Sometimes, Jill picked up the photograph and studied the perpetually smiling face, the dark, curling hair and slight figure, which must have been dwarfed by her husband. It puzzled her that this woman was almost an exact opposite of herself, and on one occasion she’d even taken it to a mirror, looking from it to her own reflection, with its spiky blonde hair and brown eyes, its tall leanness. How was it, she wondered, that two such different women could attract the same man?
Among Douglas’s friends, the couple with whom Jill felt most comfortable were Bruce and Helen Fanshawe, who were dining with them that evening. Jill, whose keen interest in food had never stretched to cooking it, was more than happy to have her meals prepared and served by the hotel staff, and she and Douglas at their corner table habitually chose from the same menu as their guests.
When they entertained, however, they dined privately upstairs, and she liked to plan the meal herself, a feat accomplished by inveigling the chef, who, like most men, was putty in her hands, to include specific dishes on that evening’s menu. On this occasion, the dressed crab, coriander chicken and lemon posset she’d selected would also be on offer in the restaurant.
Their guests were not due till eight thirty, and at seven, Jill did her first menu round in the bar. To her slight consternation, she saw that the man from the post office was there again. Determined not to let him rile her, she treated him to a smile as she passed. But he called her back.
‘May I have a menu, please?’
She flushed, feeling wrong-footed. ‘I’m sorry, I thought . . .’
He took it with a curt nod, and, gritting her teeth, she continued with her round, harbouring the unworthy suspicion that had she offered him a menu in the first place, he would have declined it. It would be interesting to know if he did in fact stay for dinner.
Before returning upstairs, she went to the restaurant in search of the maitre d’.
‘François, there’s man in the bar who’s not one of our usual run of guests. He asked for a menu, and I’d be interested to know whether or not he does dine with us.’
‘If you could describe him to me, madame, I will look out for him.’
‘Medium height with sandy-coloured hair, and he’s wearing a denim jacket and jeans.’
The mention of jeans raised an eyebrow. ‘Has he a tie?’ François enquired discreetly. Ties were a requisite in the restaurant.
‘Yes, I believe he was wearing one.’
The maitre d’ nodded. ‘Leave it with me, madame.’
At least her curiosity would be settled on that score, Jill thought. She took the lift to their apartment, and, walking quickly through the sitting room, went out on the balcony and leaned over the rail, letting the evening breeze cool her flushed cheeks. Below her, she could see couples strolling along the prom, some families only just returning from a day on the beach, with tired, wailing children in tow. Beyond them, the sand lay golden in the late sunshine, and beyond that again was the incoming tide, moving slowly and rhythmically like the sleeping giant that it was.
Jill drew a deep, steadying breath and went back into the room, checking the table that had been laid earlier. Their suite did not boast a dining room, consisting simply of a bedroom with en suite, a large sitting room, and a tiny kitchenette with a sink, hob and microwave. When they entertained, a heated trolley containing the food was brought up in the lift, and the first and last courses, invariably cold, were set out on the counter ready for serving. Jill’s sole contribution to the meal would be the coffee she’d make in the state-of-the-art machine she’d bought Douglas at Christmas. It all worked very well.
Satisfied that everything was in order, she went to have a shower.
They were finishing their dessert when the subject of murder came up. Douglas flashed an anxious look at his wife, and saw her stiffen; he’d noticed before that she erected an instant mental barrier when any kind of violence was mentioned, refusing point-blank to follow any of the cases reported so avidly in the press or on television.
‘He battered that old woman to death,’ Helen was saying indignantly, referring to a case that was making the headlines, ‘and his defence counsel’s trying to excuse him by saying he had a traumatic childhood! I ask you!’
‘All the same,’ Bruce put in, ‘it’s increasingly accepted that children can be permanently damaged by trauma or abuse suffered when young. Then, later, if something triggers a suppressed memory, it can flare up and transference takes place. If you remember, it emerged that the killer’s grandmother used to beat him and shut him in the cellar for hours on end. It’s possible something snapped inside him, spurring him to take revenge.’
