Rejection Runs Deep (The Canleigh Series, book 1: A chilling psychological family drama)

by Carole Williams

  Having showered and changed into clean slacks and a sweater, Delia crashed onto her bed and took a swig out of the Courvoisier bottle on the bedside table. She was drinking far more than she ought to these days but didn’t care. She needed it at the moment. She picked up the telephone and rang Barrie, wanting to speak to him before Vicky arrived home.

  He answered immediately, wary in case it was Vicky. He wasn’t looking forward to her arrival back in London; following the hysterical telephone call he had received from her once Delia had stupidly revealed she was in a sexual relationship with him again. He was going to have to do some real grovelling if he wanted to remain in a relationship with her. But then … did he? Did he really? After all, Delia was far, far better in bed and promising him the earth if he supported her. With the cash he got from her, he could set up his very own club. He might not be able to buy it but he could rent and be his own boss instead of having to kowtow to his wife and his partner any longer. The prospect was certainly very pleasing.

  Barrie’s deep tones made Delia curl up with delight. He had such a sexy voice. “I thought I should let you know that your wife is on her way back to your loving arms,” she mocked. “I do hope she won’t cause us any problems.”

  Barrie laughed dryly. He had been hitting the bottle too by the sound of him. He was usually careful about how much he drank but Delia was having a bad effect on him. If she was around, he wanted to drink and if she wasn’t, he wanted to drink even more. It was becoming a bad habit.

  “Vicky won’t stop me seeing you,” he said with a slight slur. “Nothing will stop that. God, Delia, I want you now. Why the hell aren’t you here?”

  “Because I’m here, darling,” Delia smiled. He was craving her body. That was good. She didn’t want him to go off the boil for quite a while. “Let me know when you can get away on one of your golfing trips,” she laughed. “There’s a smashing secluded country house hotel in Leicestershire I know with four poster beds, a fabulous indoor pool and spa treatments,” she said, remembering the Willows where she had recovered after her traumatic departure from Canleigh nearly two years ago. “No-one will find us there and it will only take me a couple of hours to reach it and not much longer for you, I would have thought. We can totally relax there and have a little fun.”

  Crazy to see her again, Barrie willingly agreed and their trysts became a regular occurrence every Sunday and Monday when the club was quiet. Barrie told Delia that Vicky had arrived home and funnily never said a word, just walked about like a ghost, pale and wan and kept out of his way as much as possible. He never told Vicky where he was going every week and she didn’t ask but no doubt, she guessed.

  But Delia didn’t care if Vicky gave a damn. The affair with Barrie kept her from dwelling too much on the forthcoming trial. As far as Philip was concerned, she let things remain as they were, wanting to figure out exactly what was occurring in the Kershaw household before making any kind of play for him. She ascertained from one of the gardeners, who had begun work on the Canleigh estate long before Delia was born and knew everything and anything about anyone in the locality, that Sue Kershaw spent a lot of time away from Tangles. Her parents, who now lived somewhere near St. Ives in Cornwall, were not in the best of health and needed assistance. Her father had suffered a stroke and her mother was crippled with arthritis and finding it difficult to care for him. There were plans to move them back up to Yorkshire but both were resisting, as they loved the little house and the area to which they had retired. Anyhow, it meant Philip was alone for long periods but even so, Delia resisted the urge to visit him, although she had sent him a couple of bottles of malt whisky and a thank you card for caring for Demon so well and for so long. He had telephoned Hardy to relay a message of thanks to her.

  Apart from her sojourns with Barrie every week and her regular trip to Leeds police station on Wednesday mornings, along with visits to Oxford to meet and discuss the forthcoming trial with Danby and her Queens Counsel, Cubitt-Jones, who was planning to demolish the case against her in record time, she had little to do apart from ride. She and Demon went further and were out longer than ever before, roaming the countryside in all weathers; snow, hail, wind, rain and with the odd day of winter sunshine thrown in. She loved the freedom, the feel of her horse beneath her; his power, his love for her. They were a team, him and her, and she never wanted to leave him or Canleigh again and she wouldn’t, not once the trial was over. She couldn’t live in the main house with her father, Ruth and the sprog but the Dower house had been empty since Granny died. Surely, her father could be persuaded to let her have it. She would promise to keep herself out of trouble and out of everyone’s way if he did … at least until she was firmly in situ.

  * * *

  The first months of 1974 passed pleasantly and quickly, if Delia tried hard not to think about the trial and then, with a rush, it was going to be next week and then it was the following day and then … here she was, back in Oxford, standing outside the Crown Court. It was a reasonably warm day with no sign of the celebrated March winds. Delia had no need of a coat, and dressed in a navy blue suit, white blouse and navy court shoes with low heels; she looked demure, sensible, and very much like a dependable, truthful young woman. Her hair was up and she wore just a slight touch of makeup to give her a bit of colour. Her only jewellery was the pearl earrings her grandmother had left her and which she hoped would bring her luck. She really needed it right now. Nervous and with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she walked into the building.

