Her hands were as fidgety as the birds fluttering in the branches of the churchyard’s yews.
Joy wasn’t wearing the dove-grey taffeta dress with a sweetheart swing Queenie had made for her. A dress she’d delivered in person to her bedsit two days before. She was in something soft and flowing in a midnight-blue chiffon that Heloise Gilchrist had bought her. And Queenie had taken it as a snub.
‘You’re funny with me today, Queenie. Is everything all right?’ A strand of hair had loosened from its pin, enhancing Joy’s beauty.
Queenie said nothing. Afraid of bursting into tears. She might
be hurting because of Joy’s perceived thoughtlessness, but compared to what she had done, it was nothing, and she had no right to be miffed about something this trivial.
‘Is it because of the dress?’ Joy gripped the beaded bag, another thing that woman had no doubt purchased. Queenie gnawed her lip, afraid of what might spill out of her mouth. ‘You’ve every right to be cross, I know how awfully hard you worked on it.’
‘How could I be upset when you look so lovely?’ Conscious of Terrence hovering within earshot, the wedding guests seated around them, she stroked Joy’s arm, saw how her little fair hairs stood up in the cold. She didn’t want to hear it, but now she had, there was no unhearing it. To Queenie’s dismay, along with the hair and the clothes, Joy had started to speak like Charles and Heloise. Her resentment reared its head again. Black and nasty. ‘But I don’t like that brooch.’ She couldn’t stop the words from coming. ‘It’s horrible.’
Joy’s fingers flew to her left shoulder strap and she adopted an injured look. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘No, I don’t. It doesn’t go with anything.’
Someone in the congregation sneezed and the subject of the brooch was dropped. The sneezing echoed around them while the organ wheezed through a piece of music Joy identified as a Bach toccata. Time ticked on. They decided they had better take up their seats on the groom’s side. Like Charles, there was no sign of the bride. Had Norma changed her mind?
The vicar, in his cassock and surplice, lifted his head to the doors that opened behind them. Norma was suddenly there, dressed in white and silent as a ghost. With no one to give her away, she walked up the aisle alone. Carrying her pink posy like a cup of tea she didn’t want to spill. The vicar welcomed everyone and did not refer to the lateness of the hour. The ceremony was performed – only once did he stumble over the words – so before they knew it the vows had been said, and Queenie’s father had put a plain gold band on the plain little finger of the new Mrs Osbourne.
Queenie, called as their witness, noticed the bride’s hand shook as she lifted the fountain pen. Scratching sounds as the ink flowed onto the register. A spidery scrawl compared to her father’s confident strokes as he signed his name alongside. Out in the churchyard, Charles was waiting in his ordinary suit and fedora, gripping his silver-topped cane.
‘There you are, you missed the service.’ Joy trotted over to him, stretched up to kiss his cheek.
‘I’m sorry, I was delayed.’ Queenie watched a muscle twitch along his jaw and tried to catch his eye. ‘I trust it all went off without a hitch?’ He turned to her briefly, but it was all she was getting.
He stepped past Queenie to curl an arm around Joy’s waist, claiming her. They kissed before he steered her away to stand on the periphery of the wedding party. Queenie ignored them. Her face flushed and angry. What right did he have to blank her? He was as much to blame for what had happened. She moved to stand beside Terrence and tossed rice over the happy couple. Higher and higher, as the vicar’s vestments shifted and fell in the stiff September wind. Rice blew over their feet, collected beside the listing gravestones made black with rain. Under the yew trees, Norma’s veil quivered as her hands had done when she’d signed her new name.
Queenie would have liked to go home and change into her dressing gown and slippers and sit down with a nice cup of tea. Feeling tired and bloated this past week, she wondered if she could be sickening for something. But there was the reception to be got through first; she couldn’t leave before the speeches. The bride and groom were hassled by the photographer. They were to stand there, and there. Immediate family were instructed to join them. Then the wider group of friends. Joy and Charles didn’t step forward – deep in conversation, they didn’t appear to have heard. The wind caught the hem of Queenie’s dress and she pushed a hand to it to keep it down. Someone laughed at something the best man said. She looked over at Joy: she was a beauty in the dress she’d chosen to wear today. She heard Terrence tell her so. He said nothing to Queenie about how she looked. Joy was different these days. Since meeting Charles, it was as if she had been lit up inside, and Queenie still wasn’t sure how she felt about this. She closed her eyes against the photographer’s flashing bulb. Exchanged them for flashes of what she and Charles had been that night. The feel of his lips on hers. His skin on hers. How it felt when he was inside her. She pressed the palm of her hand to her lower abdomen. To where the ache for him had begun again. She would make him talk to her, she would; she would not let him pretend what they had done hadn’t happened.