‘On the poor old soul who’d befriended him, and found him odd jobs to do.’
‘Mind you,’ Bruce continued judiciously, ‘children obviously react in different ways; the stronger ones escape relatively unscathed, others might become withdrawn, or psychotic, or simply inadequate, unable to cope with life.’
Jill pushed back her chair. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll make the coffee,’ she said, and left the room.
Helen, unaware of any tension, went on: ‘Then there are these postcard murders. Now, they’re weird. A woman in an orchard in Gloucestershire and a man in a Cambridge car park, killed several months apart but in exactly the same way – stabbed, and then strung up, with an identical postcard stuck in their pockets.’
Bruce leaned back in his chair. ‘Remind me where it was of?’
‘The police wouldn’t say at first, but it turned out to be somewhere in the Lake District. I ask you, what possible connection can there be?’
‘Search me,’ Douglas admitted, with an anxious glance towards the door.
‘No doubt a damaged child at work again,’ Helen said scornfully. ‘God, if I thought something I did could have a lasting effect on ours—’
‘—you wouldn’t beat them so regularly!’ Bruce ended for her, and Helen had the grace to smile.
‘Talking of your kids,’ Douglas said quickly, seeing Jill emerge from the kitchen with the coffee, ‘how are they? I haven’t seen my godson for a while.’
And by the time she reached the table, the subject of murder had mercifully been shelved.
The Fanshawes left an hour or so later, and their hosts went down to see them off. As they came back into the foyer some guests approached Douglas, and the maitre d’, appearing in the restaurant doorway, signalled to Jill.
‘The person you referred to did indeed dine with us, madame,’ he told her, and she noted with amusement his avoidance of the word ‘gentleman’. ‘He had booked a table in the name of Mr Gary Payne, and by an odd coincidence, chose the three dishes you’d selected for your guests.’
Jill gave a superstitious little shiver, as if this man had read her mind, and wanted her to know it.
‘He settled his bill by cash,’ François continued, when she made no comment, ‘and I have to say, left a generous tip.’
‘Thank you, François. It seems I misjudged him.’
‘You can’t be too careful, madame,’ he said.
So now she had a name, Jill reflected, as she joined Douglas in the lift. If she ever thought of him again – which she didn’t intend to – at least she needn’t refer to him in her mind as ‘the post office man’.
But it seemed he’d gone out of her life as abruptly as he’d entered it. For the next three evenings she’d looked quickly round on entering the bar, but there’d been no sign of him. It was the beginning of a new week; perhaps, his holiday over, he’d returned home. She was surprised by the depth of relief that explanation afforded her.
Having made her financial contribution, Jill’s duties in the hotel were not onerous. She wasn’t trained in the day-to-day running of the hotel, though occasionally she helped out on reception, took bookings, or made out the bills.
The lack of occupation did not bother her in the least. Having had money all her life, she’d never held down a regular job, and during her previous marriages had amused herself
by helping out friends from time to time, fund-raising for their favourite charities, sitting in art galleries to keep a discreet watch on visitors, even doing a stint in an antiques shop. For the rest, she had shopped, met friends for coffee or lunch, gone to theatre matinées, and generally enjoyed herself.
Moving from London had necessarily curtailed her activities, but she’d set about building up a circle of friends, for the most part women like herself, some married, some divorced, who were more than happy to include her in their lunches and bridge afternoons, and who were quite different from the friends she’d inherited from Douglas.
Sandbourne was an attractive little town, catering for a fairly select type of visitor. There were good dress shops, smart restaurants, a three-screen cinema and even a small repertory theatre – enough distractions, in fact, to keep Jill happily occupied during winter months.
Now that it was summer, she was more than content to spend her time lying in the sun with a good book, and in her afternoon wanderings had come upon a secluded little beach, hemmed in by cliffs and accessible only by a tortuous path, that no one else seemed to know about and where, taking advantage of its privacy, she swam and sunbathed naked. Her body had taken on a golden, all-over tan, unsullied by strap marks, that Douglas, though slightly scandalized by its method of achievement, appreciated to the full.