  The trial started without delay at ten thirty. Delia sat in the dock and looked hopefully across at the confident and optimistic Cubitt-Jones, who didn’t seem to be able to keep a smile off his long, thin face. She looked around the court, wishing she felt as self-assured as he obviously did. The public gallery was packed with a mix of people. Middle aged men in suits, a couple of young male students with long, straggly hair and mouths writhing with chewing gum; and then there were the women, staring intently at her, wriggling excitedly in their seats as they waited for proceedings to commence. Delia could imagine them, sitting with their knitting beside the guillotine in revolutionary France, watching aristocrats having their heads chopped off. Five members of the press were there, notebooks and pencils at the ready. Delia smiled wryly. She was going to be in all the papers again tonight and hoped they would print a half decent photograph of her. But out of the packed audience, there was no-one she knew. Naturally, none of her family would want to be there and anyway her father and Ruth, with the sprog, were still at Blairness and Vicky was in London. Barrie was in Oxford, waiting at the Randolph, and would whisk her away if she was acquitted, which she hoped to goodness she would be. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

  She had wondered if Elizabeth and George, Rocky’s adoptive parents, would make an appearance but there was no-one in the public gallery who looked remotely like the people who had whisked him out of the country all those years ago.

  The judge, on entering the courtroom, looked old, austere and serious and she could just imagine him happily placing a black cloth on his head and pronouncing that she was to be hanged by the neck until she was dead. She shuddered, thanking God under her breath that the death penalty had been abolished. The jury, once they were sworn in, were a mixed bunch but Delia was pleased to see the women outnumbered the men so they might listen more sympathetically and could, just could, believe that she really had shot Rocky in self-defence. Crossing her fingers, she wished she had managed to force some breakfast down. Her stomach was rumbling loudly which was most embarrassing.

  Although her freedom depended on what occurred, Delia found it difficult to concentrate on proceedings after she had stood to declare her plea of not guilty. The room was too warm, she disliked having her hair pinned up, felt uncomfortable in a suit and her shoes pinched and being stared at by so many people for hours on end was not her idea of a relaxing morning. She would prefer to be anywhere in the world rather than here. No, that wasn’t st
rictly true. She wouldn’t want to be back on that Caribbean island where she had found Parfitt. She wondered what had happened to him. Had he used her money to get back home or drank it away? She would probably never know.

  She tried to concentrate on proceedings. Someone was reading out the results of the post-mortems on Richard and Rocky … or Peter Percival as he was now called. She had to keep reminding herself who he was. After such a long time of thinking of him as Rocky, it was as if they were talking about another person. The two police officers who had been first on the scene gave their statements, reading from their pocket books. As there were very few witnesses to what had occurred, the only people who were called to give evidence were the two male medical students who had helped her when she had fled Richard’s flat. They had nothing of any great significance to say … and then it was her turn.

  “Lady Delia Canleigh. You are called to the stand.” The words sent a shiver of apprehension through her whole body as Cubitt-Jones smiled at her and nodded that she move to the witness stand. The atmosphere in the room became charged and it seemed as if everyone, even the judge, leant forward eagerly in their seats so they could clearly hear every word uttered. The jury studied her intently, waiting for her to slip up.

  “Stay calm,” Cubitt-Jones had told her more than once during their meetings before the trial. “Direct your answers, slowly and clearly, to the jury, not to me … and for goodness sake, don’t show any signs of hostility to the prosecuting counsel or the judge. That will do you absolutely no favours at all.”

  Delia stared hard at the prosecuting team, headed by that awful Craddick man, who very possibly could utterly destroy her. He rose from his chair and sauntered towards Delia, a grim smile on his face as he approached. He reminded Delia of a fox with his long-pointed nose and his patchy reddish-brown hair and freckles. Clutching his notes in his hand, he turned to her abruptly, increasing the volume of his voice so that everyone in the courtroom could hear him.

  “I am very interested to learn, Lady Delia Canleigh, as to whether or not you have ever worn a navy duffle coat.”

  CHAPTER 32

  LONDON - MARCH 1974

  Vicky replaced the receiver of the telephone on the antique mahogany desk in her office at the club and walked to the cocktail cabinet. She poured a generous amount of vodka into a crystal glass. Normally a dash of lemonade would be added but today she wanted it strong and undiluted. With the glass in her hand, she walked towards the window, staring blindly out at the car park. She badly needed a cigarette but had smoked her last one twenty minutes ago and didn’t want to venture out of the office and bump into any of the staff in order to buy another packet. Anyway, it was a hateful habit, only recently taken up thanks to all the pressure she was under. Vicky didn’t even like the taste of it, or the ghastly smell left on her clothes and in her hair. She would do her best not to have another.

  It was a miserable March day, with the rain outside hitting Alex’s brand-new black Jaguar and her little green MG with frightening force. According to the weather forecast it was supposed to brighten up and even turn out warm but at this moment in time there was no sign of it and Vicky, numb with shock, was in no state to care one way or the other as the depression that had weighed her down heavily for many months intensified by the second.

