‘Nah, my shift finished about ten minutes after you arrived. Maria took over. She shut the place up for the night then manned the desk till I came back on at about nine the next morning. You can ask her if you like.’
‘Is she around?’
‘’Ang on.’ He poked his nose into the back office. ‘Maria!’
A moment later a Spanish girl popped her head round.
‘Si? ’
‘You know that flash git wot carried that bird in ’ere a few Fridays ago, the one that was right out of ’er tree, well this is ’er. She wants to know if you saw the bloke leave the next morning.’
She sidled up to the desk and nodded nervously. ‘Si, I see heem go.’
‘At about seven, was it?’ I asked.
‘Ah, no no, the same night, at about half the twelve.’
I frowned. ‘That night? Are you sure?’
‘Si, si, I was just locking up all ze windows and he come queekly down ze back stairs. I don’t zink he was even seeing me; it was very dark because all ze lights were off zen. He didn’t leave by ze front door zough, he went out of ze back, zrough ze fire escape. I started to go after heem, to tell heem he no get back in again, all locky up, but he ran off to a car.’
‘Yes?’ I breathed.
‘Well, he get in. He get into ze car and zey drive off really fast, all screechy tyres, so I no get a chance to tell him he no get back in ze hotel again.’
‘They? There was someone else?’
‘Si, si, driving the car.’
‘What did he look like, did you see? Blond, dark, a beard, anything?’
‘Ah, no no, not a man, a girl, I recognize her!’
‘You did!’
‘Si! I see her in feelms of course, the feelm star lady!’
‘Serena Montgomery?’ I breathed.
‘Si, that’s it!’ Maria nodded and grinned. ‘Beeg surprise for me, I can tell you!’
I leaned heavily on the desk, suddenly needing some support. Serena. I gazed at the mahogany. Serena, blimey.
‘Big surprise for me too, Maria,’ I muttered.
Mr Kilburn peered at me nervously. ‘’Ere, you all right, luv? D’you wanna glass of water or somefing, not gonna collapse on us again or anyfing, are you?’
I slowly raised myself up from his desk. ‘What? Oh, no. No, I’m fine … fine …’
Suddenly I swung round to Maria and grabbed her arm. ‘Listen,’ I said urgently, ‘would you swear to that in court? You know, what you’ve just told me, would you swear to it?’
Maria backed away, her eyes huge with fear.
Mr Kilburn stepped in protectively. ‘’Ere, don’t you freaten her, she ain’t done nuffing wrong.’
‘No, no, of course she hasn’t, it’s just – oh, never mind, it probably won’t be necessary. Thank you, though, thank you so much!’ I seized Maria’s hand and shook it warmly. ‘You’ve been a great help!’
On a sudden impulse I grabbed Mr Kilburn’s hand too and pumped that up and down, beaming widely. ‘Thank you, thank you very much!’
They both looked at me in astonishment and retreated towards their office, their eyes wide with wonder. I turned on my heel and, skirting round the group of fascinated Japanese tourists, who were still on their hands and knees peering at the carpet, legged it out of the hotel.
I leaped the front steps in one, fell over, picked myself up and raced down Mount Street back to my car. I could hardly do my seat belt up my hands were shaking so much, and it took quite a few stabs to get the key in the ignition, but once in I crashed the gears with a vengeance and roared off in a state of high excitement. My mind was absolutely fizzing.
Of course! It all made perfect sense. Sam had obviously slipped me something totally lethal in Annabel’s, something quite a lot stronger than a double gin and tonic, thank you very much. Oh yes, we were talking drugs here, heavy duty ones too, because whatever it was had clearly knocked me senseless. Then he’d carted my limp body off to the hotel and booked us both in, making damn sure I was registered under Penhalligan and also making absolutely sure that we were well and truly noticed.
Oh, I could see it all now, the amorous drunken couple returning from the nightclub, out of their minds with booze, hanging on to each other, reeling around the reception area making a hell of a racket. Me, already half undressed and practically comatose on the sofa, and Sam, ringing the bell, roaring his head off and acting the drunken Lothario whose sole intention appeared to be to get his plastered bird up those stairs as quickly as possible and bonk the living daylights out of her.