On the Wednesday afternoon of that week, her beach bag slung over her shoulder, Jill set off along the cliffs, glorying in the depth of blue in the sea below her, the wheeling gulls, the breeze that ruffled her hair. Life, she thought, was good.
Her little beach lay waiting for her, its sand glinting almost white in the sunshine. She threaded her way down the cliff path, slipping and sliding a little on the loose stones, and, on reaching the bottom, stepped out of her sandals and made her way to her favourite place beside an outcrop of rock.
Having spread her towel, she slipped off her clothes and ran straight into the sea. The first shock of its coldness took her breath away, but her body soon acclimatized and she waded out until the water was deep enough for her to swim. For twenty minutes or so she lay on her back, splashing lazily, eyes shut against the glare of the sun, enjoying the slap of the water on her nakedness. Then she swam back into the shallows and, dripping water, returned to her belongings and lay down on the towel, allowing the heat of the sun to dry her.
She must have fallen into a light doze, because she was suddenly aware of something coming between her and the sun, and in the same moment a voice above her said, ‘Mrs Irving, I presume?’
She sat up with a gasp, pulling her towel round her and knowing, even before she looked up, who her unwelcome visitor was.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded furiously. ‘How dare you creep up on me like that? What are you, some kind of voyeur?’
‘As far as I’m aware, this is a public beach,’ Gary Payne replied calmly. ‘The fact that you choose to take your clothes off doesn’t automatically confer right of ownership.’
He looked, she saw with sinking heart, as though he intended to stay; he was wearing swimming trunks and an open shirt revealing a pale, hairless chest, and a towel hung over his arm.
‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘you have a good body. No need to be ashamed of it.’
Deciding to ignore that, she blurted out the first thing that came into her head. ‘I thought you’d gone home.’ As soon as she said it, she realized it was a mistake, and one he immediately seized on.
‘Ah, so you missed me. How gratifying. Sadly, though, the likes of me can’t afford your prices every day of the week.’
Jill struggled to hang on to what dignity remained to her. ‘Since I was here first, I’d be grateful if you’d go and find somewhere else to swim.’
‘But, like you, I prefer to be away from the madding crowd.’
She was in a dilemma, and he knew it. She couldn’t move without revealing her nakedness, and she had no convenient swimsuit to slip on. Her beach bag held only her discarded underwear and a cotton dress – hardly suitable for sunbathing. If she wanted to avoid him – and she did – it seemed she must be the one to leave, which, she thought irritably, would involve dressing under the tent of the towel, like a twelve-year-old on a school outing.
Clutching her towel about her, she reached for the beach bag and began the awkward manoeuvre while her companion, unperturbed, removed his shirt, spread his own towel, and proceeded to lie down on it. At least he wasn’t watching her – she could be thankful for that, even if, irrationally, his lack of interest piqued her.
When she’d completed the procedure, Jill shook the sand from her towel and, without glancing in his direction, started to walk back towards the cliff, her mind seething.
‘See you around,’ he called after her.
She did not reply.
He’d spoiled it for her, she thought furiously. Even when he did return home, she could never sunbathe nude again, never be sure someone else might not find his way down the path. Though any normal person, coming across her like that, would surely have retreated before she noticed him, saving them both embarrassment. That Gary Payne hadn’t been in the least embarrassed did nothing for her own sang froid.
How had he found her, anyway? It wasn’t a place you’d easily stumble across. Had he followed her? The thought raised goose bumps on her arms. How much longer, she wondered, tramping up the steep path, would she have to put up with his presence? Two weeks was the norm for a seaside holiday, but she’d no way of knowing how long he’d been around when she first saw him. Surely this week must be his last? She could only hope so.
Jill remained unsettled by the incident for the rest of the week, and every now and then her face flamed as she remembered Payne’s assessing gaze and his unnerving comment: You have a good body; no need to be ashamed of it.