Clouds cast strange shadows over the wedding guests. Then a shout went up. Probably the photographer, saying, ‘That’s it, folks. All finished here.’ Norma lobbed the small bouquet high into the air. When Joy caught it, Queenie moved back to stand beside her. Did her best to ignore the way Charles stiffened and turned away. Looked instead at the spray of fine freckles on Joy’s bare shoulder, the midnight-blue setting off the reddish-brown tones of her hair. It was a good choice, although she doubted it was Joy’s choice. But what did that matter? All that mattered was that, for once, Queenie wasn’t the belle of the ball.
‘Are you two coming to the Hen and Chickens? Dad’s paid for sherry and sandwiches.’ She breathed her question close to Joy. Noticed her gold earrings glinting like tiny flares in the muted daylight.
‘I’m sorry, Queenie, we can’t.’ Joy sniffed the petals in the bouquet. ‘Charles has an engagement elsewhere.’
‘Suit yourselves.’
‘Don’t be like that. We aren’t doing it to spite you.’
‘No?’ Queenie’s gaze travelled over the blue chiffon dress again, then she looked over at Charles to see what he was doing. He was smoking his pipe and talking to Terrence. She wondered briefly what he might be telling him, and if they were discussing her. Don’t be ridiculous, girl. The man’s forgotten you already.
‘You know we’re not, Queenie, you’re not being fair. Big things are happening in Charles’s firm. People from Africa have come over for talks and he wants me there with him.’
‘Nice for you.’ Queenie couldn’t help it; she knew she was being given the brush-off. ‘Well,’ she shivered from the cold and made to go, ‘don’t let me hold you up. I’ll see you at the club next week.’
‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.’
‘Oh, yes?’ She turned back to Joy.
‘You’re not to be cross.’
‘Cross?’
Joy scrunched up her face. ‘Heloise doesn’t like me working there.’
‘I knew it.’ Queenie lifted then dropped her arms through the air. Charles turned to her for a second and, worried he would hear them, she waited for him to refocus on Terrence before adding, ‘That wretched woman, she’s really got her claws into you.’
‘I knew you’d be like this. I’ve been dreading telling you. Look…’ Joy reached for Queenie’s hand but she threw it off. ‘It’s Buster too. Honestly, Queenie, I know you think I’m being silly, but he’s getting worse. He won’t leave me alone. I’ve tried telling him… he frightens me a bit.’
‘Buster?’ Queenie shivered again. ‘If that’s your only problem, I’ll have a word with him, tell him to leave you alone.’
‘It’s not just that, it’s… well, Charles. He says he doesn’t want to renew his membership.’
‘You what? He doesn’t want to come to the club either?’
‘Not once we’re married.’
‘You’ve fixed a date?’ Queenie tried to keep her voice down, but it was difficult. What was wrong with her? It was as if she had an ants’ nest niggling her insides. What she wanted to do was scream, throw something: do a real physical thing.
‘The last Saturday in December.’
‘A Christmas wedding?’ She was imagining ermine and velvet… red berries and holly.
They fell into an awkward silence.
‘About the club.’ Joy broke it. ‘I’m only there two evenings anyway.’
‘It was good enough for you befor
e you hooked up with him.’ Queenie looked over to Charles again.
‘Don’t be like this.’
‘What do you expect? You cast aside a dress I spent ages making for some shop-bought thing that woman buys you.’ Queenie said what she had been determined not to say. ‘I thought I was your friend.’ A sob had invaded her voice. What was the matter with her? Teary one minute, angry the next; it was like riding an emotional roller coaster.
‘What’s wrong, Queenie? You’re not yourself at all.’
Joy was right, she wasn’t. Moody and irritable for days. Was she hormonal? She wasn’t due on, was she? Queenie counted on her fingers, tried to work it out.
‘You are my friend, silly. You’re my best friend. And you’re right, it was selfish of me to wear this.’ Joy lifted the chiffon, then dropped it again. ‘And, all right, if it’s so important, I won’t finish at the Mockin’ just yet.’
Queenie nodded; it was all she could manage.
‘Joy! We’d best get going.’ Charles, jingling his keys.
Joy passed her the bouquet. ‘You have this, it’ll look nice in your kitchen.’
She accepted the flowers and the two of them hugged goodbye. Queenie averted her gaze, reluctant to see her friend and Charles disappear through the lychgate and drive away in his Riley. She strode over the damp grass to where Terrence was lighting up a cigarette.
‘Give me a drag, I’m desperate.’ She pinched it out of his hand and drew on it. ‘God, that’s better.’ She gasped. ‘You and Charles were deep in conversation. Have a lot to say, did he?’
‘Not especially. The guy seemed to be pretty stressed to me.’
‘Stressed. About what?’ She didn’t like the sound of that.
‘How should I know? He’s more likely to open up to you than me.’
The Girl at My Door: An utterly gripping mystery thriller based on a true crime Page 11