Once upstairs he’d obviously taken my clothes off – I gripped the steering wheel hard and bit back the bile: please God that had been the extent of his lechery, please God he hadn’t raped me just for the hell of it – and scribbled the note which purported to have been written at seven the next morning.
Then, when he thought the coast was clear, he’d slipped down the back stairs to Serena, who was revving up the car at the back of the hotel. Together they’d whizzed off down to Cornwall – which at that time of night in a fast car would only have taken about four hours – arriving at Trewarren in plenty of time to relieve us of our precious porcelain.
And of course, I thought bitterly, cutting straight across the traffic into Piccadilly and leaving a blare of angry horns in my wake, Serena was the perfect accomplice, wasn’t she? Oh yes, she knew the house inside out – she knew every inch of it from her days with Nick – and was bound to know where the key to the porcelain cupboard was kept. All she had to do was reach up to the top of the dresser, slip her long, elegant fingers into the jug, produce the key with a triumphant little smirk and swing it in Sam’s admiring face on one of her sharp red nails. I ground my teeth.
Badger, of course, would have been an absolute pushover, not that he was much of a guard dog anyway, but he probably gave her a rapturous welcome. So how had they got into the house? I wondered. I shook my head. No matter, that was a minor detail, I had most of the jigsaw in place and it all fitted perfectly. I thumped my forehead with the palm of my hand and groaned. Oh, you moron, Polly, why didn’t you think of all this before?
I swung right at Scotch Corner, frantically imagining the scenario. I saw them running down Trewarren’s staircase together, swag bag in hand. I saw them darting quickly across the drive to their car, stashing the bag safely in the boot and jumping into the front seat. Then I saw them roaring back to London amidst gales of triumphant laughter, stealing the occasional kiss on the motorway, stroking each other’s thighs perhaps, ruffling each other’s hair, oh so incredibly pleased with themselves. Finally I saw Sam arriving back home that morning at about ten o’clock, looking suitably shamefaced and sheepish, leading poor Sally to imagine he’d had another of his frequent nights out on the tiles.
And of course, if the shit did happen to hit the fan, if someone did bother to ask Sam where the devil he’d been that Friday night, he had the perfect alibi. How could he possibly have had anything to do with the burglary at Trewarren when he’d been holed up with the lady of the very same house in a smart hotel in Mayfair? Oh yes, if Serena had been the perfect accomplice then I’d been the perfect alibi. God, how they must have laughed. I clenched my teeth and shook my head. Very clever, my little love birds, very clever indeed!
I roared up to Pippa’s house and due to lack of space parked at a ludicrous angle with the front wheels practically in her garden. Yep, there was no doubt about it, I thought, slamming the car door behind me, it had been an absolutely brilliant plan. Fiendish even, and if it hadn’t been for Maria – and me, of course – they might just have got away with it. Thank goodness for Maria! Thank goodness for me! I hurried up the garden path.
So what were they planning to do now? I wondered. Lie low for a bit and then sneak the stuff on to the market gradually? Go abroad, perhaps, and live off their ill-gotten gains? Not so fast, my little darlings, I thought grimly as I rooted around under the flowerpot for the key, not so blinking fast!
&nbs
p; The first thing I’d do, I decided, as I let myself in, was ring the police. Not the crappy old Cornish police but Scotland Yard or MI5 or something. I mean, heavens, we were in London now; there was nothing parochial about this inquiry any more. This was of national importance – the press would be on to it in a moment. I could see the headlines now – ‘Missing Meissen Mystery – Film Star and Director Charged’. Oh yes, the tabloids would have a field day, and of course they’d want to speak to me, interview me, take a few pictures, that kind of thing. Naturally I’d be frightfully modest, pepper my story with lots of ‘Oh, it was nothing’s, and – oh gosh, wouldn’t Nick be proud? He’d be beside himself!