  She took a sip of her vodka, trying to get her head around what she had just heard from the journalist who had rung just minutes ago. The woman had gleefully asked for her comments regarding the dismissal of Delia’s trial this morning due to lack of evidence, totally unaware Vicky had no idea of what had just occurred in Oxford but was more than pleased to update her. Somehow, Delia’s barrister, Cubitt-Jones, had worked his magic and the judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove Delia had killed Rocky in anything other than self-defence, or planned Richard’s murder and, therefore, there was no case to answer. According to the journalist, the court had been in uproar and a triumphant, smiling Delia left the building with her arm linked possessively through Barrie’s.

  “It was good of your husband to provide so much support to your sister at this time,” purred the woman at the other end of the telephone. “Will he be bringing her back to London to stay with you or will she be returning to the ancestral home?”

  “I’ve no idea,” Vicky snapped and banged the telephone down sharply.

  Vicky had known the trial was going well for Delia, having read all the newspapers and listened to the news on television with avid interest during the last two days but still couldn’t really believe she had been released and gotten away, literally, with murder. Delia was so damned clever … such an excellent actress when she wanted to be. And now she would be unbearable. She would be given access to Richard’s inheritance and along with that and what she already possessed from their grandmother’s legacy, would be immensely rich and free to go where she liked and with whom she liked and probably cause yet more havoc in the family and that was what Vicky was worried about the most.

  Thanks to Delia, Vicky’s marriage was in tatters and she couldn’t pretend differently any longer, and there was every reason to feel fearful for her future now Delia was unconfined, especially after the dreadful row with Barrie three days ago which had left Vicky in no doubt about exactly what he thought of her and terrified for her life.

  Their relationship had been rocky right from the moment Vicky stepped back into the club after her trip up to Canleigh. Being in Barrie’s presence became increasingly difficult, knowing Delia had somehow persuaded him to put up bail and then slept with him immediately afterwards. Vicky had wanted to confront him but the words would never come. Perhaps if she didn’t say them, it wouldn’t be real and she could pretend it had never happened and it was almost a relief when he took to disappearing for two days every week when the club was quiet. Supposedly, it was to play golf at a prestigious club in the Midlands but he always returned reeking of Delia’s perfume.

  They didn’t speak about what was going on but it was there, in the icy atmosphere between them. Vicky withdrew into a shell and Barrie kept out of her way as much as possible or they sat in frosty silence if they were alone together. Alex became a rock and Vicky leaned on him more and more, knowing he had guessed what was going on but didn’t know what he could do to help her. Vicky knew he loved her and had done for a long time. It was apparent every time he looked at her and as her feelings for Barrie underwent a massive change from love to near hate, she realised too late she had married the wrong man. How different life would have been if she had fallen in love with Alex instead of Barrie.

  Vicky, heartbroken and miserable before the row, had tried to concentrate on the business but her mind was all over the place and she completely messed up two important functions the day before Delia’s trial. All hell broke loose. Barrie exploded with anger when he discovered her mishandling of such highly prized clients, culminating in a furious confrontation when he came up to the flat, having spent hours trying unsuccessfully to rectify the damage. He had been drinking and was looking for a fight.

  “You’re bloody useless,” he had yelled at her. “For God’s sake woman. We’ve worked so hard to build up this business. What the hell did you think you were doing, not putting one function in the diary and then forgetting to book the caterers for another? You’ve lost us a huge amount of revenue and our reputation is going down the pan.”

  “I’m sorry,” Vicky trembled. “I’m finding it all so difficult at the moment … Richard … Delia … you.”

  “Well, pull yourself together. Richard is dead and as for Delia ….”

  Vicky looked at her angry husband aghast, knowing this was going to be the showdown that had been threatening for weeks. Barrie was in his business suit, pulling at his tie, his face red with fury. He reeked of whisky.

  “Oh, yes. Delia,” she said quietly, the anger, which had been building for months beginning to boil over. “My lovely, trustworthy, faithful sister … for whom you put our business at risk to help her with bail … and
then brought back here to have sex … no doubt in our bed.”

  Barrie had the decency to look uncomfortable. In fact, he couldn’t even look at her. He made to leave the room.

  “Don’t you turn your back on me,” Vicky yelled. “I want an answer. Why did you have to go running to help her? The one person you knew I could never forgive for what you both did at Canleigh before we even got married. What’s so damned wonderful about my flaming sister?”

  Barrie turned, a nasty expression on his face. He strode towards her. “If you really want to know, she doesn’t hassle me all the time for a damned baby. Sex with her is fun … stimulating … easy. There’s no desperation about it, not like there is with you. I’m fed up with your constant neediness and desire to procreate. You don’t give a toss about anything else these days. I’m fed up with it, Vicky. I’m fed up with you … and I’m going to Oxford tomorrow to be with Delia for her trial … and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Vicky gasped. “It’s bad enough that you sneak around but to blatantly show yourselves in public ….”