Odious man! On all three occasions that their paths had crossed, he’d succeeded – seemingly without trying – in putting her at a disadvantage. And though she’d never have admitted it, even to herself, she knew subconsciously that part of her resentment was due to his only too obvious imperviousness to her charms. After that initial flash of interest in the post office doorway, he’d gone out of his way to demonstrate his lack of it.
She determined to put him completely out of her mind, but at the next bridge afternoon, an innocent remark of Kitty’s brought him back into focus.
‘I envy your glorious tan, Jill,’ she remarked as she dealt a hand. ‘With my red hair, I have to keep out of the sun, or I look like a lobster.’
‘Not only that,’ Priscilla added, ‘we’ve seen you in a variety of tops and dresses, but there’s never a sign of a strap mark. How do you do it?’
Jill smiled. ‘Ah, that’s my secret!’
‘Come on, now, you’re among friends!’
‘Isn’t it obvious? I don’t wear anything that would leave a mark. Anywhere.’
The three of them stared at her for a moment, the game forgotten. Then Angie said incredulously, ‘Are you telling us you sunbathe in the nuddy?’
‘Got it in one!’
‘Good God, Jill! How do you manage that?’
Jill paused, her heartbeat quickening. Should she tell them? Perhaps if she made light of it, it would defuse the impact, put it all in perspective.
‘I found a private little bay, where no one ever goes,’ she said. ‘At least, no one ever had, until last week.’
‘You mean someone saw you?’ Kitty’s blue eyes opened wider. ‘What happened?’
Jill moistened her lips, trying to keep her voice light. ‘I must have been dozing, because I woke up to find someone standing over me.’ No need to admit she knew him.
‘A man?’ Angie gasped.
‘As you say, a man.’
‘Good God, Jill, he could have raped you!’
‘I suppose he could.’ She made herself add, ‘Actually, he didn’t seem remotely interested.’
‘He saw you naked, and wasn’t interested? Was he gay?’
J
ill laughed. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I’ve no way of knowing, have I?’
‘So what happened?’
‘I asked him to leave, but he said it was a public beach, spread out his towel and lay down on it. So I hastily dressed and left him to it.’
‘But Jill,’ Priscilla said worriedly, ‘that could have been really dangerous. There you were, closed off from everyone, lying naked on the beach. Anyone could have come down. You were damn lucky to get off so lightly. Didn’t you realize what a risk you were taking?’
‘No,’ she answered honestly, ‘I can’t say I did.’
‘Well, I hope you do now. For God’s sake, don’t do it again. Strap marks are infinitely preferable to rape, or worse.’
Jill gave a little shudder, closing her mind, as always, to thoughts of violence.
‘Oh, rest assured,’ she said. ‘From now on, I’ll be the soul of discretion.’
And, since there seemed no more to be said, they returned, a little reluctantly, to the game in hand.
The next time she saw Gary Payne was as she came out of a café in Sandbourne High Street. He was standing on the opposite pavement, staring across at her. She came to an abrupt halt, but her view of him was immediately obscured by a double-decker trundling down the road, and when it had passed, he’d disappeared.
With an effort, she pulled herself together. What in God’s name was the matter with her? Why was she letting this man get to her? Because of that indefinable something in his eyes that she couldn’t put a name to? That sense of something coiled inside him, waiting to spring? Yet he’d been civilized enough in their conversations – more so, in fact, than she had herself. And if – fanciful thought – he’d really been waiting to spring, she’d handed him the opportunity on a plate, and he’d not taken it. Possibly he was following some devious agenda of his own, but if so, she refused to pander to it.
She needed something to do, she thought urgently; something to take her mind off him, and glancing around, her eyes lit on the gilded window of Gina’s Hair and Beauty Salon. Perfect! She went purposefully inside and requested a body massage, facial, and cut and blow-dry; and since she was a good customer, they fitted her in without an appointment. This, she thought with satisfaction, should make her feel a great deal better.
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