I shut the door behind me. The house was in darkness. It was well past ten o’clock now and Pippa had obviously gone out for dinner with Josh and forgotten to leave any lights on. Poor Pippa, how awful of me to accuse Josh like that, especially just as she’d got the happy ending she’d dreamed of. I was so pleased it wasn’t him. I could get excited with her now, work out possible wedding plans, go shopping for a dress, perhaps, choose her flowers, organize the bridesmaids, that kind of thing. I felt along the wall for the light switch but when I flicked it down, nothing happened. The bulb had obviously blown.
Muttering darkly, I felt my way round to the sitting room and bent down to turn on the little lamp on the table just inside the door. As I fumbled for the switch halfway down the flex, my hand brushed against something warm, something – moving. I pulled back sharply – God, a hand! I clutched my throat with a scream. In an instant the lamp came on by itself. I screamed again, louder this time, and my hands flew up to my mouth. I stared in horror. Because there, sitting in the armchair with his hand on the light switch, was Sam.
Chapter Twenty-seven
His amber eyes looked almost yellow in the sudden bright light, his face pale and twisted with loathing. I backed away.
‘Sam!’ I gasped.
‘Hello, Polly,’ he said softly, ‘how nice to see you.’
The words were slightly slurred and his mouth only just managed to articulate them. I saw at a glance that he was extremely drunk.
‘H-how did you get in?’ I stammered.
‘Same way as you, I expect, first geranium pot on the left. Very careless of Pippa, especially in these dangerous times. Anyone could get in. Anyone.’
There was something deeply menacing about this statement. He licked his front teeth, unsticking them from his bloated, dehydrated lips, then he swayed a bit to one side and steadied himself with his hand on the arm of the chair. God, he was out of his head.
I gulped and scuttled to the far end of the room where I perched on the arm of the sofa. I didn’t want to sink too deeply into a chair in case I needed to get up and do some fast running. I quickly leaned across and flicked on another table lamp, noticing as I did so that all the curtains were drawn. Pippa never bothered.
‘Oh yes, the spare key,’ I twittered nervously, ‘yes of course, very silly, I – I must tell her about it, you’re right. Um – did you want to see her? Only I think she’s gone out with Josh.’
‘She has. Won’t be back till late. No, it’s you I want to see, Polly.’ He was breathing heavily now and sweating profusely, his skin looked damp and waxy. ‘Just you. You little bitch.’
The venom in these few short words made me flinch. A cold hand gripped my heart. He’d come to get me, to silence me. He’d found out that I’d been nosing around and he’d come to rip out my tongue.
‘Now, now, Sam,’ I said nervously, ‘there’s no need to be like that. Let’s try and discuss this in a civilized fashion, shall we?’
‘Civilized!’ he spat. ‘Don’t talk to me about civilized, you with your dirty, scummy little tricks. You went to see my wife this morning, didn’t you?’
Oh that! Gosh, I almost breathed a sigh of relief. I’d forgotten about that, he surely wasn’t going to kill me because I’d been to see Sally, was he?
‘Showed her a photograph, didn’t you? Stolen, incidentally, from my private diary. That was pretty bloody civilized of you, wasn’t it?’
On second thoughts, perhaps he was going to kill me, his eyes were twitching maniacally and he was grinding his teeth in an alarming manner. Thanks, Sally, I thought, inching back up the arm of the sofa, thanks a bunch, really terrific of you to drop me in it. I tried a lie.
‘Well actually, Sam, that’s not quite the way it was. You see –’
‘Oh, don’t give me that cock-and-bull story she tried about finding it weeks ago!’ he hissed. ‘I know damn well it was in my Filofax when I left my case in that taxi. You just rifled through it and thought – Gosh, a photo, I wonder if Sam’s wife has seen this – and then you clasped it in your hot little hand and toddled off to show it to her, didn’t you? You conniving little bitch, you just couldn’t wait to get even. Just because your marriage was shot to bits you thought you’d pop round and blast a few holes in mine!’
‘Sam, it wasn’t like that, really it wasn’t. She asked me to take it round, rang me up and begged me to, and I didn’t tell her anything she didn’t already know. I promise I –’
‘You’re a fucking LIAR!’ he bellowed, and thumped the wall with his fist.
There was a terrifying silence. I watched as a tiny hairline crack appeared in the paintwork. How long would it be before one of those appeared in my head? He started to lever himself out of his chair. Quite soon, obviously, I thought with a gulp, really quite soon. I felt cold with fear.
‘Now look, Sam,’ I whispered, ‘let’s not get this thing out of proportion, shall we? I mean, it would be silly to fall out over –’
‘You’re just an interfering little busybody,’ he hissed, struggling to his feet, ‘with nothing better to do than –’ Suddenly he stopped. He sank back into his chair again. His shoulders sagged and his head dropped like a stone into his hands. He tugged savagely at his hair, pulling at the roots.
‘She’s leaving me, you know,’ he muttered, ‘or should I say’ – he gave a hollow laugh – ‘she’s throwing me out. Not that it matters,’ he went on almost to himself, ‘I was going anyway, little cow. But not yet … not quite yet … fouls things up a bit, you see … all a bit … sudden.’
There was a silence; he seemed scarcely aware of my presence. I gazed at him in wonder. Was this really the same Sam? The glamorous, fun-loving guy I’d met in Cornwall, oozing charm and bonhomie? The mighty film director? My, how he’d fallen. He looked up abruptly. I could see the veins pumping away in his forehead. He stared at me.
‘You see, I like to be in control, Polly,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t like other people taking the initiative – it upsets me, d’you know what I mean? It’s for me to decide when I want to go, when I want to leave my own house. I don’t like it when little bitches like you take it upon themselves to decide for me, I take it very personally, d’you understand?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’
‘Yes, yes!’ I yelped. ‘I understand!’
Christ, he wasn’t just drunk, he was stark staring mad. I gripped my knees to stop them from shaking; my heart was pounding furiously.
His head dropped back into his hands and he began massaging his temples. He started mumbling to himself; it was as if he’d forgotten about me again. I breathed deeply and licked my lips, plucking up the courage to speak steadily, to calm him down. I was pretty sure that was the received wisdom with maniacs.
‘I do see, Sam, really I do,’ I began tremulously, ‘but honestly, Sally wasn’t even particularly upset. She knew about Serena, she knew about all the others – God, she’d even heard about you and me, can you believe it?’ I laughed nervously. ‘So soon!’
He looked up abruptly. His top lip curled. ‘About you? Don’t make me laugh. Don’t flatter yourself, Polly. I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last woman on earth.’
A great tidal wave of relief washed through me but I tried my best to be outraged.
‘How dare you!’
‘How dare you!’ I stormed. I glared at him. ‘Christ, you’ve got a nerve to talk about adultery, you with your string of women, your sordid little flings – if anyone’s pathetic around here it’s you! Oh yes, I admit I flirted with you, and maybe I was a bit bored, but it was all totally harmless, there was no way I was contemplating an affair, no way! And as for blasting holes in your perfect marriage, you did that yourself the moment you left the altar! You’ve been seeing other women since you put a ring on Sally’s finger and now you’re knocking off that jumped-up two-bit floozy who couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag! And I make you quite ill now, do I? Not exactly what you said in Daphne’s, if you remember, you said you were crazy about me.’
‘Oh, that was so perfect,’ he sneered. ‘There I was thinking I was going to have to get rid of you subtly, and before I could get a word in edgeways you handed it to me on a plate! “Oh, Sam,” ’ he mimicked, ‘ “I’m so sorry but this simply can’t go on!” All I had to do was pretend to be heartbroken and off you trotted. Serena and I had quite a chuckle about it that night, I can tell you.’
‘I bet you did, but don’t be too sure she isn’t laughing at you too, Sam.’
Going Too Far Page 39